The Haunted Homestead Part 25

"Hush, Brudder Walley, hus.h.!.+ You don't know what you'se a-sayin' of.

You'se a prophesyin' of de ole law 'stead o' de new gospel! 'Sides which, would you temp' any brudder here to sin an' slave his 'mortal soul, sake o' freein' of his poor, peris.h.i.+n' body? Hush, Brudder Walley, an' let me prophesy. Bredren and sisters, is der a man or a woman in de soun' o' my voice as 'ould 'cept his free papers on de terms as Brudder Walley offers--at de price of a brudder's life an' a sister's happiness?

Which ob yer here 'ould buy his freedom wid the price ob Walley's blood, and Phaedra's and Fannie's tears? Would you, Brudder Portiphar? or you, Sister Deely? or you? or you? No, not one ob you. Now, brudders an'

sisters, I'se got a proposition to make. Fust, bolt dat door, Brudder Isaac, an' see to de fastenin' o' dat winder, Sister Hera; no knowin'

who'se 'bout. Now, let's speak low. An' what I want to propose is dis yer: dat ebery brudder makes a pledge afore he leabes dis room to be silent as to which has happen here dis night. Let Brudder Walley no more be lef in de power an' temptations ob de enemy; let him feel hissef free to 'tend our prayer-meetin's here in peace an' safety, for all as is happened of to-night. Let us pray wid him, an' try to 'lieve his poor soul ob its load o' sin an' sorrow!"

Elisha would have spoken longer, but here Portiphar arose, and said, in effect, that he did not fully agree with Brother Elisha; that he doubted whether they should be doing right to conceal Valentine, especially when the conscience of the latter urged him to the expiation of his crime.

Elisha could scarcely wait for the other to finish his remarks before he arose in a hurry, and said, in effect, if not in these words, and with some vehemence also, that he was the last to make light of the guilt that Valentine had brought upon his own soul, but that he also knew, and no one else knew so well, the maddening provocation that had driven him to his crime. That he prayed the sin might be washed away by repentance and faith in the Redeemer; that, for this reason, he wished Valentine to feel safe in coming among them, to share their prayers, and hymns, and exhortations, and all their other means of grace; that, undismayed and undistracted by the worldly sorrows of imprisonment, trial and impending execution, he might have time to work out his salvation! That therefore he should s.h.i.+eld his sinful brother until they could prove to him that the gallows was a means of grace, "which I don't believe it is," concluded old Elisha, as he sat down in quiet triumph, for he saw that every man and woman among the warm-hearted creatures present coincided in sentiment with himself, and that Portiphar was put down and silenced, if not convinced.

And Phaedra and Fannie ventured once more to raise their drooping heads and look about them. Alas, for their feeble hopes! Valentine, still standing, and still agonized, waved his hand for silence and attention, and then spoke.

He told them he had already repented, if that were the word to express the horrible remorse of blood-guiltiness that had long preyed upon his heart, and consumed his flesh and blood, and left him what they saw him.

But did they, he asked them, suppose that he had repented only since the fatal deed? No, no! but for years and years before that catastrophe he had suffered with that uncommitted crime. Did they think that the act was premeditated, then? Yes, in one sense it was premeditated, although entirely unintentional, and so abhorrent that he would have gladly died to escape committing it. The deed was premeditated, inasmuch as it had long loomed up before him, a black mountain[2] in his forward path of life, from which it was impossible to turn aside; to which every breath and every step drew him nearer and nearer. That the first time he caught a glimpse of this awful phantom of his future was while he and Oswald were still boys. He had been provoked and exasperated to frenzy by his playmate, and, in his utter madness, had struck and tried to kill him.

The reaction from that fit of pa.s.sion had been terrible. The next occasion upon which arose darkly before him this inevitable doom was when his master and himself were youths. One night he was driving Oswald home. Both were intoxicated; they quarreled; his master threatened him with the lash; he lost his reason and his very eyesight, and all his senses, in a dark tempest and whirlwind of mad and blind fury, and struck with all his strength to destroy. By Heaven's mercy, that blow was not fatal. But the recovery of his own senses from that frenzy of anger was more horrible than anything he had ever before experienced.

From that time he had never been able to exorcise the haunting presence of that black phantom, standing waiting for him at the terminus of his earthly path, from which he could not escape; to which every breath and every step drew him nearer and nearer! From that time he had felt in some baleful moment of extreme exasperation, some irresponsible moment of mad and blind pa.s.sion, he should strike a fatal blow. Yet he said he agonized in soul to escape that black crime; he struggled to conquer his angry pa.s.sions; he sought the grace of G.o.d, and hoped that he had possessed it; he swore off from alcohol, that stimulus might not be added to his other excitements to anger--to the inevitable provocations arising from his temperament, position and circ.u.mstances--provocations that were constantly exasperating his soul to madness. For years, he said, no eye but the Lord's had seen the desperate war his spirit had waged with the powers of evil within and around him, and waged successfully, until one trying season, when, in the utter prostration of sorrow and despondency, he had been tempted to place again the maddening gla.s.s to his lips--tempted by the sophistry that prescribed the moral poison as a medicine; then he lost the habit, and at last the power of self-control, and one fatal day, when amazed and bewildered with exceeding sorrow, and stung to frenzy with the sense of wrong-suffering and cruelty, he had struck the blow that laid his master dead before him.

[Footnote 2: I use here the precise words of the unhappy man, as they were repeated to me.]

"Heaven knows I was not thinking of doing it; in my deep sorrow of the preceding days the phantom of my predestined crime was exorcised. I had not even that to warn me; the hour was entirely unguarded. I struck in self-defense. He had intercepted and knocked me down, to prevent me from going to see my sick wife. Blind and giddy, and furious, I struggled to my feet, and seized the first weapon that offered, a three-legged stool, and struck with all my strength; but when I saw the leg crush through his eye and brain, one lightning thought told me that he was killed, and thenceforth all the world was against me, and I against the world; and then waves of blood and clouds of fire seemed to roll up around me, and rage in a horrible tempest; reason fled utterly, and I knew nothing more until near midnight, when I came to myself upon the floor of Fannie's room; and even then, in my vague remorse and horror of half-conscious blood-guiltiness, I seemed to be some other thing than myself--perhaps some lost soul in perdition! Brother Elisha, Heaven bless him, was bending over me. It was to him I owed the preservation of my life. It was by his counsel and a.s.sistance that I disguised myself in poor Fannie's clothing, which fitted me well enough for the purpose. He even crimped my hair and tied up my head in a woman's turban. And he found and thrust Fannie's free papers in my bosom, and then led me off to his own home. Well, in this disguise, and by keeping very close, I contrived to elude the vigilance of the police, until a surer place of safety was provided for me near this cabin. For eighteen months I have eluded the police; but think you, my brothers and sisters, that, for one moment, I have escaped the avenger of blood? No! no! After the crime he found me even in the first moments of my waking consciousness; his clutch has never been relaxed from my heart; it compresses now, even to suffocation; the death that you would save me from I die every hour of my life; I can bear it no longer; I must die once for all, and have done with it; I should have resigned myself into the hands of the law, and, in the final expiation, long since found rest, but for Fannie's grief and terror. But now, even her tears and prayers must not hinder me; even for her peace it is better I should give myself up to die, and have it over, for now she lives in the midst of alarms; hereafter, when all is over, she will at least have quiet."

"Quiet! yes, the quiet of death, for I never can outlive you, Valley!"

said Fannie, in a low tone of despair.

He laid his hand fondly on her bowed head, but without comment resumed his discourse.

"I was about to surrender myself to the public authorities, when I reflected that, by giving myself up to my brothers in the church, I might confer the blessing of freedom upon some one among you, since that was one of the rewards offered for my arrest. Here I am! Which of you will make himself a free man to-night?"

He paused a moment, looking around upon the little a.s.sembly; and then fixing his eyes upon a handsome, intelligent-looking, young man, to whom the gift of freedom might well seem the most desirable of goods, he said:

"Brother Joseph, will you take me into custody?"

"May the enemy of souls take me in custody, and never let me go, when I do!" promptly replied young Joe.

"That's you, my boy! And may the same fate befall any one else who would do the like!" exclaimed old Elisha, emphatically.

A murmur of approbation ran around the little a.s.sembly and revealed the fact that the feelings of the majority were with the speakers.

"Brother Walley! you think yourself a very guilty man. But no one ever craved freedom more than you did, and yet you know you would never o'

bought your freedom at the price o' any man's life, no matter how fur forfeit his life might be! An' now, Brudder Walley, please don't think us so much wus than yourself."

When the little a.s.sembly heard this, with one voice (and one exception) they declared that they would die before they would betray Valentine.

And Elisha, to confirm their faith, went around with the Bible in his hand, and administered to each an oath of fidelity and silence upon the subject of Valentine and the transactions of that night.

But when he came to old Portiphar, the latter declared that he had a scruple against taking an oath on the Evangelists, but readily gave his promise to be secret.

Valentine, with grateful but troubled looks, regarded these proceedings, until Phaedra and Fannie, taking advantage of the popular sentiment, came to him, and, one on each side, seized his hands, besought him, for their sakes, not to cast away his slender chance of safety.

What was to be done? Love was almost irresistible, and life, perhaps, even at the worst was sweet; he had come to the resolution to deliver himself up to justice; but that could be done at any time; and for the present it could be deferred. He embraced his mother and his wife, and bade them rest quietly, as he would proceed no farther in the matter now.

The meeting soon after broke up.

One by one the members of the little community took leave of Valentine, promising to guard his secret, and remember him in their prayers.

After all the others had departed old Portiphar still lingered. And when the room was quite clear, he called Valentine to the door and said:

"Brudder Valley, I'se a poor man, wid a fam'ly o' chillun, an' ef so be you'se 'termin' on gibbin' o' yourself up I wouldn' min' walkin' far as the squire's office wid you myself."

"Thank you, Portiphar; I will inform you when I need your services.

Good-night," replied the young man, shutting the door upon him.

Portiphar had not proceeded half a dozen steps on his way before he felt himself seized by the shoulder, and he recognized as his a.s.sailant the strapping negro, young Joe, who, holding him tightly, said:

"See here, Daddy Fox! I thought what you was up to, so I stopped to give this 'vice! Ef Valley's took up, we shall all know who slipped the bloodhounds on him, an' then some dark night somethin' will happen to you so sudden you won't never know what hurt you! Tain't only me, but a great many more is a-watchin' of you!"

And with this brief and pithy exordium Joe released Portiphar, or rather spurned him forward, and went his own way. This threat put the old man in a cold sweat of terror. He knew the strong fellow-feeling among his own cla.s.s; that, even in the dangerous number of twenty persons, it would keep Valentine's secret; that he himself was suspected as a traitor; that, if Valentine should now be arrested, his own life might not be safe with those of the meeting who were not professing Christians; and he resolved to guide himself accordingly.

Several weeks pa.s.sed in safety to the wretched young man.

But, released from the awful solitude and silence of his own heavily-burdened soul, free to come among a few of his fellow-creatures, free to speak of the deep sorrow and remorse that consumed his heart, among those who pitied and shrank not from him, who prayed for and with him, Valentine's mind began to recover its healthy tone; he did not cease to mourn his crime, but he mourned no longer as one without hope; he was again received into the little brotherhood of the church, the simple ceremony being performed in the lone cabin; again he became the man of fervent prayer and eloquent exhortation; and powerful, far more powerful, was he now, through his terrible experiences and profound repentance, than ever he had been.

To his confidant brother, Elisha, he was accustomed to say:

"I know I shall not finally escape the earthly punishment of my crime. I know that sooner or later it must come; nor do I wish to avoid it; yet will I do nothing to hasten its arrival; but when it shall come, I will accept it."

To which Elisha would reply: "Our lives are in the hands of the Lord,"

or words to that purpose.

Weeks grew into months, spring ripened into summer, and summer waned into autumn, and still Valentine lived unmolested.

At length, however, near the last of September, a rumor got afloat that Valentine, the murderer of Mr. Waring, was concealed somewhere in the neighborhood of his late master's residence. How this report first got in circulation no one seemed to be able to tell; though how the secret, known to twenty people, had been guarded so long may be more of a subject for conjecture to many minds. Be that as it may, the peace of the unhappy little family was gone forever. Phaedra's lonely cabin in the pine barrens and Fannie's humble home in the city were subject to sudden invasions and searchings by day and by night. Their weekly prayer-meetings were surprised and broken up. But no trace of Valentine could be discovered; as unexpectedly as he had appeared, so suddenly had he again disappeared. The earth seemed to have swallowed him.

But this could not last forever; and upon the third of October Valentine was arrested under the following suspicious circ.u.mstances:

A police officer, stationed in concealment behind a hedge of Spanish daggers that bordered a lane crossing the highway at right angles, and running midway between the pine ridge and cypress swamp, saw what seemed a young negro woman coming down the lane. She was poorly and plainly clothed, and wore a long sunbonnet. There was nothing whatever in her manner or appearance to attract attention. Yet this police officer watched her closely. Presently, coming up the lane from an opposite direction, appeared the figure of an old negro. The policeman favored him also with a share of notice. Meeting the seeming woman, the old man laughed, held out his hand, and exclaimed, in a clear voice:

"Ha! Brudder Walley! Good-morning! Walking out to take a little air, eh?"

"Hus.h.!.+ for Heaven's sake, don't speak so loud or call me by name. Yes, I have stolen forth for a breath of fresh air."

"Glad to hear it. Which way is you walking, Brudder Walley?" inquired the other, raising his voice.

"For the Lord's sake, I beg you will not call me by my name, or speak so loud!"

"No danger at all, Brudder Walley; no one in sight!" exclaimed the old man, louder than ever. "Which way did you say you wer' goin', Brudder Walley?"

"I am going home."

"Well, Brudder Walley, let me go long wid you dis time. I'd like to see Sister Phaedra," pleaded the old negro.