CHAPTER XI.
In the Brown camp the great family of fugitives dwelt together in guileless and trusting brotherhood under the patriarchal care of Captain Brown, who daily praised the Eternal Sire, and one soul of harmony and love was infused into each individual dweller.
John Brown was a man of deep religious convictions; but mingled with austerity were perfect gentleness and self-renunciation which inspired love in every breast. But amid the self-denying calmness of his deportment, those who looked deeply into his eyes might discern some cast of that quiet and determined courage which faced his enemies in later years before the Virginia tribunal where, threatened with an ignominious death, he made the unmoved reply—“I am about God’s work; He will take care of me.”
The fugitive slaves who came in fear and trembling were strengthened and improved by contact with the free, strong spirit of their rescuer and his associate helpers of proscribed Free Staters.
Weeks must elapse, perhaps, before a force of sufficient strength could be organized to protect the fugitives on their perilous trip to Canada. In the interval Captain Brown was pastor, guide and counsellor. The instruction of youth he considered one of the most sacred departments of his office, so it happened that in the camp the ex-slave received his first lessons in the true principles of home-building and the responsibility of freedom. There he first heard God’s commands in the words of Holy Writ:
“He hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.”
“There is no respect of persons with God.”
“Do to another as you would that another should do to you.”
“Remember those in bonds as bound with them.”
In the field the negro learned for the first time in his life the sweetness of requited toil together with the manliness of self-defence, for the musket was the companion of the implements of rural toil, as in the days of Nehemiah the restorers of Jerusalem wrought “every man with one hand upon the wall and with the other held his spear, having his sword girded by his side;” and also that it was better to die than to live a coward and a slave.
Winona was quartered at the Brown domicile. With her story and her beauty she was an object of uncommon interest to all in the camp. She became Captain Brown’s special care and the rugged Puritan unbent to spoil and pet the “pretty squaw,” as he delighted to call her.
And to Winona all the land had changed. The red-golden light that rested upon it near the evening hour was now as the light of heaven. The soft breezes that murmured through the trees and touched her cheek so gently, seemed to whisper, “Peace and rest. Peace and rest once again. Be not cast down.”
There was the touch of sympathy and comfort in the rugged Captain’s hand pressed upon her short-cropped curls. It gave her courage and robbed her heart of its cold desolation. She felt she was no longer alone; heaven, in her dire need, had sent her this good man, upon whom she might rely, in whom she could trust. Though much older, Captain Brown reminded her of her father, and her quiet childhood dependent upon him for constant companionship had given her a liking for elderly people, and she treated Captain Brown with a reverential respect that at once won his confidence and affection.
But there was not a day nor an hour that she did not think of Maxwell. She craved for news of his safety. When the daily routine of work was ended, the girl would steal into the woods which skirted the camp and climb to a seat on the high rocks watching eastward and westward for some sign of the young Englishman’s return.
Some impulse of the wild things among whom she had lived drove her to a hole in under the bluff. It was necessary to descend to find it. Presently she was in a tunnel which led into a cavern. She made herself a divan of dried moss and flung herself down at full length to think. Time’s divisions were lost on those days when the girl felt that she neglected no duty by hiding herself in her nook. She had come upon the eternal now as she lay in a sweet stupor until forced to arouse herself. She stared across the space that divided Maxwell from her with all the strength of her inner consciousness. That light which falls on the spot where one’s loved one stands, leaving the rest of the landscape in twilight, now rested about him. With rapture she saw again the hopeless passion in Warren’s eyes when he left her. Her hands and feet were cold, her muscles knotted, her face white with the force of the cry that she projected through space, “Come back to me!”
And this young creature just escaped from cruel bondage gave not a thought to the difficulties of her position. In the primal life she had led there had entered not a thought of racial or social barriers. The woods calmed her, their grays and greens and interlacing density of stems, and their whisper of a secret that has lasted from the foundation of the world, replacing her fever with the calmness of hope. In the midst of her sweet perplexity came another trouble.
Judah’s capabilities were discovered very soon by Captain Brown and his sons, and he was appointed special aid and scout to the camp. Nothing could have suited him better. All day he scoured the woods, following the trail of parties of desperadoes or bringing in the fruits of the line or rifle to supply the needs in fish or meat. Twice he saved them from surprise by bands of marauders, and soon his name was heralded with that of Brown as a brave and fearless man bold to recklessness.
Sometimes Winona accompanied him on his trips when not fraught with much danger; once he tried to broach the subject nearest his heart, but a movement on her part—the carriage of the head, a queenly gesture—served to intimidate him and forced back the words.
The next night he passed in the woods, with his rifle, on a bed of leaves, studying over the problem of his life. “Why should I hesitate? We are of the same condition in life in the eyes of the world.” But even while the thought was in his mind he knew that what he desired could never be. Unconsciously he was groping for the solution of the great question of social equality.
But is there such a thing as social equality? There is such a thing as the affinity of souls, congenial spirits, and good fellowship; but social equality does not exist because it is an artificial barrier which nature is constantly putting at naught by the most incongruous happenings. Who is my social equal? He whose society affords the greatest pleasure, whose tastes are congenial, and who is my brother in the spirit of the scriptural text, be he white or black, bond or free, rich or poor.
The next morning Judah built a fire in a deep ravine to cook his breakfast, and then scattered the embers that the smoke should give no sign.
All the morning he waited near her favorite haunts determined to speak out the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to fear at last that she was not coming. A little noise down the path reached his ear. In a moment he could hear slow foot-falls, and the figure of the girl parted the bushes, which closed behind her as she passed through them. She passed quite near him, walking slowly; she was very pale; her face bore traces of mental suffering. For a moment she stood there, listless, and Judah watched her with hungry eyes at a loss what to do. The sun lighted her hair, and in the upturned eyes he saw the shimmer of tears. “Winona!” He couldn’t help it. The low cry broke from his lips like a groan; the next instant the girl faced him. She looked with quick wonder at the dark face with its mute appeal. Then a sudden spasm caught her throat, and left her body rigid, her hands shut, and her eyes dry and hard—she knew, instinctively, what he suffered.
“Oh, Judah! Hav’n’t we been through enough without this?”
The girl trembling at the knees sank to a seat on the rocks, and folding her arms across her knees, laid her forehead against them.
“I’m going away, Winona, as soon as you are safe in Canada,” he went on after a little pause. “It’ll be pretty hard to leave you, but I want you to know how I’ve been thinking about you and sorrowing over your sorrow and hoping that you might get over your liking for Maxwell, seeing that you’re only a slip of a girl, and think of me as the one who would die for you and ought naturally to care for your wants—” He spoke hesitatingly; there was a question in his last words, but the girl shook her head sadly, her tears falling to the ground. Her sorrow gave way in a great sob now, and he turned in sharp remorse and stood quite near her.
“Don’t cry, Winona,” he said. “I’m sorry for you and myself and Maxwell. It’s this cursed slavery that’s to blame. If your father had lived all this would never have happened.”
“I am sorry—so very sorry! But you see, Judah, it cannot be; I have no love to give.”
Judah stood beside her, his heart bursting with suppressed emotion. The bitter words would break from his lips.
“The white man gets it all—all!”
“Do you forget all that Mr. Maxwell has done for us, Judah, that you condemn him so bitterly? It is not like you—you who are generally so generous and true-hearted. He knows not of my love and will never know. Is he to blame?”
“You are right—you are right! But how is a man to distinguish between right and wrong? What moral responsibility rests upon him from whom all good things are taken? Answer me that.”
They were walking now toward the camp; the shadowy trees tossed their arms in the twilight and the stars came out one by one in the sky. Only the silent tears of the girl at his side gave answer to his question.
A month had passed since the fugitives had reached the camp. Captain Brown eagerly awaited the return of Warren with Parson Steward to help them on the trip to Canada.
The wild flowers swayed above their counterfeits in every gurgling stream; the scent of wild grapes was in the air; the cliffs and rocks blossomed with purple and white and pink blooms. The birds sang and the bees droned in the woods on the morning when, wild and dishevelled, Parson Steward’s wife and two children found their way into the Brown camp.
“My heavenly marster!” shrieked the widow in incoherent wailing. “The Rangers done caught my husband and shot him; they’ve carried the young Englishman to jail. What will become of me and my poor children?”
No one slept that night when the fate of the two gallant men was known, and the oaths uttered were not loud but deep.
Captain Brown, like a prophet of old, drew his spare form erect. Lightning flashed from his mild eyes and sword-thrusts fell from his tongue.
Then and there a rescue party was planned to take Warren out of the hands of the Philistines. The only trouble was to spy out the jail where he was confined; but there seemed little hope of success, for it appeared that since his trial Warren had disappeared from public view, and the Pro-Slavery men were very reticent. Ebenezer Maybee volunteered to secure the desired information.
As was the fashion in those days, the women listened but did not intrude their opinions upon the men, being engaged in performing the part of Good Samaritan to the widow and orphans. But long after the meeting had broken up Winona crept into the woods not to weep, but to think. She leaned against a tree and her hopeless eyes gazed down the darkening aisles; she prayed: “Help me to help save him!”
In the morning she sought an interview with Captain Brown.