SANCTUARY
In his little cabin, close by a big log-walled bungalow on a lonely
slope of the Blue Ridge, now snugly frozen in by its winter snows, old
"Jubilee Jim" lay in a deep sleep. The moonlight, paling before the
coming dawn, came through the single window, lighting dimly the seamed
black face on the pallet, the sacks of flour and beans in the corner, a
side of bacon hung against the wall and strings of dried red-peppers
and bunches of herbs suspended from the rafters. On the floor before
the fire-place, in which a few red embers still glowed, snored a yellow
hound, gaunt and long of limb.
There was no other house within miles of the place, but solitariness
was a habit with Jubilee Jim, and he did not miss human companionship.
Ten years before, the man who had chosen that wild spot and had built
the bungalow for occasional summer outings with his chosen comrades, in
which they might shoot and fish and live in primitive, health-giving
fashion, has ensconced the old negro there as general cook and
care-taker. He had built himself a tight little cabin close at hand
and remained there year in and year out to guard the building against
the frequent forest fires. In his pottering negro way he was a Jack of
many trades, in the summer cultivating a little cleared patch of
"garden truck" back of his cabin and in winter trapping small game, and
of evenings poring over his Bible, spelling out the words
laboriously--a gift he had learned many years before from some country
"missioner." Three or four times a year, leaving the lean hound in
possession, he trudged ten miles to the nearest village for what
supplies he needed. But on these occasions he felt no temptation to
remain with his kind, toiling back contentedly to his little cabin, his
hound, and his Bible.
Suddenly, in the tense frozen silence, the great hound stirred and
lifted his head with a low guttural growl. His master woke and turned
on the creaking couch.
"He-e-sh!" he said impatiently. "Whut fo' yo' want ter mek dat noise
en steal mah sleep!"
At the remonstrance the lean tail thumped the board floor, but another
louder growl, deep and menacing, came from the shaggy throat. The old
negro lifted himself and listened.
"Sumpen out dar!" muttered Jubilee Jim, straining his ears, for now he
caught the sound that had pricked the acuter hearing of the animal--a
curious, struggling sound like something wallowing in heavy snowdrifts.
"Sumpen _big_!" Jubilee Jim's wrinkled face looked puzzled in the
moonlight and his eyes rolled to the wall where, on two wooden pegs,
sat an old-fashioned shot-gun. "Don' reck'n et's er bar!" he whispered
to the hound. "Ain't ben no bar eroun' hyuh en mawn thuhty yeahs!" He
got up and set his ear to the crack of the door. As he bent his
stooped frame, something lunged against the wall outside, and at the
sound the hound's bristles rose and he sent forth a fierce, rumbling
bay that rattled the window.
"Et's er _man_!" said Jubilee Jim. He turned hastily to the rough-hewn
table and lighted a lantern; then snapping a chain into the dog's
collar and tethering him to the wall, he went to the door and lifted
its heavy bar. It opened inward and there half stumbled, half fell
across the threshold a snowy figure that collapsed at his feet.
"Mah Lawd!" ejaculated the old man. "What he doin' hyuh?"
With a sharp word to the leaping, raging hound, he dragged the
recumbent body inside, shut the door, and lighted a bundle of pine
knots in the fire-place. In the bright yellow light that flooded the
cabin he knelt down and examined the man who lay there. He drew off
the frosty fur cap from the close-clipped head. The coat was stiff
with frost so that he had trouble to unbutton and remove it, and the
shoes were broken. He took a knife and carefully cut them off from the
feet, noticing with quick pity that one ankle was swollen to twice its
natural size.
"Reck'n yo' mos' froze ter def!" said Jubilee Jim. "En starved too!"
He rummaged on a shelf, found an iron skillet containing some broth and
set it close to the blazing wood. Then, he drew the limp figure upon
his couch and began to remove the clothing, now wet and clinging.
As he opened the shirt, however, he started back with an exclamation.
Well he knew what that jacket with its black and yellow-grey stripes
meant! Had he not often seen the sullen chain-gang breaking stone on
the mountain roads? The man who lay before him was a criminal in
desperate flight in stolen garments! He could tie him fast,
unconscious and helpless as he was, and leave the dog to guard him,
while he went down to the town for officers. But as he thought,
something else came to his mind. "Sick en in prison, en ye visited
me!" he muttered. "De Good Man he say dat. Dis hyuh man done been in
prison, en he moughty sick too. What dee Good Man do, Ah wondah?
Reck'n he ain' gwine lock him up, not 'treckly, nohow!"
He saw a crimson stain that spread over the stripes. He touched it--it
was blood.
Five minutes later, in the warming cabin, he was examining an opened
wound in the shoulder of the insensible man. He washed it carefully
and bound it up with some of the medicinal herbs that hung from the
rafters. This done, he took the skillet from the fire-place and with a
spoon forced a little of the hot liquid, drop by drop, between the
clenched teeth. Under these ministrations a semblance of life began to
return to the exhausted frame, and with it the chilled body rushed into
a fever. The head began to roll from side to side and the lips to
mutter indistinguishably.
The hound had grown quiet now, and released from the chain, came to
sniff at the bunk. All at once he flung up his great head with a low
howl, then, crouching, licked the nerveless hand that hung down.
[Illustration: All at once the hound flung up his great head with a low
howl, then, crouching, licked the nerveless hand that hung down]
Jubilee Jim looked in startled amaze, then seized the lantern and held
it close. "Who dis hyuh?" he said.
As if at the challenge, the eyes in the white face opened and for a
single instant consciousness flickered there. "Jube--" said a weak
voice, "you--old--scoundrel--" Then the eyes closed and the mutterings
recommenced.
The lantern rattled on the floor, as the old negro fell upon his knees
by the pallet. "Et's him!" he cried. "Dee Lawd he'p! Et's Marse
Harry hese'f!" He leaned and looked, with a painful bewilderment, at
the striped garments, the smooth, clipped scalp. "Huccome he got dem
close on?" he said to himself, half-fearfully. He stood a moment
looking from them to the pallet, then hastily rolled the sodden things
into a bundle and thrust it out of sight behind one of the sacks on the
floor.
Late the next afternoon the smoke from the stone chimney of the big
bungalow rose in a pale spiral into the keen windless air. Inside a
leaping fire of chestnut wood burned on the huge hearth and Harry lay
on a comfortable, blanket-covered couch in the corner. All day long
Jubilee Jim had watched beside him, as he tossed in delirium, now and
then touching the hot hand, laying cooling cloths on the fevered wound,
or feeding him with a spoon. He had not dared go down the mountain to
fetch a doctor, fearing to leave his patient so long alone.
All day, as he watched, his slow brain had been busy with the
strangeness of that arrival--most of all with the mystery of the
striped clothes. To his simple intelligence, unvexed by the
complexities of life in communities, evil and good stood out in sharp
and irreconcilable contradistinction, and the garments were a harrowing
symbol. But deep in him was that profound, unreasoning belief--the
South's touching legacy of ante-bellum days--that trust and confidence
that is dog-like and unswerving.
Towards evening, when the sick man became easier and he lay more
quietly, though his fever ran high, Jubilee Jim opened the door, and
stood looking out onto the lone, frosty hillside. The sun was going
down amid a flutter of scarlet scarfs and the marbled pines stood in
sombre clusters outlined like sentinels above the pansied twilight of
the snowy valley. At length he knelt down and with gnarled hands
clasped and eyes still on the colourful sky, he said:
"O Lawd, Ah don' know what mek Marse Harry come hyuh lak dis. But yo'
knows what he done fo' ole Jube. Keep him yeahs en yeahs, feed him, en
when he so sick he gwine die, tek en git er doctah en cure him up.
When ah so old ah ain' no good no mo' he gimme dee lan' up hyuh fo' tuh
live on. Don' do nuffin cep'n watch dee house, en when he come
sometimes Ah cooks fo' him--das all! Ah don' know whaffuh he have on
dem wicked clo's--don' keer nuth'n erbout dat. Kase, Lawd, Marse Harry
ain' ben fo' tuh do nuth'n _bad_. Dey tek yo' darlin' son, dee Book
says, en put er crown o' tho'ns on he beautiful haid, en he ain' done
nuth'n 'tall cep'n good. Ah don' keer what Marse Harry have on; Ah
reck'n when he come lak dis, Yo' gwine he'p me he'p him--kase das what
he done fo' me!"
As the earnest voice ceased, another spoke behind him. "Jube!"
The old man rose hastily and came to the couch. "Yo' knows me ergen,
Marse Harry?"
"Yes, Jube. When--did I get here?"
"Dis mawnin', suh, befo' sun-up."
"Was any one else here?"
"No, Marse. Ain' ben nobody up hyuh sence dee fust snow-fall."
Sevier was silent a moment, his eyes fixed on the black, affectionate
face. "Jube--bring me the things I--had on."
The other crossed the room and came back with a suit which he laid on
the blanket.
Sevier shook his head feebly. "Not those. The--others."
Jubilee Jim hesitated, then turned and left the room. When he came
back the striped garments were in his hands.
"Do you--know what--those are?"
The faithful, old face turned a little away. "Ah reck'n dem am some
new-fangelly fishin'-close," he said, after a pause.
A faint flicker of a smile touched the sick man's face. He understood.
"Put them--into--the fire."
Sevier watched him, as he obeyed. He was very weak and his blood,
poisoned from the opened wound, was throbbing with fever. He was
preserving consciousness only by a great effort, but his gaze held
Jubilee Jim's steadily.
"Jube, I want--no one to--know when I--came, or that I--am here--at all
... _No one_ ... Do you--understand?"
"Yas, suh."
"I'm going--to be--sick. But--no matter--how sick I--no one is to--be
brought here ... not a doctor ... nor--any one." Harry's strength was
failing now, and the words trailed into indistinctness.
"Yas, Marse Harry."
"I ... trust you ... Jube!"
That was all. He was gone again into the fevered delirium.
All that night, and for many days and nights thereafter, old Jubilee
Jim, faithful to his word, struggled with death over the body of Harry
Sevier.