"Friend Daniel, do you know that it is partly your own fault that this
deplorable state of things exists?"
"How's it my fault, I'd like to know?" whimpered Daniel.
"Come, I'll help thee home, and tell thee what I mean, by the way," said
Penn, using the idiom of his sect, into which familiar manner of speech
he naturally fell when talking confidentially with any one.
"I am stiff as any old spavined hoss!" whined the poor fellow,
straightening his legs, and attempting to walk.
Penn helped him home as he promised, and comforted him, and said to him
many things, which he little supposed were destined to be brought
against him so soon, and by this very Daniel Pepperill.
This was the way of it. When it was known that Penn had befriended the
friend of the blacks, Silas Ropes paid Dan a second visit, and by
threats of vengeance, on the one hand, and promises of forgiveness and
treatment "like a gentleman," on the other, extorted from him a
confession of all Penn had said and done.
"Now, Dan," said Mr. Ropes, patronizingly, "I'll tell ye what you do.
You jine with us, and show yourself a man of sperrit, a payin' off this
yer abolitionist for his outrageous interference in our affairs."
"Sile," interrupted Dan, earnestly, "what 'ge mean I'm to do? Turn agin'
him?"
"Exactly," replied Mr. Ropes.
"Sile," said Dan, excitedly, "I be durned if I do!"
"Then, I swear to gosh!" said Sile, spitting a great stream of tobacco
juice across Mrs. Pepperill's not very clean floor, "you'll have a dose
yourself before another sun, which like as not'll be your last!"
This terrible menace produced its desired effect; and the unwilling Dan
was here, this night, one of Penn's persecutors, in consequence.
It was not enough that he had shown his "sperrit" by fetching the
victim's own bed from his boarding-house, telling his landlady, the
worthy Mrs. Sprowl, that Sile said she must "charge it to her abolition
boarder." He must now show still more "sperrit" by bringing the tar. A
well-worn broom had been borrowed of Mrs. Pepperill, by those who knew
best how the tar in such cases should be applied: the handle of this was
thrust by one of the men, named Griffin, through the bail of the kettle,
and Dan was ordered to "ketch holt o' t'other eend," and help carry.
Dan "ketched holt" accordingly. But never was kettle so heavy as that;
its miserable weight made him groan at every step. Suddenly the
broom-handle slipped from his hand, and down it went. No doubt his
laudable object was to spill the tar, in order to gain time for his
benefactor, and perhaps postpone the tarring and feathering altogether.
But Griffin grasped the kettle in time to prevent its upsetting, and the
next instant flourished the club over Dan's head.
"I didn't mean tu! it slipped!" shrieked the terrified wretch. After
which he durst no more attempt to thwart the chivalrous designs of his
friends, but carried the tar like a gentleman.
"This way!" said Silas, getting the escaped feathers into a pile with
his foot. "Thar! set it down. Now, sir," throwing away his own coat,
"peel off them clo'es o' yourn, Mr. Schoolmaster, mighty quick, if you
don't want 'em peeled off fur ye!"
Penn gave no sign of compliance, but fixed his eye steadfastly upon Mr.
Ropes.
"I insist," said he,--for he had already made the request while the men
were bringing the tar,--"on knowing what I have done to merit this
treatment."
"Wal, that I don't mind tellin' ye," said Silas, "for we've all night
for this yer little job before us. Dan Pepperill, stand up here!"
Dan came forward, appearing extremely low-spirited and weak in the
knees.
"Is it you, Daniel, who are to bear witness against me?" said Penn, in a
voice of singular gentleness, which chimed in like a sweet and solemn
bell after the harsh clangor of Silas's ruffian tones.
Dan rolled up his eyes, hugged his tattered elbows, and gave a dismal
groan.
"Come!" said Silas, bestowing a slap on his back which nearly knocked
him down, "straighten them knees o' yourn, and be a man. Yes, Mr.
Schoolmaster, Dan is a-going to bear witness agin' you. He has turned
from the error of his ways, and now his noble southern heart is
a-burnin' to take vengeance on all the enemies of his beloved country.
Ain't it, Dan?--say yes," he hissed in his ear, giving him a second
slap, "or else--you know!"
"O Lord, yes!" ejaculated Dan, with a start of terror. "What Mr. Ropes
says is perfectly--perfectly--jes' so!"
"Your heart is a-burnin', ain't it?" said Silas.
"Ye--yes! I be durned if it ain't!" said Dan.
"This man," continued Ropes, who prided himself on being a great orator,
with power to "fire the southern heart," and never neglected an occasion
to show himself off in that capacity,--"this individgle ye see afore ye,
gentlemen,"--once more hitting Dan, this time with the toe of his boot,
gently, to indicate the subject of his remarks,--"was lately as
low-minded a peep as ever you see. He had no more conscience than to
'sociate with niggers, and sell 'em liquor, and even give 'em liquor
when they couldn't pay fur't; and you all know how he degraded himself
by takin' Combs's Pete into his house and doin' for him arter he'd been
very properly licked by the patrol. All which, I am happy to say, the
deluded man sincerely repents of, and promises to behave more like a
gentleman in futur'. Don't you, Dan?"
As Dan, attempting to speak, only gasped, Ropes administered a sharp
poke in his ribs, whispering fiercely,--
"Say you do, mighty quick, or I'll----!"
"O! I repents! I--I be durned if I don't!" said Dan.
"And now, as to you!" Silas turned on the schoolmaster. "Your offence in
gineral is bein' a northern abolitionist. Besides which, your offences
in partic'ler is these. Not contented with teachin' the Academy, which
was well enough, since it is necessary that a few should have larnin',
so the may know how to govern the rest,--not contented with that, you
must run the thing into the ground, by settin' up a evenin' school, and
offerin' to larn readin', writin', and 'rithmetic, free gratis, to
whosomever wanted to 'tend. Which is contrary to the sperrit of our
institootions, as you have been warned more 'n oncet. That's charge
Number Two. Charge Number Three is, that you stand up for the old rotten
Union, and tell folks, every chance you git, that secession, that noble
right of southerners, is a villanous scheme, that'll ruin the south, if
persisted in, and plunge the whole nation into war. Your very words, I
believe. Can you deny it?"
"Certainly, I have said something very much like that, and it is my
honest conviction," replied Penn, firmly.
"Gentlemen, take notice!" said Mr. Ropes. "We will now pass on to charge
Number Four, and be brief, for the tar is a-coolin'. Suthin' like eight
days ago, when the afore-mentioned Dan Pepperill was in the waller of
his degradation, some noble-souled sons of the sunny south"--the orator
smiled with pleasant significance--"lifted him up, and hung him up to
air, in the crotches of two trees, jest by the edge of the woods here,
and went home to supper, intending to come back and finish the purifying
process begun with him later in the evenin'. But what did you do, Mr.
Schoolmaster, but come along and take him down, prematoorely, and go to
corruptin' him agin with your vile northern principles! Didn't he, Dan?"
"I--I dun know" faltered Dan.
"Yes, you do know, too! Didn't he corrupt you?"
These words being accompanied by a severe hint from Sile's boot, Mr.
Pepperill remembered that Penn _did_ corrupt him.
"And if I hadn't took ye in season, you'd have returned to your
base-born mire, wouldn't you?"
"I suppose I would," the miserable Dan admitted.
"Wal! now!"--Sile spread his palm over the tar to see if it retained its
temperature,--"hurry up, Dan, and tell us all this northern agitator
said to you that night."
"O Lord!" groaned Pepperill, "my memory is so short!"
"Bring that rope, boys! and give him suthin' to stretch it!" said Silas,
growing impatient.
Dan, knowing that stretching his memory in the manner threatened,
implied that his neck was to be stretched along with it, made haste to
remember.
"My friends," said Penn, interrupting the poor man's forced and
disconnected testimony, "let me spare him the pain of bearing witness
against me. I recall perfectly well every thing I said to him that
night. I said it was a shame that such outrages as had been committed on
him should be tolerated in a civilized society. I told him it was partly
his own fault that such a state of things existed. I said, 'It is owing
to the ignorance and degradation of you poor whites that a barbarous
system is allowed to flourish and tyrannize over you.' I said----"
But here Penn was interrupted by a violent outcry, the majority of the
persons present coming under the head of "poor whites."
"Let him go on! let him perceed!" said Silas. "What did you mean by
'barbarous system'?"
"I meant," replied Penn, all fear vanishing in the glow of righteous
indignation which filled him,--"I meant the system which makes it a
crime to teach a man to read--a punishable offence to befriend the poor
and down-trodden, or to bind up wounds. A system which makes it
dangerous for one to utter his honest opinions, even in private, to a
person towards whom he is at the same time showing the mercy which
others have denied him." He looked at Dan, who groaned. "A system----"
"Wal, I reckon that'll do fur one spell," broke in Silas Ropes. "You've
said more 'n enough to convict you, and to earn a halter 'stead of a
mild coat of tar and feathers."
"I am well aware," said Penn, "that I can expect no mercy at your hands;
so I thought I might as well be plain with you."
"And plain enough you've been, I swear to gosh!" said Silas. "Boys,
strip him!"
"Wait a moment!" said Penn, putting them off with a gesture which they
mistook for an appeal to some deadly weapon in his pocket. "What I have
said has been to free my mind, and to save Daniel trouble. Now, allow me
to speak a few words in my own defence. I have committed no crime
against your laws; if I have, why not let the laws punish me?"
"We take the laws into our hands sech times as these," said the man
called Gad.
"You're an abolitionist, and that's enough," said another.
"If I do not believe slavery to be a good thing, it is not my fault; I
cannot help my belief. But one thing I will declare. I have never
interfered with your institution in any way at all dangerous to you, or
injurious to your slaves. I have not rendered them discontented, but,
whenever I have had occasion, I have counselled them to be patient and
faithful to their masters. I came among you a very peaceable man, a
simple schoolmaster, and I have tried to do good to everybody, and harm
to no one. With this motive I opened an evening school for poor whites.
How many men here have any education? How many can read and write? Not
many, I am sure."
"What's the odds, so long as they're men of the true sperrit?"
interrupted Silas Ropes. "I can read for one; and as for the rest, what
good would it do 'em to be edecated? 'Twould only make 'em jes' sech
low, sneakin', thievin' white slaves, like the greasy mechanics at the
north."
"The white slaves are not at the north," said Penn. "Education alone
makes free men. If you, who threaten me with violence here to-night, had
the common school education of the north, you would not be engaged in
such business; you would be ashamed of assaulting a peaceable man on
account of his opinions; you would know that the man who comes to teach
you is your best friend. If you were not ignorant men, you, who do not
own slaves, would know that slavery is the worst enemy of your
prosperity, and you would not be made its willing tools."
The firm dignity of the youth, assisted by the illusion that prevailed
concerning a revolver in his pocket, had kept his foes at bay, and
gained him a hearing. He now attempted to pass on, when the man Gad,
stepping behind him, raised the broom-handle, and dealt him a stunning
blow on the back of the head.
"Down with him!" "Strip him!" "Give him a thrashing first!" "Hang him!"
And the ruffians threw themselves furiously upon the fallen man.
"Whar's that Dutch boy?" cried Silas. "I meant he should help Dan lay on
the tar."
But Carl was nowhere to be seen, having taken advantage of the confusion
and darkness to escape into the woods.