The Haunted Homestead Part 28

The day of execution approached. Valentine divided his time between preparation for death, interviews with his family and friends, and the composition of an address that he wished to deliver upon the scaffold.

This address embodied a great portion of Valentine's life--experiences, as they are already known to the reader. When it was finished in ma.n.u.script, it was submitted to the perusal of the attendant clergymen.

Some among them warmly approved the address, and declared it to be the most eloquent appeal they had ever met. Others reserved their opinion for the time, and afterward a.s.serted that it was the most powerful sermon that they had ever seen or heard.

The day before the execution came. And now I must inform you that it is to "Sister Dely" I am indebted for the report of the scenes that occurred in her presence in the condemned cell that day. Dely had obtained leave from her mistress, Mrs. Hewitt, to go to the prison, to take leave of her Valentine.

It was about ten o'clock, on Thursday, the 23d of December, when she reached the city. All the town was preparing for Christmas. When she entered the condemned cell, she found no one there except the two prisoners. There were two cot bedsteads at opposite sides of the cell, and one small iron stove against the wall, between the beds, and directly opposite the door by which she entered.

On her right hand, as she came in, sat Governor upon his cot, watching, with lazy interest, the employment of his fellow-prisoner, which, in sooth, was strange enough for one of his position.

Valentine was standing at the little table, and engaged in ironing out a cravat, while on the cot near him lay spread out a shirt just ironed, a satin vest, newly pressed, and a full suit of black broadcloth, well brushed.

And Dely knew at a glance that the poor fellow, true to his habits of neatness to the last, was preparing to present a proper appearance upon the scaffold.

"Was there no one to do that for you, Valentine?" said Dely, after her first greeting.

"No, child, there was not. Mother and poor Fannie are in too much trouble to think of such a thing."

"I would have done it for you, Valentine."

"No matter, child; it is done now," said the young man, laying the folded cravat upon the cot, and then turning around and sitting down by the side of Dely.

"I wish, Delia, that you would try to open the eyes of Governor to the realities of his position. Poor fellow! he is fully persuaded that to-morrow, instead of being executed, we shall be set at liberty."

Delia turned her eyes in wonder toward Governor, who sat upon the side of his cot, smiling and shaking his head in the most incredulous manner.

Delia shrank from the task that Valentine would have imposed upon her, and only said:

"We will pray for him, Brother Valentine. Governor, won't you kneel down with us, and pray for yourself?"

Governor said that, as praying could not do anybody any harm, he reckoned he would, to please Dely, though he did not see the use of it.

They all knelt, and this humble handmaid of the Lord, who was peculiarly gifted in prayer, offered up a fervent pet.i.tion in behalf of the prisoners, and especially for Governor.

They had just risen from their knees, when the door of the cell was opened, and the jailer entered, accompanied by another official, who nodded to the inmates, and then, beckoning to Valentine, requested him to step forward.

Valentine obeyed, and the man, drawing a measuring-line from his pocket, told him to stand up straight. Valentine drew himself up with as much composure as ever he had shown when, in his earlier days, he was getting himself fitted for a Sunday suit of clothes. The operator proceeded to measure his subject across the shoulders. And when this was done, he stopped, drew a paper and pencil from his pocket, and, leaning on Valentine's late ironing table, put down some figures. Then he took the line again, and carefully measured him from the crown of his head to the heels of his shoes, and made a second note.

Then telling Valentine that he was done with him, he beckoned to Governor, who had been looking on with open-mouthed amazement, and who now came forward, and braced himself up with the utmost alacrity and cheerfulness. Indeed, he was smiling from ear to ear, as he exclaimed, triumphantly:

"Tell you all so! We ain't had no winter clothes guv us yet, and dey's done sent de tailor to fit us!"

The operator with the line, on hearing this, dropped his measure, and, with emotions divided between astonishment and compa.s.sion, gazed at the poor wretch, who remained smiling in delight. No one else spoke, and, after a moment, the official picked up his line and resumed his work.

"Wen'll de clothes be ready for me?" inquired Governor, with great interest.

"I am not taking your size for clothes," answered the operator, gravely.

"No! What den?" inquired Governor, in astonishment, but without the least suspicion of the truth.

"Don't you know?"

"No! I doesn't! What is it?"

"Well, you know, at least, that you are to die to-morrow. And I am measuring you for your coffin."

Governor made no reply, neither did the smile pa.s.s at once from his face. He no longer refused to believe in his approaching fate, but the idea was very slow in penetrating his brain.

The carpenter, having now completed his errand, left the cell in company with the turnkey. Governor went and resumed his seat upon the side of his cot, and remained perfectly silent, only not as cheerful as he had been, and occasionally putting up his hand and rubbing his head, and seeming to ponder. At last he said, dubiously, however:

"Brother Walley, honey, I'se beginnin' to be 'fraid, arter all, dat dey tends for to hang us, sure 'nough! Dey wouldn't carry de nonsense dis far 'out dey did, would dey? 'Sides which, dey wouldn't go to de 'xpense o' coffins, would dey?"

"No, Governor," said Valentine, going over and sitting down beside him, and taking his hand and continuing: "Governor, by this hour to-morrow you and I will be over all our earthly troubles."

Slowly, slowly the truth was making its way to Governor's consciousness.

His face clouded over, but he seemed to grow more stupid every instant.

To all Valentine's speeches he answered never one word, not seeming to hear or to understand them.

Dely could not bear this. Bursting into tears, she went and dropped upon her knees before Governor, and took his two hands in hers, and wept over them, and begged and prayed him, for his soul's sake, to listen to her words. Governor was only a recent acquaintance; he was not, as Valentine was, an old friend; yet it almost broke her gentle heart to see him thus--so stolid, so unconscious, so insensible.

They were interrupted again, this time by a clergyman and one other gentleman, a member of the church.

Dely was now obliged to return home. She took an affectionate leave of Valentine and of Governor, telling them that she should pray for them constantly, and that she should be on her knees, praying for them, in their last hour of trial.

The minister found Valentine well prepared to meet his doom. But when he turned his attention to the other condemned man, he found, to his dismay, that he could not make the slightest impression upon Governor.

The unhappy creature no longer doubted what his doom would be; but, as I said before, the truth very slowly entered his mind; and, alas! as it entered it seemed to press him down, and down, into deeper and more hopeless apathy, until at last he sat there silent, senseless, crushed.

They could not pray with him; they could only pray for him.

The next day, Christmas Eve, dawned brightly for almost all the world--darkly enough for the condemned.

An early hour of the morning had been appointed for the farewell interview between the prisoners and their families. Such partings are always distressing beyond conception, and I shrink from the pain of saying much about them.

Governor had but few friends, his fellow-slaves, who came over very early in the morning to take leave of him, and who, finding him so apathetic, went away comforted, with the belief "that Governor did not seem to mind it."

His miserable wife came alone, to drop weeping at his feet, and implore his dying forgiveness for the part she had had in bringing him to this awful pa.s.s.

Governor, partially aroused from his torpor, awoke sufficiently to put his arm around her shoulders, and say:

"Don't cry, chile; I doesn't bear you no malice. You couldn't help it, chile, no more 'an I could; things was too much for us bofe. Don't cry; I loves you same as ever."

This gentleness almost broke the penitent woman's heart, and she went away weeping bitterly, wringing her hands and wishing most sincerely it were possible for her, the most guilty one, to die in her husband's stead. After this visit Governor sank into a still deeper stupor of despair, from which nothing had power to arouse him.

Directly after this followed the last interview between Valentine and his little family.

Phaedra and Fannie came in, accompanied by old Elisha, who carried little Coralie in his arms. I cannot describe the anguish of this parting.

Phaedra perhaps bore it best of all, with a strange hopeless fort.i.tude that reminded one of Governor's stolidity, only saying that though life was sorrowful even at its happiest, it was, thank Heaven! short at its longest; and that she should not be many days behind her son.

But Fannie was wild with sorrow, and utterly inconsolable. When the moment of final separation arrived, she fainted, and was borne from the cell, as one dead, in the arms of the old preacher. Phaedra followed, leading little Coralie.

The execution was to be a public one. And the authorities published a card in the daily papers, formally inviting the masters of the city and the surrounding country to give their slaves a holiday upon this day, to enable the latter to attend the execution of Valentine and Governor. And as the morning advanced toward noon so numerous was the mult.i.tude of negroes that gathered in from all parts of the country, and so great was the excitement that prevailed among them, that the powers saw the mistake they had made by issuing this general invitation, and felt great alarm as to the result.