THE WARNING.
In life organized as it is at the South, there are two currents:--one,
the current of the master's fortunes, feelings, and hopes; the other,
that of the slave's. It is a melancholy fact in the history of the human
race, as yet, that there have been multitudes who follow the triumphal
march of life only as captives, to whom the voice of the trumpet, the
waving of the banners, the shouts of the people, only add to the
bitterness of enthralment.
While life to Nina was daily unfolding in brighter colors, the
slave-brother at her side was destined to feel an additional burden on
his already unhappy lot.
It was toward evening, after having completed his daily cares, that he
went to the post-office for the family letters. Among these, one was
directed to himself, and he slowly perused it as he rode home through
the woods. It was as follows:
MY DEAR BROTHER,--I told you how comfortably we were living on our
place--I and my children. Since then, everything has been changed.
Mr. Tom Gordon came here and put in a suit for the estate, and
attached me and my children as slaves. He is a dreadful man. The
case has been tried and gone against us. The judge said that both
deeds of emancipation--both the one executed in Ohio, and the one
here--were of no effect; that my boy was a slave, and could no more
hold property than a mule before a plough. I had some good friends
here, and people pitied me very much; but nobody could help me. Tom
Gordon is a bad man--a _very_ bad man. I cannot tell you all that
he said to me. I only tell you that I will kill myself and my
children before we will be his slaves. Harry, I have been _free_,
and I know what liberty is. My children have been brought up
_free_, and if I can help it they never shall know what slavery
is. I have got away, and am hiding with a colored family here in
Natchez. I hope to get to Cincinnati, where I have friends.
My dear brother, I did hope to do something for you. Now I cannot.
Nor can you do anything for me. The law is on the side of our
oppressors; but I hope God will help us. Farewell! Your
affectionate
SISTER.
It is difficult to fathom the feelings of a person brought up in a
position so wholly unnatural as that of Harry. The feelings which had
been cultivated in him by education, and the indulgence of his nominal
possessors, were those of an honorable and gentlemanly man. His position
was absolutely that of the common slave, without one legal claim to
anything on earth, one legal right of protection in any relation of
life. What any man of strong nature would feel on hearing such tidings
from a sister, Harry felt.
In a moment there rose up before his mind the picture of Nina in all her
happiness and buoyancy--in all the fortunate accessories in her lot. Had
the vague thoughts which crowded on his mind been expressed in words,
they might have been something like these:--
"I have two sisters, daughters of one father, both beautiful, both
amiable and good; but one has rank, and position, and wealth, and ease,
and pleasure; the other is an outcast, unprotected, given up to the
brutal violence of a vile and wicked man. She has been a good wife, and
a good mother. Her husband has done all he could to save her; but the
cruel hand of the law grasps her and her children, and hurls them back
into the abyss from which it was his life-study to raise them. And I can
do nothing! I am not even a man! And this curse is on me, and on my
wife, and on my children and children's children, forever! Yes, what
does the judge say, in this letter? 'He can no more own anything than
the mule before his plough!' That's to be the fate of every child of
mine! And yet people say, 'You have all you want; why are you not
happy?' I wish they could try it! Do they think broadcloth coats and
gold watches can comfort a man for all this?"
Harry rode along, with his hands clenched upon the letter, the reins
drooping from the horse's neck, in the same unfrequented path where he
had twice before met Dred. Looking up, he saw him the third time,
standing silently, as if he had risen from the ground.
"Where did you come from?" said he. "Seems to me you are always at hand
when anything is going against me!"
"Went not my spirit with thee?" said Dred. "Have I not seen it all? It
is because we _will_ bear this, that we have it to bear, Harry."
"But," said Harry, "what can we do?"
"Do? What does the wild horse do? Launch out our hoofs! rear up, and
come down on them! What does the rattlesnake do? Lie in their path, and
bite! Why did they make slaves of us? They tried the wild Indians first.
Why didn't they keep to them? _They_ wouldn't be slaves, and we _will_!
They that _will_ bear the yoke, _may_ bear it!"
"But," said Harry, "Dred, this is all utterly hopeless. Without any
means, or combination, or leaders, we should only rush on to our own
destruction."
"Let us die, then!" said Dred. "What if we do die? What great matter is
that? If they bruise our head, we can sting their heels? Nat
Turner--they killed him; but the fear of him almost drove them to set
free their slaves! Yes, it was argued among them. They came within two
or three votes of it in their assembly. A little more fear, and they
would have done it. If my father had succeeded, the slaves in Carolina
would be free to-day. Die?--Why not die? Christ was crucified! Has
everything dropped out of you, that you can't die--that you'll crawl
like worms, for the sake of living?"
"I'm not afraid of death myself," said Harry. "God knows I wouldn't care
if I did die; but"--
"Yes, I know," said Dred. "She that letteth will let, till she be taken
out of the way. I tell you, Harry, there's a seal been loosed--there's a
vial poured out on the air; and the destroying angel standeth over
Jerusalem, with his sword drawn!"
"What do you mean by that?" said Harry.
Dred stood silent for a moment; his frame assumed the rigid tension of a
cataleptic state, and his voice sounded like that of a person speaking
from a distance, yet there was a strange distinctness in it.
"The words of the prophet, and the vision that he hath from the Lord,
when he saw the vision, falling into a trance, and having his eyes open,
and behold he saw a roll flying through the heavens, and it was written,
within and without, with mourning and lamentation and woe! Behold, it
cometh! Behold, the slain of the Lord shall be many! They shall fall in
the house and by the way! The bride shall fall in her chamber, and the
child shall die in its cradle! There shall be a cry in the land of
Egypt, for there shall not be a house where there is not one dead!"
"Dred! Dred! Dred!" said Harry, pushing him by the shoulder; "come out
of this--come out! It's frightful!"
Dred stood looking before him, with his head inclined forward, his hand
upraised, and his eyes strained, with the air of one who is trying to
make out something through a thick fog.
"I see her!" he said. "Who is that by her? His back is turned. Ah! I
see--it is he! And there's Harry and Milly! Try hard--try! You won't do
it. No, no use sending for the doctor. There's not one to be had. They
are all too busy. Rub her hands! Yes. But--it's no good. 'Whom the Lord
loveth, he taketh away from the evil to come.' Lay her down. Yes, it is
Death! Death! Death!"
Harry had often seen the strange moods of Dred, and he shuddered now,
because he partook somewhat in the common superstitions, which prevailed
among the slaves, of his prophetic power. He shook and called him; but
he turned slowly away, and, with eyes that seemed to see nothing, yet
guiding himself with his usual dextrous agility, he plunged again into
the thickness of the swamp, and was soon lost to view.
After his return home it was with the sensation of chill at his heart
that he heard Aunt Nesbit reading to Nina portions of a letter,
describing the march through some northern cities of the cholera, which
was then making fearful havoc on our American shore.
"Nobody seems to know how to manage it," the letter said; "physicians
are all at a loss. It seems to spurn all laws. It bursts upon cities
like a thunderbolt, scatters desolation and death, and is gone with
equal rapidity. People rise in the morning well, and are buried before
evening. In one day houses are swept of a whole family."
"Ah," said Harry, to himself, "I see the meaning now, but what does it
portend to us?"
How the strange foreshadowing had risen to the mind of Dred, we shall
not say. Whether there be mysterious electric sympathies which, floating
through the air, bear dim presentiments on their wings, or whether some
stray piece of intelligence had dropped on his ear, and been interpreted
by the burning fervor of his soul, we know not. The news, however, left
very little immediate impression on the daily circle at Canema. It was a
dread reality in the far distance. Harry only pondered it with anxious
fear.