SYMPATHY CASTETH OUT FEAR—CONSEQUENCE OF THE NIGHT'S WATCH—TROUBLED REFLECTIONS.

Morn did break, bright and clear, over the face of the sleeping earth! It was a still and blessed hour. Man, hushed from his rushing activity, lay reposeful in the arms of "Death's counterfeit—sleep." All animated nature was quiet and calm, till, suddenly, a gush of melody broke from the clear throats of the wildwood birds and made the air vocal. Another day was dawning; another day born to witness sins and cruelties the most direful. Do we not often wonder why the sky can smile so blue and lovingly, when such outrages are enacted beneath it? But I must not anticipate.

As soon as the sun had fairly risen I knocked at the house-door, which was opened by Miss Bradly, whose languid face and crumpled dress, proved that she had taken no rest during the night. Bidding her a polite good-morning, I inquired if the ladies had risen? She answered that they were still asleep, and had rested well during the night. I next inquired for master's health.

"Oh," said she, "I think he is well, quite well again. He slept soundly. I think he only suffered from a violent and sudden mental excitement. A good night's rest, and a sedative that I administered, have restored him; but to-day, oh, to-day, how I do dread to-day."

To the latter part of this speech I made no answer; for, of late, I had learned to distrust her. Even if her belief was right, I could not recognize her as one heroic enough to promulgate it from the house-tops. I saw in her only a weak, servile soul, drawn down from the lofty purpose of philanthropy, seduced by the charm of "vile lucre." Therefore I observed a rigid silence. Feeling a little embarrassed, I began playing with the strings of my apron, for I was fearful that the expression of my face might betray what was working in my mind.

"What is the matter, Ann?"

This recalled the tragedy that had occurred in the cabin, and I said, in a faltering tone,

"Death has been among us. Poor Aunt Polly is gone."

"Is it possible? When did she die? Poor old creature!"

"She died some time before midnight. When I left the house I was surprised to find her still sleeping, so I thought perhaps she was too sluggish, and, upon attempting to arouse her, I discovered that she was dead!"

"Why did you not come and inform me? I would have assisted you in the last sad offices."

"Oh, I did not like to disturb you. I did everything very well myself."

"Johnny and I sat up all night; that is, I suppose he was up, though he left the room a little after midnight, and has not since returned. I should not wonder if he has been walking the better part of the night. He so loves solitude and the night-time—but then," she added, musingly "he has a bad cough, and it may be dangerous. The night was chilly, the atmosphere heavy. What if this imprudence should rapidly develop a fearful disease?" She seemed much concerned.

"I will go," said she, "and search for him;" but ere these words had fairly died upon her lips, we were startled by a cough, and, looking up, we beheld the subject of our conversation within a few steps of us. Oh, how wretchedly he was changed! It appeared as if the wreck of years had been accomplished in the brief space of a night. Haggard and pale, with his eyes roving listlessly, dark purple lines of unusual depth surrounding them, and with his bright, gold hair, heavy with the dew, and hanging neglected around his noble head, even his clear, pearl-like complexion appeared dark and discolored.

"Where have you been, Johnny?" asked Miss Bradly.

"To commune with the lonely and comfort the bound; at the door of the 'lock-up,' our miniature Bastile, I have spent the night." Here commenced a paroxysm of coughing, so violent that he was obliged to seat himself upon the door-sill.

"Oh, Johnny," exclaimed the terrified lady.

But as he attempted to check her fears, another paroxysm, still more frightful, took place, and this time the blood gushed copiously from his mouth. Miss Bradly threw her arms tenderly around him, and, after a succession of rapid gushes of blood, his head fell languidly on her shoulder, like a pale, broken lily!

I instantly ran to call up the ladies, when master approached from his chamber; seeing young master lying so pale, cold, and insensible in the arms of Miss Bradly, he concluded he was dead, and, crying out in a frantic tone, he asked,

"In h—l's name, what has happened to my boy?"

"He has had a violent hemorrhage," replied Miss Bradly, with an ill-disguised composure.

The sight of the blood, which lay in puddles and clots over the steps, increased the terror of the father, and, frantically seizing his boy in his arms, he covered the still, pale face with kisses.

"Oh, my boy! my boy! how much you are like her! This is her mouth, eyes, and nose, and now you 'pears jist like she did when I seed her last. These limbs are stiff and frozen. It can't be death; no, it can't be. I haven't killed you, too—say, Miss Bradly, is he dead?"

"No, sir, only exhausted from the violence of the paroxysm, and the copious hemorrhage, but he requires immediate medical treatment; send, promptly, for Dr. Mandy."

Master turned to me, saying,

"Gal, go order Jake to mount the swiftest horse, and ride for life and death to Dr. Mandy; tell him to come instantly, my son is dying."

I obeyed, and, with all possible promptitude, the message was dispatched. Oh, how different when his son was ill. Then you could see that human life was valuable; had it been a negro, he would have waited until after breakfast before sending for a doctor.

Mr. Peterkin bore his son into the house, placed him on the bed, and, seating himself beside him, watched with a tenderness that I did not think belonged to his harsh nature.

In a very short time Jake returned with Dr. Mandy, who, after feeling young master's pulse, sounding his chest, and applying the stethescope, said that he feared it was an incipient form of lung-fever. We had much cause for apprehension. There was a perplexed expression upon the face of the doctor, a tremulousness in his motions, which indicated that he was in great fear and doubt as to the case. He left some powders, to be administered every hour, and, after various and repeated injunctions to Miss Bradly, who volunteered to nurse the patient, he left the house.

After taking the first powder, young master lay in a deep, unbroken sleep. As I stood by his bedside I saw how altered he was. The cheek, which, when he was walking, had seemed round and full, was now shrunk and hollow, and a fiery spot burned there like a living coal; and the dark, purple ring that encircled the eyes, and the sharp contraction of the thin nostril, were to me convincing omens of the grave. Then, too, the anxious, care-written face of Miss Bradly tended to deepen my apprehension. How my friends were falling around me! Now, just when I was beginning to live, came the fell destroyer of my happiness. Happiness? Oh, does it not seem a mockery for the slave to employ that word? As if he had anything to do with it! The slave, who owns nothing, ay, literally nothing. His wife and children are all his master's. His very wearing apparel becomes another's. He has no right to use it, save as he is advised by his owner. Go, my kind reader, to the hotels of the South and South-west, look at the worn and dejected countenances of the slaves, and tell me if you do not read misery there. Look in at the saloons of the restaurants, coffee-houses, &c., at late hours of the night; there you will see them, tired, worn and weary, with their aching heads bandaged up, sighing for a few moments' sleep. There the proud, luxurious, idle whites sip their sherbets, drink wine, and crack their everlasting jokes, but there must stand your obsequious slave, with a smile on his face, waiter in hand, ready to attend to "Master's slightest wish." No matter if his tooth is aching, or his child dying, he must smile, or be flogged for gruffness. This "chattel personal," though he bear the erect form of a man, has no right to any privileges or emotions. Oh, nation of the free, how long shall this be? Poor, suffering Africa, country of my sires, how much longer upon thy bleeding shoulders must the cross be pressed! Is there no tomb where, for a short space, thou shalt lie, and then, bursting the bonds of night and death, spring up free, redeemed and regenerate?

"Oh, will he die?" I murmured, "he who reconciles me to my bondage, who is my only friend? Another affliction I cannot bear; I've been so tried in the furnace, that I have not strength to meet another."

Those thoughts passed through my brain as I stood beside young master; but the entrance of Mr. Peterkin diverted them, and, stepping up to him, I said, "Master, Aunt Polly is dead."

"You lie!" he thundered out.

"No, Mr. Peterkin, the old woman is really dead," said Miss Bradly, in a kind but mournful tone.

"Who killed her?" again he thundered.

Ay, who did kill her? Could I not have answered, "Thou art the man"? But I did not. Silently I stood before him, never daring to trust myself with a word.

"What time did she kick the bucket?" asked Mr. Peterkin, in one of the favorite Kentucky vulgarisms, whereby the most solemn and awful debt of nature is ridiculed by the unthinking.

I told him how I had found her, what I had done, &c., all of which is known to the reader.

"I believe h—l is loose among the niggers. Now, here's Poll had to die bekase she couldn't cut any other caper. I might have made a sight o' money by her sale; and she, old fool, had to cut me outen it. Wal, I'll only have to sell some of the others, fur I's bound to make up a sartin sum of money to pay to some of my creditors in L——."

This speech was addressed to Miss Bradly, upon whom it made not half the impression that it did upon me. How I hoped I should be one, for if young master, as I began to believe, should die soon, the place would become to me more horrible than a tiger's den. Any change was desirable.

When the young ladies rose from their beds I went in to attend on them, and communicated the news of young master's illness and Aunt Polly's death. For their brother they expressed much concern, but the faithful old domestic, who had served them so long, was of no more consequence than a dog. Miss Jane did seem provoked to think that she "had died on their hands," as she expressed it. "If pa had sold her months ago, we might have had the money, or something valuable, but now we must go to the expense of furnishing her with a coffin."

"Coffin! hoity-toity! Father's not going to give her a coffin, an old store-box is good enough to put her old carcass in." And thus they spoke of one of God's dead.

Usually persons respect those upon whom death has set his ghastly signet; but these barbarians (for such I think they must have been) spoke with an irreverence of one whose body lay still and cold, only few steps from them. To some people no thing or person is sacred.

After breakfast I waited in great anxiety to hear how and when master intended to have Aunt Polly buried.

I had gone into the little desolate cabin, which was now consecrated by the presence of the dead. There she lay, cold and ashen; and the long white strip that I had thrown over her was too thin to conceal the face. It was an old muslin curtain that I had found in looking over the boxes of the deceased, and out of respect had flung it over the remains. So rigid and hard-set seemed her features in that last, deep sleep, so tightly locked were those bony fingers, so mournful looked the straightened, stiffened form, so devoid of speculation the half-closed eyes, that I turned away with a shudder, saying inwardly:

"Oh, death, thou art revolting!" Yet when I bethought me of the peace passing human understanding into which she had gone, the safe bourne that she had attained, "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest;" when I thought of this, death lost its horror, and the grave its gloom. Oh, Eternity, problem that the living can never solve. Oh, death, full of victory to the Christian! wast thou not, to my old and weary friend, a messenger of sweet peace; and was not the tomb a gateway to new and undreamed-of happiness? Yes, so will I believe; for so believing am I made joyful.

Relieved thus by faith from the burden of grief, I moved gently about the room, trying to bring something like order to its ragged appearance; for Jake, who had been dispatched for Doctor Mandy to come and see young master, had met on the way a colored preacher, to whom he announced Aunt Polly's death, and who had promised to come and preach a funeral sermon, and attend the burial. This was to the other negroes a great treat; they regarded a funeral as quite a gala occasion, inasmuch as we had never had such a thing upon the farm. I had my own doubts, though I did not express them, whether master would permit it.

Young master still slept, from the strong effects of the sleeping potion which had been administered to him. Miss Bradly, overcome by the night's watching, dozed in a large chair beside the bed, and an open Bible, in which she had been reading, lay upon her lap. The blinds were closed, but the dim light of a small fire that blazed on the hearth gave some appearance of life to the room. Every one who passed in and out, stepped on tip-toe, as if fearful of arousing the sleeper.

Oh, the comfort of a white skin! No darkened room, no comfortable air, marked the place where she my friend had died. No hushed dread nor whispered voice paid respect to the cabin-room where lay her dead body; but, thanks to God, in the morning of the resurrection we shall come forth alike, regardless of the distinctions of color or race, each one to render a faithful account of the deeds done in the body.

Mr. Peterkin came to the kitchen-door, and called Nace, saying:

"Where is that old store-box that the goods and domestics for the house was fetched home in, from L——, last fall?"

"It's in de smoke-house, Masser."

"Wal, go git it, and bury ole Poll in it."

"It's right dirty and greasy, Master," I ventured to say.

"Who keres if 'tis? What right has you to speak, slut?" and he gave me a violent kick in the side with his rough brogan.

"Take that for yer imperdence. Who tole you to put yer mouth in?"

Nace and Dan soon produced the box, which had no top, and was dirty and greasy, as it well might be from its year's lodgment in the meat-house.

"Now, go dig a hole and put Poll in it."

As master was turning away, he was met by a neatly-dressed black man, who wore a white muslin cravat and white cotton gloves, and carried two books in his hand. He had an humble, reverent expression, and I readily recognized him as the free colored preacher of the neighborhood—a good, religious man, God-fearing and God-serving. No one knew or could say aught against him. How I did long to speak to him; to sit at his feet as a disciple, and learn from him heavenly truths.

As master turned round, the preacher, with a polite air, took off his hat, saying:

"Your servant, Master."

"What do you want, nigger?"

"Why, Master, I heard that one of your servants was dead, and I come to ask your leave to convene the friends in a short prayer-meeting, if you will please let us."

"No, I be d——d if you shall, you rascally free nigger; if you don't git yourself off my place, I'll git my cowhide to you. I wants none of yer tom-foolery here."

"I beg Master's pardon, but I meant no harm. I generally go to see the sick, and hold prayer over the dead."

"You doesn't do it here; and now take your dirty black hide away, or it will be the worse for you."

Without saying one word, the mortified preacher, who had meant well, turned away. I trust he did as the apostles of old were bidden by their Divine Master to do, "shook the dust from his feet against that house." Oh, coarse and sense-bound man, you refused entertainment to an "angel, unawares."

"Well, I sent that prayin' rascal a flyin' quick enough;" and with this self-gratulatory remark, he entered the house.

Nace and Jake carried the box into the cabin, preceded by me.

Most reverently I laid away the muslin from the face and form; and lifting the head, while Nace assisted at the feet, we attempted to place the body in the box, but found it impossible, as the box was much too short. Upon Nace's representing this difficulty to Mr. Peterkin, he only replied:

"Wal, bury her on a board, without any more foolin' 'bout it."

This harsh mandate was obeyed to the letter. With great expedition, Nace and Jake dug a hole in the earth, and laid a few planks at the bottom, upon which I threw an old quilt, and on that hard bed they laid her. Good and faithful servant, even in death thou wast not allowed a bed! Over the form I spread a covering, and the men laid a few planks, box-fashion, over that, and then began roughly throwing on the fresh earth. "Dust to dust," I murmured, and, with a secret prayer, turned from her unmarked resting-place. Mr. Peterkin expressly ordered that it should not have a grave shape, and so it was patted and smoothed down, until, save for the moisture and fresh color of the earth, you could not have known that the ground had ever been broken.