 | CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE STRATAGEM. Uncle Tom's cabin, or, Life among the lowly |  |
39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE STRATAGEM.
“The way of the wicked is as darkness; he knoweth not at what he
stumbleth.”
The garret of the house that Legree occupied, like most
other garrets, was a great, desolate space, dusty, hung with
cobwebs, and littered with cast-off lumber. The opulent
family that had inhabited the house in the days of its splendor
had imported a great deal of splendid furniture, some of
which they had taken away with them, while some remained
standing desolate in mouldering, unoccupied rooms, or stored
away in this place. One or two immense packing-boxes, in
which this furniture was brought, stood against the sides of
the garret. There was a small window there, which let in,
the tall, high-backed chairs and dusty tables, that had once
seen better days. Altogether, it was a weird and ghostly
place; but, ghostly as it was, it wanted not in legends among
the superstitious negroes, to increase its terrors. Some few
years before, a negro woman, who had incurred Legree's displeasure,
was confined there for several weeks. What passed
there, we do not say; the negroes used to whisper darkly to
each other; but it was known that the body of the unfortunate
creature was one day taken down from there, and
buried; and, after that, it was said that oaths and cursings,
and the sound of violent blows, used to ring through that old
garret, and mingled with wailings and groans of despair.
Once, when Legree chanced to overhear something of this
kind, he flew into a violent passion, and swore that the next
one that told stories about that garret should have an opportunity
of knowing what was there, for he would chain them
up there for a week. This hint was enough to repress talking,
though, of course, it did not disturb the credit of the
story in the least.
Gradually, the staircase that led to the garret, and even
the passage-way to the staircase, were avoided by every one
in the house, from every one fearing to speak of it, and the
legend was gradually falling into desuetude. It had suddenly
occurred to Cassy to make use of the superstitious excitability,
which was so great in Legree, for the purpose of her
liberation, and that of her fellow-sufferer.
The sleeping-room of Cassy was directly under the garret.
One day, without consulting Legree, she suddenly took it
upon her, with some considerable ostentation, to change all
the furniture and appurtenances of the room to one at some
considerable distance. The under-servants, who were called
with great zeal and confusion, when Legree returned from a
ride.
“Hallo! you Cass!” said Legree, “what 's in the wind
now?”
“Nothing; only I choose to have another room,” said
Cassy, doggedly.
“And what for, pray?” said Legree.
“I choose to,” said Cassy.
“The devil you do! and what for?”
“I 'd like to get some sleep, now and then.”
“Sleep! well, what hinders your sleeping?”
“I could tell, I suppose, if you want to hear,” said Cassy,
dryly.
“Speak out, you minx!” said Legree.
“O! nothing. I suppose it would n't disturb you! Only
groans, and people scuffling, and rolling round on the garret
floor, half the night, from twelve to morning!”
“People up garret!” said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a
laugh; “who are they, Cassy?”
Cassy raised her sharp, black eyes, and looked in the face
of Legree, with an expression that went through his bones, as
she said, “To be sure, Simon, who are they? I 'd like to
have you tell me. You don't know, I suppose!”
With an oath, Legree struck at her with his riding-whip;
but she glided to one side, and passed through the door, and
looking back, said, “If you 'll sleep in that room, you 'll
know all about it. Perhaps you 'd better try it!” and then
immediately she shut and locked the door.
Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down
the door; but apparently thought better of it, and walked
uneasily into the sitting-room. Cassy perceived that her
exquisite address, she never ceased to continue the train of
influences she had begun.
In a knot-hole of the garret, that had opened, she had
inserted the neck of an old bottle, in such a manner that
when there was the least wind, most doleful and lugubrious
wailing sounds proceeded from it, which, in a high wind,
increased to a perfect shriek, such as to credulous and superstitious
ears might easily seem to be that of horror and
despair.
These sounds were, from time to time, heard by the servants,
and revived in full force the memory of the old ghost
legend. A superstitious creeping horror seemed to fill the
house; and though no one dared to breathe it to Legree, he
found himself encompassed by it, as by an atmosphere.
No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.
The Christian is composed by the belief of a wise, all-ruling
Father, whose presence fills the void unknown with light and
order; but to the man who has dethroned God, the spirit-land
is, indeed, in the words of the Hebrew poet, “a land of darkness
and the shadow of death,” without any order, where the
light is as darkness. Life and death to him are haunted
grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy
dread.
Legree had had the slumbering moral element in him
roused by his encounters with Tom, — roused, only to be
resisted by the determinate force of evil; but still there was
a thrill and commotion of the dark, inner world, produced by
every word, or prayer, or hymn, that reäcted in superstitious
dread.
The influence of Cassy over him was of a strange and singular
kind. He was her owner, her tyrant and tormentor.
help or redress, in his hands; and yet so it is, that the most
brutal man cannot live in constant association with a strong
female influence, and not be greatly controlled by it. When
he first bought her, she was, as she had said, a woman delicately
bred; and then he crushed her, without scruple, beneath
the foot of his brutality. But, as time, and debasing influences,
and despair, hardened womanhood within her, and waked the
fires of fiercer passions, she had become in a measure his mistress,
and he alternately tyrannized over and dreaded her.
This influence had become more harassing and decided,
since partial insanity had given a strange, weird, unsettled
cast to all her words and language.
A night or two after this, Legree was sitting in the old
sitting-room, by the side of a flickering wood fire, that threw
uncertain glances round the room. It was a stormy, windy
night, such as raises whole squadrons of nondescript noises in
rickety old houses. Windows were rattling, shutters flapping,
the wind carousing, rumbling, and tumbling down the chimney,
and, every once in a while, puffing out smoke and ashes,
as if a legion of spirits were coming after them. Legree had
been casting up accounts and reading newspapers for some
hours, while Cassy sat in the corner, sullenly looking into the
fire. Legree laid down his paper, and seeing an old book
lying on the table, which he had noticed Cassy reading, the
first part of the evening, took it up, and began to turn it over.
It was one of those collections of stories of bloody murders,
ghostly legends, and supernatural visitations, which, coarsely
got up and illustrated, have a strange fascination for one who
once begins to read them.
Legree poohed and pished, but read, turning page after
book, with an oath.
“You don't believe in ghosts, do you, Cass?” said he,
taking the tongs and settling the fire. “I thought you 'd
more sense than to let noises scare you.”
“No matter what I believe,” said Cassy, sullenly.
“Fellows used to try to frighten me with their yarns at
sea,” said Legree. “Never come it round me that way.
I 'm too tough for any such trash, tell ye.”
Cassy sat looking intensely at him in the shadow of the
corner. There was that strange light in her eyes that always
impressed Legree with uneasiness.
“Them noises was nothing but rats and the wind,” said
Legree. “Rats will make a devil of a noise. I used to
hear 'em sometimes down in the hold of the ship; and wind,
— Lord's sake! ye can make anything out o' wind.”
Cassy knew Legree was uneasy under her eyes, and, therefore,
she made no answer, but sat fixing them on him, with
that strange, unearthly expression, as before.
“Come, speak out, woman, — don't you think so?” said
Legree.
“Can rats walk down stairs, and come walking through
the entry, and open a door when you 've locked it and set a
chair against it?” said Cassy; “and come walk, walk, walking
right up to your bed, and put out their hand, so?”
Cassy kept her glittering eyes fixed on Legree, as she
spoke, and he stared at her like a man in the nightmare, till,
when she finished by laying her hand, icy cold, on his, he
sprung back, with an oath.
“Woman! what do you mean? Nobody did?” —
“O, no, — of course not, — did I say they did?” said
Cassy, with a smile of chilling derision.
“But — did — have you really seen? — Come, Cass, what
is it, now, — speak out!”
“You may sleep there, yourself,” said Cassy, “if you
want to know.”
“Did it come from the garret, Cassy?”
“It, — what?” said Cassy.
“Why, what you told of —”
“I did n't tell you anything,” said Cassy, with dogged
sullenness.
Legree walked up and down the room, uneasily.
“I 'll have this yer thing examined. I 'll look into it, this
very night. I 'll take my pistols —”
“Do,” said Cassy; “sleep in that room. I 'd like to see
you doing it. Fire your pistols, — do!”
Legree stamped his foot, and swore violently.
“Don't swear,” said Cassy; “nobody knows who may be
hearing you. Hark! What was that?”
“What?” said Legree, starting.
A heavy old Dutch clock, that stood in the corner of the
room, began, and slowly struck twelve.
For some reason or other, Legree neither spoke nor moved;
a vague horror fell on him; while Cassy, with a keen, sneering
glitter in her eyes, stood looking at him, counting the
strokes.
“Twelve o'clock; well, now we 'll see,” said she, turning,
and opening the door into the passage-way, and standing as
if listening.
“Hark! What 's that?” said she, raising her finger.
“It 's only the wind,” said Legree. “Don't you hear
how cursedly it blows?”
“Simon, come here,” said Cassy, in a whisper, laying her
you know what that is? Hark!”
A wild shriek came pealing down the stairway. It came
from the garret. Legree's knees knocked together; his face
grew white with fear.
“Had n't you better get your pistols?” said Cassy, with a
sneer that froze Legree's blood. “It 's time this thing was
looked into, you know. I 'd like to have you go up now;
they 're at it.”
“I won't go!” said Legree, with an oath.
“Why not? There an't any such thing as ghosts, you
know! Come!” and Cassy flitted up the winding stairway,
laughing, and looking back after him. “Come on.”
“I believe you are the devil!” said Legree. “Come back,
you hag, — come back, Cass! You shan't go!”
But Cassy laughed wildly, and fled on. He heard her
open the entry doors that led to the garret. A wild gust of
wind swept down, extinguishing the candle he held in his
hand, and with it the fearful, unearthly screams; they seemed
to be shrieked in his very ear.
Legree fled frantically into the parlor, whither, in a few
moments, he was followed by Cassy, pale, calm, cold as an
avenging spirit, and with that same fearful light in her eye.
“I hope you are satisfied,” said she.
“Blast you, Cass!” said Legree.
“What for?” said Cassy. “I only went up and shut the
doors. What 's the matter with that garret, Simon, do
you suppose?” said she.
“None of your business!” said Legree.
“O, it an't? Well,” said Cassy, “at any rate, I 'm glad
I don't sleep under it.”
Anticipating the rising of the wind, that very evening,
the moment the doors were opened, the wind had drafted
down, and extinguished the light.
This may serve as a specimen of the game that Cassy
played with Legree, until he would sooner have put his head
into a lion's mouth than to have explored that garret. Meanwhile,
in the night, when everybody else was asleep, Cassy
slowly and carefully accumulated there a stock of provisions
sufficient to afford subsistence for some time; she transferred,
article by article, a greater part of her own and Emmeline's
wardrobe. All things being arranged, they only waited a
fitting opportunity to put their plan in execution.
By cajoling Legree, and taking advantage of a good-natured
interval, Cassy had got him to take her with him to
the neighboring town, which was situated directly on the Red
river. With a memory sharpened to almost preternatural
clearness, she remarked every turn in the road, and formed
a mental estimate of the time to be occupied in traversing it.
At the time when all was matured for action, our readers
may, perhaps, like to look behind the scenes, and see the final
coup d'état.
It was now near evening. Legree had been absent, on a
ride to a neighboring farm. For many days Cassy had been
unusually gracious and accommodating in her humors; and
Legree and she had been, apparently, on the best of terms.
At present, we may behold her and Emmeline in the room of
the latter, busy in sorting and arranging two small bundles.
“There, these will be large enough,” said Cassy. “Now
put on your bonnet, and let 's start: it 's just about the right
time.”
“Why, they can see us yet,” said Emmeline.
“I mean they shall,” said Cassy, coolly. “Don't you
The way of the thing is to be just this: — We will steal out
of the back door, and run down by the quarters. Sambo or
Quimbo will be sure to see us. They will give chase, and we
will get into the swamp; then, they can't follow us any further
till they go up and give the alarm, and turn out the
dogs, and so on; and, while they are blundering round, and
tumbling over each other, as they always do, you and I will
just slip along to the creek, that runs back of the house, and
wade along in it, till we get opposite the back door. That
will put the dogs all at fault; for scent won't lie in the water.
Every one will run out of the house to look after us, and
then we 'll whip in at the back door, and up into the garret,
where I 've got a nice bed made up in one of the great boxes.
We must stay in that garret a good while; for, I tell you, he
will raise heaven and earth after us. He 'll muster some of
those old overseers on the other plantations, and have a great
hunt; and they 'll go over every inch of ground in that
swamp. He makes it his boast that nobody ever got away
from him. So let him hunt at his leisure.”
“Cassy, how well you have planned it!” said Emmeline.
“Who ever would have thought of it, but you?”
There was neither pleasure nor exultation in Cassy's eyes,
— only a despairing firmness.
“Come,” she said, reaching her hand to Emmeline.
The two fugitives glided noiselessly from the house, and
flitted, through the gathering shadows of evening, along by
the quarters. The crescent moon, set like a silver signet
in the western sky, delayed a little the approach of night. As
Cassy expected, when quite near the verge of the swamps that
encircled the plantation, they heard a voice calling to them to
stop. It was not Sambo, however, but Legree, who was pursuing
spirit of Emmeline gave way; and, laying hold of Cassy's
arm, she said, “O, Cassy, I 'm going to faint!”
“If you do, I 'll kill you!” said Cassy, drawing a small,
glittering stiletto, and flashing it before the eyes of the girl.
The diversion accomplished the purpose. Emmeline did
not faint, and succeeded in plunging, with Cassy, into a part
of the labyrinth of swamp, so deep and dark that it was perfectly
hopeless for Legree to think of following them, without
assistance.
“Well,” said he, chuckling brutally; “at any rate, they 've
got themselves into a trap now — the baggages! They 're
safe enough. They shall sweat for it!”
“Hulloa, there! Sambo! Quimbo! All hands!” called
Legree, coming to the quarters, when the men and women
were just returning from work. “There 's two runaways in
the swamps. I 'll give five dollars to any nigger as catches
'em. Turn out the dogs! Turn out Tiger, and Fury, and
the rest!”
The sensation produced by this news was immediate. Many
of the men sprang forward, officiously, to offer their services,
either from the hope of the reward, or from that cringing subserviency
which is one of the most baleful effects of slavery.
Some ran one way, and some another. Some were for getting
flambeaux of pine-knots. Some were uncoupling the dogs,
whose hoarse, savage bay added not a little to the animation
of the scene.
“Mas'r, shall we shoot 'em, if we can't cotch 'em?” said
Sambo, to whom his master brought out a rifle.
“You may fire on Cass, if you like; it 's time she was
gone to the devil, where she belongs; but the gal, not,” said
Legree. “And now, boys, be spry and smart. Five dollars
you, anyhow.”
The whole band, with the glare of blazing torches, and
whoop, and shout, and savage yell, of man and beast, proceeded
down to the swamp, followed, at some distance, by
every servant in the house. The establishment was, of a
consequence, wholly deserted, when Cassy and Emmeline
glided into it the back way. The whooping and shouts of
their pursuers were still filling the air; and, looking from the
sitting-room windows, Cassy and Emmeline could see the
troop, with their flambeaux, just dispersing themselves along
the edge of the swamp.
“See there!” said Emmeline, pointing to Cassy; “the
hunt is begun! Look how those lights dance about! Hark!
the dogs! Don't you hear? If we were only there, our
chance would n't be worth a picayune. O, for pity's sake,
do let 's hide ourselves. Quick!”
“There's no occasion for hurry,” said Cassy, coolly; “they
are all out after the hunt, — that 's the amusement of the
evening! We 'll go up stairs, by and by. Meanwhile,” said
she, deliberately taking a key from the pocket of a coat that
Legree had thrown down in his hurry, “meanwhile I shall
take something to pay our passage.”
She unlocked the desk, took from it a roll of bills, which
she counted over rapidly.
“O, don't let 's do that!” said Emmeline.
“Don't!” said Cassy; “why not? Would you have us
starve in the swamps, or have that that will pay our way to
the free states? Money will do anything, girl.” And, as
she spoke, she put the money in her bosom.
“It would be stealing,” said Emmeline, in a distressed
whisper.
“Stealing!” said Cassy, with a scornful laugh. “They
who steal body and soul need n't talk to us. Every one of
these bills is stolen, — stolen from poor, starving, sweating
creatures, who must go to the devil at last, for his profit. Let
him talk about stealing! But come, we may as well go up
garret; I 've got a stock of candles there, and some books to
pass away the time. You may be pretty sure they won't
come there to inquire after us. If they do, I 'll play ghost
for them.”
When Emmeline reached the garret, she found an immense
box, in which some heavy pieces of furniture had once been
brought, turned on its side, so that the opening faced the
wall, or rather the eaves. Cassy lit a small lamp, and, creeping
round under the eaves, they established themselves in it.
It was spread with a couple of small mattresses and some
pillows; a box near by was plentifully stored with candles,
provisions, and all the clothing necessary to their journey,
which Cassy had arranged into bundles of an astonishingly
small compass.
“There,” said Cassy, as she fixed the lamp into a small
hook, which she had driven into the side of the box for that
purpose; “this is to be our home for the present. How do
you like it?”
“Are you sure they won't come and search the garret?”
“I 'd like to see Simon Legree doing that,” said Cassy.
“No, indeed; he will be too glad to keep away. As to the
servants, they would any of them stand and be shot, sooner
than show their faces here.”
Somewhat reässured, Emmeline settled herself back on her
pillow.
“What did you mean, Cassy, by saying you would kill
me?” she said, simply.
“I meant to stop your fainting,” said Cassy, “and I did
do it. And now I tell you, Emmeline, you must make up
your mind not to faint, let what will come; there 's no sort
of need of it. If I had not stopped you, that wretch might
have had his hands on you now.”
Emmeline shuddered.
The two remained some time in silence. Cassy busied
herself with a French book; Emmeline, overcome with the
exhaustion, fell into a doze, and slept some time. She was
awakened by loud shouts and outcries, the tramp of horses'
feet, and the baying of dogs. She started up, with a faint
shriek.
“Only the hunt coming back,” said Cassy, coolly; “never
fear. Look out of this knot-hole. Don't you see 'em all
down there? Simon has to give it up, for this night. Look,
how muddy his horse is, flouncing about in the swamp; the
dogs, too, look rather crest-fallen. Ah, my good sir, you 'll
have to try the race again and again, — the game is n't there.”
“O, don't speak a word!” said Emmeline; “what if they
should hear you?”
“If they do hear anything, it will make them very particular
to keep away,” said Cassy. “No danger; we may
make any noise we please, and it will only add to the effect.”
At length the stillness of midnight settled down over the
house. Legree, cursing his ill luck, and vowing dire vengeance
on the morrow, went to bed.
| CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE STRATAGEM. Uncle Tom's cabin, or, Life among the lowly | |