Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

“ Valentine was looking at her with the most intense expression of countenance.
"Anger is a short madness, is it not, mother? So it was with me, at least, when I was a boy; and how those frenzies of passion, into which I would be thrown, used to terrify me when I came to my senses! I used to be haunted with a fear that, in some such mad and blind fury, I might——"
"Hush! oh, hush! Pray to God!" exclaimed Phædra, turning pale. ”

“ Valentine bore this once, but, the second time it was repeated, he shook his master's arm off, exclaiming: "I am not one of your companions." But Oswald laughed aloud, rolled himself from side to side, and breaking out into another low song:
"Life is all a wariorum,
And we cares not how it goes!"
"You will frighten the horses presently. Can't you behave yourself with common decency?" exclaimed Valentine, shaking off the hand that had been laid upon his shoulder.
"Let them talk about decorum,
As has characters to lose,"
sang the inebriate, chuckling and slapping the boy upon the back. ”

“ Comfort them, Brother Elisha! Help them to bring all the power of religion to their support. Time and religion cures the worst of sorrows; it will cure theirs. Only, in the meantime—in the hour of their greatest trial, and the first dark days that follow it—watch over them, sustain and comfort them, and lift up their hands to God, Elisha."
"I will—I will, indeed, Brudder Walley," promised the old preacher.
Valentine was not left alone in his trials. The friends of the Methodist church flocked around, and one or another was always with him. ”

“ You are powerful, Major Hewitt! Speak the word, and these gentlemen will let me pass!"
"Valentine, my poor boy, if your sorrow had not crazed you, you would understand at once that I cannot do so! But I tell you what I can do for you; I can persuade these gentlemen from detaining you in the guard-house, and I can write a note of intercession to your master. Return to him, Valentine—take my horse! There he stands; go to Mr. Waring; tell him what you have told me! Give him my note; he will not refuse you the permit, and when you have it, ride back hither as fast as you please," said the major. ”

“ Valentine closed all the shutters, and let down all the curtains, and then asked:
"Shan't I sit here, Master Oswald, to be at hand in case you should want anything?"
"No! Lord, no! it must be a d—l of a bore to sit in a dark room, with no better amusement than to watch somebody going off to sleep. No; go and take care of yourself, old fellow. I can ring if I should want anything," said Oswald, cheerfully.
"Always so very considerate when he is in his right mind," thought Valentine, as he took the tasseled end of the bellrope and put it in reach of his master's hand, before leaving the room. ”

“ This language, instead of rousing Oswald to anger, seemed to strike him as the drollest of speeches, for he fell back into another peal of laughter; and when he had recovered himself he began, not in displeasure, but in a maudlin, jesting way, and with a very thick utterance, to taunt Valentine:
"Why, you ins'lent f'low, do you know who you're talking to? You're a spoiled negro—that is what you are! Now, don't you know, if I wa'n't the most forgivin' f'low in the world, that I'd have you tied up and whipt for such language?" ”

“ And the police officer was joined by the deputy marshal, who brought up the rear.
And so the sad procession ascended those fatal stairs—Governor in a deep stupor, or looking as if he did not understand what all this pageant meant; Valentine with grave composure, as if he felt the awful solemnity of the moment, and was prepared to meet it. The scaffold was very high, and was reached by a flight of more than twenty steps.
When the prisoners and their escort gained the platform they stood in full view of every individual of that vast concourse of people. ”

“ The girl had read aright the thoughts of the master. Angels, who saw the future, with all the phantoms of its bright or dark possibilities—angels, who loved the goodness latent in his own abused nature—angels were whispering to him: "Make this young couple supremely happy—give him only the common right to himself, into which every creature is justly born—and then rejoice in their exceeding great joy!"
And never had the face of Oswald Waring looked so bright, benignant and happy, as when he, for a moment, entertained this thought. ”

“ Master Oswald, you could let me go to town," pleaded Valentine.
"At the imminent hazard of your own life, and the all but certainty of bringing the pestilence upon this plantation."
"All do not get the fever who are exposed to its influence; neither do they always spread contagion into the healthy places they chance to visit," reasoned the young man.
"The risk is too great," replied the master, curtly.
"Would you think it too great if your own wife were the one concerned, sir?" argued Valentine. ”

“ Fannie, Fannie, Fannie, and her little child!"
"D——n it, sir, stop your howling, or go somewhere else to howl. What the devil is Fannie or her brat to me? If they are suffering, it is her own fault; she had no business to marry a slave, whom she could never expect to help her. And if their sufferings afflict you, it serves you right; it is a just punishment for your cursed folly in marrying a free woman, with no master to look after her or her children."
"I will be silent! I will be silent!" thought Valentine, as he turned from his master. ”

“ Now, therefore, Valentine keenly felt the new state of things, which in more than one way deeply grieved his heart; first, in the separation from his friend and playmate whom he dearly loved; and then in the denial of knowledge to his thirsting intellect, for there existed a statute law against educating a slave—a law, too, that was of late very strictly enforced, except in the case of children, who frequently transgressed it, and always with impunity; for slaves are often taught to read and write by their nurslings, the master's children. ”

“ And those who were envious of Fannie's beauty did not scruple to say that she came out so far for the sake of hearing Brother Valentine pray or exhort, or to let him hear her sing; for Fannie had a voice that might have made her fortune, had she been white, and had it been cultivated. However that might be, Phædra loved Fannie as if she had been her own daughter, and she always took her home from meeting, to dine and spend the afternoon at Red Hill. And after an early tea, Valentine always walked home with Fannie to the city. ”

“ He has not done so; and I could find it in my heart to pray for both your death and mine!" exclaimed Phædra, with a short, sudden sob, as if she were on the eve of another burst of violent emotion.
"Do not grieve, mother; Mr. Waring has not done ill by us, I am sure. I have had as happy a life with him as my own nature will permit. I could not have borne life with a master less good-natured and tolerant. ”

“ Oswald "took after" his father, both in the Saxon fairness of his fresh complexion, flaxen hair, and lively blue eyes, and in the hearty benevolence and careless gayety of his disposition. Like his father, also, he lacked self-esteem, and the dignity of character that it gives. Nay, he had not half so much of that quality as had the son of the Mestizza, whose overweening pride won for him the name of "Little Prince."
Valentine was an exquisitely beautiful boy; he was like his Mestizza mother, in the clear, dark-brown skin, and regular aquiline features ”

“ Legare put back her tea hour, and prepared a supper of extra luxuriousness. And Mr. Legare brewed the great ancestral punchbowl to the brim with rich, frothy eggnog, and set it away to "mellow," against the coming of the gentlemen.
"My dear mother and father! they have noble hearts in spite of their social conservatism! And you shall see that they will treat my Frank with as much kindness and respect as if they did not consider him a sort of wolf, prowling about after their one ewe lamb," said Mathilde, with tears of affection brimming to her eyes. ”

“ Mr. Waring had grown heated and angry between the frequent potations and the irritations of the day.
"Well, sir!" he said, turning abruptly to Valentine, "what now? How dare you enter my presence again, after your insolent conduct of this afternoon?"
"Master Oswald, I am very sorry if, in my great trouble, I was surprised into saying anything wrong. Will you read this note, sir?" said Valentine, trying, for Fannie's dear sake, to quell the raging storm in his bosom. ”

“ Before night a brain fever, with delirium, had set in, and, for days after, the life of Oswald Waring hung upon the feeblest chance. For many weeks of his illness, Phædra and Valentine nursed him with the most devoted affection. Poor Phædra prayed constantly for his recovery, and also for his reform, and solicited every Sabbath the prayers of the congregation of her church in his behalf. And Valentine, in deep despair, daily accused himself of his master's death, as if he had purposely stricken a fatal blow, and Oswald were already dead. ”

“ While the negroes present returned his gaze in silent awe, he spoke:
"A price is on my head! the Governor, or the State, will purchase and emancipate any man here who will deliver me up to death. It is written that 'a murderer shall hang on a tree!' It is every man's duty to deliver, if he can, a felon up to justice! It is every man's duty here to procure, if he can, his own freedom! Therefore, it is doubly some man's duty to take me into custody. I have determined to die for my deed! ”

“ Waring's intercession of the morning, he said:
"You emphasize this matter too much, madam; this Fannie is, after all, but one sufferer among thousands; you also mistake in endowing these creatures with the same acuteness of feelings that we possess; there is a difference, madam! there is a difference! I wish I could make people understand that there is a difference; neither Valentine nor Phædra seem to have the slightest conception of this difference." ”

“ They did not notice, either, that, at a signal from the marshal, the attending clergyman stepped aside and the deputy and assistants gathered in a little group behind. Governor still had his arms extended in wild entreaty after his flying master, and Valentine was still waiting for silence, when suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, their arms were bound, the cords slipped over their heads, the caps drawn over their eyes, the spring of the bolt touched, and, without one instant's warning, or one word of prayer or benediction, they fell, and swung beneath sky and earth. ”

“ Phædra got up and attended to the arrangement of the house and the preparation of breakfast with her usual exactness.
Mrs. Waring, suffering from the debilitating effects of the weather, indulged herself in the morning, and breakfasted in bed.
No foreboding was felt by any one; no token in sky or air, or circumstances without, of presentiment within their hearts, warned them of calamity, crime and sudden death at hand. That morning, after breakfast, Valentine strolled listlessly out toward the public road leading to the town. It was his daily habit. ”

“ Who asks you for any such promises? Only promise that when there is a wine supper or card party in the wind, or any other signs of the times in the sky to warn you, you will take care to keep sober, knowing that I shall be likely to be something else. Wine is a good servant, but a bad master."
"Not good for me, ever, Master Oswald; certainly not good for me; probably not so for you, either."
"Come, come; you exceed your license, Valentine. You're a pretty fellow to preach to me, after nearly breaking my neck. ”

“ At last the rumor reached Tom Jenkins, awaking him from the sweetest dream he had ever known. He could not ask Nellie if it were true, so he came to me; and when I saw how he grew pale and trembled, I felt that Nellie was not altogether blameless. But he breathed no word of censure against her; and when, a year or two afterward, I saw her given to William Raymond, I knew that the love of two hearts was hers; the one to cherish and watch over her, the other to love and worship, silently, secretly, as a miser worships his hidden treasure. ”

“ I am nearly crazy with trouble, sir, when I think of Fannie and poor little Coralie. She was very poor, sir, and the child was very sick, even before the pestilence appeared. Now she has the fever in that horrible place, with no one to help her or to take care of the poor child. She may be dying, sir, even while I speak! she may be dying, as many of the poor in that doomed city die, deserted—alone—but for the famishing infant, whose cries add to her own sufferings ”

“ Valentine would reply.
And in truth the wretched young man was much to be compassionated. His wife and child alone and helpless in the midst of the plague, exposed to the united horrors of pestilence, famine and solitary death from desertion; himself forbidden to seek them at their utmost need. Thrice had he escaped and sought the city, and as often had he fallen into the hands of the voluntary police; they did not maltreat him, except inasmuch as they would not suffer him to pass without a permit from his master, and this permit could not be obtained. ”

“ They hurried me with my toilet; they worried me to come down and see the Christmas tree, and get some eggnog.
I was carried away with their gay excitement, and almost forgot my mysterious dream or visitant, but not quite; for all through the morning greetings of the family, the eggnog drinking, the visit to the Christmas tree, the distributions of presents, the merry breakfast, the arrival of invited guests, the Christmas dinner party, the afternoon sports, and the evening dance, I was possessed with the haunting presence of that dark, handsome woman, and her majestic woe. ”

“ One Thursday evening, while the March winds were piping through the pine barrens, Phædra was holding a prayer-meeting in her cabin.
There were about twenty negroes, both men and women, present.
Among them was the old preacher, Elisha, who led the devotions.
Fannie was also present, with her child. And the look of wild anxiety that occasionally varied the heart-broken expression of her face seemed now fixed; her usually patient, suffering countenance was absolutely haggard with terror, and strong shudders shook her frame. ”

“ These were the Sabbath services and the weekly meetings, where the ardent, zealous soul of the young man found its expression in eloquence that reached the hearts of all who heard him, either in exhortation or in prayer.
He was very much beloved by the brethren, and especially by the sisters, of the Magnolia Grove Mission.
There was, however, two or three among the class-leaders who objected to Valentine as being too much given to the vanities of this world, and who found great stumbling blocks in Valley's shining, black ringlets, and neat and even elegant dress. ”