Part 4 (1/2)

Cornelius opened his mouth with great pretense of ignorance, but----

”Go back and drop that hat outside the door, sir!” The servant went.

”Now, bring me that letter!” The bearer brought it and stood waiting while the Major held it under his lame arm and tore it open.

Judge March wrote that he had found a way to dispense with Cornelius at once, but his main wish was to express the hope--having let a better opportunity slip--that President Garnet as the ”person best fitted in all central Dixie to impart to Southern youth a purely Southern education,” would reopen Rosemont at once, and to promise his son to the college as soon as he should be old enough.

But for two things the Major might have felt soothed. One was a feeling that Cornelius had in some way made himself unpleasant to the Judge, and this grew to conviction as his nostrils caught the odor of strong drink.

He handed the note to his wife.

”Judge March is always complimentary. Read it to Jeff-Jack. Cornelius, I'll see you for a moment on the back gallery.” His wife tried to catch his eye, but a voice within him commended him to his own self-command, and he pa.s.sed down the hall, the mulatto following. Johanna, crouching and nodding against the wall, straightened up as he pa.s.sed. His footfall sounded hope to the strained ear of the Judge's son in the kitchen.

Virginia slipped away. In the veranda, under the moonlight, Garnet turned and said, in a voice almost friendly:

”Cornelius.”

”Ya.s.s, sah.”

”Cornelius, why did you go off and hire yourself out, sir?”

At the last word the small listener in the kitchen trembled.

”Da.s.s jess what I 'How to 'splain to you, sah.”

”It isn't necessary. Cornelius, you know that if ever one cla.s.s of human beings owed a lifelong grat.i.tude to another, you negroes owe it to your old masters, don't you? Stop! don't you dare to say no? Here you all are; never has one of you felt a pang of helpless hunger or lain one day with a neglected fever. Food, clothing, shelter, you've never suffered a day's doubt about them! No other laboring cla.s.s ever were so free from the cares of life. Your fellow-servants have shown some grat.i.tude; they've stayed with their mistress till I got home to arrange with them under these new conditions. But you--you! when I let you push on ahead and leave me sick and wounded and only half way home--your home and mine, Cornelius--with your promise to wait here till I could come and retain you on wages--you, in pure wantonness, must lift up your heels and prance away into your so-called new liberty. You're a fair sample of what's to come, Cornelius. You've spent your first wages for whiskey.

Silence, you perfidious reptile!

”Oh, Cornelius, you needn't dodge in that way, sir, I'm not going to take you to the stable; thank G.o.d I'm done whipping you and all your kind, for life! Cornelius, I've only one business with you and it's only one word! Go! at once! forever! You should go if it were only----Cornelius, I've been taking care of my own horse! Don't you dare to sleep on these premises to-night. Wait! Tell me what you've done to offend Judge March?”

”Why, Mahse John Wesley, I ain't done nothin' to Jedge Mahch; no, sah, neither defensive nor yit offensive. An' yit mo', I ain't dream o; causin' you sich uprisin' he'plessness. Me and Jedge Mahch”--he began to swell--”has had a stric'ly private disparitude on the subjec' o' extry wages, account'n o' his disinterpretations o' my plans an' his ign'ance o' de law.” He tilted his face and gave himself an argumentative frown of matchless insolence. ”You see, my deah seh----”

Garnet was wearily turning his head from side to side as if in unspeakable pain; a sudden movement of his free arm caused the mulatto to flinch, but the ex-master said, quietly:

”Go on, Cornelius.”

”Ya.s.s. You see, Major, sence dis waugh done put us all on a sawt of equality----” The speaker flinched again.

”Great Heaven!” groaned the Major. ”Cornelius, why, Cor--_ne_lius! you _viper_! if it were not for dishonoring my own roof I'd thrash you right here. I've a good notion----”

”Ow! leggo me! I ain't gwine to 'low no daym rebel----”

Ravenel, stroking Barbara and talking to Mrs. Garnet, saw his hostess start and then try to attend to his words, while out on the veranda rang notes of fright and pain.

”Oh! don't grabble my whole bres' up dat a-way, sah! Please sah! Oh!

don't! You ain't got no mo' right! Oh! Lawd! Mahse John Wesley! Oh! good Lawdy! yo' ban' bites like a _dawg_!”

Ravenel paused in his talk to ask Barbara about the sandman, but the child stared wildly at her mother. Johanna reappeared in the door with a scared face; Barbara burst into loud weeping, and her nurse bore her away crying and bending toward her mother, while from the veranda the wail poured in.

”Oh! Oh! don't resh me back like that! Oh! Oh! my Gawd! Oh! you'll bre'k de bal.u.s.ters! Oh! my Gawd-A'mighty, my back; Mahse John Wesley, you a-breakin' _my back_! Oh, good Lawd 'a' mussy! my po' back! my po' back!