ROUX.
She had not gone half a dozen paces, before some one came striding to her
side. It was Harrington, and she instantly put her arm in his, with a
gesture so sudden and joyous, that the young man thrilled.
“I am so glad you have come,” she said.
Emily had insisted on his leaving her, and attending upon Muriel,
Harrington remarked.
“But you are pale,” he pursued, looking into her face, which colored and
smiled under his kind and searching eyes.
“And now you are not pale,” he added, laughingly.
Muriel laughed silverly, and told the reason of her momentary agitation,
which amused Harrington vastly.
Presently they reached the dingy alley in which Roux lived. It was a
corner house, inhabited by several families. A flight of wooden steps led
up to the second story, in which Roux had two rooms.
Roux was a white-washer, window-cleaner, boot-black and what not by
occupation. He had come up from his little shop in Water street, down in
the heart of the city, at the rumor which Tugmutton had brought him, that
kidnappers were in town; for he was a fugitive, and since the passage of
the Fugitive Slave Law he had never felt safe in Boston, where he had
previously passed nearly nine secure years.
He was sitting on an old chair, in an attitude of deep dejection,
crooning to his babe, which he held in his arms, with his other two
children, a boy and girl, sitting on either knee. The baby was a pretty
little boy, with negrine features, clear saffron skin, and glittering
dark eyes. Josey, who sat on his right knee, was a slender, bright-eyed,
brown-skinned little girl, six years old. Tom, sitting on the other
knee, was like his sister, and four years of age. They were both pretty
children, neatly dressed in clothes which Muriel and her mother had
provided for them. Roux himself was a good-looking negro, athletic in
build, dark-complexioned, with short, woolly hair, and heavy eyebrows.
He was attired in an old sack coat and blue overalls, specked with
white-wash, for he had come up to the house in his working clothes.
The room in which he sat had received a touch of his art, as the
yellow-washed walls and white-washed ceiling testified. It was a poor,
low-browed apartment, but neat and clean, though pervaded by that frowsy
odor which one often scents in the dwellings of the poor. The floor was
bare. Three or four cheap colored prints hung in veneered frames on the
walls. There was a trundle bed in one corner for the children; a small
cooking-stove near the fireboard, with an immense deal of gawky funnel
zigzagging up to a hole in the wall near the ceiling; a small clock
ticking faintly on the mantelpiece, with some gaudy ornaments near it;
a table, and half a dozen old-fashioned, second-hand chairs. Behind
the family group was an open door, giving a view of another room, with
a rag-carpet on the floor, a bureau, and a bed, on which lay, in her
clothes, a mulatto woman, Roux’s wife.
Roux ceased his crooning as the broad-limbed, blobber-cheeked squab of a
Tugmutton threw open the door, grinning from ear to ear, and lumbered in
with the basket, which he deposited in the middle of the floor.
“You ain’t goin’ to be took back, father, this time,” bawled the cheerful
youth. “It’s a false alarm. Gosh! I knew it wasn’t nothin’ but a false
alarm. There ain’t no kidnappers in Boston, an’ never will be neither.”
“Tugmutton, what’s that?” demanded Roux, eyeing the basket.
The imp drew up his chunky figure with severe dignity, and rolled his
saucer eyes and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. At the same moment
Muriel’s courtly face and figure appeared at the door, with Harrington’s
countenance smiling over her shoulder. The poor room was suddenly adorned
by these fair, strong presences, and its frowsy air was sweetened and
softened with delicate fragrance. Roux’s children scrambled down at once
to run over to their smiling angel, who entered with affable and cordial
grace, and stooped to fondle and kiss the little ones, while Roux himself
rose, with the baby on his left arm, bowing confusedly, and smiling with
considerable pompousness of manner, as of one who thought himself highly
honored.
“How are you to-day, Mr. Roux,” said Harrington, coming over to the
delighted negro, and shaking hands with him. “And how is your wife? And
this little one,” he added, putting his large hand on the head of the
staring baby.
“All right, Mr. Harrington,” returned Roux. “Though the madam’s not as
well as she might be, sir,” he continued, in a grandiloquent tone. “She
got a sort of a shock, Mr. Harrington, when this news come, and went
right off into spasms. Clarindy’s awful scared lest some of these here
days old master should send for me, and I’m right skittish myself, sir,
in view of that catastrophe.”
Another person might have smiled at Roux’s half-anxious, half-pompous
tone, but Harrington looked at him with a kind and concerned face,
knowing how much real apprehension and distress his words covered.
“I am extremely sorry that your wife should have been alarmed,” said the
young man. “But it’s true, as Charles said, that this is a false report.”
“Yes, Mr. Roux,” added Muriel, coming forward from the children, and
giving him her hand, “it’s nothing but an idle rumor, so keep a good
heart.”
“Thank ye, Miss Eas’man, and I am extrornerly rejoiced at the reception
of this unlooked for intelligence,” returned Roux, bowing reverentially,
while his manner grew more pompous, and his language more grandiloquent.
“And the madam,” he continued, “will hear the glad tidings with great
joy, likewise, Miss Eas’man. I heerd the shoutin’ and hoorawin’ in the
street, though I wasn’t able to spekilate with any certainty as to its
cause, an’ with the chil’ren here, an’ Clarindy a-lyin’ on the bed,
feelin’ ruther weak, I found it on the whole, inexpedient to go out and
see what was a goin’ on.”
He addressed the last sentence of this speech to Harrington. Muriel
had gone into the other room, and was leaning over Mrs. Roux, speaking
in a low, soothing voice, with her hands on the sick woman’s head. The
children were prattling with each other, and Tugmutton was standing
apart, with his short arms akimbo, the hands spread on his hips, and an
expression of ineffable scorn on his fat, grey face, which was turned
toward Roux.
“Now, father,” said the squab, taking advantage of the pause, “ain’t you
ashamed? My gosh! I’m goin’ to blush at ye, father.”
“What’s the matter, Tugmutton,” asked Roux, with comical deprecation.
“What’s the matter? That’s a pretty question!” was the reproachful reply.
“There you stand, and never ask Mr. Harrington to take a chair. That’s
the matter. Do you call _that_ doin’ the honors of the establishment?”
Roux looked abashed, while Tugmutton, with his face puffed out, and his
eye sternly fixed upon the offending party, brought forward a chair,
dumped it down under Harrington’s coat-tails, and retreating a couple of
paces, put his arms akimbo again, still sternly regarding Roux.
The whole proceeding was so ineffably droll, that Harrington, sinking
into the chair, with a hand on each knee, laughed heartily, though
quietly, with his eyes fixed on the fat pigmy. Roux, who was very fond
of Tugmutton, and submitted meekly to all his odd humors, regarding him,
indeed, with an absurd mixture of puzzled curiosity and reverential awe,
such as the good-natured Welsh giant might have bestowed upon Jack the
Giant-killer, stood now, with the baby on his arm, uneasily eyeing his
chunky mentor, and smiling confusedly. Nothing could be more amusing
than the relation Tugmutton occupied toward him, and the rest of the
family. They were all under the domination of this small, fat chunk.
Tugmutton’s grand assumption of importance, and his authoritative airs,
conjoined with his genuine affection for them all, which took the form of
perpetual wardenship, had prevailed over the age and experience of both
Roux and his wife. He was so old-fashioned, so queer, so mysterious and
inconceivable a creature to them, that they looked upon him almost as a
superior being, and petted and humored him in all possible ways.
“Just look at you, now,” continued the irate fat boy. “Do you call _that_
the way to hold a baby? With his head hangin’ down, and every drop of
blood in his body runnin’ into it! My gosh! that child’ll never have one
speck of hair, father, an’ water on the brain, beside.”
Without feeling any apprehension of the capillary and hydrocephalous
catastrophe thus ominously predicted as the inevitable consequence of his
way of holding the baby, Roux glanced at the little one, whose head was
drooping back over his arm, and whose fat, yellow fists were contentedly
inserted in its mouth, and then gently shifted the position of the child,
so as to rest its head on his shoulder.
“Just you give me that baby, father,” blurted out the fat boy, starting
forward, and receiving in his short arms the infant which Roux readily
abandoned to his charge. “There’s nobody knows how to take care of
this poor child but me,” he indignantly continued, bearing off his
burden, and sitting down with it in a short chair near the wall. “Lord a
mercy! If it wasn’t for me, I don’t know what’d become of this family!
Chick-a-dee-dee—chick-a-dee-dee—honey—honey—pretty Brudder Baby,” he
chirruped, showing all his ivories in a jovial grin to the infant, and
dancing it up and down in his short arms.
“Tugmutton’s great on takin’ care of the chil’ren,” remarked Roux to
the smiling Harrington. “There aint no better boy than Tug nowhere, Mr.
Harrington. He helps Clarindy a mighty deal, an’ he’s a reel comfort, I
tell you.”
“Why, yes, Mr. Roux, so I see,” smilingly returned the young man. “And he
learns the lessons I give him, very well. I shouldn’t wonder if Charles
came to be a great man one of these days. He says he’s going to be a
lawyer like Robert Morris.”
Robert Morris was a colored man, who had fought his way up against
the prejudice of the many, and with the aid of a few, to an honorable
position, which he then held, at the Boston Bar.
“Tell you what, Mr. Harrington,” said the proud Tugmutton, “Danel Webster
won’t be nowhere when I come on the scene of action. I’ll make him stand
round. Fugitive Slave Law’s bound to go then, an’ all the kidnappers’ll
be hung right up.”
At that moment steps were heard, and Emily appeared at the door, coloring
with the novelty of her situation, and followed by a short, thick-set
man, in a straw hat, with his head bent sideways.
“Why, Emily!” exclaimed Harrington, starting up. “And with the Captain!
Miss Ames, Mr. Roux. Captain Fisher you know.”
The superb beauty curtseyed low, with a sweeping rustle of silks, and
Roux, fluttering at heart in the presence of the aristocratic lady,
bent himself as if he had a hinge in his back. Harrington handed Emily
a chair, into which she sank, smiling and nodding to the enchanted
Tugmutton, and Muriel came floating out from the inner room with her
natural urbane curtsey.
“Why, Emily!” she exclaimed, shutting the door behind her. “You too. Good
morning, Captain Fisher.”
“It’s my doin’s, Miss Eastman,” said the Captain, in a cheery voice,
looking at Muriel with his head on one side, and his hat on, as he shook
hands with her. “Comin’ along, I see Miss Ames in the hack, and she said
you was here; so I said, why not go too, and she took my extinded arm,
and up we come together.”
He held Muriel’s hand as he made this explanation, and dropping it when
he had concluded, stood looking intently at her, as though some reply
was expected. He was a short man, with a round face, yellow and rosy,
like a winter pippin; round, dark eyes, which never winked; a short nose,
shaped like a beak; and he had a way of bending his head sideways, and
looking at you like some odd bird. There was a general aspect of the
sea-faring man about him, and he had been for many years the skipper of
coasting vessels, in which occupation he had amassed some property. He
now lived in the same house with Harrington, for whom he had a great
affection, and did a little business in collecting rents for a number of
house-owners.
“I just came up to let the folks here know,” he continued, “that there’s
no sneakin’ soul-drivers come to Boston this time. I was told there was
some of a crowd here, but they’re all scattered now, and I met Brown,
who said he’d been informed ’twas a false alarm. No danger, I hope. The
Vigilance Committee keep a sharp look-out ahead, and we’re pretty sure to
know what’s goin’ on.”
In those dark days, when Boston had gone for kidnapping, there was
an organization, composed of the leading Abolitionists, with a few
anti-slavery people, young and old, who made it their business to keep
a watch for Southern man-hunters, to warn fugitives of their danger, to
assist them in their flight with money and arms, and in every practicable
way to baffle the kidnappers. This was known as the Vigilance Committee,
and its existence and efforts were among the few bright rays which lit
the dark insanity of Boston at that period. Captain Fisher was a member
of it, as was Harrington.
“I got here before you, Eldad,” said Harrington, smiling. “Charles came
to the house with the rumor, and I ran down town at once, and found there
was no truth in it.”
“Trust you for bein’ on hand, John,” returned the Captain. “You’re spry
as a topman. When Gabriel toots that horn of his, you’ll be the first one
up out o’ your grave.”
The Captain wandered over to Roux, and laying his hands on the negro’s
shoulders looked at him steadily with his head curved sideways, then
shook him gently to and fro, then got round to one side of him and took
another look, and then punched him with his forefinger in the ribs.
“Roux, how are you?” he chirruped in conclusion, as the negro squirmed
away from the fore-finger, good-naturedly smiling.
“Firs’-rate, Captain,” answered Roux. “Got scared though at that story.”
The Captain stood oblivious of his answer, looking at Tugmutton who,
swollen with pride, was exhibiting the baby to Emily. Roux became
absorbed in admiring awe at Tugmutton’s complacent familiarity with Miss
Ames. Tugmutton was in one of his lordliest moods, proud of his exclusive
aristocratic acquaintance, and conscious that Roux and the two children,
who stood timidly at a distance, were following him with reverent eyes.
“It’s a very pretty baby,” said Emily graciously, turning to Roux, who
hastened to smile and bow. “But, Mr. Roux, these three children do not
resemble Charles at all.”
“Different style of beauty,” remarked Tugmutton, with preternatural
gravity, rolling his great eyes up at Emily.
Emily laughed aloud at this oracular suggestion, and Harrington and
Muriel looked at each other and smiled, while the Captain fixedly
surveyed the squab with mute admiration.
“You know, dear,” said Muriel to Emily, “or rather you do not know, that
Charles is only an adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. Roux.”
“Oh!” returned Emily, suddenly enlightened, “that accounts for the
different style of beauty.”
“Yes, madam,” said Roux elaborately bowing, “that accounts for it.”
Emily smiled at the simplicity of the reply.
“And how did it happen that he got the name of Tugmutton, Mr. Roux?” she
inquired.
“Well, Madam,” replied Roux, quite seriously, “it was a sort of
accidental. When I firs’ got to Boston, Tug’s father and mother treated
me right handsome. I was ruther bad off, an’ they took me in till I got
somethin’ to do. They was very fat folks, both of ’em, an’ Tug was an
uncommon fat baby. Somehow his father and mother never could fix on a
name for him, so he growed along without none. Bimeby when he was three
year old, his father died, and bimeby when he was five, his mother died
likewise. I was married to Clarindy when that catastrophe happened, so
feelin’ right grateful to Ezek’el and Sally Pitts—that was Tug’s father
and mother’s name, madam—I took Tug in. That day we had a chunk of baked
mutton, wich you couldn’t bite, madam, it was so tough, an’ after dinner
we missed Tug all on a sudden. We got ruther skeered at not findin’ him,
an’ went lookin’ round the streets, but couldn’t git no news of him. Long
toward evenin’ we heerd a stir under the bed, an’ lookin’ under, there he
was tuggin’ away at that chunk of mutton, and there he’d hid himself all
the afternoon. I’m a miser’ble orphan, says he, the minute we sot eyes
on him, never leavin’ off tuggin’ at the meat. You’re a young Tugmutton,
an’ that’s what you are, says Clarindy. Then we larfed, and so after that
we got to callin’ him Tugmutton, an’ he took to that name astonishin’.
That’s the way of it, madam.”
Muriel and Harrington, who had heard this story before, listened to
it now smiling, while Emily and the Captain, vastly amused during its
repetition, laughed heartily as Roux ended. Tugmutton, meanwhile, sitting
in the low chair with the baby, grinned sheepishly at the revival of this
reminiscence of his miserable orphanage.
“Are you—that is, did you—escape from the South, Mr. Roux?” inquired
Emily, hesitatingly, after a pause.
“Yes, madam, I did,” replied Roux with another elaborate bow. “It
wouldn’t be well, madam, to have it mentioned roundabout, lest”—
“O never fear, Mr. Roux,” she rejoined hurriedly. “I wouldn’t speak of it
for the world.”
“In fact, madam, I believe I never told any one about it,” continued
Roux, falteringly, “with the especial exception of Mr. Harrington and
Miss Eastman. But I did git away from the southern country, way down in
Louzeana, nine years ago. And I’ve got a brother still there, madam,
leastways if he’s alive, wich is not certain, seein’ that he was with an
uncommon bad master, madam—in fact, one of the worst sort of masters,
madam.”
“Why didn’t he run away with you, Mr. Roux?” inquired Emily.
“He was ruther scared at the resks, madam,” replied Roux, “Says I,
Ant’ny—his name was Ant’ny, madam—Ant’ny, says I, Master Lafitte—Lafitte
was old Master’s name, madam—Master Lafitte’ll be the death of us,
Ant’ny. We’d better try to git away to that Boston we’ve heerd tell of.
Ant’ny, says I, I’ve got three pounds of kian, Ant’ny, says I”—
“Of what?” asked Emily.
“Of kian, madam—kian pepper, you know.”
“O, yes. Cayenne pepper.”
“Yes, madam. Wich we can leave on the track, Ant’ny, says I, and that’ll
throw off the hounds, I’m a thinkin’.”
“The hounds!” ejaculated Emily, knitting her brow with horror, and
looking at the still face of Muriel and then at Harrington.
“Certainly,” said the latter, tranquilly. “In this free and happy
country, they hunt men and women with hounds. When hounds fail, they try
Fugitive Slave Law Commissioners.”
“And were you hunted, Mr. Roux?” asked Emily, shuddering.
“Yes, madam,” replied the negro, naively. “Ant’ny was afeared to try it,
and then I thought I wouldn’t nuther, for he was my brother, and we’d
been brought up together on old Madam Roux’s estate in New Orleans, and
I was very fond of Ant’ny, madam. But next day, you see, madam, I was
feelin’ ruther sick, and fell short in the pickin’—cotton-pickin’, you
know. So when night come, Master Lafitte he flogged me awful, and then
hung me up in the gin-house—hung me up by the wrists, an’ left me to hang
overnight.”
Roux, hearing Captain Fisher muttering, paused. The Captain, with his
head very much on one side, was swearing awfully in a low undertone at
slavery and slaveholders in general. He usually contented himself with
such mild oaths as “by the great horn spoon”—as people who leave off
chewing tobacco supply its place with spruce gum. But as the spruce-gum
chewers sometimes backslide into tobacco again, so the Captain, when he
got excited, which was seldom, would backslide from his mild profanity
into such swearing as sailors, who swear with genius, know how to express
the passion of their souls withal.
“Bimeby, madam,” resumed Roux, still addressing Emily, who sat looking
at him with a flush of fiery indignation on her beautiful countenance,
“I sloshed about, an’ the rope broke an’ let me down. I jus’ got out of
that gin-house mighty quick, I tell you. Then I went down a piece to
the hollow stump, where I’d hid the kian an’ a carvin’ knife, which I’d
took one day from the kitchen. I got the kian an’ the knife, an’ put
off hot foot for the north. Jus’ about sunrise, I heerd Dan Belcher’s
hounds a-comin’ after me—two of ’em, yellin’ awful. I was proper skeered,
madam, but I jus’ made a hole in the paper of kian, an’ run on, holdin’
the paper low down on the trail, so’s to let the kian drop out along,
you know. Then when the kian was all gone, I got skeered, an’ I run on
a piece, an’ shinned up a live-oak ’way into the thick of the leaves,
an’ lay still. ’Fore long, I see the hounds comin’, an’ Dan Belcher an’
old Toler an’ Master Lafitte ridin’ after ’em. I got so skeered I like
to dropped, but I lay hush, an’ right soon I saw the dogs run up, an’
poke their noses into the kian. Ki-yi-yah,” cachinnated Roux, overcome
with the reminiscence, “you ought to have seen them dogs, madam. They
jus’ acted as if they’d got religion! They flopped down an’ rolled over,
yellin’ like mad, an’ rubbin’ their noses into the kian, an’ rollin’
agin, an’ hollerin’—hi! Never saw nothin’ out of camp-meetin’ act like
them cre’turs. ’Fore long up come old Master an’ Dan Belcher an’ Toler,
an’ looked at them dogs. I couldn’t hear a word they was sayin’, but
I spekilated they was wonderin’ what had got into them dogs. Then Dan
Belcher, he got down, an’ dragged off the hounds, an’ poked his nose into
the kian. Hi! I reckon he got a smell, for he jumped up rubbin’ his nose,
an’ stampin’ round awful.”
Tugmutton, with the baby in his arms, burst into a screech of eldritch
laughter, kicking up his feet from the low chair in which he sat, in
phrenetic glee. All the others were silent, with faces intent on Roux.
“Bimeby,” resumed the negro, “Dan Belcher he laid a hold of the dogs, an’
dragged them on a piece to find the trail with no kian on it. ’Twasn’t
no use, for the dogs didn’t do nothin’ but snuff an’ yell an’ roll over.
So’n about a half an hour, I reckon, they all went back, an’ I lay hush
in the tree all day. Along towards evenin’ I got down, an’ run on agin.
Bimeby I come plump on a man. ‘Where’s your pass?’ says he. ‘Here it is,’
says I, givin’ him a dig with the carvin’-knife. ‘Ugh,’ says he”—
Everybody burst into a peal of laughter at the nonchalant, matter-of-fact
simplicity with which Roux said this. Roux himself was rather amazed at
the interruption, and stood, faintly smiling, with his whitewash-stained
dark hand fumbling over his mouth, and his eyes uneasily roving over the
laughing company.
“Well done, Roux,” said Harrington, jumping up, and slapping the negro
on the shoulder. “‘Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem,’” he
continued, quoting the legend of the Massachusetts State-arms. “And you
sought the tranquil rest of freedom with a carving-knife.”
“Yes, quietem was the word, and you did quiet him,” chuckled the Captain,
punning upon the Latin. “Sic semper tyrannis, is another bit of that
lingo, an’ I guess old tyrannis _was_ rather sick when he got a touch of
Roux’s carving-knife. By the great horn-spoon, that’s the richest thing
I’ve heard lately!”
“But what did the man do then, Mr. Roux?” asked Emily.
“Ugh, says he, madam, and then he doubled himself up, an’ I run on,”
replied Roux, simply. “Bimeby I come to the Red River, and I swum over.
Then I run on agin, till I come to the Mississip, an’ hid in a wood-pile.
Long toward mornin’ a flat boat came up the river, and hitched. Then I
heerd the Captin say, says he, argufying with another man, and gittin’
mad with him, I’m Ohio, says he, and my men are Ohio, an’ we don’t care a
damn for slavery, says he. Tother man went off, an’ I run out, an’ says,
Captin, says I, I’ve run for my freedom, an’ won’t you take me with you,
I says. Step right aboard, says he, an’ I’m damned if I don’t wish I’d a
load more like you, says he.”
“Bravo,” cried Muriel, clapping her hands. “Good for Ohio!”
“Hooraw for Ohio!” piped Tugmutton, bouncing up, and flourishing the
baby. “Chick-a-dee-dee, Brudder Baby, pretty little birdy,” he added,
with a sudden change of key, wagging his bushy head and grinning blobber
cheeks over the complacent infant. “Send him right down to Ohio.
Kidnapper come to fetch Brudder Baby, won’t have no more chance than a
bob-tail horse in fly-time when he gits to Ohio.”
Alas! poor Tugmutton!—the dark days could come even to Ohio! Broad and
strong and generous the hearts of Ohio, mighty in noble impulse, mighty
in love and bravery, mighty in truth to liberty and tenderness to man.
But the rampart of Ohio hearts prevailed not in the black hour when
Margaret Garner, with the hell-dog statute and the hunters upon her,
sublimely slew her children to save from slavery the souls Ohio could not
save.
“And so you escaped, Mr. Roux,” said Emily.
“Yes, madam,” returned Roux, “the captain took me all the way up to
Cincinnati. Where are ye goin’ now, William, says he. Boston, says
I. Men, says he, let’s give him an Ohio lift. Wich meant takin’ up a
collection, madam,” explained Roux, bowing. “An’ the collection was
fifteen dollars and thirty-three cents, madam, together with a suit of
the captain’s clothes, an’ some vittles in a paper bag. Captain, says I,
my gratefulness will never fail. William, says he, just hold on to that
carving-knife, an’ don’t let yourself be taken. Captain, says I, if I
ever git to heaven, I’ll make the Lord acquainted with all you’ve done
for me. William, says he, don’t you never acquaint anybody but the Lord
with it, or I’m a gone coon. An’ now make tracks, says he. So I made
tracks, an’ come on safe to Boston.”
“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Emily, drawing a long breath, and looking
around her. “It makes my blood boil to think that men are treated so in
this country. And you never heard from your brother, Mr. Roux?”
“Never, madam. But I don’t think he’s alive. I’m afeared that Master
Lafitte would kill him to be revenged on me, and that makes me feel,
sometimes, as if I’d murdered my own brother.”
He said this in low, ghostly tones, with a sudden agony and horror
convulsing his dark face. It is impossible to describe the shock of awful
emotion which his words gave to Emily. There was a moment of solemn
silence, in which Roux stood faintly gasping, with his swart visage ashen
and distorted with overmastering anguish, and she, gazing on him with a
blanched countenance, felt as if her very soul would die with pity.
“Couldn’t he be bought?” she timidly stammered, at length, half feeling
that she was proposing an absurdity. “That is—I mean if he is—if he has
not—died.”
Roux despairingly shook his head.
“If I had the money, madam,” he hoarsely faltered, “I’d try to buy him.
But that’ll never be—never.”
“I’ll engage to furnish the money,” said Emily, vehemently, the generous
color flooding her face like fire. “I will,” she added, stamping her foot
as she sat. “If it costs me two thousand dollars, or twice two thousand,
it shall be done.”
A dead silence ensued, in which she gazed at their mute faces. It was the
brave New England scholar who did sweet service to liberty when the guns
of tyranny stormed on Rome—it was Margaret Fuller who once gave away all
her little property, five hundred dollars, to a poor exile, a stranger to
her, whose distresses had touched her heart. Born of such an impulse, and
kindred to that splendid generosity, was this act of Emily’s.
“Why do you all look so?” she continued. “I mean what I say.”
Harrington and Muriel, to whom she lifted her flushed face, were standing
near each other, Muriel’s face still, solemn, and turned toward the
window, Harrington’s noble countenance rigid, and bent upon the floor.
The Captain stood looking at Emily with his head bent on one side, and
his features all atwist. As for Roux, his black visage was wildly lighted
with hope, joy, awe, and startled amazement, while Tugmutton sat in the
low chair, with the baby in his arms, his mouth open, his huge eyes
staring, and the big shocks of wool on his head seeming bigger than ever
in his astonishment.
“It shall be done, I say,” declared Emily. “Harrington, I depend on you
to show me the way.”
Harrington looked blank—like one who did not know how to answer her; then
furtively glanced at Roux, and then at the floor.
“You are the soul of generosity, Miss Ames,” he said, after a pause,
smiling constrainedly. “I should be happy to help you. We will see what
can be done.”
Roux clasped his hands and bowed his head. In that instant, Harrington
flashed a lightning glance at Emily, so stern, so menacing, so agonized
in its look of warning and entreaty, that Emily was confounded. The next
second, Roux’s face was raised, and Harrington’s wore an expression of
such bland indifference, that Emily could hardly believe she had seen the
other.
“We will speak of this another time,” said Harrington. “At present, I
think I must go. Shall I see you to the carriage, ladies, or do you
remain longer?”
Roux threw himself on his knees, and bending, grovelled at Emily’s feet.
Then raising his black face, convulsed, and streaming with tears, he
faltered out the broken words of his gratitude.
“I’ll pray for ye, forever and ever, Miss Ames,” he said. “I’ll pray to
the Lord for ye, Miss Ames. And the blessing of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost, be on ye, Miss Ames. I’ve had a good deal of
kindness, but there’s never been no kindness like yours, Miss Ames, an’ I
don’t want ye to give away all that money, madam, for it’s a mighty deal
of money, though it’s for my brother, Miss Ames, and I’d clean give my
life to see my poor brother, madam. And oh, if Master Lafitte will only
sell him, if he’s alive, madam, I’ll pray for him too, and for everybody,
forever and ever, amen, an’ for you more especial than anybody, for there
never was such kindness as yours to a poor, miser’ble, forsaken black
man—no, never, never.”
Uncouth words poured forth rapidly in a weak, broken voice, with sobs
and tears; but words that blanched the gold and roses of the face that
bent with swimming eyes over the bowed and weeping figure on the floor.
In the cold, succeeding silence, there was no sound but the dim sobs of
Roux. The Captain stood with his features screwed into a hard rigor,
gazing at the abject form beneath him. Harrington’s face was wan and
rigid, and fixed on vacancy. The two little ones, frightened and almost
crying, clung around the stupefied and staring Tugmutton, who sat holding
the baby, with the big whites of his eyes glaring at Roux from the ashy
pallor of his fat visage.
“Mr. Roux.”
At the gentle, silver tones of Muriel, at the firm touch of her hand
on his shoulder, the negro lifted up his bowed head from his breast,
and gazed with a haggard, beseeching face, all wet with tears, at the
benignant countenance that bent above him. For an instant only, and then
rising to his feet, ashamed of his emotion, yet unable to repress it
wholly, the poor fellow stood awkwardly wiping away his tears with his
rough sleeve, with his breast heaving, and the stertorous sobs still
breaking from him.
“It will all be well,” said Muriel, gently. “Do not grieve, Mr. Roux.”
“Yes, Miss Eas’man, I wont; indeed I wont grieve. But sometimes I git
desperate, Miss Eas’man,” he faltered. “’Pears sometimes as if everybody
was against us colored folks, Miss Eas’man.”
“Cheer up, Roux, we are all your friends here.”
It was the strong, sweet baritone of Harrington that sounded now. Roux
looked up, smiling mournfully, into the masculine, calm features, which
strangely comforted him.
“Yes, Roux, cheer up’s the word. ’Tan’t always goin’ to be slavery and
slaveholders in this free and happy country, mind that, my man.”
Thus the Captain, shaking a fore-finger at the negro, and then cheerfully
punching him in the ribs with it.
“An’ if I catch any kidnappers round this establishment, I’ll heave a
brick at him,” screeched Tugmutton, in a rage, glaring with rolling eyes
at everybody over the baby.
Emily, who had risen, and stood wiping her eyes with a cambric
handkerchief, burst into laughter, in which Muriel and Harrington
joined. Tugmutton looked awfully irate for an instant, and then grinned
sheepishly.
“Come, come,” said Muriel, “we must be going. Where’s the basket? Oh,
there it is on the floor. Mr. Roux,” she continued, stooping down to it,
and unpacking, “I won’t go in again to your wife—by the way, I hope our
talk has not disturbed her—but here are some baby-clothes which I wore
myself when I was a baby—old things which I found yesterday, but they’ll
do for the little boy. And here’s some nice beef and a pie, which my
mother had cooked expressly for your dinner to-day. And here’s my copy of
‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ which you told me you hadn’t read. When you and your
wife are done with it, Tugmutton, as you call him, can bring it up to the
house, with the plates and napkins.”
The famous Uncle Tom had recently issued from the Boston press, and
begun its illustrious journey through Christendom. Muriel handed the
two volumes to Roux, who took them timidly, with a low bow, immensely
gratified. The napkined meat and pie, she had already laid on the table,
with the package of baby-clothes.
“And that’s all,” said Muriel, arranging the remaining contents of the
basket under the fond eyes of Harrington. “The other things are for our
Irish cousins in North Russell Street. You, John, shall carry the basket
out to the carriage. Now let’s go.”
“Miss Eas’man,” said Roux, “I’m so much obliged”—
“Never mind, Mr. Roux,” interrupted Muriel, smiling gaily, “I see all
that. Good bye.”
She stooped to kiss the children, then with a curtsey, glided from the
room. Roux, timidly rubbing his hands one within another, bowed after
her, almost servile in his reverence. Tugmutton, severely dignified,
and swelling like the frog that tried to be an ox, with the proud
consciousness that something great had been done, and that it was all
due to him, stood in the centre of the floor, with the baby clasped
against his shoulder, and serenely waved his big paw in token of his
distinguished consideration. Emily smiled at him, and bowing to Roux,
swept with a rich rustle of silk after Muriel, followed by Harrington
with the basket. The Captain lingered to bounce up Tom and Josey once
apiece to the ceiling, and to poke Roux in the ribs with an anti-slavery
forefinger, and then, shaking his fist at the grinning Tugmutton,
departed also.