The Judge leaves everything and goes home with his coachman. Sure enough! there is the same smile he saw in the morning, frozen on the face of the corpse.
"Gently and late death came to him!" says Gingerford. "Would we could all die as happy! There is no occasion to mourn, my good woman."
"Bless the Lord, I don't mourn!" replied the old negress. "But I'm so brimful of thanks, I must cry for 't! He died a blessed ole Christian; an' he's gone straight to glory, if there's anything in the promises. He is free now, if he never was afore;—for, though they pretend there a'n't no slaves in this 'ere State, an' the law freed us years ago, seems to me there a'n't no r'al liberty for us, 'cept this!" She pointed at the corpse, then threw up her eyes and hands with an expression of devout and joyful gratitude. "He's gone where there a'n't no predijice agin color, bless the Lord! He's gone where all them that's been washed with the blood of Christ is all of one color in His sight!" Then turning to the Judge,—"And you'll git your reward, Sir, be sure o' that!"
"My reward?" And Gingerford, touched with genuine emotion, shook his head, sadly.
"Yes, Sir, your reward," repeated the old woman, tenderly arranging the sheet over the still breast, and still, folded hands of the corpse. "For makin' his last days happy,—for makin' his last minutes happy, I may say. That 'ere smile was for you, Sir. You was kinder to him 'n folks in gin'ral. He wa'n't used to 't. An' he felt it. An' he's gone to glory with the news on 't. An' it'll be sot down to your credit there, in the Big Book."
Where was the Judge's eloquence? He could not find words to frame a fitting reply to this ignorant black woman, whose emotion was so much deeper than any fine phrases of his could reach, and whose simple faith and gratitude overwhelmed him with the sudden conviction that he had never yet said anything to the purpose, in all his rhetorical defences of the down-trodden race. From that conviction came humility. Out of humility rose inspiration. Two days later his eloquence found tongue; and this was the occasion of it:—
The body of the old negro was to be buried. That he should be simply put into the ground, and nothing said, any more than as if he were a brute beast, did not seem befitting the obsequies of so old a man and so faithful a Christian. The family had natural feelings on that subject. They wanted to have a funeral sermon.
Now it so happened that there was to be another funeral in the village about that time. The old minister, had he been living, might have managed to attend both. But the young minister couldn't think of such a thing. The loveliest flower of maidenhood in his parish had been cut down. One of the first families had been bereaved. Day and night he must ponder and scribble to prepare a suitable discourse. And then, having exhausted spiritual grace in bedecking the tomb of the lovely, should he,—good gracious! could he descend from those heights of beauty and purity to the grave of a superannuated negro? Could divine oratory so descend?
"On that fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor"?
Ought the cup of consolation, which he extended to his best, his worthiest friends and parishioners, to be passed in the same hour to thick African lips?