The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes

Jack had never before seen Mr. Parker in one of his humors. He had heard others about the Roost speak of those times when the master would be in one of his fits of temper, but he himself had as yet never beheld one of those dreadful moods. Now he saw that the master’s eyes were bloodshot. Mr. Parker had not been drinking, but his face was congested to a purple-red, and the veins in his neck and forehead stood out full and round. He turned a dull, heavy, truculent look upon Jack as he came in, and Jack, under that heavy and forbidding glare, stood still and looked down upon the floor.

“Come hither,” said Mr. Parker at last, in a gloomy voice, and at his bidding Jack advanced slowly and reluctantly. “Come hither, I say,” he repeated, as Jack hesitated at a little distance, and again Jack advanced. When he had come near enough Mr. Parker reached out and caught him by the collar of his coat. Jack made no effort to resist him; he stood perfectly quiet, his soul heavy with a dumb apprehension as to what was about to happen to him.

“Mrs. Pitcher hath told me that she bade you not to go away from home,” said Mr. Parker; “but that in spite of all she could say you did go, leaving your work undone behind you. Well, then, I’ll lay my mark on you, by – , and in such a way that you’ll not forget it soon, nor run away again when you’re told to stay at home.”

He drew Jack across the room as he spoke, and Jack, fearing to resist, yielded himself to be led as the master chose. It was not until Mr. Parker had taken down the heavy riding-whip from the wall that he fully understood what his master intended to do to him. His first instinct was of defense, and as Mr. Parker raised his arm he too reached up, hardly knowing what he did, and caught the other by the sleeve, holding it tightly. “Your honor!” he cried, and he recognized that his voice was hoarse and dry – “your honor, I’m mightily sorry for what I’ve done, and I promise you I’ll never do the like again. I’ll never run away again, your honor, indeed I won’t! Pray don’t strike me, your honor!”

“Let go my arm!” cried Mr. Parker, harshly. “What d’ye mean by holding my sleeve like that?” He strove to break away from Jack’s hold, but Jack clung to him more closely than ever.

“I promise you,” he cried panting, “I promise you – I’ll never go away again. I promise you after this I’ll do just as you would have me, but – but – don’t beat me. I’m mightily sorry for what I’ve done – I am – but don’t try to beat me!”

“Let go my arm, I tell you!” cried Mr. Parker, and he tried to wrench himself loose. But still Jack held him tightly. Then Jack felt that Mr. Parker had let go his grasp upon his collar and was trying to pluck away the hold of the fingers that clutched the sleeve. “Let me go, I tell you!” he cried out again. “Are you mad to handle me thus? – What do you mean? – Are you mad? – Let me go!” The next moment he had torn his arm free. He struck at Jack with the whip, but Jack clung to him so closely that the blow was without effect, and before he could strike him again Jack had caught him once more.

He heard the rasping sound of ripping cloth, and he knew that he must have torn some part of his master’s dress. “You sha’n’t beat me!” he gasped. “You sha’n’t beat me!” Mr. Parker tried to thrust him away with his elbow, but he clung all the more tightly. As Mr. Parker pushed him partly away, he could see the other’s handsome face flaming purple-red, but in the violence and excitement of the struggle he only half knew what he was doing. He could feel the struggling movements of his master’s body as he clutched him, and he was conscious of the soft linen of his shirt and the fine smell of his person. Then he felt that some one had caught him by the collar, and, in the turmoil of his excitement, he knew that it was Mrs. Pitcher who held him, and he heard her voice crying in his ear: “Let go, Jack! Are you clean gone crazy? What are you doing? Let go, I say.”

“No, I won’t!” cried Jack, hoarsely, “he sha’n’t beat me!” He hardly knew what he was doing; his only instinct was of self-defense. In his struggles he felt himself strike against the edge of the table, and then against a chair. Then he stumbled against another chair, overturning it with a loud clatter. At the same instant, Mr. Parker tripped over it and fell, rolling over and over on the floor. In the fall his hat and wig were knocked off, but he still held the whip clutched in his hand. Jack stood panting, and Peggy Pitcher still had hold of him by the collar of his coat. In the sudden cessation of the tumult of the struggle, Jack could hear the blood surging with a ceaselessly beating “hum-hum-hum” in his ears.

Mr. Parker lay still for a second or two as though partly stunned by his fall, then he scrambled up from the floor. He picked up his wig and put it on his head. He did not seem to see his hat where it had fallen under the table. He put his hand to his head and stood so for a second or two. Then he flung the riding-whip down upon the table and walked to the door without looking at Jack. Dennis, who was on his way to his cabin, had heard the sound of the struggle and loud voices, the scuffling of feet upon the bare floor, the clattering overturning of the chair. He had stopped, and now stood with the musket over his shoulder, Little Coffee carrying the turkey. He was still so standing when Mr. Parker came to the door. “Dennis!” cried the master hoarsely, “bring three or four men and come over here directly.” Then, without waiting for a reply, he came back to the table and poured out a glass of rum for himself, the bottle clinking and tinkling against the edge of the glass with the nervous trembling of his hand.

Jack heard Mr. Parker’s words to Dennis, and then he realized for the first time how utterly and helplessly powerless he was, and into what a pit of trouble he had fallen. His heart sank away within him and he stood without moving, numb with despair, the rapid pulse-beats still thumping and surging in his ears. “Your honor – your honor,” he said huskily, “I – I didn’t know what I was doing – I didn’t. I didn’t mean to tear your dress. Pardon me, your honor, I didn’t mean it!” He almost choked, swallowing upon a hard lump in his throat. Mr. Parker paid not the slightest attention to him. “Won’t you listen to me, your honor?” he cried despairingly. He heard the approaching footsteps of Dennis and those whom he had brought with him, and the sound lent a still heavier agony of despair to his apprehension. “I didn’t mean to do it, your honor,” he cried, with a final effort to placate that implacable one, and then the next moment Dennis and three negroes came into the house.

“I want you to take that boy,” said Mr. Parker, pointing to Jack, “and lock him up in the cellar for the night. I’ll flay you alive to-morrow,” said he, turning with a flash upon Jack and grinding his white teeth together. “I’ll spare you for to-night, but to-morrow I’ll murder you, I will,” and then he turned and went out of the room.

“What have you been doing, Jack?” said Dennis.

“Oh! I don’t know, Dennis,” Jack panted – almost sobbing. “He was going to beat me and I tried to keep him from doing it, that was all.”

“He fought with his honor like a wild-cat,” said Mrs. Pitcher, “and he threw him down over a chair onto the floor.”

“Why did you do that, Jack?” said Dennis. “You must have been clean gone crazy to do such a thing as that.” Jack tried to reply, but he could not do so for the choking in his throat. “Well,” said Dennis, “there is nothing left now but to do as his honor said. You had better come along now, and not make any more trouble.”

“Oh, I’m not going to make any more trouble,” said Jack, hoarsely.

Dennis and Mrs. Pitcher stood looking at him. “Well,” said Dennis, as though giving himself a shake, “’tis a bad, bad piece of business. I can’t do anything to help you. Come along, and I’ll make it as easy for you as I can.”

“I’ll send you down something good to eat,” said Mrs. Pitcher.

“I don’t want anything to eat,” said Jack, despairingly.

The cellar was a vault-like dungeon of a place, built solidly of brick, with only a narrow, barred window and the door from the kitchen opening into it. Indeed, it had once been used as a place of confinement or retention for the slaves in olden days, and there was a pair of rusty unused shackles with chains yet hanging from a staple in the wall. Jack could not tell how long it was he sat there, in the cold dampness of the place, thinking and thinking, and yet with a mind inert and dull as to any precision of consciousness. He could hear distant sounds through the house, and now and then the echo of footsteps passing overhead. All around him was a dead and muffled silence of darkness. It must have been nightfall when Mrs. Pitcher came, bringing some food wrapped up in a napkin. “Here,” she said, “you eat this, and you’ll feel the better for it.” Jack shook his head. “Well, I’ll put it down here, and maybe you’ll eat it after a while.” And then she went away, leaving him once more to the darkness and the silence.

By little and little the sounds of moving in the house above were stilled. Jack’s ears hummed and tingled and buzzed, and he sat there thinking, thinking, thinking, and yet not thinking with any set purpose of thought. What was to happen to him? Oh! if he had not resisted his master! Why had he resisted? If there were only some way in which he could set himself right with that master! If he could only beg and obtain some pardon! And then he realized with despair that there was no way in which he could undo what he had done; that there was no possible pardon for him. He saw as in a mental picture his master rolling over on the floor, and he knew that he would never be forgiven such an insult. Now and then he thrilled almost as with an agony – if he could only escape the inevitable to-morrow! But, no! There was nothing for him to do but to sit there all night waiting for the day. Oh! if he could only stop thinking about it. He might have sat there thinking thus for an hour; he might have sat there ten hours; there was no sequence of thought by which he might measure the length or the shortness of time – nothing but a level stretch of dull and numb despair. Then, suddenly, he felt that he was parched and dry with thirst. He wondered if Peggy Pitcher had brought him anything to drink. He reached over, fumbling in the darkness, and opened the cloth in which was wrapped the food she had brought him. There was a bottle with something in it. It was rum and water, and Jack, as he drank a long draught of it, felt an almost animal gratitude in the quenching of his parching thirst. Presently he began eating some of the food, and before he knew it he had made a hearty meal.

For a while the eating distracted his mind, and his troubles lay big and dumb, brooding within him; but after he had finished the food and sat again in the humming silence, it all came back to him with a renewed and overwhelming keenness. He bowed his head over on his knees. Recollections of the warm, bright day that had just passed – a recollection of the dead turkey as it lay in the grass – came vividly to him. The trivial recollection seemed to make the terror of that which afterward happened all the more tragic by contrast. He felt the hot drops well bigger and bigger under his burning eyelids, and then one fell upon his hand and trickled slowly down across it.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ESCAPE

IT had not seemed to Jack that he had been asleep, but vision-like recollections of the happenings of the day skimmed ceaselessly in a panorama-like vision through his tired brain. Now he saw the hot stretch of clearing as he had seen it that afternoon – the quivering, pulsing air, the slanting sun, the distant river, the blue further shore. Again and again he thought he struggled with his master. Sometimes he dreamed that the next day had come, and that his master had forgiven him. But through all these vision-like dreams there ever loomed, big and terrible in the background of his half-consciousness, the unknown fate that awaited him in the morning, and he would awaken to find those dreams dissolve into a black and terrible reality in which there was no spark of hope.

Suddenly he was startled from one of these half-waking visions by the sound of footsteps passing overhead, and then by the noise of a key rattling furtively in the lock. It sounded loud in the death-like silence. Then the door at the head of the cellar-steps opened, and the yellow light of a candle slid slanting down along the wall. Jack looked with straining eyes, and then he saw that it was Peggy Pitcher who was coming. She was in her stocking feet, and wore a loose wrapper and a mob-cap tied under her chin. “Why, Mrs. Pitcher,” whispered Jack, tremulously, “is that you?”

“Yes,” she said, “’tis I, but you be quiet.”

“What time of night is it?” Jack whispered.

“Why, ’tis early yet – not more than nine o’clock, I reckon.”

“Is that all?” said Jack.

She did not reply, but set the candle down upon the floor and stood for a while regarding Jack, her arms akimbo. “Well,” she said at last, speaking angrily, “’tis all your own fault that you’re here, and ’tis none of my business. I told you not to go away from home with Dennis, but you did go in spite of all, and now you see what’s come of it. By rights I should let you alone; but no, here I be,” and she tossed her head. “Well,” she continued, “I’m not going to stand by and see you beat to death, and that’s all there be of it.”

Jack’s very heartstrings quivered at her latter words. “What do you mean, Mrs. Pitcher?” he said, hoping dumbly that he had somehow misunderstood.

“Why,” said she, “I mean that his honor’s in that state of mind I wouldn’t trust him not to have you whipped to pieces out of pure deviltry. I never saw him as mad as this before, and I don’t know what’s got into him. He’s been away from home somewhere, and something’s gone wrong, and the very black evil’s got into him. I’ve been talking to him ever since he sent you here, but he won’t listen to anything. I’ve seen him in bad humors, but I never saw him in as black a humor as he’s in to-night. If he sets on you to-morrow he’ll never stop till he finishes you, and that I do believe.”

Jack could not speak. He sat looking at her in the light of the candle.

“Well,” Mrs. Pitcher burst out at last, “I’ve thought it all over and I’ve made up my mind. I dare say I’m a fool for my pains, but I’m going to let you get away. For the long and short of it is that I sha’n’t stay by and see ye beat to pieces like he beat one of the blackies last summer. After Dennis had locked you up, his honor must needs send for him and ask where you was, and if you was safe; and then he must needs have the key of the cellar in his own pockets. He was dead tired, and so went to bed a while ago, and I’ve just contrived to steal the keys out of his pockets. Now I’m going to let you go, I am.”

“Oh, Peggy!” cried Jack, hoarsely. His mouth twitched and writhed, and it was all he could do to keep from breaking down. “But how about you?” he said, wiping his hand across his eyes.

“Never you mind about me,” said Mrs. Pitcher, angrily. “You mind your own business, and I’ll mind my business. I ain’t going to see you whipped to death – that’s all there is about it. So you just mind your business and I’ll mind mine.”

“But where shall I go after you let me out, Mrs. Pitcher?”

“Why,” said she, “that you’ll have to settle for yourself. ’Tis as much as I can do to let you go. All I know is, you must get away from here. Now go, and don’t you lag about any longer. If his honor should chance to wake and find his keys gone, and suspicioned you’d got away, ’twould be a worse lookout for you than ever, not to speak of myself.”

Then Jack realized that he was free to escape. “I’ll – I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me,” said he in a choking voice, “as long as ever I live.”

“There, you go now,” she said, and she pushed him roughly toward the cellar stairway. “As for me, don’t you think anything about me, Jack; I’ll do well enough for a poor wicked creature, and even if his honor does find out that ’twas I let you go, why, he won’t murder me. But then he won’t find out,” she added. “So, now you go.”

“Good-by, Mrs. Pitcher,” said Jack; “won’t you say good-by?”

“No, I won’t,” said she. “You go, and don’t you lose any more time about it.”

But it was not until he was fairly out into the starlit night that he realized that he had really escaped. He ran some little distance away before he stopped. Then he stood looking about him. Where was he to go now? Where was he to escape to? He stood still thinking. He wondered if Dennis would help him. Then without any especial object he crept around back of the group of huts. He could see that there was a faint light in Dennis’s cabin, but he was afraid to approach closer. Some one was singing in the darkness beyond, and he knew that it was Little Coffee chanting in his high-pitched voice. He crept slowly and cautiously toward the sound of the singing, and presently he could distinguish the outline of Little Coffee’s form against the sky. He was sitting perched upon the fence. “Coffee!” whispered Jack, “Little Coffee!” But Little Coffee did not hear him and continued his barbaric chant, which seemed to consist chiefly of a repetition of the words, “White man came to de green tree, black man, he go ‘way.” “Little Coffee!” whispered Jack again, and then instantly the singing ceased.

There was a moment or two of listening silence. “Who da?” said Little Coffee presently, and Jack could see that he had turned his face toward him in the darkness.

“Hush!” whispered Jack, “’tis I, Jack.”

“Who? – Jack? – Dat you, boy?” said Little Coffee.

“Yes,” answered Jack.

Little Coffee jumped down instantly from the fence and came in the darkness toward Jack’s voice. “How you git away?” said he to Jack, “dey say Massa Dennis lock you up in de cellar. How you git out, boy?”

“Never mind that,” said Jack; “’tis enough that I got out, and here I am. Come out here, Coffee, away from the cabins; somebody’ll hear us.”

He led the way down toward the edge of the bluff, and Little Coffee followed him for a while in an amazed silence. “What you go do now, boy?” he asked after a little while.

Jack did not answer immediately. “I’m going to run away,” he said at last.

“You no run away,” said Little Coffee, incredulously. Jack did not reply. “How you going to run away, anyhow?” asked Little Coffee.

“I am going to go off in the boat,” said Jack.

“You no run away, boy,” said Little Coffee again.

“Yes, I will, too,” said Jack; and then he added, almost despairingly, “I’ve got to run away, Little Coffee. I wonder if the oars are down by the dug-out?”

“Yes, ‘im be,” said Little Coffee; “I see Kala prop de oars up ag’in’ de bank when he come in from de pot-nets! Where you run away to, anyhow?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Jack; and then, as the thought came to him, he said: “First of all, I’m going over the river to Bullock’s Landing. I don’t know where I’ll go then – most likely down to North Carolina. That’s where all the runaways go. I’ll try to get to England from there.”

Little Coffee looked at him in the darkness for a while. “I be no more ‘fraid to run away dan you be ‘fraid to run away,” said he at last.

“Wouldn’t you be afraid?” Jack cried out eagerly; “then you shall go along with me if you choose.” He grasped at the chance of a companion in his escape; for now, that every step brought him more nearly face to face with what he had to do, he began to see what a thing it was to undertake. It seemed to him that if he had someone with him it would make it easier for him.

The two stood looking out across the water. From the edge of the bluff bank where they stood the water stretched away, vast and mysterious, into the distance. The rude dug-out canoe in which Kala had rowed over to the nets was lying drawn up on the shore. Jack could see its shapeless form below in the darkness. He descended the steps to the beach, followed by Little Coffee. The oars still stood leaning against the bank where Kala had left them. Jack gathered them up and carried them down to the dug-out. Some water had leaked through the cracks into the boat, and before he pushed it off he baled it out with the gourd dipper. Little Coffee stood looking silently at the preparations he was making. “You going to run away for sure, boy?” he said at last.

“Why, don’t you see I am?” said Jack.

“Den you berry foolish,” said Little Coffee. “I no run away with you, boy.”

“What’s that?” said Jack, standing up abruptly and facing Little Coffee. “What’s that? Why, you just now said you’d run away with me if I went.”

“I no say dat,” said Little Coffee, “I say maybe I run away.” And then he burst out indignantly, “Guess you tink me fool, boy!”

“And so you’d let me go alone, would you?” said Jack bitterly. Little Coffee made no reply. “Well, then, help me push the boat off, anyhow,” Jack said.

Little Coffee sprang eagerly enough to lend him a hand, and as the two pushed the clumsy boat off into the water, Jack stepped into it. He placed the oars carefully in the rowlocks, and then spat upon his hands. All around him was the night and the water. The bluff bank loomed big against the sky. He could see Coffee’s dim form standing upon the shore, but still he sat resting without pulling the boat off. “Won’t you go with me, Little Coffee?” he said, making a last appeal.

“Um! – um!” Little Coffee grunted in negative.

The water lapped and gurgled against the side of the boat, and the current drifted it slowly around against the shore. Jack still hesitated and lingered. For one moment of failing courage he told himself that he would go back and face what he would have to face the next day, and then, with a rush of despair, he recognized how impossible it would be to face it. “I believe you be ‘fraid to run ‘way, after all,” said Little Coffee from where he stood.

The jar of the words roused Jack to action. “Good-by, Little Coffee,” said he hoarsely, and then he dipped the oars into the water and pulled off from the shore into the night.

CHAPTER XXIII

A MEETING

BULLOCK’S LANDING, the settlement of which Jack had spoken, was a little cluster of poor frame houses on the other side of the wide river from the Roost. You could see it easily enough from the high bluff bank, but not what sort or condition of houses they were. But there were people living there, for now and then boats stopped at the little straggling landing. Jack’s first plan was to cross the river to this place. From there he thought he might be able to find some road through the woods to North Carolina. Or if he were not pursued he might find a chance to work a passage down to Norfolk, and thence, perhaps, to England. Anyhow, the first thing was to get away from the Roost, and Bullock’s Landing was the nearest habitable place. He remembered now that a sloop had been lying there for two days. If it had not left, maybe he could work a passage in it down to Norfolk.

He rowed steadily away into the river, and in a little while the shore he had left behind him disappeared into the darkness of night. All around him was the lapping, splashing water of the river. He guided his course by the stars, still pulling away steadily. His mind drifted aimlessly as he rowed, touching a dozen different points of thought that had nothing to do with his present trouble. Now and then he wondered what he would do when he reached the further shore; but generally he let his thoughts drift as they chose. He planned indefinitely to himself that, when he got to the further shore, where, no doubt, he would find somebody awake, he would, in the morning, go aboard of the sloop and ask the master or captain to let him work his passage to Norfolk. Or, if the captain of the sloop should seem to show any signs of dealing dishonestly with him, and if there appeared to be any danger of his being kidnapped again, he would try to get away into the interior of the country. He could very easily beg his way from house to house until he reached North Carolina. There was a splash in the water, very loud in the stillness – it sounded like a fish. It startled Jack for a moment, and he lay on his oars, listening breathlessly. Presently he began rowing again. He did not doubt that he could easily escape, if need be, into North Carolina. Plenty of people had escaped thus from the plantations, and he was sure he could do the same.