AN UNSEEN HAND UPON THE LEVER.
The old master at Ingleside had been so greatly exasperated by intrusive
visitors that Clarissa, who was now acting in the dual character of man
and maid, had received express orders to admit no one into the mansion
who could not give a good account of himself or herself; so when Judge
Livingstone rang the door-bell, Clarissa who was sweeping the dust from
the hall dropped the broom with the tart observation,
"I specks dat is ernudder dratted scalyhorg cum to tantylize ole mars
Jon," and she crept dubiously to the door to peep, and perceiving that
there was a white man in the verandah without a gun or other weapon of
offensive war, she halloed loudly through the keyhole.
"Whos yu?" To which no answer was returned.
"Don't yu heer me axes yu whos yu? If yu don't answer white man I'm
agwine to sick ole Jube on yu, und run yu outen dis plantashun. Whos yu
I sez?" repeated the old negro.
"My name is Mr. Livingtone, a friend of your young mistress, to whom I
would be pleased to speak," came the reply.
"I kaint heer nary wurd yu sez, fur ole Jube." "Git outen de way dorg
wid your whinin. You jes wait outen dar twell I axes Miss Alice mout yu
cum in. What you sez your name is?" again cried the old negro.
"I am Judge Liv----"
"Oh, my Lord," interrupted Clarissa with a scream, and she ran back
like a maniac wringing her hands and shouting,
"Oh, my po yung missis, de man has dun und cum to preach de funral; de
gallus is dun und uprared in dis grate house, und de jedge hez dun und
cum to pull de trigger, und de werry fust one he axes fur is yu.
Good-bye, Miss Alice," she exclaimed, as she frantically clutched her
dress and dropped upon her knees. "Und ef I nebber sees yu no mo in dis
wurell tak care of yerself und meet me in de starry hellyments whar dar
aint gwine ter be no mo tribbylashun of sperets."
It was a full minute before Alice could calm her agitation, as tears
from an excess of conflicting sensations ran down her cheeks. Regaining
self-possession she said with a show of authority, "You must not act in
this way Clarissa; what will the gentleman think of us if we do not
render a proper excuse for your misconduct?"
"Miss Alice," said Clarissa, as she placed her arms akimbo, "Ef yu had
seed dat dar man's eyes when he sed he was de jedge yu'd er run too, und
yu wudn't er stopt running twell yit. My King! dem eyes was wusser dan
shuting stors," she exclaimed, as she wiped the great beads of sweat
from her face with her apron.
"You go to the door now, and very politely invite the gentleman into the
parlor, be very careful Clarissa that you do not offend him."
As Clarissa, now reassured, was moving stealthily toward the door, her
mistress overheard her say to herself,
"I aint agwine to fend him epcepts he fends me fust, den I'm agwine ter
run agin, und I aint ergwine ter stop no mo twell I gits to de mashes."
Clarissa opened the door with a very polite bow, as she addressed the
stranger patronizingly.
"Misses sed how dat you mout come in, being how dat it was yu. So cum
erlong rite back of me. Git outen de way Jube, er scrapin quaintance wid
dat stinguished white man, same as he was a low down nigger; fust ting
you knose yu be shut up in de jail house widout ary moufful of wittles,
er howlin same as er wildcat."
It is proper just here to remark that Clarissa had never been a
correspondent or pupil of Lord Chesterfield. She had been emancipated
from the slavvish drudgery of the corn-field, promoted as it were from
the cabin to the mansion. Her manners were direct, pungent,
self-assertive, and her gibberish and volubility were immensely amusing
to the high official who was now adapting himself to conditions and
experiences as they prevailed in the southland; and from time to time
interrogating the negro as he or she appeared without the
superficialities of reconstruction.
As Clarissa saw Judge Livingstone safely in the parlor she went back to
her mistress, and with emphasis of speech and gesture told her what had
been said and done, and returned with the commands of her mistress to
the distinguished guest.
"You jes set rite whar yu is und mak yerself homelike, dar aint no
foolishness erbout our white folks. Me und Miss Alice has been aworrying
ourselves jamby to def ober de smutty cook pots, und she says how dat yu
must scuse her," and she wiped her black face again with her old apron.
The judge failing to comprehend the meaning of the negro in the crude
vernacular of the plantation, a speech that under all circumstances with
malice prepense slew the idioms of the English language, arose to
retire, regretting as he said, "That he could not see her young
mistress;" when Clarissa with great warmth expostulated.
"Hole on dar, Mars Jedge; Miss Alice is ergwine ter cum jes ez soon ez
she washes de smut offen her face und slicks back her eyebrows. My
king! duz yu speks er high quality lady lak my yung missis kin do
eberyting in wun minit? She haint ergwine ter brake her neck kase a
jedge cums heer a courtin her. My missis seed jedges fore ter-day; yu
aint de onliest jedge she ever seed." And with this confusing
declamation Clarissa shuffled out of the parlor with the parting remark,
"Yu's stay rite whar yu is twell she cums."
When the negro had gone the judge laughed immoderately. Indeed, he was
laughing with wide-open mouth as Alice entered the parlor, and advanced
to grasp her hand, confused and stammering.
"Ah, permit me," he said, "er, er, er, to felicitate myself that you
have given me the pleasure of this interview."
Alice felt a suspicion that the old negress had been amusing the learned
judge in her droll way, but she did not know to what extent she had been
compromised by her oddities and ignorance, and to quiet her
apprehensions as far as she could, she asked with seriousness:
"How long have you been in our county?"
"It is my first visit, and I have greatly enjoyed it," replied the
judge, with an effort to conceal his mirth. "The South has been an
object lesson of great educational value to me."
"Ah! and who are your teachers?" asked Alice.
"Why, who can they be but the negroes?" replied the judge
interrogatively.
"I am quite surprised!" exclaimed the young lady.
"Not so much so as I have been, I am sure," the judge replied. "I am a
Northern man with a heart firmly set against what I believed to be the
vagaries of Southern people: absorbing the sentiments and convictions of
my home folks; but since I have been in your country I have discovered
that the South has been outraged and scandalized beyond the point of
endurance. Do you know," he continued argumentatively, "that I have
never seen among my most intimate friends truer or nobler men, and I
have never seen in the jails and penitentiaries of the north a criminal
class more hardened and vicious than these wretches whom you call
carpet-baggers."
"Yes, indeed," replied Alice reflectively, "they have given us a great
deal of trouble, and we are so glad that you have punished the infamous
wretch Laflin, who has incited the negroes to acts of violence and
bloodshed."
"Yes," replied the judge, "I only regret that the law interposed a limit
to the measure of punishment. I would have been glad to have sentenced
the villain for life to the penitentiary at hard labor.
"By the way, Miss Seymour, the governor bade me say to your father that
he would join us here to-day. Will you convey the message to him at your
leisure?"
"Thank you, sir," said the girl. "Pray excuse me for a moment. My father
will be delighted to receive the information; the governor is an old and
dear friend."
The picture now presented to her distinguished guest, a man of clear
discernment, as Colonel Seymour, leaning upon the arm of his lovely
daughter--whose beautiful face was aglow with health--painfully walked
into the parlor, was picturesque and pathetic; indeed, it was the
deepening twilight and the blush of Aurora. Here were hard, rigid lines,
corded and seamed by age, and here were the pencilings of the artist,
whose handiwork is seen as well in the exquisite tintings of the morning
iris. Here were palsied limbs, snow-white hair, accentuated by intimate
contact with marvellous beauty and litheness of figure, that impressed
the intellectual, discriminating judge.
Advancing with extended hand, he met the old man upon the threshold of
the room with an affectionate refinement of manner that bespoke the
thoroughness of the gentleman; the Colonel observing to his guest, as
the latter conducted him to a chair, that the gout had made a cripple of
him, but that in all other respects he was quite himself. It was all too
evident to the far-sighted judge that an unseen hand had its grasp upon
the lever and was running the home-stretch with accelerated momentum.
"Your coming," said the Colonel, "has been like the bearing of a flag of
truce; it has given us hope--life; it has ungeared the harrow that
crushed us so remorselessly."
"I thank you, my dear sir," most gratefully answered the judge with
feeling. "I have endeavored to discharge my duty, and how could I do
this, sir, in this country without using the scourge? You have a fine
country and a magnanimous people--a people who love liberty and law--and
it is a personal affliction to witness in how many ways you are insulted
and oppressed."
At this juncture Clarissa knocked softly at the door to announce to her
mistress "dat de guberment hez dun und riv," and Alice, excusing
herself, retired, concealing her laughter as much as possible, which was
provoked by the ludicrous deficiencies of the corn-field negro. It was a
metaphor which the negro had ignorantly employed. The Governor was not
the government, or any part thereof. Had he been, Ingleside would have
been safeguarded by a sentinel utterly impervious to any sensation of
fear, not so ignorant or cowardly as Clarissa.
The arrival of the Governor was formally announced by Alice and he was
ushered into the parlor, and Alice withdrew to give some directions to
Clarissa, whom she found sitting in her rickety chair in the kitchen
humming
"My ole Kentucky home, fur away."
"Clarissa," the young lady asked as she approached her, "what do you
suppose the judge thought of us this morning and of our maid of all
work?"
Clarissa looked up into the face of her young mistress with a stare
almost of vacuity, and after a moment's reflection said, with her
accustomed pertness,
"I kaint hep dat, Miss Alice, ole marser dun und gin me my orders, und I
want agwine ter let nobody pass nur repass ef I knoed it. Ole marser he
noes his bizness, und ef he tells me ter keep de kyarpet-sackers outen
dis grate house I'm ergwine ter do it ef de good Lawd spares me. Don't
fault me, Miss Alice, wid ole marser's doins, fur de lan's sake. How cum
dat dar jedge outen here any how? Dar aint no kote ergwine on in dis
heer grate house dat I noes of. Specks dar is ergwine ter be wun do, und
don't specks nuffin else but sumbodv is ergwine ter git conwicted und
sont clean erway frum heer," and the old negro laughed boisterously.
"Dat dar jedge is er portly man, but my king! dem dar eyes, ugh-h-h!
cuts froo yu same ez er razor."
Alice laughed again and again at the old negro, and after awhile
coyishly remarked, "Never mind, Clarissa, never mind."
Clarissa turned her old head to one side as she replied with great
earnestness.
"Taint wurf while to say neber mind Clarsy, neber mind, I seed fo now
what was agwine to be de upshot of dis bisniss. I knowed pine plank
which er way de cat wuz er gwine to jump. Ole missus allus sed dat yu
was ergwine to marry er jedge er a lyar er a mefodis slidin elder er a
sircus rider und I hopes und prays dat yu may, kase ef yu don't youse
ergwine ter be er lone lorn orfin creetur arter ole marser's hed dun und
layed low."
The conversation of the distinguished gentleman naturally drifted into
channels that had been cut very deep by the sharp edged tools of
reconstruction; the judge deferentially yielding to his seniors who had
witnessed the workmanship of unskilled hands, and what he ventured to
say from time to time was in the way of suggestions or mild
expostulations.
The Governor when discussing reconstruction was opinionated and
emphatic. Every paragraph was punctuated with a sneer, gesture or frown.
"Had the suggestions of president Lincoln prevailed," he began, "the
South would have been God's country; but wicked counsels predominated.
There was not a statute enacted by a legislature, nor an order made by a
general, nor a proclamation issued by a governor, nor a requisition made
by the head of a department that did not whet the sword with which they
were prodding into the bowels of the South, after the final
capitulation. These atrocious policies were conceptions of men who swore
in their wrath that not a blade of grass should spring where their
hellish coursers planted hoof; that in the realigning of the federal
union, strong black lines should be drawn with a savage vengeance over
the face of the South. Reconstruction was the act of self-destruction,
and the suicides deserve to be buried without the shedding of a tear,
without christian sepulture in outlawed graves. They made the thorn to
spring up where the fir-tree had flourished, and the bramble instead of
the myrtle tree. In these abominable acts there is death; death enough
to satisfy the grave. Before the ink was dry upon the parchment, before
the funereal bake-meats were cold, they contract an unnatural covenant
of marriage with four million slaves, disbanded outlaws from the army,
and put upon them the mask of freedom to conceal the horrid front of
tyranny. Sirs, we rebel against the outrage. When the Philistines are
upon us shall we not rise and shake ourselves, or shall we lay our heads
in the lap of Delilah, to be shorn of our power; to be bound in chains,
until we shall pray God to avenge our wrongs in the common destruction
of ourselves and our enemies. No sirs, they shall find that when we are
prostrated, that like Antæus we shall rise with renewed vigor from our
shame. Why this glozing title "Reconstruction?" Who shall declare its
generation? What holy font was polluted by its baptism? Whence its
bastard origin? Plots, the vile brood of malice have been hatched under
fanatical incubation and piloted southward, like flocks of harpies, that
by their uncleanness they might defile our civilization. Every blight of
calumny from ultra partisan--press and pulpit, has been blown upon
southern character. Their speeches are filled with fields scourged down
to barrenness, and negroes multiplied and worked up to the very tragedy
of indiscriminate assassinations. We will not propitiate the black
devils by heaping their altars with sacrifices; black fiends who, like
the great dragon in the Apocalypse, are sweeping after them into the
abysm, filled with slaughter, one third of the stars in our political
heaven. Which of these stars are to be fixed, or which are to be
planetary in this black firmament of eternal night; which primary, and
which central, which wandering stars and which satellites, are matters
for their savage taste. For my state may God in his infinite mercy
decree that the laws of position and movement may be ascertained and
established, before it, once so beautiful and bright, shall go down and
down forever below a horizon of blood. They may like wrestlers in the
arena bring us to our knees, but never sir, shall they lay us on our
backs. Let us alone, and the dews and the rains and the sunshine of
heaven, (the only creatures of God left by them in friendship with us)
shall give to our blood-stained fields moisture and fertility, and time
and labor and God's blessing shall cover the land with verdure, with
cottonfields and gardens, pastures and meadows. They promised us peace,
and it came with the mutterings of a tornado. In our vain efforts to
compromise the situation we turned our backs upon the past, hallowed as
were its memories. We had ceased to remember the execrations of
fanatics, even the 'league with the devil, and the covenant with hell.'
"We did all this and more, after we had passed fire-scathed through an
ordeal whose voice was storm and whose movement was earthquake, which
swept from us every visible substance; so that in our last and extremest
agony we were forced to cry aloud, like Francis at Pavia, "All is lost
save honor." We gave the government our parole; we hammered our swords
into plow-shares and pruning-hooks; we pitched our tents upon the
fire-blasted lands where once had been our homes, and with axe and
mattock and blade and plow began to cut away brambles and bushes and
cultivate our fields; and when we believed that we were secure in the
enjoyment of our rights of persons and property, the authors of
reconstruction swept down upon the beleaguered South like Hyder Ali upon
the Carnatic, and left scarcely a vestige upon which to hope, or from
which to rebuild, except our worn-out lands and our own splendid
manhood and womanhood. States were despoiled of their resources, towns
and cities were battered and burned; the angel of death had crossed
every threshhold, and three hundred thousand of the flower and chivalry
of the land were lying in soldiers' graves. Our public institutions were
languishing unto death; from centre to circumference there were
outlawries, assassinations, conflagrations; and our people looked into
the faces of each other and in their helplessness asked what other
calamities are reserved for us and our children. They seized upon four
million slaves and hurled them like immense projectiles against our
civilization. And to conclude, sir, for I find I am getting excited, in
this catastrophe our hopes were stayed upon the honest men of the North,
like you, sir, and our noble, patriotic women, like you, my dear miss,"
bowing with boyish gallantry to Alice. "The women of the sixties are
more than heroines in the storm-swept crisis--they are a revelation in
the flesh. What Arria was to Pætus, what Natalia was to Adrian, what
Gertrude was to Rudolph, what Helen, the Jennie Dean of the 'Heart of
Midlothian,' was to Tibbie, what Prascovia was to the Russian exile, our
self-sacrificing women are to us. There has never been an occasion when
the habit of instantaneous obedience to the voice of love and country
has produced more affecting and constant instances of devotion and
loyalty upon the part of the women, than in the gleaning of the
aftermath by hands saturated with all the crimes of the calendar.
"And now, gentlemen," (the Governor bowed), "if I have given offence by
any intemperate expression, will you please forgive me, for my wrath
waxes warm when concentrated upon the subject of reconstruction.
Perhaps, sir," he continued, addressing His Honor, "you are not in
sympathy with the views I may have inconsiderately expressed?"
"Why, my dear sir," the judge replied, "I have never been in sympathy
with a policy which you have so eloquently denounced, and which the
patriotic people of the North sincerely deprecate, and I quite agree
with you that reconstruction has unlocked a Pandora box of evils whose
fledgelings are hovering over this land."
The sun was now setting with an iridescent aureole of gold and carmine
and purple as the judge remarked apologetically, "I have been struggling
with myself between inclination and duty; indeed I find it
embarrassingly difficult to tear myself from so charming a circle. I
have only a few minutes to catch the train, and you don't know how much
I grieve to say good-bye. I shall be in your town again within the next
month, and may I indulge the hope that I shall be once more welcomed at
Ingleside?"
"We shall only be too glad to be similarly honored," replied Colonel
Seymour with deference.
Clarissa, who was standing near the door with her arms folded and
grinning like a blackamoor, gave the judge the parting bow, as he placed
into her hand a dollar note, and putting her apron to her face, so she
might whisper the better, with a negroish curtsy, said,
"Yu mus sho cum ergin mars jedge, our fokses laks yu mazing, und I'm
ergwine ter tell yu de nex time what Miss Alice dun und sed erbout yu; I
knose dats ergwine ter fotch yu back."
The Governor remained at Ingleside throughout the night and like a
gladiator in the arena was fighting, with the broad sword of invective,
a duel in dialectics with the parliamentarians of reconstruction; the
Colonel the meanwhile reinforcing the athlete as a reserve. Alice at a
late hour retired with her head filled with fantastic notions, and
Clarissa too stretched her aching bones upon her bed wondering in her
pragmatic way, "Ef dat shiny eyed judge was agwine ter hold his sho nuff
kote in de grate house, und ef she was agwine ter be de juror und Miss
Alice de konwick."
Old Joshua like an over-ripe sheaf of barley was now to lay his head in
the dust. The swift horses were harnessed and cantering toward his door.
"Son of man behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a
stroke, yet neither shalt thou mourn, neither shalt thy tears run down."
Four score and two years were the days of the years of his pilgrimage;
many and evil had the days of his years been. Would there be mourners at
the burial? Will 'old glory' hang its head again as it did at the
assizes, when an outraged commonwealth was proceeding to judgment
against Laflin for enumerated transgressions? Three score and ten years
are the complement of life, within which the balance sheet is prepared;
repenting against sinning; undoing against doing; dying against living;
accounts and contra-accounts, all fairly computed, and the quotient
announced by Him who breathes into man's nostrils the breath of life.
Four score and two years! What changes in the theories and forms of
governments; what contrarieties in the pursuits and ambitions of man.
The messenger came without the rattling of wheels, without knocking at
the door, came on unsandaled feet.
"Hannah, I'm agwine home, good-bye," was the hurried parting, as the
messenger thrust him into his chariot. Side by side he sat with the
voiceless ambassador, while the stars were twinkling in the midnight
sky; a fast disappearing type of the picturesque civilization of the
sixties. His tracks around the old commissariat are now faded into
nothingness, and old glory will wave on and on "froo de trees," just as
proudly as that day when he stood at its staff and patriotically saluted
the stars and stripes with uncovered head, proclaiming his loyalty in
the grateful expression, "I node when I seed yu a sea-sawing in de air
dat dar was a stummick full of good wittles some whays."
In the true representative outlines of the old South there is a number
dropped from the rolls, that is all. In its new birth of constitutional
liberty, postponed until patriots shall have tired of a government
inefficient and venal, the memory of Joshua, laden with fragrance, will
cling to hearts that now deplore his death. Good bye, Uncle Joshua until
we meet upon the golden strand! Until we see you again without your
staff, with your face radiant with a celestial gleam, in a fleecy robe,
with golden sandals; until we hear you say so contentedly, "Brederin,
dere is kommissaries all erroun in dis butiful country, und yu kin buy
widout munny und widout price."