IN WHICH A VARIETY OF CHARACTERS APPEAR.
In the forward part of the boat, not the least attractive object, for a
time, was a grotesque negro cripple, in tow-cloth attire and an old
coal-sifter of a tamborine in his hand, who, owing to something wrong
about his legs, was, in effect, cut down to the stature of a
Newfoundland dog; his knotted black fleece and good-natured, honest
black face rubbing against the upper part of people's thighs as he made
shift to shuffle about, making music, such as it was, and raising a
smile even from the gravest. It was curious to see him, out of his very
deformity, indigence, and houselessness, so cheerily endured, raising
mirth in some of that crowd, whose own purses, hearths, hearts, all
their possessions, sound limbs included, could not make gay.
"What is your name, old boy?" said a purple-faced drover, putting his
large purple hand on the cripple's bushy wool, as if it were the curled
forehead of a black steer.
"Der Black Guinea dey calls me, sar."
"And who is your master, Guinea?"
"Oh sar, I am der dog widout massa."
"A free dog, eh? Well, on your account, I'm sorry for that, Guinea. Dogs
without masters fare hard."
"So dey do, sar; so dey do. But you see, sar, dese here legs? What
ge'mman want to own dese here legs?"
"But where do you live?"
"All 'long shore, sar; dough now. I'se going to see brodder at der
landing; but chiefly I libs in dey city."
"St. Louis, ah? Where do you sleep there of nights?"
"On der floor of der good baker's oven, sar."
"In an oven? whose, pray? What baker, I should like to know, bakes such
black bread in his oven, alongside of his nice white rolls, too. Who is
that too charitable baker, pray?"
"Dar he be," with a broad grin lifting his tambourine high over his
head.
"The sun is the baker, eh?"
"Yes sar, in der city dat good baker warms der stones for dis ole darkie
when he sleeps out on der pabements o' nights."
"But that must be in the summer only, old boy. How about winter, when
the cold Cossacks come clattering and jingling? How about winter, old
boy?"
"Den dis poor old darkie shakes werry bad, I tell you, sar. Oh sar, oh!
don't speak ob der winter," he added, with a reminiscent shiver,
shuffling off into the thickest of the crowd, like a half-frozen black
sheep nudging itself a cozy berth in the heart of the white flock.
Thus far not very many pennies had been given him, and, used at last to
his strange looks, the less polite passengers of those in that part of
the boat began to get their fill of him as a curious object; when
suddenly the negro more than revived their first interest by an
expedient which, whether by chance or design, was a singular temptation
at once to _diversion_ and charity, though, even more than his crippled
limbs, it put him on a canine footing. In short, as in appearance he
seemed a dog, so now, in a merry way, like a dog he began to be treated.
Still shuffling among the crowd, now and then he would pause, throwing
back his head and, opening his mouth like an elephant for tossed apples
at a menagerie; when, making a space before him, people would have a
bout at a strange sort of pitch-penny game, the cripple's mouth being at
once target and purse, and he hailing each expertly-caught copper with a
cracked bravura from his tambourine. To be the subject of alms-giving is
trying, and to feel in duty bound to appear cheerfully grateful under
the trial, must be still more so; but whatever his secret emotions, he
swallowed them, while still retaining each copper this side the
oesophagus. And nearly always he grinned, and only once or twice did
he wince, which was when certain coins, tossed by more playful almoners,
came inconveniently nigh to his teeth, an accident whose unwelcomeness
was not unedged by the circumstance that the pennies thus thrown proved
buttons.
While this game of charity was yet at its height, a limping,
gimlet-eyed, sour-faced person--it may be some discharged custom-house
officer, who, suddenly stripped of convenient means of support, had
concluded to be avenged on government and humanity by making himself
miserable for life, either by hating or suspecting everything and
everybody--this shallow unfortunate, after sundry sorry observations of
the negro, began to croak out something about his deformity being a
sham, got up for financial purposes, which immediately threw a damp upon
the frolic benignities of the pitch-penny players.
But that these suspicions came from one who himself on a wooden leg went
halt, this did not appear to strike anybody present. That cripples,
above all men should be companionable, or, at least, refrain from
picking a fellow-limper to pieces, in short, should have a little
sympathy in common misfortune, seemed not to occur to the company.
Meantime, the negro's countenance, before marked with even more than
patient good-nature, drooped into a heavy-hearted expression, full of
the most painful distress. So far abased beneath its proper physical
level, that Newfoundland-dog face turned in passively hopeless appeal,
as if instinct told it that the right or the wrong might not have
overmuch to do with whatever wayward mood superior intelligences might
yield to.
But instinct, though knowing, is yet a teacher set below reason, which
itself says, in the grave words of Lysander in the comedy, after Puck
has made a sage of him with his spell:--
"The will of man is by his reason swayed."
So that, suddenly change as people may, in their dispositions, it is not
always waywardness, but improved judgment, which, as in Lysander's case,
or the present, operates with them.
Yes, they began to scrutinize the negro curiously enough; when,
emboldened by this evidence of the efficacy of his words, the
wooden-legged man hobbled up to the negro, and, with the air of a
beadle, would, to prove his alleged imposture on the spot, have stripped
him and then driven him away, but was prevented by the crowd's clamor,
now taking part with the poor fellow, against one who had just before
turned nearly all minds the other way. So he with the wooden leg was
forced to retire; when the rest, finding themselves left sole judges in
the case, could not resist the opportunity of acting the part: not
because it is a human weakness to take pleasure in sitting in judgment
upon one in a box, as surely this unfortunate negro now was, but that it
strangely sharpens human perceptions, when, instead of standing by and
having their fellow-feelings touched by the sight of an alleged culprit
severely handled by some one justiciary, a crowd suddenly come to be all
justiciaries in the same case themselves; as in Arkansas once, a man
proved guilty, by law, of murder, but whose condemnation was deemed
unjust by the people, so that they rescued him to try him themselves;
whereupon, they, as it turned out, found him even guiltier than the
court had done, and forthwith proceeded to execution; so that the
gallows presented the truly warning spectacle of a man hanged by his
friends.
But not to such extremities, or anything like them, did the present
crowd come; they, for the time, being content with putting the negro
fairly and discreetly to the question; among other things, asking him,
had he any documentary proof, any plain paper about him, attesting that
his case was not a spurious one.
"No, no, dis poor ole darkie haint none o' dem waloable papers," he
wailed.
"But is there not some one who can speak a good word for you?" here said
a person newly arrived from another part of the boat, a young Episcopal
clergyman, in a long, straight-bodied black coat; small in stature, but
manly; with a clear face and blue eye; innocence, tenderness, and good
sense triumvirate in his air.
"Oh yes, oh yes, ge'mmen," he eagerly answered, as if his memory, before
suddenly frozen up by cold charity, as suddenly thawed back into
fluidity at the first kindly word. "Oh yes, oh yes, dar is aboard here a
werry nice, good ge'mman wid a weed, and a ge'mman in a gray coat and
white tie, what knows all about me; and a ge'mman wid a big book, too;
and a yarb-doctor; and a ge'mman in a yaller west; and a ge'mman wid a
brass plate; and a ge'mman in a wiolet robe; and a ge'mman as is a
sodjer; and ever so many good, kind, honest ge'mmen more aboard what
knows me and will speak for me, God bress 'em; yes, and what knows me as
well as dis poor old darkie knows hisself, God bress him! Oh, find 'em,
find 'em," he earnestly added, "and let 'em come quick, and show you
all, ge'mmen, dat dis poor ole darkie is werry well wordy of all you
kind ge'mmen's kind confidence."
"But how are we to find all these people in this great crowd?" was the
question of a bystander, umbrella in hand; a middle-aged person, a
country merchant apparently, whose natural good-feeling had been made at
least cautious by the unnatural ill-feeling of the discharged
custom-house officer.
"Where are we to find them?" half-rebukefully echoed the young Episcopal
clergymen. "I will go find one to begin with," he quickly added, and,
with kind haste suiting the action to the word, away he went.
"Wild goose chase!" croaked he with the wooden leg, now again drawing
nigh. "Don't believe there's a soul of them aboard. Did ever beggar have
such heaps of fine friends? He can walk fast enough when he tries, a
good deal faster than I; but he can lie yet faster. He's some white
operator, betwisted and painted up for a decoy. He and his friends are
all humbugs."
"Have you no charity, friend?" here in self-subdued tones, singularly
contrasted with his unsubdued person, said a Methodist minister,
advancing; a tall, muscular, martial-looking man, a Tennessean by birth,
who in the Mexican war had been volunteer chaplain to a volunteer
rifle-regiment.
"Charity is one thing, and truth is another," rejoined he with the
wooden leg: "he's a rascal, I say."
"But why not, friend, put as charitable a construction as one can upon
the poor fellow?" said the soldierlike Methodist, with increased
difficulty maintaining a pacific demeanor towards one whose own asperity
seemed so little to entitle him to it: "he looks honest, don't he?"
"Looks are one thing, and facts are another," snapped out the other
perversely; "and as to your constructions, what construction can you put
upon a rascal, but that a rascal he is?"
"Be not such a Canada thistle," urged the Methodist, with something less
of patience than before. "Charity, man, charity."
"To where it belongs with your charity! to heaven with it!" again
snapped out the other, diabolically; "here on earth, true charity dotes,
and false charity plots. Who betrays a fool with a kiss, the charitable
fool has the charity to believe is in love with him, and the charitable
knave on the stand gives charitable testimony for his comrade in the
box."
"Surely, friend," returned the noble Methodist, with much ado
restraining his still waxing indignation--"surely, to say the least, you
forget yourself. Apply it home," he continued, with exterior calmness
tremulous with inkept emotion. "Suppose, now, I should exercise no
charity in judging your own character by the words which have fallen
from you; what sort of vile, pitiless man do you think I would take you
for?"
"No doubt"--with a grin--"some such pitiless man as has lost his piety
in much the same way that the jockey loses his honesty."
"And how is that, friend?" still conscientiously holding back the old
Adam in him, as if it were a mastiff he had by the neck.
"Never you mind how it is"--with a sneer; "but all horses aint virtuous,
no more than all men kind; and come close to, and much dealt with, some
things are catching. When you find me a virtuous jockey, I will find you
a benevolent wise man."
"Some insinuation there."
"More fool you that are puzzled by it."
"Reprobate!" cried the other, his indignation now at last almost boiling
over; "godless reprobate! if charity did not restrain me, I could call
you by names you deserve."
"Could you, indeed?" with an insolent sneer.
"Yea, and teach you charity on the spot," cried the goaded Methodist,
suddenly catching this exasperating opponent by his shabby coat-collar,
and shaking him till his timber-toe clattered on the deck like a
nine-pin. "You took me for a non-combatant did you?--thought, seedy
coward that you are, that you could abuse a Christian with impunity. You
find your mistake"--with another hearty shake.
"Well said and better done, church militant!" cried a voice.
"The white cravat against the world!" cried another.
"Bravo, bravo!" chorused many voices, with like enthusiasm taking sides
with the resolute champion.
"You fools!" cried he with the wooden leg, writhing himself loose and
inflamedly turning upon the throng; "you flock of fools, under this
captain of fools, in this ship of fools!"
With which exclamations, followed by idle threats against his
admonisher, this condign victim to justice hobbled away, as disdaining
to hold further argument with such a rabble. But his scorn was more than
repaid by the hisses that chased him, in which the brave Methodist,
satisfied with the rebuke already administered, was, to omit still
better reasons, too magnanimous to join. All he said was, pointing
towards the departing recusant, "There he shambles off on his one lone
leg, emblematic of his one-sided view of humanity."
"But trust your painted decoy," retorted the other from a distance,
pointing back to the black cripple, "and I have my revenge."
"But we aint agoing to trust him!" shouted back a voice.
"So much the better," he jeered back. "Look you," he added, coming to a
dead halt where he was; "look you, I have been called a Canada thistle.
Very good. And a seedy one: still better. And the seedy Canada thistle
has been pretty well shaken among ye: best of all. Dare say some seed
has been shaken out; and won't it spring though? And when it does
spring, do you cut down the young thistles, and won't they spring the
more? It's encouraging and coaxing 'em. Now, when with my thistles your
farms shall be well stocked, why then--you may abandon 'em!"
"What does all that mean, now?" asked the country merchant, staring.
"Nothing; the foiled wolf's parting howl," said the Methodist. "Spleen,
much spleen, which is the rickety child of his evil heart of unbelief:
it has made him mad. I suspect him for one naturally reprobate. Oh,
friends," raising his arms as in the pulpit, "oh beloved, how are we
admonished by the melancholy spectacle of this raver. Let us profit by
the lesson; and is it not this: that if, next to mistrusting Providence,
there be aught that man should pray against, it is against mistrusting
his fellow-man. I have been in mad-houses full of tragic mopers, and
seen there the end of suspicion: the cynic, in the moody madness
muttering in the corner; for years a barren fixture there; head lopped
over, gnawing his own lip, vulture of himself; while, by fits and
starts, from the corner opposite came the grimace of the idiot at him."
"What an example," whispered one.
"Might deter Timon," was the response.
"Oh, oh, good ge'mmen, have you no confidence in dis poor ole darkie?"
now wailed the returning negro, who, during the late scene, had stumped
apart in alarm.
"Confidence in you?" echoed he who had whispered, with abruptly changed
air turning short round; "that remains to be seen."
"I tell you what it is, Ebony," in similarly changed tones said he who
had responded to the whisperer, "yonder churl," pointing toward the
wooden leg in the distance, "is, no doubt, a churlish fellow enough, and
I would not wish to be like him; but that is no reason why you may not
be some sort of black Jeremy Diddler."
"No confidence in dis poor ole darkie, den?"
"Before giving you our confidence," said a third, "we will wait the
report of the kind gentleman who went in search of one of your friends
who was to speak for you."
"Very likely, in that case," said a fourth, "we shall wait here till
Christmas. Shouldn't wonder, did we not see that kind gentleman again.
After seeking awhile in vain, he will conclude he has been made a fool
of, and so not return to us for pure shame. Fact is, I begin to feel a
little qualmish about the darkie myself. Something queer about this
darkie, depend upon it."
Once more the negro wailed, and turning in despair from the last
speaker, imploringly caught the Methodist by the skirt of his coat. But
a change had come over that before impassioned intercessor. With an
irresolute and troubled air, he mutely eyed the suppliant; against whom,
somehow, by what seemed instinctive influences, the distrusts first set
on foot were now generally reviving, and, if anything, with added
severity.
"No confidence in dis poor ole darkie," yet again wailed the negro,
letting go the coat-skirts and turning appealingly all round him.
"Yes, my poor fellow _I_ have confidence in you," now exclaimed the
country merchant before named, whom the negro's appeal, coming so
piteously on the heel of pitilessness, seemed at last humanely to have
decided in his favor. "And here, here is some proof of my trust," with
which, tucking his umbrella under his arm, and diving down his hand into
his pocket, he fished forth a purse, and, accidentally, along with it,
his business card, which, unobserved, dropped to the deck. "Here, here,
my poor fellow," he continued, extending a half dollar.
Not more grateful for the coin than the kindness, the cripple's face
glowed like a polished copper saucepan, and shuffling a pace nigher,
with one upstretched hand he received the alms, while, as unconsciously,
his one advanced leather stump covered the card.
Done in despite of the general sentiment, the good deed of the merchant
was not, perhaps, without its unwelcome return from the crowd, since
that good deed seemed somehow to convey to them a sort of reproach.
Still again, and more pertinaciously than ever, the cry arose against
the negro, and still again he wailed forth his lament and appeal among
other things, repeating that the friends, of whom already he had
partially run off the list, would freely speak for him, would anybody go
find them.
"Why don't you go find 'em yourself?" demanded a gruff boatman.
"How can I go find 'em myself? Dis poor ole game-legged darkie's friends
must come to him. Oh, whar, whar is dat good friend of dis darkie's, dat
good man wid de weed?"
At this point, a steward ringing a bell came along, summoning all
persons who had not got their tickets to step to the captain's office;
an announcement which speedily thinned the throng about the black
cripple, who himself soon forlornly stumped out of sight, probably on
much the same errand as the rest.