II
The shadows were growing long upon wood and river when the light dip of a paddle broke upon the stillness, and old Jerry, rousing from his nap, spied a canoe gliding down stream, guided by two youths who, with their guns lying crosswise upon their knees, were making for the bank.
“Mars Harry an’ Mars Phil,” he murmured, eying them with lazy curiosity, as they brought their little craft to land, and after making it fast, picked up their guns, crossed the levee, and struck off into the swamp.
“Dey’s after turkey, I ’speck; Mars Harry an’ me, we’s killed many a varmint in dese here woods. Dey want no Mars Phil ’bout here in dem days befo’ ole Mars were tuck down.”
Thus soliloquizing, the old man continued to gaze wistfully after the retreating figures; for their appearance had seemed to bring a disturbing element into his peaceful dreams, and a look of helpless trouble overspread his face as, taking off his hat and slowly scratching his head, he murmured:—
“Seem like it mos’ a pity Mars Phil trouble hisself for to come here, anyhow. Well, well, well! we folks all gwine be ’vided up ’twix Mars Harry an’ Mars Phil, ’cause ole Mars, he not long for dis world! Bless de Lord, whinsoever it please Him for to teck ole Mars to hisself, I trus’ he gwine ’vide off Jerry to Mars Harry’s shere, ’cause I nachally ain’t got no use for t’other one—he too outlondesh.”
So saying, he rose and reached his bucket from the bough where it hung. Drive, who had for some moments been watching him out of the corner of one red eye, rose also, and the two set out upon their tramp back to the cart.
The old man had climbed the fence, the dog had scrambled through, and both were threading their way across the swamp, when the report of a gun close by caused the dog to beat a retreat from the thicket into which he had thrust his nose, and, with tail tucked in, to creep to his master’s side; while the old man, exclaiming, “Good Gor-a-mighty! whot dat?” pushed aside the bushes in order to see what game the boys had brought down.
The sight that met his eyes froze him with horror. Philip’s lifeless body lay upon the ground, while Harry, with scared white face, bent over it.
For a brief space the old man stood as if petrified, then muttered: “Jerry ain’t gwine know nothin’ bout dis here. When ole Mars say, ‘Jerry, what you seen in de Vine Ridge Swash?’ Jerry, he gwine say, ‘Nothin’, Marster, fo’ de Lord. I seen nothin’ ’t all!’ An’ I ain’t gwine tell no lie, nuther, ’cause I ain’t gwine look!”
Thus thinking, he cautiously drew back, and, with ashen face and limbs that through trembling almost failed to support him, he stealthily crept away until out of earshot; then took to his heels and fled. When, however, he was forced to pause for breath, he considered if he had done well to desert his young master, and turned reluctantly to retrace his steps, when, as he did so, the air was suddenly rent with ear-piercing shrieks for half a second, and Jerry’s heart quailed.
“It’s boun’ to be de debil,” he whispered. Then, a light seeming to break upon him, he exclaimed: “Bless God! ’t ain’t nothin’ but de ole Chieftain a-blowin’.”
The Chieftain, a small freight steamer, had recently taken the place of the old flat-bottomed scows, and, as the steam whistle was still a novelty, it is not surprising that Ung Jerry, in his terror, should for the moment have mistaken it for some unearthly sound.
After many irresolute pauses, the old man at length reached the scene of the disaster, and with shaking hands thrust aside the bushes. Except for the small birds silently flitting to their roosts, the place was utterly deserted. The level sunbeams glinted through the gray moss, gilded the tree trunks, and glowed crimson upon the brown leaves; the solitary peace of nature seemed unbroken; only the pool of blood at Ung Jerry’s feet told him that what he had witnessed had not been a vision.
After a moment’s survey he was turning away, when his eyes fell upon the two guns: here, at least, was something tangible, and the old man proceeded to secrete them in the fallen leaves. Squatted upon the ground, he was too busily engaged to note the sound of approaching footsteps, and started violently when a rough voice accosted him. He mustered courage, however, to quaver:—
“Dat you, Mars Jones?”
“Me? of course it’s me! Who did you reckon it was?”
“I dunno, Mars Jones.”
“Well, you’ll know next time, if you don’t keep them hogs o’ yourn out of my corn. Why, that confounded old sow can destroy more corn in one night than you are worth.”
“Yes, Mars Jones, dat de trufe,” meekly assented the old man.
Mars Jones, warming to the subject, now waxed more and more eloquent over his grievances, until, having exhausted his pent up wrath, he had leisure to observe old Jerry’s ashen face and shaking limbs, and he exclaimed:—
“Why, what’s the matter with you? are you sick?”
“Yes, Mars Jones, I’s been po’ly dis liblong day, an’ I’s gittin’ sassifrax for to make me a little drap o’ tea, I’s got sich a mis’ry.”
“Sassafras!” here broke in Mars Jones; and, good-natured, despite his roughness, he took from his pocket a tickler, and handing Jerry a dram, said:
“Drink this, you old blockhead. Sassifrax, indeed!—what good you reckon sassifrax goin’ do you?”
With a scrape and a bow and a “Thank ye, Marster,” the old man gulped down the dram, and Mars Jones, replacing his tickler, was turning away, when his foot slipped in something, and looking down he saw that it was blood.
The dram had put so much heart into the old man that he was able to reply glibly to Mars Jones’s questions.
“Its jes’ wha’ I’s been markin’ hogs, Marster.”
“I don’t believe you; I believe you’ve been killin’ one of your master’s hogs—that’s what you’ve been at.”
But as this did not concern him, he did not wait to inquire further, and so, turning on his heel, he strode off.
The hog-feeder, too, hastening away, took the shortest path back to his cart.
The deserted barnyard lay silent in the white moonlight when the little cart creaked through the gate; but up at the “great house” there were lights and movements where the family watched the coming of the boys.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday passed without tidings, and the hope that they had been caught by the rising water and imprisoned upon some isolated knoll had been abandoned after the swamps had been searched in every direction. To add to the grief of the household, the master, already enfeebled, now lay prostrated in a condition that almost forbade hope.
Upon Sunday the waters began to abate, fences again appeared, and patches of drowned corn showed themselves above the wastes of water, to the no small joy of the flocks of blackbirds which chattered and fluttered amongst them.
Mr. Jones, tired of the loneliness of his water-girt home, made his way to the meeting-house, more for the sake of a gossip with some of the neighbors than for the day’s preaching, and it was there that he first heard the startling news of the unaccountable disappearance of Squire Brace’s nephews.
In the excitement, each man was eager to advance his own theory. The discussion ended, however, in the general opinion that their canoe had been swamped in the freshet and the boys drowned, until a newcomer asserted that the canoe, with Phil’s overcoat still in it, had been found tied up at the Vine Ridge landing, and that their guns had been discovered hidden in the leaves at no great distance in the swamp.
Upon hearing this, Mr. Jones could but call to mind his meeting with the hog-feeder, his strange behavior, and the blood upon the ground, and he at once jumped to the conclusion that old Jerry had been at least a party to some foul deed. His suspicions, once made known, became certainties, and the whole party, hastily mounting their horses, rode off to the nearest justice, their convictions gaining ground so rapidly that, ere the house of the justice was reached, poor, simple old Jerry, the most harmless of God’s creatures, had become in their estimation a villain of the deepest dye.
Upon this identical Sunday morning the old hog-feeder betook himself to the little plantation church, whose bell, with cracked clamor, gave warning that preaching was about to begin.
The frosty brightness of the past week had given place to a soft mist, through whose dimness the pale sunbeams looked sadly upon the autumnal world; and as the old man, dressed in his Sunday clothes, plodded along the path, the tiny crickets from beneath the grass sent up their sad, perpetual dirge.
Men and women, all shining with Sabbath cleanness, came straggling toward the church, silently and soberly, without the usual light-hearted laughter, for the trouble at the “great house” was felt by all the little band. Yet their feelings were not without a mixture of pleasurable excitement, for all were anticipating with gloomy satisfaction the lengthy prayers, the groanings, and the head-shakings upon this mournful day.
The congregation had taken their seats, old Jethro had taken his place in the pulpit, the long-drawn cadence of the funeral hymn had floated sadly up to the “great house,” when a noise at the door startled the congregation, who, turning, beheld standing in the door a group of white men. Among them was the overseer, who, coming forward, announced that hog-feeder Jerry was to be arrested upon a charge of murder. “Not that I believe it, men,” he said, “but the law must take its course.”
In the meantime two others had approached the old man, who had already stumbled to his feet, and, while bowing in a dazed kind of way, kept murmuring, “Sarvent, Marsters.”
Handcuffs were put upon him, and amid a profound silence he was led forth and lifted into a cart. The two sheriffs took their places upon each side of him, and the cortège moved off.
The people, having sufficiently recovered from their shock to jostle one another out of the building, stood huddled together like a flock of frightened sheep; but when the cavalcade had driven off, a subdued clamor of voices arose, all unanimous in contempt for “dese here po’ white, who’d ha’ knowed better ’n to come meddlin’ long o’ Marster’s folks ef Marster wan’t down on de bed an’ mos’ like to die!”
That the dull and simple brain of the old man should have been capable of any formulated plan is not to be imagined, and when upon the following day he was taken before the justice for examination, he merely acted from an instinct of affection in shielding his young master, even at the risk of his own life. When questioned, he preserved an obstinate silence; then, when forced to speak, denied having seen either of the boys upon the day of their disappearance, but, when cross-questioned, admitted that he had seen Mars Phil in the Vine Ridge woods; and finally, when taxed with the blood upon the ground and with having hidden the guns, he reluctantly admitted that “ef Mars Phil had been hurted” he had done it.
“What did you do with the body?” questioned the justice; “throw it in the river?”
A murmur from the prisoner, which passed for assent, concluded the examination, and the justice, sorely puzzled, committed him to jail to await his trial.
With the early morning, the country people had begun to gather around the courthouse, and when told that the old miscreant had actually confessed to the murder, their innate love of justice gave place to fierce anger; and when the prisoner, gray with terror, bent and tottering, was led forth, he was surrounded by a silent but determined crowd, who, thrusting the sheriffs aside, seized and drove him before them, and had already slipped the noose about his neck, when an inarticulate shout caused the crowd to sway,—a horseman dashed into their midst and proclaimed that both boys were alive. Their disappearance had been explained on that morning by a letter forwarded by hand, which ran as follows:—
On Board the Chieftain.
Dear Uncle,—This afternoon, while hunting in the Vine Ridge woods, Phil’s gun went off and wounded him in the side. I was at my wit’s end what to do, when I heard the Chieftain blow up the river; so I tore off to the levee, where I was lucky enough to succeed in attracting Captain Smith’s attention, who sent off a boat, and we managed to get Phil on board. I wanted Smith to put back to our landing, but he thought the current too strong; and on the whole, I believe it is better for Phil to keep on to Hilton, as it would be impossible to get a doctor at home in this high water. Phil’s hurt is not very serious, I hope.
Your dutiful nephew,
Harry Brace.
On the day succeeding Harry’s homecoming, he entered the room designated the “study,” in which the Squire was usually to be found when indoors.
The room probably owed the name of “study” to a set of Farmer’s Magazines which, in all the dignity of expensive bindings, divided the shelf with a rather damaged edition of “The Turf Register,” a “Farrier’s Manual,” a brace of antiquated medical works, and a stack of newspapers. Fishing tackle, a cupping apparatus, a set of engineering instruments, half a dozen ears of extra fine seed corn, medicine scales, and a huge cotton stock filled the rest of the bookcase.
The Squire, seated before a blazing fire, in the lazy comforts of convalescence, with pipe and tobacco at his elbow, presented a not unenviable picture when contrasted with the wintry grayness outside.
Harry, who had been greatly touched by the old hog-feeder’s affectionate fidelity, now sought his uncle in order to beg that as a recompense he might be given his freedom.
“Freedom!” exclaimed the Squire; “why, confound it, my dear boy, what would he do with freedom, if he had it?”
“I think he would like it,” Harry murmured, a little sheepishly.
“Why, he’s as free as air now; a deuced sight freer than I am.”
Nevertheless Harry gained his point, and though the Squire growled, “You young jackanapes, you’ve robbed me of the best hog-feeder on the river,” still he was evidently pleased, and in the evening old Jerry was sent for.
When, in answer to the summons, Jerry presented himself at the study door, his master said to him, with a stateliness fitted to the occasion:—
“Jerry, I have sent for you to tell you that your young master here, as a reward for your fidelity, desires to give you your freedom.”
Here the Squire paused, and Jerry, not knowing what else to say, said, “Yes, Marster.”
Harry, standing by, was feeling rather wrought up, while the Squire, also somewhat excited, continued:—
“I will give you a house in the free settlement, out in the slashes, and your young master will always take care of you.”
Another rather disconcerting pause was broken by a second “Yes, Marster;” and the old man, picking up his hat, shuffled out.
The Squire glanced at Harry with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, but the boy’s face expressed such blank disappointment that he took pity upon him, and, picking up a newspaper, dismissed the matter.
Upon the following evening a low knock was heard at the study door, then a fumbling at the latch, and old Jerry once more stood upon the threshold.
“Well, old man, what is it now?” his master asked kindly. “Come, out with it!” he repeated, as the old man, with a feeble grin, stood helplessly fingering his hat. “What’s the matter?”
And old Jerry, slowly scratching his head, made answer:—
“Thank, Marster; I’s come to ax Marster what I done to ’splease Mars?”
“Displease me! Why, what has put that notion into your head?”
“I dunno, Mars, what I’s done, but I’s skeared Mars mout be set agin me, ’cause he say he gwine sen’ me offen de plantation.”
Then Harry explained that he was to be set free, and eagerly enlarged upon the delights of liberty. The hog-feeder listened, but was unmoved: he obstinately declined to accept his freedom, his plea being that “the varments” would “’stroy up his creeturs” if he were not there to look after them.
“De black sow, she got a fine litter o’ pigs now, an’ de foxes is a’ter ’em de blessed time.”
After this no more could be urged, and Jerry, scraping his foot, went out with a mind full of content.