The Haunted Homestead Part 22

He found him--not, as before, walking in the front piazza, where the afternoon sun was now s.h.i.+ning, 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 famis.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d!" 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 pa.s.sions of his nature were aroused; rage, grief, terror and despair, made a h.e.l.l of his bosom.

In pa.s.sing 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 cla.s.s-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 s.h.i.+ning 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 circ.u.mstances:

"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, G.o.d! and the child--the child!"

"'Prawlin' on de floor, kivered with flies an' dirt, cryin' low an'

weak, like, for hunder."