The Haunted Homestead: A Novel

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

That was the last time that Valentine saw his master in his right mind for many weeks. The effects of his fall, acting upon a system weakened and vitiated by dissipation, was much more serious than any one had foreseen. Before night a brain fever, with delirium, had set in, and, for days after, the life of Oswald Waring hung upon the feeblest chance. For many weeks of his illness, Phædra and Valentine nursed him with the most devoted affection. Poor Phædra prayed constantly for his recovery, and also for his reform, and solicited every Sabbath the prayers of the congregation of her church in his behalf. And Valentine, in deep despair, daily accused himself of his master's death, as if he had purposely stricken a fatal blow, and Oswald were already dead. The long days and nights of watching by the side of the sickbed, that might at any hour become a deathbed, were very fruitful in good to Valentine. There he learned to hate and dread the demon anger, that had caused him so much misery; there he came to listen with patience and reverence to his poor mother's tearful pleadings and counsels; there he began to pray. It was six weeks before Mr. Waring left his room, and one more before he was fully restored to health. And this brought midsummer—a season that camp-meetings were frequent in the neighborhood.

This summer there was much greater excitement than ever before among the religious revivalists. The Rev. Mr. M—— and several others, equally eloquent and successful field preachers, were making a circuit of the country. Their fame always preceded them as an avant courier, and crowds congregated to hear them.

There was a camp-meeting held, by permission of the owner, in a magnolia grove where there was a fine spring, upon the grounds of Mr. Hewitt, Mr. Waring's nearest neighbor. And it was given out that on Sunday morning the eloquent field preacher, M——, would address the assembled multitudes. There was a great deal of excitement and anticipation among all classes in that quiet rural district; and when the Sabbath came, congregations forsook their own churches, and assembled to hear M——. Crowds after crowds gathered; some went with the avowed purpose of getting converted; some to get revived; many to get excited; and most from motives of idle curiosity. Poor Phædra went for the candidly expressed purpose of being warmed and comforted. Valentine went to drive his master, who went only to kill a dull day.

Now, not only was Phædra praying with all her soul's strength for her son's conversion, but naturally that desired consummation was one of the most likely things in the world to eventuate; for Valentine's nature was just the one to be most deeply affected and impressed by the magnetic power of a man like M——, and he was also in the most favorable mood for receiving such impressions. And while hundreds around him were swayed, as by a mighty wizard's wand, under the wonderful eloquence of the most potent preacher since the days of Wesley and Whitefield, Valentine was deeply and almost fearfully excited.

And from that Sabbath, during the whole time of Mr. M——'s sojourn in the neighborhood, the boy was a regular attendant upon his ministry, and in the end was numbered among his converts. This is not the place to call in question the Rev. Mr. M——'s sincerity or consistency as a Christian; those who knew him best, believed him to be perfectly sincere in his religious enthusiasm, however inconsistent was sometimes his conduct. And, though it may be true that some of his converts were his only, and not God's, as they afterward demonstrated by their backsliding, yet it is equally true that many shining lights in the Christian Church at this day ascribe their first awakening to Christian life, under Divine Providence, to the electric power of M——'s eloquence. At the time that I write of, the people of that neighborhood adored him as an angel sent from God; though some years after the same people hunted him as a wild beast, from village to village, until old, poor, ill and exhausted, he died alone—a fugitive from their insane wrath. But to return.

M—— had succeeded in reviving the religious spirit of that district; and when he departed, he left behind him many new but zealous laborers in that vineyard of the Lord.

Among the most enthusiastic in the field of the colored mission of Magnolia Grove was Valentine. His sincere, ardent, earnest soul; his natural gift of eloquence; his sympathy with those in his own condition, if not strictly of his own race; his better education, and even his beauty of person, grace of manner, and sweetness of voice, all combined to make him the most popular and effective, and best beloved of all the class-leaders in the colored mission of Magnolia Grove. "Brother Valentine's" class was the largest and most important in the church. If ever Brother Valentine was announced to address the meeting upon any given day, there was sure to be a crowded house. And if ever Phædra held a prayer meeting in her quarter, there was sure to be a crowd to hear Brother Valentine speak.

Among the most zealous of the church members, and among those who never failed to be present at Phædra's weekly prayer meetings, was a young and pretty quadroon, named Fannie. She was a free girl and an orphan, and was employed as shop girl in a hair dresser's and fancy store kept by a respectable old French couple in the city of M. But though her home and her business was in town, and there were also two or three "colored missions" in that place, yet Fannie preferred to walk out every Sunday morning to the little log meeting-house in Magnolia Grove. And those who were envious of Fannie's beauty did not scruple to say that she came out so far for the sake of hearing Brother Valentine pray or exhort, or to let him hear her sing; for Fannie had a voice that might have made her fortune, had she been white, and had it been cultivated. However that might be, Phædra loved Fannie as if she had been her own daughter, and she always took her home from meeting, to dine and spend the afternoon at Red Hill. And after an early tea, Valentine always walked home with Fannie to the city.

It is also true that Valentine became a frequent customer at Leroux's, the hair-dresser's and fancy store where Fannie was employed; and as Valentine not only made his own but also his master's purchases, and as he had a carte blanche for the same, his custom was of no trifling importance to the establishment. But, valuable as was this patronage, as soon as the proprietors began to suspect the nature of the attraction to their store, they felt it to be their duty to warn the young girl, which they would do in something like these terms:

"Take my advice, Fannie, and send that young fellow about his business; he may be a very good young man, I dare say; but he is a slave, and never will be able to do anything for you," Monsieur Leroux would say.