The Haunted Homestead Part 20

This was the condition of things when the yellow fever made its appearance at M----. This was nothing new--the pestilence was no stranger, it was an annual visitor at M----.

But this summer the fever appeared in its most terrible aspect, with all the malign, virulent and fatal characteristics of the plague.

I am not about to harrow your feelings or my own with any minute details of the misery that ensued as the pestilence advanced; of the physical agony, from pain, fever, thirst and famine; of the wretchedness, from bereavement, poverty and desertion; of the mental anguish, from terror, grief, horror and despair. The pestilence brings in its dread train almost every form of physical and moral evil; at the same time, providentially, it calls forth to combat these the most exalted virtues in the human character. You have only to call to mind the ravages of the yellow fever throughout the South in the past to estimate the horrors of the pestilence at M----. The people by hundreds fled the city; those that remained, by thousands died.

The population, reduced to less than one-half, consisted chiefly of the poorer cla.s.ses, who could not get away, and of those heroic souls whom a high sense of Christian duty or simple humanity had retained in or brought to the scene of misery.

A dense, copper-colored cloud hung low, like a pall, over the plague-stricken city; its air was considered deadly to the newcomer that breathed it.

All intercourse between M---- and the surrounding plantations was interdicted. The greatest anxiety was felt by the planters, lest the fever should break out in their families, or, where it would be more likely to make its first appearance, among the slaves; the greatest precautions were taken to avert such a dread misfortune. The masters and their families confined themselves strictly to their own domains, and the slaves were positively forbidden to approach the city, or even the highways leading thitherward. As many of the neighboring negroes had friends or relatives living in the city, and as their affections are known to be rather obstinate and daring, to insure safety, a voluntary police was organized by the planters, whose duty it was, in turn, to guard the highways, and see that no negro pa.s.sed without a written permit from the master or mistress.

Preventives of disease and disinfecting agents were diligently sought after. Alcohol, in the form of wine, brandy and whisky, was supposed to be a sovereign safeguard against the pestilence. I do not say that it was laid down as a medical dogma that an habitual inebriate enjoyed immunity from contagion; but I do say, what will probably shock my temperance readers, that all persons were counseled by their physicians to keep themselves always slightly under the influence of alcohol, so long as the pestilence should last. And most people took the advice, finding, at least, something in the half-stimulating, half-stupefying effects of liquor to brave or dull the sense of danger. Wine and brandy were freely used in the planter's family; whisky was freely circulated among the negroes of the plantation. Some among them of the Methodist persuasion and the temperance society demurred at breaking their pledge; but even these, when made to understand that the whisky was to be taken as medicine, by the advice of a physician, felt their consciences set at rest upon the subject, and never was doctor's stuff swallowed with less repugnance than their grog was taken, three times a day.

Valentine held to his principles; he would not break his pledge. In vain for a long time his master, and even his mistress, remonstrated with him.

Circ.u.mstances altered cases; times were changed; self-preservation was the first law of nature; in view of the present danger, his pledge was not binding; "for if he kept his pledge, he might lose his life," they would argue.

"That was the Lord's affair; all he had to do was to keep his pledge; and if he should die, so much the better; life had no charms for him,"

Valentine would reply.

And in truth the wretched young man was much to be compa.s.sionated. His wife and child alone and helpless in the midst of the plague, exposed to the united horrors of pestilence, famine and solitary death from desertion; himself forbidden to seek them at their utmost need. Thrice had he escaped and sought the city, and as often had he fallen into the hands of the voluntary police; they did not maltreat him, except inasmuch as they would not suffer him to pa.s.s without a permit from his master, and this permit could not be obtained. He could think of nothing but his wife and child. Were they living, and suffering unimagined miseries? Were they among the uncounted dead, whose rude coffins lay one upon another, three or four feet deep, not in graves, but in trenches? He did not even know. But all his thoughts by day, and his fitful dreams by night, were haunted with the forms of Fannie and of Coralie. He saw little Coralie in every phase of memory, and hope, and fear. He saw her bright and beautiful, as she had been in the sweet springtime; he saw her pale and pining, as he had seen her last in her wasting sickness; and he saw her lying dead in her coffin, and woke with a loud cry of anguish. His heart, his spirit, seemed broken.

Seeing his haggard and despairing looks, his mistress expostulated with him, and counseled the use of wine or brandy, saying that the depressing effects of the atmosphere were felt by everybody, even by those living in the country; that it affected all persons with despondency, causing them to look only on the darkest side of all things; and that it was only to be counteracted by the stimulating effects of alcohol.

At last Valentine followed this counsel and took the prescribed "medicine." Not to prevent contagion did he take it, though that purpose would have exonerated him from the charge of a broken pledge; but to dull the poignant sense of suffering, which was greater than he could bear.

Oh, fatal day that he placed again to his lips the maddening gla.s.s! All have seen how dangerous is such a relapse. It is generally a sudden and hopeless fall. It was so in the case of this poor fellow. He took the first gla.s.s, and, liking its effects, took a second and a third before stopping. If he awoke in the morning to remember his troubles, he drank all day to forget them, and fell at night into a heavy sleep. He zealously followed the medical prescription--nay, he quite overdid it, and kept himself not "slightly" under the influence of alcohol. And in a short s.p.a.ce of time, if his master or his mistress remonstrated with him, it was not for total abstinence from intoxicating spirits, but for the opposite extreme of an habitual intemperance. Such was the state of affairs at Red Hill for a few weeks, during which Valentine had no direct or certain intelligence of Fannie and his little child.

CHAPTER VII.

CAIN.

I pray thee take thy fingers from my throat: For though I am not splenetive and rash, Yet have I in me something dangerous, Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!--SHAKESPEARE.

One morning, near the last of August--yet, stay! Such mornings dawn unheralded by any sign to warn us what the fated day shall bring forth ere its close. Such mornings dawn as other mornings do--the doomed men and women rise as other people do--as you or I arose this morning, upon the dread day that unpremeditated crime or sudden death shall fix their mortal doom forever.

That morning Mr. Waring arose, feeling rather unwell and irritable, which was no unusual circ.u.mstance of late, for he was chafing between two conflicting interests, one of which called him away, while the other bound him at home. He was very anxious, with his wife, to leave the neighborhood of the infected city; but, in the present condition of affairs he hesitated to trust the plantation and negroes to the care of the overseer.

Valentine arose with the same heavy heart that had marked his waking hours for many days, yet dressed himself and combed his raven black curls with the habitual regard to neatness and beauty that had become a second nature. And it was curious to see how this habit of neatness and elegance lasted through all the darkest hours of his life.

Phaedra got up and attended to the arrangement of the house and the preparation of breakfast with her usual exactness.

Mrs. Waring, suffering from the debilitating effects of the weather, indulged herself in the morning, and breakfasted in bed.

No foreboding was felt by any one; no token in sky or air, or circ.u.mstances without, of presentiment within their hearts, warned them of calamity, crime and sudden death at hand. That morning, after breakfast, Valentine strolled listlessly out toward the public road leading to the town. It was his daily habit. It had been commenced in the hope of meeting some one from the city who might be able to give him news of Fannie and her little child. And though he never met with success, he still rambled thither every day, as well from force of habit as from the faint hope that he might yet hear of them. He strolled to the highway, met his usual ill-success, and, after lingering an hour or two, sauntered dejectedly toward home.

When he reached a lane that separated his master's plantation on the right from Mr. Hewitt's on the left, his attention was arrested by the sound of a low voice. He listened.

"Hish-s.h.!.+ Walley, come here--here to the gap."

The voice proceeded from behind the hedge, formed by a thick growth of Spanish daggers, that completely covered the fence on the left of the lane. There was a small broken place in it, toward which Valentine sauntered indifferently. He saw on the other side the huge head of a gigantic negro, a jet-black, lumbering, awkward, good-natured monster enough, who belonged to Mr. Hewitt, and who sported the imposing cognomen of "governor."

"Well, Governor, is that you? What do you want with me?"

"Hish-sh, Walley, don't talk so loud! our oberseer ain't far off.

Brudder 'Lisha, he bin out from town."

"Well!" exclaimed Valentine, with breathless interest, bending forward.

"W'en you hear from Fannie las'?"

"Not for two weeks. Why do you ask? Have you heard from her? Speak! oh, for Heaven's sake, speak!" exclaimed Valentine, breathlessly.

"Fannie done got de feber."

"Oh, G.o.d!"

"Brudder 'Lisha, he done bin 'ere dis mornin' and tell we-dem."

"Oh, Heaven! oh, when was she taken? Who is with her? Is she----"

"Dunno nuffin 'tall 'bout it, 'cept 'tis she's got de feber. Brudder 'Lisha, he done bin dere to her place, an' heern it."

"Where is Elisha?"

"Done gone right straight back to town."

"And that is all the satisfaction you can give me," cried Valentine, beside himself with distress.

"Yaw, yaw! I trought how I'd watch arter you, and tell you--'long as you'd like to hear it. Hish-sh-s.h.!.+ Walley, stoop down here close, till I whisper to you."

"What now!" exclaimed Valentine, in new alarm, bending his ear to the huge negro's lips.

"Hish-sh-s.h.!.+ Walley, I wish how it wur my 'ooman as had de yaller feber!"

"Wretch!"

"An' wish we-dem's white n.i.g.g.e.r oberseer had it too!"

"What do you mean?"

"And I wish dey bofe might die long of it."

"Wretch! I say again!"