Chapter Chapter 35 · A PITIFUL INCIDENT

A PITIFUL INCIDENT

It's a world of surprises. The king brooded; this was natural.

What would he brood about, should you say? Why, about the prodigious

nature of his fall, of course--from the loftiest place in the world

to the lowest; from the most illustrious station in the world to

the obscurest; from the grandest vocation among men to the basest.

No, I take my oath that the thing that graveled him most, to start

with, was not this, but the price he had fetched! He couldn't

seem to get over that seven dollars. Well, it stunned me so, when

I first found it out, that I couldn't believe it; it didn't seem

natural. But as soon as my mental sight cleared and I got a right

focus on it, I saw I was mistaken; it _was_ natural. For this

reason: a king is a mere artificiality, and so a king's feelings,

like the impulses of an automatic doll, are mere artificialities;

but as a man, he is a reality, and his feelings, as a man, are

real, not phantoms. It shames the average man to be valued below

his own estimate of his worth, and the king certainly wasn't

anything more than an average man, if he was up that high.

Confound him, he wearied me with arguments to show that in anything

like a fair market he would have fetched twenty-five dollars,

sure--a thing which was plainly nonsense, and full of the baldest

conceit; I wasn't worth it myself. But it was tender ground for

me to argue on. In fact, I had to simply shirk argument and do

the diplomatic instead. I had to throw conscience aside, and

brazenly concede that he ought to have brought twenty-five dollars;

whereas I was quite well aware that in all the ages, the world had

never seen a king that was worth half the money, and during the

next thirteen centuries wouldn't see one that was worth the fourth

of it. Yes, he tired me. If he began to talk about the crops;

or about the recent weather; or about the condition of politics;

or about dogs, or cats, or morals, or theology--no matter what

--I sighed, for I knew what was coming; he was going to get out of it

a palliation of that tiresome seven-dollar sale. Wherever we

halted where there was a crowd, he would give me a look which

said plainly: “if that thing could be tried over again now, with

this kind of folk, you would see a different result.” Well, when

he was first sold, it secretly tickled me to see him go for seven

dollars; but before he was done with his sweating and worrying

I wished he had fetched a hundred. The thing never got a chance

to die, for every day, at one place or another, possible purchasers

looked us over, and, as often as any other way, their comment on

the king was something like this:

“Here's a two-dollar-and-a-half chump with a thirty-dollar style.

Pity but style was marketable.”

At last this sort of remark produced an evil result. Our owner

was a practical person and he perceived that this defect must be

mended if he hoped to find a purchaser for the king. So he went

to work to take the style out of his sacred majesty. I could have

given the man some valuable advice, but I didn't; you mustn't

volunteer advice to a slave-driver unless you want to damage

the cause you are arguing for. I had found it a sufficiently

difficult job to reduce the king's style to a peasant's style,

even when he was a willing and anxious pupil; now then, to undertake

to reduce the king's style to a slave's style--and by force--go to!

it was a stately contract. Never mind the details--it will save me

trouble to let you imagine them. I will only remark that at the

end of a week there was plenty of evidence that lash and club

and fist had done their work well; the king's body was a sight

to see--and to weep over; but his spirit?--why, it wasn't even

phased. Even that dull clod of a slave-driver was able to see

that there can be such a thing as a slave who will remain a man

till he dies; whose bones you can break, but whose manhood you

can't. This man found that from his first effort down to his

latest, he couldn't ever come within reach of the king, but the

king was ready to plunge for him, and did it. So he gave up

at last, and left the king in possession of his style unimpaired.

The fact is, the king was a good deal more than a king, he was

a man; and when a man is a man, you can't knock it out of him.

We had a rough time for a month, tramping to and fro in the earth,

and suffering. And what Englishman was the most interested in

the slavery question by that time? His grace the king! Yes; from

being the most indifferent, he was become the most interested.

He was become the bitterest hater of the institution I had ever

heard talk. And so I ventured to ask once more a question which

I had asked years before and had gotten such a sharp answer that

I had not thought it prudent to meddle in the matter further.

Would he abolish slavery?

His answer was as sharp as before, but it was music this time;

I shouldn't ever wish to hear pleasanter, though the profanity

was not good, being awkwardly put together, and with the crash-word

almost in the middle instead of at the end, where, of course, it

ought to have been.

I was ready and willing to get free now; I hadn't wanted to get

free any sooner. No, I cannot quite say that. I had wanted to,

but I had not been willing to take desperate chances, and had

always dissuaded the king from them. But now--ah, it was a new

atmosphere! Liberty would be worth any cost that might be put

upon it now. I set about a plan, and was straightway charmed

with it. It would require time, yes, and patience, too, a great

deal of both. One could invent quicker ways, and fully as sure

ones; but none that would be as picturesque as this; none that

could be made so dramatic. And so I was not going to give this

one up. It might delay us months, but no matter, I would carry

it out or break something.

Now and then we had an adventure. One night we were overtaken

by a snow-storm while still a mile from the village we were making

for. Almost instantly we were shut up as in a fog, the driving

snow was so thick. You couldn't see a thing, and we were soon

lost. The slave-driver lashed us desperately, for he saw ruin

before him, but his lashings only made matters worse, for they

drove us further from the road and from likelihood of succor.

So we had to stop at last and slump down in the snow where we

were. The storm continued until toward midnight, then ceased.

By this time two of our feebler men and three of our women were

dead, and others past moving and threatened with death. Our

master was nearly beside himself. He stirred up the living, and

made us stand, jump, slap ourselves, to restore our circulation,

and he helped as well as he could with his whip.

Now came a diversion. We heard shrieks and yells, and soon a

woman came running and crying; and seeing our group, she flung

herself into our midst and begged for protection. A mob of people

came tearing after her, some with torches, and they said she was a

witch who had caused several cows to die by a strange disease,

and practiced her arts by help of a devil in the form of a black

cat. This poor woman had been stoned until she hardly looked

human, she was so battered and bloody. The mob wanted to burn her.

Well, now, what do you suppose our master did? When we closed

around this poor creature to shelter her, he saw his chance. He

said, burn her here, or they shouldn't have her at all. Imagine

that! They were willing. They fastened her to a post; they

brought wood and piled it about her; they applied the torch while

she shrieked and pleaded and strained her two young daughters

to her breast; and our brute, with a heart solely for business,

lashed us into position about the stake and warmed us into life

and commercial value by the same fire which took away the innocent

life of that poor harmless mother. That was the sort of master we

had. I took _his_ number. That snow-storm cost him nine of his

flock; and he was more brutal to us than ever, after that, for

many days together, he was so enraged over his loss.

We had adventures all along. One day we ran into a procession.

And such a procession! All the riffraff of the kingdom seemed

to be comprehended in it; and all drunk at that. In the van was

a cart with a coffin in it, and on the coffin sat a comely young

girl of about eighteen suckling a baby, which she squeezed to her

breast in a passion of love every little while, and every little

while wiped from its face the tears which her eyes rained down

upon it; and always the foolish little thing smiled up at her,

happy and content, kneading her breast with its dimpled fat hand,

which she patted and fondled right over her breaking heart.

Men and women, boys and girls, trotted along beside or after

the cart, hooting, shouting profane and ribald remarks, singing

snatches of foul song, skipping, dancing--a very holiday of

hellions, a sickening sight. We had struck a suburb of London,

outside the walls, and this was a sample of one sort of London

society. Our master secured a good place for us near the gallows.

A priest was in attendance, and he helped the girl climb up, and

said comforting words to her, and made the under-sheriff provide

a stool for her. Then he stood there by her on the gallows, and

for a moment looked down upon the mass of upturned faces at his

feet, then out over the solid pavement of heads that stretched away

on every side occupying the vacancies far and near, and then began

to tell the story of the case. And there was pity in his voice

--how seldom a sound that was in that ignorant and savage land!

I remember every detail of what he said, except the words he said

it in; and so I change it into my own words:

“Law is intended to mete out justice. Sometimes it fails. This

cannot be helped. We can only grieve, and be resigned, and pray

for the soul of him who falls unfairly by the arm of the law, and

that his fellows may be few. A law sends this poor young thing

to death--and it is right. But another law had placed her where

she must commit her crime or starve with her child--and before God

that law is responsible for both her crime and her ignominious death!

“A little while ago this young thing, this child of eighteen years,

was as happy a wife and mother as any in England; and her lips

were blithe with song, which is the native speech of glad and

innocent hearts. Her young husband was as happy as she; for he was

doing his whole duty, he worked early and late at his handicraft,

his bread was honest bread well and fairly earned, he was prospering,

he was furnishing shelter and sustenance to his family, he was

adding his mite to the wealth of the nation. By consent of a

treacherous law, instant destruction fell upon this holy home and

swept it away! That young husband was waylaid and impressed,

and sent to sea. The wife knew nothing of it. She sought him

everywhere, she moved the hardest hearts with the supplications

of her tears, the broken eloquence of her despair. Weeks dragged

by, she watching, waiting, hoping, her mind going slowly to wreck

under the burden of her misery. Little by little all her small

possessions went for food. When she could no longer pay her rent,

they turned her out of doors. She begged, while she had strength;

when she was starving at last, and her milk failing, she stole a

piece of linen cloth of the value of a fourth part of a cent,

thinking to sell it and save her child. But she was seen by the

owner of the cloth. She was put in jail and brought to trial.

The man testified to the facts. A plea was made for her, and her

sorrowful story was told in her behalf. She spoke, too, by

permission, and said she did steal the cloth, but that her mind

was so disordered of late by trouble that when she was overborne

with hunger all acts, criminal or other, swam meaningless through

her brain and she knew nothing rightly, except that she was so

hungry! For a moment all were touched, and there was disposition

to deal mercifully with her, seeing that she was so young and

friendless, and her case so piteous, and the law that robbed her

of her support to blame as being the first and only cause of her

transgression; but the prosecuting officer replied that whereas

these things were all true, and most pitiful as well, still there

was much small theft in these days, and mistimed mercy here would

be a danger to property--oh, my God, is there no property in ruined

homes, and orphaned babes, and broken hearts that British law

holds precious!--and so he must require sentence.

“When the judge put on his black cap, the owner of the stolen

linen rose trembling up, his lip quivering, his face as gray as

ashes; and when the awful words came, he cried out, 'Oh, poor

child, poor child, I did not know it was death!' and fell as a

tree falls. When they lifted him up his reason was gone; before

the sun was set, he had taken his own life. A kindly man; a man

whose heart was right, at bottom; add his murder to this that

is to be now done here; and charge them both where they belong

--to the rulers and the bitter laws of Britain. The time is come, my

child; let me pray over thee--not _for_ thee, dear abused poor heart

and innocent, but for them that be guilty of thy ruin and death,

who need it more.”

After his prayer they put the noose around the young girl's neck,

and they had great trouble to adjust the knot under her ear,

because she was devouring the baby all the time, wildly kissing it,

and snatching it to her face and her breast, and drenching it

with tears, and half moaning, half shrieking all the while, and the

baby crowing, and laughing, and kicking its feet with delight over

what it took for romp and play. Even the hangman couldn't stand it,

but turned away. When all was ready the priest gently pulled and

tugged and forced the child out of the mother's arms, and stepped

quickly out of her reach; but she clasped her hands, and made a

wild spring toward him, with a shriek; but the rope--and the

under-sheriff--held her short. Then she went on her knees and

stretched out her hands and cried:

“One more kiss--oh, my God, one more, one more,--it is the dying

that begs it!”

She got it; she almost smothered the little thing. And when they

got it away again, she cried out:

“Oh, my child, my darling, it will die! It has no home, it has

no father, no friend, no mother--”

“It has them all!” said that good priest. “All these will I be

to it till I die.”

You should have seen her face then! Gratitude? Lord, what do

you want with words to express that? Words are only painted fire;

a look is the fire itself. She gave that look, and carried it away

to the treasury of heaven, where all things that are divine belong.