________________________________________________
_ When the Susquehanna stage came to the daily halt beneath the
blasted pine at the cross-roads, an elderly man, wearing a
flapping frock coat and a soft slouch hat, stepped gingerly over
one of the muddy wheels, and threw a doubtful glance across the
level tobacco fields, where the young plants were drooping in the
June sunshine.
"So this is my way, is it?" he asked, with a jerk of his thumb
toward a cloud of blue-and-yellow butterflies drifting over a
shining puddle--"five miles as the crow flies, and through a
bog?"
For a moment he hung suspended above the encrusted axle, peering
with blinking pale-gray eyes over a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles. In his appearance there was the hint of a scholarly
intention unfulfilled, and his dress, despite its general
carelessness, bespoke a different standard of taste from that of
the isolated dwellers in the surrounding fields. A casual
observer might have classified him as one of the Virginian
landowners impoverished by the war; in reality, he was a
successful lawyer in a neighbouring town, who, amid the overthrow
of the slaveholding gentry some twenty years before, had risen
into a provincial prominence.
His humour met with a slow response from the driver, who sat
playfully flicking at a horsefly on the flank of a tall,
raw-boned sorrel. "Wall, thar's been a sight of rain lately," he
observed, with goodnatured acquiescence, "but I don't reckon the
mud's more'n waist deep, an' if you do happen to git clean down,
thar's Sol Peterkin along to pull you out. Whar're you hidin',
Sol? Why, bless my boots, if he ain't gone fast asleep!"
At this a lean and high-featured matron, encased in the rigidity
of her Sunday bombazine, gave a prim poke with her umbrella in
the ribs of a sparrow-like little man, with a discoloured,
scraggy beard, who nodded in one corner of the long seat.
"I'd wake up if I was you," she remarked in the voice her sex
assumes when virtue lapses into severity.
Starting from his doze, the little man straightened his wiry,
sunburned neck and mechanically raised his hand to wipe away a
thin stream of tobacco juice which trickled from his half-open
mouth.
"Hi!we ain't got here a'ready!" he exclaimed, as he spat
energetically into the mud. "I d'clar if it don't beat all--one
minute we're thar an' the next we're here. It's a movin' world we
live in, ain't that so, mum?" Then, as the severe matron still
stared unbendingly before her, he descended between the wheels,
and stood nervously scraping his feet in the long grass by the
roadside.
"This here's Sol Peterkin, Mr. Carraway," said the driver, bowing
his introduction as he leaned forward to disentangle the reins
from the sorrel's tail, "an' I reckon he kin pint out Blake Hall
to you as well as another, seem' as he was under-overseer thar
for eighteen years befo' the war. Now you'd better climb in agin,
folks; it's time we were off."
He gave an insinuating cluck to the horses, while several
passengers, who had alighted to gather blackberries from the
ditch, scrambled hurriedly into their places. With a single
clanking wrench the stage toiled on, plodding clumsily over the
miry road.
As the spattering mud-drops fell round him, Carraway lifted his
head and sniffed the air like a pointer that has been just turned
afield. For the moment his professional errand escaped him as his
chest expanded in the light wind which blew over the radiant
stillness of the Virginian June. From the cloudless sky to its
pure reflection in the rain-washed roads there was barely a
descending shade, and the tufts of dandelion blooming against the
rotting rail fence seemed but patches of the clearer sunshine.
"Bless my soul, it's like a day out of Scripture!" he exclaimed
in a tone that was half-apologetic; then raising his
walking-stick he leisurely swept it into space. "There's hardly
another crop, I reckon, between here and the Hall?"
Sol Peterkin was busily cutting a fresh quid of tobacco from the
plug he carried in his pocket, and there was a brief pause before
he answered. Then, as he carefully wiped the blade of his knife
on the leg of his blue jean overalls, he looked up with a curious
facial contortion.
"Oh, you'll find a corn field or two somewhar along," he replied,
"but it's a lanky, slipshod kind of crop at best, for tobaccy's
king down here, an' no mistake. We've a sayin' that the man that
ain't partial to the weed can't sleep sound even in the
churchyard, an' thar's some as 'ill swar to this day that Willie
Moreen never rested in his grave because he didn't chaw, an' the
soil smelt jest like a plug. Oh, it's a great plant, I tell you,
suh. Look over thar at them fields; they've all been set out
sence the spell o' rain."
The road they followed crawled like a leisurely river between the
freshly ploughed ridges, where the earth was slowly settling
around the transplanted crop. In the distance, labourers were
still at work, passing in dull-blue blotches between the rows of
bright-green leaves that hung limply on their slender stalks.
"You've lived at the Hall, I hear," said Carraway, suddenly
turning to look at his companion over his lowered glasses.
"When it was the Hall, suh," replied Sol, with a tinge of
bitterness in his chuckle. "Why, in my day, an' that was up to
the very close of the war, you might stand at the big gate an'
look in any direction you pleased till yo' eyes bulged fit to
bust, but you couldn't look past the Blake land for all yo'
tryin'. These same fields here we're passin' through I've seen
set out in Blake tobaccy time an' agin, an' the farm I live on
three miles beyond the Hall belonged to the old gentleman, God
bless him! up to the day he died. Lord save my soul! three
hunnard as likely niggers as you ever clap sight on, an' that not
countin' a good fifty that was too far gone to work."
"All scattered now, I suppose?"
"See them little cabins over yonder?" With a dirty forefinger he
pointed to the tiny trails of smoke hanging low above the distant
tree-tops. "The county's right speckled with 'em an' with thar
children--all named Blake arter old marster, as they called him,
or Corbin arter old miss. When leetle Mr. Christopher got turned
out of the Hall jest befo' his pa died, an' was shuffled into the
house of the overseer, whar Bill Fletcher used to live himself,
the darkies all bought bits o'land here an' thar an' settled down
to do some farmin' on a free scale. Stuck up, suh! Why, Zebbadee
Blake passed me yestiddy drivin' his own mule-team, an' I heard
him swar he wouldn't turn out o' the road for anybody less'n God
A'mighty or Marse Christopher!"
"A-ahem!" exclaimed Carraway, with relish; "and in the meantime,
the heir to all this high-handed authority is no better than an
illiterate day-labourer."
Peterkin snorted. "Who? Mr. Christopher? Well, he warn't more'n
ten years old when his pa went doty an' died, an' I don't reckon
he's had much larnin' sence. I've leant on the gate myself an'
watched the nigger children traipsin' by to the Yankee woman's
school, an' he drivin' the plough when he didn't reach much
higher than the handle. He' used to be the darndest leetle brat,
too, till his sperits got all freezed out o' him. Lord! Lord!
thar's such a sight of meanness in this here world that it makes
a body b'lieve in Providence whether or no."
Carraway meditatively twirled his walking-stick. "Raises tobacco
now like the rest, doesn't he?"
"Not like the rest--bless you, no, suh. Why, the weed thrives
under his very touch, though he can't abide the smell of it, an'
thar's not a farmer in the county that wouldn't ruther have him
to plant, cut, or cure than any ten men round about. They do say
that his pa went clean crazy about tobaccy jest befo' he died,
an' that Mr. Christopher gets dead sick when he smells it smokin'
in the barn, but he kin pick up a leaf blindfold an' tell you the
quality of it at his first touch."
For a moment the lawyer was silent, pondering a thought he
evidently did not care to utter. When at last he spoke it was in
the measured tones of one who overcomes an impediment in his
speech.
"Do you happen to have heard, I wonder, anything of his attitude
toward the present owner of the Hall?"
"Happen to have heard!" Peterkin threw back his head and gasped.
"Why, the whole county has happened to hear of it, I reckon. It's
been common talk sence the day he got his first bird-gun, an' his
nigger, Uncle Boaz, found him hidin' in the bushes to shoot old
Fletcher when he came in sight. I tell you, if Bill Fletcher lay
dyin' in the road, Mr. Christopher would sooner ride right over
him than not. You ask some folks, suh, an' they'll tell you a
Blake kin hate twice as long as most men kin love."
"Ah, is it so bad as that?" muttered Carraway.
"Well, he ain't much of a Christian, as the lights go," continued
Sol, "but I ain't sartain, accordin' to my way of thinkin', that
he ain't got a better showin' on his side than a good many of 'em
that gits that befo' the preacher. He's a Blake, skin an' bone,
anyhow, an' you ain't goin' to git this here county to go agin
him--not if he was to turn an' spit at Satan himself. Old Bill
Fletcher stole his house an' his land an' his money, law or no
law--that's how I look at it--but he couldn't steal his name, an'
that's what counts among the niggers, an' the po' whites, too.
Why, I've seen a whole parcel o' darkies stand stock still when
Fletcher drove up to the bars with his spankin' pair of bays, an'
then mos' break tha' necks lettin' 'em down as soon as Mr.
Christopher comes along with his team of oxen. You kin fool the
quality 'bout the quality, but I'll be blamed if you kin fool the
niggers."
Ahead of them there was a scattered group of log cabins,
surrounded by little whitewashed palings, and at their approach a
decrepit old Negro, followed by a slinking black-and-tan
foxhound, came beneath the straggling hopvine over one of the
doors and through the open gate out into the road. His bent old
figure was huddled within his carefully patched clothes of coarse
brown homespun.
"Howdy, marsters," he muttered, in answer to the lawyer's
greeting, raising a trembling hand to his wrinkled forehead.
"Y'all ain' seen nuttin' er ole miss's yaller cat, Beulah, I
reckon?"
Peterkin, who had eyed him with the peculiar disfavour felt for
the black man by the low-born white, evinced a sudden interest
out of all proportion to Carraway's conception of the loss.
"Ain't she done come back yet, Uncle Boaz?" he inquired.
"Naw, suh, dat she ain', en ole miss she ain' gwine git a wink er
sleep dis blessed night. Me en Spy we is done been traipsin'
roun' atter dat ar low-lifeted Beulah sence befo' de
dinner-bell."
"When did you miss her first?" asked Peterkin, with concern.
"I dunno, suh, dat I don't, caze she ain' no better'n one er dese
yer wish-wishys,* an' I ain' mek out yit ef'n twuz her er her
hant. Las' night 'bout sundown dar she wuz a-lappin' her sasser
er milk right at ole miss feet, en dis mawnin' at sunup dar she
warn't. Dat's all I know, suh, ef'n you lay me out."
* Will-o'-the-wisp.
"Well, I reckon she'll turn up agin," said Peterkin consolingly.
"Cats air jest like gals, anyway--they ain't never happy unless
they're eternally gallyvantin'. Why, that big white Tom of mine
knows more about this here county than I do myself."
"Days so, suh; days de gospel trufe; but I'se kinder flustered
'bout dat yaller cat caze ole miss sutney do set a heap er sto'
by 'er. She ain' never let de dawgs come in de 'oom, nohow, caze
once she done feel Beulah rar 'er back at Spy. She's des stone
blin', is ole miss, but I d'clar she kin smell pow'ful keen, an'
'taro' no use tryin' ter fool her wid one houn' er de hull pack.
Lawd! Lawd! I wunner ef dat ar cat kin be layin' close over
yonder at Sis Daphne's?"
He branched off into a little path which ran like a white thread
across the field, grumbling querulously to the black-and-tan
foxhound that ambled at his heels.
"Dar's a wallopin' ahaid er you, sho's you bo'n," he muttered, as
he limped on toward a small log hut from which floated an
inviting fragrance of bacon frying in fat. "I reckon you lay dat
you kin cut yo' mulatter capers wid me all you please, but you'd
better look out sharp 'fo' you begin foolin' 'long er Marse
Christopher. Dar you go agin, now. Ain' dat des like you? Wat you
wanter go sickin' atter dat ole hyar fer, anyhow?"
"So that is one of young Blake's hangers-on?" observed Carraway,
with a slight inflection of inquiry.
"Uncle Boaz, you mean? Oh, he was the old gentleman's
body-servant befo' the war. He used to wear his marster's
cast-off ruffles an' high hat. A mighty likely nigger he was,
too,
till he got all bent up with the rheumatics."
The lawyer had lifted his walking-stick and was pointing straight
ahead to a group of old brick chimneys huddled in the sunset
above a grove of giant oaks.
"That must be Blake Hall over there," he said; "there's not
another house like it in the three counties."
"We'll be at the big gate in a minute, suh," Peterkin returned.
"This is the first view of the Hall you git, an' they say the old
gentleman used to raise his hat whenever he passed by it." Then
as they swung open the great iron gate, with its new coat of red,
he touched Carraway's sleeve and spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"Thar's Mr. Christopher himself over yonder," he said, "an' Lord
bless my soul, if he ain't settin' out old Fletcher's plants.
Thar! he's standin' up now--the big young fellow with the basket.
The old gentleman was the biggest man twixt here an'
Fredericksburg, but I d'clar Mr. Christopher is a good half-head
taller!"
At his words Carraway stopped short in the road, raising his
useless glasses upon his brow. The sun had just gone down in a
blaze of light, and the great bare field was slowly darkening
against the west.
Nearer at hand there were the long road, already in twilight, the
rail fence wrapped in creepers, and a solitary chestnut tree in
full bloom. Farther away swept the freshly ploughed ground over
which passed the moving figures of the labourers transplanting
the young crop. Of them all, Carraway saw but a single worker--in
reality, only one among the daily toilers in the field, moulded
physically perhaps in a finer shape than they, and limned in the
lawyer's mental vision against a century of the brilliant if
tragic history of his race. As he moved slowly along between the
even rows, dropping from time to time a plant into one of the
small holes dug before him, and pausing with the basket on his
arm to settle the earth carefully with his foot, he seemed,
indeed, as much the product of the soil upon which he stood as
did the great white chestnut growing beside the road. In his
pose, in his walk, in the careless carriage of his head, there
was something of the large freedom of the elements.
"A dangerous young giant," observed the lawyer slowly, letting
his glasses fall before his eyes. "A monumental Blake, as it
were. Well, as I have remarked before upon occasions, blood will
tell, even at the dregs."
"He's the very spit of his pa, that's so," replied Peterkin, "an'
though it's no business of mine, I'm afeared he's got the old
gentleman's dry throat along with it. Lord! Lord! I've always
stood it out that it's better to water yo' mouth with tobaccy
than to burn it up with sperits." He checked himself and fell
back hastily, for young Blake, after a single glance at the west,
had tossed his basket carelessly aside, and was striding
vigorously across the field.
"Not another plant will I set out, and that's an end of it!" he
was saying angrily. "I agreed to do a day's work and I've been at
it steadily since sunrise. Is it any concern of mine, I'd like to
know, if he can't put in his crop to-night? Do you think I care
whether his tobacco rots in the ground or out of it?"
As he came on, Carraway measured him coolly, with an appreciation
tempered by his native sense of humour. He perceived at once a
certain coarseness of finish which, despite the deep-rooted
veneration for an idle ancestry, is found most often in the
descendants of a long line of generous livers. A moment later he
weighed the keen gray flash of the eyes beneath the thick fair
hair, the coating of dust and sweat over the high-bred curve from
brow to nose, and the fullness of the jaw which bore with a
suggestion of sheer brutality upon the general impression of a
fine racial type. Taken from the mouth up, the face might have
passed as a pure, fleshly copy of the antique idea; seen
downward, it became almost repelling in its massive power.
Stooping beside the fence for a common harvest hat, the young man
placed it on his head, and gave a careless nod to Peterkin. He
had thrown one leg over the rails, and was about to swing himself
into the road, when Sol spoke a little timidly.
"I hear yo' ma's done lost her yaller cat, Mr. Christopher."
For an instant Christopher hung midway of the fence.
"Isn't the beast back yet?" he asked irritably, scraping the mud
from his boot upon the rail. "I've had Uncle Boaz scouring the
county half the day."
A pack of hounds that had been sleeping under the sassafras
bushes across the road came fawning to his feet, and he pushed
them impatiently aside.
"I was thinkin'," began Peterkin, with an uncertain cough, "that
I might manage to send over my big white Tom, an', bein' blind,
maybe she wouldn't know the difference."
Christopher shook his head.
"Oh, it's no use," he replied, speaking with an air of
superiority. "She could pick out that cat among a million, I
believe, with a single touch. Well, there's no help for it. Down,
Spot--down, I say, Sir!"
With a leisurely movement he swung himself from the fence,
stopping to wipe his brow with his blue cotton sleeve. Then he
went whistling defiantly down the way to the Hall, turning at
last into a sunken road that trailed by an abandoned ice-pond
where bullfrogs were croaking hoarsely in the rushes. _
Read next: Book I- The Inheritance: Chapter II. The Owner of Blake Hall
Read previous: LIST OF CHARACTERS
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