"Whar's de use an' de sense uf a pusson's bein' mizzible an' out uf sorts when he's 'live an' ain't a-sufferin', an' got a good home to go to when it's all ober? Git out!"
Less elegant in manner, it may be, but quite as good, we think, in matter, as many a saw and dogma that have been flung at our foolish world, time out of mind.
We have more than once paralleled our hero, in his passion for martial renown, to Alexander the Great, Napoleon the Great, and Mumbo Jumbo the Great. Somewhat singular to say, the parallel does not stop with this point of common resemblance. According to Mr. Abbott's interminable eulogy—Mr. Abbott was an American and a clergyman, consequently a Republican and a Christian—the hero of the Russian Campaign, of Waterloo, etc., after his retirement to the Rock, became deeply interested in theology, fighting being no longer a pastime he could indulge in unless by pugilistic assault on the British guards, which, contrary to his past experience, would have been entirely at his own expense, hence uncomfortable. And here we find him talking so well—this grand disturber of the world's peace—so profoundly, so beautifully, so reverently, of the Prince of Peace, that we cannot help wondering why he had never allowed some evidence of his religious sentiments to appear in his actions, when he stood so conspicuous before the world, and such a display would have redounded so vastly to his credit—made him "the Washington of worlds betrayed."
As respects Alexander, the parallel still shows a shadow, though over the left. The Fighting Nigger, upon retiring from his war-path, tried his best to do the godly thing, and made his Christian convictions manifest in the life he wished to live. Alexander, on retiring from his great war-path, tried to do the godlike thing, and made his heathenish hallucinations manifest in the death he didn't wish to die.
As to the third worthy in our list, I cannot continue the parallel with due regard to facts, the imagination of the historian having thrown as yet no light on the latter days of the great Mumbo Jumbo. But that the parallel should he found to hold good to the last degree of coincidence, may safely be inferred from what the lights of our age have been telling us for the last forty years of the latent saint inherent in the nature of ebony, from Ham, the favorite son of Noah, down to Uncle Tom, the best man that ever lived.
But to return and make a third start toward the end of our story. When he heard that his young master had received a captaincy in the Johnson regiment of mounted riflemen—the finest regiment, by the way, that figured in the Second War—Big Black Burl felt his heart beginning to glow with the martial ardor of his younger days. But when he saw the young captain, where, in the broad green meadow in front of the house, he was drilling his company, all mounted on fine horses and arrayed in their gallant backwoods uniforms, then did Burlman Reynolds feel the Fighting Nigger rising rampant within him, insomuch that he could not endure the thought of being left behind. So he made an earnest petition to his master to be allowed to go along, just to groom the "Cap'n's horse," to clean the "Cap'n's gun," and to see that the "Cap'n always got plenty to eat—mo' dan his dry rations—a squirrel, or a partridge, or eben a fat buck, which he an' Betsy Grumbo would take a delight in providin' fur him." And to humor the good old fellow, Captain Reynolds bid him go and don his bear-skin rigging, shoulder Betsy Grumbo, mount young Cornwallis, and take his place in the ranks of war. But here we are at the end of our chapter, and not a word of the figure the Big Bear made in the great North-west. This, though, amounts to but little—the omission amounting to nothing.
Chapter XIX.
How Big Black Burl Figured at the Death-Stake.
Burl had made it his habit, whenever the army halted and pitched tent for the night, to shoulder his rifle and take a solitary turn through the neighboring woods, if haply he might not bring down a squirrel, or a partridge, or it might be a fat buck, that the "Cap'n" might have something juicy and savory wherewith to season and reënforce his sometimes scanty and never very palatable rations. But toward the close of this hazy October day, already thrice alluded to, when the army had encamped for the night, the humor, as luck would have it, seized Captain Reynolds to accompany his trusty forager in the accustomed evening hunt. So they set out together, and had not penetrated a mile into the forest to the northward, when on coming to a bushy dell they had the good fortune to start a fine buck, which Captain Reynolds brought down and had Burl to shoulder, proposing to take it whole to camp, that he might share it with his men. Hardly had they turned to retrace their steps, when suddenly, before Reynolds could reload his gun, or Burl disencumber himself of the buck, they found themselves completely surrounded by at least a dozen savages, who, hovering about the enemy's van, had spied the stragglers and laid in ambuscade to capture them, though all but within rifle-range of the American pickets. Taken by surprise, and outnumbered two to one, any attempt at resistance or escape would have been instant death. So they surrendered at once, and quietly suffered themselves to be stripped of their arms and accouterments, which being done in a twinkling, they were swiftly borne off through the woods.