For a moment the planter stood silent, glancing first at the mass of ill-clothed humanity at his feet, and then sweeping his eyes over the quiet, rolling land which lay between him and the farmhouse. How awfully still everything was! He saw Henry’s cabin near the farmhouse. Lucinda was out in the yard picking up chips, and one of Uncle Henry’s children was clinging to her skirts. The planter was very fond of Lucinda, and he wondered what she would do if she knew he was about to whip her husband. But why did the fellow not get up? Surely that was an unusual way to act. In some doubt as to what he ought to do, Mr. Pelham sat down again. It should not be said of him that he had ever interrupted any man’s prayers to whip him. As he sat down, the log rolled slightly, the elbows of the negro slid off the bark, and Henry’s head almost came in contact with the log. But he took little notice of the accident, and glancing at his master from the corner of his eye, he deliberately replaced his elbows, pressed his hands together, and began to pray aloud:
“Our heavenly Father.” These words were spoken in a deep, sonorous tone, and as Uncle Henry paused for an instant the echoes groaned and murmured and died against the hill behind him. Mr. Pelham bowed his head to his hand. He had heard Henry pray before, and now he dreaded hearing him, he hardly knew why. He felt a strange creeping sensation in his spine.
“Our heavenly Father,” the slave repeated, in his mellow sing-song tone, “Thou knowest that I am Thy humble servant. Thou knowest that I have brought to Thee all my troubles since my change of heart—that I have left nothing hidden from Thee, who art my Maker, my Redeemer, an’ my Lord. Thou knowest that I have for a long time harbored the belief that the black man has some rights that he don’t git under existin’ laws, but which, Thy will be done, will come in due time, like the harvest follows the plantin’. Thou know-est, an’ I know, that Henry Pelham is nigher to Thee than a dumb brute, an’ that it ain’t no way to lift a nigger up to beat ’im like a horse or a ox. I have said this to Thee in secret prayer, time an’ ag’in, an’ Thou knowest how I stand on it, if my master don’t. Thou knowest that before Thee I have vowed that I would die before any man, white or black, kin beat the blood out ’n my back. I may have brought trouble an’ vexation to Marse Jasper, I don’t dispute that, but he had no business puttin’ me under that low-down, white-trash overseer an’ goin’ off so far. Heavenly Father, thou knowest I love Marse Jasper, an’ I would work fer ’im till I die; but he is ready to put the lash to me an’ disgrace me before my wife an’ children. Give my arms strength, Lord, to defend myself even against him—against him who has, up to now, won my respect an’ love by forbearance an’ kindness. He has said it, Lord—he has said that he will whip me; but I’ve said, also, that no man shall do it. Give me strength to battle fer the right, an’ if he is hurt—bad hurt—may the Lord have mercy on him! This I ask through the mercy an’ the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Henry rose awkwardly to his feet and looked down at his master, who sat silent on the log. Mr. Pelham’s face was pale. There was a look of indecision under the pallor. He held one of the switches by the butt in his hand, and with its tapering end tapped the brown leaves between his legs. He looked at the imperturbable countenance of the negro for fully a minute before he spoke.
“Do you mean to say, Henry,” he asked, “that you are a-goin’ to resist me by force?”
“I reckon I am, Marse Jasper, if nothin’ else won’t do you. That’s what I have promised the Lord time an’ ag’in since Cobb come to boss me. I wasn’t thinkin’ about you then, Marse Jasper, because I didn’t ’low you ever would try such a thing; but I said any white man, an’ I can’t take it back.”
The planter looked up at the stalwart man towering over him. Henry could toss him about like a ball. In his imagination he had pictured the faithful fellow bowed before him, patiently submitting to his blows, but the present contingency had never entered his mind. He tried to be angry, but the goodnatured face of the slave he loved made it impossible.
“Sit down thar, Henry,” he said; and when the negro had obeyed, he continued, almost appealingly: “I have told the folks in North Carolina that I was comin’ home to whip you, you see. I have told yore mistress, an’ I have told Cobb. I ’ll look like a purty fool if I don’t do it.”
A regretful softness came into the face of the negro, and he hung his head, and for a moment picked at the bark of the log with his long thumbnail.
“I’m mighty sorry, Marse Jasper,” he answered, after remaining silent for a while. “But you see I’ve done promised the Lord; you wouldn’t have me—what do all them folks amount to beside the Lord? No; a body ought to be careful about what he’s promised the Almighty.”