XXV.
_BLACK AND WHITE._
Penn attached his handkerchief to the end of the musket, and standingupon the ledge, waved it over the bushes. Carl, recognizing him, was thefirst to scramble up the height. The whole party followed, each sturdypatriot wringing the schoolmaster's hand with hearty congratulationswhen they learned what use he had made of the rebel musket.
"But the whole credit of the manoeuvre belongs not to me, but to thenegro Pomp!" And he related the story of his own rescue and theirs.
The patriots looked grave.
"Where is the fellow?" asked Stackridge.
"Being a fugitive slave, he feared lest he should find little favor inthe eyes of his master's neighbors," said Penn.
"That's where he was right!" said Deslow, with a bigoted and unforgivingexpression. "Nothing under the sun shall make me give encouragement to anigger's running away."
Two or three others nodded grim assent to this first principle of theslaveholder's discipline. Penn was fired with exasperation and scorn,and would have separated himself from these narrow-minded patriots onthe spot, had not Stackridge jumped up from the ground upon which he hadthrown himself, and, striking his gun barrel fiercely, exclaimed,--
"Now, that's what I call cursed foolishness, Deslow! and every man thatholds to that way of thinking had better go over to t'other side tooncet! If we can't make up our minds to sacrifice our property, and,what's more to some folks, our prejudices, in the cause we're fightingfor, we may as well stop before we stir a step further. I'm aslaveholder, and always have been; but I swear, I can't say as I everfelt it was such a divine institution as some try to make it out, and Idon't believe there's a man here that thinks in his heart that it's justright. And as for the niggers running away, my private sentiment is,that I don't blame 'em a mite. You or I, Deslow, would run in theirplace; you know you would." And Stackridge wiped his brow savagely.
"And as for this particular case," said Captain Grudd, with a gleam oflight in his lean and swarthy countenance, "don't le's be blind to ourown interests; don't le's be downright fools. I've said from the firstthat slavery and the rebellion was brother and sister,--they gotogether; and I've made up my mind to stand by my country and the oldflag, whatever comes of the institution." All, except the conservativeDeslow, applauded this resolution. "Then consider," added the captain,his deliberate, impressive manner proving quite as effective asStackridge's more excited and fiery style,--"here we are fighting forour very lives and liberties; and if, as I say, slavery's the cause ofthis war, then we're fighting against slavery, the best we can fix it.How monstrous absurd 'twill be, then, for us to refuse the assistance ofany nigger that has it to give! Bythewood, Pomp's owner, is one of thehottest secessionists I know; and d'ye think I want Pomp sent back tohim, to help that side, when he has shown that he can be of such mightygood service to us? I move that we send the professor to make a treatywith him. What do you say, Mr. Hapgood?"
"I say," replied Penn with enthusiasm, "that he and Cudjo are in acondition to do infinitely more for us than we can do for them; and iftheir alliance can be secured, I say that we ought by all means tosecure it."
"That depends," said Grudd, "upon what we intend to do. Are we going tomake a stand here, and see if the loyal part of old Tennessee will riseup and sustain us? or are we going to fight our way over the mountains,and never come back till a Union army comes with us to set things alittle to rights here?"
"Wa'al," said Withers, who concealed a hardy courage and earnestpatriotism under a phlegmatic and droll exterior, "while we'rediscussin' that question, I reckon we may as well have breakfast. Thisis as good a place as any,--we can take turns keeping a lookout fromthat ledge."
He proceeded to kindle a fire in the hollow. The fugitives, in passing afield of corn, had thrust into their pockets a plentiful supply of greenears, which they now husked and roasted. There was a spring in the rocksnear by, from which they drank lying on their faces, and dipping intheir beards. This was their breakfast; during which Penn's mission tothe blacks was fully discussed, and finally decided upon.
The meal concluded, the refugees resumed their march, and entered animmense thick wood farther up the mountain. In a cool and shadowy spotthey halted once more; and here Penn took leave of them, setting out onhis visit to the cave.
He had a mile to travel over a rough, wild region, where the fires thathad formerly devastated it had left the only visible marks of a nearcivilization. In a tranquil little dell that had grown up to wild grass,he came suddenly upon a horse feeding. It was Stackridge's useful nag,which looked up from his lofty grove-shaded pasture with a low whinny ofrecognition as Penn patted his neck and passed along.
A furlong or two farther on the well-known ravine opened,--dark, silent,profound, with its shaggy sides, one in shadow and the other in the sun,and its little embowered brook trickling far down there amid mossystones;--as lonesome, wild, and solitary as if no human eye had everbeheld it before.
Penn glided over the ledges, and descended along the narrow shelf ofrock, behind the thickets that screened the entrance to the cave.Sunlight, and mountain wind, and summer heat he left behind, and enteredthe cool, still, gloomy abode.
Cudjo ran to the mouth of the cave to meet him. "Lef me frow dis yerblanket ober your shoulders, while ye cool off; cotch yer de'f cold, ifye don't. De ol' man's a 'speckin' ye."
Penn was relieved to learn that Mr. Villars had arrived in safety, andgratified to find him lying comfortably on the bed conversing with Pomp.
"By the blessing of God, I am very well indeed, my dear Penn. Theseexcellent fellow-Christians have taken the best of care of me. Theatmosphere of the cave, which I thought at first chilly, I now finddeliciously pure and refreshing. And its gloom, you know, don't troubleme," added the blind old man with a smile. "Have you had any moretrouble since Pomp left you?"
"No," said Penn; "thanks to him. Pomp, our friends want to see you andthank you, and they have sent me to bring you to them."
The negro merely shrugged his shoulders, and smiled.
"What good der tanks do to we?" cried Cudjo. "Ain't one ob dem ar menbut what would been glad to hab us cotched and licked for runnin' away,fur de 'xample to de tudder niggers."
"If that was true of them once, it is not now," said Penn. "Yet, Pomp,if you feel that there is the least danger in going to them, do not go."
"Danger?" The negro's proud and lofty look showed what he thought ofthat. "Cudjo, make Mr. Hapgood a cup of coffee; he looks tired. You havehad a hard time, I reckon, since you left us."
"Him stay wid us now till he chirk up again," said Cudjo, running to hiscoffee-box. "Him and de ol' gemman stay--nobody else."
While the coffee was making, Penn, sitting on one of the stone blockswhich he had named giant's stools, repeated such parts of the latebreakfast talk of Stackridge and his friends as he thought wouldinterest Pomp and win his confidence. Then he drank the strong, blackbeverage in silence, leaving the negro to his own reflections.
"Are you going again?" said Pomp.
"Yes; I promised them I would return."
"Take some coffee and a kettle to boil it in; they will be glad of it, Ishould think."
"O Pomp! you know how to do good even to your enemies! What shall I sayto them for you?"
"What I have to say to them I will say myself," said Pomp, taking hisrifle in one hand, and the kettle in the other, to Cudjo's great wrathand disgust.
He set out with Penn immediately. They found the patriots reposingthemselves about the roots of the forest trees, on the banks of a streamthat came gurgling and plashing down the mountain side. Above themspread the beautiful green tops of maples, tinted with sunshine andsoftly rustling in the breeze. The curving banks formed here a littlenatural amphitheatre, carpeted with moss and old leaves, on which theysat or reclined, with their hats off and their guns at their sides.
A sentry posted on the edge of the forest brought in Penn and hiscompanion. There was a stir of interest among the patriots, an
d some ofthem rose to their feet. Stackridge, Grudd, and two or three otherscordially offered the negro their hands, and pledged him their gratitudeand friendship. Pomp accepted these tokens of esteem in silence,--hiscountenance maintaining a somewhat haughty expression, his lips firm,his eyes kindling with a strange light.
Penn took the kettle, and proceeded, with Carl's help, to make a fireand prepare coffee for the company, intently listening the while to allthat was said.
Jutting from one bank of the stream, which washed its base, was a huge,square block covered with dark-green moss. Upon this Pomp stepped, andrested his rifle upon it, and bared his massive and splendid head, andstood facing his auditors with a placid smile, under the canopy ofleaves. There was not among them all so noble a figure of a man as hewho stood upon the rock; and he seemed to have chosen this somewhattheatrical attitude in order to illustrate, by his own imposing personalpresence, the words that rose to his lips.
"You will excuse me, gentlemen, if I cannot forget that I am talkingwith those who buy and sell men like me!"
Men like him! The suggestion seemed for a moment to strike theslave-owning patriots dumb with surprise and embarrassment.
"No, no, Pomp," cried Stackridge, "not men like you--there are few likeyou anywhere."
"I wish there was more like him, and that I owned a good gang of 'em!"muttered the man Deslow.
"I don't," replied Withers, with a drawl which had a deep meaning in it;"twould be too much like sleeping on a row of powder barrels, withlighted candles stuck in the bung holes. Dangerous, them big knowin'niggers be."
Pomp did not answer for a minute, but stood as if gathering power intohimself, with one long, deep breath inflating his chest, and casting aglance upward through the sun-lit summer foliage.
"You buy and sell men, and women, and children of my race. If I am notlike them, it is because circumstances have lifted me out of thewretched condition in which it is your constant policy and endeavor tokeep us. By your laws--the laws you make and uphold--I am this dayclaimed as a slave; by your laws I am hunted as a slave;--yes, some ofyou here have joined your neighbor in the hunt for me, as if I was nomore than a wild beast to be hounded and shot down if I could not becaught. Now tell me what union or concord there can be between you andme!"
"I own," said Deslow,--for Pomp's gleaming eyes had darted significantlightnings at him,--"I did once come up here with Bythewood to see if wecould find you. Not that I had anything against you, Pomp,--not a thing;and as for your quarrel with your master, I ain't sure but you had theright on't; but you know as well as we do that we can't countenance anigger's running away, under any circumstances."
"No!" said Pomp, with sparkling sarcasm. "Your secessionist neighborsrevolt against the mildest government in the world, and resort tobloodshed on account of some fancied wrongs. You revolt against thembecause you prefer the old government to theirs. Your forefathers wentto war with the mother country on account of a few taxes. But a negromust not revolt, he must not even attempt to run away, although he feelsthe relentless heel of oppression grinding into the dust all his rights,all that is dear to him, all that he loves! A white man may take up armsto defend a bit of property; but a black man has no right to rise up anddefend either his wife, or his child, or his liberty, or even his ownlife, against his master!"
Only the narrow-minded Deslow had the confidence to meet this stunningargument, enforced as it was by the speaker's powerful manner, superbphysical manhood, and superior intelligence.
"You know, Pomp, that your condition, to begin with, is very differentfrom that of any white man. Your relation to your master is not that ofa man to his neighbor, or of a citizen to the government; it is that ofproperty to its owner."
"Property!" There was something almost wicked in the wild, bright glancewith which the negro repeated this word. "How came we property, sir?"
"Our laws make you so, and you have been acquired as property," saidDeslow, not unkindly, but in his bigoted, obstinate way. "So, really,Pomp, you can't blame us for the view we take of it, though it doesconflict a little with your choice in the matter."
"But suppose I can show you that you are wrong, and that even by yourown laws we are not, and cannot be, property?" said Pomp, with aprincely courtesy, looking down from the rock upon Deslow, so evidentlyin every way his inferior. "I will admit your title to a lot of land youmay purchase, or reclaim from nature; or to an animal you have captured,or bought, or raised. But a man's natural, original owner is--himself.Now, I never sold myself. My father never sold himself. My father wasstolen by pirates on the coast of Africa, and brought to this country,and sold. The man who bought him bought what had been stolen. By yourown laws you cannot hold stolen property. Though it is bought and sold athousand times, let the original owner appear, and it is his,--nobodyelse has the shadow of a claim. My father was stolen property, if he wasproperty at all. He was his own rightful owner. Though he had beenrobbed of himself, that made no difference with the justice of the case.It was so with my mother. It is so with me. It is the same with everyblack man on this continent. Not one ever sold himself, or can be sold,or can be owned. For to say that what a man steals or takes by force ishis, to dispose of as he chooses, is to go back to barbarism: it is notthe law of any Christian land. So much," added Pomp, blowing the wordsfrom him, as if all the false arguments in favor of slavery were no moreto the man's soul, and its eternal, God-given rights, than the breath heblew contemptuously forth into those mountain woods,--"so much for theclaim of PROPERTY!"
Penn was so delighted with this triumphant declaration of principlesthat he could have flung his hat into the maple boughs and shouted"Bravo!" He deemed it discreet, however, to confine the expression ofhis enthusiasm to a tight grasp on Carl's sympathetic hand, and to watchthe effect of the speech on the rest.
"Deslow," laughed Stackridge, himself not ill pleased with Pomp'sarguments, "what do you say to that?"
"Wal," said Deslow, "I never thought on't in just that light before; andI own he makes out a pooty good show of a case. But yet--" He hesitated,scratching for an idea among the stiff black hair that grew on his low,wrinkled forehead.
"But yet, but yet, but yet!" said Pomp, ironically. "It's so hard, whenour selfish interests are at stake, to confess our injustice or give upa bad cause! But I did not come here to argue my right to my ownmanhood. I take it without arguing. Neither did I come to ask anythingfor myself. You can do nothing for me but get me into trouble. Yet Ibelieve in the cause in which you have taken up arms. I have served youthis morning without being asked by you to do it; and I may assist youagain when the time comes. In the mean while, if you want anything thatI have, it is yours; for I recognize that we are brothers, though you donot. But I will not join you, for I am neither slave nor inferior, and Ihave no wish to be acknowledged an equal." And Pomp stepped off the rockwith an air that seemed to say, "_I_ know who is the equal of the bestof you; and that is enough." If this man had any fault more prominentthan another, it was pride; yet that haughty self-assertion which wouldhave been offensive in a white man, was vastly becoming to the haughtyand powerful black.
"I, for one," said the impulsive Stackridge, again grasping his hand,"honor the position you take. What I wanted was to thank you for whatyou have done, and to promise that you are safe from danger as far asregards us. I'm glad you've got your liberty. I hope you will keep it.You deserve it. Every slave deserves the same that has the manliness tostrike a blow for the good old government----"
"That has kept him a slave," added Pomp, with a bitter smile.
"Yes; and so much the more noble in him to fight for it!" saidStackridge. "Now, if you don't want to let us into the secrets of yourway of life, I can't say I blame ye. We're glad to get the coffee; andif you've any game or potatoes on hand, that you can spare, we'll take'em, and pay ye when we have a chance to forage for ourselves, whichwon't be long first."
"I have some salted bear's meat that you'll be welcome to; and may beCudjo can spare a little meal." His eye rest
ed on Carl, whose fidelityhe knew. "Let that boy come with us! We will send the provisions byhim."
Carl was delighted with the honor, for Penn was likewise going back toMr. Villars with the negro.