Part 6 (1/2)

The trees grew thinner as the road approached the town. Dusty were the ways, and sultry the air, when we rode into Clayville and were making for ”the noisy middle market-place.” Clayville was but a small border town, though it could then boast the presence of a squadron of cavalry, sent there to watch the ”border ruffians.” The square was neither large nor crowded, but the spectacle was strange and interesting to me. Men who had horses or carts to dispose of were driving or riding about, noisily proclaiming the excellence of their wares. But buyers were more concerned, like myself, with the slave-market. In the open air, in the middle of the place, a long table was set. The crowd gathered round this, and presented types of various sorts of citizens. The common ”mean white” was spitting and staring--a man fallen so low that he had no n.i.g.g.e.r to wallop, and was thus even more abject, because he had no natural place and functions in local society, than the slaves themselves.

The local drunkard was uttering sagacities to which no mortal attended.

Two or three speculators were bidding on commission, and there were a few planters, some of them mounted, and a mixed mult.i.tude of tradesmen, loafers, bar-keepers, newspaper reporters, and idlers in general. At either end of the long table sat an auctioneer, who behaved with the traditional facetiousness of the profession. As the ”lots” came on for sale they mounted the platform, generally in family parties. A party would fetch from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars, according to its numbers and ”condition.” The spectacle was painful and monstrous.

Most of the ”lots” bore the examination of their points with a kind of placid dignity, and only showed some little interest when the biddings grew keen and flattered their pride.

The sale was almost over, and we were just about to leave, when a howl of derision from the mob made us look round. What _I_ saw was the apparition of an extremely aged and debilitated black man standing on the table. What Moore saw to interest him I could not guess, but he grew pale and uttered an oath of surprise under his breath, though he rarely swore. Then he turned his horse's head again towards the auctioneer.

That merry tradesman was extolling the merits of nearly his last lot. ”A very remarkable specimen, gentlemen! Admirers of the antique cannot dispense with this curious n.i.g.g.e.r--very old and quite imperfect. Like so many of the treasures of Greek art which have reached us, he has had the misfortune to lose his nose and several of his fingers. How much offered for this exceptional lot--unmarried and without enc.u.mbrances of any kind?

He is dumb too, and may be trusted with any secret.”

”Take him off!” howled some one in the crowd.

”Order his funeral!”

”Chuck him into the next lot.”

”What, gentlemen, _no_ bids for this very eligible n.i.g.g.e.r? With a few more rags he would make a most adequate scarecrow.”

While this disgusting banter was going on I observed a planter ride up to one of the brokers and whisper for some time in his ear. The planter was a bad but unmistakable likeness of my friend Moore, worked over, so to speak, with a loaded brush and heavily glazed with old Bourbon whisky.

After giving his orders to the agent he retired to the outskirts of the crowd, and began flicking his long dusty boots with a serviceable cowhide whip.

”Well, gentlemen, we must really adopt the friendly suggestion of Judge Lee and chuck this n.i.g.g.e.r into the next lot.”

So the auctioneer was saying, when the broker to whom I have referred cried out, ”Ten dollars.”

”_This_ is more like business,” cried the auctioneer. ”Ten dollars offered! What amateur says more than ten dollars for this lot? His extreme age and historical reminiscences alone, if he could communicate them, would make him invaluable to the student.”

To my intense amazement Moore shouted from horseback, ”Twenty dollars.”

”What, _you_ want a cheap n.i.g.g.e.r to get your hand in, do you, you blank- blanked abolitionist?” cried a man who stood near. He was a big, dirty- looking bully, at least half drunk, and attending (not unnecessarily) to his toilet with the point of a long, heavy knife.

Before the words were out of his mouth Moore had leaped from his horse and delivered such a right-handed blow as that wherewith the wandering beggar-man smote Irus of old in the courtyard of Odysseus, Laertes' son.

”On his neck, beneath the ear, he smote him, and crushed in the bones; and the red blood gushed up through his mouth, and he gnashed his teeth together as he kicked the ground.” Moore stooped, picked up the bowie- knife, and sent it glittering high through the air.

”Take him away,” he said, and two rough fellows, laughing, carried the bully to the edge of the fountain that played in the corner of the square. He was still lying crumpled up there when we rode out of Clayville.

The bidding, of course, had stopped, owing to the unaffected interest which the public took in this more dramatic interlude. The broker, it is true, had bid twenty-five dollars, and was wrangling with the auctioneer.

”You have my bid, Mr. Brinton, sir, and there is no other offer. Knock down the lot to me.”

”You wait your time, Mr. Isaacs,” said the auctioneer. ”No man can do two things at once and do them well. When Squire Moore has settled with d.i.c.k Bligh he will desert the paths of military adventure for the calmer and more lucrative track of commercial enterprise.”

The auctioneer's command of long words was considerable, and was obviously of use to him in his daily avocations.

When he had rounded his period, Moore was in the saddle again, and nodded silently to the auctioneer.

”Squire Moore bids thirty dollars. Thirty dollars for this once despised but now appreciated fellow-creature,” rattled on the auctioneer.

The agent nodded again.