Here also Oswald took every opportunity to impart his acquired knowledge
to his companion.

And now Valentine's taste in literature and art began to develop itself.
His mind was by no means an "omnium-gatherem." _Belle-lettres_, rather
than classic lore or mathematical science, was his attraction.
Astronomy, botany, poetry, rhetoric, oratory, elocution, music,
painting, and the drama--these, and other studies only in proportion as
they related to these, were his delights. An æsthetic rather than a
strong intellect distinguished him. A love of beauty, elegance, and
refinement, in all things--in art, science, and the drama, as well as in
his own person, dress, and surroundings--began to reveal itself. And
those who did not understand or like Valentine, began to sneer at him
for a _petit-maitre_ and a dandy.

A change began to creep over the relations between the youths. Oswald
was no longer a boy, but a young man. He could no longer instruct his
companion, because he would thereby render himself obnoxious to public
opinion, as well as to the laws of the State, to which his age now made
him responsible. Neither could he bear the good-humored jests and the
ridicule of his school-fellows, who bantered him unmercifully upon his
friendship for his "man," calling them the foster-brothers, the Siamese
twins, Valentine and Orson, etc.; and Valentine was beginning to suffer
from the occasional slights, neglect, contempt, and inequality in temper
of his young master, when fortunately the scene changed. Oswald was
withdrawn from the Academy of M----, and sent to the University of
Virginia, whither Valentine, as his valet, attended him.

CHAPTER II.

THE MANIAC'S CURSE.

    Life is before ye! Oh, if ye would look
    Into the secrets of that sealed book,
    Strong as ye are in youth and hope and faith,
    Ye would sink down and falter, "Give us Death!"--FANNY KEMBLE.

Oswald Waring remained three years at the University of Virginia, and
during the whole of that period he had not returned home once. The
vacations had been spent at various Northern watering-places, to which
he went, accompanied by his inseparable companion and valet, Valentine.
His fellow-students at the university often warned him of what they
called the reckless imprudence of taking his slave with him to the
North, expressing their belief that one day the fellow would give him
the slip. But Oswald laughed, in his reckless, confiding good humor, and
declared, if the rascal could have the heart to leave him, he was
perfectly welcome to do so, at the same time expressing his belief that
the boy understood his true interests too well to do anything of the
sort. But the fact was, Valentine loved his master much too well to
leave him lightly.

Oswald Waring never distinguished himself at the university, or anywhere
else, for anything but good nature, generosity, and reckless
extravagance. He never graduated; but at the close of his third year,
being some months past his legal majority, he left the university
finally, and went on a tour through the Northern States and Canada,
before embarking for Europe. He was accompanied, as usual, by Valentine.

And the youth did not avail himself of that opportunity to leave his
master, perhaps from the fascination of their easy, careless, roving
life, as well as the affection that bound them together.

Mr. Waring had reached New York, on his return from Canada, and was
making a short stay in that city, previous to embarking for his European
travels, when he received a letter from his father's attorney, Mr.
Pettigrew, announcing the death of old Madam Waring, and the extreme
illness of Colonel Waring, and pressing for the immediate return of his
son.

Mr. Waring lost no time in commencing his homeward journey, and attended
by his favorite, in less than a fortnight from the day of leaving New
York, he reached the city near to which was his father's plantation.

But there fatal news met him. He was too late. The virulent fever of
that latitude had quickly done its work; and Colonel Waring's funeral
had taken place the week previous. As this result had been dreaded by
Oswald, the shock of hearing of it lost half its force. There was
nothing to do but to hasten to the plantation, to examine into the
confused condition of affairs there. Leaving a note for Mr. Pettigrew to
meet him there the next day, Oswald took a carriage, and, with Valentine
by his side, drove rapidly out to the plantation. They were met by
Phædra, who had been tacitly left in sole charge of the house, and who
saluted her young master with grave respect, and greeted her long absent
son with a silent pressure of the hand, deferring all expression of
interest in or affection for Valentine, until they should be alone
together.

The next morning Mr. Pettigrew arrived, and the examination of the
condition of the estate of the deceased began.

The lawyer expressed his opinion that there was no will of his late
client in existence; and, further, that none had ever been made by him.

Colonel Waring had never spoken to him, as his legal adviser, upon the
subject, as he would have been likely to have done had he contemplated
making one. Colonel Waring was a hale, sanguine man, in the prime of
life, and not likely to entertain the thought of the contingency of his
own death. And the fever that terminated his existence had been too
sudden in its attack and delirium--insensibility and death had followed
with too fatal rapidity, to admit of such a possibility as his executing
his will. However, a search for a possible one was instituted; the
library, secretaries, bureau, strong boxes--in fact, the whole house was
ransacked for a will, or some memento of one; but neither will, nor sign
of will, could be discovered.

Perhaps the person most deeply interested in the search was Phædra. As
soon as her quick intelligence discovered that there was a doubt
relative to the existence of a will, her interest became intense. When
coming into the house to attend her young master or the lawyer, she
paused, loitered near them; and, whenever she was allowed to do so, she
assisted in the search with a zeal not equaled by either of the others.
And when at last this search was abandoned as fruitless, she looked so
unutterably wretched, as she hurried from the room, that both gentlemen
gazed after her in astonishment.

"Why, what is the matter with Phædra?" inquired Mr. Waring, looking
interrogatively at the lawyer.

"She is disappointed, most probably."

"But in what respect? I do not understand."

"She was a favorite slave, was she not?"

"Yes--that is to say, she was a very faithful servant to my late father,
and was very well treated. But what has that to do with it?"

"Why, that she probably expected to be left free by your father's will."

"And that accounts for her anxiety that the will should be found."

"I think so."

"What a fool that woman must be! Free, indeed! Why should she want to be
free--at her age, too. What can be her object? What would she do if she
were free? How in the world came she to get such an idea into her head?
Who could have put it there, do you think?"

"No one, I suppose."

"But how should she ever think of such nonsense as her freedom?"

"It is a notion they all have, I believe."

"A notion! I should think it was a notion, and a very foolish one, on
her part; I am really half inclined to cure her of her folly by setting
her free, and letting her try her freedom on, to see how it fits.
Nothing but experience will teach ignorant creatures like herself."

"I've noticed, in the course of my practice, a good many such instances
of folly as hers."

"They are, the best of them, a set of the dullest and most
ungrateful----. Now, I want to know if there are not hundreds of white
women who would jump at such a situation as Phædra's?"

"Quite likely."

"Why, where could the fool be better off, or freer, if that's her whim?
She is mistress of the house--absolutely to all intents and purposes,
mistress of the house. All the money for domestic expenses passes
through her hands; she carries the keys, governs the maids, and arranges
everything to suit herself."

"And her master, too, let us hope, sir."

"Yes, yes; I do not complain of her good management or her fidelity. In
fact, I should be very unjust to do so, for she is everything that I
could desire in these respects. And to render exact justice in this
tribute, I may say that it would be difficult, and, more than that, it
would be impossible, to replace her. It is these considerations, you
see, that vex me so, when I hear of her hankering after her freedom.
Freedom from what, I should like to know? In what respect does her
position now differ from that of any respectable white woman, filling
the situation of housekeeper?"

"Really, I wish the conversation had not arisen. Certainly, Phædra's
absurd notions were not of sufficient importance to occupy so much of
our attention. Now, then, to business."

And the lawyer and the heir were soon deep in the papers and accounts,
which they found in such hopeless confusion as promised many weeks, if
not months, and perhaps years, of legal and financial diplomacy to
settle.

Phædra, when she had left the room in such a state of strange
excitement, had hurried off in search of her son.

Valentine was in his master's chamber, surrounded by the trunks and
boxes that had been sent after them from New York, and had but that day
arrived. Half of them were opened and unpacked, and a part of their
contents scattered all over the floor. They consisted of books,
pictures, statuettes, vases, and other beautiful fancies, that Valentine
had persuaded his master to collect in New York, during the visits he
had made there while residing at the University of Virginia.

And in the midst of the picturesque and beautiful confusion, Valentine
sat, reclining in an easy chair, fascinated, spellbound by an
illustrated volume of Shakespeare's plays. It was a new purchase of his
master's, made evidently without his knowledge, for it came in a box of
books direct from the bookseller, and that was now unpacked for the
first time.

Valentine had taken the costly book from its double wrapper of coarse
and of tissue paper, and merely meant to look at it before placing it in
the bookcase; but that single look was fatal to his resolution for
industry that morning, for he threw himself back in his master's easy
chair, and was soon deep in the spells of the magic volume.

Hour after hour passed, and there he sat, his body in his master's
lounging-chair, surrounded by the beautiful litter of books and
pictures, statuettes and vases, flutes and eolian harps and other toys,
and his spirit enchanted and carried captive by the master magician to
attend the fortunes of King Lear. The spirit-music, of which his ear was
still conscious, came not from the eolian harp in the window, that
vibrated to the touch of the breeze, but from some old minstrel harper
at the court of King Lear; and the perfume that filled the room came not
from the magnolias of the grove outside, but from rare English flowers
tended by Cordelia, for his soul was not in America in the nineteenth
century, but in ancient Britain in the age of poetry and fable.

He was aroused from his daydream by the entrance of Phædra, in more
excitement than he had ever seen her betray.

Without a word spoken, she fell upon his neck, and, clasping him
closely, burst into tears; then, quickly sinking down by his side,
clasped his knees, dropped her head upon them, and wept convulsively.

Astonished and alarmed, Valentine tried to raise her, exclaiming:

"Mother! what is the matter? Mother! why, mother! what ails you? What
has happened?"

But she clung around his knees, and buried her face, and wept as she had
never wept before.

Using all his strength, the youth forcibly unclasped her arms, and got
up, and raised her, and placed her in the chair that he had vacated.

"Now, mother, what is the matter?" he asked, bending affectionately over
her.

"Oh, Valentine!" she said, as soon as she could speak for sobbing, "Oh,
Valentine! after all, there is no will!"

"No will!" he repeated, in quiet perplexity, for he did not quite
comprehend the cause of her excessive emotion. "No will, did you say,
mother?"

"No! no! no! no!" she repeated, tearing her hair, "there is no will!
although he promised--and I felt sure he'd keep his word--I never
doubted it, because he was an honorable man, after his fashion--there
was no will!"

"Well, my dear mother, what of that, that it should distress you so?"

"What of that? Oh, Valley! Valley! what a question!"

"Indeed, I do not know why you should take the non-existence of a will
so much to heart, mother," he said, soothingly.

"Oh, Valley! Valley! Master promised faithfully that he would leave you
free, and leave you money to take you to France, or to some other
foreign country. And he broke his word to me! Master broke his pledged
word to me, who served his family so faithfully so many years. I didn't
ask for freedom for myself, only for you!"

"Mother, don't take it to heart so! don't go on so, don't."

"Hush! hush! it is the Spanish woman's curse falling on us--me! She
cursed me, dying."

"My own dear mother, the curse recoiled upon her own head, for she died
mad. It never reached you, who did not in any way deserve it. It was
you that was wronged, not her, I am sure."

"Yes, yes, it was I that was wronged! It was I that was wronged! I came
to my master with his other property--with his land, and with his
negroes. I had no mother, for my mother died when I was but seven years
old. I was brought up by an old negro, named Dinah. I was but fourteen
years old when I came into the possession of my master, along with his
patrimony."

"Don't look upon things in that light, mother; don't talk in that wild,
imbittered way," said Valentine, taking both her hands, and looking
gently and fondly on her. But she snatched her hands away, and covered
her face, and was silent for awhile--then she spoke:

"I know it hurts you. I know it goes to your heart like a knife; but it
is true, true as--as that I might have been tempted to take your life
and my own, had I seen how this was to end!"

"I am very glad you did not, mother, I am sure."

"Will you always say so?"

"As I hope to be saved, yes, mother," replied the youth, half smiling,
to raise her spirits.

"Ah, you think so now. Will you think so in the future?"

"Yes, mother! I will pledge you my word to think no other way forever,
if that will satisfy you."

"Yet, oh, Valley! that Spanish woman's dying curse! It haunts me now
upon this day of the fall of all my hopes for you; it haunts me, it
hangs over me like a funeral pall! It oppresses and darkens all my
soul!"

"My dear mother, don't be superstitious, if you do inherit a tendency in
that direction from both sides of your ancestry. Forget that violent
woman's curse; and whatever you do, don't make it fulfill itself, by
believing in it. And believe that if any evil befall us, it will not
have come from that angry woman's malediction. Why, if I thought that
the imprecations of the angry and malignant could bring down curses from
heaven upon the heads of the innocent, I should turn pagan, and worship
beasts. Besides, as I said before, it was not her, but you, who was
injured. And if any one could have had the right to utter maledictions,
it was you; yet you never did it."

"No, Heaven forbid! I took things as a matter of course; and though my
heart was almost broken, I made no complaint, far less ventured on any
reproach; for I am sure I thought master would do no great wrong; and I
thought he acted much better than his neighbors, when he promised that
you should be free, and should go to France, and learn a profession. But
he broke that promise. Oh, he broke his pledged word and honor, and the
woman's curse is surely falling."

"Think no more of that, mother; she had no power to curse you."

"I never did her harm, in deed, or word, or thought. I never deserved it
from her, whatever I deserved from Heaven. It was the old Bible story of
Abraham and Sarah and Hagar acted over again on this plantation, only
this was a great deal worse, as I look upon it now, though then I
thought it was all right, hard as it was to bear. I had been keeping
house for master four years, and you were nearly a year old, when one
winter he went to New Orleans, to spend a month or two. He stayed the
whole winter. I did not know that he married there, for he never wrote
to tell me, and I never read a newspaper. How should either happen, when
I could not read nor write? Well, in the spring, instead of coming home,
he sent a message with some directions to the overseer, but no word
about his being married, only that he was going abroad for awhile. Well,
he went, and he stayed away for a year. And then he came home by way of
New Orleans, where he stopped to buy furniture, that he sent up before
him, in charge of an upholsterer, who was to fix it all up. But still no
word of his marriage. I might have guessed something, from the
refurnishing of the house; but I did not, because my heart was so taken
up with the thought that master was coming home, and how nice everything
should be for him when he should come. I afterward knew that my master
had written to Mr. Hewitt, to come over and tell me to prepare to meet
my new mistress; but Mr. Hewitt, for the sake of what he called the
joke, left me in ignorance, so that madam might find me and you when she
should come. Well, I don't want to talk any more about this. The
afternoon that master was expected to arrive, I was on the watch. I was
standing on the portico, holding you by the hand, when I saw the
carriage approach. It came up very rapidly, and my heart beat thick and
fast, as if it would suffocate me. I could not help it, Valley! When the
carriage stopped, my master got out first, and handed out a lady, and
led her up the stairs. And while the whole scene was swimming before me,
he said to the lady, 'This is your maid, madam'; and to me, 'Phædra,
attend your mistress.' I had no business to faint, I know, because I was
only master's poor housekeeper, and I might have expected this thing
that had happened; but it came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and my
heart had been beating so high only the minute before, that I could not
help it. One single glimpse of her great, black eyes, and the sight left
mine, and I fell, like a tree. You see this scar upon my forehead; it
was where my head struck the sharp edge of the stone step, when I fell
down. When I came to myself, I was in old Dinah's cabin. You were there,
too. I was very stupid from the blow I had received in falling, and
could not more than half understand old Dinah's mumbled consolations.
And I was almost as stupid the next morning, when my master paid me a
visit, and stood there, and advised me not to be a fool, and asked me
what I had expected--and told me that I had behaved very badly, very
badly indeed; that he had hoped I had had more sense, and more regard
for his comfort; but that I had acted abominably--I had spoiled his
domestic peace for he did not know how long. That I had given madam such
a shock on her first arrival, too, that he did not believe she could
ever endure to look upon my face again; that she was in strong hysterics
now; that I ought to have had more consideration for him, than to have
brought him into so much trouble. But that women are a great curse,
anyhow, with their abominable selfishness and jealousy----"

"Stop, stop, mother!" gasped the boy, "I shall go mad, if you tell me
more."

She raised her eyes and looked at him and grew frightened at his looks.
His face was gray, and his features haggard, with the struggle in his
bosom. His hand clutched his breast as if to grapple with some hidden
demon there.

After awhile, Phædra resumed, softly and quietly:

"Hush! he was not naturally cruel. I never knew him to do a cruel thing
wantonly or knowingly. But many people do not understand or make
allowance for others who have naturally more tender hearts than theirs.
He did not know how I felt----"

"Mother! mother! for Heaven's sake!"

"Dear Valley, let me go on and tell this story for the first and last
time. I felt that I had to tell it some day; the day is come; let me
finish--finish for my own justification, for I would be justified to
you. Well, I never entered the lady's presence again, of course, and,
from that day to this, was only my master's faithful servant, and no
more. As soon as I was able to travel, my master sent me with you into
the town to hire out. I found a good place, where we lived several
years. I never even saw my master's face all the time, but strange
reports went around, notwithstanding. People said that Colonel Waring
and his lady lived very unhappily together; that they quarreled very
often; that she was mad with jealousy of the Mestizza; that every time
the colonel came in town, there would be a dreadful scene upon his
return home. At last it is certain that my master left off visiting the
city altogether, and did all his business there by deputies. But the
lady's attacks of passion or hysterics became periodical, returning at
regular intervals, and in the course of the first year she became a
confirmed lunatic. Before the end of the second year, it became
necessary to put her under restraint. Finally, she was taken to a
Northern lunatic asylum, in the hope of cure, and there, at the end of a
few months, she died raving mad, and hurling down imprecations upon me.
It was generally reported then, as now, that jealousy had driven her
mad; but it was not true--Heaven knows that it was not true, any more
than it was true that she had a just cause for her jealousy. For if ever
I saw insanity in any creature, I saw it in her great staring eyes the
first and only time I ever set mine upon her face. No; jealousy did not
cause her madness, but her madness caused her jealousy!"

Phædra paused, and, with her head bent upon her hand, remained silent
some moments; then she resumed:

"When that unfortunate lady had been dead some time, and one nurse after
another had been intrusted with the care of her child, and had failed to
give satisfaction, my year at last being up with my city employer, my
master took me home, to mind Master Oswald. It was the first time I had
seen the baby, although he had come home with his mother, and was in the
carriage with his nurse at the very time that she first set foot upon
the threshold of her new home. Master Oswald was about two years old
when I first took charge of him; and if my heart had been ever so seared
and hardened, it could not but have been touched at the sight of that
motherless infant--so puny, neglected and suffering, as he looked. Well,
I took care of him--Heaven knows I did--excellent care of him, or he
would not be living now. But he doesn't remember that. How should he,
indeed, when even his father did not remember it, although many, many
times, when he saw how his heir thrived under my care, he would praise
me, and promise me such great things for my own poor boy. Well, I was
sure he would keep his word. He has not done so; and I could find it in
my heart to pray for both your death and mine!" exclaimed Phædra, with a
short, sudden sob, as if she were on the eve of another burst of violent
emotion.

"Do not grieve, mother; Mr. Waring has not done ill by us, I am sure. I
have had as happy a life with him as my own nature will permit. I could
not have borne life with a master less good-natured and tolerant. In
truth, if our mutual relations had been reversed, I fear that I should
not have been so uniformly kind as he. In fact, barring a little
selfishness, where his habits and personal comforts are concerned, he is
one of the very kindest of men. You know how he has regarded us both,
from his boyhood----"

"Until he left home--he changed to us from that time."

"Only for a while, when he was at school, and his classmates laughed at
him for his attachment to me, and he grew angry and ashamed to show it;
now he is his old self again. And, mother, there is but one obstacle to
his realizing for us the hopes his father disappointed."

"And what is that, Valentine?"

"His affection for us both, that has in it a certain alloy of
selfishness, as, indeed, many other people's affections for others also
have. He loves us both, in a different way; and he loves his own comfort
in us. He would not like to lose his faithful, motherly housekeeper, or
his confidential, attached valet; or that either the one or the other
should have the power to leave him at will. Ah, mother, I can understand
Master Oswald better than any one else in the world can. I can read his
heart like an open book; and, moreover, I can in most things wind him
around my finger like a string. Look at these things. Why do you suppose
he collected them? He doesn't care for anything like this, but I delight
in them, and so I persuaded him to collect them to adorn his rooms. I
did not do so for my own gratification alone, but that I really did wish
to see him cultivate a refined taste. Now, we are soon going to Europe.
Why? Do you think he wished to go at first? No; he never would have
thought of it. It would have been a great deal too much trouble to take
the lead in such a plan, but I thought he ought to make the grand tour,
like other young men of fortune; besides which, I had a desire to travel
myself. So I persuaded him that a gentleman of fashion (as he desires to
be thought, you know) ought to see Europe. So we go! Why, bless his
easy, good-natured heart, I have such great power over him--may I never
abuse it! that ninety-nine days out of a hundred it is I who am master!"

"But the hundredth day, Valentine!"

The boy's face suddenly changed.

"I had rather not think of that, mother," he said, in an altered voice.

Phædra's face also changed. It was as if a thundercloud had suddenly
crossed the sun, and darkened all the room. The mother spoke first, and
her voice was deep and hollow, as she said:

"Valentine! Valentine! you have said that in ninety-nine days of a
hundred you can govern your master. Oh, my son, pray God to give you
grace on that hundredth day to govern yourself!"

"Mother! Mother! Why do you say that to me?" exclaimed the boy, with a
shudder.

"I do not know why--or if I do, I dare not tell you. A heavy weight is
on my heart; I cannot shake it off. You are going away soon! I must warn
you now; I may not have another chance, or may not feel able to do it.
Oh, Valentine, learn self-control, try to keep your temper always under.
Ay! seek the grace of God; there is such a thing, though your poor
mother has not got it, and only wishes she had. Seek it, Valentine--it
is your best safety; in every time of trial and temptation, it is a
steadfast support. I know it, though I haven't got it; I know it,
because I've seen it in many others."

Valentine was looking at her with the most intense expression of
countenance.

"Anger is a short madness, is it not, mother? So it was with me, at
least, when I was a boy; and how those frenzies of passion, into which I
would be thrown, used to terrify me when I came to my senses! I used to
be haunted with a fear that, in some such mad and blind fury, I
might----"

"Hush! oh, hush! Pray to God!" exclaimed Phædra, turning pale.

"Well, but of late years I have been able to control myself, and have
also suffered less provocation."

"Ah, yes; less provocation."

"Well, mother, I will promise you, faithfully, at least, to exercise
habitual self-control. As for your other subject of anxiety, be at rest.
Oswald Waring has his fits of generosity, in which even his sensual love
of his own comforts is forgotten. And I shall take advantage of one of
those moods to procure our manumission--not that I am sure I shall leave
him, even after that is obtained."

All that is necessary to record of their conversation ended here. In a
few minutes after, Phædra left the chamber to attend to her domestic
affairs.

In the course of a few weeks, Mr. Waring hurried the completion of all
the business to which his personal attention was indispensable; and
then, attended by Valentine, he set out for his European travels,
leaving the further settlement of his estate in the hands of Mr.
Pettigrew.

CHAPTER III.

THE BOTTLE DEMON.

    Oh! that men should put an enemy in
    Their mouths to steal away their brains; that we
    Should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause,
    Transform ourselves into beasts!
    Oh! thou invisible Spirit of wine,
    If thou hast no name to be known by,
    Let us call thee Devil!--SHAKESPEARE.

After an absence of fifteen months, Oswald Waring and his inseparable
companion, Valentine, returned home.

Not in all respects was the master or the man improved by travel, as
circumstances soon demonstrated.

Mr. Waring brought back the same benevolent, careless, mirthful, yet
occasionally arrogant temper, that had always distinguished him; and
Valentine, the same affectionate, aspiring, quick, inflammable nature,
that made his conduct so uncertain.

The character of Oswald might have been easily read in his personal
appearance. He was a rather handsome specimen of a pure Anglo-Saxon; he
was of medium height, of a stout and well-set form; with a round head,
smooth, white, receding forehead, shaded with thickly clustered curls of
auburn hair; prominent, clear, light-blue eyes, whose prevailing
expression was that of frank mirthfulness; a straight nose; a
well-curved, but rather sensual mouth; and a full, rounded chin, that,
altogether, made up a countenance whose chief characteristics were good
nature, sensuality and gayety. His dress was equally remarkable for the
costliness of its material and the negligence of its arrangement; and
left the point at issue, whether the costume were the more extravagant
or the more slovenly. His manners were marked by habitual cheerfulness,
good temper and love of merriment. And, though he rarely emitted a flash
of wit, he was ever the quickest to appreciate that gift in others; and
it must have been a dull jest, indeed, that his ready laugh did not
hail. And it is not unlikely that to his sincere, hearty, contagious
laughter he owed a great deal of his popularity among men, and women
too. For who does not love a good laugher?

Valentine was in almost every respect the antipodes of his master, yet
resembled him in this, that his nature also might be easily read in his
dark but singularly beautiful face. I use the term "beautiful" instead
of the other term "handsome" advisedly, as more proper to the subject
under description. Valentine was rather below the medium height, and
slightly but elegantly formed, with a stately little head, delicate
aquiline features, a complexion dark as a Spaniard's, bluish-black hair
falling in many well-trained curls around the dark face, and light-blue
eyes so deeply veiled under their thicket of long, close lashes, that it
was only in moments of excitement, when they suddenly lightened, that
their strange, startling, almost terrible contrast to the blackness of
the hair and darkness of the skin could be noticed. In the matter of
dress, Valentine was fastidious to a degree. In other circumstances, he
might have been an exquisite and a _petit maitre_, as his master often
laughingly called him. As it was, the youth was undeniably a dandy; but
his love of dress was to be attributed fully as much to his innate love
of order, beauty, and propriety, as to his coxcombry. His fine
raven-black hair--his "favorite vanity," was carefully kept, and trained
to fall in those faultless ringlets; and it is upon record, that when
the owner was not in full dress, that "splendid head of hair" was
carefully bound down from injury by sun or dust, under a double silk
bandanna, arranged in the graceful folds and twists of a Turkish turban.
Valentine's "foppery" was a never-failing source of merriment to his
fun-loving master--though I think the boy's love of dress could scarcely
with fairness be called foppery, since he was never known to try the
effects of his most elegant toilet upon the hearts of any of the young
girls of his class, until his own heart was seriously engaged.
Valentine's deportment was characterized by habitual pensiveness and
reserve, occasionally broken by sudden unaccountable fits of excitement,
strange flights of fancy, and startling, frightful paroxysms of passion,
having many of the features of incipient insanity. These were
undoubtedly to be attributed to the antagonistic constituents of his
nature. What alchemy but the all-powerful grace of God could ever
harmonize the discordant elements of a being deriving his descent from
three races so different as the Indian, the Negro, and the Saxon, and
reconcile him to the position in which this boy was placed?

Mr. Waring, soon after his return home, began to lead a wild, reckless
life. He kept bachelor's hall at Red Hill, in extravagant style.

Frequent dinners, suppers, and wine parties, with cards, billiards,
dice, etc., converted the quiet old country house into a scene of wild
midnight orgies, with drinking, song-singing, and gambling, that
threatened soon to leave the young spendthrift without a house to revel
in, or a dollar to revel on.

And almost every day, when there was not a party at the house, Valentine
would have to drive his master in the buggy to the town. Upon such
occasions, the master would go to some favorite restaurant or billiard
saloon, or perhaps to some wine or card party, to which he had been
invited, while the man would take the buggy to the livery stable, and
lounge about town until the small hours of the morning, when he would
rouse the sleepy groom at the stables, get his buggy and horse, and take
his master home. Sometimes Mr. Waring would be slightly elevated by the
wine he had drank, but never to the degree of intoxication.

At first, and for a long while, Valentine resisted the temptations of
the life into which he was led; but, in the course of time, those
listless hours of waiting in town wore away his good habits; and it at
last happened that, while the master was gambling and drinking in some
splendid saloon, the man would be imitating him in some humbler scene of
dissipation. And when he would have to drive Mr. Waring home, it not
unfrequently happened that both were under the influence of wine.

To poor Phædra, who happily had some time since found that grace of God
that she had so long and humbly and earnestly desired, this conduct in
her young master and her son gave the greatest distress and anxiety.
With Valentine she often and earnestly expostulated; and the impressible
boy, for boy he continued to be to the day of his death, would promise
with tears in his eyes, to amend. Even with Oswald Waring, using the
privilege of the old nurse, she ventured to reason, faithfully,
fearlessly, sorrowfully.

But, in his thoughtless, good-humored way, he laughed in her face,
called her a well-meaning old woman, but advised her to attend to her
own concerns.

Yet Phædra did not slacken in making what poor opposition she could to
the approach of ruin.

It was not the least deplorable and dangerous feature in the mutual
relations of Oswald Waring and his favorite slave that their mutual
positions often seemed temporarily reversed. Valentine would, upon
occasions, seem, or really for the hour be, the leader, and Oswald the
follower.

Unfortunately, Mr. Waring was singularly wanting in those qualities that
command habitual respect from inferiors; nay, he even lacked
self-respect and the dignity that it gives; while, more unhappily still,
his servant Valentine possessed a large share of self-esteem, that, in
his excitable nature, would, under provocation or temptation, rise to
insufferable insolence. And this frequently placed them in false and
trying attitudes toward each other. It was a baleful circumstance, too,
that when, under the effects of wine, the master fell from easy
good-nature into maudlin tenderness and sentimentality, varied by
eccentric impulses of domineering authority, all of which was extremely
distasteful and irritating to the servant, whose pride, instigated by
the like baleful spirit, would rise to an intolerable arrogance. It was
a situation full of dire bodency to both.

It happened one evening that Valentine had driven Mr. Waring into town
to be present at a wine and card party. It was late at night, or
speaking more accurately, early in the morning, when they were returning
home. It was difficult to say which of the two was most excited. Mr.
Waring was in his most maudlin mood of familiarity, Valentine
in his most insolent humor. Each perceived the intoxication of
the other, without being conscious of his own state. Oswald broke
out in a bacchanalian song, which he sung all wrong, and by
snatches--occasionally, in a sudden fit of maudlin affection, varying
the performance by throwing his arm around his servant, and hugging him
closely. Valentine bore this once, but, the second time it was repeated,
he shook his master's arm off, exclaiming: "I am not one of your
companions." But Oswald laughed aloud, rolled himself from side to side,
and breaking out into another low song:

    "Life is all a wariorum,
      And we cares not how it goes!"

"You will frighten the horses presently. Can't you behave yourself with
common decency?" exclaimed Valentine, shaking off the hand that had been
laid upon his shoulder.

    "Let them talk about decorum,
      As has characters to lose,"

sang the inebriate, chuckling and slapping the boy upon the back.

"If you do not be quiet, I'll get out of this buggy, and leave you to
drive home as you can," said Valentine, impatiently.

This seemed to amuse the other very much; he burst out into a peal of
laughter, falling back, and clasping his knees, and rolling with the
tipsy enjoyment of the joke. When he had laughed himself into a fit of
the hiccoughs, and hiccoughed himself into comparative calmness, he
still seemed to enjoy the drollery of the idea, and recommenced laughing
and singing by fits, and slapping Valentine upon the back.

"I tell you, if you do not quit this, I will get out!" exclaimed the
boy, angrily. "You a gentleman!"

This language, instead of rousing Oswald to anger, seemed to strike him
as the drollest of speeches, for he fell back into another peal of
laughter; and when he had recovered himself he began, not in
displeasure, but in a maudlin, jesting way, and with a very thick
utterance, to taunt Valentine:

"Why, you ins'lent f'low, do you know who you're talking to? You're a
spoiled negro--that is what you are! Now, don't you know, if I wa'n't
the most forgivin' f'low in the world, that I'd have you tied up and
whipt for such language?"

"Me?"

It is utterly impossible to convey in words any idea of the fierce,
savage, almost demoniac glare of hatred and defiance with which that
single monosyllable was uttered. But it was lost upon the tipsy master,
who replied, nodding and chuckling:

"Yes, you, my little fellow! and I think it will have to be done, too,
to bring you to a sense of your condition. Sit down, sir! What the devil
do you mean by standing up and looking at me in that way?"

Valentine had risen to his feet, still unconsciously holding the reins,
but no longer guiding the horses, who went on their own way, while he
stood and glared at his master, with an almost maniacal light blazing
from those pale-gray eyes.

"Sit down, sir, I say! What the h--ll do you mean? Sit down, I say, or,
by the Lord Harry! I'll do as I've threatened!"

This is not a proper scene to go on with. Both were mad with wine, and
one also with rage. The master, though not angry, nor by any means
disposed to punish, grew every moment, from very wantonness, more
taunting in his manner--the man became each instant more insolent; words
rose higher between them; Valentine grew frenzied, dashed his clenched
fist with all his strength into his master's face, and sprang from the
buggy, leaving him to his fate.

CHAPTER IV.

AN HUMBLE WEDDING.

    Habitual evils change not on a sudden,
    But many days must pass, and many sorrows;
    Conscious remorse and anguish must be felt,
    To curb desire, to break the stubborn will,
    And work a second nature in the soul,
    Ere virtue can resume the place she lost.--ROWE'S ULYSSES.

Valentine awoke the next morning with a heavy weight upon his heart and
a thick cloud over his brain.

The first fact that attracted his attention was the circumstance that he
was not in his own apartment, but in his mother's bedchamber. A small
wood fire was burning in the fireplace, and a teakettle was hanging over
the blaze; the red hearth was neat and bright, and the only window was
darkened by the lowered paper blind.

Phædra sat in her flag-bottomed elbow-chair, at the chimney corner; her
work was on her lap, but she sat with her hands clasped upon it in
idleness, and in an attitude of deepest grief. Such was the picture
immediately before him.

He could not tell the hour, but supposed it to be near midday. He
strove, through the aching of his head and heart, to recall the latest
events of his waking consciousness, before he had fallen into the sleep
or the insensibility from which he had just recovered. And, as memory
came back in a rushing flood, bringing the hideous phantoms of the
previous night's history, overcome with shame and sorrow, he groaned
aloud, and buried his face in the pillow. Still he was in ignorance of
what had occurred after he had sprung from the buggy; and in terror for
what might have happened to Mr. Waring, whom he had left there to guide
as he could, in a state of extreme intoxication, the frightened and
rearing horses.

Phædra arose and approached the bed.

"Mother! tell me what has happened, for I remember nothing after getting
home," said the boy, in a voice half smothered in emotion.

But Phædra sank down by the bedside, buried her face in the coverlid,
and sobbed.

"Mother! tell me the worst at once. Was he thrown out? Is he dead?"
asked Valentine, in a deep, breathless, husky voice, as he raised upon
his elbow and leaned forward, his light eyes, from the tangled thicket
of his dark hair, turning upon her like coals at a white heat.

"No, no, he is not dead. But it was a very narrow escape. Oh! Valley,
such a good Providence, my boy," she said, taking his disengaged hand
and hugging it closely to her bosom, and weeping over it, as if that
hand had been saved from some great calamity.

"Tell me all about it, mother."

But Phædra was sobbing and choking, and could not utter a word more
then.

"Where is he now, mother?" asked Valentine, after a little while.

"In his room--unable to rise, but out of danger, the doctor says."

A few more minutes passed in silence. Phædra rose and resumed her chair
and her needlework, though the sudden sobs and deep heavings of her
bosom betrayed the storm of grief still beating.

"Mother," said Valentine, after a few moments longer, "can you tell me
now all about it? How did I get home? How did he? What happened to the
buggy?"

"Oh, Valentine, first of all, you came home in a state that made my
heart sick to see. I can't tell you how; but I hope never to see the
like again. I could not have got you upstairs without help, but I
managed to get you in here, and to bed, without any one seeing you."

"Mother----"

This single word, uttered in a tone of deepest regret, and humiliation;
and then his voice broke down, and he covered his face with his hands.

"I had not more than got you to bed, when a violent barking of the dogs
startled me, and I went out, and found it was master that Mr. Hewitt's
niggers had brought home on a door. Dr. Carter, who was coming home from
a night call, had found him lying on the side of the road that runs
along by Mr. Hewitt's cotton field. And he had ridden up to Mr. Hewitt's
house, and roused up the old gentleman and some of the niggers; and they
took a barn door off its hinges, and spread a bed and laid him on it,
and brought him home. It was well that it happened to be Dr. Carter who
found him; for he stayed with him all night, and that has been the means
of saving his life. Oh, Valley, it was such a kind Providence that saved
him!" said Phædra, breaking off suddenly, and clasping her hands.

"And this morning, mother?" said Valentine, anxiously.

"Oh! This morning the horses were found near the stables, with a part of
the gearing hanging to their necks; and the buggy was found on the road,
broken all to pieces."

"I don't mean them--I mean Mr. Waring."

"He is out of danger this morning, as I told you before. He was stunned
and very much bruised by being thrown from the buggy, but not otherwise
injured."

"What does he say about the accident?"

"He says he doesn't know much about it. He says he supposes he must have
been taking too much wine, and that the horses got unruly, and he
couldn't manage them; and that was how they threw him out, and broke
the carriage."

"Mother! I must get up and go to him now!" said Valentine, hastily.

"Oh, stop! Stay one moment, Valentine! Lie there, and let me speak to
you! I have been praying for you all night, in my master's room, here,
wherever I have been. Reflect; have you no thanks to offer to the Lord
for his providential care, when you so little deserved it? And no
sorrow, Valentine, for what has passed, and no promises for the future?
Oh, Valentine, how is this course you and your master have begun, going
to end?"

"Mother! for my own part, I can affirm that this is the first time I
ever was in such a state as you saw me in last night. All I feel about
it, shall be said in this one oath--I will never taste intoxicating
drink again, so help me Heaven--and shall be proved every day of my
life, in the way I keep it!" exclaimed Valentine, impetuously,
earnestly, tearfully.

Phædra grasped his hand once more, and hugged it to her heart, and
prayed "God bless" him.

"And now, mother, I must get up and go to him."

Phædra brought his clothes from the closet in which she had put them,
and then left the room, while Valentine arose and dressed himself, and
went to his master's apartments. It was in painful doubt and humiliating
embarrassment that he sought Oswald Waring's presence. He got to the
door, knocked, and at the words, "Come in," he entered.

Mr. Waring was in bed, and looking very pale and ghastly; and as
Valentine saw him, a pang shot through his heart at the thought that,
but for the merciful intervention of Providence in averting the
consequences of his own rash anger, Oswald Waring might have been lying
there--not a sick man, but a dead one! And a secret vow to forsake
intemperance, in all its forms, material and moral, was made in
Valentine's mind, and registered in heaven.

"Is that you, Valley, old fellow? I had begun to fear that you had
suffered more than myself, when I asked after you this morning and they
told me you were sick. Were you thrown out, also?"

"Good Heaven," thought Valentine, as a new light burst upon him; "he
does not recollect what happened. He must have been much further gone
than myself."

"Well, old fellow, why don't you answer me? I asked you if you were
thrown out. Don't be afraid to tell me, for you see I'm a great deal
better; besides, seeing you there alive and well, I shall not be much
shocked to hear of what might have happened, you know. Come! where were
you pitched, and how much were you hurt, and who picked you up? Tell me,
for I can't get the least satisfaction out of anybody here."

"I was not thrown out--I sprang out."

"When the horses were rearing? A bad plan that, Val.; that is, if you
really did it as you think you did. For my part, I doubt if you know
anything more about it than I do myself; and if my soul were to have to
answer for my memory, I could not tell whether I jumped out or was
thrown out. Bad course we've been pursuing, old boy; like to have cost
us both our lives, really has cost me that beautiful buggy--that is
ruined, they tell me. Bad course; bad course, Val. Not safe for master
and man both to be glorious at the same time. Another evening, old
fellow, do you try to keep sober, when you think it likely that I shall
be--otherwise."

"I never mean to touch another drop of intoxicating drink as long as I
live, sir, so help me Heaven!" said Valentine, fervently.

"Oh, pooh, pooh! old fellow. Resolutions made with a bad headache, the
day after a frolic, are as worthless as the oaths sworn in wine the
night previous, both being the effects of an abnormal state of the soul
and--stomach. Now, wine is a good thing in moderation--it is only a bad
thing in excess. Don't look so dreadfully downcast, old fellow, nor make
such dismally lugubrious resolutions. 'The servant is not greater than
his master,' says the good Book; and, if I was overtaken, how could you
expect to escape? Give me your honest fist, old fellow; those who have
had such a d--d lucky escape together might shake hands upon it, I
should think," said Oswald Waring, offering his hand.

Valentine took it and squeezed it, and then, in the warmth of his
affectionate nature, pressed it to his heart, while tears welled to his
eyes--tears, that came at the thought how nearly he had occasioned the
death of this man--this man, who, with all his faults, had, from their
boyhood, been ever kind, generous, forbearing--more like a brother than
a master. All that was unjust and galling in their mutual relations was
forgotten by Valentine at that moment; he only remembered that they had
been playmates in childhood, companions in youth, and friends always, up
to the present, and that he had narrowly escaped causing Oswald's death;
and, in the ardor and vehemence of emotion, he pressed the hand that had
been yielded up to him, to his heart, exclaiming in a broken voice:

"It was my fault, Master Oswald, all my fault; but I will never--never
touch any sort of intoxicating liquor again--never, as the Lord hears
me."

"Oh, tut, tut! you best fellow that ever was in the world! Who asks you
for any such promises? Only promise that when there is a wine supper or
card party in the wind, or any other signs of the times in the sky to
warn you, you will take care to keep sober, knowing that I shall be
likely to be something else. Wine is a good servant, but a bad master."

"Not good for me, ever, Master Oswald; certainly not good for me;
probably not so for you, either."

"Come, come; you exceed your license, Valentine. You're a pretty fellow
to preach to me, after nearly breaking my neck. However, that's
ungenerous, after once forgiving you; so we'll say no more about it
forever. But don't preach to me, whatever you do. Phædra nearly wears my
patience out."

"Can I do anything to make you more comfortable, or help the time
along?"

"N-o-o, I think not. Dr. Carter says I must keep quiet, and my head
begins to ache now; so you had better darken the room, and leave me to
rest."

Valentine closed all the shutters, and let down all the curtains, and
then asked:

"Shan't I sit here, Master Oswald, to be at hand in case you should want
anything?"

"No! Lord, no! it must be a d--l of a bore to sit in a dark room, with
no better amusement than to watch somebody going off to sleep. No; go
and take care of yourself, old fellow. I can ring if I should want
anything," said Oswald, cheerfully.

"Always so very considerate when he is in his right mind," thought
Valentine, as he took the tasseled end of the bellrope and put it in
reach of his master's hand, before leaving the room.

That was the last time that Valentine saw his master in his right mind
for many weeks. The effects of his fall, acting upon a system weakened
and vitiated by dissipation, was much more serious than any one had
foreseen. Before night a brain fever, with delirium, had set in, and,
for days after, the life of Oswald Waring hung upon the feeblest chance.
For many weeks of his illness, Phædra and Valentine nursed him with the
most devoted affection. Poor Phædra prayed constantly for his recovery,
and also for his reform, and solicited every Sabbath the prayers of the
congregation of her church in his behalf. And Valentine, in deep
despair, daily accused himself of his master's death, as if he had
purposely stricken a fatal blow, and Oswald were already dead. The long
days and nights of watching by the side of the sickbed, that might at
any hour become a deathbed, were very fruitful in good to Valentine.
There he learned to hate and dread the demon anger, that had caused him
so much misery; there he came to listen with patience and reverence to
his poor mother's tearful pleadings and counsels; there he began to
pray. It was six weeks before Mr. Waring left his room, and one more
before he was fully restored to health. And this brought midsummer--a
season that camp-meetings were frequent in the neighborhood.

This summer there was much greater excitement than ever before among the
religious revivalists. The Rev. Mr. M---- and several others, equally
eloquent and successful field preachers, were making a circuit of the
country. Their fame always preceded them as an _avant courier_, and
crowds congregated to hear them.

There was a camp-meeting held, by permission of the owner, in a magnolia
grove where there was a fine spring, upon the grounds of Mr. Hewitt, Mr.
Waring's nearest neighbor. And it was given out that on Sunday morning
the eloquent field preacher, M----, would address the assembled
multitudes. There was a great deal of excitement and anticipation among
all classes in that quiet rural district; and when the Sabbath came,
congregations forsook their own churches, and assembled to hear M----.
Crowds after crowds gathered; some went with the avowed purpose of
getting converted; some to get revived; many to get excited; and most
from motives of idle curiosity. Poor Phædra went for the candidly
expressed purpose of being warmed and comforted. Valentine went to drive
his master, who went only to kill a dull day.

Now, not only was Phædra praying with all her soul's strength for her
son's conversion, but naturally that desired consummation was one of the
most likely things in the world to eventuate; for Valentine's nature was
just the one to be most deeply affected and impressed by the magnetic
power of a man like M----, and he was also in the most favorable mood
for receiving such impressions. And while hundreds around him were
swayed, as by a mighty wizard's wand, under the wonderful eloquence of
the most potent preacher since the days of Wesley and Whitefield,
Valentine was deeply and almost fearfully excited.

And from that Sabbath, during the whole time of Mr. M----'s sojourn in
the neighborhood, the boy was a regular attendant upon his ministry, and
in the end was numbered among his converts. This is not the place to
call in question the Rev. Mr. M----'s sincerity or consistency as a
Christian; those who knew him best, believed him to be perfectly sincere
in his religious enthusiasm, however inconsistent was sometimes his
conduct. And, though it may be true that some of his converts were his
only, and not God's, as they afterward demonstrated by their
backsliding, yet it is equally true that many shining lights in the
Christian Church at this day ascribe their first awakening to Christian
life, under Divine Providence, to the electric power of M----'s
eloquence. At the time that I write of, the people of that neighborhood
adored him as an angel sent from God; though some years after the same
people hunted him as a wild beast, from village to village, until old,
poor, ill and exhausted, he died alone--a fugitive from their insane
wrath. But to return.

M---- had succeeded in reviving the religious spirit of that district;
and when he departed, he left behind him many new but zealous laborers
in that vineyard of the Lord.

Among the most enthusiastic in the field of the colored mission of
Magnolia Grove was Valentine. His sincere, ardent, earnest soul; his
natural gift of eloquence; his sympathy with those in his own condition,
if not strictly of his own race; his better education, and even his
beauty of person, grace of manner, and sweetness of voice, all combined
to make him the most popular and effective, and best beloved of all the
class-leaders in the colored mission of Magnolia Grove. "Brother
Valentine's" class was the largest and most important in the church. If
ever Brother Valentine was announced to address the meeting upon any
given day, there was sure to be a crowded house. And if ever Phædra held
a prayer meeting in her quarter, there was sure to be a crowd to hear
Brother Valentine speak.

Among the most zealous of the church members, and among those who never
failed to be present at Phædra's weekly prayer meetings, was a young and
pretty quadroon, named Fannie. She was a free girl and an orphan, and
was employed as shop girl in a hair dresser's and fancy store kept by a
respectable old French couple in the city of M. But though her home and
her business was in town, and there were also two or three "colored
missions" in that place, yet Fannie preferred to walk out every Sunday
morning to the little log meeting-house in Magnolia Grove. And those who
were envious of Fannie's beauty did not scruple to say that she came out
so far for the sake of hearing Brother Valentine pray or exhort, or to
let him hear her sing; for Fannie had a voice that might have made her
fortune, had she been white, and had it been cultivated. However that
might be, Phædra loved Fannie as if she had been her own daughter, and
she always took her home from meeting, to dine and spend the afternoon
at Red Hill. And after an early tea, Valentine always walked home with
Fannie to the city.

It is also true that Valentine became a frequent customer at Leroux's,
the hair-dresser's and fancy store where Fannie was employed; and as
Valentine not only made his own but also his master's purchases, and as
he had a _carte blanche_ for the same, his custom was of no trifling
importance to the establishment. But, valuable as was this patronage, as
soon as the proprietors began to suspect the nature of the attraction to
their store, they felt it to be their duty to warn the young girl, which
they would do in something like these terms:

"Take my advice, Fannie, and send that young fellow about his business;
he may be a very good young man, I dare say; but he is a slave, and
never will be able to do anything for you," Monsieur Leroux would say.

"You are free, Fannie, and you are very pretty, and all that; and you
might look a great deal higher than that," would say Madam Leroux.

"Think, _ma fille_, if you take him, you will always have yourself and
your family to support, for you never can have any help from a slave
husband"--thus Monsieur Leroux.

"Consider, _mon enfant_, if you marry him, he may be sold away next
year, or next month, even! How would you like that?" thus Madam Leroux.

And Fannie would blush, or smile, or pout, or drop a tear, or say to
herself:

"Poor Valley! Maybe something may happen to set him free! Maybe I might
work hard, and save money enough to"--she could not bring herself to say
buy--"ransom him! And, anyhow, it is not his fault if he is not free.
And it must be hard enough, the dear knows, to be as he is, without my
letting him think that it makes any difference to me."

Obstacles and objections which, to cooler-hearted and clearer-headed
people would seem very formidable, if not entirely conclusive, were but
slight impediments in the way of these humble lovers.

Long courtships and protracted engagements are not common among
quadroons, and in this case were not favored by Valentine. He had won
little Fannie's heart and consent to speak to her employers, who, having
advised her against the match, and holding no authority to go further in
their opposition, gave a reluctant consent, with their good wishes and
blessing.

Valentine had, all through the courtship, the hearty approbation of
Phædra; and, lastly, he had none but his master to consult.

Mr. Waring rallied Valentine unmercifully upon his intended marriage;
swore that, seriously, it was a pity such a fine young fellow as
himself, who was such a favorite among the girls, should leave his gay
bachelor's life, to tie himself down to a wife and family; asked him
what he should do for kid gloves and perfumery, if he had to give all
his pocket money to Fannie and the children; and finally made him a
wedding present of a hundred dollars, and advised him to go out and hang
himself.

In the following Christmas holidays, the slaves' annual Saturnalia in
the South, the marriage of Valentine and Fannie took place. A mad
marriage it was, where the bride had no dower and the bridegroom not
even the ownership of his own limbs to work for their support. An
impossible marriage it would seem, had it not really taken place, and
did we not know, for a certainty, that such marriages between the free
and the enslaved frequently took place.

Phædra gave a serious little Methodist wedding, and invited all her
favorite brethren and sisters of the church to be present. And the young
master loaned his dining-room for the occasion, and invited himself to
do the lovers the honor of his personal attendance at the marriage
ceremony. And he gave the little bride two testimonials of his friendly
consideration--one in the form of a pretty wedding dress, that was
gratefully received; the other in the guise of a hearty embrace and
kiss, that was not quite so thankfully accepted.

"But now, mommer," whispered little Fannie, in the course of the
evening, to Phædra, "Valley's young master has been so very kind and
generous to us all, s'pose now he was to make Valley a present of his
free papers, for a wedding gift to-night--to surprise us, you know; to
see how delighted we'd all be, and to hear what we'd say. I think he
might; 'deed, I shouldn't wonder if he did, only for the pleasure of the
thing, you know. Should you, mommer?"

Phædra sighed; but, then, not to damp the girl's spirits, she replied:
"He may do that some day, honey."

"Something seems to whisper to me that he is thinking of it to-night,
mommer! Ah! the Lord send he may! Wouldn't we be happy? Valley would
have a place in the same store with me; it would suit him, too; he has
so much good taste! And then we could have such a pretty little home of
our own! 'Deed, I believe he is thinking about it now. Look at him. I
shouldn't be the least surprised to see him call Valley aside, and clap
him on the shoulder, and call him 'old fellow,' and tell him he is a
free man!"

The girl had read aright the thoughts of the master. Angels, who
saw the future, with all the phantoms of its bright or dark
possibilities--angels, who loved the goodness latent in his own abused
nature--angels were whispering to him: "Make this young couple
supremely happy--give him only the common right to himself, into which
every creature is justly born--and then rejoice in their exceeding great
joy!"

And never had the face of Oswald Waring looked so bright, benignant and
happy, as when he, for a moment, entertained this thought.

"But pshaw!" he said to himself, directly. "Am I Don Quixote the
younger, that I should be guilty of such a piece of extravagant
generosity? Absurd! I really must begin to learn moderation at some time
of my life. St. Paul says: 'Let your moderation be known unto all men.'"

Now, what on earth can the angels reply, when the other party quotes
Scripture against them? Nothing, of course; and Oswald Waring had no
more generous impulses that evening. But oh! if he had only listened to
those angel whispers; if he had only realized poor little Fannie's
romance; if he had only, for once in his life, yielded to his impulse to
commit that mad, rash, extravagant piece of Quixotism, as he called the
act which, for a moment, he had dreamed of performing--from what
impending anguish, what temptations, crime, and remorse, would they not
have been redeemed!

CHAPTER V.

A CLOUDED HONEYMOON.

It had been arranged, as the best plan for all parties, under present
circumstances, that Fannie should retain her situation as shop-woman at
Leroux's hair-dressing and fancy store, where they were anxious to keep
her as long as possible.

With Valentine's hundred dollars, and fifty dollars that had been made
in overwork by Phædra, a room was taken in M----, and neatly furnished.

And there Valentine and Fannie went to housekeeping, after this fashion:
Fannie, still tending Leroux's shop all day, ate and slept at home,
where Valentine visited her once a week, or oftener, whenever he could
do so.

In the meantime, as winter advanced, Mr. Waring's health was fully
re-established; and, as many of his favorite boon companions, who had
been absent on their summer tours, returned to the neighborhood, Oswald
began to resume his former habits of extravagant and reckless
dissipation. Deer-hunting, coursing, partridge-shooting, and other field
sports, occupied the mornings; and dinner parties, oyster suppers, and
other entertainments, accompanied and followed by wine-drinking,
song-singing, card-playing, and similar orgies, at home or abroad,
filled up the afternoons and evenings.

Again were Valentine's services brought into requisition three or four
nights of every week, to drive his master to the city at dusk, and home
again at dawn. Upon these occasions, Valentine would drive Mr. Waring
first to the clubhouse, restaurant, or billiard-saloon, that happened to
be his destination for the evening, set him down, take the carriage and
horses to the livery stable, leave them, and then go to Leroux's and
stay with Fannie until the hour of closing the store arrived, when he
would take her home.

Valentine, from his "gentlemanly" appearance, dress, and address, as
well as from his perfectly trustworthy character, was not an unwelcome
visitor at the store, where, behind the counter and by the side of
Fannie, he made himself so useful that Monsieur Leroux would often
speculate as to the possibility of getting him for an assistant. This
also was Valentine's and Fannie's great ambition; but it was a vain
one, for his personal attendance was considered indispensable to his
master's comfort.

Valentine's standing order, upon these occasions of their night visits
to the town, was to be in waiting with the carriage for Mr. Waring at
twelve o'clock. And the man was obliged to be punctual, though he had
often to wait two or three hours for the coming of the master. And, as a
general fact, the longer Mr. Waring remained among his boon companions,
the more intoxicated he became; and when at last he appeared, all the
old humiliations and provocations of Valentine's former days were
renewed. You know what these were. It would be vain repetition to
describe them again.

All this was, in every respect, very trying to the poor boy. He
religiously adhered to his resolution of abstinence from all spirituous
liquors, and constantly and prayerfully struggled against the
ebullitions of his own impetuous temper. But the life he led acted
nearly fatally upon a very fragile organization; and all individuals of
antagonistically-mixed races are known to be frail. The continued loss
of rest, habitual irregularity in food and sleep, affectionate anxiety
upon account of his master, tender solicitude for his own gentle, little
wife, frequent and excessive provocation from Oswald, all combined to
wear and fret his originally excitable temperament to a state of
unnatural nervous irritability, that could scarcely sustain with
calmness the rudeness of the shocks to which, in his false position, he
was constantly exposed; and therefore he was very frequently--to use his
own expression at the "love feasts"--in great danger of falling from
grace.

Reflecting upon this portion of the poor, doomed boy's life;
recollecting the great, the almost superhuman struggle his spirit was
making against the terrible, combined powers of evil; of his discordant
organization; his fiery, impulsive temperament; his unfortunate
education; his unhappy position, and his exasperating surroundings, all
antagonistic, false and fateful, we find his parallel nowhere in modern
times, and are forced to think of the age of antiquity, and of those
mighty but ineffectual struggles of some foredoomed mortal, like
OEdipus, in the power of the angry Fates.

Upon poor Valentine's silent, deadly struggle, none but the pitying eye
of our Father looked. And nothing but a miracle could have averted its
final and fatal issue; and miracles are not wrought at the expense of
moral free agency. There came at last a day--an awful day--when the boy
spoke, and others heard, of that fell struggle with the powers of
darkness.

But we anticipate. The dark and trying seasons were relieved by brighter
ones, alternating like night and day.

The hours spent with Fannie, either in the gay, lighted shop, among a
thousand objects of taste and beauty, and occupations shared with her,
and congenial to his own æsthetic fancy, or in their little home, that,
despite of poverty, Fannie's taste had made beautiful, were seasons of
unclouded happiness, in which all care was forgotten.

There were sunny hours, also, when Mr. Waring's better nature was in the
ascendant; when he would feel like gratifying his own benevolence, and
making Valentine happy, by fair promises of making him free; of setting
him and Fannie up in the hair-dressing and fancy business, which he
would laughingly declare to be exactly suited to Valentine; that Val
could be the barber, and Fan the ladies' hair-dresser; and that they
could have a nice little house in an eligible street, with the dwelling
above, and the shop below. Thus he would talk, indulging his good humor
at the small expense of his breath, and amusing himself with noticing
the effect of his words upon Valentine's sensitive nature, playing upon
its chords of hope and fear, as if his heart had been a harp, and his
own the experimenting hand that tried its strings. Perhaps he intended
to realize, at some future day, these expectations that he raised; at
least, at the time of speaking he wished to please the boy by infusing a
hope; but, alas! he only disturbed him, by exciting and aggravating his
old passionate aspiration after liberty.

But, besides those happiest hours spent with Fannie, there were other
seasons of forgetfulness, and of almost unalloyed bliss. These were the
Sabbath services and the weekly meetings, where the ardent, zealous soul
of the young man found its expression in eloquence that reached the
hearts of all who heard him, either in exhortation or in prayer.

He was very much beloved by the brethren, and especially by the sisters,
of the Magnolia Grove Mission.

There was, however, two or three among the class-leaders who objected to
Valentine as being too much given to the vanities of this world, and who
found great stumbling blocks in Valley's shining, black ringlets, and
neat and even elegant dress. But as the fiend really did contrive to
find his way into sinless Eden, so jealousy might possibly have crept
into a "love feast" among Christian brethren and sisters; and
Valentine's beauty, grace, eloquence and consequent pre-eminence, among
the men, and popularity with the women, might have been the true ground
of offense to his less gifted brothers.

However that might be, Valentine, perceiving only the ostensible matter
of complaint, half resolved to give up his taste in dress and sacrifice
his cherished ringlets, and seriously consulted Fannie upon the subject.

But Fannie would not listen to such a proposition with a moment's favor,
and said that brother Portiphar and some of the others had such a grudge
against beauty that they would turn all the Lord's fair roses and lilies
into lobelia and rue, if they could. And Fannie's single opinion and
vote outweighed all the others, and Valentine's hyperion curls continued
to be an offense in Israel.

Thus passed the winter and spring. This first half year, with all its
shadows, was yet the fairest portion of the young pair's married life.
Toward its close clouds began to gather darkly and threateningly over
their heads.

In the early part of summer Fannie was necessitated to give up her
situation at Leroux's, and confine herself to such work as she could
perform in the privacy of her own room, such as fine sewing and fancy
work, which was not very lucrative; but even this resource in the course
of a few weeks had to be abandoned, for Fannie was unusually delicate,
and sadly needed rest and some one to take care of her for a while. And
just about this time, late in July, Mr. Waring made up his mind to go to
the North and spend the remainder of the summer in a tour among the
fashionable watering-places. Of course, he designed to take his servant
with him. In vain Valentine, hoping in the proverbial "good nature" of
his master, proffered his earnest request to be left behind, urging the
state of Fannie's health as the reason.

"Pooh, pooh, nonsense!" Mr. Waring could not spare the servant that was
used to his ways. Fannie must do without her husband, and take her
chance, as all those of her class had to do. Surely she must have known
what she had to expect when she married a slave man.

"And now, Valentine, don't bore me any longer with the subject. You were
a great fool to get married at all; and if you trouble me further, you
will make me regret ever having given my consent to that foolish
measure," concluded Mr. Waring.

Valentine controlled his own rebellious emotions, and leaving Fannie as
comfortable as under the circumstances he could make her, accompanied
his master to the North.

They visited first the Virginia Springs, then Niagara, Saratoga, Nahant,
and at the end of three months, returned home.

In close attendance upon his master, Valentine was obliged to pass
through M---- without stopping to see his wife.

But the next day, at his first disengaged hour, he set out for the city,
where he found Fannie the mother of a little girl of six weeks of age,
and reinstated in her former position at Leroux's.

Fannie was very happy, and gave a cheering account of all that had
occurred. Everybody had been very kind to her; the sisters of the church
had visited her often; Phædra had been with her, and Madame Leroux had
made her many presents.

All this relieved and delighted the youthful husband and father; and
when he pressed his infant daughter to his bosom, he wept tears of joy
at the thought that her mother's heritage of freedom would be hers.

Some peaceful days followed this, in which Valentine, oblivious of every
cause of disquietude, enjoyed the perfection of domestic happiness.

Then, early in November, Mr. Waring determined to go to New Orleans, to
prosecute his acquaintance with a young widow, a native and resident of
that city, whom he had met at Saratoga, and with whom he had been very
much pleased. His servant was, of course, required to attend him, and
upon this occasion Valentine obeyed without a single demur.

On reaching New Orleans, Mr. Waring took rooms at the St. Charles Hotel.
Apparently his suit prospered, for their stay in that city was prolonged
through November and December. And Valentine had no opportunity of
visiting his girlish wife until after the new year.

Then Mr. Waring hastily, and in the highest spirits, returned home, to
settle up certain necessary business with his lawyer appertaining to
troublesome creditors, and give some commendable directions to his
housekeeper touching the rearrangement of his disorderly bachelor's
hall. This occupied two or three weeks, during which time Valentine,
when not in close attendance upon Mr. Waring, found opportunities to
visit his beloved Fannie, and caress the infant, of whom he was dotingly
fond.

The first of February Mr. Waring went again to New Orleans to meet his
engagement with Madam Moriere, his promised bride.

Their marriage was arranged to take place immediately, to save the delay
of the seven weeks of Lent, just at hand, and during which no strict
Catholic, such as madam professed to be, would dare to enter into the
"holy state" of matrimony.

Immediately after the ceremony, the newly-married couple set out on a
bridal tour.

Mr. Waring was attended by his favorite servant, and madam by her maid,
a French _grisette_, who "made eyes" at Valentine, and otherwise
harassed him with her coquetries during the whole journey. And this
conduct of Finette first suggested to Valentine's mind the probability
that, during his own enforced, long and frequent absences from home,
some one as unprincipled as Finette might be making love to his own
pretty Fannie, unprotected and exposed as she was in that French
hair-dressing establishment. Valentine might have been sure of that; but
Fannie, with her wise and affectionate consideration for him, had never
troubled the transient happiness of his sojourn with her by any
histories of the petty vexations that disturbed her own life during his
absence. Besides, Fannie, with all her innocence, was city bred, full of
experience and the wisdom it gives, and quite capable of taking care of
herself. And Valentine never would have dreamed of the possibility of
such annoyances for her had not the behavior of Mademoiselle Finette
made the suggestion. And now the thought gave his excitable heart a
great deal of disturbance, and made him very anxious to return home. Of
course, Valentine's impatience did not expedite that desired event.

The bridal party were absent six weeks, and finally reached home about
the middle of April--a most enchanting season in that climate,
corresponding in its advanced state of vegetation with our June, but
much more beautiful in the luxuriance and variety of its trees, shrubs,
vines, fruits and flowers, than any season in our latitude. The Red Hill
mansion was very lovely in its grove of magnolias. The internal
arrangement of the house reflected great credit upon Phædra; and madam
condescended to express much satisfaction with her new home and her good
housekeeper.

As upon all former occasions, Valentine had been in too much
requisition, when they passed through M----, on their way home, to stop
and see Fannie; but the next morning Mr. Waring dispatched him to the
city to attend to the careful packing and sending out some baggage that
had been left, of necessity, the evening before, at the hotel.

And Valentine availed of that opportunity to visit his small family.

He found Fannie as pretty and as glad to see him as always, and his
little darling Coralie, now seven months old, more beautiful and
attractive than ever; but he could not linger with them; his duties to
his master obliged him, in less than an hour, to tear himself away again
and hasten with madam's trunks and boxes to Red Hill.

The necessity of leaving his treasures so soon again after so long an
absence depressed Valentine so much that Fannie hastened to console and
cheer him. He was not, after all, more unfortunate in that respect, she
said, than sailors and soldiers, nor was she more to be pitied than
their wives.

And she sent him off, comforted with the promise that she would get
leave from Leroux and come out the next morning with her baby to spend
the day with Phædra at Red Hill.

Fannie kept her word, and, during her visit the next day won her way so
well into the good graces of madam that that lady expressed a kind
interest in her and her little child, made them some pretty presents,
and promised to facilitate as much as possible the frequent visits of
Valentine to his wife and child. And the lady remembered and performed
her promise so well that unusual indulgence was extended to Valentine,
who was by her intercession enabled to pass every night with his family.

Mr. Waring, in his attachment to his bride, seemed for the time quite
won from the extravagance and dissipation of his late bachelor life. He
remained at home and addressed himself with commendable zeal to the
management of his plantation, to the improvement of his land, his stock,
his machinery, and agricultural system in general, and also, after his
own blundering fashion, to the amelioration, comfort and welfare of his
people.

Valentine, no longer distressed for or by his master, divided his
attention between the manifold light duties that occupied him all day at
Red Hill, and the evenings spent in assisting Fannie in her business
behind the counter of Leroux's shop, and for which he now received a
regular payment, in consideration of the fact that he stood at the post
and performed the duties of Monsieur Leroux, whose age obliged him to
leave the shop at an early hour of the evening, just as the custom was
beginning to grow brisk. Thus they were enabled to add many little
comforts to their humble home, and also to lay up a trifle against the
chance of darker days.

Every alternate Sabbath they attended meeting together at Magnolia
Grove, and afterward dined with Phædra at Red Hill, and went home at
night; and, on the intervening Sabbath, when there was no service at the
Grove Mission, Phædra would come into town and go to church with the
children at the Bethel (colored) Mission of M----, and afterward take
dinner with them, before returning home in the evening.

Thus passed the halcyon days of spring, preceding the awful moral storm
which ended in that "household wreck."

CHAPTER VI.

PROPHETIC.

    The look, the air that frets thy sight,
      May be a token that below,
    The soul has closed in deadly fight
      With some eternal fiery foe,
    Whose glance would scorch thy smiling grace,
    And cast thee, shuddering, on thy face.

Spring in the South is a season of the most enchanting beauty. Forests
of odoriferous, blossoming trees, thickets of sweet-scented shrubs, and
fields of fragrant wild flowers fill the atmosphere with their delicious
perfume; climbing vines twine around the trees and overgrow the fences,
transforming them into arbors and to hedges of flowering plants of
matchless bloom and fragrance; while myriads of bright-winged birds
enliven all the sunny air with their glad melody. It is a season and a
scene no lover of nature could look upon without rapture.

But the summer, with its advanced luxuriance of beauty, too often brings
malaria, pestilence and death.

The promise of the spring to one in Valentine's condition had been too
fair to last for any length of time. Clouds began to gather over his
head. First, as Mr. Waring went no longer to town to spend his evenings,
it followed as a matter of course that he frequently required
Valentine's services at that hour at home. On inquiring for his servant
upon these occasions, and receiving the answer that Valentine had gone
to town to see his wife, he would grow angry, and exclaim, with an oath:

"I have never had any good of that boy since his foolish marriage. In
town every night! This thing is getting to be insufferable, and shall be
stopped."

And one morning, when Valentine returned, Mr. Waring told him that he
was not to take himself off to see his wife every evening, but that in
future he must ask permission to do so.

Now, anger was Valentine's easily besetting sin, the one dangerous
internal foe he had constantly to combat. Now, indignation rose and
swelled in his bosom. And not from fear or from policy, but from
Christian principle, he strove to quell its ragings. He answered only
with a bow, and left the room for that silent, solitary struggle with
himself that no eye but the Father's ever witnessed. He obeyed the
mandate; it was galling, but he obeyed it; and each evening presented
himself to his master with something like this style of request, which,
as a compromise between asking a permission and intimating a purpose,
was not so difficult to make:

"I have got through all my business here for to-day, sir, and am ready
to go to town if you don't want me."

"Very well; take yourself off; only be sure to come back early in the
morning, to be ready when I rise," would be the frequent answer. "The
proud rascal! I believe he would almost as lief die as ask leave to do
anything; but it is my own fault; I have treated that boy like a
brother, until he is so spoiled as to be quite above his condition," Mr.
Waring would add, half jesting, half in earnest.

But sometimes, when Valentine asked, leave would not be granted him; and
this occasioned an irregularity in his nightly attendance at the shop,
that finally obliged Monsieur Leroux to say to him:

"Valentine, my man, unless you can attend better, I shall have to
discharge you altogether, and get a full clerk, which would be better
anyway, as he could be here all the time."

Full of trouble at this prospect, Valentine the next day mentioned this
to his master, who, happening to be in an ill-humor, answered:

"What the fiend is all that to me, sir? Old Leroux is liable to
prosecution for hiring your services at all without a permit."

"But it was in over-hours--in my own time," remonstrated Valentine.

"Your own time! Pray, sir, what time is that? I have yet to learn that
you have any time of your own!"

Valentine suppressed his indignation, but that was as much as he could
do. He dared not trust himself to reply.

"Leave the room! The sight of you irritates me. And be very thankful
that I do not prosecute your friend, old Leroux, with his mulatto clerks
and shop-girls! These beasts of Frenchmen have not the slightest idea of
the distinctions of race."

Silently, Valentine left the room, to retire and have another wrestle
with his pride and anger.

That evening he was not permitted to go to see Fannie; and, from that
time the permission to visit her was less and still less frequently
granted.

Finally, old Leroux, who had long delayed the step for poor Fannie's
sake, hired a clerk, and Valentine lost his over-hour situation, and
with it many fair though humble hopes and prospects. He was much
depressed; but Fannie bid him do right, trust in God, and cheer up; and
said that she would probably get her own salary raised, and that they
would get on very well.

Now, whether his marriage had changed his feelings toward Valentine, or
whether it was Valentine's marriage that in time and effect grew
displeasing to him, or whether both these causes combined to produce an
estrangement between the master and the man, I know not; but certainly
their mutual relations were changing for the worse. The master grew less
considerate and indulgent, and more arrogant and exacting toward his
poor servant; and that servant had a daily struggle with his own
indignant sense of outraged manhood. Still, Fannie soothed him.

"Govern your temper, dear Valley, and God will bless you. Never mind me
and Coralie; we shall get along well enough; and we can see each other
Sunday at church, and Thursday at prayer-meeting, anyhow," she would
say, cheerfully.

True, Fannie had her baby always with her, and that was a great comfort
to the youthful wife and mother for the absence of her husband. They
might have looked for some aid from the intercession of Mrs. Waring; but
alas! for fair and false hopes, her romantic interest in little Fannie
that had been but a frail spring blossom of her own happy bridehood,
soon withered; and, added to that, her influence with her husband had
waned with her honeymoon. So, between her indifference and her
inability, together with her ignorance of the facts--for Valentine
seldom had sight or speech alone with his mistress, or, when he had, was
too proud and reserved to complain, and Fannie, from native modesty,
would rather endure than plead--little aid was to be expected from Mrs.
Waring's interference in behalf of the young couple.

The gathering clouds of fate darkened and deepened over the head of the
doomed boy. His little home in the city was visited with sickness.

First, his little Coralie was taken ill. No father in this world,
whatever his nature or degree might be, ever loved his infant with a
more passionate attachment, than poor Valentine felt toward his little
Coralie; she was the darling of his heart and eyes, the light and joy of
his present, and the hope of his future. It was for her own sake that he
wished to save money--to educate her. Daily he thanked God that she was
born free.

Now, his bright, beautiful Coralie was pining away under a complication
of infant disorders.

A sick and suffering child is one of the most distressing objects in
nature, especially when that child is but a babe, and cannot, as the
nurses say, "tell where its trouble is," and can only look at you with
its pleading eyes, as if imploring the relief you cannot give. You who
have ever had an ill and suffering infant, always pining and moaning
with its aching head, too heavy for the slender, attenuated neck,
dropped upon its nurse's or its mother's shoulder, yet still often
looking up with a faint little smile to greet you when you come to take
it, or piteously holding out its emaciated arms to coax you back when
you are called to leave it--you can estimate the distress of the poor
young father, living three miles distant from the sick child, that might
at any hour grow suddenly worse, and die; and only permitted to visit it
occasionally at the pleasure of others.

Fannie's health, never strong, began to fail; loss of rest night after
night, with the sick child, joined to the fatiguing duties of her
situation, which she was still obliged to retain as a means of support,
exhausted her strength.

The poor infant, bereft all day of both parents, and left in charge of
an old, free negress, that lived near the shop, had the sad, unnatural
grief of home-sickness added to its other suffering, and so pined and
failed day by day.

This state of things lasted for some weeks.

After a night of suffering to the child and sleeplessness to herself,
Fannie would rise in the morning, and, though nearly blind, giddy and
fainting from habitual loss of rest, she would set her room in order,
eat a morsel of breakfast, bathe and dress the little one, collect all
the articles it would need, and prepare its food and medicine for the
day; and, lastly, dress herself with neatness and taste, for it was very
necessary that the shop girl should look as well as possible; take her
sick babe in one arm, and its basket of necessaries in the other, lock
her door, and set out for the shop, stopping on her way to leave the
child and its basket at Aunt Peggy's hut, where there was no cradle or
rocking-chair, but, what was perhaps as well, a pallet laid in the
coolest part of the room.

Here Fannie would sit and rest a moment, while she nursed her child, and
then she would lay it down upon the pallet and leave it, thankful if the
little creature happened to be sleeping peacefully, wretched if it
chanced to be wakeful and to be wailing after its mother.

One morning, when Fannie had lingered beyond her hour for going to the
store, trying to put to sleep or to pacify the suffering child, she
finally laid it down upon the pallet, and, with many kisses and soothing
words and promises to come back soon, tore herself away; but, just as
she reached the door the little one struggled upon its feeble limbs,
staggered toward her, and fell, with its weak hand clasping her skirts.

Fannie burst into tears, took the babe up in her arms, sat down upon a
chair, and, pressing the little sufferer to her bosom, caressed and
soothed it, and promised never to leave it again; and, speaking to the
old woman, said:

"Please go over to Leroux's, Aunt Peggy, and tell monsieur that I can't
come to-day on account of poor little Coralie; and I don't know when I
can come--so he may, if he chooses, look out for somebody else to fill
my place."

The prudent old woman expostulated, asked Fannie what she would do for a
living if she gave up her situation at Leroux's, and advised her to hold
fast, saying that the child might die, and then, there! she couldn't get
the place again so easy as she had lost it.

But Fannie was firm. Pressing the infant closer to her bosom, she
replied: Yes; that little Coralie might die, and then the thought of how
often she had left the poor baby grieving for her mother would break her
heart; that it was no use for any one to talk; come what might, she
never would leave the sick child again.

Aunt Peggy carried the message, and brought back the reply that Madam
Leroux had always expected this trouble to come upon Fannie; that she
had always said so; and that Fannie would find her words true, that this
was only the beginning of the troubles she would meet, for having been
so lost to her own interest as to marry a handsome slave man, whose very
hands were not his own, to help her.

Fannie said that she would trust in God, unto death and beyond death;
for that often she thought the best way in which He could right His
children's wrongs, and comfort their afflictions, was by taking them
from this sad world to His own heaven.

Truly, the poor young creature needed all this faith to enable her to
bear the troubles that were, and those that were to come. She carried
little Coralie back to her own poor room. She sought out what plain
sewing and clear starching she could get to do in her own home; but this
was very little, now that so many of the ladies and gentlemen among whom
she hoped to get employment had left the city for the Northern
watering-places. It brought her a very scanty income; and as, out of
this, room rent, fuel, light, food, clothing, medicine and other
incidental expenses had to be paid, and as, besides, she would not
suffer little Coralie to want any comfort, or even any luxury, that she
could procure for her by her own exertions and self-denial, it followed,
of course, that she herself went without a sufficiency of the real
necessaries of life; and so, privation being added to her other ills,
accelerated the decline of her health.

Valentine could only come to see them once a week. He would come Sunday
morning, spend the day in nursing his darling, tear himself from her
clinging baby arms, and return, almost broken-hearted, at night.

This was the condition of things when the yellow fever made its
appearance at M----. This was nothing new--the pestilence was no
stranger, it was an annual visitor at M----.

But this summer the fever appeared in its most terrible aspect, with all
the malign, virulent and fatal characteristics of the plague.

I am not about to harrow your feelings or my own with any minute details
of the misery that ensued as the pestilence advanced; of the physical
agony, from pain, fever, thirst and famine; of the wretchedness, from
bereavement, poverty and desertion; of the mental anguish, from terror,
grief, horror and despair. The pestilence brings in its dread train
almost every form of physical and moral evil; at the same time,
providentially, it calls forth to combat these the most exalted virtues
in the human character. You have only to call to mind the ravages of
the yellow fever throughout the South in the past to estimate the
horrors of the pestilence at M----. The people by hundreds fled the
city; those that remained, by thousands died.

The population, reduced to less than one-half, consisted chiefly of the
poorer classes, who could not get away, and of those heroic souls whom a
high sense of Christian duty or simple humanity had retained in or
brought to the scene of misery.

A dense, copper-colored cloud hung low, like a pall, over the
plague-stricken city; its air was considered deadly to the newcomer that
breathed it.

All intercourse between M---- and the surrounding plantations was
interdicted. The greatest anxiety was felt by the planters, lest the
fever should break out in their families, or, where it would be more
likely to make its first appearance, among the slaves; the greatest
precautions were taken to avert such a dread misfortune. The masters and
their families confined themselves strictly to their own domains, and
the slaves were positively forbidden to approach the city, or even the
highways leading thitherward. As many of the neighboring negroes had
friends or relatives living in the city, and as their affections are
known to be rather obstinate and daring, to insure safety, a voluntary
police was organized by the planters, whose duty it was, in turn, to
guard the highways, and see that no negro passed without a written
permit from the master or mistress.

Preventives of disease and disinfecting agents were diligently sought
after. Alcohol, in the form of wine, brandy and whisky, was supposed to
be a sovereign safeguard against the pestilence. I do not say that it
was laid down as a medical dogma that an habitual inebriate enjoyed
immunity from contagion; but I do say, what will probably shock my
temperance readers, that all persons were counseled by their physicians
to keep themselves always slightly under the influence of alcohol, so
long as the pestilence should last. And most people took the advice,
finding, at least, something in the half-stimulating, half-stupefying
effects of liquor to brave or dull the sense of danger. Wine and brandy
were freely used in the planter's family; whisky was freely circulated
among the negroes of the plantation. Some among them of the Methodist
persuasion and the temperance society demurred at breaking their pledge;
but even these, when made to understand that the whisky was to be taken
as medicine, by the advice of a physician, felt their consciences set at
rest upon the subject, and never was doctor's stuff swallowed with less
repugnance than their grog was taken, three times a day.

Valentine held to his principles; he would not break his pledge. In vain
for a long time his master, and even his mistress, remonstrated with
him.

Circumstances altered cases; times were changed; self-preservation was
the first law of nature; in view of the present danger, his pledge was
not binding; "for if he kept his pledge, he might lose his life," they
would argue.

"That was the Lord's affair; all he had to do was to keep his pledge;
and if he should die, so much the better; life had no charms for him,"
Valentine would reply.

And in truth the wretched young man was much to be compassionated. His
wife and child alone and helpless in the midst of the plague, exposed to
the united horrors of pestilence, famine and solitary death from
desertion; himself forbidden to seek them at their utmost need. Thrice
had he escaped and sought the city, and as often had he fallen into the
hands of the voluntary police; they did not maltreat him, except
inasmuch as they would not suffer him to pass without a permit from his
master, and this permit could not be obtained. He could think of
nothing but his wife and child. Were they living, and suffering
unimagined miseries? Were they among the uncounted dead, whose rude
coffins lay one upon another, three or four feet deep, not in graves,
but in trenches? He did not even know. But all his thoughts by day, and
his fitful dreams by night, were haunted with the forms of Fannie and of
Coralie. He saw little Coralie in every phase of memory, and hope, and
fear. He saw her bright and beautiful, as she had been in the sweet
springtime; he saw her pale and pining, as he had seen her last in her
wasting sickness; and he saw her lying dead in her coffin, and woke with
a loud cry of anguish. His heart, his spirit, seemed broken.

Seeing his haggard and despairing looks, his mistress expostulated with
him, and counseled the use of wine or brandy, saying that the depressing
effects of the atmosphere were felt by everybody, even by those living
in the country; that it affected all persons with despondency, causing
them to look only on the darkest side of all things; and that it was
only to be counteracted by the stimulating effects of alcohol.

At last Valentine followed this counsel and took the prescribed
"medicine." Not to prevent contagion did he take it, though that purpose
would have exonerated him from the charge of a broken pledge; but to
dull the poignant sense of suffering, which was greater than he could
bear.

Oh, fatal day that he placed again to his lips the maddening glass! All
have seen how dangerous is such a relapse. It is generally a sudden and
hopeless fall. It was so in the case of this poor fellow. He took the
first glass, and, liking its effects, took a second and a third before
stopping. If he awoke in the morning to remember his troubles, he drank
all day to forget them, and fell at night into a heavy sleep. He
zealously followed the medical prescription--nay, he quite overdid it,
and kept himself not "slightly" under the influence of alcohol. And in a
short space of time, if his master or his mistress remonstrated with
him, it was not for total abstinence from intoxicating spirits, but for
the opposite extreme of an habitual intemperance. Such was the state of
affairs at Red Hill for a few weeks, during which Valentine had no
direct or certain intelligence of Fannie and his little child.

CHAPTER VII.

CAIN.

    I pray thee take thy fingers from my throat:
    For though I am not splenetive and rash,
    Yet have I in me something dangerous,
    Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!--SHAKESPEARE.

One morning, near the last of August--yet, stay! Such mornings dawn
unheralded by any sign to warn us what the fated day shall bring forth
ere its close. Such mornings dawn as other mornings do--the doomed men
and women rise as other people do--as you or I arose this morning, upon
the dread day that unpremeditated crime or sudden death shall fix their
mortal doom forever.

That morning Mr. Waring arose, feeling rather unwell and irritable,
which was no unusual circumstance of late, for he was chafing between
two conflicting interests, one of which called him away, while the other
bound him at home. He was very anxious, with his wife, to leave the
neighborhood of the infected city; but, in the present condition of
affairs he hesitated to trust the plantation and negroes to the care of
the overseer.

Valentine arose with the same heavy heart that had marked his waking
hours for many days, yet dressed himself and combed his raven black
curls with the habitual regard to neatness and beauty that had become a
second nature. And it was curious to see how this habit of neatness and
elegance lasted through all the darkest hours of his life.

Phædra got up and attended to the arrangement of the house and the
preparation of breakfast with her usual exactness.

Mrs. Waring, suffering from the debilitating effects of the weather,
indulged herself in the morning, and breakfasted in bed.

No foreboding was felt by any one; no token in sky or air, or
circumstances without, of presentiment within their hearts, warned them
of calamity, crime and sudden death at hand. That morning, after
breakfast, Valentine strolled listlessly out toward the public road
leading to the town. It was his daily habit. It had been commenced in
the hope of meeting some one from the city who might be able to give him
news of Fannie and her little child. And though he never met with
success, he still rambled thither every day, as well from force of habit
as from the faint hope that he might yet hear of them. He strolled to
the highway, met his usual ill-success, and, after lingering an hour or
two, sauntered dejectedly toward home.

When he reached a lane that separated his master's plantation on the
right from Mr. Hewitt's on the left, his attention was arrested by the
sound of a low voice. He listened.

"Hish-sh! Walley, come here--here to the gap."

The voice proceeded from behind the hedge, formed by a thick growth of
Spanish daggers, that completely covered the fence on the left of the
lane. There was a small broken place in it, toward which Valentine
sauntered indifferently. He saw on the other side the huge head of a
gigantic negro, a jet-black, lumbering, awkward, good-natured monster
enough, who belonged to Mr. Hewitt, and who sported the imposing
cognomen of "governor."

"Well, Governor, is that you? What do you want with me?"

"Hish-sh, Walley, don't talk so loud! our oberseer ain't far off.
Brudder 'Lisha, he bin out from town."

"Well!" exclaimed Valentine, with breathless interest, bending forward.

"W'en you hear from Fannie las'?"

"Not for two weeks. Why do you ask? Have you heard from her? Speak! oh,
for Heaven's sake, speak!" exclaimed Valentine, breathlessly.

"Fannie done got de feber."

"Oh, God!"

"Brudder 'Lisha, he done bin 'ere dis mornin' and tell we-dem."

"Oh, Heaven! oh, when was she taken? Who is with her? Is she----"

"Dunno nuffin 'tall 'bout it, 'cept 'tis she's got de feber. Brudder
'Lisha, he done bin dere to her place, an' heern it."

"Where is Elisha?"

"Done gone right straight back to town."

"And that is all the satisfaction you can give me," cried Valentine,
beside himself with distress.

"Yaw, yaw! I trought how I'd watch arter you, and tell you--'long as
you'd like to hear it. Hish-sh-sh! Walley, stoop down here close, till I
whisper to you."

"What now!" exclaimed Valentine, in new alarm, bending his ear to the
huge negro's lips.

"Hish-sh-sh! Walley, I wish how it wur my 'ooman as had de yaller
feber!"

"Wretch!"

"An' wish we-dem's white nigger oberseer had it too!"

"What do you mean?"

"And I wish dey bofe might die long of it."

"Wretch! I say again!"

"Trufe, brudder! dat's me jes'! I'se de wretch! an' I wish how dis same
wretch might hab de feber long o' de oder two, an' how I might die long
of 'em, and how we might all go up to Marster's trone, and have de case
'cided whose wife dis 'ooman is for to be."

"Governor! What! do you mean to say that the new overseer is tampering
with your wife's fidelity to you?"

"Hish-sh! he ain't fur off. Dunno what de debbil you mean wid your big
words. But she lub fine dress, an' he gib it to her; she berry putty,
mos' white, you know, an' he sen' me way off to de furres' fiel' to
work."

"Why don't you talk to her?"

"'Taint no use; she 'ny eberyting."

"Why don't you speak to your master?"

"'Tain't no use; he won't nebber hear no 'plaints gin de oberseer."

"I am very sorry for you, poor fellow; and I would like to give you
comfort and counsel, but I must hurry away from you, and try to get
leave to go to town, and see poor dear Fannie. If I were you, Governor,
I would speak to Major Hewitt upon this subject. He never would permit
such a wrong done you."

"'Taint no use, I tell yer! But nebber min', Walley, listen yer; some ob
dese yere days I fixes him!"

Valentine started at the demoniac look that, in a man usually so mild,
accompanied these vague words; and, bidding the negro a hasty
good-morning, he ran along the lane until he reached the house.

His own heart and brain were wild with grief and alarm as he hastened to
the presence of his master, whom he did not doubt would now, in this
extremity, permit him to go to the city.

Mr. Waring, in an irritable frame of mind, was walking up and down the
front piazza, as Valentine stepped upon the floor.

"Well, what now?" he exclaimed, testily, at the sight of the young man's
agitated countenance.

"My wife, sir; she has got the fever."

"Sorry to hear it, but--how did you hear it, sir? I hope no one from
that place has had the temerity to set foot upon these premises, in face
of the prohibition?"

"No, sir; I happened to meet with Governor, Major Hewitt's man, and he
had seen an acquaintance of ours from the city, who came from Fannie's
house this morning and brought the news."

"I wonder Major Hewitt does not take better care of his own interests
than to permit stragglers from the city to infest his place. He will
bring the pestilence among us before we know where we are," said Mr.
Waring, angrily.

"But, Fannie, sir--my poor wife----"

"Well, what of her? I am sorry, of course--really sorry, Valentine. It
is a pity you ever got married; if you had not, neither you nor Fannie
would have had so much trouble. It was a very foolish piece of
business!"

"Perhaps it was, sir; but people who love each other have a sort of
propensity to get married. It can't be helped, I suppose; it's a way
they've got."

"And a bad way--very bad way--that I ought never to have sanctioned."

"Nor imitated, sir!"

"You are an impertinent fellow! But I overlook that. There is some
difference, I should judge, between you and me, and I certainly ought
never to have consented to your taking that girl."

"It is too late to say that now, sir!" said Valentine, with a sigh so
heavy that Mr. Waring inquired, quickly:

"So you repent it, do you?"

"No; God Almighty knows I do not!" replied Valentine, with sorrowful
earnestness; adding, "but, oh, sir, I am losing precious time. I came
here to ask you for a permit to go to town and see my wife."

"A permit! A permit to go to town, and to visit a woman ill with the
very pestilence we are all doing our best to guard against? A permit to
go there, and take the fever just as sure as you go, and bring back and
spread the contagion among hundreds, whom we are all doing our best to
guard from the pestilence! Impossible, Valentine! I wonder you could be
so unreasonable as to ask it!"

"Unreasonable that I should want to go and see my suffering wife?"

"Yes--under the circumstances. Yes, I am sorry for her, Valentine, and
sorry for you, though I cannot say that your manner is very respectful.
Still, I am very sorry for you; and if it were possible for me to do
anything for your relief, I would do it--as it is, I regret that I can
do nothing."

"Oh, sir! Master Oswald, you could let me go to town," pleaded
Valentine.

"At the imminent hazard of your own life, and the all but certainty of
bringing the pestilence upon this plantation."

"All do not get the fever who are exposed to its influence; neither do
they always spread contagion into the healthy places they chance to
visit," reasoned the young man.

"The risk is too great," replied the master, curtly.

"Would you think it too great if your own wife were the one concerned,
sir?" argued Valentine.

"Be more respectful, sirrah! There is some difference, I should say!"
retorted the master, angrily.

"Yes, there is a difference!" cried Valentine; "and when I see anything
to respect----" Suddenly he stopped. Swift as lightning came the thought
that if he refrained from provoking his master now and came to him an
hour hence, when he should be in a better humor, the prayer that he now
denied he might then grant. Controlling his rising indignation, he
bowed, turned abruptly, and went off.

"Impudent rascal! he was just about to say something that I should have
had to knock him down for; and then he thought better of it, and
stopped--it's well he did! Poor fellow, I am sorry for him, too; but it
is all his own fault! If he were not so presumptuous, he would not feel
so badly. That is the very deuce of it; for that prevents him from
seeing that there is a difference." Such were the reflections of Mr.
Waring as he continued to pace up and down the front piazza.

Valentine has mastered his anger, but he could not control the terrible
anxiety that preyed upon his heart; Fannie suffering, Fannie dying,
deserted, alone; little Coralie perishing from neglect--these were the
torturing visions that maddened his brain.

He went and told Phædra, who wept bitterly at the sad story; but yet
sought to comfort her son, and inspire hope, by promising to go herself
and tell Mrs. Waring, and get her to intercede with her husband for
Valentine.

This was done, but with little success; for, though Mrs. Waring was
moved to compassion, and went to her husband and besought him to take
compassion upon Valentine and send him to seek his sick wife and trust
in Providence to avert all evil consequences, Mr. Waring was not only
firm in his refusal, but also exhibited no small degree of impatience at
her interference. Unwilling to inflict a hopeless disappointment upon
the poor fellow, Mrs. Waring tempered the report of her ill-success by
saying that, though Mr. Waring had now refused her petition, she still
hoped that he would think better of it and grant the permit.

Yet all this time Fannie might be dying, and her child perishing for
want--every moment was precious beyond price!

Phædra sought her master's presence, and pleaded with him--pleaded by
her long years of faithful service; by her devoted care of him in his
feeble infancy; by the days of his childhood, when he and Valentine were
playmates; by all the long years, as boys and as men, those two had
passed together, inseparable companions, until the marriage of each; by
her own devoted attachment to them; by his love for his own wife; by
every sweet affection and holy thought, to have compassion on her son,
his own foster-brother, and let him go and minister to his
sick--probably his dying wife. Phædra pleaded with more eloquence, but
with not more success, than the others.

Some substances melt under the action of water--others, in the same
element, turn to stone. Instead of melting Mr. Waring's obduracy seemed
to ossify under the effects of tears and entreaties. He told Phædra,
firmly, that he did not mean to gratify one man at the hazard of
exposing many to contagion. And at the dinner-table, speaking partly in
justification of his own line of conduct, and partly in apology for the
manner in which he had met Mrs. Waring's intercession of the morning, he
said:

"You emphasize this matter too much, madam; this Fannie is, after all,
but one sufferer among thousands; you also mistake in endowing these
creatures with the same acuteness of feelings that we possess; there is
a difference, madam! there is a difference! I wish I could make people
understand that there is a difference; neither Valentine nor Phædra seem
to have the slightest conception of this difference."

"I must confess that in that respect I share their obtusity," remarked
madam, while Mr. Waring, in apparent self-satisfaction, went on with his
dinner.

But was he really satisfied with himself? Who shall answer?

Meantime, Valentine wandered about, consumed with sorrow and anxiety.
Doubtless, he would have run away and endeavored to reach the town, but
he knew how carefully the avenues thither were guarded, and how
desperate was the attempt that he had already thrice before made to
elude the police. It would involve a loss of several hours to make the
attempt, which, if it should fail, as it was altogether likely to do,
would entirely preclude him from all possible chance of seeing Fannie;
therefore he thought best to make another appeal to his master before
taking the last desperate step. He knew by experience that the hour
after dinner always found Oswald Waring in his best humor.

It was then that he sought him.

He found him--not, as before, walking in the front piazza, where the
afternoon sun was now shining, but reclining on a settee on the back
piazza that was now in the shade. He lay languidly fanning himself with
one hand, while he held a pamphlet that he was reading in the other.
Valentine had resolved not to provoke him by any hasty words, as he had
used in the morning. He resolved to govern his own spirit, to approach
his master respectfully, humbly. He did so.

"Master Oswald!"

Mr. Waring looked up, seemed annoyed, and hastened to exclaim:

"Now, Valentine, if you have come again about going to see your sick
wife, and all that humbug, I tell you it is no manner of use. I have
been wearied nearly to death already with fruitless importunity, and I
want to hear no more of it."

"Oh, sir!"

"I tell you it is of no use to talk to me!"

"Ah, but Master Oswald, only listen, even if you do no more!" pleaded
Valentine, in the fond hope of an ardent nature, that, judging from the
earnestness of his feelings, believes that if he gains a hearing, he
gains his cause.

"Well, well! but I warn you it will be wasted breath."

"Ah, sir, do not say so! I am nearly crazy with trouble, sir, when I
think of Fannie and poor little Coralie. She was very poor, sir, and the
child was very sick, even before the pestilence appeared. Now she has
the fever in that horrible place, with no one to help her or to take
care of the poor child. She may be dying, sir, even while I speak! she
may be dying, as many of the poor in that doomed city die,
deserted--alone--but for the famishing infant, whose cries add to her
own sufferings; she may have, as many of the poor have, famine and
burning thirst added to her fever, with no one near to place to her lips
a morsel of food or a drop of water! Think of it, sir! My God! do you
wonder that I am almost frantic?" cried the young man, earnestly,
beseechingly clasping his hands.

"An imaginary picture altogether, Valentine," coolly remarked Mr.
Waring.

"A common reality among the poor of the city, this dreadful season, sir.
You know it. You have heard it and read it. And she is very poor, sir.
She and the child often suffered, even before the pestilence came and
stopped her work with all the rest. Judge what her condition must be
now. Oh, my God!" cried the young man, in a voice of agony.

"Your fears exaggerate the case, Valentine. There are almshouses and
hospitals, and sisters of charity and relief funds, and all those sort
of contrivances for the very poor."

"Yet you know, for I heard you read it, that all these places are full,
that the relief fund failed to meet all the demands made upon it; and
you know, besides, that all the poor white people have to be taken care
of, before the colored people are thought of."

"Of course, there is a difference, you know. I wish, once for all, you
would understand that fact," said Mr. Waring, replying only to the
latter proposition. Then he added: "Your fears magnify the danger; the
yellow fever cannot last forever, and she may get well."

"Not one in ten do--I heard you say it."

"Well, she may be that one."

"What, sir, with all the privations of her lot?"

"Yes, why not? You are out of sorts, Valentine. Go into
the house and take a drink; it will set you up--in the
dining-room--sideboard--left-hand corner--some fine old Otard
brandy--help yourself; it will make a man of you."

"Thank you, Master Oswald; but that is not what I came for."

"What the devil did you come for, then, you troublesome fellow; tell me,
and let me go to sleep," exclaimed the master, impatiently turning on
his settee.

"I came to beg and to pray you, Master Oswald, for a permit to go to
town."

"And you cannot have it, Valentine; so you may save your prayers. Once
for all, if you and your mother, and madam, your mistress, to back you,
were to pray from now till doomsday, you--cannot--have--it. Do you
understand?" said his master, stolidly.

Valentine governed his own rising anger; it was as much as he could
possibly do; he could not suppress his grief, but broke forth in a voice
of agony:

"Oh! Fannie, Fannie, Fannie, and her little child!"

"D----n it, sir, stop your howling, or go somewhere else to howl. What
the devil is Fannie or her brat to me? If they are suffering, it is her
own fault; she had no business to marry a slave, whom she could never
expect to help her. And if their sufferings afflict you, it serves you
right; it is a just punishment for your cursed folly in marrying a free
woman, with no master to look after her or her children."

"I will be silent! I will be silent!" thought Valentine, as he turned
from his master.

A storm was raging in his breast; all the fierce passions of his nature
were aroused; rage, grief, terror and despair, made a hell of his bosom.
In passing through the hall, he suddenly dived into the dining-room,
poured out and drained a half tumbler of the strong brandy; then he
hurried through and out of the front door, to make ready for his flight.

These preparations were soon made, and Valentine commenced his journey.

The highway leading to M---- was bordered on one side by the hedge of
Spanish daggers that skirted the lower cotton-fields of Major Hewitt's
plantation, and on the other side by a causeway, that shut off an
extensive cypress swamp that formed a portion of Mr. Waring's estate.
Avoiding the middle of the road, Valentine leaped over the causeway,
and, though he waded half a leg deep in water, he made his way safely
under the shelter of the wall and the shadows of the trees.

He had waded thus a mile, on his way toward the city, when the sound of
a voice, singing a Methodist hymn, and approaching from the opposite
direction, arrested his attention. He knew the hymn, and the voice,
that, in turn, sang and intoned it, and, by them, recognized, before
seeing, Elisha, the colored class-leader of his own congregation, the
man who had that morning brought the first news of Fannie's illness. A
new, intense anxiety seized him. Elisha came from the direction of the
city. "Might he not bring some later intelligence of Fannie?" he
inquired of himself, as he hastened to climb the wall of the causeway,
and peered through the parasitical vines that clung to the top, to
survey the scene.

Lying between the dark-hued cypress swamp and the high hedge that shut
off the cotton-fields, the road stretched westward, one long, irregular
vista of yellow light shining in the last rays of the setting sun; and
solitary, except for the lonely figure of the old negro preacher, who,
stick and bundle slung across his shoulder, came trudging onward, and
beguiling his way with chanting the refrain of a wild, weird revival
hymn, in strange keeping with the time and circumstances:

    "Go, wake him! Go, wake him!
    Judgment day is coming!
    Go, wake him! Go, wake him!
    Before it is too late!"

"Hist! Elisha! Elisha!" called Valentine, in a hushed, eager voice.

"Who dar?" exclaimed the old negro, starting back so forcibly that the
stick and bundle vibrated on his shoulder.

"It is I, Elisha! Come here, quickly. How is Fannie, my dear, suffering
Fannie? Quickly! You have seen her since morning?" cried Valentine, in a
low, vehement tone.

"Brudder Walley! I 'clar'; de werry man I lookin' arter!" said the old
creature, approaching the causeway.

"Tell me! tell me! how is Fannie?" cried Valentine, impatiently.

"Ah, chile! we-dem mus' 'mit to de will o' Marster," sighed the old
preacher.

"For Heaven's sake, be plain! Is she--is she still living?" questioned
the youth, in an agony of anxiety.

"Wur, when I lef' dar, chile! wur, when I lef' dar! Dat all I can say
for sartin 'bout libbin'."

Valentine groaned deeply, asking:

"When did you see her? Tell me everything--everything you know about
her."

"I happen in dar, to 'quire arter her, 'bout noon. I fin' her all alone,
berry low, berry low, 'deed. Flies, like a cloud, settled on her face;
she onable to lif' her han', drive 'em 'way; lip bake wid thurst; and
she onable han' herse'f a drap o' water."

"Oh, God! and the child--the child!"

"'Prawlin' on de floor, kivered with flies an' dirt, cryin' low an'
weak, like, for hunder."

"Elisha, I must hurry; I must fly! Turn back, and walk a little way with
me, while you tell me more; but if you see any one coming or going on
the road, whistle, to warn me, for I have no permit," said Valentine,
dropping behind the causeway, and plunging along through the water
toward the city.

They could no longer see each other, and their conway.

"How you gwine cross bridge widout 'mit, Brudder Walley?"

"I don't know; I must try. Tell me more about Fannie."

"Well, you know, 'out my tellin' you, how I tuk up de chile offen de
flure, an' wash it, an' dress it, and git milk, and feed it. An' how I
go for water, and wash her face, and give her drink, an' fan de flies
offen her, till she come to her min', like; an' how I'd stay 'long o'
her till dis time, ony when she come to herself, she put her two hans
togedder, so she did, de chile, and begged an' prayed me to come arter
you, her 'dear Walley,' to come an' see her once more 'fore she died,
an' take de poor baby home long o' you. An' so, dough I done travel dis
yer yode once afore to-day, I takes my staff in my han' an' I sets off;
an', franks be to de Lor', dey can't sturve me from trav'lin' de
highway, dough I daren't now-a-day put my fut offin it, or onto one o'
der plantashunes. So, now, bress de Lor', here I is; an' long as I wur
so hoped up as to fall in 'long o' you, all I got to do now is, to
'company of you back to de city."

In a few earnest, fervent words, Valentine thanked his friend, and then,
saving all his breath, and concentrating all his energies, in silence he
toiled on, knee-deep in water and ankle-deep in mud, through the cypress
swamp toward the city.

Old Daddy Elisha took up the burden of his hymn, and sang or intoned
various portions of that weird melody as he walked.

Valentine, behind the causeway, in the shadow and the silence, passed
unquestioned; but Elisha was frequently hailed by some vigilant member
of the voluntary police. If personally known to the questioner, he was
allowed to pass; if not, he was required to show his papers; a light had
to be struck to examine them, and all this took up so much time, that
although Elisha had the high road to walk upon, and Valentine the swamp
to wade through, the latter far outstripped the former, and arrived
first at the bridge over the A---- River.

To cross this bridge was the only means from this direction of reaching
the city; but the bridge was guarded at both ends by the patrol, or
voluntary police; to elude their vigilance was the only desperate part
of Valentine's undertaking.

The river was broad, deep and strong in current; no one had ever dreamed
of the feat of swimming across it. It was bordered on this side by a
marsh so deep that, in the attempt to pass it, a man of moderate size
and strength must have been swallowed up.

The bridge was a continuation of the road and causeway, flanked by
parapets extending across the river, and joining the road on the
opposite side.

Valentine never thought of the impossible feat of wading the marsh and
swimming the river, neither did he dream of attempting to cross the
bridge in the very face of the patrol guard that twice before had
arrested him; but he projected a scheme almost equally wild and
hopeless. This plan was to cross the river by clambering along the water
side of this parapet--a plan involving less risk of discovery by the
patrol, certainly--but undertaken at the most imminent peril of death,
by losing hold and dropping into the river below.

Valentine waded on through the cypress swamp, until the trees grew more
sparsely, and the mud under the water became deeper and more treacherous
as it merged into the marsh nearest the river.

The poor fellow then clambered along, now on the broken causeway, his
eyes all on fire with vigilance, and now dropping down into the swamp,
and so in more peril and difficulty he went on, until he reached the
place where the marsh merged into the river, and the road and causeway
into the bridge and parapet.

Here he heard the patrol guard in their little guard-house laughing and
talking over their drink, for they, too, had to keep the pestilence at
bay with alcohol.

Here he attempted to gain the parapet, and in doing so, set in motion
some alarm bell, at whose first peals he found himself suddenly
surrounded, and in the hands of the patrol.

"My good fellow, that feat has been tried once before, so we prepared
for the second, you understand," said one of his captors.

They all knew Valentine; with most of them he was a great favorite,
though to others he was, for the sole reason of his natural superiority,
very obnoxious.

While Valentine stood overwhelmed with despair, he discerned Major
Hewitt among the party; and gathering some hope from the presence of
that gentleman, he clasped his hands and appealing to him, said:

"Oh, Major Hewitt, you know me, sir! You have known me from childhood!
Your dear lady knew me, too, and was very kind to the poor quadroon boy,