The serene old gentleman feels the pulse, with his head reflectively on one side,—tells his little jokelet about Sir Astley Cooper, or some other worthy of the profession,—shakes his fat sides with a cheery laugh,—"And now, my dear," he says, "let us look at the tongue. Ah, I see, I see,—the stomach lacks tone."
"And there's dreadful lassitude, sometimes, Doctor," speaks up Miss Eliza.
"Ah, I see,—a little exhaustion after a long walk,—isn't it so, Miss Maverick? I see, I see; we must brace up the system, Miss Johns,—brace up the system."
And the kindly old gentleman prescribes his little tonics, of which Adèle takes some, and throws more out of the window.
Adèle does not mend, and the rumor is presently current upon the street that "Miss Adeel is in a decline." The spinster shows a solicitude in the matter which almost touches the heart of the French girl. For Adèle had long before decided that there could be no permanent sympathy between them, and had indulged latterly in no little bitterness of speech toward her. But the acute spinster had forgiven all. Never once had she lost sight of her plan for the ultimate disposal of Adèle and of her father's fortune. Of course the life of Adèle was very dear to her, and the absence of Phil she looked upon as Providential.
Weeks pass by, but still the tonics of the kindly old physician prove of little efficacy. One day the Bowriggs come blustering in, as is their wont.
"Such assurance! Did you ever hear the like? Madame Arles writes us that she is coming to see Ashfield again, and of course coming to us. The air of the town agrees with her, and she hopes to find lodgings."
The eyes of Adèle sparkle with satisfaction,—not so much, perhaps, by reason of her old sympathy with the poor woman, which is now almost forgotten, as because it will give some change at least to the dreary monotony of the town life.
"Lodgings, indeed!" says the younger Miss Bowrigg. "I wonder where she will find them!"
It is a matter of great doubt, to be sure,—since the sharp speech of the spinster has so spread the story of her demerits, that not a parishioner of the Doctor but would have feared to give the poor woman a home.
Adèle still has strength enough for an occasional stroll with Rose, and, in the course of one of them, comes upon Madame Arles, whom she meets with a good deal of her old effusion. And Madame, touched by her apparent weakness, more than reciprocates it.
"But you suffer, you are unhappy, my child,—pining at last for the sun of Provence. Isn't it so,mon ange? No, no, you were never meant to grow up among these cold people. You must see the vineyards, and the olives, and the sea, Adèle; you must! you must!"
All this, uttered in a torrent, which, with itstutoiements, Rose can poorly comprehend.
Yet it goes straight to the heart of Adèle, and her tongue is loosened to a little petulant, fieryrouladeagainst the severities of the life around her, which it would have greatly pained poor Rose to listen to in any speech of her own.
But such interviews, once or twice repeated, come to the knowledge of the watchful spinster, who clearly perceives that Adèle is chafing more and more under the wonted family regimen. With an affectation of tender solicitude, she volunteers herself to attend Adèle upon her short morning strolls, and she learns presently, with great triumph, that MadameArles has established herself at last under the same roof which gives refuge to the outcast Boody woman. Nothing more was needed to seal the opinion of the spinster, and to confirm the current village belief in the heathenish character of the French lady. Dame Tourtelot was shrewdly of the opinion that the woman represented some Popish plot for the abduction of Adèle, and for her incarceration in a nunnery,—a theory which Miss Almira, with her natural tendency to romance, industriously propagated.
Meantime the potions of the village doctor have little effect, and before July is ended a serious illness has declared itself, and Adèle is confined to her chamber. Madame Arles is among the earliest who come with eager inquiries, and begs to see the sufferer. But she is confronted by the indefatigable spinster, who, cloaking her denial under ceremonious form, declares that her state of nervous prostration will not admit of it. Madame withdraws, sadly; but the visit and the claim are repeated from time to time, until the stately civility of Miss Johns arouses her suspicions.
"You deny me, Madame. You do wrong. I love Adèle; she loves me. I know that I could comfort her. You do not understand her nature. She was born where the sky is soft and warm. You are all cold and harsh,—cold and harsh in your religion. She has told me as much. I know how she suffers. I wish I could carry her back to France with me. I pray you, let me see her, good Madame!"
"It is quite impossible, I assure you," said the spinster, in her most aggravating manner. "It would be quite against the wishes of my brother, the Doctor, as well as of Mr. Maverick."
"Monsieur Maverick!Mon Dieu, Madame! He is no father to her; he leaves her to die with strangers; he has no heart; I have better right: I love her. I must see her!"
And with a passionate step,—those eyes of hers glaring in that strange double way upon the amazed Miss Eliza,—she strides toward the door, as if she would overcome all opposition. But before she has gone out, that cruel pain has seized her, and she sinks upon a chair, quite prostrated, and with hands clasped wildly over that burden of a heart.
"Too hard! too hard!" she murmurs, scarce above her breath.
The spinster is attentive, but is untouched. Her self-poise never deserts her. And not then, or at any later period, did poor Madame Arles succeed in overcoming the iron resolve of Miss Johns.
The good Doctor is greatly troubled by the report of Miss Eliza. Can it be possible that Adèle has given a confidence to this strange woman that she has not given to them? Cold and harsh! Can Adèle, indeed, have said this? Has he not labored with a full heart? Has he not agonized in prayer to draw in this wandering lamb to the fold? He has seen, indeed, that the poor child has chafed much latterly, that the old serenity and gayety are gone. But is it not a chafing under the fetters of sin? Is it not that she begins to see more clearly the fiery judgments of God which will certainly overwhelm the wrongdoers, whatever may be the unsubstantial and evanescent graces of their mortal life?
Yet, with all the rigidity of his doctrine, which he cannot in conscience mollify, even for the tender ears of Adèle, it disturbs him strangely to hear that she has qualified his regimen as harsh or severe. Has he not taught, in season and out of season, the fulness of God's promises? Has he not labored and prayed? Is it not the ungodly heart in her that finds his teaching a burden? Is not his conscience safe? Yet, for all this, it touches him to the quick to think that her childlike, trustful confidence is at last alienated from him,—that her affection for him is so distempered by dread and weariness. For, unconsciously, he has grown to love her as he loves no one save his boy Reuben; unconsciously his heart has mellowed under her influence. Throughher winning, playful talk, he has taken up that old trail of worldly affections which he had thought buried forever in Rachel's grave. That tender touch of her little fingers upon his cheek has seemed to say, "Life has its joys, old man!" The patter of her feet along the house has kindled the memories of other gentle steps that tread now silently in the courts of air. Those songs of hers,—how he has loved them! Never confessing even to Miss Eliza, still less to himself, how much his heart is bound up in this little winsome stranger, who has shone upon his solitary parsonage like a sunbeam.
And the good man, with such thoughts thronging on him, falls upon his knees, beseeching God to "be over the sick child, to comfort her, to heal her, to pour down His divine grace upon her, to open her blind eyes to the richness of His truth, to keep her from all the machinations and devices of Satan, to arm her with true holiness, to make her a golden light in the household, to give her a heart of love toward all, and most of all toward Him who so loved her that He gave His only begotten Son."
And the Doctor, rising from his attitude of prayer, and going toward the little window of his study to arrange it for the night, sees a slight figure in black pacing up and down upon the opposite side of the way, and looking up from time to time to the light that is burning in the window of Adèle. He knows on the instant who it must be, and fears more than ever the possible influence which this strange woman, who is so persistent in her attention, may have upon the heart of the girl. The Doctor had heretofore been disposed to turn a deaf ear to the current reproaches of Madame Arles for her association with the poor outcast daughter of the village; but her appearance at this unseemly hour of the night, coupled with his traditional belief in the iniquities of the Romish Church, excited terrible suspicions in his mind. Like most holy men, ignorant of the crafts and devices of the world, he no sooner blundered into a suspicion of some deep Devil's cunning than every footfall and every floating zephyr seemed to confirm it. He bethought himself of Maverick's earnest caution; and before he went to bed that night, he prayed that no designing Jezebel might corrupt the poor child committed to his care.
The next night the Doctor looked again from his window, after blowing out his lamp, and there once more was the figure in black, pacing up and down. What could it mean? Was it possible that some Satanic influence could pass over from this emissary of the Evil One, (as he firmly believed her to be,) for the corruption of the sick child who lay in the delirium of a fever above?
The extreme illness of Adèle was subject of common talk in the village, and the sympathy was very great. On the following night Adèle was far worse, and the Doctor, at about his usual bedtime, went out to summon the physician. At a glance he saw in the shadow of the opposite houses the same figure pacing up and down. He hurried his steps, fearing she might seek occasion to dart in upon the sick-chamber before his return. But he had scarcely gone twenty paces from his door, when he heard a swift step behind, and in another instant there was a grip, as of a tigress, upon his arm.
"Adèle,—how is she? Tell me!"
"Ill,—very ill," said the Doctor, shaking himself from her grasp, and continued in his solemn manner, "it is an hour to be at home, woman!"
But she, paying no heed to his admonition, says,—
"I must see her,—Imust!"—and dashes back toward the parsonage.
The Doctor, terrified, follows after. But he can keep no manner of pace with that swift, dark figure that glides before him. He comes to the porch panting. The door is closed. Has the infuriated woman gone in? No, for presently her grasp is again upon his arm: for a moment she had sunk, exhausted by fatigue, or overcome by emotion, upon the porch. Her tone is more subdued.
"I entreat you, good Doctor, let mesee Adèle!—for Christ's sake, if you be His minister, let me see her!"
"Impossible, woman, impossible!" says the Doctor, more than ever satisfied of her Satanic character by what he counts her blasphemous speech. "Adaly is delirious,—fearfully excited; it would destroy her. The only hope is in perfect quietude."
The woman releases her grasp.
"Please, Doctor, let me come to-morrow. I must see her! I will see her!"
"You shall not," said the Doctor, with solemnity,—"never, with my permission. Go to your home, woman, and pray God to have mercy on you."
"Monster!" exclaimed she, passionately, as she shook the Doctor's arm, still under her grasp; and murmuring other words in language the good man did not comprehend, she slipped silently down the yard,—away into the darkness.
She was of pure race, black as her first ancestor,—if, indeed, she ever had an ancestor, and were not an indigenous outcrop of African soil,—so black that the sun could gild her. Her countenance was as unlovely as it is possible for one to be that owns the cheeriest of smiles and the most dazzling of teeth. It would have been difficult to say how old she was, though she had the effect of being undersized, and, with sharp shoulders, elbows, and knees, seemed scarcely possessed of a rounded muscle in all her lithe and agile frame.
Nevertheless, she was a dancer by profession,—if she could have dignified her most frequent occupation by the title of profession. With a thin blue scarf turbaned round her head in floating ends, and with scanty and clinging array otherwise, tossing a tambourine, and singing wild, meaningless songs, she used to whirl and spring on the grass-plot of an evening, the young masters and mistresses smiling and applauding from the verandah, while the wind-blown flame of a flaring pitch-pine knot, held by little Pluto, gave her strange careering shadows for partner.
She had not yet been allotted to any particular task by day, now running errands of the house, now tending the sick, now, in punishment of misdemeanors, relieving an exhausted hand in the field,—for, though all along the upland lay the piny woods of the turpentine-orchards, she belonged to an estate whose rich lowlands were devoted to cotton-bearing. But whatever she did by day, she danced by night, with her wild gyration and gesture, as naturally as a moth flies; and when not in demand with the seigniory, was wont to perform in even keener force and fire at the quarters, to an admiring circle of her own kind, with ambitious imitators on the outskirts.
It was not, however, an indiscriminate assemblage even there that encouraged her rude art. There are circles within circles, and the more decorous of the slaves gave small favor to the young posturer, although the patronage she received from the house enabled her to meet their disapprobation defiantly; while to the younger portion, in the vague sense that there was something wrong about it, her dance became surrounded by all the attraction and allurement of seeing life. It was not that the frowning ones did not go through many of the same motions themselves; but theirs were occasioned by the frenzy of the religious excitement, where pious raptureand ecstasy were to be expressed by nothing but the bodily exertion of the Shout: the objectless dance of the dancer was a thing beyond their comprehension, dimly at first, and then positively, associated with sin. But she laughed them down with a gibe; she felt triumphant in the possession of her secret, known to none of them: her dance was not objectless, but the perpetual expression of all emotions, whether of beauty or joy or gratitude or praise. Some one at the house had given her a pair of little hoops with bells attached, which she was wont to wear about her ankles, and it afforded her malicious enjoyment to scatter her opponents by the tintinnabulation of her step. For all that levity, she was not destitute of her peculiar mode of adoration. For the religion of the Shout she had no absorbents whatever; she furtively watched it, and openly ridiculed it; but she had a religion of her own, notwithstanding,—a sort of primitive and grand religion, Fetich though it was. She reasoned, that the kindly brown earth produces us, bears us along on its flight, nourishes us, gives us the delights of life, takes us back into its bosom at last. She worshipped the great dark earth, imparted to it her confidence, asked of it her boons. As she grew older, and her logic or her fancy strengthened, she might have felt the sun supplying the earth, and the beings of the earth, with all their force, and have become a fire-worshipper, until further light broke on her, and she sought and found the Power that feeds the very sun himself. But at present the dust of which she was made was what she could best comprehend. So, fortified by her inward faith, and feeling herself fast friends with the ancient earth, she continued to ring her silver bells and spin her bare twinkling feet with contented disregard of those, few of whom in their unseemly worship had the faintest idea of what it was that ailed them.
Although known by various titles on the plantation, objurgatory among the hands, facetious among the heads, such as Dancing Devil, Spinning Jenny, Tarantella, Herodias's Daughter,—which last, simplifying itself into Salome, became in its diminutives the most prevalent,—the creature had a name of her own, the softest of syllables. Black and uncouth as she was, a word, one of those the whitest and most beautiful, named her; and since they tell us that every appellation has its significance for the wearer, we must suppose that somewhere in her soul that white and blossoming thing was to be found which answered to the name of Flor.
She possessed a kind of freehold in the cabin of an old negress yclept Zoë; but she seldom claimed it, for Zoë was outspoken; she preferred, instead, to lie down by night on a mat in Miss Emma's room, in a corner of the staircase, on the hall-floor, oftenest fallen wherever sleep happened to overtake her;—having so many places in which to lay her head was very like having none at all. She was at the bidding of every one, but seldom received a heavy blow; as for a round of angry words, she liked nothing better. She fell heir to much flimsy finery, as a matter of course, and to many a tidbit, cake or sweetmeat; she made herself gaudy as a butterfly with the one, and never went into a corner with the other. Of late, however, the finery and the delicates had become more uncommon things: Miss Emma wore a homespun gingham, her muslins, and Miss Agatha's, draped the windows,—for curtains and carpets had all gone to camp; bacon had ceased to be given out to the hands, who lived now on corn-meal and yams; the people at the house were scarcely better off,—for, though, as no army had passed that way, the chickens still peopled the place, they were reserved for special occasions, and it was only at rare intervals that one indulged at table in the luxury of a fowl. This was no serious regret to Flor on her own account: the less viands, the less dishes, she could oftener pause in the act of wiping a plate and perform an original hornpipe by herself, tossing the thin translucent china, and rapping it with her knuckles till it rang again. She had, however, a pang once whenshe saw Miss Emma lunching with relish on cold sweet potato. She spent all the rest of the day floating on the tide in an old abandoned scow secured by a long rope to the bank, and afterwards wading up and down the bed of a brook that ran into the river, until, having left a portion of her provision, to be sure, at Aunt Zoë's cabin, she busied herself over a fire out-of-doors, and served up at last before Miss Emma as savory a little terrapin stew as ever simmered on coals, capering over her success, and standing on her head in the midst of all her scattered embers, afterwards, with pure delight. The next day she came in at noon from the woods, a mile down the river-bank, with her own dark lips cased and coated in golden sweets, and, after a wordy skirmish with the cook, presented to Miss Emma a great cake of brown and fragrant honey from a nest she had discovered and neglected in better seasons, and said nothing about her half-dozen swollen and smarting stings. Mas'r Rob having shouldered his gun and taken himself off, and Mas'r Andersen having followed his example, but not his footsteps, long ago, there was nobody to fill the deficiencies of the larder with game; and thus Flor, with her traps and nets and devices, making her value felt every day, became, for Miss Emma's sake, a petted person, was put on more generous terms with those above her, and allowed a freedom of action that no other servant on the place dreamed of desiring. Such consideration was very acceptable to the girl, who was well content to go fasting herself a whole day, provided Miss Emma condescended to her offerings, and, in turn, vouchsafed her her friendship. She had no such daring aspirations towards the beautiful Miss Agatha, young Mas'r Andersen's wife, and admired her at an awful distance, never venturing to offer her a bit of broiled lark, or set before her a dish of crabs,—beaming back with a grin from ear to ear, if Miss Agatha so much as smiled on her, breaking into the wildest of dances and shuffling out the shrillest of tunes after every such incident. Moreover, Miss Agatha was hedged about with a dignity of grief, and the indistinct pity given her made her safe from other intrusion; for Mas'r Andersen, in bringing home a Northern wife, had brought home Northern principles, and, in his sudden escape forced to leave her in the only home she had, was away fighting Northern battles. This was a dreadful thing, and Mas'r Andersen was a traitor to somebody,—so much Flor knew,—it might be the Government, it might be the South, it might be Miss Agatha; her ideas were nebulous. Whatever it was, Mas'r Rob and his gun were on the other side, and woe be to Mas'r Andersen when they met! Mas'r Rob and his friends were beating back the men that meant to take away Flor and all her kind to freeze and starve; 'twas very good of him, Flor thought, and there ceased consideration. Meanwhile, wherever Mas'r Andersen might be, and whether he were so much as alive or not, Miss Agatha was not the one that knew; and Flor adapted many a rigadoon to her conjectured feelings, now swaying and bending with sorrow and longing, head fallen, arms outstretched, now hands clasped on bosom, exultant in welcome and possession.
The importance to which Flor gradually rose by no means led her to the exhibition of any greater decorum; on the contrary, it seemed to impart to her the secret of perpetual motion; and, aware of her impunity, she danced with fresher vigor in the very teeth of her censurers and their reproaches.
"Go 'long wid yer capers, ye Limb!" said Zoë to her, late one afternoon, as she entered with the half of a rabbit she had caught, and, having deposited it, went through the intricacies of her most elaborate figure in breathless listening to an unheard tune. "Ef I had dem sticks o' legs, dey'd do berrer work nor twirlin' me like I was a factotum."
At this, Flor suddenly spun about on the tip of one toe for the space of three minutes, with a buzzing noise like that of a top in hot motion, pausing at last to inquire, "Well, Maum Zoë, an'w'at's dat?" and be off again in another whirl.
"I'd red Mas'r Henry ob sich a wurfless nigger."
"Wurfless?" inquired Flor, still spinning.
"Wuss 'n wurfless."
"How 'd y' do it?"
"I'd jus' foller dat ar Sarp," said Zoë, turning over the rabbit, and considering whether a pepper-corn and a little onion out of her own patch wouldn't improve the broth she meant to make of it.
"Into de swamps?" said Flor, in a high key. "Sarp's a fool. I heerd Mas'r Henry say so. Dey'll gib him a blue-pill, for sartain."
"Humph!" said Aunt Zoë, as if she could say a great deal more.
"Tell ye w'at, Maum Zoë," replied Flor, shaking her sidelong head at every syllable, and accentuating her remarks with her forefinger and both her little sparkling eyes, "I'll 'form on ye for 'ticin' Mas'r Henry's niggers run away."
"None o' yer sass here!" said Maum Zoë, with a flashing glance.
"You take my rabbit, you mus'habmy sass," answered Flor, delicacy not being ingrain with her. "W'at 'ud I cut for to de swamps, d' ye s'pose?" she said, slapping the soles of her feet in her emphasis, and pausing for breath. "Dar neber was a lash laid on dat back"——
"No fault o' dat back, dough," interposed Aunt Zoë.
"Dar neber was a lash on dat back. Dar a'n't a person on de place hab sich treatem as dis yere Limb o' yourn. Miss Emma done gib me her red ribbins on'y Sa'd'y for my har. An' Mas'r Henry, he jus' pass an' say to me, 'Dono w'at Miss Emma 'd do widout ye, Lomy. Scairt, ye hussy!' So!"
"'Zackly. We's 'mos' w'ite, we be! How much dey do make ob us up to de house! De leopard hab change him spots, an' we hab change our skin! W'at 's de use o' bein' free, w'en we's w'ite folks a'ready? Tell me dat!" said Aunt Zoë, turning on her witheringly, rising from a deep curtsy and smoothing down her apron. "Tell ye w'at, ye Debil's spinster!" added she, with a sudden change of tone, as Flor began to mimic one of Miss Agatha's opera-tunes and with her hands on her hips slowly balance up and down the room, and came at last, bending far on one side, to leer up in the face of her elder with such a smile as Cubas was wont to give her Spanish lover in the dance. "So mighty free wid yer dancin', 'pears like you'll come to dance at a rope's end! W'at's de use o' talkin' to you? 'Mortal sperit, it 's my b'lief dat ar mockin'-bird in de branches hab as good a lookout!"
"Heap better," said Flor acquiescently, and beginning to hold a whistling colloquy with the hidden voice.
"You won't bring him down wid yer tunes. He knows w'en he's well off; he's free, he is,—swingin' onto de bough, an' 'gwine whar he like."
"Leet de chil' alone, Zoë," said a superannuated old woman sitting in the corner by the fire always smouldering on Zoë's hearth, and leaning her white head on her cane. "You be berrer showin' her her duty in her place dan be makin' her discontented."
"She doan' make me disconnected, Maum Susie," said Flor. "'F he's free, w'at's he stayin' here for? Dar 's law for dat. Doan' want none o' yer free niggers hangin' roun' dis yere. Chirrup!"
"Dar's a right smart chance ob 'em, dough, jus' now," said Aunt Zoë, chuckling at first, and then breaking into the most boisterous of laughs, "Seems like we's all ob us, ebery one, free as Sarp hisse'f. Mas'r Linkum say so. Yah, ha, ha!"
"Linkum!" said Flor. "Who dat ar? Some o' yer poor w'ite trash? Mas'r Henry doan' say so!"
"W'a' 's de matter wid dat ar boy Sarp, Zoë?" recommenced Flor, after a pause. "Mus' hab wanted suffin,—powerful,—to lib in de swamp, hab de dogs after him, an' a bullet troo de head mos' likely."
"Jus' dat. Wanted him freedom,"said Zoë suddenly, with crackling stress, her eyes getting angry in their fervor, as she went on. "Wanted him body for him own. Tired o' usin' 'noder man's eyes, 'noder man's han's. Wanted him han's him own, wanted him heart him own! Had n' no breff to breathe 'cep' w'at Mas'r Henry gib out. Di'n' t'ink no t'oughts but Mas'r Henry's. Wanted him wife some day to hisse'f, wanted him chillen for him own property. Wanted to call no man mas'r but de Lord in heaben!"
"Wy, Maum Zoë, how you talk! Sarp had n' no wife."
"Neber would, w'ile he wor a slave."
"Hist now, Zoë!" said the old woman.
"I jus' done b'lieve you's a bobolitionist!" said Flor, with wide eyes and a battery of nods.
"No 'casion, no 'casion," said Zoë, with the deep inner chuckle again. "We's done 'bolished,—dat's w'at we is! We's a free people now. No more work for de 'bominationists!" And on the point of uncontrollable hilarity, she checked herself with the dignity becoming her new position. "You's your own nigger now, Salome," said she.
"We? No, t'ank you. I 'longs to Miss Emma."
"You haan' no understandin' for liberty, chil'. Seems ef 'twas like religion"——
"Ef I wor to tell Mas'r Henry, oh, wouldn' you cotch it?"
"Go 'long!" cried Zoë, looking out for a missile. "Doan' ye bring no more o' yer rabbits here, ef ye 'r' gwine to fetch an' carry"——
"Lors, Aunt Zoë, 'pears like you's out o' sorts. Haan' I got nof'n berrer to do dan be tellin' tales ob old women dat's a-waitin' for de Lord's salvation?" said Flor, with a twang of great gravity,—and proceeded thereat to make her exit in a series of lively somersaults through the room and over the threshold.
Aunt Zoë, who, ever since she had lost the use of her feet, had been a little wild on the subject of freedom, knew very well within that Flor would make no mischief for her; but, except for the excited state into which the news brought by some mysterious plantation runner had thrown her, she would scarcely have been so incautious. As it was, she had dropped a thought into Flor's head to ferment there and do its work. It was almost the first time in her life that the girl had heard freedom discussed as anything but a doubtful privilege. First awakening to consciousness in this state, it was with effort and only lately she had comprehended that there could be any other: a different condition from one in which Miss Emma was mistress and she was maid seemed at first preposterous, then fabulous, and still unnatural: nevertheless, there was a flavor of wicked pleasure in the thought. Flor looked with a sort of contempt on the little tumbling darkies who had never entertained it. Ever since she was born, however, she had frequently fancied she would like the liberty of rambling that the little wild creatures of the wood possess, but had felt criminal in the desire, and recently she had found herself enjoying the immunity of the mocking-bird on the bough, and was nearly as free in her going and coming as the same bird on the wing.
During the weeks that followed this conversation Flor's dances flagged. They existed, to be sure, but with an angularity that made them seem solutions of problems, rather than expressions of emotion; they were merely mechanical, for she had lost all interest in them. They became at last so listless as to exhibit, to more serious eyes, signs of grace in the girl. Flor wondered, if Zoë had spoken the truth, that nothing appeared changed on the plantation: all their own masters, why so obsequious to the driver still? This was one of the last of the great places; behind it, the small farms, with few hands, ran up the mountains; why was there no stampede of these unguarded slaves? She hardly understood. She listened outside the circle of the fire on the ground at night, where two or three old women mumbled together; she inferred,that, though no one of them would desert Mas'r Henry, they enjoyed the knowledge that they were at liberty to do so, if they wished. Flor laughed a bit at this, thinking where the poor things could possibly go, and how they could get there, if they would; but in her heart of hearts—though all the world but this one spot was a barren wilderness, and she never could desire to leave her dear Miss Emma, nor could find happiness away from her—it seemed a very pleasant thing to think that her devotion might be a voluntary affair, and she stayed because she chose. Still she was skeptical. The abstract question puzzled her a little, too. How came Mas'r Henry to be free? Because he was white; that explained itself. But Miss Emma—she was white, too, and yet somehow she seemed to belong to Mas'r Henry. She wondered if Mas'r Henry could sell Miss Emma; and then the thought occurred, and with the thought the fear, that, possibly, some day, he might sell her, Flor herself, away from Miss Emma and all these pleasant scenes. After such a thought had once come, it did not go readily. Flor let it linger,—turned it over in her mind; gradually familiarized with its hurt, it seemed as if she had half said farewell to the place. Better far to be a runaway than to be sold. But if it came to that, whither should she run? what was this world beyond? who was there in this sad wide world to take care of a little black image? And if she waited for it to come to that, could she get away at all? It was no wonder that in the midst of such new and grave speculations the girl's dance grew languid and her sharp tongue still. The earth was just as beautiful as ever, the skies were as deep, the flowers as intense in tint, the evening air laden with jasmine-scents as delicious as of old; but in these few weeks Flor had reached another standpoint. It seemed as if a film had fallen from her eyes, and she saw a blight on every blossom.
It was about this time, spring being at its flush, that some passing guest mentioned the march of a regiment, the next day, from Cotesworth Court-House to the first railroad-station, on its way to the seat of war. The idea of the thing filled Miss Emma with enthusiasm. How they would look, so many together, in the beautiful gray uniform too, to any one standing on Longfer Hill! She longed to see the faces of men when they took their lives in their hand for a principle. She had practised the Bonny Blue Flag till there was nothing left of it; but if a band played it in the open air, with the rising and falling of the wind, and under waving banners and glittering guidons all the men with their pale faces and shining eyes went marching by——
The end of it was, that, as her father would never have listened to anything of the kind, Flor privately informed her of a short cut down the river-bank and round the edge of the swamp to the foot of Longfer Hill,—a walk they could easily take in a couple of hours. And as nobody was in the habit of missing Flor much, and her young mistress would be supposed, after her custom, to be spending half the day in naps, they accordingly took it. Nevertheless, it was an exceedingly secret affair, for Mas'r Henry had always strictly forbidden his daughter to leave his own grounds without fit escort.
This expedition seemed to Flor such a proud and gratifying confidence, that in her pleasure she forgot to think; she only danced round about her mistress, with a return of her old exuberance, till the more quiet path of the latter resembled a straight line surrounded by an arabesque of fantastic flourishes. But, in fact, the young patrician, unaccustomed to exertion, was well wearied before they reached the river-bank. They had yet the long border of the swamp to skirt, and there towered Longfer Hill. Why could they not go across, she wondered. They would sink, Flor answered her; and then the moccasins! But there were all those green hummocks,—skipping from one to another would be mere play,—and there were no moccasins for miles. And before Flor could gainsay her, she had sprung on, keepingsteadily ahead, in a determination to have her own way; and with no other course left her, Flor followed, though, at every spring, alighting on the hummocks that Miss Emma had trodden, the water splashed up about her bare ankles, and her heart shook within her at the thought of fierce runaways haunting these inaccessible hollows, and the myths of the deeper district. Before long, she had overtaken her young mistress, and they paused a moment for parley. Miss Emma was convinced, that, if it were no worse than this, it would be delightful. Flor assured her that she did not know the way any longer, for their winding path between the tall cypresses veiled in their swinging tangles of funereal moss had confused her, and she could only guess at the direction of Longfer Hill. This, then, was an adventure. Miss Emma took the responsibility all upon herself, and plunged forward. Miss Emma must know best, of course, concerning everything. Nothing loth, and gayly, Flor plunged after.
The hummocks on which they went were light, spongy masses of greenery. Their footprints filled at once behind them with clear dark water; there were glistening little pools everywhere about them; the ground was so covered with mats of brilliant blossoms that what appeared solid for the foot was oftenest the most treacherous place of all; and at last they stayed to take breath, planting themselves on the trunk of a fallen tree so twisted and twined with variegated vines and flowers, and deadly, damp fungi, that it was like some gorgeous daïs-seat. Behind them and beside them was the darkness of the cypress groves. Before them extended a smooth floor, a wide level region, carpeted in the most vivid verdure and sheeted with the sunshine, an immense bed of softest moss, underlaid with black bog, quaking at every step, and shaking a thousand diamonds into the light. Scarcely anything stirred through all the stretch; at some runnel along its nearer margin, where upon one side the more broken swamp recommenced, a rosy flamingo stood and fished, and, still remoter, the melancholy note of a bird tolled its refrain, answered by an echoing voice from some yet inner depth of forest far away. Save for this, the silence was as intense as the vastness and color of the scene, till it opened and resolved itself into one broad insect hum. The children took a couple of steps forward, under their feet the elastic sod sank and rose with a spurt of silver jets; they sprang back to their seats, and the shading tree above shook down a shining shower in rillets of silver rain. They remained for a minute, then, resting there. Singularly enough, Longfer Hill, which had previously been upon their left, now rose far away upon the right. When at length they comprehended its apparition, they looked at one another in complete bewilderment. Miss Emma began to cry; but Flor took it as only a fresh complication of this world, that was becoming for her feet a maze of intricacy.
"We must go back," said Miss Emma, at last. "I'm sure, if I'd known——Of course we never can cross here. The very spoonbill wades. Oh, why didn't——Well, there's no blame to you, Floss. I've nobody to thank but myself; that's a comfort."
"Lors, Miss Emma, it's my fault altogeder. I should n' neber told ye. An' as for gwine back, it's jus' as bad as torrer."
"We can't stay here all night! Oh, I'm right tired out! If I could lie down"——
"'Twouldn' do no way, Miss Emma," answered Flor, in a fright for her friend, as a quick, poisonous-looking lizard slid along the log, like a streak of light, in the wake of a spider which was one blotch of scarlet venom.
Far ahead, the strong sun, piercing the marsh, drew up a vapor, that, blue as any distant haze in one part and lint-white in another, made itself aslant into low, delicious, broken prisms, melting all between. This, more than anything else, told the extent of the bog before them, and, hot as it was now, betrayed the deathly chill lurking under such a coverlet at night. In every otherdirection lay the cypress jungle; and whether they saw the front or back of Longfer Hill, and on which side the river ran, steering for which they could steer for home, they had not the skill to say. Thus, what way to go they still were undecided, when, at something moving near them, they started to their feet in a faint terror, delaying only a single instant to gaze at it,—a serpent, that, coiled round the stem above, had previously seemed nothing but a splendid parasite, and that just lifted its hooded head crusted with gems, and flickered a long cleft tongue of flame over them, while loosening in great loops from its basking-place. They vouchsafed it no second look, but, with one leap over the log, through the black mire, and from clump to clump of moss, sped away,—if that could be called speed which was hindered at each moment by waylaying briers and entangling ropes of blossoming vines, by delays in threatening quagmires and bewilderments in thickets beset by clouds of insects, by trips and stumbles and falls and bruises, and many a pause for tears and complaints and ejaculations of despair.
Meanwhile the heat of the day was mitigated by thin clouds sliding over the sun and banking up the horizon, though the hot wind still blew sweetly and steadily from the open quarter of the sky.
"Oh, what has become of us?" cried Miss Emma at length, when the shadows began to thicken, and out of the impenetrable forest and morass about them they could detect no path.
"We's los' into de swamp, Miss Emma," answered Flor, in a kind of gloomy defiance of the worst of it,—"da' 's all."
"And here we shall die!" cried the other.
And she flung herself, face down, upon the floor.
Flor was beside her instantly, taking her head upon her knee. Her own heart was sinking like lead; but she plucked it up, and for the other's sake snapped her fingers at Fortune.
"Lors, Miss, dar's so many berries we caan' starve nowes. I's 'bout to build a fire soon's it's dark; dis yere's a dry spot, ye see now. An', bress you, dey'll be out after us afore mornin',—de whole farm-full."
"With the dogs!" cried Miss Emma. "Oh, Floss, that I should live for that! to be hunted in the swamp with dogs!"
Flor was silent a moment or two. The custom personally affected her for the first time; worse than the barbarity was the indignity.
"Dey aren't trained to hunt for you, Miss Emma," she said, more gloomily than she had ever spoken before. "Dey knows de diff'unce 'tween de dark meat and de light."
And then she laughed, as if her words meant nothing.
"They never shall touchyou, Flor, while I'm alive!" suddenly exclaimed Miss Emma, throwing her arms about her.
"Lors, Miss, how you talk!" cried Flor, and then broke into a gust of tears. "To t'ink ob you a-carin' so much for a little darky, Miss!"—and she set up a loud howl of joyful sorrow.
"You're the best friend I've got!" answered Miss Emma, hugging her with renewed warmth. "I love you worlds better than Agatha! And I'll never let you leave me! Oh, Flor! what shall we do?"
Flor looked about her for reply, and then scrambled up a sycamore like a squirrel.
It was apparently an island in the swamp on which they were: for the earth, though damp, was firm beneath them; and there was a thick growth of various trees about, although most were draped to the ground in the long, dark tresses of Spanish moss, waving dismally to and fro, with a dull, heavy motion of grief. On every other side from that by which they had come it appeared to be inaccessible, surrounded, as well as Flor could see, by glimmering sheets of water, which probably were too full of snags and broken stumps, still upright, for the navigation of boatsby any hands but those thoroughly acquainted with their wide region of stagnant pools. This island was not, however, a small spot, but one that comprised a variety of surfaces, having not only marsh and upland within itself, but something that in the distance bore a fearful resemblance to a young patch of standing corn, a suspicion confirmed into certainty by a blue thread of smoke ascending a little way and falling again in a cloud. Once, upon seeing such a sight, Flor might have fallen to the ground herself,—this could be no less than the abode of those sad runaways, those mythical Goblins of the Swamp,—but it would have been because she had forgotten then that she was not one of the strong white race that reared her. Now, at this moment, she felt a thrill of kinship with these creatures, hunted for with bloodhounds, as she would be to-morrow, perhaps.
"May-be I'll not go back," said Flor.
She slipped down the tree, and went silently to work, heaping a bed of the hanging moss, less wet than the ground itself, for her young mistress. Miss Emma accepted it passively.
"Oh, it's like sleeping on hearse-curtains!" was all she said.
It was already evening, but growing darker with the clouds that went on piling their purple masses and awaiting their signal. Suddenly the sweet, soft breeze trembled and veered, there was a brief calm, and the wind had hauled round the other way. A silence of preparation, answered by a long, low note of thunder, and the war had begun in heaven.
Miss Emma buried her face in the moss. But Flor, secretly relishing a good thunder-gust, drew up her knees and sat with equanimity, like a little black judge of the clouds; for, in the moment's dull, indifferent mood, she felt prepared for either fate. It was long before the rain came; then it plunged, a brief downfall, as if a cloud had been ripped and emptied,—a suffocating terror of rain, teeming with more appalling intimations than anything else in the world. But the wind was a blind tornado. The boughs swung over them and swept them; the swamp-water was lifted, and gluts of it slapped in Flor's face. She saw, not far away, a great solitary cypress rearing its head, and bearing aloft a broad eagle's nest, hurriedly seized in the grasp of the gale, twisted, raised, and snapped like a straw. The child began to shudder strangely at the breath of this blast that cried with such clamor out of the black vaults above, this unknown and tremendous power beneath which she was nothing but a mote; she suffered an unexplained awe, as if this fearful wind were some supernatural assemblage of souls fleeting through space and making the earth tremble under their wild rush. All the while the heavy thunders charged on high in one unbroken roar, across whose base sharp bolts broke and burst perpetually; and with the outer world wrapped in quivering curtains of blue flame, now and then a shaft of fire lanced its straight spear down the dense darkness of the woods behind in ghastly illumination, and a responsive spire shot up in some burning bush that blackened almost as instantly. Flor fancied that the lightning was searching for her, a runaway herself, and the burning bush answered, like a sentinel, that here she was. She cowered at length and sought the protection of the blind earth, full of awe and quaking, till by-and-by the last discharge, muffled and ponderous, rolled away, and, save for a muttered growl in some far distant den, the world was still and dark again.
Flor spoke to her mistress, and found, that, utterly worn out with fatigue and fright and exhausted electricity, she was asleep. She then got up and wrung out the rain from portions of her own and Miss Emma's dress, and heaped fresh armfuls of moss upon the sleeper in an original attempt at the pack; then she proceeded to explore the neighborhood, to see if there were any exit in other directions from the terrors of the swamp.
Stars began to struggle through andconfuse their rays with the ravelled edges of the clouds. She groped along from tree to tree, looking constantly behind her at the clear, light opening of sky beneath which Miss Emma lay.
Perhaps she had come farther than she knew; for all at once, in the dread stillness that nothing but the dripping dampness broke, a sound smote her like a pang. It was an innocent and simple sound enough, a man's voice, clear and sweet, though measured somewhat, and suppressed in volume, chanting a slow, sad hymn, that had yet a kind of rejoicing about it:—