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_ "The way of the wicked is as darkness; he knoweth not at what he
stumbleth."[1]
[1] Prov. 4:19.
The garret of the house that Legree occupied, like most other
garrets, was a great, desolate space, dusty, hung with cobwebs,
and littered with cast-off lumber. The opulent family that had
inhabited the house in the days of its splendor had imported a
great deal of splendid furniture, some of which they had taken away
with them, while some remained standing desolate in mouldering,
unoccupied rooms, or stored away in this place. One or two immense
packing-boxes, in which this furniture was brought, stood against
the sides of the garret. There was a small window there, which
let in, through its dingy, dusty panes, a scanty, uncertain light
on the tall, high-backed chairs and dusty tables, that had once
seen better days. Altogether, it was a weird and ghostly place;
but, ghostly as it was, it wanted not in legends among the
superstitious negroes, to increase it terrors. Some few years
before, a negro woman, who had incurred Legree's displeasure, was
confined there for several weeks. What passed there, we do not
say; the negroes used to whisper darkly to each other; but it was
known that the body of the unfortunate creature was one day taken
down from there, and buried; and, after that, it was said that
oaths and cursings, and the sound of violent blows, used to ring
through that old garret, and mingled with wailings and groans of
despair. Once, when Legree chanced to overhear something of this
kind, he flew into a violent passion, and swore that the next one
that told stories about that garret should have an opportunity of
knowing what was there, for he would chain them up there for a week.
This hint was enough to repress talking, though, of course, it did
not disturb the credit of the story in the least.
Gradually, the staircase that led to the garret, and even the
passage-way to the staircase, were avoided by every one in the
house, from every one fearing to speak of it, and the legend was
gradually falling into desuetude. It had suddenly occurred to
Cassy to make use of the superstitious excitability, which was so
great in Legree, for the purpose of her liberation, and that of
her fellow-sufferer.
The sleeping-room of Cassy was directly under the garret.
One day, without consulting Legree, she suddenly took it upon her,
with some considerable ostentation, to change all the furniture
and appurtenances of the room to one at some considerable distance.
The under-servants, who were called on to effect this movement,
were running and bustling about with great zeal and confusion, when
Legree returned from a ride.
"Hallo! you Cass!" said Legree, "what's in the wind now?"
"Nothing; only I choose to have another room," said Cassy, doggedly.
"And what for, pray?" said Legree.
"I choose to," said Cassy.
"The devil you do! and what for?"
"I'd like to get some sleep, now and then."
"Sleep! well, what hinders your sleeping?"
"I could tell, I suppose, if you want to hear," said Cassy, dryly.
"Speak out, you minx!" said Legree.
"O! nothing. I suppose it wouldn't disturb _you!_ Only groans,
and people scuffing, and rolling round on the garre, floor, half
the night, from twelve to morning!"
"People up garret!" said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a
laugh; "who are they, Cassy?"
Cassy raised her sharp, black eyes, and looked in the face of
Legree, with an expression that went through his bones, as she
said, "To be sure, Simon, who are they? I'd like to have _you_
tell me. You don't know, I suppose!"
With an oath, Legree struck at her with his riding-whip; but
she glided to one side, and passed through the door, and looking
back, said, "If you'll sleep in that room, you'll know all about it.
Perhaps you'd better try it!" and then immediately she shut and
locked the door.
Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down the
door; but apparently thought better of it, and walked uneasily
into the sitting-room. Cassy perceived that her shaft had struck
home; and, from that hour, with the most exquisite address, she
never ceased to continue the train of influences she had begun.
In a knot-hole of the garret, that had opened, she had
inserted the neck of an old bottle, in such a manner that when
there was the least wind, most doleful and lugubrious wailing sounds
proceeded from it, which, in a high wind, increased to a perfect
shriek, such as to credulous and superstitious ears might easily
seem to be that of horror and despair.
These sounds were, from time to time, heard by the servants,
and revived in full force the memory of the old ghost legend.
A superstitious creeping horror seemed to fill the house; and
though no one dared to breathe it to Legree, he found himself
encompassed by it, as by an atmosphere.
No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.
The Christian is composed by the belief of a wise, all-ruling
Father, whose presence fills the void unknown with light and order;
but to the man who has dethroned God, the spirit-land is, indeed,
in the words of the Hebrew poet, "a land of darkness and the shadow
of death," without any order, where the light is as darkness.
Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms
of vague and shadowy dread.
Legree had had the slumbering moral elements in him roused
by his encounters with Tom,--roused, only to be resisted by the
determinate force of evil; but still there was a thrill and commotion
of the dark, inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or
hymn, that reacted in superstitious dread.
The influence of Cassy over him was of a strange and singular kind.
He was her owner, her tyrant and tormentor. She was, as he knew,
wholly, and without any possibility of help or redress, in his
hands; and yet so it is, that the most brutal man cannot live
in constant association with a strong female influence, and not be
greatly controlled by it. When he first bought her, she was, as
she said, a woman delicately bred; and then he crushed her, without
scruple, beneath the foot of his brutality. But, as time, and
debasing influences, and despair, hardened womanhood within her,
and waked the fires of fiercer passions, she had become in a measure
his mistress, and he alternately tyrannized over and dreaded her.
This influence had become more harassing and decided, since
partial insanity had given a strange, weird, unsettled cast to all
her words and language.
A night or two after this, Legree was sitting in the old
sitting-room, by the side of a flickering wood fire, that
threw uncertain glances round the room. It was a stormy,
windy night, such as raises whole squadrons of nondescript noises
in rickety old houses. Windows were rattling, shutters flapping,
and wind carousing, rumbling, and tumbling down the chimney, and,
every once in a while, puffing out smoke and ashes, as if a legion
of spirits were coming after them. Legree had been casting up
accounts and reading newspapers for some hours, while Cassy sat in
the corner; sullenly looking into the fire. Legree laid down his
paper, and seeing an old book lying on the table, which he had
noticed Cassy reading, the first part of the evening, took it up,
and began to turn it over. It was one of those collections of
stories of bloody murders, ghostly legends, and supernatural
visitations, which, coarsely got up and illustrated, have a strange
fascination for one who once begins to read them.
Legree poohed and pished, but read, turning page after page,
till, finally, after reading some way, he threw down the book,
with an oath.
"You don't believe in ghosts, do you, Cass?" said he, taking
the tongs and settling the fire. "I thought you'd more sense than
to let noises scare _you_."
"No matter what I believe," said Cassy, sullenly.
"Fellows used to try to frighten me with their yarns at sea,"
said Legree. "Never come it round me that way. I'm too tough
for any such trash, tell ye."
Cassy sat looking intensely at him in the shadow of the corner.
There was that strange light in her eyes that always impressed
Legree with uneasiness.
"Them noises was nothing but rats and the wind," said Legree.
"Rats will make a devil of a noise. I used to hear 'em
sometimes down in the hold of the ship; and wind,--Lord's sake! ye
can make anything out o' wind."
Cassy knew Legree was uneasy under her eyes, and, therefore,
she made no answer, but sat fixing them on him, with that strange,
unearthly expression, as before.
"Come, speak out, woman,--don't you think so?" said Legree.
"Can rats walk down stairs, and come walking through the entry,
and open a door when you've locked it and set a chair against
it?" said Cassy; "and come walk, walk, walking right up to your
bed, and put out their hand, so?"
Cassy kept her glittering eyes fixed on Legree, as she spoke,
and he stared at her like a man in the nightmare, till, when
she finished by laying her hand, icy cold, on his, he sprung back,
with an oath.
"Woman! what do you mean? Nobody did?"
"O, no,--of course not,--did I say they did?" said Cassy,
with a smile of chilling derision.
"But--did--have you really seen?--Come, Cass, what is it,
now,--speak out!"
"You may sleep there, yourself," said Cassy, "if you want
to know."
"Did it come from the garret, Cassy?"
"_It_,--what?" said Cassy.
"Why, what you told of--"
"I didn't tell you anything," said Cassy, with dogged sullenness.
Legree walked up and down the room, uneasily.
"I'll have this yer thing examined. I'll look into it,
this very night. I'll take my pistols--"
"Do," said Cassy; "sleep in that room. I'd like to see
you doing it. Fire your pistols,--do!"
Legree stamped his foot, and swore violently.
"Don't swear," said Cassy; "nobody knows who may be hearing you.
Hark! What was that?"
"What?" said Legree, starting.
A heavy old Dutch clock, that stood in the corner of the
room, began, and slowly struck twelve.
For some reason or other, Legree neither spoke nor moved;
a vague horror fell on him; while Cassy, with a keen, sneering
glitter in her eyes, stood looking at him, counting the strokes.
"Twelve o'clock; well _now_ we'll see," said she, turning,
and opening the door into the passage-way, and standing as if
listening.
"Hark! What's that?" said she, raising her finger.
"It's only the wind," said Legree. "Don't you hear how
cursedly it blows?"
"Simon, come here," said Cassy, in a whisper, laying her hand
on his, and leading him to the foot of the stairs: "do you
know what _that_ is? Hark!"
A wild shriek came pealing down the stairway. It came from
the garret. Legree's knees knocked together; his face grew white
with fear.
"Hadn't you better get your pistols?" said Cassy, with a sneer
that froze Legree's blood. "It's time this thing was looked
into, you know. I'd like to have you go up now; _they're at it_."
"I won't go!" said Legree, with an oath.
"Why not? There an't any such thing as ghosts, you know!
Come!" and Cassy flitted up the winding stairway, laughing, and
looking back after him. "Come on."
"I believe you _are_ the devil!" said Legree. "Come back
you hag,--come back, Cass! You shan't go!"
But Cassy laughed wildly, and fled on. He heard her open the
entry doors that led to the garret. A wild gust of wind swept
down, extinguishing the candle he held in his hand, and with it
the fearful, unearthly screams; they seemed to be shrieked in his
very ear.
Legree fled frantically into the parlor, whither, in a few
moments, he was followed by Cassy, pale, calm, cold as an avenging
spirit, and with that same fearful light in her eye.
"I hope you are satisfied," said she.
"Blast you, Cass!" said Legree.
"What for?" said Cassy. "I only went up and shut the doors.
_What's the matter with that garret_, Simon, do you suppose?"
said she.
"None of your business!" said Legree.
"O, it an't? Well," said Cassy, "at any rate, I'm glad _I_ don't
sleep under it."
Anticipating the rising of the wind, that very evening, Cassy
had been up and opened the garret window. Of course, the
moment the doors were opened, the wind had drafted down, and
extinguished the light.
This may serve as a specimen of the game that Cassy played
with Legree, until he would sooner have put his head into a lion's
mouth than to have explored that garret. Meanwhile, in the night,
when everybody else was asleep, Cassy slowly and carefully accumulated
there a stock of provisions sufficient to afford subsistence for
some time; she transferred, article by article, a greater part of
her own and Emmeline's wardrobe. All things being arranged, they
only waited a fitting opportunity to put their plan in execution.
By cajoling Legree, and taking advantage of a good-natured
interval, Cassy had got him to take her with him to the neighboring
town, which was situated directly on the Red river. With a memory
sharpened to almost preternatural clearness, she remarked every
turn in the road, and formed a mental estimate of the time to be
occupied in traversing it.
At the time when all was matured for action, our readers may,
perhaps, like to look behind the scenes, and see the final
_coup d'etat_.
It was now near evening, Legree had been absent, on a ride
to a neighboring farm. For many days Cassy had been unusually
gracious and accommodating in her humors; and Legree and she had
been, apparently, on the best of terms. At present, we may behold
her and Emmeline in the room of the latter, busy in sorting and
arranging two small bundles.
"There, these will be large enough," said Cassy. Now put on
your bonnet, and let's start; it's just about the right time."
"Why, they can see us yet," said Emmeline.
"I mean they shall," said Cassy, coolly. "Don't you know that
they must have their chase after us, at any rate? The way of
the thing is to be just this:--We will steal out of the back door,
and run down by the quarters. Sambo or Quimbo will be sure
to see us. They will give chase, and we will get into the swamp;
then, they can't follow us any further till they go up and give
the alarm, and turn out the dogs, and so on; and, while they are
blundering round, and tumbling over each other, as they always do,
you and I will slip along to the creek, that runs back of the house,
and wade along in it, till we get opposite the back door. That will
put the dogs all at fault; for scent won't lie in the water.
Every one will run out of the house to look after us, and then
we'll whip in at the back door, and up into the garret, where I've
got a nice bed made up in one of the great boxes. We must stay in
that garret a good while, for, I tell you, he will raise heaven
and earth after us. He'll muster some of those old overseers on
the other plantations, and have a great hunt; and they'll go over
every inch of ground in that swamp. He makes it his boast that
nobody ever got away from him. So let him hunt at his leisure."
"Cassy, how well you have planned it!" said Emmeline. "Who ever
would have thought of it, but you?"
There was neither pleasure nor exultation in Cassy's
eyes,--only a despairing firmness.
"Come," she said, reaching her hand to Emmeline.
The two fugitives glided noiselessly from the house, and
flitted, through the gathering shadows of evening, along by
the quarters. The crescent moon, set like a silver signet in the
western sky, delayed a little the approach of night. As Cassy
expected, when quite near the verge of the swamps that encircled
the plantation, they heard a voice calling to them to stop. It was
not Sambo, however, but Legree, who was pursuing them with
violent execrations. At the sound, the feebler spirit of Emmeline
gave way; and, laying hold of Cassy's arm, she said, "O, Cassy,
I'm going to faint!"
"If you do, I'll kill you!" said Cassy, drawing a small,
glittering stiletto, and flashing it before the eyes of the girl.
The diversion accomplished the purpose. Emmeline did not
faint, and succeeded in plunging, with Cassy, into a part of the
labyrinth of swamp, so deep and dark that it was perfectly hopeless
for Legree to think of following them, without assistance.
"Well," said he, chuckling brutally; "at any rate, they've got
themselves into a trap now--the baggage! They're safe enough.
They shall sweat for it!"
"Hulloa, there! Sambo! Quimbo! All hands!" called Legree,
coming to the quarters, when the men and women were just returning
from work. "There's two runaways in the swamps. I'll give five
dollars to any nigger as catches 'em. Turn out the dogs! Turn out
Tiger, and Fury, and the rest!"
The sensation produced by this news was immediate. Many of the
men sprang forward, officiously, to offer their services, either
from the hope of the reward, or from that cringing subserviency
which is one of the most baleful effects of slavery. Some ran one
way, and some another. Some were for getting flambeaux of pine-knots.
Some were uncoupling the dogs, whose hoarse, savage bay added not
a little to the animation of the scene.
"Mas'r, shall we shoot 'em, if can't cotch 'em?" said Sambo,
to whom his master brought out a rifle.
"You may fire on Cass, if you like; it's time she was gone to
the devil, where she belongs; but the gal, not," said Legree.
"And now, boys, be spry and smart. Five dollars for him that gets
'em; and a glass of spirits to every one of you, anyhow."
The whole band, with the glare of blazing torches, and whoop,
and shout, and savage yell, of man and beast, proceeded down
to the swamp, followed, at some distance, by every servant in
the house. The establishment was, of a consequence, wholly deserted,
when Cassy and Emmeline glided into it the back way. The whooping and
shouts of their pursuers were still filling the air; and, looking
from the sitting-room windows, Cassy and Emmeline could see the
troop, with their flambeaux, just dispersing themselves along the
edge of the swamp.
"See there!" said Emmeline, pointing to Cassy; "the hunt is begun!
Look how those lights dance about! Hark! the dogs! Don't you hear?
If we were only _there_, our chances wouldn't be worth a picayune.
O, for pity's sake, do let's hide ourselves. Quick!"
"There's no occasion for hurry," said Cassy, coolly; "they are
all out after the hunt,--that's the amusement of the evening!
We'll go up stairs, by and by. Meanwhile," said she, deliberately
taking a key from the pocket of a coat that Legree had thrown down
in his hurry, "meanwhile I shall take something to pay our passage.
She unlocked the desk, took from it a roll of bills, which
she counted over rapidly.
"O, don't let's do that!" said Emmeline.
"Don't!" said Cassy; "why not? Would you have us starve in
the swamps, or have that that will pay our way to the free states.
Money will do anything, girl." And, as she spoke, she put the money
in her bosom.
"It would be stealing," said Emmeline, in a distressed whisper.
"Stealing!" said Cassy, with a scornful laugh. "They who
steal body and soul needn't talk to us. Every one of these bills
is stolen,--stolen from poor, starving, sweating creatures, who
must go to the devil at last, for his profit. Let _him_ talk
about stealing! But come, we may as well go up garret; I've got a
stock of candles there, and some books to pass away the time.
You may be pretty sure they won't come _there_ to inquire after us.
If they do, I'll play ghost for them."
When Emmeline reached the garret, she found an immense box,
in which some heavy pieces of furniture had once been brought,
turned on its side, so that the opening faced the wall, or
rather the eaves. Cassy lit a small lamp, and creeping round
under the eaves, they established themselves in it. It was
spread with a couple of small mattresses and some pillows; a
box near by was plentifully stored with candles, provisions, and
all the clothing necessary to their journey, which Cassy had arranged
into bundles of an astonishingly small compass.
"There," said Cassy, as she fixed the lamp into a small hook,
which she had driven into the side of the box for that purpose;
"this is to be our home for the present. How do you like it?"
"Are you sure they won't come and search the garret?"
"I'd like to see Simon Legree doing that," said Cassy.
"No, indeed; he will be too glad to keep away. As to the servants,
they would any of them stand and be shot, sooner than show their
faces here."
Somewhat reassured, Emmeline settled herself back on her pillow.
"What did you mean, Cassy, by saying you would kill me?"
she said, simply.
"I meant to stop your fainting," said Cassy, "and I did do it.
And now I tell you, Emmeline, you must make up your mind _not_
to faint, let what will come; there's no sort of need of it.
If I had not stopped you, that wretch might have had his hands
on you now."
Emmeline shuddered.
The two remained some time in silence. Cassy busied herself
with a French book; Emmeline, overcome with the exhaustion, fell
into a doze, and slept some time. She was awakened by loud shouts
and outcries, the tramp of horses' feet, and the baying of dogs.
She started up, with a faint shriek.
"Only the hunt coming back," said Cassy, coolly; "never fear.
Look out of this knot-hole. Don't you see 'em all down there?
Simon has to give up, for this night. Look, how muddy his horse
is, flouncing about in the swamp; the dogs, too, look rather
crestfallen. Ah, my good sir, you'll have to try the race again
and again,--the game isn't there."
"O, don't speak a word!" said Emmeline; "what if they should
hear you?"
"If they do hear anything, it will make them very particular
to keep away," said Cassy. "No danger; we may make any noise we
please, and it will only add to the effect."
At length the stillness of midnight settled down over the house.
Legree, cursing his ill luck, and vowing dire vengeance on
the morrow, went to bed. _
Read next: VOLUME II: CHAPTER XL - The Martyr
Read previous: VOLUME II: CHAPTER XXXVIII - The Victory
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