As he came out of the house and approached across the grass, Sanders and Helen went to meet him. He bowed to Helen and nodded coldly to Sanders, to whom he had barely been introduced, and then with a furrowed brow he stood and listened as the old man humbly made his wants known.
“I'm sorry to say I haven't heard a thing, Uncle Lewis,” he said. “I'd have been right over to see Mam' Linda if I had. So far as I can see, everything is just the same.”
“Oh, young marster, I don't know what I'm ergoin' ter do,” the old negro groaned. “I don't see how Linda's gwine ter pass thoo another night. She's burnin' at de stake, Marse Carson, but thoo it all she blesses you, suh, fer tryin' so hard. My Gawd, dar she come now; she couldn't wait.”
He hastened across the grass to where the old woman stood, and caught hold of her arm.
“Whar Marse Carson? Whar young marster?” Linda cried, and then, catching sight of the trio, she tottered unaided towards them.
“Oh, young marster, I can't stan' it; I des can't!” she groaned, as she caught Dwight's hand and clung to it. “I am a mother ef I am black, an' dat my onliest child. My onliest child, young marster, en de po' boy is 'way over in dem mountains starvin' ter death wid dem men en dogs on his track. Oh, young marster, ol' Mammy Lindy is cert'nly crushed. Ef I could see Pete in his coffin I could put up wid it, but dis here—dis here”—she struck her great breast with her hand—“dis awful pain! I can't stan' it—I des can't!”
Carson lowered his head. There was a look of profound and tortured sympathy on his strong face. Garner came out of the house smoking a cigar and strolled across the grass towards them, but observing the situation he paused at a flowering rose-bush and stood looking down the moonlit street towards the court-house and grounds dimly outlined in the distance. Garner had never been considered very emotional; no one had ever detected any indications of surprise or sorrow in his face. He simply stood there to-night avoiding contact with the inevitable. As a criminal lawyer he had been obliged to inure himself to exhibitions of mental suffering as a physician inures himself to the presence of physical pain, and yet had Garner been questioned on the matter, he would have admitted that he admired Carson Dwight for the abundant possession of the very qualities he lacked. He positively envied his friend to-night. There was something almost transcendental in the heart-wrung homage the old woman was paying Carson. There was something else in the fact that the wonderful tribute to courage and manliness was being paid there without reservation or stint before the (and Garner chuckled) very eyes of the woman who had rejected Carson's love, and in the very presence of the masculine incongruity (as Garner viewed him) by her side. All the display of emotion, per se, had no claims on Garner's interest, but the sheer, magnificent play of it, and its palpable clutch on things of the past and possible events of the future, held him as would the unfolding evidence in an important law case.
“But oh, young marster,” old Linda was saying; “thoo it all you been my stay en comfort; not even God's been as good ter me as you have; you tried ter he'p po' ol' Lindy, but de Lawd on high done deserted her. Dar ain't no just, reasonable God dat will treat er po' old black 'oman es I'm treated, honey. In slavery en out I've done de best—de very best I could fer white en black, en now as I stan' here, after er long life, wid my feet in de grave, I don't deserve ter be punished wid dis slow fire. Go ter de white 'omen er dis here big Newnited States en ax' 'em how dey would feel in my fix. Ef de mothers in dis worl' could see me ter-night en read down in my heart, er river of tears would flow fer me. Dat so, en' yet de God I've prayed ter-night en mornin', in slavery en out, has turned His back on me. I've prayed, young marster, till my throat is sore, till now I hain't got no strength nor faith lef' in me, en—well, here I stand. You all see me.” Without a word, his face wrung with pain, Carson clasped her hand, and bowing to Helen and her companion he moved away and joined Garner.
“It was high time you were getting out of that,” Garner said, as he pulled at his cigar and drew his friend back towards the house. “You can do nothing, and letting Linda run on that way only works her up to greater excitement. But say, old man, what's the matter with you?”
Carson was white, and the arm Garner had taken was trembling.