University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
THE UPPER AND THE LOWER LAW.

THE policeman, Blake, was a Vermonter whose grandsire
had been one of the eighty men under Ethan Allen at
the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. The traditions of the Revolution
were therefore something more than barren legends in
Blake's mind. They had inspired him with an enthusiastic
admiration of the republic and its institutions. His patriotism
was a sentiment which all the political and moral corruption,
with which a New York policeman is inevitably brought in
contact, could not corrode or enfeeble.

Even slavery, being tolerated by the Constitution of the
United States, was, in his view, not to be spoken of lightly.
He shut his eyes and his ears to all that could be said in its
condemnation; he opened them to all its palliating features
and facts. Did not statistics prove that the blacks, in a state
of slavery, increase in double the proportion they do in a state
of freedom, surrounded by whites? This comforting argument
was eagerly seized by Blake as a moral sedative.

The Fugitive-Slave Law he was satisfied was strictly in
accordance with both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution
of the United States. Therefore it must be honestly
enforced. The Abolitionists, who were striving to defeat the
execution of the law, were almost as bad as Mississippi repudiators
who were swindling their foreign creditors. So long as we
were enjoying the benefits of the Constitution, was it not mean
and dastardly to undertake to jockey the South out of the
obvious protection of that clause in it which has reference to
the “person held to service or labor,” which we all knew to
mean the slave?

Considerations like these had made Blake one of the most
earnest advocates of the enforcement of the law among his
brethren of the police; and when at last he was called on to
carry it out in the case of Peek, he felt that obedience was a
duty which it would be poltroonery to evade. He went forth,
therefore, with alacrity that morning, resolved to allow no
mawkish sensibility to interfere with his obligations as an
officer and a citizen.

Accompanied by Iverson, he waited on Colonel Delancy
Hyde at the New York Hotel. They found that worthy in
the smoking-room, seated at a small marble table, with a cigar
in his mouth and an emptied tumbler, which smelt strongly
of undiluted whiskey, before him. The Colonel graciously
asked the officers to “liquor.” Iverson assented, but Blake
declined.

A refusal to “liquor,” the Colonel had been bred to regard
as a personal indignity; and so, turning to Blake, he said:
“Look here, stranger! I 'm Colonel Delancy Hyde. Virginia-born,
be Gawd! From one of the oldest families in the State!
None of yer interloping Yankee scum! No Puritan blood in
me! My ahncestor was one of the cavalyers. My father was
one of the largest slave-owners in the State. Now if yer
want to put an affront on me, I 'd jest have yer understand
fust who yer 've got to deal with.”

“Bah!” said Blake, turning on his heel, and walking to the
window.

Iverson, who dreaded a scene, smoothed over the affront
with a lie. “The fact is, Colonel,” whispered he, “Blake
would n't be fit for duty if he were to drink with us. A spoonful
upsets him; but he 's ashamed to confess it. A weak head!
You understand?”

The explanation pacified the Colonel. Indeed, his sympathies
were at once wakened for the unhappy man who could n't
drink. This representative of the interests of slavery certainly
did not prepossess Blake in favor of his mission; but justice
must be done, notwithstanding the character of the claimant.

An addition was now made to the circle. Captain Skinner
and Biggs, the sailor already mentioned, — a short, thick-set
stump of a man, with only one eye, and that black and overarched

by a bushy, gray eyebrow, — a very wicked-looking old
fellow, — entered and made themselves known to the Colonel.
They had come up from New London, to serve as witnesses.
As a matter of policy, the Colonel could not do less than ask
them to join in the raid on the whiskey decanter; and this
they did so effectually that the last drop disappeared in Biggs's
capacious tumbler.

As it was not yet time for the appointment at Charlton's
office, the party, all but Blake, took chairs and lighted cigars,
and the Colonel asked Captain Skinner to narrate the circumstances
of Peek's appearance on board the Albatross.

“Well, you see, Colonel,” said Skinner, “we had been ten
days out, when one night the second mate, as he was poking
about between decks, caught a strange nigger creeping into a
cotton-bale just for'ard of the store-room. We ordered the
nigger out, and he came into the cabin, and pretended to be a
free nigger, and said he 'd pay his passage as soon as he could
git work in New York. In course I knew he was lyin', but
I did n't let on that I suspected him. I played smooth; and
cuss me, if the nigger did n't play smooth too; for he made as
if he believed me; and so when we got to New London, afore
I could git the officers on board, he jumped into the water and
swam to old Payson's boat, and Payson he got him on board
one of the Sound steamers, and had him put through to New
York that same night. The next day Payson attakted me in
the street, knocked me down, and stamped on me, and afore
I could have him tuk up, he was on board that infernal boat of
his, and off out of sight. There 's the scar of the gash Payson
left on my skull.”

Blake, at these words, left the window, and came and looked
at the scar with evident satisfaction. Colonel Hyde, with a
lordly air of patronage, held out his hand to Skinner, and said:
“Capting, the scar is an honor. Capting, yer hand. I love to
meet a high-tone gemmleman, and you 're one. Capting, allow
me to shake yer hand.”

“With pleasure,” said Biggs, taking the Colonel's hand and
shaking it in his own big, coarsely-seamed flipper, before the
Captain had a chance to reach out. The Colonel smiled grimly
at Biggs's playfulness, but said nothing.

“Come! it 's time to go,” exclaimed Iverson, looking at his
watch. The party rose, and proceeded down Broadway to
Charlton's office. We have already seen what transpired on
their arrival. Our business is now with what happened after
their departure.

Three o'clock struck. The small hand on the dial of Trinity
was fast moving toward four; and still Blake paced the floor in
Charlton's office. Every now and then there would be a knock
at the door, and Blake, with a menacing shake of his head,
would impose silence on the conveyancer, till the applicant for
admission, tired of knocking, would go away.

Blake's thoughts were in the condition of a chopping sea
where wind and tide are opposing each other. Reflections that
reached to the very foundation of human society — questions
of abstract right and wrong — were combating old notions
adopted on the authority of others, and as yet untested in the
cupel of his own conscience.

Brought for the first time face to face with the law for the
rendition of fugitive slaves, — encountering it in its practical
operation, — he found in it a barbarous necessity from which
his heart recoiled with horror and disgust. Must he disregard
that pleading cry of conscience, that voice of God and Christ
in his soul, calling on him to do in righteousness unto others as
he would have them do unto him? Could any human enactment
exempt him from that paramount obedience?

How had he felt dwarfed in another's presence that day!
He had seen a man, and that man a negro, putting forth his
manhood in the best way he could to parry the arm of a savage
oppression, doubly fiendish in its mockery, coming as it did
under the respectable escort of the law. Surely the negro
showed himself better worthy of freedom than any white man
among his hunters.

Would the fellow keep his pledge? Would he come back?
Blake now earnestly hoped he would not. Was not any stratagem
justifiable in such a case? Should we mind resorting to
deception in order to rescue ourselves or another from a madman
or a murderer? Why, then, might not Peek violate his
written promise, made as it was to men who were trying to rob
him of a freedom more precious than life to such a soul as his?

But had not he himself — he, Blake — made use of his poor
show of generosity to impress it on Peek that he must prove
worthy the trust reposed in him? This recollection brought
bitter regret to the policeman. Instead of encouraging the
negro to escape, he had put scruples of conscience or of generosity
in his way, which might induce him to return. Would
Blake have done so to his own brother, under similar circumstances?
Would he not have bidden him cheat his persecutors,
and make good his flight? Assuredly yes! And yet to
the poor negro he had practically said, Return!

These reflections wrought powerfully upon Blake. Why not
run and urge the negro to escape? It was still more than an
hour to five o'clock. Yes, he would do it!

Then came a consideration to check the impulse. He, a
sworn officer of the law, should he lend himself to the defeat of
the very law he had taken it upon himself to execute? Was
there not something intensely dishonest in such a course?

Well, he could do one thing at least: he could resign his
office, and then try to undo the mischief he had perhaps done
the negro by his injunction. Yes, he would do that.

Impulsive in all his movements, Blake looked at his watch,
and found he would have just an hour in which to crowd all
the action he proposed to himself. Turning to Charlton, he
said: “Your conduct to this runaway slave will make your life
insecure if I choose to go to certain men in this city and tell
them what I can with truth. What you now are intending to
do is to have the slave intercepted. I don't ask you to promise,
simply because you will lie if you think it safe; but I
say this to you: If I find that any measures are taken before
five o'clock to catch the slave, I shall hold you responsible for
them, and shall expose you to parties who will see you are
paid back for your rascality. Take no step for an arrest, and I
hold my tongue.”

Glad of such a compromise, Charlton replied: “I 'm agreed.
Up to five o'clock I 'll do nothing, directly or indirectly, to
intercept the nigger.”

Blake was speedily in the street after this. He hurried to
the City Hall, found the Chief of Police, gave in his resignation,
deposited Colonel Hyde's pistol among the curiosities

of the room, and said that another man must be found to
attend to the case at Charlton's office. Having in this way
eased his conscience, Blake ran as far as Broadway, and
jumped into an omnibus. But the omnibus was too slow, so he
jumped out and ran down Broadway to Bunker's. How the
precious time flew by! Before he could be satisfied at Bunker's
that Peek was not there, the clock indicated five minutes
of five. He rushed out in the direction of the slave's lodgings.
An old woman with wrinkled face, and bent form, and carrying
a broom, was showing the apartments to an applicant who
thought of moving from the story below. Where were the
negro and his wife? Gone! How long ago? More than two
hours! The clock struck five.

Wholly disheartened, Blake ran back to Charlton's office.
He found it locked. No one answered to his knock. Raising
his foot he kicked open the door with a single effort. The
office was deserted. No one there! He ran to the Jersey
City ferry-boat that carries passengers for the Philadelphia
cars; it had left the wharf some twenty minutes before.
Baffled in all directions, he took his way to the police-station to
find Iverson; but that officer was on duty, nobody knew where.
After waiting at the station till nearly midnight, Blake at last,
worn out with discouragement and fatigue, went home.

What had become of Peek all this time?

Anticipating that he and his wife might at any moment find it
prudent to leave for Canada at half an hour's notice, Peek had
always kept his affairs in a state to enable him to do this conveniently.
He had hired his rooms, furniture, and piano-forte
by the week, paying for them in advance. Two small trunks
were sufficient to contain all his movable property; and these
might be packed in five minutes.

Flora, his wife, who like Peek was of unmixed blood, had
been lady's maid in a family in Vicksburg. Here she had become
an expert in washing and doing up muslins and other fine
articles of female attire. But the lady she served died, and
Flora became the property of Mr. Penfield, a planter, who,
looking on her with the eyes that a cattle-breeder might turn
on a Durham cow, ordered her to marry one Bully Bill, a lusty
African with a neck like the cylinder of a steam-engine. Flora

objected, and learning that her objections would not be respected,
she ran away, and after various fortunes settled at Montreal.
Here she married Peek, who taught her to read and write.
She had been bred a pious Catholic, and Peek, finding that
they agreed in the essentials of a devout and believing heart,
never undertook to disturb her faith.

They moved to New York, and Peek with his wages as
waiter, and Flora with the money she got for doing up muslins,
earned jointly an income which placed them far above want in
the region of absolute comfort and partial refinement. Few
more happy and loyal couples could have been found even in
freestone palaces on the Fifth Avenue.

“Well, Flora, how long will it take you to get ready?” said
Peek, entering the neat little kitchen, where she was at work
at her ironing-board, while little Sterling sat amusing himself
on the floor in building a house with small wooden bricks.

Flora, at once comprehending the intent of the question, replied,
“I sha'n't want more 'n half an hour.”

“Well, a boat leaves for Albany at five,” said Peek, taking
the Sun newspaper, and cutting out an advertisement. “We 'd
better quit here, and go on board just as soon as we can.”

“Le 'm me see,” said Flora, meditatively. “The grocer at
the corner will send round these muslins, 'specially if we pay
him for it. My customers owe me twenty dollars, — how shall
we collek that?”

“You can write to them from Montreal.”

“Lor! so I can, Peek. Who'd have thought of it but you?”

“Come, then! Be lively. Tumble the things into the
trunks. We 'll give poor old Petticum the odds and ends we
leave behind; and she 'll notify the landlord, and take care of
the rooms.”

In less than an hour's time they had made all their preparations,
and were all three in a coach with their luggage, rattling
up Greenwich Street towards one of the Twenties. Here they
went on board an old steamer, recently taken from the regular
line for freighting purposes, and carrying only a few passengers.
Having seen Flora and Sterling safely bestowed with the luggage,
and given the former his watch and all his money, except
a dollar in change, Peek said: “Now, Flora, I 've got to go

ashore on business. If I should n't be here when the boat
starts, do you keep straight on to Montreal without me. Go to
the post-office regularly twice a week to see if there 's a letter
for you.”

“What is it, Peek? Tell me all about it,” said Flora, who
painfully felt there was a secret which her husband did not
choose to disclose.

“Now, Flora, don't be silly,” replied Peek, wiping the tears
from her face with his handkerchief. “I tell you, I may be
aboard again before you start, — have n't made up my mind yet,
— only, if you should n't see me, never you mind, but just
keep on. Find out your old customers in Montreal, and wait
patiently till I join you. So don't cry about it. The Lord
will take care of it all. Here 's a handbill that tells you the
best way to get to Montreal. Look out for pickpockets. I
should n't leave you if I did n't have to, Flora. I 'll tell you
everything about it when we meet. So good by.”

Having no suspicion of the actual cause of Peek's leaving
her, and confident, through faith in him, that it must be for a
right purpose, Flora cheered up, and said: “Well, Peek, I
'spec you 've got some little debts to pay; but do come back
to-day if you can; and keep clar' of the hounds, Peek, —
keep clar' of the hounds.”

And so, kissing wife and child, with an overflowing heart
Peek quitted the boat. He did not at once leave the vicinity.
There was a pile of fresh lumber not far off. Dodging out
of sight behind it, and then sitting down in a little enclosure
formed by the boards, where he could see the boat and not be
seen, he tried to orient his conscience as to his duty under the
extraordinary circumstances in which he found himself.

Go back to the life of a slave? Leave wife and child, and
return to bondage, degradation, subordination to another's will?
He looked out on the beautiful river, flashing in the warm
spring sunshine; to the opposite shore of Hoboken, where he
and Flora used to stroll on Sundays last summer, dragging
Sterling in his little carriage. Was there to be no more of
that pleasant independent life?

A slave? Liable to be kicked, cuffed, spit on, fettered,
scourged by such a creature as Colonel Delancy Hyde? No!

To escape the pursuing fiends who would force such a lot on
an innocent human being, surely any subterfuge, any stratagem,
any lie, would be justifiable!

And Peek thought of the joy that Flora would feel at seeing
him return, and he rose to go back to the boat.

A single thought drew him back to his covert. “So help
me God.” Had he not pledged himself, — pledged himself in
sincerity at the moment in those words? Had he not by his
act promised Blake, who had befriended him, that he would
return, and might not Blake lose his situation if the promise
were broken?

As Peek found conscience getting the better of inclination in
the dispute, he bowed his head in his hands, and wept sobbingly
like a child. Such anguish was there in the thought of a surrender!
Then, extending himself prostrate on the boards, his
face down, and resting on his arms, he strove to shut out
all except the voice of God in his soul. He uttered no word,
but he felt the mastery of a great desire, and that was for
guidance from above. Tender thoughts of the sufferings and
wants of the poor slaves he had left on Barnwell's plantation
stole back to him. Would he not like to see them and be
of service to them once more? What if he should be whipped,
imprisoned? Could he not brave all such risks, for the
satisfaction of keeping a pledge made to a man who had shown
him kindness? And he recalled the words, once spoken through
Corinna, “Not to be happy, but to deserve happiness.”

Besides, might he not again escape? Yes! He would go
back to Charlton's office. He would surrender himself as he
had promised. The words which Colonel Hyde had conceived
to be of no more binding force than a wreath of tobacco-smoke
were the chain stronger than steel that drew the negro back to
the fulfilment of his pledge. “So help me God!” Could he
profane those words, and ever look up again to Heaven for
succor?

And so he rose, took one despairing look at the boat, where
he could see Flora pointing out to her little boy the wonders of
the river, and then rushed away in the direction of Broadway.
There was no lack of omnibuses, but no friendly driver would
give him a seat on top, and he was excluded by social prejudice

from the inside. It was twenty minutes to five when
he reached Union Park. Thence running all the way in the
middle of the street with the carriages, he reached Charlton's
office before the clock had finished striking the hour.

There had been wrangling and high words just before his
entrance. Colonel Delancy Hyde was ejecting his wrath
against the universal Yankee nation in the choicest terms of
vituperation that his limited vocabulary could supply. The
loss of both his nigger and his revolver had been too much for
his equanimity. Captain Skinner and his companion, Biggs,
were sturdily demanding their fees, which did not seem to be
forthcoming. Charlton, in abject grief of heart, was silently
lamenting the loss of his fifty dollars, forfeited by the non-delivery
of the slave; and Iverson, the policeman, was delicately
insinuating in the ear of the lawyer that he should look to him
for his pay.

Peek, entering in this knotty condition of affairs, was the
Deus ex machina to disentangle the complication and set the
wheels smoothly in motion. No one believed he would come
back, and there issued from the lips of all an exclamation of
surprise, not unseasoned with oaths to suit the several tastes.

“Cuss me if here ain't the nigger himself come back!” exclaimed
the Colonel. “Wall, Peek, I did n't reckon you was
gwine to keep yer word, and it made me swar some to see how
I 'd been chiselled fust out of my revolver and then out of my
nigger, by a damned Yankee policeman. But here you air,
and we 'll fix things right off, so 's to be ready for the next
Philadelphy train, if so be yer 'll go without any fuss.”

“Yes, I 'll go, Colonel,” said Peek, “but you 'll have an
officer to see I don't escape from the cars.”

“Thar 's seventy-five dollars expense, blast yer!” exclaimed
the Colonel. “Yes, be Gawd! I 've got to pay this man for
goin' to Cincinnati and back. O, but old Hawks will take your
damned hide off when we git you back in Texas, — sure!”

Peek, to serve some purpose of his own, here dropped his
dignity entirely, and assumed the manner and language of the
careless, rollicking plantation nigger. “Yah! yah!” laughed
he. “Wall, look a-he-ah, Kunnle Delancy Hyde. Les make a
trade, — we two, — and git rid of the policeman altogedder. I

can sabe yer fifty dollars, shoo-er-r-r, Kunnle Delancy Hyde, if
you 'll do as how dis nigger tells yer to.”

“How 'll yer do it, Peek?” asked the Colonel, much pacified
by the slave's repetition of his entire name and title.

“I 'll promise to be a good nigger all the way to Cincinnati,
and not try to run away, — no, not wunst, — if you 'll pay me
twenty-five dollars.”

“Will yer sign to that, Peek, and put in, `So help me
Gawd'?” asked the Colonel.

Peek started, and looked sharply at Hyde; and then quietly
replied, “Yes, I 'll do it, if you 'll gib me the money to do with
as I choose; but you must agree to le 'm me write a letter, and
put it in the post-office afore we leeb.”

The Colonel considered the matter a moment, then turned
to Charlton, and said, “Draw up an agreement, and let the
nigger sign it, and be sure and put in, `So help me Gawd.'”

The arrangement was speedily concluded. The witnesses
and the officers were paid off. Charlton received his fifty
dollars and Peek his twenty-five. The slave then asked for
pen, ink, and paper, and placed five cents on the table as payment.
In two minutes he finished a letter to Flora, and
enclosed it with the money in an envelope, on which he wrote
an address. Charlton tried hard to get a sight of it, but Peek
did not give him a chance to do this.

The Colonel and Peek then walked to the post-office, where
the slave deposited his letter; after which they passed over to
Jersey City in the ferry-boat, and took the train to Philadelphia.

As for Charlton, no sooner had his company left him, than
he seized his hat, locked up his office, and hurried to Greenwich
Street, where he proceeded to examine the lodgings
vacated by Peek. He found Mrs. Petticum engaged in collecting
into baskets the various articles abandoned to her by
the negroes, — old dusters, a hod of charcoal, kindling-wood,
loaves of bread, and small collections of groceries, sufficient for
the family for a week. Mrs. Petticum appeared to have been
weeping, for she raised her apron and wiped her eyes as Charlton
came in.

“Well, have they gone?” asked he.

“Yes, sir, and the wuss for me!” said the old woman.

Charlton took his cue at once, and replied: “They were
excellent people, and I 'm sorry they 've gone. What was the
matter? Were the slave-catchers after them?”

“I don't know,” sighed Petticum; “I should n't wonder.
Poor Flora! That was all she worried about. I 'd like to
have got my hands in the hair of the man that would have
carried her off. Where 'll you find the white folks better and
decenter than they was?”

“Not in New York, ma'am,” said Charlton, stealthily looking
about the room, examining every article of furniture, and
opening the drawers.

“The furniture belongs to Mr. Craig; but all in the drawers
is mine,” said the old woman, not favorably impressed by Charlton's
inquisitiveness.

“O, it 's all right,” replied Charlton; “I did n't know but I
could be of some help. You 've no idea where they went to?”

“They did n't tell me, and if I knowed, I should n't tell you,
without I knowed they wanted me to.”

“O, it 's no sort of consequence. I 'm a particular friend,
that 's all,” said Charlton. “Did you notice the carriage
they went off in?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Could you tell me the number?”

“No, I could n't.”

Seeing an old handkerchief in one of the baskets, Charlton
took it out, and looked at the mark. He could get nothing
from that; so he threw it back. An old shoe lay swept in a
corner. He took it up. Stamped on the inner sole were the
words, “J. Darling, Ladies' Shoes, Vicksburg.” Charlton
copied the inscription in his memorandum-book before putting
the shoe back where he had found it. The Sun newspaper
lay on the floor. Taking it up, he found that an advertisement
had been cut out. Selecting an opportunity when Mrs.
Petticum was not looking, he thrust the paper in his pocket.

And then, after examining an old stove-funnel, he went out.

“He 's no gentleman, anyhow,” said Mrs. Petticum; “and
I don't believe he ever was a friend of the Jacobses.”