University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

The conference ended with this counsel of the master. The
fellow promised to obey, and the next morning he sallied forth
with the gun as before. By this time, both Mr. Carrington and
myself had begun to take some interest in the issue thus tacitly
made up between the field negro and his annoying visiter. The
anxiety which the former manifested, to destroy, in particular,
one of a tribe, of which the corn-planter has an aversion so
great as to prompt the frequent desire of the Roman tyrant touching
his enemies, and make him wish that they had but one neck
that a single blow might despatch them—was no less ridiculous
than strange; and we both fell to our fancies to account for an
hostility, which could not certainly be accounted for by any ordinary
anxiety of the good planter on such an occasion. It was
evident to both of us that the imagination of Scipio was not inactive
in the strife, and, knowing how exceeding superstitious the
negroes generally are, (and indeed, all inferior people,) after canvassing
the subject in various lights, without coming to any rational
solution, we concluded that the difficulty arose from some
grotesque fear or fancy, with which the fellow had been inspired,
probably by some other negro, on a circumstance as casual as
any one of the thousand by which the Roman augur divined, and
the soothsayer gave forth his oracular responses. Scipio had
good authority for attaching no small importance to the flight or
stoppage of a bird; and, with this grave justification of his troubles,
we resolved to let the matter rest till we could join the
negro in the cornfield, and look for ourselves into the condition of
the rival parties.

This we did that very morning. “'Possum Place,”—for such
had been the whimsical name conferred upon his estate by the
proprietor, in reference to the vast numbers of the little animal,
nightly found upon it, the opossum, the meat of which a sagacious
negro will always prefer to that of a pig,—lay upon the Santee

swamp, and consisted pretty evenly of reclaimed swamp-land, in
which he raised his cotton, and fine high pine-land hammock, on
which he made his corn. To one of the fields of the latter we
made our way about mid-day, and were happy to find Scipio in
actual controversy with the crow that troubled him. Controversy
is scarce the word, but I can find no fitter at this moment.
The parties were some hundred yards asunder. The negro was
busy with his hoe, and the gun leaned conveniently at hand on a
contiguous and charred pine stump, one of a thousand that dotted
the entire surface of the spacious field in which he laboured.
The crow leisurely passed to and fro along the alleys, now lost
among the little hollows and hillocks, and now emerging into sight,
sometimes at a less, sometimes at a greater distance, but always
with a deportment of the most lord-like indifference to the
world around him. His gait was certainly as stately and as lazy
as that of a Castilian the third remove from a king and the tenth
from a shirt. We could discover in him no other singularity but
this marked audacity; and both Mr. Carrington's eyes and mine
were stretched beyond their orbits, but in vain, to discover that
speck of “gray dirt upon he wing,” which Scipio had been very
careful to describe with the particularity of one who felt that the
duty would devolve on him to brush the jacket of the intruder.
We learned from the negro that his sooty visiter had come alone
as usual,—for though there might have been a sprinkling of some
fifty crows here and there about the field, we could not perceive
that any of them had approached to any more familiarity with
the one that annoyed him, than with himself. He had been able
to get no shot as yet, though he did not despair of better fortune
through the day; and, in order to the better assurance of his
hopes, the poor fellow had borne what he seemed to consider the
taunting swagger of the crow all around him, without so much
as lifting weapon, or making a single step towards him.

“Give me your gun,” said Mr. Carrington. “If he walks no
faster than now, I'll give him greater weight to carry.”

But the lazy crow treated the white man with a degree of deference
that made the negro stare. He made off at full speed
with the first movement towards him, and disappeared from sight

in a few seconds. We lost him seemingly among the willows
and fern of a little bay that lay a few hundred yards beyond us.

“What think you of that, Scip?” demanded the master. “I've
done more with a single motion than you've done for days, with
all your poking and pelting. He'll hardly trouble you in a hurry
again, though, if he does, you know well enough now, how to get
rid of him.”

“The negro's face brightened for an instant, but suddenly
changed, while he replied,—

“Ah, mossa, when you back turn, he will come 'gen—he dah
watch you now.”

Sure enough,—we had not proceeded a hundred yards, before
the calls of Scipio drew our attention to the scene we had left.
The bedevilled negro had his hand uplifted with something of an
air of horror, while a finger guided us to the spot where the lazy
crow was taking his rounds, almost in the very place from whence
the hostile advance of Mr. Carrington had driven him; and with
a listless, lounging strut of aristocratic composure, that provoked
our wonder quite as much as the negro's indignation.

“Let us see it out,” said Mr. C., returning to the scene of
action. “At him, Scipio; take your gun and do your best.”

But this did not seem necessary. Our return had the effect of
sending the sooty intruder to a distance, and, after lingering some
time to see if he would reappear while we were present, but without
success, we concluded to retire from the ground. At night,
we gathered from the poor negro that our departure was the signal
for the crow's return. He walked the course with impunity,
though Scipio pursued him several times, and towards the close
of day, in utter desperation, gave him both barrels, not only
without fracturing a feather, but actually, according to Scip's
story, without occasioning in him the slightest discomposure or
alarm. He merely changed his place at each onset, doubled on
his own ground, made a brief circuit, and back again to the old
station, looking as impudently, and walking along as lazily as
ever.