Miss Jane sent for me to come to her room. I found her in hysterics. Immediately, at her command, I set about rubbing her head, and chafing her temples and hands with cologne; but all that I could do seemed to fall far short of affording any relief. It appeared to me that her lungs were unusually strong, for such screams I hardly ever listened to; but her life was stout enough to stand it. The wicked are long-lived!
Miss Tildy had more self-control. She moved about the house with her usual indifference, caring for and heeding no one, except as she bestowed upon me an occasional reprimand, which, to this day, I cannot think I deserved. If she mislaid an article of apparel, she instantly accused me of having stolen it; and persisted in the charge until it was found. She always accompanied her accusations with impressive blows. It is treatment such as this that robs the slave of all self-respect. He is constantly taught to look upon himself as an animal, devoid of all good attributes, without principle, and full of vice. If he really tries to practice virtue and integrity, he gets no credit for it. "Honest for a nigger," is a phrase much in use in Kentucky; the satirical significance of which is perfectly understood by the astute African. I knew that it was hard for me to hold fast to my principles amid such fierce trials. It was so common a charge—that of liar and thief—that despite my practice to the contrary, I almost began to accept the terms as deserved. In some cases, the human conscience is a flexile thing! but, thank Heaven! mine withstood the trial!
* * * * * * *
On the morning of the fifth day after Mr. Peterkin's illness, his perturbed spirit, amid imprecations and blasphemies the most horrible, took its leave of the mortal tenement. Whither went it, oh, angel of mercy? A fearful charge had his guardian-angel to render up.
This was the second time I had witnessed the death of a human master. I had no tears; and, as a veracious historian, I am bound to say that I regard it as a beneficent dispensation of Divine Providence. He, my tyrant, had gone to his Judge to render a fearful account of the dreadful deeds done in the body.
After he was laid out and appropriately dressed, and the room darkened, the young ladies came in to look at him. I believe they wept. At least, I can testify to the premonitory symptoms of weeping, viz., the fluttering of white pocket-handkerchiefs, in close proximity to the eyes! The neighbors gathered round them with bottles of sal-volatile, camphor, fans, &c., &c. There was no dearth of consolatory words, for they were rich. Though Mr. Peterkin's possessions were vast, he could carry no tithe of them to that land whither he had gone; and at that bar before which he must stand, there would flash on him the stern eye of Justice. His trial there would be equitable and rigid. His money could avail him nought; for there were allowed no "packed juries," bribed and suborned witnesses, no wily attorneys to turn Truth astray; no subtleties and quibbles of litigation; all is clear, straight, open, even-handed justice, and his own deeds, like a mighty cloud of evidence, would rise up against him—and so we consign him to his fate and to his mother earth.
But he was befittingly buried, even with the rites of Christianity! There was a man in a white neck-cloth, with a sombre face, who read a psalm, offered up a well-worded prayer, gave out a text, and therefrom preached an appropriate, elegiac sermon. Not one, to be sure, in which the peculiar virtues of brother Peterkin were set forth, but a sort of pious oration, wherein religion, practical and revealed, was duly encouraged, and great sympathy offered to the lovely and bereaved daughters, &c., &c.
The body was placed in a very fine coffin, and interred in the family burying-ground, near his wife and son! At the grave, Miss Jane, who well understood scenic effect, contrived to get up an attack of syncope, and fell prostrate beside the new-made grave. Of course "the friends" gathered round her with restoratives, and, shouting for "air," they made an opening in the crowd, through which she was borne to a carriage and driven home.
I had lingered, tenderly, beside young master's tomb, little heeding what was passing around, when this theatrical excitement roused me. Oh! does not one who has real trouble, heart-agony, sicken when he hears of these affectations of grief?
Slowly, but I suspect with right-willing hearts, the crowd turned away from the grave, each betaking himself to his own home and pursuit.