CHAPTER XXXIX
The Stratagem part1
"The way ofthe wicked is as darkness; he knoweth not at what he stumbleth."*
* Prov. 4:19.
The garret of thehouse that Legree occupied, like most other garrets, was a great, desolatespace, dusty, hung with cobwebs, and littered with cast-off lumber. The opulentfamily that had inhabited the house in the days of its splendor had imported agreat deal of splendid furniture, some of which they had taken away with them,while some remained standing desolate in mouldering, unoccupied rooms, orstored away in this place. One or two immense packing-boxes, in which thisfurniture was brought, stood against the sides of the garret. There was a smallwindow there, which let in, through its dingy, dusty panes, a scanty, uncertainlight on the tall, high-backed chairs and dusty tables, that had once seenbetter days. Altogether, it was a weird and ghostly place; but, ghostly as itwas, it wanted not in legends among the superstitious negroes, to increase itsterrors. Some few years before, a negro woman, who had incurred Legree'sdispleasure, was confined there for several weeks. What passed there, we do notsay; the negroes used to whisper darkly to each other; but it was known thatthe body of the unfortunate creature was one day taken down from there, andburied; and, after that, it was said that oaths and cursings, and the sound ofviolent blows, used to ring through that old garret, and mingled with wailingsand groans of despair. Once, when Legree chanced to overhear something of thiskind, he flew into a violent passion, and swore that the next one that toldstories 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 represstalking, though, of course, it did not disturb the credit of the story in theleast.
Gradually, thestaircase 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 occurredto Cassy to make use of the superstitious excitability, which was so great inLegree, for the purpose of her liberation, and that of her fellow-sufferer.
The sleeping-roomof Cassy was directly under the garret. One day, without consulting Legree, shesuddenly took it upon her, with some considerable ostentation, to change allthe furniture and appurtenances of the room to one at some considerabledistance. The under-servants, who were called on to effect this movement, wererunning and bustling about with great zeal and confusion, when Legree returnedfrom a ride.
"Hallo! youCass!" said Legree, "what's in the wind now?"
"Nothing; onlyI choose to have another room," said Cassy, doggedly.
"And what for,pray?" said Legree.
"I chooseto," said Cassy.
"The devil youdo! and what for?"
"I'd like toget 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. Isuppose it wouldn't disturb you! Only groans, and peoplescuffing, and rolling round on the garret floor, half the night, from twelve tomorning!"
"People upgarret!" said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a laugh; "who are they,Cassy?"
Cassy raised hersharp, black eyes, and looked in the face of Legree, with an expression thatwent through his bones, as she said, "To be sure, Simon, who are they? I'dlike 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, andpassed through the door, and looking back, said, "If you'll sleep in thatroom, you'll know all about it. Perhaps you'd better try it!" and thenimmediately she shut and locked the door.
Legree blusteredand swore, and threatened to break down the door; but apparently thought betterof it, and walked uneasily into the sitting-room. Cassy perceived that hershaft had struck home; and, from that hour, with the most exquisite address,she never ceased to continue the train of influences she had begun.
In a knot-hole ofthe garret, that had opened, she had inserted the neck of an old bottle, insuch a manner that when there was the least wind, most doleful and lugubriouswailing sounds proceeded from it, which, in a high wind, increased to a perfectshriek, such as to credulous and superstitious ears might easily seem to bethat of horror and despair.
These sounds were,from time to time, heard by the servants, and revived in full force the memoryof the old ghost legend. A superstitious creeping horror seemed to fill thehouse; and though no one dared to breathe it to Legree, he found himselfencompassed by it, as by an atmosphere.
No one is sothoroughly superstitious as the godless man. The Christian is composed by thebelief of a wise, all-ruling Father, whose presence fills the void unknown withlight 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 theshadow of death," without any order, where the light is as darkness. Lifeand death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague andshadowy dread.
Legree had had theslumbering moral elements in him roused by his encounters with Tom,—roused, only to beresisted by the determinate force of evil; but still there was a thrill andcommotion of the dark, inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or hymn,that reacted in superstitious dread.
The influence ofCassy over him was of a strange and singular kind. He was her owner, her tyrantand tormentor. She was, as he knew, wholly, and without any possibility of helpor redress, in his hands; and yet so it is, that the most brutal man cannotlive in constant association with a strong female influence, and not be greatlycontrolled by it. When he first bought her, she was, as she said, a womandelicately bred; and then he crushed her, without scruple, beneath the foot ofhis brutality. But, as time, and debasing influences, and despair, hardenedwomanhood within her, and waked the fires of fiercer passions, she had becomein a measure his mistress, and he alternately tyrannized over and dreaded her.
This influence hadbecome more harassing and decided, since partial insanity had given a strange,weird, unsettled cast to all her words and language.
A night or twoafter this, Legree was sitting in the old sitting-room, by the side of aflickering wood fire, that threw uncertain glances round the room. It was astormy, windy night, such as raises whole squadrons of nondescript noises inrickety old houses. Windows were rattling, shutters flapping, and windcarousing, 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 downhis paper, and seeing an old book lying on the table, which he had noticedCassy reading, the first part of the evening, took it up, and began to turn itover. It was one of those collections of stories of bloody murders, ghostlylegends, and supernatural visitations, which, coarsely got up and illustrated,have a strange fascination for one who once begins to read them.
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