Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (14 page)

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Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Page 81
VIII.
Eliza's Escape
Eliza made her desperate retreat across the river just in the dusk of twilight. The gray mist of evening, rising slowly from the river, enveloped her as she disappeared up the bank, and the swollen current and floundering masses of ice presented a hopeless barrier between her and her pursuer. Haley therefore slowly and discontentedly returned to the little tavern, to ponder further what was to be done. The woman opened to him the door of a little parlor, covered with a rag carpet, where stood a table with a very shining black oil-cloth, sundry lank, high-backed wood chairs, with some plaster images in resplendent colors on the mantel-shelf, above a very dimly-smoking grate; a long hard-wood settle extended its uneasy length by the chimney, and here Haley sat him down to meditate on the instability of human hopes and happiness in general.
"What did I want with the little cuss, now," he said to himself, "that I should have got myself treed like a coon, as I am, this yer way?" and Haley relieved himself by repeating over a not very select litany of imprecations on himself, which, though there was the best possible reason to consider them as true, we shall, as a matter of taste, omit.
He was startled by the loud and dissonant voice of a man who was apparently dismounting at the door. He hurried to the window.
"By the land! if this yer an't the nearest, now, to what I 've heard folks call Providence," said Haley. "I do b'lieve that ar 's Tom Loker."
Haley hastened out. Standing by the bar, in the corner of the room, was a brawny, muscular man, full six feet in height, and broad in proportion. He was dressed in a coat of buffalo-skin, made with the hair outward, which gave him a shaggy and fierce appearance, perfectly in keeping with the whole air of his physiognomy. In the head and face every organ and

 

Page 82
lineament expressive of brutal and unhesitating violence was in a state of the highest possible development. Indeed, could our readers fancy a bull-dog come unto man's estate, and walking about in a hat and coat, they would have no unapt idea of the general style and effect of his physique. He was accompanied by a travelling companion, in many respects an exact contrast to himself. He was short and slender, lithe and cat-like in his motions, and had a peering, mousing expression about his keen black eyes, with which every feature of his face seemed sharpened into sympathy; his thin, long nose, ran out as if it was eager to bore into the nature of things in general; his sleek, thin, black hair was stuck eagerly forward, and all his motions and evolutions expressed a dry, cautious acuteness. The great big man poured out a big tumbler half full of raw spirits, and gulped it down without a word. The little man stood tip-toe, and putting his head first to one side and then to the other, and snuffing considerately in the directions of the various bottles, ordered at last a mint julep, in a thin and quivering voice, and with an air of great circumspection. When poured out, he took it and looked at it with a sharp, complacent air, like a man who thinks he has done about the right thing, and hit the nail on the head, and proceeded to dispose of it in short and well-advised sips.
"Wal, now, who 'd a thought this yer luck 'ad come to me? Why, Loker, how are ye?" said Haley, coming forward, and extending his hand to the big man.
"The devil!" was the civil reply. "What brought you here, Haley?"
The mousing man, who bore the name of Marks, instantly stopped his sipping, and, poking his head forward, looked shrewdly on the new acquaintance, as a cat sometimes looks at a moving dry leaf, or some other possible object of pursuit.
"I say, Tom, this yer 's the luckiest thing in the world. I 'm in a devil of a hobble, and you must help me out."
"Ugh? aw! like enough!" grunted his complacent acquaintance. "A body may be pretty sure of that, when
you 're
glad to see 'em; something to be made off of 'em. What's the blow now?"
"You 've got a friend here?" said Haley, looking doubtfully at Marks; "partner, perhaps?"

 

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"Yes, I have. Here, Marks! here's that ar feller that I was in with in Natchez."
"Shall be pleased with his acquaintance," said Marks, thrusting out a long, thin hand, like a raven's claw. "Mr. Haley, I believe?"
"The same, sir," said Haley. "And now, gentlemen, seein' as we 've met so happily, I think I 'll stand up to a small matter of a treat in this here parlor. So, now, old coon," said he to the man at the bar, "get us hot water, and sugar, and cigars, and plenty of the
real stuff,
and we 'll have a blow-out."
Behold, then, the candles lighted, the fire stimulated to the burning point in the grate, and our three worthies seated round a table, well spread with all the accessories to good fellowship enumerated before.
Haley began a pathetic recital of his peculiar troubles. Loker shut up his mouth, and listened to him with gruff and surly attention. Marks, who was anxiously and with much fidgeting compounding a tumbler of punch to his own peculiar taste, occasionally looked up from his employment, and, poking his sharp nose and chin almost into Haley's face, gave the most earnest heed to the whole narrative. The conclusion of it appeared to amuse him extremely, for he shook his shoulders and sides in silence, and perked up his thin lips with an air of great internal enjoyment.
"So, then, ye 'r fairly sewed up, an't ye?" he said; "he! he! he! It's neatly done, too."
"This yer young-un business makes lots of trouble in the trade," said Haley, dolefully.
"If we could get a breed of gals that did n't care, now, for their young uns," said Marks; "tell ye, I think 't would be 'bout the greatest mod 'rn improvement I knows on,"and Marks patronized his joke by a quiet introductory sniggle.
"Jes so," said Haley; "I never could n't see into it; young uns is heaps of trouble to 'em; one would think, now, they'd be glad to get clar on 'em; but they arn't. And the more trouble a young un is, and the more good for nothing, as a gen'l thing, the tighter they sticks to 'em."
"Wal, Mr. Haley," said Marks, "jest pass the hot water. Yes, sir; you say jest what I feel and all'us have. Now, I bought a gal once, when I was in the trade,a tight, likely

 

Page 84
wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart,and she had a young un that was mis'able sickly; it had a crooked back, or something or other; and I jest gin 't away to a man that thought he'd take his chance raising on 't, being it did n't cost nothin';never thought, yer know, of the gal's takin' on about it,but, Lord, yer oughter seen how she went on. Why, re 'lly, she did seem to me to valley the child more 'cause
't was
sickly and cross, and plagued her; and she warn't making b'lieve, neither,cried about it, she did, and lopped round, as if she 'd lost every friend she had. It re 'lly was droll to think on 't. Lord, there an't no end to women's notions.''
"Wal, jest so with me," said Haley. "Last summer, down on Red river, I got a gal traded off on me, with a likely lookin' child enough, and his eyes looked as bright as yourn; but, come to look, I found him stone blind. Facthe was stone blind. Wal, ye see, I thought there warn't no harm in my jest passing him along, and not sayin' nothin'; and I 'd got him nicely swapped off for a keg o' whiskey; but come to get him away from the gal, she was jest like a tiger. So 't was before we started, and I had n't got my gang chained up; so what should she do but ups on a cotton-bale, like a cat, ketches a knife from one of the deck hands, and, I tell ye, she made all fly for a minit, till she saw 'twan't no use; and she jest turns round, and pitches head first, young un and all, into the river,went down plump, and never ris."
"Bah!" said Tom Loker, who had listened to these stories with ill-repressed disgust,"shif'less, both on ye!
my
gals don't cut up no such shines, I tell ye!"
"Indeed! how do you help it?" said Marks, briskly.
"Help it? why, I buys a gal, and if she 's got a young un to be sold, I jest walks up and puts my fist to her face, and says, 'Look here, now, if you give me one word out of your head, I 'll smash yer face in. I won't hear one wordnot the beginning of a word.' I says to 'em, 'This yer young un 's mine, and not yourn, and you 've no kind o' business with it. I 'm going to sell it, first chance; mind, you don't cut up none o' yer shines about it, or I 'll make ye wish ye 'd never been born.' I tell ye, they sees it an't no play, when I gets hold. I

 

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makes 'em as whist as fishes; and if one on 'em begins and gives a yelp, why," and Mr. Loker brought down his fist with a thump that fully explained the hiatus.
"That ar 's what ye may call
emphasis,"
said Marks, poking Haley in the side, and going into another small giggle. "An't Tom peculiar? he! he! he! I say, Tom, I s'pect you make 'em
understand,
for all niggers' heads is woolly. They don't never have no doubt o' your meaning, Tom. If you an't the devil, Tom, you 's his twin brother, I 'll say that for ye!"
Tom received the compliment with becoming modesty, and began to look as affable as was consistent, as John Bunyan says, "with his doggish nature."
Haley, who had been imbibing very freely of the staple of the evening, began to feel a sensible elevation and enlargement of his moral faculties,a phenomenon not unusual with gentlemen of a serious and reflective turn, under similar circumstances.
"Wal, now, Tom," he said, "ye re 'lly is too bad, as I al'ays have told ye; ye know, Tom, you and I used to talk over these yer matters down in Natchez, and I used to prove to ye that we made full as much, and was as well off for this yer world, by treatin' on 'em well, besides keepin' a better chance for comin' in the kingdom at last, when wust comes to wust, and thar an't nothing else left to get, ye know."
"Boh!" said Tom,
"don't
I know?don't make me too sick with any yer stuff,my stomach is a leetle riled now;" and Tom drank half a glass of raw brandy.
"I say," said Haley, and leaning back in his chair and gesturing impressively, "I 'll say this now, I al'ays meant to drive my trade so as to make money on 't,
fust and foremost,
as much as any man; but, then, trade an't everything, and money an't everything, 'cause we 's all got souls. I don't care, now, who hears me say it,and I think a cussed sight on it,so I may as well come out with it. I b'lieve in religion, and one of these days, when I 've got matters tight and snug, I calculates to tend to my soul and them ar matters; and so what's the use of doin' any more wickedness than 's re 'lly necessary?it don't seem to me it 's 't all prudent."
"Tend to yer soul!" repeated Tom, contemptuously; "take

 

Page 86
a bright look-out to find a soul in you,save yourself any care on that score. If the devil sifts you through a hair sieve, he won't find one."
"Why, Tom, you 're cross," said Haley; "why can 't ye take it pleasant, now, when a feller 's talking for your good?"
"Stop that ar jaw o' yourn, there," said Tom, gruffly. "I can stand most any talk o' yourn but your pious talk,that kills me right up. After all, what 's the odds between me and you? 'Tan't that you care one bit more, or have a bit more feelin',it's clean, sheer, dog meanness, wanting to cheat the devil and save your own skin; don't I see through it? And your 'gettin' religion,' as you call it, arter all, is too p'isin mean for any crittur;run up a bill with the devil all your life, and then sneak out when pay time comes! Boh!"
"Come, come, gentlemen, I say; this is n't business," said Marks. "There 's different ways, you know, of looking at all subjects. Mr. Haley is a very nice man, no doubt, and has his own conscience; and, Tom, you have your ways, and very good ones, too, Tom; but quarrelling, you know, won't answer no kind of purpose. Let 's go to business. Now, Mr. Haley, what is it?you want us to undertake to catch this yer gal?"
"The gal 's no matter of mine,she 's Shelby's; it 's only the boy. I was a fool for buying the monkey!"
"You 're generally a fool!" said Tom, gruffly.
"Come, now, Loker, none of your huffs," said Marks, licking his lips; "you see, Mr. Haley 's a puttin' us in a way of a good job, I reckon; just hold still,these yer arrangements is my forte. This yer gal, Mr. Haley, how is she? what is she?"
"Wal! white and handsomewell brought up. I 'd a gin Shelby eight hundred or a thousand, and then made well on her."
"White and handsomewell brought up!" said Marks, his sharp eyes, nose and mouth, all alive with enterprise. "Look here, now, Loker, a beautiful opening. We 'll do a business here on our own account;we does the catchin'; the boy, of course, goes to Mr. Haley,we takes the gal to Orleans to speculate on. An't it beautiful?"
Tom, whose great heavy mouth had stood ajar during this communication, now suddenly snapped it together, as a big

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