TO HIM AND HIS HEIRS FOREVER.
After leaving the office of "the Bureau," the parties repaired
to that of the lawyer, and the trade for the land which had been
so inopportunely forestalled by Colonel Desmit's hasty temper was
entered upon in earnest. That gentleman's financial condition was
such as to render the three or four hundred dollars of ready money
which Nimbus could pay by no means undesirable, while the property
itself seemed of so little value as to be regarded almost as an
incumbrance to the plantation of which it was a part. Such was its
well-established reputation for poverty of soil that Desmit had
no idea that the purchaser would ever be able to meet one of his
notes for the balance of the purchase money, and he looked forward
to resuming the control of the property at no distant day, somewhat
improved by the betterments which occupancy and attempted use would
compel the purchaser to make. He regarded the cash to be paid in
hand as just so much money accidentally found in his pathway, for
which, in no event, was he to render any _quid pro quo_. But
of this he said nothing. It was not his business to look after the
interests of a "sassy nigger." In fact, he felt that the money was
in a sense due to him on account of the scurvy trick that Nimbus
had played him, in deserting to the Yankees after agreeing to look
after his "niggers" on the breast-works, although, as the event
proved, his master would have gained nothing by his remaining. So
the former master and slave met on the level of barter and sale,
and gave and took in the conflict of trade.
Except the small tract just about the old hostel, which has
already been mentioned, the plantation, which included Red Wing,
was descended from an ancestor of the Richards family, who had come
from the North about the close of the Revolution and "entered" an
immense tract in this section. It had, however, passed out of the
family by purchase, and about the beginning of the war of Rebellion
a life estate therein was held by its occupant, while the reversion
belonged to certain parties in Indiana by virtue of the will of a
common ancestor. This life-tenant's necessities compelled him to
relinquish his estate, which was bought by Colonel Desmit, during
the second year of the war, together with the fee which he had
acquired in the tract belonging to the old Ordinary, not because he
wanted the land about Red Wing, but because the plantation to which
it was attached was a good one, and he could buy it on reasonable
terms for Confederate currency. He expected to treat with the
Indiana heirs and obtain their respective interests in the fee,
which no doubt he would have been able to acquire very cheaply but
for the intevening accident of war, as the life-tenant was yet of
middle age and the succession consequently of little probable value
to living reversioners. This, however, he had not done; but as his
deed from the life-tenant was in form an exclusive and unlimited
conveyance, it had been quite forgotten that the will of his
grandfather limited it to a life estate. So when Nimbus and his
friend and counsellor, Eliab Hill, sought to negotiate the purchase
of Red Wing, no mention was made of that fact; neither was it
alluded to when they came again to conclude the purchase, nor when
instructions were given to Colonel Desmit's lawyer to prepare the
necessary papers.
The trade was soon brought to an apparently happy conclusion. Nimbus
bought two hundred acres at a price of eight hundred dollars, paying
one half the price agreed upon in cash, and for the balance gave
three notes of equal amounts, one maturing each year thereafter, and
received from Colonel Uesmit a bond for title to the whole tract,
with full covenants of warranty and seizin. Colonel Desmit accounted
the notes of little value; Nimbus prized the bond for title above
any patent of nobility. Before the first note fell due all had
been discharged, and the bond for title was exchanged for a deed
in fee, duly executed. So the recent slave, who had but lately been
the subject of barter and sale, was clothed with the rights of a
proprietor.
According to the former law, the slave was a sort of chattel-real.
Without being attached to the land, he was transferable from one
owner to another only by deed or will. In some States he descended
as realty, in others as personalty, while in others still, he
constituted a separate kind of heritable estate, which was especially
provided for in the canons of descent and statutes regulating
administration. There was even then of record in the county of
Horsford a deed of sale, bearing the hand and seal of P, Desmit,
and executed little more than a year previously, conveying to one
Peyton Winburn "all the right, title, and interest of said Desmit,
in and to a certain runaway negro boy named Nimbus." The said
Winburn was a speculator in slaves who had long been the agent of
Desmit in marketing his human crop, and who, in the very last hours
of the Confederacy, was willing to risk a few dollars on the result.
As he well stated it to himself, it was only staking one form
of loss against another. He paid Confederate money for a runaway
negro. If the Confederacy failed, the negro would be free; but then,
too, the money would be worthless. So with grim humor he said to
himself that he was only changing the form of his risk and could
not possibly lose by the result. Thus, by implication of law,
the recent _subject_ of transfer by deed was elevated to the
dignity of being a _party_ thereto. The very instrument of
his bondage became thereby the sceptre of his power. It was only an
incident of freedom, but the difference it measured was infinite.
No wonder the former slave tiembled with elation as he received
this emblem of autonomy, or that there was a look of gloom on the
face of the former master as he delivered the carefully-enrolled deed,
made complete by his hand and seal, and attested by his attorney.
It was the first time the one had felt the dignity of proprietorship,
or the other had known the shame of fraud. The one thought of the
bright future which lay before his children, to whom he dedicated
Red Wing at that moment in his heart, in terms more solemn than the
legal phrases in which Potestatem Desmit had guaranteed to them the
estate in fee therein. The other thought of the far-away Indiana
reversioners, of whose rights none knew aught save himself--himself
and Walter Greer, who had gone away to the wilds of Texas, and
might never be heard of any more. It was the first time he had
ever committed a deliberate fraud, and when he handed the freedman
the deed and said sadly, "I never expected to come down to this,"
those who heard him thought he meant his low estate, and pitied his
misfortunes. He smiled meaningly and turned hastily away, when
Nimbus, forgetting his own elation, said, in tones of earnest
feeling:
"I declar, Marse Desmit, I'se sorry fer you--I is dat; an' I hopes
yer'll come outen dis yer trouble a heap better nor yer's lookin'
for."
Then they separated--the one to treasure his apples of Sodom, the
other to nourish the memory of his shame.