Mingo Part 14

"They say," said Brother Brannum, "that he's a man full of grace and fire."

"Well, sir," said Johnny Roach, "if he but makes me disremember that I left the bay mar' at home, I'll thank him kindly."

"Mercy, Brother Roach," exclaimed Brother Brannum, taking this as a neighbourly hint, "mount up here and rest yourself, whilst I stretch my legs along this level piece of ground."

"I'd thank you kindly, Brother Branuum, if you wouldn't so misjudge me!

It's my will to walk; but if I git my limbs sot to the saddle here and now, they'd ache and crack might'ly when next I called upon 'em. I'll take the will for the deed, Brother Brannum."

Thus these neighbours jogged along to Felix Kendrick's funeral. They found a great crowd ahead of them when they got there, though they were not too late for the services; but the house was filled with sympathetic men and women, and those who came late were compelled to find such accommodations as the yard afforded; and these accommodations were excellent in their way, for there was the cool green gra.s.s under the trees, and there were the rustic seats in the shadow of the fig-tree of which mention has been made.

Coming together, Brother Brannum and Brother Roach stayed together; and they soon found themselves comfortably seated under the fig-tree,--a point of view from which they could observe everything that was going on. Brother Brannum, who was a pillar of Bethesda church, and extremely officious withal, seemed to regret that he had not arrived soon enough to find a place in the house near the preacher, but Brother Roach appeared to congratulate himself that he had been crowded out of ear-shot.

"We can set here," he declared in great good-humour, "and hear the singing, and then whirl in and preach each man his own sermon. I know better than the furrin preacher what'd be satisfactual to Felix Kendrick. I see George Denham sailing in and out and flying around; and if the pinch comes, as come it must, Brother Brannum, we can up and ast George for to fetch us sech reports as a hongry man can stomach."

Brother Brannum frowned heavily, but made no response. Presently Brother Roach beckoned to the young man whom he had called George Denham. "Howdy, George! How is Kitty Kendrick? Solemn as the season is, George, I lay 'twould be wrong for to let Beauty pine."

The young man suppressed a smile, and raised his hands in protest.

"Uncle Johnny! to joke me at such a time! I shall go to-morrow and cut your mill-race, and you will never know who did it."

"Ah, George! if death changes a man no more'n they say it does, little does Felix Kendrick need to be holp by these dismal takings-on. From first to last, he begrudged no man his banter. But here we are, and yan's the preacher. The p'int wi' me, George, is, how kin we-all setting on the back seats know when the preacher gits to his 'amen,'

onless his expoundance is too loud to be becoming?"

"Come, now, Uncle Johnny," said young Denham, "no winking, and I'll tell you. I was talking to Miss Kitty just now, and all of a sudden she cried out, 'Why, yonder's Uncle Johnny Roach, and he's walking, too.

Uncle Johnny must stay to dinner;' and Mrs. Kendrick says, 'Yes, and Brother Branmim too.' And so there you are."

"Well, sir," exclaimed Brother Roach, "Kitty always had a piece of my heart, and now she has it all."

"A likely young man, that George Denham," said Brother Brannum, as Denham moved towards the house.

"You never spoke a truer word, Brother Brannum," said Brother Roach, enthusiastically. "Look at his limbs, look at his gait, look at his eye. If the world, the flesh, and the devil don't freeze out his intents, you'll hear from that chap. He's a-gitting high up in the law, and where'll you find a better managed plantation than his'n?"

What else Brother Roach said or might have said must be left to conjecture. In the midst of his eulogy on the living, the preacher in the house began his eulogy of the dead. Those who heard what he said were much edified, and those who failed to hear made a decorous pretence of listening intently. In the midst of the sermon Brother Roach felt himself touched on the arm. Looking up, he saw that Brother Brannum was gazing intently at one of the gables on the roof. Following the direction of Brother Brannum's eyes, Brother Roach beheld, with astonishment not unmixed with awe, the head and shoulders of a powerfully built negro. The att.i.tude of the negro was one of attention.

He was evidently trying to hear the sermon. His head was bent, and the expression of his face was indicative of great good-humour. His shirt was ragged and dirty, and had fallen completely away from one arm and shoulder, and the billowy muscles glistened in the sun. While Brother Brannum and Brother Roach were gazing at him with some degree of amazement, an acorn dropped upon the roof from one of the tall oaks.

Startled by the sudden noise, the negro glanced hurriedly around, and dropped quickly below the line of vision.

"Well, well, well!" exclaimed Brother Roach, after exchanging a look of amazement with Brother Brannum. "Well, well, well! Who'd 'a' thought it? Once 'twas the n.i.g.g.e.r in the wood-pile; now it's the n.i.g.g.e.r in the steeple, and arter a while they'll be a-flying in the air,--mark my words. I call that the impidence of the Old Boy. Maybe you don't know that n.i.g.g.e.r, Brother Brannum?"

"I disremember if I do, Brother Roach."

"Well, sir, when one of 'em pa.s.ses in front of your Uncle Johnny, you may up and sw'ar his dagarrytype is took. That n.i.g.g.e.r, roosting up there so slick and cool, is Bledser's Blue Dave. Nuther more, nuther less."

"Bledser's Blue Dave!" exclaimed Brother Brannum in a voice made sepulchral by amazement.

"The identical n.i.g.g.e.r! I'd know him if I met him arm-in-arm with the King and Queen of France."

"Why, I thought Blue Dave had made his disappearance five year ago,"

said Brother Brannum.

"Well, sir, my two eyes tells me different. Time and time ag'in I've been told he's a quare creetur. Some say he's strong as a horse and venomous as a snake. Some say he's swifter than the wind and slicker than a red fox. And many's the time by my own h'a'th-stone I've had to pooh-pooh these relations; yet there's no denying that for mighty nigh seven year that n.i.g.g.e.r's been trolloping round through the woods foot-loose and scotch-free, bidding defiance to the law of the State and Bill Brand's track dogs."

"Well, sir," said Brother Brannum, fetching his hand down on his knee with a thwack, "we ought to alarm the a.s.semblage."

"Jes so," replied Brother Roach, with something like a chuckle; "but you forgit the time and the occasion, Brother Brannum. I'm a worldly man myself, as you may say, but 'twill be long arter I'm more worldlier than what I am before you can ketch me cuttin' sech a scollop as to wind up a funeral sermon wi' a race arter a runaway n.i.g.g.e.r."

Brother Brannum agreed with this view, but it was with a poor grace. He had a vague remembrance of certain rewards that had from time to time been offered for the capture of Blue Dave, and he was anxious to have a hand in securing at least a part of these. But he refrained from sounding the alarm. With Brother Roach, he remained at the Kendrick Place after the sermon was over, and took dinner. He rode off shortly afterwards, and the next day Bill Brand and his track dogs put in an appearance; but Blue Dave was gone.

It was a common thing to hear of fugitive negroes; but Blue Dave (so called because of the inky blackness of his skin) had a name and a fame that made him the terror of the women and children, both white and black; and Kitty Kendrick and her mother were not a little disturbed when they learned that he had been in hiding among the gables of their house. The negro's success in eluding pursuit caused the ignorant-minded of both races to attribute to him the possession of some mysterious power. He grew into a legend; he became a part of the folk-lore of the section. According to popular belief, he possessed strange powers and great courage; he became a giant, a spirit of evil. Women frightened their children into silence by calling his name, and many a youngster crept to bed in mortal fear that Blue Dave would come in the night and whisk him away into the depths of the dark woods. Whatever mischief was done was credited to Blue Dave. If a horse was found in the lot spattered with mud, Blue Dave had ridden it; if a cow was crippled, a hog missing, or a smoke-house robbed, Blue Dave was sure to be at the bottom of it all, so far as popular belief was concerned. The negroes had many stories to tell of him. One had seen him standing by a tall poplar-tree. He was about to speak to him when there came a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, and Blue Dave disappeared, leaving a sulphurous smell behind him. He had been seen by another negro. He was standing in the middle of the Armour's Ferry road. He was armed with a gleaming reaphook, and accompanied by a big black dog. As soon as the dog saw the new-comer, it bristled up from head to foot, its eyes shone like two coals of fire, and every hair on its back emitted a fiery spark.

Very little was known of the history of Blue Dave. He was brought to the little village of Rockville in chains in a speculator's train,--the train consisting of two Conestoga wagons and thirty or forty forlorn-looking negroes. The speculator explained that he had manacled Blue Dave because he was unmanageable; and he put him on the block to sell him after making it perfectly clear to everybody that whoever bought the negro would get a bad bargain. Nevertheless Blue Dave was a magnificent specimen of manhood, straight as an arrow, as muscular as Hercules, and with a countenance as open and as pleasant as one would wish to see. He was bought by General Alfred Bledser, and put on his River Place. He worked well for a few weeks, but got into trouble with the overseer, and finally compromised matters by taking to the woods.

He seemed born for this particular business; for the track dogs failed to find him, and all the arts and artifices employed for capturing and reclaiming runaways failed in his case. It was a desperate sort of freedom he enjoyed; but he seemed suited to it, and he made the most of it.

As might be supposed, there was great commotion in the settlement, and particularly at the Kendrick homestead, when it was known that Blue Dave had been hiding among the gables of the Kendrick house. Mrs.

Kendrick and her daughter Kitty possessed their full share of what Brother Roach would have called "s.p.u.n.k;" but there is a large and very important corner of the human mind--particularly if it happens to be a feminine mind--which devotes itself to superst.i.tion; and these gentle ladies, while they stood in no terror of Blue Dave as a runaway negro simply, were certainly awed by the spectral figure which had grown up out of common report. The house negroes stood in mortal dread of Blue Dave, and their dismay was not without its effect upon Mrs. Kendrick and her daughter. Jenny, the house-girl, refused to sleep at the quarters; and when Aunt Tabby, the cook, started for her cabin after dark, she was accompanied by a number of little negroes bearing lightwood torches. All the stories and legends that cl.u.s.tered around Blue Dave's career were brought to the surface again; and, as we have seen, the great majority of them were anything but rea.s.suring.

II.

WHILE the commotion in the settlement and on the Kendrick Place was at its height, an incident occurred that had a tendency to relieve Kitty Kendrick's mind. Shortly after the funeral the spring rains had set in, and for several days great floods came down from the skies. One evening shortly after dark, Kitty Kendrick stepped out upon the veranda, in an aimless sort of way, to look at the clouds. The rain had ceased, but the warm earth was reeking with moisture. The trees and the ground were smoking with fog, and great banks of vapour were whirling across the sky from the south-west. Kitty sighed. After a while George Denham would go rattling by in his buggy from his law office in Rockyille to his plantation, and it was too dark to catch a glimpse of him. At any rate, she would do the best she could. She would put the curtains of the sitting-room back, so the light could shine out, and perhaps George would stop to warm his hands and say a word to her mother. Kitty turned to go in when she heard her name called--

"Miss Kitty!"

"Well, what is it?" Kitty was startled a little in spite of herself.

"Please, ma'am, don't be skeer'd."

"Why should I be frightened? What do you want?"

"Miss Kitty, I des come by fer ter tell you dat Murder Creek done come way out er its banks, en ef Mars. George Denham come by w'en he gwine on home, I wish you please, ma'am, be so good ez ter tell 'im dat dey ain't no fordin'-place fer ter be foun' dar dis night."

The voice was that of a negro, and there was something in the tone of it that arrested Kitty Kendrick's attention.

"Who sent you?" she asked.

"n.o.body ain't sont me; I des come by myse'f. I laid off fer ter tell Mars. George, but I year talk he mighty headstrong, en I speck he des laugh at me."

"Are you one of our hands?"

"No, 'm; I don't b'long on de Kendrick Place."

"Come out of the shadow there where I can see you."

"I mos' fear'd, Miss Kitty."

"What is your name?"

"Dey calls me Blue Dave, ma'am."

The tone of the voice was something more than humble. There was an appeal in it for mercy. Kitty Kendrick recognised this; but in spite of it she could scarcely resist an impulse to rush into the house, lock the door, and take steps to rouse the whole plantation. By a great effort she did resist it, and the negro went on:--