John March, Southerner Part 4

Cornelius opened his mouth with great pretense of ignorance, but----

"Go back and drop that hat outside the door, sir!" The servant went.

"Now, bring me that letter!" The bearer brought it and stood waiting while the Major held it under his lame arm and tore it open.

Judge March wrote that he had found a way to dispense with Cornelius at once, but his main wish was to express the hope--having let a better opportunity slip--that President Garnet as the "person best fitted in all central Dixie to impart to Southern youth a purely Southern education," would reopen Rosemont at once, and to promise his son to the college as soon as he should be old enough.

But for two things the Major might have felt soothed. One was a feeling that Cornelius had in some way made himself unpleasant to the Judge, and this grew to conviction as his nostrils caught the odor of strong drink.

He handed the note to his wife.

"Judge March is always complimentary. Read it to Jeff-Jack. Cornelius, I'll see you for a moment on the back gallery." His wife tried to catch his eye, but a voice within him commended him to his own self-command, and he pa.s.sed down the hall, the mulatto following. Johanna, crouching and nodding against the wall, straightened up as he pa.s.sed. His footfall sounded hope to the strained ear of the Judge's son in the kitchen.

Virginia slipped away. In the veranda, under the moonlight, Garnet turned and said, in a voice almost friendly:

"Cornelius."

"Ya.s.s, sah."

"Cornelius, why did you go off and hire yourself out, sir?"

At the last word the small listener in the kitchen trembled.

"Da.s.s jess what I 'How to 'splain to you, sah."

"It isn't necessary. Cornelius, you know that if ever one cla.s.s of human beings owed a lifelong grat.i.tude to another, you negroes owe it to your old masters, don't you? Stop! don't you dare to say no? Here you all are; never has one of you felt a pang of helpless hunger or lain one day with a neglected fever. Food, clothing, shelter, you've never suffered a day's doubt about them! No other laboring cla.s.s ever were so free from the cares of life. Your fellow-servants have shown some grat.i.tude; they've stayed with their mistress till I got home to arrange with them under these new conditions. But you--you! when I let you push on ahead and leave me sick and wounded and only half way home--your home and mine, Cornelius--with your promise to wait here till I could come and retain you on wages--you, in pure wantonness, must lift up your heels and prance away into your so-called new liberty. You're a fair sample of what's to come, Cornelius. You've spent your first wages for whiskey.

Silence, you perfidious reptile!

"Oh, Cornelius, you needn't dodge in that way, sir, I'm not going to take you to the stable; thank G.o.d I'm done whipping you and all your kind, for life! Cornelius, I've only one business with you and it's only one word! Go! at once! forever! You should go if it were only----Cornelius, I've been taking care of my own horse! Don't you dare to sleep on these premises to-night. Wait! Tell me what you've done to offend Judge March?"

"Why, Mahse John Wesley, I ain't done nothin' to Jedge Mahch; no, sah, neither defensive nor yit offensive. An' yit mo', I ain't dream o; causin' you sich uprisin' he'plessness. Me and Jedge Mahch"--he began to swell--"has had a stric'ly private disparitude on the subjec' o' extry wages, account'n o' his disinterpretations o' my plans an' his ign'ance o' de law." He tilted his face and gave himself an argumentative frown of matchless insolence. "You see, my deah seh----"

Garnet was wearily turning his head from side to side as if in unspeakable pain; a sudden movement of his free arm caused the mulatto to flinch, but the ex-master said, quietly:

"Go on, Cornelius."

"Ya.s.s. You see, Major, sence dis waugh done put us all on a sawt of equality----" The speaker flinched again.

"Great Heaven!" groaned the Major. "Cornelius, why, Cor--_ne_lius! you _viper_! if it were not for dishonoring my own roof I'd thrash you right here. I've a good notion----"

"Ow! leggo me! I ain't gwine to 'low no daym rebel----"

Ravenel, stroking Barbara and talking to Mrs. Garnet, saw his hostess start and then try to attend to his words, while out on the veranda rang notes of fright and pain.

"Oh! don't grabble my whole bres' up dat a-way, sah! Please sah! Oh!

don't! You ain't got no mo' right! Oh! Lawd! Mahse John Wesley! Oh! good Lawdy! yo' ban' bites like a _dawg_!"

Ravenel paused in his talk to ask Barbara about the sandman, but the child stared wildly at her mother. Johanna reappeared in the door with a scared face; Barbara burst into loud weeping, and her nurse bore her away crying and bending toward her mother, while from the veranda the wail poured in.

"Oh! Oh! don't resh me back like that! Oh! Oh! my Gawd! Oh! you'll bre'k de bal.u.s.ters! Oh! my Gawd-A'mighty, my back; Mahse John Wesley, you a-breakin' _my back_! Oh, good Lawd 'a' mussy! my po' back! my po' back!

Oh! don't dra--ag--you ain't a-needin' to drag me. I'll walk, Mahse John Wesley, I'll walk! Oh! you a-sc.r.a.pin' my knees off! Oh! dat whip ain't over dak! You can't re'ch it down!--ef I bite----" There was a silent instant and the mulatto screamed.

With sinking knees a small form slipped from the kitchen and ran--fell--rose--and ran again across the moonlight and into the grove toward the spring-house.

Barbara's crying increased. Ravenel said:

"Don't let me keep you from the baby"--while outside:

"Oh! I didn't mean to bite you, sweet Mahse John Wesley. 'Fo' Gawd I--oh!--o--oh--h--you broke my knees!"

"If you'll excuse me," said the mother, and went upstairs.

"Oh! mussy! mussy! yo' foot a-mashing my whole breas' in'! Oh, my Gawd!

De Yankees 'll git win' o' dis an' you'll go to jail!"

The lash fell. "O--oh!--o--oh! Oh, Lawd!" Jeff-Jack sat still and once or twice smiled. "Oh, Lawd 'a' mussy! my back! Ow! It bu'us like fiah!--o--oh! oh!--ow!"

"It doesn't hurt as bad as it ought to, Cornelius," and the blows came again.

"Ow! Dey won't git win' of it! 'Deed an 'deedy dey won't, sweet Mahse John Wesley!--oh!--o--oh!--Ow!--Oh, Lawd, come down! Dey des _shan't_ git win' of it! 'fo' Gawd dey shan't!

Ow!--oh!--oh!--oh!--a--ah--oo--oo!"

"Now, go!" said Garnet. Cornelius leaped up, ran with his eyes turned back on the whip, and fell again, wallowing like a scalded dog. "Oh, my po' back, my po' back! M--oh! it's a-bu'nin' up--oh!"

The Major advanced with the broken whip uplifted. Cornelius ran backward to the steps and rolled clear to the ground. The whip was tossed after him. With a gnashing curse he s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and hurried off, moaning and writhing, into the darkness, down by the spring-house.

Garnet smiled in scorn, far from guessing that soon, almost as soon as yonder receding clatter of hoofs should pa.s.s into silence, the venomous thing from which he had lifted his heel would coil and strike, and that another back, a little one that had never felt the burden of a sin or a task, or aught heavier than the sun's kiss, was to take its turn at writhing and burning like fire.

The memory of that hour, when it was over and home was reached, was burnt into the child's mind forever. It was then late. Mrs. March, "never strong," and,--with a sigh,--"never anxious," had retired. Her two handmaids, freedwomen, were new to the place, but already fond of her son. Cornelius found them waiting uneasily at the garden-fence. He had lingered and toiled with the Judge and his broken wagon, he said, "notwithstanding we done dissolve," until he had got the worst "misery in his back" he had ever suffered. When they received John from him and felt the child's tremblings, he warned them kindly that the less asked about it the better for the reputations of both the boy and his father.

"You can't 'spute the right an' custody of a man to his own son's chastis.e.m.e.nt, naw yit to 'low to dat son dat ef ever he let his maw git win' of it, he give him double an' thribble."

When the women told him he lied he appealed to John, and the child nodded his head. About midnight Cornelius handed the horse over to Judge March, rea.s.suring him of his son's safety and comfort, and hurried off, much pleased with the length of his own head in that he had not stolen the animal. John fell asleep almost as soon as he touched the pillow.

Then the maid who had undressed him beckoned the other in. Candle in hand she led the way to the trundle-bed drawn out from under the Judge's empty four-poster, and sat upon its edge. The child lay chest downward.

She lifted his gown, and exposed his back.

"Good Gawd!" whispered the other.

VII.

EXODUS

As Major Garnet's step sounded again in the hall, Barbara's crying came faintly down through the closed doors. He found Ravenel sitting by the lamp, turning the spotted leaves of Heber's poems.

"Mrs. Garnet putting Barb to bed?" he asked, and slowly took an easy chair. His arm was aching cruelly.

"Yes." The young guest stretched and smiled.