Chapter I. Christopher Seeks an Escape

A clump of brambles caught at his feet, and, stumbling like a drunken man, he threw himself at full length upon the ground, pressing his forehead on the young, green thorns. A century seemed to have passed since his flight from the poplar spring, and yet the soft afternoon sunshine was still about him and the low murmurs of the thrush still floated from the old apple-tree. All the violence of his undisciplined nature had rushed into revolt against the surrender which he felt must come, and he was conscious at the instant that he hated only a little less supremely than he loved. In the end the greater passion would triumph over him, he knew; but as he lay there face downward upon the earth the last evil instincts of his revenge battled against the remorse which had driven him from Maria’s presence. He saw himself clearly for what he was: he had learned at last to call his sin by its right name; and yet he felt that somewhere in the depths of his being he had not ceased to love the evil that he had done. He hated Fletcher, he told himself, as righteously as ever, but between himself and the face of his enemy a veil had fallen—the old wrong no longer stood out in a blaze of light. A woman’s smile divided him like a drawn sword from his brutal past, and he had lost the reckless courage with which he once might have flung himself upon destruction.

Rising presently, he crossed the meadow and went slowly back to his work in the stables, keeping his thoughts with an effort upon his accustomed tasks. A great weariness for the endless daily round of shall things was upon him, and he felt all at once that the emotion struggling within his heart must burst forth at last and pervade the visible world. He was conscious of an impulse to sing, to laugh, to talk in broken sentences to himself; and any utterance, however slight and meaningless, seemed to relieve in a measure the nervous tension of his thoughts.

In one instant there entered into him a desperate determination to play the traitor—to desert his post and strike out boldly and alone into the world. And with the next breath he saw himself living to old age as he had lived from boyhood—within reach of Maria’s hand, meeting her fervent eyes, and yet separated from her by a distance greater than God or man could bridge. With the thought of her he saw again her faint smile which lingered always about her mouth, and his blood stirred at the memory of the kiss which she had neither resisted nor returned.

Cynthia, searching for him a few minutes later, found him leaning idly against the mare’s stall, looking down upon a half-finished nest which a house-wren had begun to build upon his currycomb.

"It’s a pity to disturb that, Tucker would say," he observed, motioning toward the few wisps of straw on the ledge.

"Oh, she can start it somewhere else," replied Cynthia indifferently. "They have sent for you from the store, Christopher—it’s something about one of the servants, I believe. They’re always getting into trouble and wanting you to pull them out." The descendants of the old Blake slaves were still spoken of by Cynthia as "the servants," though they had been free men and women for almost thirty years.

Christopher started from his abstraction and turned toward her with a gesture of annoyance.

"Well, I’ll have to go down, I suppose," he said. "Has mother asked for me to-day?"

"Only for Jim again—it’s always Jim now. I declare, I believe we might all move away and she’d never know the difference so long as he was left. She forgets us entirely sometimes, and fancies that father is alive again."

"It’s a good thing Jim amuses her, at any rate."

An expression of anger drew Cynthia’s brows together. "Oh, I dare say; but it does seem hard that she should have grown to dislike me after all I’ve done for her. There are times when she won’t let me even come in the room—when she’s not herself, you know."

Her words were swallowed in a sob, and he stood staring at her in an amazement too sudden to be mixed with pity.

"And you have given up your whole life to her," he exclaimed. appalled by the injustice of the god of sacrifice.

Cynthia put up one knotted hand and stroked back the thin hair upon her temples. "It was all I had to give," she answered, and went out into the yard.

He let her go from him without replying, and before her pathetic figure had reached the house she was blotted entirely from his thoughts, for it was a part of the tragedy of her unselfishness that she had never existed as a distinct personality even in the minds of those who knew and loved her.

When presently he passed through the yard on his way to the store, he saw her taking in the dried clothes from the old lilac-bushes and called back carelessly that he would be home to supper. Then, forgetting her lesser miseries in his own greater one, he fell into his troubled brooding as he swung rapidly along the road.

At the store the usual group of loungers welcomed him, and among them he saw to his surprise the cheerful face of Jim Weatherby, a little clouded by the important news he was evidently seeking to hold back.

"I tried to keep them from sending for you, Christopher," the young man explained. "It is no business of yours—that is what I said."

"Well, it seems that every thriftless nigger in the county thinks he’s got a claim upon you, sho’ enough," put in Tom Spade. "It warn’t mo’n last week that I had a letter from the grandson of yo’ pa’s old blacksmith Buck, sayin’ he was to hang in Philadelphia for somebody’s murder, an’ that I must tell Marse Christopher to come an’ git him off. Thar’s a good six hunnard of ’em, black an’ yaller an’ it’s God A’mighty or Marse Christopher to ’em every one."

"What is it now?" asked Christopher a little wearily, taking off his hat and running his hand through his thick, fair hair. "If anybody’s been stealing chickens they’ve got to take the consequences."

"Oh, it’s not chicken stealin’ this time; it’s a blamed sight worse. They want you to send somebody over to Uncle Isam’s—you remember his little cabin, five miles off in Alorse’s woods—to help him bury his children who have died of smallpox. There are four of ’em dead, it seems, an’ the rest are all down with the disease. Thar’s not a morsel of food in the house, an’ not a livin’ nigger will go nigh ’em."

"Uncle Isam!" repeated Christopher, as if trying to recall the name. "Why, I haven’t laid eyes upon the man for years."

"Very likely; but he’s sent you a message by a boy who was gathering pine knots at the foot of his hill. He was to tell Marse Christopher that he had had nothing to eat for two whole days an’ his children were unburied. Then the boy got scared an’ scampered off, an’ that was all."

Christopher’s laugh sounded rather brutal.

"So he used to belong to us, did he?" he inquired.

"He was yo’ pa’s own coachman. I recollect him plain as day," answered Tom. "I warn’t ’mo’n a child then, an’ he used to flick his whip at my bare legs whenever he passed me in the road."

"Well, what is to be done?" asked Christopher, turning suddenly upon him.

"The Lord He knows, suh. Thar’s not a nigger as will go nigh him, an’ I’m not blamin’ ’em; not I. Jim’s filled his cart with food, an’ he’s goin’ to dump the things out at the foot of the hill; then maybe Uncle Isam can crawl down an’ drag ’em back. His wife’s down with it, too, they say. She was workin’ here not mo’n six months ago, but she left her place of a sudden an’ went back again."

Christopher glanced carelessly at the little cart waiting in the road, and then throwing off his coat tossed it on the seat.

"I’ll trouble you to lend me your overalls, Tom," he said, "and you can send a boy up to the house and get mine in exchange. Put what medicines you have in the cart; I’ll take them over to the old fool."

"Good Lord!" said Tom, and mechanically got out of his blue jean clothes.

"Now don’t be a downright ass, Christopher," put in Jim Weatherby. "You’ve got your mother on your hands, you know, and what under heaven have you to do with Uncle Isam? I knew some foolishness would most likely come of it if they sent up for you."

"Oh, he used to belong to us, you see," explained Christopher carelessly.

"And he’s been an ungrateful, thriftless free Negro for nearly thirty years—"

"That’s just it—for not quite thirty years. Look here, if you’ll drive me over in the cart and leave the things at the foot of the hill I’ll be obliged to you. I’ll probably have to stay out a couple of weeks—until there’s no danger of my bringing back the disease—so I’ll wear Tom’s overalls and leave my clothes somewhere in the woods. Oh, I’ll take care, of course; I’m no fool."

"You’re surer of that than I am," returned Jim, thinking of Lila. "I can’t help feeling that there’s some truth in father’s saying that a man can’t be a hero without being a bit of a fool as well. For God’s sake, don’t, Christopher. You have no right—"

"No, I have no right," repeated Christopher, as he got into the cart and took up the hanging reins. A sudden animation had leaped into his face and his eyes were shining. It was the old love of a "risk for the sake of the risk" which to Tucker had always seemed to lack the moral elements of true courage, and the careless gaiety with which he spoke robbed the situation of its underlying somber horror.

Jim swung himself angrily upon the seat and touched the horse lightly with the whip. "And there’s your mother sitting at home—and Cynthia—and Lila," he said.

Christopher turned on him a face in whose expression he found a mystery that he could not solve.

"I can’t help it, Jim, to save my life I can’t," he answered. "It isn’t anything heroic; you know that as well as I. I don’t care a straw for Uncle Isam and his children, but if I didn’t go up there and bury those dead darkies I’d never have a moment’s peace. I’ve been everything but a skulking coward, and I can’t turn out to be that at the end. It’s the way I’m made."

"Well, I dare say we’re made different," responded Jim rather dryly, for it was his wedding day and he was going farther from his bride. "But for my part, I can’t help thinking of that poor blind old lady, and how helpless they all are. Yes, we’re made different. I reckon that’s what it means."

The cart jogged on slowly through the fading sunshine, and when at last it came to the foot of the hill where Uncle Isam lived Christopher got out and shouldered a bag of meal.

"You’ll run the place, I know, and look after mother while I’m away," he said.

"Oh, I suppose I’ll have to," returned Jim; and then his illhumour vanished and he smiled and held out his hand. "Good-by, old man. God bless you," he said heartily.

Sitting there in the road, he watched Christopher pass out of sight under the green leaves, stooping slightly beneath the bag of meal and whistling a merry scrap of an old song. At the instant it came to Jim with the force of a blow that this was the first cheerful sound he had heard from him for weeks; and, still pondering, he turned the horse’s head and drove slowly home to his own happiness.