"'And,' says I to her, 'Oh, missis, don't think of it no more! de Lord's hid it in his own heart!' Oh, but she struggled long, honey; she was all night dyin', and 'twas 'Milly! Milly!' all de time; 'Oh, Milly, stay with me!'
"And, chile, I felt I loved her like my own soul; and when de day broke de Lord set her free, and I laid her down like she'd been one o' my babies. I took up her poor hand. It was warm, but the strength was all gone out on't; and, 'Oh,' I thought, 'ye poor thing, how could I ever have hated ye so?' Ah, chile, we mustn't hate nobody; we's all poor creaturs, and de dear Lord he loves us all."
CHAPTER XVII. UNCLE JOHN.
About four miles east of Canema lay the plantation of Nina's uncle, whither Harry had been sent on the morning which we have mentioned. The young man went upon his errand in no very enviable mood of mind. Uncle Jack, as Nina always called him, was the nominal guardian of the estate, and a more friendly and indulgent one Harry could not have desired. He was one of those joyous, easy souls, whose leading desire seemed to be that everybody in the world should make himself as happy as possible, without fatiguing him with consultations as to particulars. His confidence in Harry was unbounded; and he esteemed it a good fortune that it was so, as he was wont to say, laughingly, that his own place was more than he could manage. Like all gentlemen who make the study of their own ease a primary consideration, Uncle Jack found the whole course of nature dead-set against him. For, as all creation is evidently organized with a view to making people work, it follows that no one has so much care as the man who resolves not to take any. Uncle Jack was systematically, and as a matter of course, cheated and fleeced, by his overseers, by his negroes, and the poor whites of his vicinity; and, worst of all, continually hectored and lectured by his wife therefor. Nature, or destiny, or whoever the lady may be that deals the matrimonial cards, with her usual thoughtfulness in balancing opposites, had arranged that jovial, easy, care-hating Uncle John should have been united to a most undaunted and ever-active spirit of enterprise and resolution, who never left anything quiet in his vicinity. She it was who continually disturbed his repose, by constantly ferreting out, and bringing before his view, all the plots, treasons, and conspiracies, with which plantation-life is ever abounding; bringing down on his devoted head the necessity of discriminations, decisions, and settlements, most abhorrent to an easy man.
The fact was, that responsibility, aggravated by her husband's negligence, had transformed the worthy woman into a sort of domestic dragon of the Hesperides; and her good helpmeet declared that he believed she never slept, nor meant anybody else should. It was all very well, he would observe. He wouldn't quarrel with her for walking the whole night long, or sleeping with her head out of the window, watching the smoke-house; for stealing out after one o'clock to convict Pompey, or circumvent Cuff, if she only wouldn't bother him with it. Suppose the half of the hams were carried off, between two and three, and sold to Abijah Skinflint for rum?—He must have his sleep; and, if he had to pay for it in ham, why, he'd pay for it in ham; but sleep he must, and would. And, supposing he really believed, in his own soul, that Cuffy, who came in the morning, with a long face, to announce the theft, and to propose measures of discovery, was in fact the main conspirator—what then? He couldn't prove it on him. Cuff had gone astray from the womb, speaking lies ever since he was born; and what would be the use of his fretting and sweating himself to death to get truth out of Cuff? No, no! Mrs. G., as he commonly called his helpmeet, might do that sort of thing, but she mustn't bother him about it. Not that Uncle Jack was invariable in his temper; human nature has its limits, and a personage who finds "mischief still for idle hands to do" often seems to take a malicious pleasure in upsetting the temper of idle gentlemen. So, Uncle Jack, though confessedly the best fellow in the world, was occasionally subject to a tropical whirlwind of passion, in which he would stamp, tear, and swear, with most astounding energy; and in those ignited moments all the pent-up sorrows of his soul would fly about him, like red-hot shot, in every direction. And then he would curse the negroes, curse the overseers, curse the plantation, curse Cuff and Pomp and Dinah, curse the poor white folks round, curse Mr. Abijah Skinflint, and declare that he would send them and the niggers all severally to a department which politeness forbids us to mention. He would pour out awful threats of cutting up, skinning alive, and selling to Georgia. To all which commotion and bluster the negroes would listen, rolling the whites of their eyes, and sticking their tongues in their cheeks, with an air of great satisfaction and amusement; because experience had sufficiently proved to them that nobody had ever been cut up, skinned alive, or sent to Georgia, as the result of any of these outpourings. So, when Uncle Jack had one of these fits, they treated it as hens do an approaching thunderstorm,—ran under cover, and waited for it to blow over.
As to Madam Gordon, her wrath was another affair. And her threats they had learned to know generally meant something; though it very often happened that, in the dispensation of most needed justice, Uncle Jack, if in an extra good humor, would rush between the culprit and his mistress, and bear him off in triumph, at the risk of most serious consequences to himself afterwards. Our readers are not to infer from this that Madam Gordon was really and naturally an ill-natured woman. She was only one of that denomination of vehement housekeepers who are to be found the world over—women to whom is appointed the hard mission of combating, single-handed, for the principles of order and exactness, against a whole world in arms. Had she had the good fortune to have been born in Vermont or Massachusetts, she would have been known through the whole village as a woman who couldn't be cheated half a cent on a pound in meat, and had an instinctive knowledge whether a cord of wood was too short, or a pound of butter too light. Put such a woman at the head of the disorderly rabble of a plantation, with a cheating overseer, surrounded by thieving poor whites, to whom the very organization of society leaves no resource but thieving, with a never-mind husband, with land that has seen its best days, and is fast running to barrenness, and you must not too severely question her temper, if it should not be at all times in perfect subjection. In fact, Madam Gordon's cap habitually bristled with horror, and she was rarely known to sit down. Occasionally, it is true, she alighted upon a chair; but was in a moment up again, to pursue some of her household train, or shout, at the top of her lungs, some caution toward the kitchen.
When Harry reined up his horse before the plantation, the gate was thrown open for him by old Pomp, a superannuated negro, who reserved this function as his peculiar sinecure.