Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harry was the son of his master, and inherited much of the temper and constitution of his father, tempered by the soft and genial temperament of the beautiful Eboe mulattress, who was his mother. From this circumstance Harry had received advantages of education very superior to what commonly fell to the lot of his class. He had also accompanied his master as valet during the tour of Europe, and thus his opportunities of general observation had been still further enlarged, and that tact, by which those of the mixed blood seem so peculiarly fitted to appreciate all the finer aspects of conventional life had been called out and exercised; so that it would be difficult in any circle to meet with a more agreeable and gentlemanly person. In leaving a man of this character, and his own son, still in the bonds of slavery, Colonel Gordon was influenced by that passionate devotion to his daughter which with him overpowered every consideration. A man so cultivated, he argued to himself, might find many avenues opened to him in freedom; might be tempted to leave the estate to other hands, and seek his own fortune. He therefore resolved to leave him bound by an indissoluble tie for a term of years, trusting to his attachment to Nina to make this service tolerable.

Possessed of very uncommon judgment, firmness, and knowledge of human nature, Harry had found means to acquire great ascendency over the hands of the plantation, and, either through fear or through friendship, there was a universal subordination to him. The executors of the estate scarcely made even a feint of overseeing him; and he proceeded, to all intents and purposes, with the perfect ease of a free man. Everybody, for miles around, knew and respected him; and, had he not been possessed of a good share of the thoughtful, forecasting temperament derived from his Scottish parentage, he might have been completely happy, and forgotten even the existence of the chains whose weight he never felt.

It was only in the presence of Tom Gordon—Colonel Gordon's lawful son—that he ever realized that he was a slave. From childhood, there had been a rooted enmity between the brothers, which deepened as years passed on; and, as he found himself, on every return of the young man to the place, subjected to taunts and ill-usage, to which his defenceless position left him no power to reply, he had resolved never to marry, and lay the foundation for a family, until such time as he should be able to have the command of his own destiny, and that of his household. But the charms of a pretty French quadroon overcame the dictates of prudence.

The history of Tom Gordon is the history of many a young man grown up under the institutions and in the state of society which formed him. Nature had endowed him with no mean share of talent, and with that perilous quickness of nervous organization, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad master. Out of those elements, with due training, might have been formed an efficient and eloquent public man; but, brought up from childhood among servants to whom his infant will was law, indulged during the period of infantile beauty and grace in the full expression of every whim, growing into boyhood among slaves with but the average amount of plantation morality, his passions developed at a fearfully early time of life; and, before his father thought of seizing the reins of authority, they had gone out of his hands forever. Tutor after tutor was employed on the plantation to instruct him, and left, terrified by his temper. The secluded nature of the plantation left him without that healthful stimulus of society which is often a help in enabling a boy to come to the knowledge and control of himself. His associates were either the slaves, or the overseers, who are generally unprincipled and artful, or the surrounding whites, who lay in a yet lower deep of degradation. For one reason or another, it was for the interest of all these to flatter his vices and covertly to assist him in opposing and deceiving his parents. Thus an early age saw him an adept in every low form of vice. In despair, he was at length sent to an academy at the North, where he commenced his career on the first day by striking the teacher in the face, and was consequently expelled. Thence he went to another, where, learning caution from experience, he was enabled to maintain his foothold. There he was a successful colporteur and missionary in the way of introducing a knowledge of bowie-knives, revolvers, and vicious literature. Artful, bold, and daring, his residence for a year at a school was sufficient to initiate in the way of ruin perhaps one fourth of the boys. He was handsome, and, when not provoked, good-natured, and had that off-hand way of spending money which passes among boys for generosity. The simple sons of hard-working farmers, bred in habits of industry and frugality, were dazzled and astonished by the freedom with which he talked, and drank, and spit, and swore. He was a hero in their eye, and they began to wonder at the number of things, to them unknown before, which went to make up the necessaries of life. From school he was transferred to college, and there placed under the care of a professor, who was paid an exorbitant sum for overlooking his affairs. The consequence was, that while many a northern boy, whose father could not afford to pay for similar patronage, was disciplined, rusticated, or expelled, as the case might be, Tom Gordon exploited gloriously through college, getting drunk every week or two, breaking windows, smoking freshmen, heading various sprees in different parts of the country, and at last graduating nobody knew how, except the patron professor, who received an extra sum for the extra difficulties of the case. Returned home, he went into a lawyer's office in Raleigh, where, by a pleasant fiction, he was said to be reading law, because he was occasionally seen at the office during the intervals of his more serious avocations of gambling, and horse-racing, and drinking. His father, an affectionate but passionate man, was wholly unable to control him, and the conflicts between them often shook the whole domestic fabric. Nevertheless, to the last Colonel Gordon indulged the old hope for such cases made and provided, that Tom would get through sowing his wild oats, some time, and settle down and be a respectable man; in which hope he left him the half of his property. Since that time, Tom seemed to have studied on no subject except how to accelerate the growth of those wings which riches are said to be inclined to take, under the most favorable circumstances.

As often happens in such cases of utter ruin, Tom Gordon was a much worse character for all the elements of good which he possessed. He had sufficient perception of right, and sufficient conscience remaining, to make him bitter and uncomfortable. In proportion as he knew himself unworthy of his father's affection and trust, he became jealous and angry at any indications of the want of it. He had contracted a settled ill-will to his sister, for no other apparent reason except that the father took a comfort in her which he did not in him. From childhood, it was his habit to vex and annoy her in every possible way; and it was for this reason, among many others, that Harry had persuaded Mr. John Gordon, Nina's uncle and guardian, to place her at the New York boarding-school, where she acquired what is termed an education. After finishing her school career, she had been spending a few months in a family of a cousin of her mother's, and running with loose rein the career of fashionable gayety.

Luckily, she brought home with her unspoiled a genuine love of nature, which made the rural habits of plantation life agreeable to her. Neighbors there were few. Her uncle's plantation, five miles distant, was the nearest. Other families with whom the Gordons were in the habit of exchanging occasional visits were some ten or fifteen miles distant. It was Nina's delight, however, in her muslin wrapper and straw hat, to patter about over the plantation, to chat with the negroes among their cabins, amusing herself with the various drolleries and peculiarities to which long absence had given the zest of novelty. Then she would call for her pony, and, attended by Harry, or some of her servants, would career through the woods, gathering the wild-flowers with which they abound; perhaps stop for a day at her uncle's, have a chat and a romp with him, and return the next morning.

In the comparative solitude of her present life her mind began to clear itself of some former follies, as water when at rest deposits the sediment which clouded it. Apart from the crowd, and the world of gayeties which had dizzied her, she could not help admitting to herself the folly of much she had been doing. Something, doubtless, was added to this by the letters of Clayton. The tone of them, so manly and sincere, so respectful and kind, so removed either from adulation or sentimentalism, had an effect upon her greater than she was herself aware of. So Nina, in her positive and off-hand way, sat down, one day, and wrote farewell letters to both her other lovers, and felt herself quite relieved by the process.

A young person could scarce stand more entirely alone, as to sympathetic intercourse with relations, than Nina. It is true that the presence of her mother's sister in the family caused it to be said that she was residing under the care of an aunt.

Mrs. Nesbit, however, was simply one of those well-bred, well-dressed lay-figures, whose only office in life seems to be to occupy a certain room in a house, to sit in certain chairs at proper hours, to make certain remarks at suitable intervals of conversation. In her youth this lady had run quite a career as a belle and beauty. Nature had endowed her with a handsome face and figure, and youth and the pleasure of admiration for some years supplied a sufficient flow of animal spirits to make the beauty effective. Early married, she became the mother of several children, who were one by one swept into the grave. The death of her husband, last of all, left her with a very small fortune alone in the world; and, like many in similar circumstances, she was content to sink into an appendage to another's family.

Mrs. Nesbit considered herself very religious; and, as there is a great deal that passes for religion, ordinarily, of which she may be fairly considered a representative, we will present our readers with a philosophical analysis of the article. When young, she had thought only of self in the form of admiration, and the indulgence of her animal spirits. When married, she had thought of self only in her husband and children, whom she loved because they were hers, and for no other reason.