THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW.
Another morning came and there was a cook perseveringly tasking herself with a round of slavish duties in the kitchen; but she did not come from Ned's cabin.
Old Jupiter, the pet hound, looked up into her fair face as if to say, "You will not forget me when breakfast is ready will you?" As quietly as possible she went about; there was no rattling of cups and plates, for the new cook said as she came softly out of her chamber "my dear father must not be disturbed this morning." She went resignedly to her toil. There was a blister or two upon her soft white hands, "but father will kiss the fire out of them when he comes to breakfast; and then we will give thanks to God for His bounty and in our home it may be that we shall be happy."
As her father entered the room, Alice ran to kiss him, observing that she would not ask for a compliment this morning, as it seemed that Clarissa had communicated her mad spirit to all the appurtenances of the kitchen; the fire would not burn and the kettle had gone off upon a rampage, perhaps as Clarissa's carriage would go when driven upon the corduroy roads of reconstruction; and then again she had prodded her hand unnecessarily with the sharp tines of a fork with which she was marking points in the biscuits.
Her father laughed at her little deficiencies as he relaxed his stern old face to kiss her and said to her approvingly "perhaps you will yet be a CHEF in this responsible department my daughter."
Together they sat down to their meal; together their hearts were uplifted unto Him who had made for them such ample provision.
"And now my daughter," said the colonel smilingly as he was leaving the room "what are your prognostications for to-day. Shall we have peace and rest, or surprises and?" he had not concluded the enquiry when a rude knocking came from the hall door. A frown instantly shadowed the veteran's face. The hour for inquisitorial visits or interruptions was unseasonable, "what could it mean?" he queried.
"Is yo name Semo?" asked a ruffianly negro in uniform, as the old soldier opened the door "It is," replied the colonel restraining his wrath.
"Yu is summuns to kote sar forthwid."
"Why such a requisition, will you please explain," demanded the colonel.
"Don't ax fool questions white man; cum rite erlong, dis heer rit bleeges me to tak yu ded er live."
The colonel went to the stable to saddle Nelly and she was gone, Sweetheart was also gone, and so were the other horses.
He came back with the information; the negro laughed savagely in his face, and told him "dat de milintery company was er drillin in de town und he seed his hosses ergwine to de drill-ground wid de sargent und de corprul und de flagman."
The colonel looked into the face of the negro as he asked despairingly: "How am I to obey the order? I have no way of getting to your court."
"You has got ter go ded er live, I'm er gwine to gib yu one hour to git ter kote und den I'm agwine ter fetch yu wid de possum common taters," and the negro gave his horse the whip and cantered away.
Sixty-five years had stiffened the joints of the old man; his muscles and sinews were relaxed and gouty, but the order must be obeyed; no temporizing with the policy of reconstruction, no annulling an order when issued from a court.
The old gentleman halting from sheer weakness ascended the rickety stairway of the court room and he saw the power of the law, its learning, its dignity prostituted to ignoble purposes.
He saw the power of reconstruction, its ignorance, its venality accentuated to a degree that provoked his abhorrence.
He saw as he entered the house the American flag drooping in graceful folds over the bench, and he felt that judicial authority was reinforced by the strength and dominion that overpowered the South.
A stupid negro as black as the hinges of midnight sat upon the judgment seat; sat there as a representative of the law that had for its substantial underpinning in all the bygone ages, honesty, capacity, promptitude, justice; sat there under a commission to checkmate evil.
There were but two white men in this revolting presence, beside the veteran, whose face was now marked by fatigue and despair, and who dropped exhausted upon a rude bench.
They were not there from choice but because the law of the bewildered land had brought them there.
Judge Blackstock's black face looked out of a canopy as of carded wool; beetling eyebrows of snowy whiteness would rise and fall automatically like the crest of a kingfisher; the contour of his face was made ridiculously picturesque by great brass rimmed spectacles that sat reposefully below the bridge of his nose.
A spring tide one day washed him out of a fisherman's hut into the office of a justice of the peace, where he was dipping out of his Dutch nets a larger fry.
The old negro was not vicious or malignant, only ignorant, fanatical and superstitious, with a religious vein that ran in eccentric curves and sharp lines through his stupid nature.
Laflin was his apotheosis, his providence, his inspiration. It was Laflin he believed who had placed in the mid-heavens the great luminary of freedom; who had written upon amaranthine leaves the proclamation of emancipation; and who had erected within his reach the huge commissariat dripping all the while with fatness.
It was to Laflin that he carried his docket every morning to be paragraphed by stars and asterisks against the names of particular offenders; and it was to Laflin that he read the judgments of the court whenever rebels were indicted.
If "Ilderim" the sheik could have seen the old negro with his mace of office presiding in his court he would have recognized his maternal uncle.
The black judge retained his office rather by sufferance than popularity. He was guided by convictions that were illogical and foolish; slavery he believed to have been the whipcords of an offended God with which he smote his chosen people the negroes hip and thigh. This man was one of the judges who was caricaturing reconstruction; inditing as it were a pictorial commentary of the law of crimes and misdemeanors in misfitting cartoons.
"Make de pocklermashun, officer" he said to the negro constable as he placed in his right cheek a huge quid of tobacco.
"Oh yes," shouted the constable "dis kote is open fur de suppreshun ob jestis; walk light."
The judge adjusting his spectacles with a judicial temper, read aloud a warrant. "De state agin Edward Sanders."
"Stand up dar prisner; is yu gilty ob dis high depredashun ob de law ur is yu not gilty?"
"Not guilty," replied Mr. Sanders.
"What maks yu say dat white man?" asked his honor.
"Because I am not in the habit of lying," replied the offended man. "Look a heer white man I aint agwine ter hab no bigity in dis kote," said the judge as he pointed his long bony finger with a savage frown at the prisoner, "yer 'nose dis heer kote is agwin ter mak itsef ojeous und a pine plank scandle und stinch to dem dat goes agin de law. Don't dis heer warrant sezs how dat yu dun und dun dis heer depredashun und now yu ups und sez how dat yu didn't. The jedge ob dis kote aint agwine agin his own affidavy und yu is foun gilty upon de hipsy dixsy ob dis heer warrant."
"But I beg that I may be allowed to introduce witnesses who would prove me innocent," exclaimed the prisoner.
"How in de name ob God is dey gwine to prube yu innercent when de warrant hab dun und foun yu gilty? tell me dat" asked the judge argumentively.
"Do you mean to convict a man in your court who has not been judicially tried," asked Mr. Sanders.
"Say dat ober agin" commanded the judge as he leaned forward using his open hand as a ear trumpet; "dis kote don't comprehen de fassinashun ob de question," and the prisoner repeated the question with emphasis.
"Eggzackly so," exclaimed the judge, "I sees de pint; you is perseeding to put dis kote in contempt wid your obstropuous language; dis kote is gwine to rite its judgment so de boss can read it widout his specks. Hit has heerd de state pro und con und hit has measured out its ekality in golden stillyurds, and upon de hole kase und de aggrawashuns dareof yu is foun one hundred dollars und recognized fur your good behavens fur a year und a day. Officer," he continued addressing the negro, "size up dat white man's pile und tak out er hundred dollars fur de fine fore yu turns him loose."
"Next case" he exclaimed, "dare is dat Betsy Collins agin; er witness fur de state agin Mr. Thomson" he continued deprecatingly, "allus a gittin up a great flustration agin de po house; a runnin to dis kote wid arrant lies lak hit was agwine ter trude itsef on brudder Thomson's feelins."
"What is you doin heer Betsy Collins wid your rad eye a bunged up lak yu had been a salting a yellow jackets nest? I'm agwine to pospond dis kase twell brudder Tompson arrivs in kote und terryegates de complaint."
"De next case am a forsible stenshion kase I'm gwine ter let it go by too."
"Grate King" he exclaimed with an unjudicial gravity, as he bent his spectacled face to peruse a name upon his docket, "dat ar name retches from de Rappydan to de Jeemes rubber; Willyum Abender Dolbery Bowzer Indian Ginrul Mackintosh. Haint dat name dun und fling yo back outen jint? I'm ergwine to split hit rite wide open, und den I'm gwine to wide hit up agin. Mouter node yu wur er wagrant ur a secesh nigger toting dat secesh name und all dem Federick gyarments lak yu wuz de rare eend ob de bellion."
"Whose horg's dat yu bin gitting yo rashuns offer?" the judge asked with a fearful grin, and the negro prisoner was for a moment confused, reassuring himself however he pleaded "not guilty" to the warrant and asked that his case might be continued until his old master could be subponed.
The judge looked toward the prisoner with a scowl as he observed, "What's dat white man's name?"
"Ole Marser's named arter me," the prisoner humbly replied.
"Ugh! Ugh!" said the judge "Dats a sarcumstance agin you. I'm ergwine to put yu whey dere haint ergwine to be no mo sturbance betwixt yu and de horgs. Dis heer jedgment is ergwine to run agin yu twell dat ar horg is fotched into de kote; und hit is ergwine to run in de name of de state."
"Grate Jarryko!" exclaimed Joshua excitedly from among the bystanders, "dat dere jedgment ez same ez er surcle in de warter, hit haint got no eend, Grate King! dat secesh nigger hez dun und got hissef shot up forever und all dun and dun, by und twixt him und a piney woods rooter that is dun and woured up fo de bellion fell."
"Dis kote is gwine to rejourn till to morrow mornin. Make de pocklemashun, officer."
As the old negro judge by the aid of his staff was shuffling out of the court house the Colonel was prompted to ask him why he had been rudely taken from his home and brought as a prisoner before him. The old negro looked at the Colonel in a furtive way as he replied irritatingly. "De kote had to bate de trap wid one warmint ter catch anudder one." And thus the mountebanks and harlequins of these outrageous times were compounding dynamite in their laboratories that would ere long explode under their feet.