Part 14 (1/2)
The doctor arrested her hand when she would have covered the face.
”He must have been a fine-looking fellow in his day!” he said, more to himself than to her. ”But he has lived fast, burned himself up alive with liquor.”
”I didn't call n.o.body, sir, to help me, 'cause n.o.body couldn't do no good, and I was afeared of wakin' the gentlemen and ladies, a trottin'
up and downstairs,” continued Phillis, bent upon exculpating herself from all blame in the affair, and mistaking his momentary pensiveness for displeasure.
”You were quite right, old lady! All the doctors and medicines in the world could not have pulled him through after the drink and the snow had had their way with him for so many hours--poor devil! Well! I'll go back to bed now, and finish my morning nap.”
He was at the threshold when he bethought himself of a final injunction.
”You had better keep an eye upon these things, Aunty!” pointing to the coat and other garments she had ranged upon chairs to dry in front of the fire. ”There will be a coroner's inquest, I suppose, and there may be papers in his pockets which will tell who he was and where he belonged. When you are through in here, lock the door and take out the key--and if you can help it, don't let a whisper of this get abroad before breakfast. It will spoil the ladies' appet.i.tes. If anybody asks how he is, say 'a little better.' He can't be worse off than he was in life, let him be where he may.”
”Yes, sir,” answered Phillis, in meek obedience. ”But I don't think he was the kind his folks would care to keep track on, nor the sort that carries valeyble papers 'round with 'em.”
”I reckon you are not far out of the way there!” laughed the doctor, subduedly, lest the echo in the empty hall might reach the sleepers on the second floor, and he ran lightly down the garret steps.
The inquest sat that afternoon. It was a leisure season with planters, and a jury was easily collected by special messengers--twelve jolly neighbors, who were not averse to the prospect of a gla.s.s of Mrs.
Sutton's famous egg-nogg, and a social smoke around the fire in the great dining-room, even though these were prefaced by ten minutes'
solemn discussion over the remains of the nameless wayfarer.
His s.h.i.+rt was marked with some illegible characters, done in faded ink, which four of the jury spelled out as ”James Knowlton,” three others made up into ”Jonas Lamson,” and the remaining five declined deciphering at all. Upon one sock were the letters ”R. M.” upon the fellow, ”G. B.”
With these unavailable exceptions, there was literally no clue to his name, profession, or residence, to be gathered from his person or apparel. The intelligent jury brought in a unanimous verdict--”Name unknown. Died from the effects of drink and exposure;” the foreman pulled the sheet again over the blank, chalky face, and the s.h.i.+vering dozen wound their way to the warmer regions, where the expected confection awaited them.
Their decorous carousal was at its height, and the ladies, one and all, had sought their respective rooms to recuperate their wearied energies by a loll, if not a siesta, that they might be in trim for the evening's enjoyment (Christmas lasted a whole week at Ridgeley) when four strapping field hands, barefooted, that their tramp might not break the epicurean slumbers, brought down from the desolate upper chamber a rough pine coffin, manufactured and screwed tight by the plantation carpenter, and after halting a minute in the back porch to pull on their boots, took their way across the lawn and fields to the servants' burial-place.
This was in a pine grove, two furlongs or more from the garden fence, forming the lower enclosure of the mansion grounds. The intervening dell was knee-deep in drifted snow, the hillside bare in spots, and ridged high in others, where the wind-currents had swirled from base to summit.
The pa.s.sage was a toilsome one, and the stalwart bearers halted several times to s.h.i.+ft their light burden before they laid it down upon the mound of mixed snow and red clay at the mouth of the grave. Half-a-dozen others were waiting there to a.s.sist in the interment, and at the head of the pit stood a white-headed negro, shaking with palsy and cold--the colored chaplain of the region, who, more out of custom and superst.i.tion than a sense of religious responsibility--least of all motives, through respect for the dead--had braved the inclement weather to say a prayer over the wanderer's last home.
The storm had abated at noon, and the snow no longer fell, but there had been no suns.h.i.+ne through all the gloomy day, and the clouds were now mustering thickly again to battle, while the rising gale in the pine-tops was hoa.r.s.e and wrathful. Far as the eye could reach were untrodden fields of snow; gently-rolling hills, studded with shrubs and tinged in patches by russet bristles of broom-straw; the river swollen into blackness between the white banks, and the dark horizon of forest seeming to uphold the gray firmament. To the right of the spectator, who stood on the eminence occupied by the cemetery, lay Ridgeley, with its environing outhouses, crowning the most ambitious height of the chain, the smoke from its chimneys and those of the village of cabins beating laboriously upward, to be borne down at last by the lowering ma.s.s of chilled vapor.
The coffin was deposited in its place with scant show of reverence, and without removing their hats, the bystanders leaned on their spades, and looked to the preacher for the ceremony that was to authorize them to hurry through with their distasteful task. That the gloom of the hour and scene, and the utter forlornness of all the accompaniments of what was meant for Christian burial, had stamped themselves upon the mind and heart of the unlettered slave, was evident from the brief sentences he quavered out--joining his withered hands and raising his bleared eyes toward the threatening heavens:
”Lord! what is man, that thou art mindful of him! For that which befalleth man befalleth beasts--even one thing befalleth them. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? Man cometh in with vanity and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. The dead know not anything, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished, neither have they a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun.
”Lord! teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Oh, spare ME, that I may recover strength, ere I go hence and be no more!
”In the name of the FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST--dust to dust, and ashes to ashes! Amen!”
”By the way, Mr. Aylett, the poor wretch up-stairs should be buried at the expense of the county,” remarked the coroner, before taking leave of Ridgeley and the egg-nogg bowl. ”I will take the poor-house on my way home, and tell the overseer to send a coffin and a cart over in the morning. You don't care to have the corpse in the house longer than necessary, I take it? The sooner he is in the Potter's Field, the more agreeable for you and everybody else.”
Mr. Aylett pointed through the back window at the winding path across the fields.
A short line of black dots was seen coming along it, in the direction of the house. As they neared it they were discovered to be men, each with a hoe or shovel upon his shoulder.
”The deed is done!” said the master, smiling. ”My good fellows there have spared the county the expense, and the overseer the trouble of this little matter. As for the Potter's Field, a place in my servants'
burying-ground is quite as respectable, and more convenient in this weather.”