XVIII. DRED…

XVIII. DRED

Harry spent the night at the place of Mr. John Gordon, and arose the next morning in a very discontented mood of mind. Nothing is more vexatious to an active and enterprising person than to be thrown into a state of entire idleness; and Harry, after lounging about for a short time in the morning, found his indignation increased by every moment of enforced absence from the scene of his daily labors and interest. Having always enjoyed substantially the privileges of a freeman in the ability to regulate his time according to his own ideas, to come and go, to buy and sell, and transact business unfettered by any felt control, he was the more keenly alive to the degradation implied in his present position.

"Here I must skulk around," said he to himself, "like a partridge in the bushes, allowing everything to run at loose ends, preparing the way for my being found fault with for a lazy fellow by and by; and all for what? Because my younger brother chooses to come, without right or reason, to domineer over me, to insult my wife; and because the laws will protect him in it, if he does it! Ah! ah! that's it. They are all leagued together! No matter how right I am--no matter how bad he is! Everybody will stand up for him, and put me down; all because my grandmother was born in Africa, and his grandmother was born in America. Confound it all, I won't stand it! Who knows what he'll be saying and doing to Lisette while I am gone? I'll go back and face him, like a man! I'll keep straight about my business, and, if he crosses me, let him take care! He hasn't got but one life, any more than I have. Let him look out!"

And Harry jumped upon his horse, and turned his head homeward. He struck into a circuitous path, which led along that immense belt of swampy land to which the name of Dismal has been given. As he was riding along, immersed in thought, the clatter of horses' feet was heard in front of him. A sudden turn of the road brought him directly facing to Tom Gordon and Mr. Jekyl, who had risen early and started off on horseback, in order to reach a certain stage depot before the heat of the day. There was a momentary pause on both sides; when Tom Gordon, like one who knows his power, and is determined to use it to the utmost, broke out, scornfully:--

"Stop, you d----d nigger, and tell your master where you are going!"

"You are not my master!" said Harry, in words whose concentrated calmness conveyed more bitterness and wrath than could have been given by the most violent outburst.

"You d----d whelp!" said Tom Gordon, striking him across the face twice with his whip, "take that, and that! We'll see if I'm not your master! There, now, help yourself, won't you? Isn't that a master's mark?"

It had been the life-long habit of Harry's position to repress every emotion of anger within himself. But, at this moment, his face wore a deadly and frightful expression. Still, there was something majestic and almost commanding in the attitude with which he reined back his horse, and slowly lifted his hand to Heaven. He tried to speak, but his voice was choked with repressed passion. At last he said:--

"You may be sure, Mr. Gordon, this mark will never be forgotten!"

There are moments of high excitement, when all that is in a human being seems to be roused, and to concentrate itself in the eye and the voice. And, in such moments, any man, apparently by virtue of his mere humanity, by the mere awfulness of the human soul that is in him, gains power to overawe those who in other hours scorn him. There was a minute's pause, in which neither spoke; and Mr. Jekyl, who was a man of peace, took occasion to touch Tom's elbow, and say:--

"It seems to me this isn't worth while--we shall miss the stage." And, as Harry had already turned his horse and was riding away, Tom Gordon turned his, shouting after him, with a scornful laugh:--

"I called on your wife before I came away this morning, and I liked her rather better the second time than I did the first!"

This last taunt flew like a Parthian arrow backward, and struck into the soul of the bondman with even a keener power than the degrading blow. The sting of it seemed to rankle more bitterly as he rode along, till at last he dropped the reins on his horse's neck, and burst into a transport of bitter cursing.

"Aha! aha! it has come nigh thee, has it? It toucheth thee, and thou faintest!" said a deep voice from the swampy thicket beside him.

Harry stopped his horse and his imprecations. There was a crackling in the swamp, and a movement among the copse of briers; and at last the speaker emerged, and stood before Harry. He was a tall black man, of magnificent stature and proportions. His skin was intensely black, and polished like marble. A loose shirt of red flannel, which opened very wide at the breast, gave a display of a neck and chest of herculean strength. The sleeves of the shirt, rolled up nearly to the shoulders, showed the muscles of a gladiator. The head, which rose with an imperial air from the broad shoulders, was large and massive, and developed with equal force both in the reflective and perceptive department. The perceptive organs jutted like dark ridges over the eyes, while that part of the head which phrenologists attribute to the moral and intellectual sentiments, rose like an ample dome above them. The large eyes had that peculiar and solemn effect of unfathomable blackness and darkness which is often a striking characteristic of the African eye. But there burned in them, like tongues of flame in a black pool of naphtha, a subtle and restless fire that betokened habitual excitement to the verge of insanity. If any organs were predominant in the head, they were those of ideality, wonder, veneration, and firmness; and the whole combination was such as might have formed one of the wild old warrior prophets of the heroic ages. He wore a fantastic sort of turban, apparently of an old scarlet shawl, which added to the outlandish effect of his appearance. His nether garments, of coarse negro-cloth, were girded round the waist by a strip of scarlet flannel, in which was thrust a bowie-knife and hatchet. Over one shoulder he carried a rifle, and a shot-pouch was suspended to his belt. A rude game-bag hung upon his arm. Wild and startling as the apparition might have been, it appeared to be no stranger to Harry; for, after the first movement of surprise, he said, in a tone of familiar recognition, in which there was blended somewhat of awe and respect:--

"Oh, it is you, then, Dred! I didn't know that you were hearing me!"

"Have I not heard?" said the speaker, raising his arm, and his eyes gleaming with wild excitement. "How long wilt thou halt between two opinions? Did not Moses refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter? How long wilt thou cast in thy lot with the oppressors of Israel, who say unto thee, 'Bow down that we may walk over thee'? Shall not the Red Sea be divided? 'Yea,' saith the Lord, 'it shall.'"

"Dred! I know what you mean!" said Harry, trembling with excitement.

"Yea, thou dost!" said the figure. "Yea, thou dost! Hast thou not eaten the fat and drunk the sweet with the oppressor, and hid thine eyes from the oppression of thy people? Have not our wives been for a prey, and thou hast not regarded? Hath not our cheek been given to the smiter? Have we not been counted as sheep for the slaughter? But thou saidst, 'Lo! I knew it not,' and didst hide thine eyes! Therefore, the curse of Meroz is upon thee, saith the Lord. And thou shalt bow down to the oppressor, and his rod shall be upon thee; and thy wife shall be for a prey!"

"Don't talk in that way!--don't!" said Harry, striking out his hands with a frantic gesture, as if to push back the words. "You are raising the very devil in me!"

"Look here, Harry," said the other, dropping from the high tone he at first used to that of common conversation, and speaking in bitter irony, "did your master strike you? It's sweet to kiss the rod, isn't it? Bend your neck and ask to be struck again!--won't you? Be meek and lowly! that's the religion for you! You are a slave, and you wear broadcloth, and sleep soft. By and by he will give you a fip to buy salve for those cuts! Don't fret about your wife! Women always like the master better than the slave! Why shouldn't they? When a man licks his master's foot, his wife scorns him,--serves him right. Take it meekly, my boy! 'Servants, obey your masters.' Take your master's old coats--take your wife when he's done with her--and bless God that brought you under the light of the Gospel! Go! you are a slave! But as for me," he said, drawing up his head, and throwing back his shoulders with a deep inspiration, "I am a free man! Free by this," holding out his rifle. "Free by the Lord of hosts, that numbereth the stars, and calleth them forth by their names. Go home--that's all I have to say to you! You sleep in a curtained bed.--I sleep on the ground, in the swamps! You eat the fat of the land. I have what the ravens bring me! But no man whips me!--no man touches my wife!--no man says to me, 'Why do ye so?' Go! you are a slave!--I am free!" And, with one athletic bound, he sprang into the thicket, and was gone.

The effect of this address on the already excited mind of the bondman may be better conceived than described. He ground his teeth, and clenched his hands.

"Stop!" he cried; "Dred, I will--I will--I'll do as you tell me--I will not be a slave!"

A scornful laugh was the only reply, and the sound of crackling footsteps retreated rapidly. He who retreated struck up, in a clear, loud voice, one of those peculiar melodies in which vigor and spirit are blended with a wild inexpressible mournfulness. The voice was one of a singular and indescribable quality of tone; it was heavy as the sub-bass of an organ, and of a velvety softness, and yet it seemed to pierce the air with a keen dividing force which is generally characteristic of voices of much less volume. The words were the commencement of a wild camp-meeting hymn, much in vogue in those parts:--

"Brethren, don't you hear the sound? The martial trumpet now is blowing; Men in order listing round, And soldiers to the standard flowing."

There was a wild, exultant fulness of liberty that rolled in the note; and, to Harry's excited ear, there seemed in it a fierce challenge of contempt to his imbecility, and his soul at that moment seemed to be rent asunder with a pang such as only those can know who have felt what it is to be a slave. There was an uprising within him, vague, tumultuous, overpowering; dim instincts, heroic aspirations; the will to do, the soul to dare; and then, in a moment, there followed the picture of all society leagued against him, the hopeless impossibility of any outlet to what was burning within him. The waters of a nature naturally rally noble, pent up, and without outlet, rolled back upon his heart with a suffocating force: and, in his hasty anguish, he cursed the day of his birth. The spasm of his emotion was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Milly coming along the path.

"Why, bless you, Milly," said Harry in sudden surprise, "where are you going?"

"Oh, bless you, honey, chile. I's gwine on to take de stage. Dey wanted to get up de wagon for me; but, bless you, says I, what you s'pose de Lord gin us legs for? I never wants no critturs to tug me round, when I can walk myself. And, den, honey, it's so pleasant like, to be a walking along in de bush here, in de morning; 'pears like de voice of de Lord is walking among de trees. But, bless you, chile, honey, what's de matter o' yer face?"

"It's Tom Gordon, d--n him!" said Harry.

'Don't talk dat ar way, chile!' said Milly; using the freedom with Harry which her years and weight of character had gradually secured for her among the members of the plantation.

"I will talk that way! Why shouldn't I? I am not going to be good any longer."

"Why, 'twon't help de matter to be bad, will it, Harry? 'Cause you hate Tom Gordon, does you want to act just like him?"

"No!" said Harry, "I won't be like him, but I'll have my revenge! Old Dred has been talking to me again, this morning. He always did stir me up so that I could hardly live; and I won't stand it any longer!"

"Chile," said Milly, "you take care! Keep clear on him! He's in de wilderness of Sinai; he is with de blackness, and darkness, and tempest. He han't come to de heavenly Jerusalem. Oh! Oh! honey! dere's a blood of sprinkling dat speaketh better things dan dat of Abel. Jerusalem above is free--is free, honey; so, don't you mind, now, what happens in dis yer time."

"Ah, ah, Aunt Milly! this may do well enough for old women like you; but, stand opposite to a young fellow like me, with good strong arms, and a pair of doubled fists, and a body and soul just as full of light as they can be; it don't answer to go to telling about a heavenly Jerusalem! We want something here. We'll have it too! How do you know there is any heaven, anyhow?"

"Know it?" said Milly, her eye kindling, and striking her staff on the ground. "Know it? I knows it by de hankering arter it I got in here;" giving her broad chest a blow which made it resound like a barrel. "De Lord knowed what he was 'bout when he made us. When he made babies rooting round, with der poor little mouths open, he made milk, and de mammies for 'em too. Chile, we's nothing but great babies, but an't got our eyes opened--rooting round and round; but de Father'll feed us yet--he will so."

"He's a long time about it," said Harry, sullenly.

"Well, chile, an't it a long time 'fore your corn sprouts--a long time 'fore it gets into de ears?--but you plants for all dat. What's dat to me what I is here?--Shan't I reign with de Lord Jesus?"

"I don't know," said Harry.

"Well, honey, I does! Jest so sure as I's standing on dis yer ground. I knows in a few years I shall be reigning with de Lord Jesus, and a casting my crown at his feet. Dat's what I knows. Flesh and blood didn't reveal it unto me, but de Spirit of de Father. It's no odds to me what I does here; every road leads straight to glory, and de glory an't got no end to it!" And Milly uplifted her voice in a favorite stave--

"When we've been dere ten thousand years, Bright shining like de sun, We've no less days to sing God's praise Than when we first begun."

"Chile," said she to him, solemnly, "I an't a fool. Does ye s'pose dat I thinks folks has any business to be sitting on der cheers all der life long, and working me, and living on my money? Why, I knows dey han't! An't it all wrong, from fust to last, de way dey makes merchandise o' us! Why, I know it is; but I's still about it, for de Lord's sake. I don't work for Miss Loo; I works for de Lord Jesus; and he is good pay--no mistake, now I tell you."

"Well," said Harry, a little shaken, but not convinced, "after all, there isn't much use in trying to do any other way. But you're lucky in feeling so, Aunt Milly; but I can't."

"Well, chile, any way, don't you do nothing rash, and don't you hear him. Dat ar way out is through seas of blood. Why, chile, would you turn against Miss Nina? Chile, if they get a going, they won't spare nobody. Don't you start up dat ar tiger; 'cause, I tell ye, ye can't chain him, if ye do!"

"Yes," said Harry, "I see it's all madness, perfect madness; there's no use thinking, no use talking. Well, good-morning, Aunt Milly. Peace go with you!" And the young man started his horse, and was soon out of sight.

XIX. THE CONSPIRATORS

We owe our readers now some words of explanation respecting the new personage who has been introduced into our history; therefore we must go back somewhat, and allude to certain historical events of painful significance.

It has been a problem to many, how the system of slavery in America should unite the two apparent inconsistencies of a code of slave-laws more severe than that of any other civilized nation, with an average practice at least as indulgent as any other; for, bad as slavery is at the best, it may yet be admitted that the practice, as a whole, has been less cruel in this country than in many. An examination into history will show us that the cruelty of the laws resulted from the effects of indulgent practice. During the first years of importation of slaves into South Carolina, they enjoyed many privileges. Those who lived in intelligent families, and had any desire to learn, were instructed in reading and writing. Liberty was given them to meet in assemblies of worship, in class-meetings, and otherwise, without the presence of white witnesses; and many were raised to situations of trust and consequence. The result of this was the development of a good degree of intelligence and manliness among the slaves. There arose among them grave, thoughtful, energetic men, with their ears and eyes open, and their minds constantly awake to compare and reason.

When minds come into this state, in a government professing to be founded on principles of universal equality, it follows that almost every public speech, document, or newspaper, becomes an incendiary publication.

Of this fact the southern slave states have ever exhibited the most singular unconsciousness. Documents containing sentiments most dangerous for slaves to hear have been publicly read and applauded among them. The slave has heard, amid shouts, on the Fourth of July, that his masters held the truth to be self-evident that all men were born equal, and had an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that all governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed. Even the mottoes of newspapers have embodied sentiments of the most insurrectionary character.

Such inscriptions as "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God" stand, to this day, in large letters, at the head of southern newspapers; while speeches of senators and public men, in which the principles of universal democracy are asserted, are constant matters of discussion. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to induce the servant, who feels that he is a man, to draw those lines which seem so obvious to masters, by whom this fact has been forgotten. Accordingly we find that when the discussions for the admission of Missouri as a slave state produced a wave whose waters undulated in every part of the Union, there were found among the slaves men of unusual thought and vigor, who were no inattentive witnesses and listeners. The discussions were printed in the newspapers; and what was printed in the newspapers was further discussed at the post-office door, in the tavern, in the bar-room, at the dinner-party, where black servants were listening behind the chairs. A free colored man in the city of Charleston, named Denmark Vesey, was the one who had the hardihood to seek to use the electric fluid in the cloud thus accumulated. He conceived the hopeless project of imitating the example set by the American race, and achieving independence for the blacks.

Our knowledge of this man is derived entirely from the printed reports of the magistrates who gave an account of the insurrection, of which he was the instigator, and who will not, of course, be supposed to be unduly prejudiced in his favor. They state that he was first brought to the country by one Captain Vesey, a young lad, distinguished for personal beauty and great intelligence, and that he proved, for twenty years, a most faithful slave; but, on drawing a prize of fifteen hundred dollars in the lottery, he purchased his freedom of his master, and worked as a carpenter in the city of Charleston. He was distinguished for strength and activity, and, as the accounts state, maintained such an irreproachable character, and enjoyed so much the confidence of the whites, that when he was accused, the charge was not only discredited, but he was not even arrested for several days after, and not till the proof of his guilt had become too strong to be doubted. His historians go on, with considerable naïveté, to remark:--

"It is difficult to conceive what motive he had to enter into such a plot, unless it was the one mentioned by one of the witnesses, who said that Vesey had several children who were slaves, and that he said, on one occasion, he wished he could see them free, as he himself artfully remarked in his defence on his trial."

It appears that the project of rousing and animating the blacks to this enterprise occupied the mind of Vesey for more than four years, during which time he was continually taking opportunities to animate and inspire the spirits of his countrymen. The account states that the speeches in Congress of those opposed to the admission of Missouri into the Union, perhaps garbled and misrepresented, furnished him with ample means for inflaming the minds of the colored population.

"Even while walking in the street," the account goes on to say, "he was not idle; for, if his companion bowed to a white person, as slaves universally do, he would rebuke him, and observe, 'that all men were born equal, and that he was surprised that any one would degrade himself by such conduct; that he would never cringe to the whites nor ought any one to, who had the feelings of a man.'[1] When answered, 'We are slaves,' he would say, sarcastically and indignantly, 'You deserve to remain slaves!' And, if he were further asked, 'What can we do?' he would remark, 'Go and buy a spelling-book, and read the fable of "Hercules and the Wagoner."' He also sought every opportunity of entering into conversation with white persons, during which conversation he would artfully introduce some bold remark on slavery; and sometimes, when, from the character he was conversing with, he found he might be still bolder, he would go so far that, had not his declarations been clearly proved, they would scarcely have been credited."

But his great instrument of influence was a book that has always been prolific of insurrectionary movements, under all systems of despotism.

"He rendered himself perfectly familiar with all those parts of Scripture which he thought he could pervert to his purpose, and would readily quote them to prove that slavery was contrary to the laws of God, and that slaves were bound to attempt their emancipation, however shocking and bloody might be the consequences; that such efforts would not only be pleasing to the Almighty, but were absolutely enjoined."

Vesey, in the course of time, associated with himself five slavemen of marked character--Rolla, Ned, Peter, Monday, and Gullah Jack. Of these, the account goes on to say:--

"In the selection of his leaders, Vesey showed great penetration and sound judgment. Rolla was plausible, and possessed uncommon self-possession; bold and ardent, he was not to be deterred from his purpose by danger. Ned's appearance indicated that he was a man of firm nerves and desperate courage. Peter was intrepid and resolute, true to his engagements, and cautious in observing secrecy where it was necessary; he was not to be daunted nor impeded by difficulties, and, though confident of success, was careful in providing against any obstacles or casualties which might arise, and intent upon discovering every means which might be in their power, if thought of beforehand. Gullah Jack was regarded as a sorcerer, and, as such, feared by the natives of Africa, who believed in witchcraft. He was not only considered invulnerable, but that he could make others so by his charms, and that he could, and certainly would, provide all his followers with arms. He was artful, cruel, bloody; his disposition, in short, was diabolical. His influence among the Africans was inconceivable. Monday was firm, resolute, discreet, and intelligent."

"It is a melancholy truth that the general good conduct of all the leaders, except Gullah Jack, was such as rendered them objects least liable to suspicion. Their conduct had secured them, not only the unlimited confidence of their owners, but they had been indulged in every comfort, and allowed every privilege compatible with their situation in the community; and, though Gullah Jack was not remarkable for the correctness of his deportment, he by no means sustained a bad character. But," adds the report, "not only were the leaders of good character, and very much indulged by their owners, but this was very generally the case with all who were convicted, many of them possessing the highest confidence of their owners, and not one a bad character."

"The conduct and behavior of Vesey and his five leaders during their trial and imprisonment may be interesting to many. When Vesey was tried, he folded his arms, and seemed to pay great attention to the testimony given against him, but with his eyes fixed on the floor. In this situation he remained immovable until the witnesses had been examined by the court, and cross-examined by his counsel, when he requested to be allowed to examine the witnesses himself, which he did. The evidence being closed, he addressed the court at considerable length. When he received his sentence, tears trickled down his cheeks.

"Rolla, when arraigned, affected not to understand the charge against him; and when, at his request, it was explained to him, assumed, with wonderful adroitness, astonishment and surprise. He was remarkable throughout his trial for composure and great presence of mind. When he was informed that he was convicted, and was advised to prepare for death, he appeared perfectly confounded, but exhibited no signs of fear.

"In Ned's behavior there was nothing remarkable. His countenance was stern and immovable, even while he was receiving sentence of death. From his looks it was impossible to discover or conjecture what were his feelings. Not so with Peter Poyes. In his countenance were strongly marked disappointed ambition, revenge, indignation, and an anxiety to know how far the discoveries had extended. He did not appear to fear personal consequences, for his whole behavior indicated the reverse, but exhibited an evident anxiety for the success of their plan, in which his whole soul was embarked. His countenance and behavior were the same when he received his sentence, and his only words were, on retiring, 'I suppose you'll let me see my wife and family before I die,' and that in no supplicating tone. When he was asked, a day or two after, 'If it was possible that he could see his master and family murdered, who had treated him so kindly?' he replied to the question only by a smile. In their prison, the convicts resolutely refused to make any confessions or communications which might implicate others; and Peter Poyes sternly enjoined it upon them to maintain this silence,--'Do not open your lips; die silent, as you will see me do!' and in this resolute silence they met their fate. Twenty-two of the conspirators were executed upon one gallows."

The account says, "That Peter Poyes was one of the most active of the recruiting agents. All the principal conspirators kept a list of those who had consented to join them, and Peter was said, by one of the witnesses, to have had six hundred names on his list; but, so resolutely to the last did he observe his pledge of secrecy to his associates, that, of the whole number arrested and tried, not one of them belonged to his company. In fact, in an insurrection in which thousands of persons were supposed to have been implicated, only thirty-six were convicted."

Among the children of Denmark Vesey was a boy by a Mandingo slave-woman, who was his father's particular favorite. The Mandingos are one of the finest of African tribes, distinguished for intelligence, beauty of form, and an indomitable pride and energy of nature. As slaves, they are considered particularly valuable by those who have tact enough to govern them, because of their great capability and their proud faithfulness; but they resent a government of brute force, and under such are always fractious and dangerous.

This boy received from his mother the name of Dred; a name not unusual among the slaves, and generally given to those of great physical force.

The development of this child's mind was so uncommon as to excite astonishment among the negroes. He early acquired the power of reading, by an apparent instinctive faculty, and would often astonish those around him with things which he had discovered in books. Like other children of a deep and fervent nature, he developed great religious ardor, and often surprised the older negroes by his questions and replies on this subject. A son so endowed could not but be an object of great pride and interest to a father like Denmark Vesey. The impression seemed to prevail universally among the negroes that this child was born for extraordinary things; and perhaps it was the yearning to acquire liberty for the development of such a mind which first led Denmark Vesey to reflect on the nature of slavery, and the terrible weights which it lays on the human intellect, and to conceive the project of liberating a race.

The Bible, of which Vesey was an incessant reader, stimulated this desire. He likened his own position of comparative education, competence, and general esteem among the whites, to that of Moses among the Egyptians; and nourished the idea that, like Moses, he was sent as a deliverer. During the process of the conspiracy, this son, though but ten years of age, was his father's confidant; and he often charged him, though he should fail in the attempt, never to be discouraged. He impressed it upon his mind that he should never submit tamely to the yoke of slavery; and nourished the idea already impressed, that some more than ordinary destiny was reserved for him. After the discovery of the plot, and the execution of its leaders, those more immediately connected with them were sold from the state, even though not proved to have participated. With the most guarded caution, Vesey had exempted this son from suspicion. It had been an agreed policy with them both, that in the presence of others they should counterfeit alienation and dislike. Their confidential meetings with each other had been stolen and secret. At the time of his father's execution, Dred was a lad of fourteen. He could not be admitted to his father's prison, but he was a witness of the undaunted aspect with which he and the other conspirators met their doom. The memory dropped into the depths of his soul, as a stone drops into the desolate depths of a dark mountain lake.

Sold to a distant plantation, he became noted for his desperate, unsubduable disposition. He joined in none of the social recreations and amusements of the slaves, labored with proud and silent assiduity, but, on the slightest rebuke or threat, flashed up with a savage fierceness, which, supported by his immense bodily strength, made him an object of dread among overseers. He was one of those of whom they gladly rid themselves; and, like a fractious horse, was sold from master to master. Finally, an overseer, hardier than the rest, determined on the task of subduing him. In the scuffle that ensued Dred struck him to the earth, a dead man, made his escape to the swamps, and was never afterwards heard of in civilized life.

The reader who consults the map will discover that the whole eastern shore of the southern states, with slight interruptions, is belted by an immense chain of swamps, regions of hopeless disorder, where the abundant growth and vegetation of nature, sucking up its forces from the humid soil, seems to rejoice in a savage exuberance, and bid defiance to all human efforts either to penetrate or subdue. These wild regions are the homes of the alligator, the moccasin, and the rattle-snake. Evergreen trees, mingling freely with the deciduous children of the forest, form here dense jungles, verdant all the year round, and which afford shelter to numberless birds, with whose warbling the leafy desolation perpetually resounds. Climbing vines, and parasitic plants, of untold splendor and boundless exuberance of growth, twine and interlace, and hang from the heights of the highest trees pennons of gold and purple,--triumphant banners, which attest the solitary majesty of nature. A species of parasitic moss wreaths its abundant draperies from tree to tree, and hangs in pearly festoons, through which shine the scarlet berry and green leaves of the American holly.

What the mountains of Switzerland were to the persecuted Vaudois, this swampy belt has been to the American slave. The constant effort to recover from thence fugitives has led to the adoption, in these states, of a separate profession, unknown at this time in any other Christian land--hunters, who train and keep dogs for the hunting of men, women, and children. And yet, with all the convenience of this profession, the reclaiming of the fugitives from these fastnesses of nature has been a work of such expense and difficulty, that the near proximity of the swamp has always been a considerable check on the otherwise absolute power of the overseer. Dred carried with him to the swamp but one solitary companion--the Bible of his father. To him it was not the messenger of peace and good-will, but the herald of woe and wrath!

As the mind, looking on the great volume of nature, sees there a reflection of its own internal passions, and seizes on that in it which sympathizes with itself,--as the fierce and savage soul delights in the roar of torrents, the thunder of avalanches, and the whirl of ocean-storms,--so is it in the great answering volume of revelation. There is something there for every phase of man's nature; and hence its endless vitality and stimulating force. Dred had heard read in the secret meetings of conspirators the wrathful denunciations of ancient prophets against oppression and injustice. He had read of kingdoms convulsed by plagues; of tempest, and pestilence, and locusts; of the sea cleft in twain, that an army of slaves might pass through, and of their pursuers whelmed in the returning waters. He had heard of prophets and deliverers, armed with supernatural powers, raised up for oppressed people; had pondered on the nail of Jael, the goad of Shamgar, the pitcher and lamp of Gideon; and thrilled with fierce joy as he read how Samson, with his two strong arms, pulled down the pillars of the festive temple, and whelmed his triumphant persecutors in one grave with himself.

In the vast solitudes which he daily traversed, these things entered deep into his soul. Cut off from all human companionship, often going weeks without seeing a human face, there was no recurrence of every-day and prosaic ideas to check the current of the enthusiasm thus kindled. Even in the soil of the cool Saxon heart the Bible has thrown out its roots with an all-pervading energy, so that the whole frame-work of society may be said to rest on soil held together by its fibres. Even in cold and misty England, armies have been made defiant and invincible by the incomparable force and deliberate valor which it breathes into men. But, when this oriental seed, an exotic among us, is planted back in the fiery soil of a tropical heart, it bursts forth with an incalculable ardor of growth.

A stranger cannot fail to remark the fact that, though the slaves of the south are unable to read the Bible for themselves, yet most completely have its language and sentiment penetrated among them, giving a Hebraistic coloring to their habitual mode of expression. How much greater, then, must have been the force of the solitary perusal of this volume on so impassioned a nature!--a nature, too, kindled by memories of the self-sacrificing ardor with which a father and his associates had met death at the call of freedom; for, none of us may deny that, wild and hopeless as this scheme was, it was still the same in kind with the more successful one which purchased for our fathers a national existence.

A mind of the most passionate energy and vehemence, thus awakened, for years made the wild solitudes of the swamp its home. That book, so full of startling symbols and vague images, had for him no interpreter but the silent courses of nature. His life passed in a kind of dream. Sometimes, traversing for weeks these desolate regions, he would compare himself to Elijah traversing for forty days and nights the solitudes of Horeb; or to John the Baptist in the wilderness, girding himself with camel's hair, and eating locusts and wild honey. Sometimes he would fast and pray for days; and then voices would seem to speak to him, and strange hieroglyphics would be written upon the leaves. In less elevated moods of mind, he would pursue, with great judgment and vigor, those enterprises necessary to preserve existence. The negroes lying out in the swamps are not so wholly cut off from society as might at first be imagined. The slaves of all the adjoining plantations, whatever they may pretend, to secure the good-will of their owners, are at heart secretly disposed, from motives both of compassion and policy, to favor the fugitives. They very readily perceive that, in the event of any difficulty occurring to themselves, it might be quite necessary to have a friend and protector in the swamp; and therefore they do not hesitate to supply these fugitives, so far as they are able, with anything which they may desire. The poor whites, also, who keep small shops in the neighborhood of plantations, are never particularly scrupulous, provided they can turn a penny to their own advantage; and willingly supply necessary wares in exchange for game, with which the swamp abounds.

Dred, therefore, came in possession of an excellent rifle, and never wanted for ammunition, which supplied him with an abundance of food. Besides this, there are here and there elevated spots in the swampy land, which, by judicious culture, are capable of great productiveness. And many such spots Dred had brought under cultivation, either with his own hands, or from those of other fugitives, whom he had received and protected. From the restlessness of his nature, he had not confined himself to any particular region, but had traversed the whole swampy belt of both the Carolinas, as well as that of Southern Virginia; residing a few months in one place, and a few months in another. Wherever he stopped, he formed a sort of retreat, where he received and harbored fugitives. On one occasion, he rescued a trembling and bleeding mulatto woman from the dogs of the hunters, who had pursued her into the swamp. This woman he made his wife, and appeared to entertain a very deep affection for her. He made a retreat for her, with more than common ingenuity, in the swamp adjoining the Gordon plantation; and, after that, he was more especially known in that locality. He had fixed his eye upon Harry, as a person whose ability, address, and strength of character, might make him at some day a leader in a conspiracy against the whites. Harry, in common with many of the slaves on the Gordon plantation, knew perfectly well of the presence of Dred in the neighborhood, and had often seen and conversed with him. But neither he nor any of the rest of them ever betrayed before any white person the slightest knowledge of the fact.

This ability of profound secrecy is one of the invariable attendants of a life of slavery. Harry was acute enough to know that his position was by no means so secure that he could afford to dispense with anything which might prove an assistance in some future emergency. The low white traders in the neighborhood also knew Dred well; but, as long as they could drive an advantageous trade with him, he was secure from their intervention. So secure had he been, that he had been even known to mingle in the motley throng of a camp-meeting unmolested. Thus much with regard to one who is to appear often on the stage before our history is done.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] These extracts are taken from the official report.Return to passage

XX. SUMMER TALK AT CANEMA

In the course of a few days the family circle at Canema was enlarged by the arrival of Clayton's sister; and Carson, in excellent spirits, had started for a Northern watering-place. In answer to Nina's letter of invitation, Anne had come with her father, who was called to that vicinity by the duties of his profession. Nina received her with her usual gay frankness of manner; and Anne, like many others, soon found herself liking her future sister much better than she had expected. Perhaps, had Nina been in any other situation than that of hostess, her pride might have led her to decline making the agreeable to Anne, whom, notwithstanding, she very much wished to please. But she was mistress of the mansion, and had an Arab's idea of the privileges of a guest; and so she chatted, sang, and played for her; she took her about, showed her the walks, the arbors, the flower-garden; waited on her in her own apartment, with a thousand little attentions, all the more fascinating from the kind of careless independence with which they were rendered. Besides, Nina had vowed a wicked little vow in her heart that she would ride rough-shod over Anne's dignity; that she wouldn't let her be grave or sensible, but that she should laugh and frolic with her. And Clayton could scarce help smiling at the success that soon crowned her exertions. Nina's gayety, when in full tide, had a breezy infectiousness in it, that seemed to stir up every one about her and carry them on the tide of her own spirits; and Anne, in her company, soon found herself laughing at everything and nothing, simply because she felt gay.

To crown all, Uncle John Gordon arrived, with his cheery, jovial face; and he was one of those fearless, hit-or-miss talkers, that are invaluable in social dilemmas, because they keep something or other all the while in motion.

With him came Madam Gordon, or, as Nina commonly called her, Aunt Maria. She was a portly, finely-formed, middle-aged woman, who might have been handsome, had not the lines of care and nervous anxiety ploughed themselves so deeply in her face. Her bright, keen, hazel eyes, fine teeth, and the breadth of her ample form, attested the vitality of the old Virginia stock from whence she sprung.

"There," said Nina, to Anne Clayton, as they sat in the shady side of the veranda, "I've marshalled Aunt Maria up into Aunt Nesbit's room, and there they will have a comfortable dish of lamentation over me."

"Over you?" said Anne.

"Yes--over me, to be sure!--that's the usual order of exercises. Such a setting down as I shall get! They'll count up on their fingers all the things I ought to know and don't, and ought to do and can't. I believe that's the way relatives always show their affection--aunts in particular--by mourning over you."

"And what sort of a list will they make out?" said Anne.

"Oh, bless me, that's easy enough. Why, there's Aunt Maria is a perfectly virulent housekeeper--really insane, I believe, on that subject. Why, she chases up every rat and mouse and cockroach, every particle of dust, every scrap of litter. She divides her hours, and is as punctual as a clock. She rules her household with a rod of iron, and makes everybody stand round; and tells each one how many times a day they may wink. She keeps accounts like a very dragon, and always is sure to pounce on anybody that is in the least out of the way. She cuts out clothes by the bale; she sews, and she knits, and she jingles keys. And all this kind of bustle she calls housekeeping! Now, what do you suppose she must think of me, who just put on my hat in the morning, and go sailing down the walks, looking at the flowers, till Aunt Katy calls me back, to know what my orders are for the day?"

"Pray, who is Aunt Katy?" said Anne.

"Oh, she is my female prime minister; and she is very much like some prime ministers I have studied about in history, who always contrive to have their own way, let what will come. Now, when Aunt Katy comes and wants to know, so respectfully, 'What Miss Nina is going to have for dinner,' do you suppose she has the least expectation of getting anything that I order? She always has fifty objections to anything that I propose. For sometimes the fit comes over me to try to be house-keepy, like Aunt Maria; but it's no go, I can tell you. So, when she has proved that everything that I propose is the height of absurdity, and shown conclusively that there's nothing fit to be eaten in the neighborhood, by that time I am reduced to a proper state of mind. And, when I humbly say, 'Aunt Katy, what shall we do?' then she gives a little cough, and out comes the whole programme, just as she had arranged it the night before. And so it goes. As to accounts, why Harry has to look after them. I detest everything about money, except the spending of it--I have rather a talent for that. Now, just think how awfully all this must impress poor Aunt Maria! What sighings, and rollings up of eyes, and shakings of heads, there are over me! And, then, Aunt Nesbit is always dinging at me about improving my mind! And improving my mind means reading some horrid, stupid, boring old book, just as she does! Now, I like the idea of improving my mind. I am sure it wants improving, bad enough; but, then, I can't help thinking that racing through the garden, and cantering through the woods, improves it faster than getting asleep over books. It seems to me that books are just like dry hay--very good when there isn't any fresh grass to be had. But I'd rather be out and eat what's growing. Now, what people call nature never bores me; but almost every book I ever saw does. Don't you think people are made differently? Some like books, and some like things; don't you think so?"

"I can give you a good fact on your side of the argument," said Clayton, who had come up behind them during the conversation.

"I didn't know I was arguing; but I shall be glad to have anything on my side," said Nina, "of course."

"Well, then," said Clayton, "I'll say that the books that have influenced the world the longest, the widest, and deepest, have been written by men who attended to things more than to books; who, as you say, eat what was growing, instead of dry hay. Homer couldn't have had much to read in his time, nor the poets of the Bible; and they have been fountains for all ages. I don't believe Shakespeare was much of a reader."

"Well, but," said Anne, "don't you think that, for us common folks, who are not going to be either Homers or Shakespeares, that it's best to have two strings to our bow, and to gain instruction both from books and things?"

"To be sure," said Clayton, "if we only use books aright. With many people, reading is only a form of mental indolence, by which they escape the labor of thinking for themselves. Some persons are like Pharaoh's lean kine; they swallow book upon book, but remain as lean as ever."

"My grandfather used to say," said Anne, "that the Bible and Shakespeare were enough for a woman's library."

"Well," said Nina, "I don't like Shakespeare, there! I'm coming out flat with it. In the first place, I don't understand half he says; and, then, they talk about his being so very natural! I'm sure I never heard people talk as he makes them. Now, did you ever hear people talk in blank verse, with every now and then one or two lines of rhyme, as his characters do when they go off in long speeches? Now, did you?"

"As to that," said Clayton, "it's about half and half. His conversations have just about the same resemblance to real life that acting at the opera has. It is not natural for Norma to burst into a song when she discovers the treachery of her husband. You make that concession to the nature of the opera, in the first place; and then, with that reserve, all the rest strikes you as natural, and the music gives an added charm to it. So in Shakespeare, you concede that the plays are to be poems, and that the people are to talk in rhythm, and with all the exaltation of poetic sentiment; and, that being admitted, their conversations may seem natural."

"But I can't understand a great deal that Shakespeare says," said Nina.

"Because so many words and usages are altered since he wrote," said Clayton. "Because there are so many allusions to incidents that have passed, and customs that have perished, that you have, as it were, to acquire his language before you can understand him. Suppose a poem were written in a foreign tongue; you couldn't say whether you liked it or disliked it till you could read the language. Now, my opinion is, that there is a liking for Shakespeare hidden in your nature, like a seed that has not sprouted."

"What makes you think so?"

"Oh, I see it in you, just as a sculptor sees a statue in a block of marble."

"And are you going to chisel it out?" said Nina.

"With your leave," said Clayton. "After all, I like your sincerity in saying what you do think. I have often heard ladies profess an admiration for Shakespeare that I knew couldn't be real. I knew that they had neither the experience of life, nor the insight into human nature, really to appreciate what is in him; and that their liking for him was all a worked-up affair, because they felt it would be very shocking not to like him."

"Well," said Nina, "I'm much obliged to you for all the sense you find in my nonsense. I believe I shall keep you to translate my fooleries into good English."

"You know I'm quite at your disposal," said Clayton, "for that or anything else."

At this moment the attention of Nina was attracted by loud exclamations from that side of the house where the negro cottages were situated.

"Get along off! don't want none o' yo old trash here! No, no, Miss Nina don't want none o' yo old fish! She's got plenty of niggers to ketch her own fish."

"Somebody taking my name in vain in those regions," said Nina, running to the other end of the veranda. "Tomtit," she said to that young worthy, who lay flat on his back, kicking up his heels in the sun, waiting for his knives to clean themselves, "pray tell me what's going on there!"

"Laws, missis," said Tom, "it's just one of dese yer poor white trash, coming round here trying to sell one thing o' nother. Miss Loo says it won't do 'courage 'em, and I's de same 'pinion."

"Send him round here to me," said Nina, who, partly from humanity, and partly from a spirit of contradiction, had determined to take up for the poor white folks, on all occasions. Tomtit ran accordingly, and soon brought to the veranda a man whose wretchedly tattered clothing scarcely formed a decent covering. His cheeks were sunken and hollow, and he stood before Nina with a cringing, half-ashamed attitude; and yet one might see that, with better dress and better keeping, he might be made to assume the appearance of a handsome, intelligent man. "What do you ask for your fish?" she said to him.

"Anything ye pleases!"

"Where do you live?" said Nina, drawing out her purse.

"My folks's staying on Mr. Gordon's place."

"Why don't you get a place of your own to stay on?" said Nina.

There was an impatient glance flashed from the man's eye, but it gave place immediately to his habitual cowed expression, as he said,--

"Can't get work--can't get money--can't get nothing."

"Dear me," said her Uncle John, who had been standing for a moment listening to the conversation. "This must be husband of that poor hobgoblin that has lighted down on my place lately. Well, you may as well pay him a good price for his fish. Keep them from starving one day longer, may be." And Nina paid the man a liberal sum, and dismissed him.

"I suppose, now, all my eloquence wouldn't make Rose cook those fish for dinner," said Nina.

"Why not, if you told her to?" said Aunt Maria, who had also descended to the veranda.

"Why not?--Just because, as she would say, she hadn't laid out to do it."

"That's not the way my servants are taught to do!" said Aunt Maria.

"I'll warrant not," said Nina. "But yours and mine are quite different affairs, aunt. They all do as they have a mind to, in my 'diggings.' All I stipulated for is a little of the same privilege."

"That man's wife and children have come and 'squatted' down on my place," said Mr. Gordon, laughing; "and so, Nin, all you paid for his fish is just so much saving to me."

"Yes, to be sure! Mr. Gordon is just one of those men that will have a tribe of shiftless hangers on at his heels!" said Mrs. Gordon.

"Well, bless my soul! what's a fellow to do? Can't see the poor heathen starve, can we? If society could only be organized over, now, there would be hope for them. The brain ought to control the hands; but among us the hands try to set up for themselves;--and see what comes of it!"

"Who do you mean by brain?" said Nina.

"Who?--Why, we upper crust, to be sure! We educated people! We ought to have an absolute sway over the working classes, just as the brain rules the hand. It must come to that, at last--no other arrangement is possible. The white working classes can't take care of themselves, and must be put into a condition for us to take care of them. What is liberty to them?--Only a name--liberty to be hungry and naked, that's all. It's the strangest thing in the world, how people stick to names! I suppose that fellow, up there, would flare up terribly at being put in with my niggers; and yet he and his children are glad of the crumbs that fall from their table! It's astonishing to me how, with such examples before them, any decent man can be so stone blind as to run a tilt against slavery. Just compare the free working classes with our slaves! Dear me! the blindness of people in this world! It's too much for my patience, particularly in hot weather!" said Mr. John, wiping his face with a white pocket-handkerchief.

"Well, but, Uncle John," said Nina, "my dear old gentleman, you haven't travelled, as I have."

"No, child! I thank the Lord I never stepped my foot out of a slave state, and I never mean to," said Uncle John.

"But you ought to see the northern working people," said Nina. "Why, the Governors of the States are farmers, sometimes, and work with their own men. The brain and the hand go together, in each one--not one great brain to fifty pair of hands. And, I tell you, work is done up there very differently from what's done here! Just look at our ploughs and our hoes!--the most ridiculous things that I ever saw. I should think one of them would weigh ten pounds!"

"Well, if you don't have 'em heavy enough to go into the ground by their own weight, these cussed lazy nigs won't do anything with them. They'd break a dozen Yankee hoes in a forenoon," said Uncle John.

"Now," said Nina, "Uncle John, you dear old heathen, you! do let me tell you a little how it is there. I went up into New Hampshire, once, with Livy Ray, to spend a vacation. Livy's father is a farmer; works part of every day with his own men; hoes, digs, plants; but he is Governor of the State. He has a splendid farm--all in first-rate order; and his sons, with two or three hired men, keep it in better condition than our places ever saw. Mr. Ray is a man who reads a great deal; has a fine library, and he's as much of a gentleman as you'll often see. There are no high and low classes there. Everybody works; and everybody seems to have a good time. Livy's mother has a beautiful dairy, spring house, and two strong women to help her; and everything in the house looks beautifully; and, for the greater part of the day, the house seems so neat and still, you wouldn't know anything had been done in it. Seems to me this is better than making slaves of all the working classes, or having any working classes at all."

"How wise young ladies always are!" said Uncle John. "Undoubtedly the millennium is begun in New Hampshire! But, pray, my dear, what part do young ladies take in all this? Seems to me, Nin, you haven't picked up much of this improvement in person."

"Oh, as to that, I labor in my vocation," said Nina; "that is, of enlightening dull, sleepy old gentlemen, who never travelled out of the state they were born in, and don't know what can be done. I come as a missionary to them; I'm sure that's work enough for one."

"Well," said Aunt Maria, "I know I am as great a slave as any of the poor whites, or negroes either. There isn't a soul in my whole troop that pretends to take any care, except me, either about themselves or their children, or anything else."

"I hope that isn't a slant at me!" said Uncle John, shrugging his shoulders.

"I must say you are as bad as any of them," said Aunt Maria.

"There it goes!--now, I'm getting it!" said Uncle John. "I declare, the next time we get a preacher out here, I'm going to make him hold forth on the duties of wives!"

"And husbands, too!" said Aunt Maria.

"Do," said Nina; "I should like a little prospective information."

Nina, as often, spoke before she thought. Uncle John gave a malicious look at Clayton. Nina could not recall the words. She colored deeply, and went on hastily to change the subject.

"At any rate, I know that aunt, here, has a much harder time than housekeepers do in the free states. Just the shoes she wears out chasing up her negroes would hire help enough to do all her work. They used to have an idea up there, that all the southern ladies did was to lie on the sofa. I used to tell them it was as much as they knew about it."

"Your cares don't seem to have worn you much!" said Uncle John.

"Well, they will, Uncle John, if you don't behave better. It's enough to break anybody down to keep you in order."

"I wish," said Uncle John, shrugging up his shoulders, and looking quizzically at Clayton, "somebody would take warning!"

"For my part," said Aunt Maria, "I know one thing: I'd be glad to get rid of my negroes. Sometimes I think life is such a burden that I don't think it's worth having."

"Oh, no, you don't, mother!" said Uncle John; "not with such a charming husband as you've got, who relieves you from all care so perfectly!"

"I declare," said Nina, looking along the avenue, "what's that? Why, if there isn't old Tiff, coming along with his children!"

"Who is he?" said Aunt Maria.

"Oh, he belongs to one of these miserable families," said Aunt Nesbit, "that have squatted in the pine-woods somewhere about here--a poor, worthless set! but Nina has a great idea of patronizing them."

"Clear Gordon, every inch of her!" said Aunt Maria, as Nina ran down to meet Tiff. "Just like her uncle!"

"Come, now, old lady, I'll tell of you, if you don't take care!" said Mr. Gordon. "Didn't I find you putting up a basket of provisions for those folks you scolded me so for taking in?"

"Scold, Mr. Gordon? I never scold!"

"I beg pardon--that you reproved me for!"

Ladies generally are not displeased for being reproached for their charities; and Aunt Maria, whose bark, to use a vulgar proverb, was infinitely worse than her bite, sat fanning herself, with an air of self-complacency. Meanwhile, Nina had run down the avenue, and was busy in a confidential communication with Tiff. On her return, she came skipping up the steps, apparently in high glee.

"Oh, Uncle John! there's the greatest fun getting up! You must all go, certainly! What do you think? Tiff says there's to be a camp-meeting in the neighborhood, only about five miles off from his place. Let's make up a party, and all go!"

"That's the time of day!" said Uncle John. "I enrol myself under your banner, at once. I am open to improvement! Anybody wants to convert me, here I am!"

"The trouble with you, Uncle John," said Nina, "is that you don't stay converted. You are just like one of these heavy fishes--you bite very sharp, but, before anybody can get you fairly on to the bank, you are flapping and floundering back into the water, and down you go into your sins again. I know at least three ministers who thought they had hooked you out; but they were mistaken."

"For my part," said Aunt Maria, "I think these camp-meetings do more harm than good. They collect all the scum and the riff-raff of the community, and I believe there's more drinking done at camp-meetings in one week than is done in six anywhere else. Then, of course, all the hands will want to be off; and Mr. Gordon has brought them up so that they feel dreadfully abused if they are not in with everything that's going on. I shall set down my foot, this year, that they shan't go any day except Sunday."

"My wife knows that she was always celebrated for having the handsomest foot in the country, and so she is always setting it down at me!" said Mr. Gordon; "for she knows that a pretty foot is irresistible with me."

"Mr. Gordon, how can you talk so? I should think that you'd got old enough not to make such silly speeches!" said Aunt Maria.

"Silly speeches! It's a solemn fact, and you won't hear anything truer at the camp-meeting!" said Uncle John. "But come, Clayton, will you go? My dear fellow, your grave face will be an appropriate ornament to the scene, I can assure you; and, as to Miss Anne, it won't do for an old fellow like me, in this presence, to say what a happiness it would be."

"I suspect," said Anne, "Edward is afraid he may be called on for some of the services. People are always taking him for a clergyman, and asking him to say grace at meals, and to conduct family prayers, when he is travelling among strangers."

"It's a comment on our religion, that these should be thought peculiar offices of clergymen," said Clayton. "Every Christian man ought to be ready and willing to take them."

"I honor that sentiment!" said Uncle John. "A man ought not so be ashamed of his religion anywhere, no more than a soldier of his colors. I believe there's more religion hid in the hearts of honest laymen, now, than is plastered up behind the white cravats of clergymen; and they ought to come out with it. Not that I have any disrespect for the clergy, either," said Uncle John. "Fine men--a little stiffish, and don't call things by good English names. Always talking about dispensation, and sanctification, and edification, and so forth; but I like them. They are sincere. I suppose they wouldn't any of them give me a chance for heaven, because I rip out with an oath, every now and then. But, the fact is, what with niggers, and overseers, and white trash, my chances of salvation are dreadfully limited. I can't help swearing, now and then, if I was to die for it. They say it's dreadfully wicked; but I feel more Christian when I let out than when I keep in!"

"Mr. Gordon," said Aunt Maria, reprovingly, "do consider what you're saying!"

"My dear, I am considering. I am considering all the time! I never do anything else but consider--except, as I said before, every now and then, when what-'s-his-name gets the advantage over me. And, hark you, Mrs. G., let 's have things ready at our house, if any of the clergy would like to spend a week or so with us; and we could get them up some meetings, or any little thing in their line. I always like to show respect for them."

"Our beds are always prepared for company, Mr. Gordon," said Aunt Maria, with a stately air.

"Oh, yes, yes, I don't doubt that! I only meant some special preparation--some little fatted-calf killing, and so on."

"Now," said Nina, "shall we set off to-morrow morning?"

"Agreed!" said Uncle John.

XXI. TIFF'S PREPARATIONS

The announcement of the expected camp-meeting produced a vast sensation at Canema, in other circles beside the hall. In the servants' department, everybody was full of the matter, from Aunt Katy down to Tomtit. The women were thinking over their available finery; for these gatherings furnish the negroes with the same opportunity of display that Grace Church does to the Broadway belles. And so, before Old Tiff, who had brought the first intelligence to the plantation, had time to depart, Tomtit had trumpeted the news through all the cluster of negro-houses that skirted the right side of the mansion, proclaiming that "dere was gwine to be a camp-meeting, and tip-top work of grace, and Miss Nina was going to let all de niggers go." Old Tiff, therefore, found himself in a prominent position in a group of negro-women, among whom Rose, the cook, was conspicuous.

"Law, Tiff, ye gwine? and gwine to take your chil'en? ha! ha! ha!" said she. "Why, Miss Fanny, dey'll tink Tiff's yer mammy! Ho! ho! ho!"

"Yah! yah! Ho! ho! ho!" roared in a chorus of laughter on all sides, doing honor to Aunt Rosy's wit; and Tomtit, who hung upon the skirts of the crowd, threw up the fragment of a hat in the air, and kicked it in an abandon of joy, regardless of the neglected dinner-knives. Old Tiff, mindful of dignities, never failed to propitiate Rose, on his advents to the plantation, with the gift which the "wise man saith maketh friends;" and, on the present occasion he had enriched her own peculiar stock of domestic fowl by the present of a pair of young partridge-chicks, a nest of which he had just captured, intending to bring them up by hand, as he did his children. By this discreet course, Tiff stood high where it was of most vital consequence that he should so stand; and many a choice morsel did Rose cook for him in secret, besides imparting to him most invaluable recipes on the culture and raising of sucking babies. Old Hundred, like many other persons, felt that general attention lavished on any other celebrity was so much taken from his own merits, and, therefore, on the present occasion, sat regarding Tiff's evident popularity with a cynical eye. At last, coming up, like a wicked fellow as he was, he launched his javelin at Old Tiff, by observing to his wife,--

"I's 'stonished at you, Rose! You, cook to de Gordons, and making youself so cheap--so familiar with de poor white folks' niggers!"

Had the slant fallen upon himself, personally, Old Tiff would probably have given a jolly crow, and laughed as heartily as he generally did if he happened to be caught out in a rain-storm; but the reflection on his family connection fired him up like a torch, and his eyes flashed through his big spectacles like firelight through windows.

"You go 'long, talking 'bout what you don' know nothing 'bout! I like to know what you knows 'bout de old Virginny fam'lies? Dem's de real old stock! You Car'lina folks come from dem, stick and stock, every blest one of you! De Gordons is a nice family--an't nothing to say agin de Gordons--but whar was you raised, dat ye didn't hear 'bout de Peytons? Why, old Gen'al Peyton, didn't he use to ride with six black horses afore him, as if he'd been a king? Dere wan't one of dem horses dat hadn't a tail as long as my arm. You never see no such critters in your life!"

"I han't, han't I?" said Old Hundred, now, in his turn, touched in a vital point. "Bless me, if I han't seen de Gordons riding out with der eight horses, any time o' day!"

"Come, come, now, dere wasn't so many!" said Rose, who had her own reasons for staying on Tiff's side. "Nobody never rode with eight horses!"

"Did too! You say much more, I'll make sixteen on 'em! 'Fore my blessed master, how dese yer old niggers will lie! Dey's always zaggerating der families. Makes de very har rise on my head, to hear dese yer old niggers talk, dey lie so!" said Old Hundred.

"You tink folks dat take to lying is using up your business, don't ye?" said Tiff. "But, I tell you, any one dat says a word agin de Peytons got me to set in with!"

"Laws, dem chil'en an't Peytons!" said Old Hundred; "dey's Crippses; and I like to know who ever hearn of de Crippses? Go way! don't tell me nothing about dem Crippses! Dey's poor white folks! A body may see dat sticking out all over 'em!"

"You shut up!" said Tiff. "I don't b'lieve you was born on de Gordon place, 'cause you an't got no manners. I spects you some old, second-hand nigger, Colonel Gordon must a took for debt, some time, from some of dese yer mean Tennessee families, dat don' know how to keep der money when dey gets it. Der niggers is allers de meanest kind. 'Cause all de real Gordon niggers is ladies and gen'lemen--every one of 'em!" said Old Tiff, like a true orator, bent on carrying his audience along with him.

A general shout chorused this compliment; and Tiff, under cover of the applause, shook up his reins, and rode off in triumph.

"Dar, now, you aggravating old nigger," said Rose, turning to her bosom lord, "I hope yer got it now! De plaguest old nigger dat ever I see! And you, Tom, go 'long and clean your knives, if yer don't mean to be cracked over!"

Meanwhile Tiff, restored to his usual tranquillity, ambled along homeward behind his one-eyed horse, singing "I'm bound for the land of Canaan," with some surprising variations.

At last Miss Fanny, as he constantly called her, interposed with a very pregnant question.

"Uncle Tiff, where is the land of Canaan?"

"De Lord-a-mercy, chile, dat ar's what I'd like to know myself."

"Is it heaven?" said Fanny.

"Well, I reckon so," said Tiff, dubiously.

"Is it where ma is gone?" said Fanny.

"Chile, I reckon it is," said Tiff.

"Is it down under ground?" said Fanny.

"Why, no! ho! ho! honey!" said Tiff, laughing heartily. "What put dat ar in your head, Miss Fanny?"

"Didn't ma go that way?" said Fanny, "down through the ground?"

"Lordy, no, chile! Heaven's up!" said Tiff, pointing up to the intense blue sky which appeared through the fringy hollows of the pine-trees above them.

"Is there any stairs anywhere? or any ladder to get up by?" said Fanny. "Or do they walk to where the sky touches the ground, and get up? Perhaps they climb up on the rainbow."

"I don' know, chile, how dey works it," said Uncle Tiff. "Dey gets dar somehow. I's studdin' upon dat ar. I's gwine to camp-meeting to find out. I's been to plenty of dem ar, and I never could quite see clar. 'Pears like dey talks about everything else more'n dey does about dat. Dere's de Methodists, dey cuts up de Presbyter'ans; and de Presbyter'ans pitches into de Methodists; and den both on 'em's down on de 'Piscopals. My ole mist' was 'Piscopal, and I never seed no harm in't. And de Baptists think dey an't none on 'em right; and, while dey's all a blowing out at each other, dat ar way, I's a wondering whar's de way to Canaan. It takes a mighty heap o' larning to know about dese yer things, and I an't got no larning. I don' know nothing, only de Lord, he 'peared to your ma, and he knows de way, and he took her. But, now, chile, I's gwine to fix you up right smart, and take you, Teddy, and de baby, to dis yer camp-meeting, so you can seek de Lord in yer youth."

"Tiff, if you please, I'd rather not go!" said Fanny, in an apprehensive tone.

"Oh, bress de Lord, Miss Fanny, why not? Fust-rate times dere."

"There'll be too many people. I don't want them to see us."

The fact was, that Rose's slant speech about Tiff's maternal relationship, united with the sneers of Old Hundred, had their effect upon Fanny's mind. Naturally proud, and fearful of ridicule, she shrank from the public display which would thus be made of their family condition; yet she would not for the world have betrayed to her kind old friend the real reason of her hesitation. But Old Tiff's keen eye had noticed the expression of the child's countenance at the time. If anybody supposes that the faithful old creature's heart was at all wounded by the perception, they are greatly mistaken.

To Tiff it appeared a joke of the very richest quality; and, as he rode along in silence for some time, he indulged himself in one of his quiet, long laughs, actually shaking his old sides till the tears streamed down his cheeks.

"What's the matter with you, Tiff?" said Fanny.

"Oh, Miss Fanny, Tiff knows!--Tiff knows de reason ye don't want to go to camp-meeting. Tiff's seen it in yer face--ye ho! ho! ho! Miss Fanny, is you 'fraid dey'll take Old Tiff for yer mammy?--ye ho! ho! ho!--for yer mammy?--and Teddy's, and de baby's?--bless his little soul!" And the amphibious old creature rollicked over the idea with infinite merriment. "Don't I look like it, Miss Fanny? Lord, ye por dear lamb, can't folks see ye's a born lady, with yer white, little hands? Don't ye be 'feared, Miss Fanny!"

"I know it's silly," said Fanny; "but, beside, I don't like to be called poor white folksy!"

"Oh, chile, it's only dem mean niggers! Miss Nina's allers good to ye, an't she? Speaks to ye so handsome. Ye must memorize dat ar, Miss Fanny, and talk like Miss Nina. I's feared, now yer ma's dead, ye'll fall into some o' my nigger ways of talking. 'Member you mustn't talk like Old Tiff, 'cause young ladies and gen'lemen mustn't talk like niggers. Now, I says 'dis and dat, dis yer and dat ar.' Dat ar is nigger talk, and por white folksy, too. Only de por white folks, dey's mis'able, 'cause niggers knows what's good talk, but dey doesn't. Lord, chile, Old Tiff knows what good talk is. An't he heard de greatest ladies and gen'lemen in de land talk? But he don't want de trouble to talk dat ar way, 'cause he's a nigger! Tiff likes his own talk--it's good enough for Tiff. Tiff's talk sarves him mighty well, I tell yer. But, den, white children mustn't talk so. Now, you see, Miss Nina has got de prettiest way of saying her words. Dey drops out one after another, one after another, so pretty! Now, you mind, 'cause she's coming to see us off and on--she promised so. And den you keep a good lookout how she walks, and how she holds her pocket-handkerchief. And when she sits down she kind o' gives a little flirt to her clothes, so dey all set out round her like ruffles. Dese yer little ways ladies have! Why, dese yer por white folks, did yer ever mind der settin' down? Why, dey jist slaps down into a chair like a spoonful o' mush, and der clothes all stick tight about 'em. I don't want nothing poor white folksy 'bout you. Den, if you don't understand what people's a saying to you, any time, you mustn't star, like por white chil'en, and say, 'what?' but you must say 'I beg pardon, sir,' or, 'I beg pardon, ma'am.' Dat ar's de way. And, Miss Fanny, you and Teddy, you must study yer book; 'cause, if you can't read, den dey'll be sure to say yer por white folks. And, den, Miss Fanny, you see dat ladies don't demean demselves with sweeping and scrubbing, and dem tings; and yet dey does work, honey! Dey sews, and dey knits; and it would be good for you to larn how to sew and knit; 'cause, you know, I can't allers make up all de clothes; 'cause, you see, young ladies haves ways wid 'em dat niggers can't get. Now, you see, Miss Fanny, all dese yer tings I was telling you, you must 'bserve. Now, you see, if you was one of dese yer por white folks, dere be no use of your trying; 'cause dat ar 'scription o' people couldn't never be ladies, if dey was waring themselves out a trying. But, you see, you's got it in you; you was born to it, honey. It's in de blood; and what's in de blood must come out--ho! ho! ho!" And with this final laugh, Tiff drew up to his dwelling.

A busy day was before Old Tiff; for he was to set his house in order for a week's campaign. There was his corn to be hoed, his parsley to be weeded, there was his orphan family of young partridges to be cared for. And Tiff, after some considerable consideration, resolved to take them along with him in a basket; thinking, in the intervals of devotion, he should have an abundant opportunity to minister to their wants, and superintend their education. Then he went to one of his favorite springes, and brought from thence, not a fatted calf, to be sure, but a fatted coon, which he intended to take with him, to serve as the basis of a savory stew on the camp-ground. Tiff had a thriving company of pot-herbs, and a flourishing young colony of onions; so that, whatever might be true of the sermons, it was evident that the stew would lack no savor. Teddy's clothes, also, were to be passed in review; washing and ironing to be done; the baby fitted up to do honor to his name, or rather to the name of his grandfather. With all these cares upon his mind, the old creature was even more than usually alert. The day was warm, and he resolved, therefore, to perform his washing operations in the magnificent kitchen of nature. He accordingly kindled a splendid bonfire, which was soon crackling at a short distance from the house, slung over it his kettle, and proceeded to some other necessary avocations. The pine-wood, which had been imperfectly seasoned, served him the ungracious trick that pine-wood is apt to do; it crackled and roared merrily while he was present, but while he was down examining his traps in the woods went entirely out, leaving only the blackened sticks.

"Uncle Tiff," said Teddy, "the fire is all gone out!"

"Ho! ho! ho!--Has it?" said Tiff, coming up. "Curus enough! Well, bress de Lord, got all de wood left, any way; had a real bright fire, beside," said Tiff, intent on upholding the sunniest side of things. "Lord, it's de sun dat puts de fire out o' countenance. Did you ever see fire dat wouldn't go out when de sun's shining right in it's face? Dat ar is a curus fact. I's minded it heaps o' times. Well, I'll jist have to come out wid my light-wood kindlings, dat's all. Bress de Lord, ho! ho! ho!" said Tiff, laughing to himself, "if dese yer an't the very sp'rit of de camp-meeting professors! Dey blazes away at de camp-meeting, and den dey's black all de year round! See 'em at de camp-meetings, you'd say dey war gwine right into de kingdom, sure enough! Well, Lord have marcy on us all! Our 'ligion's drefful poor stuff! We don' know but a despert leetle, and what we does know we don' do. De good Mas'r above must have his hands full, with us!"

XXII. THE WORSHIPPERS

The camp-meeting is one leading feature in the American development of religion, peculiarly suited to the wide extent of country, and to the primitive habits which generally accompany a sparse population. Undoubtedly its general effects have been salutary. Its evils have been only those incident to any large gatherings, in which the whole population of a country are brought promiscuously together. As in many other large assemblies of worship, there are those who go for all sorts of reasons; some from curiosity, some from love of excitement, some to turn a penny in a small way of trade, some to scoff, and a few to pray. And, so long as the heavenly way remains straight and narrow, so long the sincere and humble worshippers will ever be the minority in all assemblies. We can give no better idea of the difference of motive which impelled the various worshippers, than by taking our readers from scene to scene, on the morning when different attendants of the meeting were making preparations to start.

Between the grounds of Mr. John Gordon and the plantation of Canema stood a log cabin, which was the trading establishment of Abijah Skinflint. The establishment was a nuisance in the eyes of the neighboring planters, from the general apprehension entertained that Abijah drove a brisk underhand trade with the negroes, and that the various articles which he disposed for sale were many of them surreptitiously conveyed to him in nightly instalments from off their own plantations. But of this nothing could be proved.

Abijah was a shrewd fellow, long, dry, lean, leathery, with a sharp nose, sharp, little, gray eyes, a sharp chin, and fingers as long as bird's-claws. His skin was so dry that one would have expected that his cheeks would crackle whenever he smiled, or spoke; and he rolled in them a never-failing quid of tobacco.

Abijah was one of those over-shrewd Yankees, who leave their country for their country's good, and who exhibit, wherever they settle, such a caricature of the thrifty virtue of their native land as to justify the aversion which the native-born Southerner entertains for the Yankee. Abijah drank his own whiskey,--prudently, however,--or, as he said, "never so as not to know what he was about."

He had taken a wife from the daughters of the land; who also drank whiskey, but less prudently than her husband, so that sometimes she did not know what she was about. Sons and daughters were born unto this promising couple, white-headed, forward, dirty, and ill-mannered. But, amid all domestic and social trials, Abijah maintained a constant and steady devotion to the main chance--the acquisition of money. For money he would do anything; for money he would have sold his wife, his children, even his own soul, if he had happened to have one. But that article, had it ever existed, was now so small and dry, that one might have fancied it to rattle in his lean frame like a shrivelled pea in a last year's peascod. Abijah was going to the camp-meeting for two reasons. One, of course, was to make money; and the other was to know whether his favorite preacher, Elder Stringfellow, handled the doctrine of election according to his views; for Abijah had a turn for theology, and could number off the five points of Calvinism on his five long fingers with unfailing accuracy.

It is stated in the Scriptures that the devils believe and tremble. The principal difference between their belief and Abijah's was, that he believed and did not tremble. Truths awful enough to have shaken the earth, and veiled the sun, he could finger over with as much unconcern as a practised anatomist the dry bones of a skeleton.

"You, Sam!" said Abijah to his only negro helot, "you mind, you steady that ar bar'l, so that it don't roll out, and pour a pailful of water in at the bung. It won't do to give it to 'em too strong. Miss Skinflint, you make haste! If you don't, I shan't wait for you; 'cause, whatever the rest may do, it's important I should be on the ground early. Many a dollar lost for not being in time, in this world. Hurry, woman!"

"I am ready, but Polly an't'," said Mrs. Skinflint. "She's busy a plastering down her hair."

"Can't wait for her!" said Abijah, as he sallied out of the house to get into the wagon, which stood before the door, into which he had packed a copious supply of hams, eggs, dressed chickens, corn-meal, and green summer vegetables, to say nothing of the barrel of whiskey aforesaid.

"I say, Dad, you stop!" called Polly, from the window. "If you don't, I'll make work for you 'fore you come home; you see if I don't! Durned if I won't!"

"Come along, then, can't you? Next time we go anywhere, I'll shut you up over night to begin to dress!"

Polly hastily squeezed her fat form into a red calico dress, and, seizing a gay summer shawl, with her bonnet in her hand, rushed to the wagon and mounted, the hooks of her dress successively exploding, and flying off, as she stooped to get in.

"Durned if I knows what to do!" said she; "this yer old durned gear coat's all off my back!"

"Gals is always fools!" said Abijah, consolingly.

"Stick in a pin, Polly," said her mother, in an easy, sing-song drawl.

"Durn you, old woman, every hook is off!" said the promising young lady.

"Stick in more pins, then," said the mamma; and the vehicle of Abijah passed onward.

On the verge of the swamp, a little beyond Tiff's cabin, lived Ben Dakin.

Ben was a mighty hunter; he had the best pack of dogs within thirty miles round; and his advertisements, still to be seen standing in the papers of his native state, detailed with great accuracy the precise terms on which he would hunt down and capture any man, woman, or child, escaping from service and labor in that country. Our readers must not necessarily suppose Ben to have been a monster for all this, when they recollect that, within a few years, both the great political parties of our Union solemnly pledged themselves, as far as in them lay, to accept a similar vocation; and, as many of them were in good and regular standing in churches, and had ministers to preach sermons to the same effect, we trust they'll entertain no unreasonable prejudice against Ben on this account.

In fact, Ben was a tall, broad-shouldered, bluff, hearty-looking fellow, who would do a kind turn for a neighbor with as much good-will as anybody; and, except that he now and then took a little too much whiskey, as he himself admitted, he considered himself quite as promising a candidate for the kingdom as any of the company who were going up to camp-meeting. Had any one ventured to remonstrate with Ben against the nature of his profession, he would probably have defended it by pretty much the same arguments by which modern theologians defend the institution of which it is a branch.

Ben was just one of those jovial fellows who never could bear to be left behind in anything that was going on in the community, and was always one of the foremost in a camp-meeting. He had a big, loud voice, and could roll out the chorus of hymns with astonishing effect. He was generally converted at every gathering of this kind; though, through the melancholy proclivity to whiskey, before alluded to, he usually fell from grace before the year was out. Like many other big and hearty men, he had a little, pale, withered moonshiny wisp of a wife, who hung on his elbow much like an empty work-bag; and Ben, to do him justice, was kind to the wilted little mortal, as if he almost suspected that he had absorbed her vitality into his own exuberant growth. She was greatly given to eating clay, cleaning her teeth with snuff, and singing Methodist hymns, and had a very sincere concern for Ben's salvation. The little woman sat resignedly on the morning we speak of, while a long-limbed, broad-shouldered child, of two years, with bristly white hair, was pulling her by her ears and hair, and otherwise maltreating her, to make her get up to give him a piece of bread and molasses; and she, without seeming to attend to the child, was giving earnest heed to her husband.

"There's a despit press of business now!" said Ben. "There's James's niggers, and Smith's Polly, and we ought to be on the trail, right away!"

"Oh, Ben, you ought to 'tend to your salvation afore anything else!" said his wife.

"That's true enough!" said Ben; "meetings don't come every day. But what are we to do with dis yer'un?" pointing to the door of an inner room.

"Dis yer'un" was no other than a negro-woman, named Nance, who had been brought in by the dogs, the day before.

"Laws!" said his wife, "we can set her something to eat, and leave the dogs in front of the door. She can't get out."

Ben threw open the door, and displayed to view a low kind of hutch, without any other light than that between the crevices of the logs. On the floor, which was of hard-trodden earth, sat a sinewy, lean negro-woman, drawing up her knees with her long arms, and resting her chin upon them.

"Hollo, Nance, how are you?" said Ben, rather cheerily.

"Por'ly, mas'r," said the other, in a sullen tone.

"Nance, you think your old man will whale you, when he gets you?" said Ben.

"I reckons he will," said Nance; "he allers does."

"Well, Nance, the old woman and I want to go to a camp-meeting; and I'll just tell you what it is,--you stay here quiet, while we are gone, and I'll make the old fellow promise not to wallop you. I wouldn't mind taking off something of the price--that's fair, an't it?"

"Yes, mas'r!" said the woman, in the same subdued tone.

"Does your foot hurt you much?" said Ben.

"Yes, mas'r!" said the woman.

"Let me look at it," said Ben.

The woman put out one foot, which had been loosely bound up in old rags, now saturated in blood.

"I declar, if that ar dog an't a pealer!" said Ben. "Nance, you ought ter have stood still; then he wouldn't have hurt you so."

"Lord, he hurt me so I couldn't stand still!" said the woman. "It an't natur to stand still with a critter's teeth in yer foot."

"Well, I don't know as it is," said Ben, good-naturedly. "Here, Miss Dakin, you bind up this here gal's foot. Stop your noise, sir-ee!" he added, to the young aspirant for bread and molasses, who, having despatched one piece, was clamoring vigorously for another.

"I'll tell you what!" said Ben to his wife, "I am going to talk to that ar old Elder Settle. I runs more niggers for him than any man in the county, and I know there's some reason for it. Niggers don't run into swamps when they's treated well. Folks that professes religion, I think, oughtn't to starve their niggers, no way!"

Soon the vehicle of Ben was also on the road. He gathered up the reins vigorously, threw back his head to get the full benefit of his lungs, and commenced a vehement camp-meeting melody, to the tune of

"Am I a soldier of the cross, A follower of the Lamb?"

A hymn, by the by, which was one of Ben's particular favorites.

We come next to Tiff's cottage, of which the inmates were astir, in the coolness of the morning, bright and early. Tiff's wagon was a singular composite article, principally of his own construction. The body of it consisted of a long packing-box. The wheels were all odd ones, that had been brought home at different times by Cripps. The shafts were hickory-poles, thinned at one end, and fastened to the wagon by nails. Some barrel-hoops bent over the top, covered by coarse white cotton cloth, formed the curtains, and a quantity of loose straw dispersed inside was the only seat. The lean, one-eyed horse was secured to this vehicle by a harness made of old ropes; but no millionaire, however, ever enjoyed his luxuriantly-cushioned coach with half the relish with which Tiff enjoyed his equipage. It was the work of his hands, the darling of his heart, the delight of his eyes. To be sure, like other mortal darlings, it was to be admitted that it had its weak points and failings. The wheels would now and then come off, the shafts get loose, or the harness break; but Tiff was always prepared, and, on occasion of any such mishaps, would jump out and attend to them with such cheerful alacrity, that, if anything, he rather seemed to love it better for the accident. There it stands now, before the inclosure of the little cabin; and Tiff, and Fanny, and Teddy, with bustling assiduity, are packing and arranging it. The gum-tree cradle-trough took precedence of all other articles. Tiff, by the private advice of Aunt Rose, had just added to this an improvement, which placed it, in his view, tip-top among cradles. He had nailed to one end of it a long splint of elastic hickory, which drooped just over the baby's face. From this was suspended a morsel of salt pork, which this young scion of a noble race sucked with a considerate relish, while his large, round eyes opened and shut with sleepy satisfaction. This arrangement Rose had recommended, in mysterious tones, as all powerful in making sucking babies forget their mammies, whom otherwise they might pine for in a manner prejudicial to their health.

Although the day was sultry, Tiff was arrayed in his long-skirted white great-coat, as his nether garments were in too dilapidated a state to consist with the honor of the family. His white felt hat still bore the band of black crape.

"It's a 'mazin' good day, bless de Lord!" said Tiff. "'Pears like dese yer birds would split der troats, praising de Lord! It's a mighty good zample to us, any way. You see, Miss Fanny, you never see birds put out, nor snarly like, rain or shine. Dey's allers a praising de Lord. Lord, it seems as if critters is better dan we be!" And, as Tiff spoke, he shouldered into the wagon a mighty bag of corn; but, failing in what he meant to do, the bag slid over the side, and tumbled back into the road. Being somewhat of the oldest, the fall burst it asunder, and the corn rolled into the sand, with that provoking alacrity which things always have when they go the wrong way. Fanny and Teddy both uttered an exclamation of lamentation; but Tiff held on to his sides and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks.

"He! he! he! ho! ho! ho! Why, dat ar is de last bag we's got, and dar's all de corn a running out in de sand! Ho! ho! ho! Lord, it's so curus!"

"Why, what are you going to do?" said Fanny.

"Oh, bress you, Miss Fanny," said Tiff, "I's bound to do something, anyhow. 'Clare for it, now, if I han't got a box!" And Tiff soon returned with the article in question, which proved too large for the wagon. The corn, however, was emptied into it pro tem., and Tiff, producing his darning-needle and thimble, sat down seriously to the task of stitching up the hole.

"De Lord's things an't never in a hurry," said Tiff. "Corn and 'tatoes will have der time, and why shouldn't I? Dar," he said, after having mended the bag and replaced the corn, "dat ar's better now nor 'twas before."

Besides his own store of provisions, Tiff prudently laid into his wagon enough of garden stuff to turn a penny for Miss Fanny and the children, on the camp-ground. His commissariat department, in fact, might have provoked appetite, even among the fastidious. There were dressed chickens and rabbits, the coon aforesaid, bundles of savory herbs, crisp, dewy lettuce, bunches of onions, radishes, and green peas.

"Tell ye what, chil'en," said Tiff, "we'll live like princes! And you mind, order me round well. Let folks har ye; 'cause what's de use of having a nigger, and nobody knowing it?"

And, everything being arranged, Tiff got in, and jogged comfortably along. At the turn of the cross-road, Tiff, looking a little behind, saw, on the other road, the Gordon carriage coming, driven by Old Hundred, arrayed in his very best ruffled shirt, white gloves, and gold hat-band.

If ever Tiff came near having a pang in his heart, it was at that moment; but he retreated stoutly upon the idea that, however appearances might be against them, his family was no less ancient and honorable for that; and, therefore, putting on all his dignity, he gave his beast an extra cut, as who should say, "I don't care."

But, as ill-luck would have it, the horse, at this instant, giving a jerk, wrenched out the nails that fastened the shaft on one side, and it fell, trailing dishonored on the ground. The rope harness pulled all awry, and just at this moment the Gordon carriage swept up.

"'Fore I'd drive sich old trash!" said Old Hundred, scornfully; "pulls all to pieces every step! If dat ar an't a poor white folksy 'stablishment, I never seed one!"

"What's the matter?" said Nina, putting her head out. "Oh, Tiff! good-morning, my good fellow. Can we help you, there? John, get down and help him."

"Please, Miss Nina, de hosses is so full o' tickle, dis yer mornin', I couldn't let go, no ways!" said Old Hundred.

"Oh, laws bless you, Miss Nina," said Tiff, restored to his usual spirits, "'tan't nothin'. Broke in a strordinary good place dis yer time. I ken hammer it up in a minute."

And Tiff was as good as his word; for a round stone and big nail made all straight.

"Pray," said Nina, "how are little Miss Fanny, and the children?"

Miss Fanny! If Nina had heaped Tiff with presents, she could not have conferred the inexpressible obligation conveyed in these words. He bowed low to the ground, with the weight of satisfaction, and answered that "Miss Fanny and the chil'en were well."

"There," said Nina, "John, you may drive on. Do you know, friends, I've set Tiff up for six weeks, by one word? Just saying Miss Fanny has done more for him than if I'd sent him six bushels of potatoes."...

We have yet to take our readers to one more scene before we finish the review of those who were going to the camp-meeting. The reader must follow us far beyond the abodes of man, into the recesses of that wild desolation known as the "Dismal Swamp." We pass over vast tracts where the forest seems growing out of the water. Cypress, red cedar, sweet gum, tulip, poplar, beech, and holly, form a goodly fellowship, waving their rustling boughs above. The trees shoot up in vast columns, fifty, seventy-five, and a hundred feet in height; and below are clusters of evergreen gall-bushes, with their thick and glossy foliage, mingled in with swamp honeysuckles, grape-vines, twining brier, and laurels, and other shrubs, forming an impenetrable thicket. The creeping plants sometimes climb seventy or eighty feet up the largest tree, and hang in heavy festoons from their branches. It would seem impossible that human feet could penetrate the wild, impervious jungle; but we must take our readers through it, to a cleared spot, where trunks of fallen trees, long decayed, have formed an island of vegetable mould, which the art of some human hand has extended and improved. The clearing is some sixty yards long by thirty broad, and is surrounded with a natural rampart, which might well bid defiance to man or beast. Huge trees have been felled, with all their branches lying thickly one over another, in a circuit around; and nature, seconding the efforts of the fugitives who sought refuge here, has interlaced the frame-work thus made with thorny cat-briers, cables of grape-vine, and thickets of Virginia creeper, which, running wild in their exuberance, climb on to the neighboring trees, and, swinging down, again lose themselves in the mazes from which they spring, so as often to form a verdurous wall fifty feet in height. In some places the laurel, with its glossy green leaves, and its masses of pink-tipped snowy blossoms, presents to the eye, rank above rank, a wilderness of beauty. The pendants of the yellow jessamine swing to and fro in the air like censers, casting forth clouds of perfume. A thousand twining vines, with flowers of untold name, perhaps unknown as yet to the botanist, help to fill up the mosaic. The leafy ramparts sweep round on all the sides of the clearing, for the utmost care has been taken to make it impenetrable; and, in that region of heat and moisture, nature, in the course of a few weeks, admirably seconds every human effort. The only egress from it is a winding path cut through with a hatchet, which can be entered by only one person at a time; and the water which surrounds this island entirely cuts off the trail from the scent of dogs. It is to be remarked that the climate, in the interior of the swamp, is far from being unhealthy. Lumber-men, who spend great portions of the year in it, cutting shingles and staves, testify to the general salubrity of the air and water. The opinion prevails among them that the quantity of pine and other resinous trees that grow there impart a balsamic property to the water, and impregnate the air with a healthy resinous fragrance, which causes it to be an exception to the usual rule of the unhealthiness of swampy land. The soil also, when drained sufficiently for purposes of culture, is profusely fertile. Two small cabins stood around the border of the clearing, but the centre was occupied with patches of corn and sweet potatoes, planted there to secure as much as possible the advantage of sun and air.

At the time we take our readers there, the afternoon sun of a sultry June day is casting its long shadows over the place, and a whole choir of birds is echoing in the branches. On the ground, in front of one of the cabins, lies a negro-man, covered with blood; two women, with some little children, are grouped beside him; and a wild figure, whom we at once recognize as Dred, is kneeling by him, busy in efforts to stanch a desperate wound in the neck. In vain! The red blood spurts out at every pulsation of the heart, with a fearful regularity, telling too plainly that it is a great life-artery which has been laid open. The negro-woman, kneeling on the other side, is anxiously holding some bandages, which she has stripped from a portion of her raiment.

"Oh, put these on, quick--do!"

"It's no use," said Dred; "he is going!"

"Oh, do!--don't, don't let him go! Can't you save him?" said the woman, in tones of agony.

The wounded man's eyes opened, and first fixed themselves, with a vacant stare, on the blue sky above; then, turning on the woman, he seemed to try to speak. He had had a strong arm; he tries to raise it, but the blood wells up with the effort, the eye glazes, the large frame shivers for a few moments, and then all is still. The blood stops flowing now, for the heart has stopped beating, and an immortal soul has gone back to Him who gave it.

The man was a fugitive from a neighboring plantation--a simple-hearted, honest fellow, who had fled, with his wife and children, to save her from the licentious persecution of the overseer. Dred had received and sheltered him; had built him a cabin, and protected him for months.

A provision of the Revised Statutes of North Carolina enacts that slaves thus secreted in the swamps, not returning within a given time, shall be considered outlawed; and that "it shall be lawful for any person or persons whatsoever to kill and destroy such slaves, by such ways and means as they shall think fit, without any accusation or impeachment of crime for the same." It also provides that, when any slave shall be killed in consequence of such outlawry, the value of such slave shall be ascertained by a jury, and the owner entitled to receive two thirds of the valuation from the sheriff of the county wherein the slave was killed.

In olden times, the statute provided that the proclamation of outlawry should be published on a Sabbath day, at the door of any church or chapel, or place where divine service should be performed, immediately after divine service, by the parish clerk or reader.

In the spirit of this permission, a party of negro-hunters, with dogs and guns, had chased this man, who, on this day, had unfortunately ventured out of his concealment.

He succeeded in outrunning all but one dog, which sprang up, and, fastening his fangs in his throat, laid him prostrate within a few paces of his retreat. Dred came up in time to kill the dog, but the wound, as appeared, had proved a mortal one.

As soon as the wife perceived that her husband was really dead, she broke into a loud wail.

"Oh, dear, he's gone! and 'twas all for me he did it! Oh, he was so good, such a good man! Oh, do tell me, is he dead, is he?"

Dred lifted the yet warm hand in his a moment, and then dropped it heavily.

"Dead!" he said, in a deep undertone of suppressed emotion. Suddenly kneeling down beside him, he lifted his hands, and broke forth with wild vehemence:--

"O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself! Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud! Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy ways are everlasting--where is thy zeal and thy strength, and the sounding of thy bowels towards us? Are they restrained?" Then, tossing his hands to heaven, with a yet wilder gesture, he almost screamed: "O Lord! O Lord! how long? Oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down! Oh, let the sighings of the prisoner come before thee! Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood! We are given as sheep to the slaughter! We are killed all the day long! O Lord, avenge us of our adversaries!"

These words were spoken with a vehement earnestness of gesture and voice, that hushed the lamentation of the mourners. Rising up from his knees, he stood a moment looking down at the lifeless form before him. "See here," he said, "what harm had this man done? Was he not peaceable? Did he not live here in quietness, tilling the ground in the sweat of his brow? Why have they sent the hunters upon him? Because he wanted to raise his corn for himself, and not for another. Because he wanted his wife for himself, and not for another. Was not the world wide enough? Isn't there room enough under the sky? Because this man wished to eat the fruit of his own labor, the decree went forth against him, even the curse of Cain, so that whosoever findeth him shall kill him. Will not the Lord be avenged on such a people as this? To-night they will hold their solemn assembly, and blow the trumpet in their new moon, and the prophets will prophesy falsely, and the priests will speak wickedly concerning oppression. The word of the Lord saith unto me, 'Go unto this people, and break before them the staff beauty and the staff bands, and be a sign unto this people of the terror of the Lord. Behold, saith the Lord, therefore have I raised thee up and led thee through the wilderness, through the desolate places of the land not sown.'"

As Dred spoke, his great black eye seemed to enlarge itself and roll with a glassy fulness, like that of a sleep-walker in a somnambulic dream. His wife, seeing him prepare to depart, threw herself upon him.

"Oh, don't, don't leave us! You'll be killed, some of these times, just as they killed him!"

"Woman! the burden of the Lord is upon me. The word of the Lord is as a fire shut up in my bones. The Lord saith unto me, 'Go show unto this people their iniquity, and be a sign unto this evil nation!'"

Breaking away from his wife, he precipitated himself through an opening into the thicket, and was gone.

XXIII. THE CAMP-MEETING

The place selected for the camp-meeting was in one of the most picturesque portions of the neighborhood. It was a small, partially-cleared spot, in the midst of a dense forest, which stretched away in every direction, in cool, green aisles of checkered light and shade.

In the central clearing, a sort of rude amphitheatre of seats was formed of rough-pine slabs. Around on the edges of the forest the tents of the various worshippers were pitched; for the spending of three or four days and nights upon the ground is deemed an essential part of the service. The same clear stream which wound round the dwelling of Tiff prattled its way, with a modest gurgle, through this forest, and furnished the assembly with water.

The Gordons, having come merely for the purposes of curiosity, and having a residence in the neighborhood, did not provide themselves with a tent. The servants, however, were less easily satisfied. Aunt Rose shook her head, and declared, oracularly, that "De blessing was sure to come down in de night, and dem dat wanted to get a part of it would have to be dar!"

Consequently, Nina was beset to allow her people to have a tent, in which they were to take turns in staying all night, as candidates for the blessing. In compliance with that law of good-humored indulgence which had been the traditionary usage of her family, Nina acceded; and the Gordon tent spread its snowy sails, to the rejoicing of their hearts. Aunt Rose predominated about the door, alternately slapping the children and joining the chorus of hymns which she heard from every part of the camp-ground. On the outskirts were various rude booths, in which whiskey and water, and sundry articles of provision, and fodder for horses, were dispensed for a consideration. Abijah Skinflint here figured among the money-changers, while his wife and daughter were gossiping through the tents of the women. In front of the seats, under a dense cluster of pines, was the preachers' stand: a rude stage of rough boards, with a railing around it, and a desk of small slabs, supporting a Bible and a hymn-book.

The preachers were already assembling; and no small curiosity was expressed with regard to them by the people, who were walking up and down among the tents. Nina, leaning on the arm of Clayton, walked about the area with the rest. Anne Clayton leaned on the arm of Uncle John. Aunt Nesbit and Aunt Maria came behind. To Nina the scene was quite new, for a long residence in the Northern States had placed her out of the way of such things; and her shrewd insight into character, and her love of drollery, found an abundant satisfaction in the various little points and oddities of the scene. They walked to the Gordon tent, in which a preliminary meeting was already in full course. A circle of men and women, interspersed with children, were sitting, with their eyes shut, and their heads thrown back, singing at the top of their voices. Occasionally, one or other would vary the exercises by clapping of hands, jumping up straight into the air, falling flat on the ground, screaming, dancing, and laughing.

"Oh, set me up on a rock!" screamed one.

"I's sot up!" screamed another.

"Glory!" cried the third, and a tempest of "amens" poured in between.

"I's got a sperience!" cried one, and forthwith began piping it out in a high key, while others kept on singing.

"I's got a sperience!" shouted Tomtit, whom Aunt Rose, with maternal care, had taken with her.

"No, you an't neither! Sit down!" said Aunt Rose, kneading him down as if he had been a batch of biscuits, and going on at the same time with her hymn.

"I's on the Rock of Ages!" screamed a neighbor.

"I want to get on a rock edgeways!" screamed Tomtit, struggling desperately with Aunt Rose's great fat hands.

"Mind yourself!--I'll crack you over!" said Aunt Rose. And Tomtit, still continuing rebellious, was cracked over accordingly, with such force as to send him head-foremost on the straw at the bottom of the tent; an indignity which he resented with loud howls of impotent wrath, which, however, made no impression in the general whirlwind of screaming, shouting, and praying.

Nina and Uncle John stood at the tent-door laughing heartily. Clayton looked on with his usual thoughtful gravity of aspect. Anne turned her head away with an air of disgust.

"Why don't you laugh?" said Nina, looking round at her.

"It doesn't make me feel like it," said Anne. "It makes me feel melancholy."

"Why so?"

"Because religion is a sacred thing with me, and I don't like to see it travestied," said she.

"Oh," said Nina, "I don't respect religion any the less for a good laugh at its oddities. I believe I was born without any organ of reverence, and so don't feel the incongruity of the thing as you do. The distance between laughing and praying isn't so very wide in my mind as it is in some people's."

"We must have charity," said Clayton, "for every religious manifestation. Barbarous and half-civilized people always find the necessity for outward and bodily demonstration in worship; I suppose because the nervous excitement wakes up and animates their spiritual natures, and gets them into a receptive state, just as you have to shake up sleeping persons and shout in their ears to put them in a condition to understand you. I have known real conversions to take place under just these excitements."

"But," said Anne, "I think we might teach them to be decent. These things ought not to be allowed!"

"I believe," said Clayton, "intolerance is a rooted vice in our nature. The world is as full of different minds and bodies as the woods are of leaves, and each one has its own habit of growth. And yet our first impulse is to forbid everything that would not be proper for us. No, let the African scream, dance, and shout, and fall in trances. It suits his tropical lineage and blood as much as our thoughtful inward ways do us."

"I wonder who that is!" said Nina, as a general movement on the ground proclaimed the arrival of some one who appeared to be exciting general interest. The stranger was an unusually tall, portly man, apparently somewhat past the middle of life, whose erect carriage, full figure, and red cheeks, and a certain dashing frankness of manner, might have indicated him as belonging rather to the military than the clerical profession. He carried a rifle on his shoulder, which he set down carefully against the corner of the preacher's stand, and went around shaking hands among the company with a free and jovial air that might almost be described by the term rollicking.

"Why," said Uncle John, "that's father Bonnie! How are you, my fine fellow?"

"What! you, Mr. Gordon?--How do you do?" said father Bonnie, grasping his hand in his, and shaking it heartily. "Why, they tell me," he said, looking at him with a jovial smile, "that you have fallen from grace!"

"Even so!" said Uncle John. "I am a sad dog, I dare say."

"Oh, I tell you what," said father Bonnie, "but it takes a strong hook and a long line to pull in you rich sinners! Your money-bags and your niggers hang round you like mill-stones! You are too tough for the Gospel! Ah!" said he, shaking his fist at him, playfully, "but I'm going to come down upon you, to-day, with the law, I can tell you! You want the thunders of Sinai! You must have a dose of the law!"

"Well," said Uncle John, "thunder away! I suppose we need it, all of us. But, now, father Bonnie, you ministers are always preaching to us poor dogs on the evils of riches; but, somehow, I don't see any of you that are much afraid of owning horses, or niggers, or any other good thing that you can get your hands on. Now, I hear that you've got a pretty snug little place, and a likely drove to work it. You'll have to look out for your own soul, father Bonnie!"

A general laugh echoed this retort; for father Bonnie had the reputation of being a shrewder hand at a bargain, and of having more expertness in swapping a horse or trading a negro, than any other man for six counties round.

"He's into you, now, old man!" said several of the by-standers, laughingly.

"Oh, as to that," said father Bonnie, laughing, also, "I go in with Paul,--they that preach the Gospel must live of the Gospel. Now, Paul was a man that stood up for his rights to live as other folks do. 'Isn't it right,' says he, 'that those that plant a vineyard should first eat of the fruit? Haven't we power to lead about a sister, a wife?' says he. And if Paul had lived in our time he would have said a drove of niggers, too! No danger about us ministers being hurt by riches, while you laymen are so slow about supporting the Gospel!"

At the elbow of father Bonnie stood a brother minister, who was in many respects his contrast. He was tall, thin, and stooping, with earnest black eyes, and a serene sweetness of expression. A threadbare suit of rusty black, evidently carefully worn, showed the poverty of his worldly estate. He carried in his hand a small portmanteau, probably containing a change of linen, his Bible, and a few sermons. Father Dickson was a man extensively known through all that region. He was one of those men among the ministers of America, who keep alive our faith in Christianity, and renew on earth the portrait of the old apostle: "In journeyings often, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon them daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and they are not weak? who is offended, and they burn not?"

Every one in the state knew and respected father Dickson; and, like the generality of the world, people were very well pleased, and thought it extremely proper and meritorious for him to bear weariness and painfulness, hunger and cold, in their spiritual service, leaving to them the right of attending or not attending to him, according to their own convenience. Father Dickson was one of those who had never yielded to the common customs and habits of the country in regard to the holding of slaves. A few, who had been left him by a relation, he had at great trouble and expense transported to a free state, and settled there comfortably. The world need not trouble itself with seeking to know or reward such men; for the world cannot know and has no power to reward them. Their citizenship is in heaven, and all that can be given them in this life is like a morsel which a peasant gives in his cottage to him who to-morrow will reign over a kingdom.

He had stood listening to the conversation thus far with the grave yet indulgent air with which he generally listened to the sallies of his ministerial brothers. Father Bonnie, though not as much respected or confided in as father Dickson, had, from the frankness of his manners, and a certain rude but effective style of eloquence, a more general and apparent popularity. He produced more sensation on the camp-ground; could sing louder and longer, and would often rise into flights of eloquence both original and impressive. Many were offended by the freedom of his manner out of the pulpit; and the stricter sort were known to have said of him, "that when out he never ought to be in, and when in never out." As the laugh that rose at his last sally died away, he turned to father Dickson, and said:--

"What do you think?"

"I don't think," said father Dickson, mildly, "that you would ever have found Paul leading a drove of negroes."

"Why not, as well as Abraham, the father of the faithful? Didn't he have three hundred trained servants?"

"Servants, perhaps; but not slaves!" said father Dickson, "for they all bore arms. For my part, I think that the buying, selling, and trading, of human beings, for purposes of gain, is a sin in the sight of God."

"Well, now, father Dickson, I wouldn't have thought you had read your Bible to so little purpose as that! I wouldn't believe it! What do you say to Moses?"

"He led out a whole army of fugitive slaves through the Red Sea," said father Dickson.

"Well, I tell you, now," said father Bonnie, "if the buying, selling, or holding, of a slave for the sake of gain, is, as you say, a sin, then three fourths of all the Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, in the slave states of the Union, are of the devil!"

"I think it is a sin, notwithstanding," said father Dickson, quietly.

"Well, but doesn't Moses say expressly, 'Ye shall buy of the heathen round about you'?"

"There's into him!" said a Georgia trader, who, having camped with a coffle of negroes in the neighborhood, had come up to camp-meeting.

"All those things," said father Dickson, "belong to the old covenant, which Paul says was annulled for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, and have nothing to do with us, who have risen with Christ. We have got past Mount Sinai and the wilderness, and have come unto Mount Zion; and ought to seek the things that are above, where Christ sitteth."

"I say, brother," said another of the ministers, tapping him on the shoulder, "it's time for the preaching to begin. You can finish your discussion some other time. Come, father Bonnie, come forward, here, and strike up the hymn."

Father Bonnie accordingly stepped to the front of the stand, and with him another minister, of equal height and breadth of frame, and, standing with their hats on, they uplifted, in stentorian voices, the following hymn:--

"Brethren don't you hear the sound? The martial trumpet now is blowing; Men in order listing round, And soldiers to the standard flowing."

As the sound of the hymn rolled through the aisles and arches of the wood, the heads of different groups, who had been engaged in conversation, were observed turning toward the stand, and voices from every part of the camp-ground took up the air, as, suiting the action to the words, they began flowing to the place of preaching. The hymn went on, keeping up the same martial images:--

"Bounty offered, life and peace; To every soldier this is given, When the toils of life shall cease, A mansion bright, prepared in heaven."

As the throng pressed up, and came crowding from the distant aisles of the wood, the singers seemed to exert themselves to throw a wilder vehemence into the song, stretching out their arms and beckoning eagerly. They went on singing:--

"You need not fear; the cause is good, Let who will to the crown aspire: In this cause the martyrs bled, And shouted victory in the fire.

"In this cause let's follow on, And soon we'll tell the pleasing story, How by faith we won the crown, And fought our way to life and glory.

"Oh, ye rebels, come and 'list! The officers are now recruiting: Why will you in sin persist, Or waste your time in vain disputing?

"All excuses now are vain; For, if you do not sue for favor, Down you'll sink to endless pain, And bear the wrath of God forever."

There is always something awful in the voice of the multitude. It would seem as if the breath that a crowd breathed out together, in moments of enthusiasm, carried with it a portion of the dread and mystery of their own immortal natures. The whole area before the pulpit, and in the distant aisles of the forest, became one vast, surging sea of sound, as negroes and whites, slaves and freemen, saints and sinners, slave-holders, slave-hunters, slave-traders, ministers, elders, and laymen, alike joined in the pulses of that mighty song. A flood of electrical excitement seemed to rise with it, as, with a voice of many waters, the rude chant went on:--

"Hark! the victors singing loud! Emanuel's chariot wheels are rumbling; Mourners weeping through the crowd, And Satan's kingdom down is tumbling!"

Our friend, Ben Dakin, pressed to the stand, and, with tears streaming down his cheeks, exceeded all others in the energy of his vociferations. Ben had just come from almost a fight with another slave-hunter, who had boasted a better-trained pack of dogs than his own; and had broken away to hurry to the camp-ground, with the assurance that he'd "give him fits when the preachin' was over;" and now he stood there, tears rolling down his cheeks, singing with the heartiest earnestness and devotion. What shall we make of it? Poor heathen Ben! is it any more out of the way for him to think of being a Christian in this manner, than for some of his more decent brethren, who take Sunday passage for eternity in the cushioned New York or Boston pews, and solemnly drowse through very sleepy tunes, under a dim, hazy impression that they are going to heaven? Of the two, we think Ben's chance is the best; for, in some blind way, he does think himself a sinner, and in need of something he calls salvation; and, doubtless, while the tears stream down his face, the poor fellow makes a new resolve against the whiskey-bottle, while his more respectable sleepy brethren never think of making one against the cotton-bale.

Then there was his rival, also, Jim Stokes,--a surly, foul-mouthed, swearing fellow,--he joins in the chorus of the hymn, and feels a troublous, vague yearning, deep down within him, which makes him for the moment doubt whether he had better knock down Ben at the end of the meeting.

As to Harry, who stood also among the crowd, the words and tune recalled but too vividly the incidents of his morning's interview with Dred, and with it the tumultuous boiling of his bitter controversy with the laws of the society in which he found himself. In hours of such high excitement, a man seems to have an intuitive perception of the whole extent and strength of what is within himself; and, if there be anything unnatural or false in his position, he realizes it with double intensity.

Mr. John Gordon, likewise, gave himself up, without resistance, to be swayed by the feeling of the hour. He sung with enthusiasm, and wished he was a soldier of somebody, going somewhere, or a martyr shouting victory in the fire; and if the conflict described had been with any other foe than his own laziness and self-indulgence--had there been any outward, tangible enemy, at the moment--he would doubtless have enlisted, without loss of time.

When the hymn was finished, however, there was a general wiping of eyes, and they all sat down to listen to the sermon. Father Bonnie led off in an animated strain. His discourse was like the tropical swamp, bursting out with a lush abundance of every kind of growth--grave, gay, grotesque, solemn, fanciful, and even coarse caricature, provoking the broadest laughter. The audience were swayed by him like trees before the wind. There were not wanting touches of rude pathos, as well as earnest appeals. The meeting was a union one of Presbyterians and Methodists, in which the ministers of both denominations took equal part; and it was an understood agreement among them, of course, that they were not to venture upon polemic ground, or attack each other's peculiarities of doctrine. But Abijah's favorite preacher could not get through a sermon without some quite pointed exposition of Scripture bearing on his favorite doctrine of election, which caused the next minister to run a vehement tilt on the correlative doctrines of free grace, with a eulogy on John Wesley. The auditors, meanwhile, according to their respective sentiments, encouraged each preacher with a cry of "Amen!" "Glory be to God!" "Go on, brother!" and other similar exclamations.

About noon the services terminated, pro tem., and the audience dispersed themselves to their respective tents through the grove, where there was an abundance of chatting, visiting, eating, and drinking, as if the vehement denunciations and passionate appeals of the morning had been things of another state of existence. Uncle John, in the most cheery possible frame of mind, escorted his party into the woods, and assisted them in unpacking a hamper containing wine, cold fowls, cakes, pies, and other delicacies which Aunt Katy had packed for the occasion.

Old Tiff had set up his tent in a snug little nook on the banks of the stream, where he informed passers-by that it was his young mas'r and missis's establishment, and that he, Tiff, had come to wait on them. With a good-natured view of doing him a pleasure, Nina selected a spot for their nooning at no great distance, and spoke in the most gracious and encouraging manner to them, from time to time.

"See, now, can't you, how real quality behaves demselves!" he said, grimly, to Old Hundred, who came up bringing the carriage-cushions for the party to sit down upon. "Real quality sees into things! I tell ye what, blood sees into blood. Miss Nina sees dese yer chil'en an't de common sort--dat's what she does!"

"Umph!" said Old Hundred, "such a muss as ye keep up about yer chil'en! Tell you what, dey an't no better dan oder white trash!"

"Now, you talk dat ar way, I'll knock you down!" said Old Tiff, who, though a peaceable and law-abiding creature, in general, was driven, in desperation, to the last resort of force.

"John, what are you saying to Tiff?" said Nina, who had overheard some of the last words. "Go back to your own tent, and don't you trouble him! I have taken him under my protection."

The party enjoyed their dinner with infinite relish, and Nina amused herself in watching Tiff's cooking preparations. Before departing to the preaching-ground, he had arranged a slow fire, on which a savory stew had been all the morning simmering, and which, on the taking off of the pot-lid, diffused an agreeable odor through the place.

"I say, Tiff, how delightfully that smells!" said Nina, getting up, and looking into the pot. "Wouldn't Miss Fanny be so kind as to favor us with a taste of it?"

Fanny, to whom Tiff punctiliously referred the question, gave a bashful consent. But who shall describe the pride and glory that swelled the heart of Tiff as he saw a bowl of his stew smoking among the Gordon viands, praised and patronized by the party? And, when Nina placed on their simple board--literally a board, and nothing more--a small loaf of frosted cake, in exchange, it certainly required all the grace of the morning exercises to keep Tiff within due bounds of humility. He really seemed to dilate with satisfaction.

"Tiff, how did you like the sermon?" said Nina.

"Dey's pretty far, Miss Nina. Der's a good deal o' quality preaching."

"What do you mean by quality preaching, Tiff?"

"Why, dat ar kind dat's good for quality--full of long words, you know. I spects it's very good; but poor nigger like me can't see his way through it. You see, Miss Nina, what I's studdin' on, lately, is, how to get dese yer chil'en to Canaan; and I hars fus with one ear, and den with t'oder, but 'pears like an't clar 'bout it, yet. Dere's a heap about mose everything else, and it's all very good; but 'pears like I an't clar, arter all, about dat ar. Dey says, 'Come to Christ;' and I says, 'Whar is he, any how?' Bress you, I want to come! Dey talks 'bout going in de gate, and knocking at de do', and 'bout marching on de road, and 'bout fighting and being soldiers of de cross; and de Lord knows, now, I'd be glad to get de chil'en through any gate; and I could take 'em on my back and travel all day, if dere was any road; and if dere was a do', bless me, if dey wouldn't hear Old Tiff a rapping! I spects de Lord would have fur to open it--would so. But, arter all, when de preaching is done, dere don't 'pear to be nothing to it. Dere an't no gate, dere an't no do', nor no way; and dere an't no fighting, 'cept when Ben Dakin and Jim Stokes get jawing about der dogs; and everybody comes back eating der dinner quite comf'table, and 'pears like dere wan't no such ting dey's been preaching 'bout. Dat ar troubles me--does so--'cause I wants fur to get dese yer chil'en in de kingdom, some way or oder. I didn't know but some of de quality would know more 'bout it."

"Hang me, if I haven't felt just so!" said Uncle John. "When they were singing that hymn about enlisting and being a soldier, if there had been any fighting doing anywhere, I should have certainly gone right into it; and the preaching always stirs me up terribly. But, then, as Tiff says, after it's all over, why, there's dinner to be eaten, and I can't see anything better than to eat it; and then, by the time I have drank two or three glasses of wine, it's all gone. Now, that's just the way with me!"

"Dey says," said Tiff, "dat we must wait for de blessing to come down upon us, and Aunt Rose says it's dem dat shouts dat gets de blessing; and I's been shouting till I's most beat out, but I hasn't got it. Den, one of dem said none of dem could get it but de 'lect; but, den, t'oder one, he seemed to tink different; and in de meeting dey tells about de scales falling from der eyes,--and I wished dey fall from mine--I do so! Perhaps, Miss Nina, now, you could tell me something."

"Oh, don't ask me!" said Nina; "I don't know anything about these things. I think I feel a little like Uncle John," she said, turning to Clayton. "There are two kinds of sermons and hymns; one gets me to sleep, and the other excites and stirs me up in a general kind of way; but they don't either seem to do me real good."

"For my part, I am such an enemy to stagnation," said Clayton, "that I think there is advantage in everything that stirs up the soul, even though we see no immediate results. I listen to music, see pictures, as far as I can, uncritically. I say, 'Here I am; see what you can do with me.' So I present myself to almost all religious exercises. It is the most mysterious part of our nature. I do not pretend to understand it, therefore never criticise."

"For my part," said Anne, "there is so much in the wild freedom of these meetings that shocks my taste and sense of propriety, that I am annoyed more than I am benefited."

"There spoke the true, well-trained conventionalist," said Clayton. "But look around you. See, in this wood, among these flowers, and festoons of vine, and arches of green, how many shocking, unsightly growths! You would not have had all this underbrush, these dead limbs, these briers running riot over trees, and sometimes choking and killing them. You would have well-trimmed trees and velvet turf. But I love briers, dead limbs, and all, for their very savage freedom. Every once in a while you see in a wood a jessamine, or a sweet-brier, or a grape-vine, that throws itself into a gracefulness of growth which a landscape gardener would go down on his knees for, but cannot get. Nature resolutely denies it to him. She says, 'No! I keep this for my own. You won't have my wildness--my freedom; very well, then you shall not have the graces that spring from it.' Just so it is with men. Unite any assembly of common men in a great enthusiasm,--work them up into an abandon, and let every one 'let go,' and speak as nature prompts,--and you will have brush, underwood, briers, and all grotesque growths; but, now and then, some thought or sentiment will be struck out with a freedom or power such as you cannot get in any other way. You cultivated people are much mistaken when you despise the enthusiasms of the masses. There is more truth than you think in the old 'Vox populi, vox Dei.'"

"What's that?" said Nina.

"'The voice of the people is the voice of God.' There is truth in it. I never repent my share in a popular excitement, provided it be of the higher sentiments; and I do not ask too strictly whether it has produced any tangible result. I reverence the people, as I do the woods, for the wild, grand freedom with which their humanity develops itself."

"I'm afraid, Nina," said Aunt Nesbit, in a low tone, to the latter, "I'm afraid he isn't orthodox."

"What makes you think so, aunt?"

"Oh, I don't know; his talk hasn't the real sound."

"You want something that ends in 'ation,' don't you, aunt?--justification, sanctification, or something of that kind."

* * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, the department of Abijah Skinflint exhibited a decided activity. This was a long, low booth, made of poles, and roofed with newly-cut green boughs. Here the whiskey-barrel was continually pouring forth its supplies to customers who crowded around it. Abijah sat on the middle of a sort of rude counter, dangling his legs, and chewing a straw, while his negro was busy in helping his various customers. Abijah, as we said, being a particularly high Calvinist, was recreating himself by carrying on a discussion with a fat, little, turnipy brother of the Methodist persuasion.

"I say," he said, "Stringfellow put it into you, Methodists, this morning! Hit the nail on the head, I thought!"

"Not a bit of it!" said the other, contemptuously. "Why, elder Baskum chawed him up completely! There wan't nothin' left of him!"

"Well," said Abijah, "strange how folks will see things! Why, it's just as clar to me that all things is decreed! Why, that ar nails everything up tight and handsome. It gives a fellow a kind of comfort to think on it. Things is just as they have got to be. All this free-grace stuff is drefful loose talk. If things is been decreed 'fore the world was made, well, there seems to be some sense in their coming to pass. But, if everything kind of turns up whenever folks think on't, it's a kind of shaky business."

"I don't like this tying up things so tight," said the other, who evidently was one of the free, jovial order. "I go in for the freedom of the will. Free Gospel, and free grace."

"For my part," said Abijah, rather grimly, "if things was managed my way, I shouldn't commune with nobody that didn't believe in election, up to the hub."

"You strong electioners think you's among the elect!" said one of the by-standers. "You wouldn't be so crank about it, if you didn't! Now, see here: if everything is decreed, how am I going to help myself?"

"That ar is none of my look-out," said Abijah. "But there's a pint my mind rests upon--everything is fixed as it can be, and it makes a man mighty easy."

* * * * * * * * *

In another part of the camp-ground, Ben Dakin was sitting in his tent door, caressing one of his favorite dogs, and partaking his noontide repast with his wife and child.

"I declar'," said Ben, wiping his mouth, "wife, I intend to go into it, and sarve the Lord, now, full chisel! If I catch the next lot of niggers, I intend to give half the money towards keeping up preaching somewhere round here. I'm going to enlist, now, and be a soldier."

"And," said his wife, "Ben, just keep clear of Abijah Skinflint's counter, won't you?"

"Well, I will, durned if I won't!" said Ben. "I'll be moderate. A fellow wants a glass or two, to strike up the hymn on, you know; but I'll be moderate."

The Georgia trader, who had encamped in the neighborhood, now came up.

"Do you believe, stranger," said he, "one of them durned niggers of mine broke loose and got in the swamps, while I was at meeting this morning! Couldn't you take your dog, here, and give 'em a run? I just gave nine hundred dollars for that fellow, cash down."

"Ho! what you going to him for?" said Jim Stokes, a short, pursy, vulgar-looking individual, dressed in a hunting-shirt of blue Kentucky jean, who just then came up. "Why, durn ye, his dogs an't no breed 't all! Mine's the true grit, I can tell you; they's the true Florida blood-hounds! I's seen one of them ar dogs shake a nigger in his mouth like he'd been a sponge."

Poor Ben's new-found religion could not withstand this sudden attack of his spiritual enemy; and, rousing himself, notwithstanding the appealing glances of his wife, he stripped up his sleeves, and, squaring off, challenged his rival to a fight.

A crowd gathered round, laughing and betting, and cheering on the combatants with slang oaths and expressions, such as we will not repeat, when the concourse was routed by the approach of father Bonnie on the outside of the ring.

"Look here, boys, what works of the devil have you got round here? None of this on the camp-ground! This is the Lord's ground, here; so shut up your swearing, and don't fight."

A confused murmur of voices now began to explain to father Bonnie the cause of the trouble.

"Ho, ho!" said he, "let the nigger run; you can catch him fast enough when the meetings are over. You come here to 'tend to your salvation. Ah, don't you be swearing and blustering round! Come, boys, join in a hymn with me." So saying, he struck up a well-known air:--

"When Israel went to Jericho, O good Lord, in my soul!"

in which one after another joined, and the rising tumult was soon assuaged.

"I say," said father Bonnie to the trader, in an undertone, as he was walking away, "you got a good cook in your lot, hey?"

"Got a prime one," said the trader; "an A number one cook, and no mistake! Picked her up real cheap, and I'll let you have her for eight hundred dollars, being as you are a minister."

"You must think the Gospel a better trade than it is," said father Bonnie, "if you think a minister can afford to pay at that figure!"

"Why," said the trader, "you haven't seen her; it's dirt cheap for her, I can tell you! A sound, strong, hearty woman; a prudent, careful housekeeper; a real pious Methodist, a member of a class-meeting! Why, eight hundred dollars an't anything! I ought to get a thousand for her; but I don't hear preaching for nothing,--always think right to make a discount to ministers!"

"Why couldn't you bring her in?" said father Bonnie. "Maybe I'll give you seven hundred and fifty for her."

"Couldn't do that, no way!" said the trader. "Couldn't, indeed!"

"Well, after the meetings are over I'll talk about it."

"She's got a child, four years old," said the trader, with a little cough; "healthy, likely child; I suppose I shall want a hundred dollars for him!"

"Oh, that won't do!" said father Bonnie. "I don't want any more children round my place than I've got now!"

"But, I tell you," said the trader, "it's a likely boy. Why, the keeping of him won't cost you anything, and before you think of it you'll have a thousand-dollar hand grown on your own place."

"Well," said father Bonnie, "I'll think of it!"

In the evening the scene on the camp-ground was still more picturesque and impressive. Those who conduct camp-meetings are generally men who, without much reasoning upon the subject, fall into a sort of tact, in influencing masses of mind, and pressing into the service all the great life forces and influences of nature. A kind of rude poetry pervades their minds, colors their dialect, and influences their arrangements. The solemn and harmonious grandeur of night, with all its mysterious power of exalting the passions and intensifying the emotions, has ever been appreciated, and used by them with even poetic skill. The day had been a glorious one in June; the sky of that firm, clear blue, the atmosphere of that crystalline clearness, which often gives to the American landscape such a sharply-defined outline, and to the human system such an intense consciousness of life. The evening sun went down in a broad sea of light, and even after it had sunk below the purple horizon, flashed back a flood of tremulous rose-colored radiance, which, taken up by a thousand filmy clouds, made the whole sky above like a glowing tent of the most ethereal brightness. The shadows of the forest aisles were pierced by the rose-colored rays; and, as they gradually faded, star after star twinkled out, and a broad moon, ample and round, rose in the purple zone of the sky. When she had risen above the horizon but a short space, her light was so resplendent and so profuse, that it was decided to conduct the evening service by that alone; and when, at the sound of the hymn, the assembly poured in and arranged themselves before the preaching-stand, it is probable that the rudest heart present was somewhat impressed with the silent magnificence by which God was speaking to them through his works. As the hymn closed, father Bonnie, advancing to the front of the stage, lifted his hands, and pointing to the purple sky, and in a deep and not unmelodious voice, repeated the words of the Psalmist:--

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy-work; day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge."

"Oh, ye sinners!" he exclaimed, "look up at the moon, there, walking in her brightness, and think over your oaths, and your cursings, and your drinkings! Think over your backbitings, and your cheatings! think over your quarrellings and your fightings! How do they look to you now, with that blessed moon shining down upon you? Don't you see the beauty of our Lord God upon her? Don't you see how the saints walk in white with the Lord, like her? I dare say some of you, now, have had a pious mother, or a pious wife, or a pious sister, that's gone to glory; and there they are walking with the Lord!--walking with the Lord, through the sky, and looking down on you, sinners, just as that moon looks down! And what does she see you doing, your wife, or your mother, or sister, that's in glory? Does she see all your swearings, and your drinkings, and your fightings, and your hankerings after money, and your horse-racings, and your cock-fightings? Oh, sinners, but you are a bad set! I tell you the Lord is looking now down on you, out of that moon! He is looking down in mercy! But, I tell you, he'll look down quite another way, one of these days! Oh, there'll be a time of wrath, by and by, if you don't repent! Oh, what a time there was at Sinai, years ago, when the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, and the mountain was all of a smoke, and there were thunderings and lightnings, and the Lord descended on Sinai! That's nothing to what you'll see, by and by! No more moon looking down on you! No more stars, but the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat! Ah! did you ever see a fire in the woods? I have; and I've seen the fire on the prairies, and it rolled like a tempest, and men and horses and everything, had to run before it. I have seen it roaring and crackling through the woods, and great trees shrivelled in a minute like tinder! I have seen it flash over trees seventy-five and a hundred feet high, and in a minute they'd be standing pillars of fire, and the heavens were all a blaze, and the crackling and roaring was like the sea in a storm. There's a judgment-day for you! Oh, sinner, what will become of you in that day? Never cry, Lord, Lord! Too late--too late, man! You wouldn't take mercy when it was offered, and now you shall have wrath! No place to hide! The heavens and earth are passing away, and there shall be no more sea! There's no place for you now in God's universe."

By this time there were tumultuous responses from the audience of groans, cries, clapping of hands, and mingled shouts of glory and amen!

The electric shout of the multitude acted on the preacher again, as he went on, with a yet fiercer energy. "Now is your time, sinners! Now is your time! Come unto the altar, and God's people will pray for you! Now is the day of grace! Come up! Come up, you that have got pious fathers and mothers in glory! Come up, father! come up mother! come up, brother! Come, young man! we want you to come! Ah, there's a hardened sinner, off there! I see his lofty looks! Come up, come up! Come up, you rich sinners! You'll be poor enough in the day of the Lord, I can tell you! Come up, you young women! You daughters of Jerusalem, with your tinkling ornaments! Come, saints of the Lord, and labor with me in prayer. Strike up a hymn, brethren, strike up the hymn!" And a thousand voices commenced the hymn,--

"Stop, poor sinner, stop and think, Before you further go!"

And, meanwhile, ministers and elders moved around the throng, entreating and urging one and another to come and kneel before the stand. Multitudes rushed forward, groans and sobs were heard, as the speaker continued, with redoubled vehemence.

"I don't care," said Mr. John Gordon, "who sees me; I'm going up! I am a poor old sinner, and I ought to be prayed for, if anybody."

Nina shrank back, and clung to Clayton's arm. So vehement was the surging feeling of the throng around her that she wept with a wild, tremulous excitement.

"Do take me out,--it's dreadful!" she said.

Clayton passed his arm round her, and, opening a way through the crowd, carried her out beyond the limits, where they stood together alone, under the tree.

"I know I am not good as I ought to be," she said, "but I don't know how to be any better. Do you think it would do me any good to go up there? Do you believe in these things?"

"I sympathize with every effort that man makes to approach his Maker," said Clayton; "these ways do not suit me, but I dare not judge them. I cannot despise them. I must not make myself a rule for others."

"But, don't you think," said Nina, "that these things do harm sometimes?"

"Alas, child, what form of religion does not? It is our fatality that everything that does good must do harm. It's the condition of our poor, imperfect life here."

"I do not like these terrible threats," said Nina. "Can fear of fire make me love? Besides, I have a kind of courage in me that always rises up against a threat. It isn't my nature to fear."

"If we may judge our Father by his voice in nature," said Clayton, "he deems severity a necessary part of our training. How inflexibly and terribly regular are all his laws! Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind, fulfilling his word--all these have a crushing regularity in their movements, which show that he is to be feared as well as loved."

"But I want to be religious," said Nina, "entirely apart from such considerations. Not driven by fear, but drawn by love. You can guide me about these things, for you are religious."

"I fear I should not be accepted as such in any church," said Clayton. "It is my misfortune that I cannot receive any common form of faith, though I respect and sympathize with all. Generally speaking, preaching only weakens my faith; and I have to forget the sermon in order to recover my faith. I do not believe--I know that our moral nature needs a thorough regeneration; and I believe this must come through Christ. This is all I am certain of."

"I wish I were like Milly," said Nina. "She is a Christian, I know; but she has come to it by dreadful sorrows. Sometimes I'm afraid to ask my heavenly Father to make me good, because I think it will come by dreadful trials, if he does."

"And I," said Clayton, speaking with great earnestness, "would be willing to suffer anything conceivable, if I could only overcome all evil, and come up to my highest ideas of good." And, as he spoke, he turned his face up to the moonlight with an earnest fervor of expression, that struck Nina deeply.

"I almost shudder to hear you say so! You don't know what it may bring on you!"

He looked at her with a beautiful smile, which was a peculiar expression of his face in moments of high excitement.

"I say it again!" he said. "Whatever it involves, let it come!"

* * * * * * * * *

The exercises of the evening went on with a succession of addresses, varied by singing of hymns and prayers. In the latter part of the time many declared themselves converts, and were shouting loudly. Father Bonnie came forward.

"Brethren," he shouted, "we are seeing a day from the Lord! We've got a glorious time! Oh, brethren, let us sing glory to the Lord! The Lord is coming among us!"

The excitement now became general. There was a confused sound of exhortation, prayers, and hymns, all mixed together, from different parts of the ground. But, all of a sudden, every one was startled by a sound which seemed to come pealing down directly from the thick canopy of pines over the heads of the ministers.

"Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end shall it be for you? The day of the Lord shall be darkness, and not light! Blow ye the trumpet in Zion! Sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble! for the day of the Lord cometh!"

There was deep, sonorous power in the voice that spoke, and the words fell pealing down through the air like the vibrations of some mighty bell. Men looked confusedly on each other; but, in the universal license of the hour, the obscurity of the night, and the multitude of the speakers, no one knew exactly whence it came. After a moment's pause, the singers were recommencing, when again the same deep voice was heard.

"Take away from me the noise of thy songs, and the melody of thy viols; for I will not hear them, saith the Lord. I hate and despise your feast-days! I will not smell in your solemn assemblies; for your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers are greedy for violence! Will ye kill, and steal, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and come and stand before me, saith the Lord? Ye oppress the poor and needy, and hunt the stranger; also in thy skirts is found the blood of poor innocents! and yet ye say, Because I am clean shall his anger pass from me! Hear this, ye that swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes? The Lord hath sworn, saying, I will never forget their works. I will surely visit you!"

The audience, thus taken, in the obscurity of the evening, by an unknown speaker, whose words seemed to fall apparently from the clouds, in a voice of such strange and singular quality, began to feel a creeping awe stealing over them. The high state of electrical excitement under which they had been going on, predisposed them to a sort of revulsion of terror; and a vague, mysterious panic crept upon them, as the boding, mournful voice continued to peal from the trees.

"Hear, oh ye rebellious people! The Lord is against this nation! The Lord shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness? For thou saidst, I will ascend into the stars; I will be as God! But thou shalt be cast out as an abominable branch, and the wild beasts shall tread thee down! Howl, fir-tree, for thou art spoiled! Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars! for the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the land! The Lord shall utter his voice before his army, for his camp is very great! Multitudes! multitudes! in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision! The sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars withdraw their shining; for the Lord shall utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and earth shall shake! In that day I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and darken the whole earth! And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and your songs into lamentation! Woe to the bloody city! It is full of lies and robbery! The noise of a whip!--the noise of the rattling of wheels!--of the prancing horses, and the jumping chariot! The horseman lifteth up the sword and glittering spear! and there is a multitude of slain! There is no end of their corpses!--They are stumbling upon the corpses! For, Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord, and I will make thee utterly desolate!"

There was a fierce, wailing earnestness in the sound of these dreadful words, as if they were uttered in a paroxysm of affright and horror, by one who stood face to face with some tremendous form. And, when the sound ceased, men drew in their breath, and looked on each other, and the crowd began slowly to disperse, whispering in low voices to each other.

So extremely piercing and so wildly earnest had the voice been, that it actually seemed, in the expressive words of Scripture, to make every ear to tingle. And, as people of rude and primitive habits are always predisposed to superstition, there crept through the different groups wild legends of prophets strangely commissioned to announce coming misfortunes. Some spoke of the predictions of the judgment-day; some talked of comets, and strange signs that had preceded wars and pestilences. The ministers wondered, and searched around the stand in vain. One auditor alone could, had he desired it, make an explanation. Harry, who stood near the stand, had recognized the voice. But, though he searched, also, around, he could find no one.

He who spoke was one whose savage familiarity with nature gave him the agility and stealthy adroitness of a wild animal. And, during the stir and commotion of the dispersing audience, he had silently made his way from tree to tree, over the very heads of those who were yet wondering at his strange, boding words, till at last he descended in a distant part of the forest.

After the service, as father Dickson was preparing to retire to his tent, a man pulled him by the sleeve. It was the Georgia trader.

"We have had an awful time, to-night!" said he, looking actually pale with terror. "Do you think the judgment-day really is coming?"

"My friend," said father Dickson, "it surely is! Every step we take in life is leading us directly to the judgment-seat of Christ!"

"Well," said the trader, "but do you think that was from the Lord, the last one that spoke? Durned if he didn't say awful things!--'nough to make the hair rise! I tell you what, I've often had doubts about my trade. The ministers may prove it's all right out of the Old Testament; but I'm durned if I think they know all the things that we do! But, then, I an't so bad as some of 'em. But, now, I've got a gal out in my gang that's dreadful sick, and I partly promised her I'd bring a minister to see her."

"I'll go with you, friend," said father Dickson; and forthwith he began following the trader to the racks where their horses were tied. Selecting, out of some hundred who were tied there, their own beasts, the two midnight travellers soon found themselves trotting along under the shadow of the forest's boughs.

"My friend," said father Dickson, "I feel bound in conscience to tell you that I think your trade a ruinous one to your soul. I hope you'll lay to heart the solemn warning you've heard to-night. Why, your own sense can show you that a trade can't be right that you'd be afraid to be found in if the great judgment-day were at hand."

"Well, I rather spect you speak the truth; but, then, what makes father Bonnie stand up for 't?"

"My friend, I must say that I think father Bonnie upholds a soul-destroying error. I must say that, as conscience-bound. I pray the Lord for him and you both. I put it right to your conscience, my friend, whether you think you could keep to your trade, and live a Christian life."

"No; the fact is, it's a d----d bad business, that's just where 't is. We an't fit to be trusted with such things that come to us--gals and women. Well, I feel pretty bad, I tell you, to-night; 'cause I know I haven't done right by this yer gal. I ought fur to have let her alone; but, then, the devil or something possessed me. And now she has got a fever, and screeches awfully. I declar, some things she says go right through me!"

Father Dickson groaned in spirit over this account, and felt himself almost guilty for belonging ostensibly and outwardly to a church which tolerated such evils. He rode along by the side of his companion, breaking forth into occasional ejaculations and snatches of hymns. After a ride of about an hour, they arrived at the encampment. A large fire had been made in a cleared spot, and smouldering fragments and brands were lying among the white ashes. One or two horses were tied to a neighboring tree, and wagons were drawn up by them. Around the fire, in different groups, lay about fifteen men and women, with heavy iron shackles on their feet, asleep in the moonlight. At a little distance from the group, and near to one of the wagons, a blanket was spread down on the ground under a tree, on which lay a young girl of seventeen, tossing and moaning in a disturbed stupor. A respectable-looking mulatto-woman was sitting beside her, with a gourd full of water, with which from time to time she moistened her forehead. The woman rose as the trader came up.

"Well, Nance, how does she do now?" said the trader.

"Mis'able enough!" said Nance. "She done been tossing, a throwing round, and crying for her mammy, ever since you went away!"

"Well, I've brought the minister," said he. "Try, Nance, to wake her up; she'll be glad to see him."

The woman knelt down, and took the hand of the sleeper.

"Emily! Emily!" she said, "wake up!"

The girl threw herself over with a sudden, restless toss. "Oh, how my head burns!--Oh, dear!--Oh, my mother! Mother!--mother!--mother!--why don't you come to me?"

Father Dickson approached and knelt the other side of her. The mulatto-woman made another effort to bring her to consciousness.

"Emily here's the minister you was wanting so much! Emily, wake up!"

The girl slowly opened her eyes--large, tremulous, dark eyes. She drew her hand across them, as if to clear her sight, and looked wistfully at the woman.

"Minister!--minister!" she said.

"Yes, minister! You said you wanted to see one."

"Oh, yes, I did!" she said, heavily.

"My daughter!" said father Dickson, "you are very sick!"

"Yes!" she said, "very! And I'm glad of it! I'm going to die!--I'm glad of that, too! That's all I've got left to be glad of! But I wanted to ask you to write to my mother. She is a free woman; she lives in New York. I want you to give my love to her, and tell her not to worry any more. Tell her I tried all I could to get to her: but they took us, and mistress was so angry she sold me! I forgive her, too. I don't bear her any malice, 'cause it's all over, now! She used to say I was a wild girl, and laughed too loud. I shan't trouble any one that way any more! So that's no matter!"

The girl spoke these sentences at long intervals, occasionally opening her eyes and closing them again in a languid manner. Father Dickson, however, who had some knowledge of medicine, placed his finger on her pulse, which was rapidly sinking. It is the usual instinct, in all such cases, to think of means of prolonging life. Father Dickson rose, and said to the trader:--

"Unless some stimulus be given her, she will be gone very soon!"

The trader produced from his pocket a flask of brandy, which he mixed with a little water in a cup, and placed it in father Dickson's hand. He kneeled down again, and, calling her by name, tried to make her take some.

"What is it?" said she, opening her wild, glittering eyes.

"It's something to make you feel better."

"I don't want to feel better! I want to die!" she said, throwing herself over. "What should I want to live for?"

What should she? The words struck father Dickson so much that he sat for a while in silence. He meditated in his mind how he could reach, with any words, that dying ear, or enter with her into that land of trance and mist, into whose cloudy circle the soul seemed already to have passed. Guided by a subtle instinct, he seated himself by the dying girl, and began singing, in a subdued plaintive air, the following well-known hymn:--

"Hark, my soul! it is the Lord, 'Tis thy Saviour, hear his word; Jesus speaks--he speaks to thee! Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou me?"

The melody is one often sung among the negroes; and one which, from its tenderness and pathos, is a favorite among them. As oil will find its way into crevices where water cannot penetrate, so song will find its way where speech can no longer enter. The moon shone full on the face of the dying girl, only interrupted by flickering shadows of leaves; and, as father Dickson sung, he fancied he saw a slight, tremulous movement of the face, as if the soul, so worn and weary, were upborne on the tender pinions of the song. He went on singing:--

"Can a mother's tender care Cease toward the child she bare? Yes, she may forgetful be: Still will I remember thee."

By the light of the moon, he saw a tear steal from under the long lashes, and course slowly down her cheek. He continued his song:--

"Mine is an eternal love, Higher than the heights above, Deeper than the depths beneath, True and faithful--strong as death.

"Thou shalt see my glory soon, When the work of faith is done; Partner of my throne shalt be! Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou me?"

Oh, love of Christ! which no sin can weary, which no lapse of time can change; from which tribulation, persecution, and distress cannot separate--all-redeeming, all-glorifying, changing even death and despair to the gate of heaven! Thou hast one more triumph here in the wilderness, in the slave-coffle, and thou comest to bind up the broken-hearted.

As the song ceased, she opened her eyes.

"Mother used to sing that!" she said.

"And can you believe in it, daughter?"

"Yes," she said, "I see Him now! He loves me! Let me go!"

There followed a few moments of those strugglings and shiverings which are the birth-pangs of another life, and Emily lay at rest.

Father Dickson, kneeling by her side, poured out the fulness of his heart in an earnest prayer. Rising, he went up to the trader, and, taking his hand, said to him,--

"My friend, this may be the turning-point with your soul for eternity. It has pleased the Lord to show you the evil of your ways; and now my advice to you is, break off your sins at once, and do works meet for repentance. Take off the shackles of these poor creatures, and tell them they are at liberty to go."

"Why, bless your soul, sir, this yer lot's worth ten thousand dollars!" said the trader, who was not prepared for so close a practical application.

Do not be too sure, friend, that the trader is peculiar in this. The very same argument, though less frankly stated, holds in the bonds of Satan many extremely well-bred, refined, respectable men, who would gladly save their souls if they could afford the luxury.

"My friend," said father Dickson, using the words of a very close and uncompromising preacher of old, "what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

"I know that," said the trader, doubtfully; "but it's a very hard case, this. I'll think about it, though. But there's father Bonnie wants to buy Nance. It would be a pity to disappoint him. But I'll think it over."

Father Dickson returned to the camp-ground between one and two o'clock at night, and, putting away his horse, took his way to the ministers' tent. Here he found father Bonnie standing out in the moonlight. He had been asleep within the tent; but it is to be confessed that the interior of a crowded tent on a camp-ground is anything but favorable to repose. He therefore came out into the fresh air, and was there when father Dickson came back to enter the tent.

"Well, brother, where have you been so late?" said father Bonnie.

"I have been looking for a few sheep in the wilderness, whom everybody neglects," said father Dickson. And then, in a tone tremulous from agitation, he related to him the scene he had just witnessed.

"Do you see," he said, "brother, what iniquities you are countenancing? Now, here, right next to our camp, a slave-coffle encamped! Men and women, guilty of no crime, driven in fetters through our land, shaming us in the sight of every Christian nation! What horrible, abominable iniquities are these poor traders tempted to commit! What perfect hells are the great trading-houses, where men, women, and children are made merchandise of, and where no light of the Gospel ever enters! And when this poor trader is convicted of sin, and wants to enter into the kingdom, you stand there to apologize for his sins! Brother Bonnie, I much fear you are the stumbling block over which souls will stumble into hell. I don't think you believe your argument from the Old Testament, yourself. You must see that it has no kind of relation to such kind of slavery as we have in this country. There's an awful Scripture which saith: 'He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, so that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?'"

The earnestness with which father Dickson spoke, combined with the reverence commonly entertained for his piety, gave great force to his words. The reader will not therefore wonder to hear that father Bonnie, impulsive and easily moved as he was, wept at the account, and was moved by the exhortation. Nor will he be surprised to learn that, two weeks after, father Bonnie drove a brisk bargain with the same trader for three new hands.

The trader had discovered that the judgment-day was not coming yet a while; and father Bonnie satisfied himself that Noah, when he awoke from his wine, said, "Cursed be Canaan."

* * * * * * * * *

We have one scene more to draw before we dismiss the auditors of the camp-meeting.

At a late hour the Gordon carriage was winding its way under the silent, checkered, woodland path. Harry, who came slowly on a horse behind, felt a hand laid on his bridle. With a sudden start, he stopped.

"Oh, Dred, is it you? How dared you--how could you be so imprudent? How dared you come here, when you know you risk your life?"

"Life!" said the other, "what is life? He that loveth his life shall lose it. Besides, the Lord said unto me, Go! The Lord is with me as a mighty and terrible one! Harry, did you mark those men? Hunters of men, their hands red with the blood of the poor, all seeking unto the Lord! Ministers who buy and sell us! Is this a people prepared for the Lord? I left a man dead in the swamps, whom their dogs have torn! His wife is a widow--his children, orphans! They eat and wipe their mouth, and say, 'What have I done?' The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are we!"

"I know it," said Harry, gloomily.

"And you join yourself unto them?"

"Don't speak to me any more about that! I won't betray you, but I won't consent to have blood shed. My mistress is my sister."

"Oh, yes, to be sure! They read Scripture, don't they? Cast out the children of the bond-woman! That's Scripture for them!"

"Dred," said Harry, "I love her better than I love myself. I will fight for her to the last, but never against her, nor hers!"

"And you will serve Tom Gordon?" said Dred.

"Never!" said Harry.

Dred stood still a moment. Through an opening among the branches the moonbeams streamed down on his wild, dark figure. Harry remarked his eye fixed before him on vacancy, the pupil swelling out in glassy fulness, with a fixed, somnambulic stare. After a moment, he spoke, in a hollow, altered voice, like that of a sleep-walker:--

"Then shall the silver cord be loosed, and the golden bowl be broken. Yes, cover up the grave--cover it up! Now, hurry! come to me, or he will take thy wife for a prey!"

"Dred, what do you mean?" said Harry. "What's the matter?" He shook him by the shoulder.

Dred rubbed his eyes, and stared on Harry.

"I must go back," he said, "to my den. 'Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests,' and in the habitation of dragons the Lord hath opened a way for his outcasts!"

He plunged into the thickets, and was gone.

XXIV. LIFE IN THE SWAMPS

Our readers will perhaps feel an interest to turn back with us, and follow the singular wanderings of the mysterious personage, whose wild denunciations had so disturbed the minds of the worshippers at the camp-meeting.

There is a twilight-ground between the boundaries of the sane and insane, which the old Greeks and Romans regarded with a peculiar veneration. They held a person whose faculties were thus darkened as walking under the awful shadow of a supernatural presence; and, as the mysterious secrets of the stars only become visible in the night, so in these eclipses of the more material faculties they held there was often an awakening of supernatural perceptions.

The hot and positive light of our modern materialism, which exhales from the growth of our existence every dewdrop, which searches out and dries every rivulet of romance, which sends an unsparing beam into every cool grotto of poetic possibility, withering the moss, and turning the dropping cave to a dusty den--this spirit, so remorseless, allows us no such indefinite land. There are but two words in the whole department of modern anthropology--the sane and the insane; the latter dismissed from human reckoning almost with contempt. We should find it difficult to give a suitable name to the strange and abnormal condition in which this singular being, of whom we are speaking, passed the most of his time.

It was a state of exaltation and trance, which yet appeared not at all to impede the exercise of his outward and physical faculties, but rather to give them a preternatural keenness and intensity, such as sometimes attends the more completely-developed phenomena of somnambulism.

In regard to his physical system there was also much that was peculiar. Our readers may imagine a human body of the largest and keenest vitality to grow up so completely under the nursing influences of nature, that it may seem to be as perfectly en rapport with them as a tree; so that the rain, the wind, and the thunder, all those forces from which human beings generally seek shelter, seem to hold with it a kind of fellowship, and to be familiar companions of existence.

Such was the case with Dred. So completely had he come into sympathy and communion with nature, and with those forms of it which more particularly surrounded him in the swamps, that he moved about among them with as much ease as a lady treads her Turkey carpet. What would seem to us in recital to be incredible hardship, was to him but an ordinary condition of existence. To walk knee-deep in the spongy soil of the swamp, to force his way through thickets, to lie all night sinking in the porous soil, or to crouch, like the alligator, among reeds and rushes, were to him situations of as much comfort as well-curtained beds and pillows are to us.

It is not to be denied, that there is in this savage perfection of the natural organs a keen and almost fierce delight, which must excel the softest seductions of luxury. Anybody who has ever watched the eager zest with which the hunting-dog plunges through the woods, darts through the thicket, or dives into water, in an ecstasy of enjoyment, sees something of what such vital force must be.

Dred was under the inspiring belief that he was the subject of visions and supernatural communications. The African race are said by mesmerists to possess, in the fullest degree, that peculiar temperament which fits them for the evolution of mesmeric phenomena; and hence the existence among them, to this day, of men and women who are supposed to have peculiar magical powers. The grandfather of Dred, on his mother's side, had been one of these reputed African sorcerers, and he had early discovered in the boy this peculiar species of temperament. He had taught him the secret of snake-charming, and had possessed his mind from childhood with expectations of prophetic and supernatural impulses. That mysterious and singular gift, whatever it may be, which Highland seers denominate second sight, is a very common tradition among the negroes; and there are not wanting thousands of reputed instances among them to confirm belief in it. What this faculty may be, we shall not pretend to say. Whether there be in the soul a yet undeveloped attribute, which is to be to the future what memory is to the past, or whether in some individuals an extremely high and perfect condition of the sensuous organization endows them with something of that certainty of instinctive discrimination which belongs to animals, are things which we shall not venture to decide upon.

It was, however, an absolute fact with regard to Dred, that he had often escaped danger by means of a peculiarity of this kind. He had been warned from particular places where the hunters had lain in wait for him; had foreseen in times of want where game might be ensnared, and received intimations where persons were to be found in whom he might safely confide; and his predictions with regard to persons and things had often chanced to be so strikingly true, as to invest his sayings with a singular awe and importance among his associates.

It was a remarkable fact, but one not peculiar to this case alone, that the mysterious exaltation of mind in this individual seemed to run parallel with the current of shrewd, practical sense; and, like a man who converses alternately in two languages, he would speak now the language of exaltation, and now that of common life, interchangeably. This peculiarity imparted a singular and grotesque effect to his whole personality.

On the night of the camp-meeting, he was as we have already seen, in a state of the highest ecstasy. The wanton murder of his associate seemed to flood his soul with an awful tide of emotion, as a thunder-cloud is filled and shaken by slow-gathering electricity. And, although the distance from his retreat to the camp-ground was nearly fifteen miles, most of it through what seemed to be impassable swamps, yet he performed it with as little consciousness of fatigue as if he had been a spirit. Even had he been perceived at that time, it is probable that he could no more have been taken, or bound, than the demoniac of Gadara.

After he parted from Harry he pursued his way to the interior of the swamp, as was his usual habit, repeating to himself, in a chanting voice, such words of prophetic writ as were familiar to him.

The day had been sultry, and it was now an hour or two past midnight, when a thunder-storm, which had long been gathering and muttering in the distant sky, began to develop its forces.

A low, shivering sigh crept through the woods, and swayed in weird whistlings the tops of the pines; and sharp arrows of lightning came glittering down among the darkness of the branches, as if sent from the bow of some warlike angel. An army of heavy clouds swept in a moment across the moon; then came a broad, dazzling, blinding sheet of flame, concentrating itself on the top of a tall pine near where Dred was standing, and in a moment shivered all its branches to the ground, as a child strips the leaves from a twig. Dred clapped his hands with a fierce delight; and, while the rain and wind were howling and hissing around him, he shouted aloud:--

"Wake, O arm of the Lord! Awake, put on thy strength! The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars--yea, the cedars of Lebanon! The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire! The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh! Hailstones and coals of fire!"

The storm, which howled around him, bent the forest like a reed, and large trees, uprooted from the spongy and tremulous soil, fell crashing with a tremendous noise; but, as if he had been a dark spirit of the tempest, he shouted and exulted.

The perception of such awful power seemed to animate him, and yet to excite in his soul an impatience that He whose power was so infinite did not awake to judgment.

"Rend the heavens," he cried, "and come down! Avenge the innocent blood! Cast forth thine arrows, and slay them! Shoot out thy lightnings, and destroy them!"

His soul seemed to kindle with almost a fierce impatience, at the toleration of that Almighty Being, who, having the power to blast and to burn, so silently endures. Could Dred have possessed himself of those lightnings, what would have stood before him? But his cry, like the cry of thousands, only went up to stand in waiting till an awful coming day!

Gradually the storm passed by; the big drops dashed less and less frequently; a softer breeze passed through the forest, with a patter like the clapping of a thousand little wings; and the moon occasionally looked over the silvery battlements of the great clouds.

As Dred was starting to go forward, one of these clear revealings showed him the cowering form of a man, crouched at the root of a tree, a few paces in front of him. He was evidently a fugitive, and, in fact, was the one of whose escape to the swamps the Georgia trader had complained of the day of of the meeting.

"Who is here, at this time of night?" said Dred, coming up to him.

"I have lost my way," said the other. "I don't know where I am!"

"A runaway?" inquired Dred.

"Don't betray me!" said the other, apprehensively.

"Betray you! Would I do that?" said Dred. "How did you get into the swamp?"

"I got away from a soul-driver's camp, that was taking us on through the states."

"Oh, oh!" said Dred. "Camp-meeting and driver's camp right alongside of each other! Shepherds that sell the flock, and pick the bones! Well, come, old man; I'll take you home with me."

"I'm pretty much beat out," said the man. "It's been up over my knees every step; and I didn't know but they'd set the dogs after me. If they do, I'll let 'em kill me, and done with it, for I'm 'bout ready to have it over with. I got free once, and got clear up to New York, and got me a little bit of a house, and a wife and two children, with a little money beforehand; and then they nabbed me, and sent me back again, and mas'r sold me to the drivers,--and I believe I's 'bout as good 's die. There's no use in trying to live--everything going agin a body so!"

"Die! No, indeed, you won't," said Dred; "not if I've got hold of you! Take heart, man, take heart! Before morning I'll put you where the dogs can't find you, nor anything else. Come, up with you!"

The man rose up, and made an effort to follow; but, wearied, and unused as he was to the choked and perplexed way, he stumbled and fell almost every minute.

"How now, brother?" said Dred. "This won't do! I must put you over my shoulder as I have many a buck before now!" And, suiting the action to the word, he put the man on his back, and, bidding him hold fast to him, went on, picking his way as if he scarcely perceived his weight.

It was now between two and three o'clock, and the clouds, gradually dispersing, allowed the full light of the moon to slide down here and there through the wet and shivering foliage. No sound was heard, save the humming of insects and the crackling plunges by which Dred made his way forward.

"You must be pretty strong!" said his companion. "Have you been in the swamps long?"

"Yes," said the other, "I have been a wild man--every man's hand against me--a companion of the dragons and the owls, this many a year. I have made my bed with the leviathan, among the reeds and the rushes. I have found the alligators and the snakes better neighbors than Christians. They let those alone that let them alone; but Christians will hunt for the precious life."

After about an hour of steady travelling, Dred arrived at the outskirts of the island which we have described. For about twenty paces before he reached it, he waded waist-deep in water. Creeping out, at last, and telling the other one to follow him, he began carefully coursing along on his hands and knees, giving, at the same time, a long, shrill, peculiar whistle. It was responded to by a similar sound, which seemed to proceed through the bushes. After a while, a crackling noise was heard, as of some animal, which gradually seemed to come nearer and nearer to them, till finally a large water-dog emerged from the underbrush, and began testifying his joy at the arrival of the new-comer, by most extravagant gambols.

"So, ho! Buck! quiet, my boy!" said Dred. "Show us the way in!"

The dog, as if understanding the words, immediately turned into the thicket, and Dred and his companion followed him, on their hands and knees. The path wound up and down the brushwood, through many sharp turnings, till at last it ceased altogether, at the roots of a tree; and, while the dog disappeared among the brushwood, Dred climbed the tree, and directed his companion to follow him, and, proceeding out on to one of the longest limbs, he sprang nimbly on to the ground in the cleared space which we have before described.

His wife was standing waiting for him, and threw herself upon him with a cry of joy.

"Oh, you've come back! I thought, sure enough, dey'd got you dis time!"

"Not yet! I must continue till the opening of the seals--till the vision cometh! Have ye buried him?"

"No; there's a grave dug down yonder, and he's been carried there."

"Come, then!" said Dred.

At a distant part of the clearing was a blasted cedar-tree, all whose natural foliage had perished. But it was veiled from head to foot in long wreaths of the tillandsia, the parasitic moss of these regions, and, in the dim light of the approaching dawn, might have formed no unapt resemblance to a gigantic spectre dressed in mourning weeds.

Beneath this tree Dred had interred, from time to time, the bodies of fugitives which he had found dead in the swamps, attaching to this disposition of them some peculiar superstitious idea.

The widow of the dead, the wife of Dred, and the new-comer, were now gathered around the shallow grave; for the soil was such as scarcely gave room to make a place deep enough for a grave without its becoming filled with water.

The dawn was just commencing a dim foreshadowing in the sky. The moon and stars were still shining.

Dred stood and looked up, and spoke, in a solemn voice.

"Seek him that maketh Arcturus and Orion--that turneth the shadow of death into morning! Behold those lights in the sky--the lights in his hands pierced for the sins of the world, and spread forth as on a cross! But the day shall come that he shall lay down the yoke, and he will bear the sin of the world no longer. Then shall come the great judgment. He will lay righteousness to the line and judgment to the plummet, and the hail shall sweep away the refuges of lies."

He stooped, and, lifting the body, laid him in the grave, and at this moment the wife broke into a loud lament.

"Hush, woman!" said Dred, raising his hand. "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bewail him; but weep ye sore for the living! He must rest till the rest of his brethren be killed; for the vision is sealed up for an appointed time. If it tarry, wait for it. It shall surely come, and shall not tarry!"

XXV. MORE SUMMER TALK

A glorious morning, washed by the tears of last night's shower, rose like a bride upon Canema. The rain-drops sparkled and winked from leaf to leaf, or fell in showery diamonds in the breeze. The breath of numberless roses, now in full bloom, rose in clouds to the windows.

The breakfast-table, with its clean damask, glittering silver, and fragrant coffee, received the last evening's participants of the camp-meeting in fresh morning spirits, ready to discuss, as an every-day affair, what, the evening before, they had felt too deeply, perhaps, to discuss.

On the way home, they had spoken of the scenes of the day, and wondered and speculated on the singular incident which closed it. But, of all the dark circle of woe and crime,--of all that valley of vision which was present to the mind of him who spoke,--they were as practically ignorant as the dwellers of the curtained boudoirs of New York are of the fearful mysteries of the Five Points.

The aristocratic nature of society at the south so completely segregates people of a certain position in life from any acquaintance with the movements of human nature in circles below them, that the most fearful things may be transacting in their vicinity unknown or unnoticed. The horrors and sorrows of the slave-coffle were a sealed book to Nina and Anne Clayton. They had scarcely dreamed of them; and Uncle John, if he knew their existence, took very good care to keep out of their way, as he would turn from any other painful and disagreeable scene.

All of them had heard something of negro-hunters, and regarded them as low, vulgar people, but troubled their heads little further on the subject; so that they would have been quite at a loss for the discovery of any national sins that could have appropriately drawn down the denunciations of Heaven.

The serious thoughts and aspirations which might have risen in any of the company, the evening before, assumed, with everything else, quite another light under the rays of morning.

All of us must have had experience, in our own histories, of the great difference between the night and the morning view of the same subject.

What we have thought and said in the august presence of witnessing stars, or beneath the holy shadows of moonlight, seems with the hot, dry light of next day's sun to take wings, and rise to heaven with the night's clear drops. If all the prayers and good resolutions which are laid down on sleeping pillows could be found there on awaking, the world would be better than it is.

Of this Uncle John Gordon had experience, as he sat himself down at the breakfast-table. The night before, he realized, in some dim wise, that he, Mr. John Gordon, was not merely a fat, elderly gentleman, in blue coat and white vest, whose great object in existence was to eat well, drink well, sleep well, wear clean linen, and keep out of the way of trouble. He had within him a tumult of yearnings and aspirings,--uprisings of that great, life-long sleeper, which we call soul, and which, when it wakes, is an awfully clamorous, craving, exacting, troublesome inmate, and which is therefore generally put asleep again in the shortest time, by whatever opiates may come to hand. Last night, urged on by this troublesome guest, stimulated by the vague power of such awful words as judgment and eternity, he had gone out and knelt down as a mourner for sin and a seeker for salvation, both words standing for very real and awful facts; and, this morning, although it was probably a more sensible and appropriate thing than most of the things he was in the habit of doing, he was almost ashamed of it. The question arose, at table, whether another excursion should be made to the camp-ground.

"For my part," said Aunt Maria, "I hope you'll not go again, Mr. Gordon. I think you had better keep out of the way of such things. I really was vexed to see you in that rabble of such very common people!"

"You'll observe," said Uncle John, "that, when Mrs. G. goes to heaven, she'll notify the Lord, forthwith, that she has only been accustomed to the most select circles, and requests to be admitted at the front door."

"It isn't because I object to being with common people," said Anne Clayton, "that I dislike this custom of going to the altar; but it seems to me an invasion of that privacy and reserve which belong to our most sacred feelings. Besides, there are in a crowd coarse, rude, disagreeable people, with whom it isn't pleasant to come in contact."

"For my part," said Mrs. John Gordon, "I don't believe in it at all! It's a mere temporary excitement. People go and get wonderfully wrought up, come away, and are just what they were before."

"Well," said Clayton, "isn't it better to be wrought up once in a while, than never to have any religious feelings? Isn't it better to have a vivid impression of the vastness and worth of the soul,--of the power of an endless life,--for a few hours once a year, than never to feel it at all? The multitudes of those people, there, never hear or think a word of these things at any other time in their lives. For my part," he added, "I don't see why it's a thing to be ashamed of, if Mr. Gordon or I should have knelt at the altar last night, even if we do not feel like it this morning. We are too often ashamed of our better moments;--I believe Protestant Christians are the only people on earth who are ashamed of the outward recognition of their religion. The Mahometan will prostrate himself in the street, or wherever he happens to be, when his hour for prayer comes. The Roman Catholic sailor or soldier kneels down at the sound of the vesper bell. But we rather take pride in having it understood that we take our religion moderately and coolly, and that we are not going to put ourselves much out about it."

"Well, but, brother," said Anne, "I will maintain, still, that there is a reserve about these things which belongs to the best Christians. And did not our Saviour tell us that our prayers and alms should be in secret?"

"I do not deny at all what you say, Anne," said Clayton; "but I think what I said is true, notwithstanding; and, both being true, of course, in some way they must be consistent with each other."

"I think," said Nina, "the sound of the singing at these camp-meetings is really quite spirit-stirring and exciting."

"Yes," said Clayton, "these wild tunes, and the hymns with which they are associated, form a kind of forest liturgy, in which the feelings of thousands of hearts have been embodied. Some of the tunes seem to me to have been caught from the song of birds, or from the rushing of wind among the branches. They possess a peculiar rhythmical energy, well suited to express the vehement emotions of the masses. Did camp-meetings do no other good than to scatter among the people these hymns and tunes, I should consider them to be of inestimable value."

"I must say," said Anne, "I always had a prejudice against that class both of hymns and tunes."

"You misjudge them," said Clayton, "as you refined, cultivated women always do, who are brought up in the kid-slipper and carpet view of human life. But just imagine only the old Greek or Roman peasantry elevated to the level of one of these hymns. Take, for example, a verse of one I heard them sing last night:--

'The earth shall be dissolved like snow, The sun shall cease to shine, But God, who called me here below, Shall be forever mine.'

What faith is there! What confidence in immortality! How could a man feel it, and not be ennobled? Then, what a rough hearty heroism was in that first hymn! It was right manly!"

"Ah, but," said Anne, "half the time they sing them without the slightest perception of their meaning, or the least idea of being influenced by them."

"And so do the worshippers in the sleepiest and most aristocratic churches," said Clayton. "That's nothing peculiar to the camp-ground. But, if it is true, what a certain statesman once said, 'Let me make the ballads of the people, and I care not who makes their laws,' it is certainly a great gain to have such noble sentiments as many of these hymns contain circulating freely among the people."

"What upon earth," said Uncle John, "do you suppose that last fellow was about, up in the clouds, there? Nobody seemed to know where he was, or who he was; and I thought his discourse seemed to be rather an unexpected addition. He put it into us pretty strong, I thought! Declare, such a bundle of woes and curses I never heard distributed! Seemed to have done up all the old prophets into one bundle, and tumbled it down upon our heads! Some of them were quite superstitious about it, and began talking about warnings, and all that."

"Pooh!" said Aunt Maria, "the likelihood is that some itinerant poor preacher has fallen upon this trick for producing a sensation. There is no end to the trickeries and the got-up scenes in these camp-meetings, just to produce effect. If I had had a pistol, I should like to have fired into the tree, and see whether I couldn't have changed his tune."

"It seemed to me," said Clayton, "from the little that I did hear, that there was some method in his madness. It was one of the most singular and impressive voices I ever heard; and, really, the enunciation of some of those latter things was tremendous. But, then, in the universal license and general confusion of the scene, the thing was not so much to be wondered at. It would be the most natural thing in the world that some crazy fanatic should be heated almost to the point of insanity by the scene, and take this way of unburdening himself. Such excitements most generally assume the form of denunciation."

"Well, now," said Nina, "to tell the truth, I should like to go out again to-day. It's a lovely ride, and I like to be in the woods. And, then, I like to walk around among the tents, and hear the people talk, and see all the different specimens of human nature that are there. I never saw such a gathering together in my life."

"Agreed!" said Uncle John. "I'll go with you. After all, Clayton, here, has got the right of it, when he says a fellow oughtn't to be ashamed of his religion, such as it is."

"Such as it is, to be sure!" said Aunt Maria, sarcastically.

"Yes, I say again, such as it is!" said Uncle John, bracing himself. "I don't pretend it's much. We'll all of us bear to be a good deal better, without danger of being translated. Now, as to this being converted, hang me if I know how to get at it! I suppose that it is something like an electric shock,--if a fellow is going to get it, he must go up to the machine!"

"Well," said Nina, "you do hear some queer things there. Don't you remember that jolly, slashing-looking fellow, whom they called Bill Dakin, that came up there with his two dogs? In the afternoon, after the regular services, we went to one of the tents where there was a very noisy prayer-meeting going on, and there was Bill Dakin, on his knees, with his hands clasped, and the tears rolling down his cheeks; and father Bonnie was praying over him with all his might. And what do you think he said? He said, 'O Lord, here's Bill Dakin; he is converted; now take him right to heaven, now he is ready, or he'll be drunk again in two weeks!'"

"Well," said Anne Clayton, tossing her head, indignantly, "that's blasphemy, in my opinion."

"Oh, perhaps not," said Clayton, "any more than the clownish talk of any of our servants is intentional rudeness."

"Well," said Anne, "don't you think it shows a great want of perception?"

"Certainly, it does," said Clayton. "It shows great rudeness and coarseness of fibre, and is not at all to be commended. But still we are not to judge of it by the rules of cultivated society. In well-trained minds every faculty keeps its due boundaries; but, in this kind of wild-forest growth, mirthfulness will sometimes overgrow reverence, just as the yellow jessamine will completely smother a tree. A great many of the ordinances of the old Mosaic dispensation were intended to counteract this very tendency."

"Well," said Nina, "did you notice poor old Tiff, so intent upon getting his children converted? He didn't seem to have the least thought or reference to getting into heaven himself. The only thing with him was to get those children in. Tiff seems to me just like those mistletoes that we see on the trees in the swamps. He don't seem to have any root of his own; he seems to grow out of something else."

"Those children are very pretty-looking, genteel children," said Anne; "and how well they were dressed!"

"My dear," said Nina, "Tiff prostrates himself at my shrine, every time he meets me, to implore my favorable supervision as to that point; and it really is diverting to hear him talk. The old Caliban has an eye for color, and a sense of what is suitable, equal to any French milliner. I assure you, my dear, I always was reputed for having a talent for dress; and Tiff appreciates me. Isn't it charming of him? I declare, when I see the old creature lugging about those children, I always think of an ugly old cactus with its blossoms. I believe he verily thinks they belong to him just as much. Their father is entirely dismissed from Tiff's calculations. Evidently all he wants of him is to keep out of the way, and let him work. The whole burden of their education lies on his shoulders."

"For my part," said Aunt Nesbit, "I'm glad you've faith to believe in those children. I haven't; they'll be sure to turn out badly--you see if they don't."

"And I think," said Aunt Maria, "we have enough to do with our own servants, without taking all these miserable whites on our hands, too."

"I'm not going to take all the whites," said Nina. "I'm going to take these children."

"I wish you joy!" said Aunt Maria.

"I wonder," said Aunt Nesbit, "if Harry is under concern of mind. He seems to be dreadfully down, this morning."

"Is he?" said Nina. "I hadn't noticed it."

"Well," said Uncle John, "perhaps he'll get set up, to-day--who knows? In fact, I hope I shall myself. I tell you what it is, parson," said he, laying his hand on Clayton's shoulder, "you should take the gig, to-day, and drive this little sinner, and let me go with the ladies. Of course you know Mrs. G. engrosses my whole soul; but, then, there 's a kind of insensible improvement that comes from such celestial bodies as Miss Anne, here, that oughtn't to be denied to me. The clergy ought to enumerate female influence among the means of grace. I'm sure there's nothing builds me up like it."

Clayton, of course, assented very readily to this arrangement; and the party was adjusted on this basis.

"Look ye here, now, Clayton," said Uncle John, tipping him a sly wink, after he had handed Nina in, "you must confess that little penitent! She wants a spiritual director, my boy! I tell you what, Clayton, there isn't a girl like that in North Carolina. There's blood, sir, there. You must humor her on the bit, and give her her head a while. Ah, but she'll draw well at last! I always like a creature that kicks to pieces harness, wagon, and all, to begin with. They do the best when they are broken in."

With which profound remarks Uncle John turned to hand Anne Clayton to the carriage.

Clayton understood too well what he was about to make any such use of the interview as Uncle John had suggested. He knew perfectly that his best chance, with a nature so restless as Nina's, was to keep up a sense of perfect freedom in all their intercourse; and, therefore, no grandfather could have been more collected and easy in a tête-à-tête drive than he. The last conversation at the camp-meeting he knew had brought them much nearer to each other than they had ever stood before, because both had spoken in deep earnestness of feeling of what lay deepest in their heart; and one such moment, he well knew, was of more binding force than a hundred nominal betrothals.

The morning was one of those perfect ones which succeed a thunder-shower in the night; when the air, cleared of every gross vapor, and impregnated with moist exhalations from the woods, is both balmy and stimulating. The steaming air developed to the full the balsamic properties of the pine-groves through which they rode; and, where the road skirted the swampy land, the light fell slanting on the leaves of the deciduous trees, rustling and dripping with the last night's shower. The heavens were full of those brilliant, island-like clouds, which are said to be a peculiarity of American skies, in their distinct relief above the intense blue. At a long distance they caught the sound of camp-meeting hymns. But, before they reached the ground, they saw, in more than one riotous group, the result of too frequent an application to Abijah Skinflint's department, and others of a similar character. They visited the quarters of Old Tiff, whom they found busy ironing some clothes for the baby, which he had washed and hung out the night before. The preaching had not yet commenced, and the party walked about among the tents. Women were busy cooking and washing dishes under the trees; and there was a great deal of good-natured gossiping.

One of the most remarkable features of the day was a sermon from father Dickson, on the sins of the church. It concluded with a most forcible and solemn appeal to all on the subject of slavery. He reminded both the Methodists and Presbyterians that their books of discipline had most pointedly and unequivocally condemned it; that John Wesley had denounced it as the sum of all villanies, and that the general assemblies of the Presbyterian Church had condemned it as wholly inconsistent with the religion of Christ, with the great law which requires us to love others as ourselves. He related the scene which he had lately witnessed in the slave-coffle. He spoke of the horrors of the inter-state slave-trade, and drew a touching picture of the separation of families, and the rending of all domestic and social ties, which resulted from it; and, alluding to the unknown speaker of the evening before, told his audience that he had discerned a deep significance in his words, and that he feared, if there was not immediate repentance and reformation, the land would yet be given up to the visitations of divine wrath. As he spoke with feeling, he awakened feeling in return. Many were affected even to tears; but, when the sermon was over, it seemed to melt away, as a wave flows back again into the sea. It was far easier to join in a temporary whirlwind of excitement, than to take into consideration troublesome, difficult, and expensive reforms.

Yet, still, it is due to the degenerate Christianity of the slave states to say, that, during the long period in which the church there has been corrupting itself, and lowering its standard of right to meet a depraved institution, there have not been wanting, from time to time, noble confessors, who have spoken for God and humanity. For many years they were listened to with that kind of pensive tolerance which men give when they acknowledge their fault without any intention of mending. Of late years, however, the lines have been drawn more sharply, and such witnesses have spoken in peril of their lives; so that now seldom a voice arises except in approbation of oppression.

The sermon was fruitful of much discussion in different parts of the camp-ground; and none, perhaps, was louder in the approbation of it than the Georgia trader, who, seated on Abijah Skinflint's counter, declared: "That was a parson as was a parson, and that he liked his pluck; and, for his part, when ministers and church-members would give over buying, he should take up some other trade."

"That was a very good sermon," said Nina, "and I believe every word of it. But, then, what do you suppose we ought to do?"

"Why," said Clayton, "we ought to contemplate emancipation as a future certainty, and prepare our people in the shortest possible time."

This conversation took place as the party were seated at their nooning under the trees, around an unpacked hamper of cold provisions, which they were leisurely discussing.

"Why, bless my soul, Clayton," said Uncle John, "I don't see the sense of such an anathema maranatha as we got to-day. Good Lord, what earthly harm are we doing? As to our niggers, they are better off than we are! I say it coolly--that is, as coolly as a man can say anything between one and two o'clock in such weather as this. Why, look at my niggers! Do I ever have any chickens, or eggs, or cucumbers? No, to be sure. All my chickens die, and the cut-worm plays the devil with my cucumbers; but the niggers have enough. Theirs flourish like a green bay-tree; and of course I have to buy of them. They raise chickens. I buy 'em, and cook 'em and then they eat 'em! That's the way it goes. As to the slave-coffles, and slave-prisons, and the trade, why, that's abominable, to be sure. But, Lord bless you, I don't want it done! I'd kick a trader off my doorsteps forthwith, though I'm all eaten up with woolly-heads, like locusts. I don't like such sermons, for my part."

"Well," said Aunt Nesbit, "our Mr. Titmarsh preached quite another way when I attended church in E----. He proved that slavery was a scriptural institution, and established by God."

"I should think anybody's common sense would show that a thing which works so poorly for both sides couldn't be from God," said Nina.

"Who is Mr. Titmarsh?" said Clayton to her, aside.

"Oh, one of Aunt Nesbit's favorites, and one of my aversions! He isn't a man--he's nothing but a theological dictionary with a cravat on! I can't bear him!"

"Now, people may talk as much as they please of the educated democracy of the north," said Uncle John. "I don't like 'em. What do working-men want of education?--Ruins 'em! I've heard of their learned blacksmiths bothering around, neglecting their work, to make speeches. I don't like such things. It raises them above their sphere. And there's nothing going on up in those northern states but a constant confusion and hubbub. All sorts of heresies come from the north, and infidelity, and the Lord knows what! We have peace, down here. To be sure, our poor whites are in a devil of a fix; but we haven't got 'em under yet. We shall get 'em in, one of these days, with our niggers, and then all will be contentment."

"Yes," said Nina, "there's Uncle John's view of the millennium!"

"To be sure," said Uncle John, "the lower classes want governing--they want care; that's what they want. And all they need to know is, what the Episcopal Church catechism says, 'to learn and labor truly to get their own living in the state wherein it has pleased God to call them.' That makes a well-behaved lower class, and a handsome, gentlemanly, orderly state of society. The upper classes ought to be instructed in their duties. They ought to be considerate and condescending, and all that. That's my view of society."

"Then you are no republican," said Clayton.

"Bless you, yes I am! I believe in the equality of gentlemen, and the equal rights of well-bred people. That's my idea of a republic."

Clayton, Nina, and Anne, laughed.

"Now," said Nina, "to see uncle so jovial and free, and 'Hail fellow well met,' with everybody, you'd think he was the greatest democrat that ever walked. But, you see, it's only because he's so immeasurably certain of his superior position--that's all. He isn't afraid to kneel at the altar with Bill Dakin, or Jim Sykes, because he's so sure that his position can't be compromised."

"Besides that, chick," said Uncle John, "I have the sense to know that, in my Maker's presence, all human differences are child's play." And Uncle John spoke with a momentary solemnity which was heartfelt.

It was agreed by the party that they would not stay to attend the evening exercises. The novelty of the effect was over, and Aunt Nesbit spoke of the bad effects of falling dew and night air. Accordingly, as soon as the air was sufficiently cooled to make riding practicable, the party were again on their way home.

The woodland path was streaked with green and golden bands of light thrown between the tree-trunks across the way, and the trees reverberated with the evening song of birds. Nina and Clayton naturally fell into a quiet and subdued train of conversation.

"It is strange," said Nina, "these talkings and searchings about religion. Now, there are people who have something they call religion, which I don't think does them any good. It isn't of any use--it doesn't make them better--and it makes them very disagreeable. I would rather be as I am, than to have what they call religion. But, then, there are others that have something which I know is religion; something that I know I have not; something that I'd give all the world to have, and don't know how to get. Now, there was Livy Ray--you ought to have seen Livy Ray--there was something so superior about her; and, what was extraordinary is, that she was good without being stupid. What do you suppose the reason is that good people are generally so stupid?"

"A great deal," said Clayton, "is called goodness, which is nothing but want of force. A person is said to have self-government simply because he has nothing to govern. They talk about self-denial, when their desires are so weak that one course is about as easy to them as another. Such people easily fall into a religious routine, get by heart a set of phrases, and make, as you say, very stupid, good people."

"Now, Livy," said Nina, "was remarkable. She had that kind of education that they give girls in New England, stronger and more like a man's than ours. She could read Greek and Latin as easily as she could French and Italian. She was keen, shrewd, and witty, and had a kind of wild grace about her, like these grape-vines; yet she was so strong! Well, do you know, I almost worship Livy? And I think, the little while she was in our school, she did me more good than all the teachers and studying put together. Why, it does one good to know that such people are possible. Don't you think it does?"

"Yes," said Clayton; "all the good in the world is done by the personality of people. Now, in books, it isn't so much what you learn from them, as the contact it gives you with the personality of the writer, that improves you. A real book always makes you feel that there is more in the writer than anything that he has said."

"That," said Nina, eagerly, "is just the way I feel toward Livy. She seems to me like a mine. When I was with her the longest, I always felt as if I hadn't half seen her. She always made me hungry to know her more. I mean to read you some of her letters, some time. She writes beautiful letters; and I appreciate that very much, because I can't do it. I can talk better than I can write. Somehow my ideas will not take a course down through my arms; they always will run up to my mouth. But you ought to see Livy; such people always make me very discontented with myself. I don't know what the reason is that I like to see superior people, and things, when they always make me realize what a poor concern I am. Now, the first time I heard Jenny Lind sing, it spoiled all my music and all my songs for me,--turned them all to trash at one stroke,--and yet I liked it. But I don't seem to have got any further in goodness than just dissatisfaction with myself."

"Well," said Clayton, "there's where the foundation-stone of all excellence is laid. The very first blessing that Christ pronounced was on those who were poor in spirit. The indispensable condition to all progress in art, science, or religion, is to feel that we have nothing."

"Do you know," said Nina, after something of a pause, "that I can't help wondering what you took up with me for? I have thought very often that you ought to have Livy Ray."

"Well, I'm much obliged to you," said Clayton, "for your consideration in providing for me. But, supposing I should prefer my own choice, after all? We men are a little wilful, sometimes, like you of the gentler sex."

"Well," said Nina, "if you will have the bad taste, then, to insist on liking me, let me warn you that you don't know what you are about. I'm a very unformed, unpractical person. I don't keep accounts. I'm nothing at all of a housekeeper. I shall leave open drawers, and scatter papers, and forget the day of the month, and tear the newspaper, and do everything else that is wicked; and then, one of these days, it will be, 'Nina, why haven't you done this? and why haven't you done that? and why don't you do the other? and why do you do something else?' Ah, I've heard you men talk before! And, then, you see, I shan't like it, and I shan't behave well. Haven't the least hope of it; won't ever engage to!--So, now, won't you take warning?"

"No," said Clayton, looking at her with a curious kind of smile, "I don't think I shall."

"How dreadfully positive and self-willed men are!" said Nina, drawing a long breath, and pretending to laugh.

"There's so little of that in you ladies," said Clayton, "we have to do it for both."

"So, then," said Nina, looking round with a half-laugh and half-blush, "you will persist?"

"Yes, you wicked little witch!" said Clayton, "since you challenge me, I will." And, as he spoke, he passed his arm round Nina, firmly, and fixed his eyes on hers. "Come, now, my little Baltimore oriole, have I caught you?" And--

But we are making our chapter too long.