THE TALE OF  POMP

Pomp was employed by his master as a cowherd in the Great Dismal Swamp, and oft saw refugees flee past him, but had no stomach for flight. He tells us of the legends of that place: In the curdled depths of the Great Alligator Swamp, says he, the beast for which it is named is so vast it can devour a cow in one snap of its jaws. Or this: One day, as Pomp tended his cattle, a man appeared to him and told him of a fabulous town of runaways in the Swamp, complete with their own houses and streets, and roosts in the trees, and a governor in a strong hat.

Pomp is a fellow given to dreams, and did not much mind his tedious days nor his isolate, swampy environs. He took pride in knowing the ways and mires, and was, after his fashion, content to be employed away from the eye of censure and the lash. He should not have flown, but for this circumstance: His master’s cattle were marked upon their ear, one cut to signify his ownership. Another man’s slaves, seeing this mark, recommended that their own master take up a sign of two cuts upon the ear of his cattle; and then, at night, coming across Pomp’s cows and bulls, would give them an extra cut upon the ear and claim the cow as their own. By the time Pomp had detected this piece of deception, five or six cows were missing, and his master so wroth that Pomp scarce knew what to do. Though perhaps if Pomp had remained and had simply informed his master of the source of this base trickery, his master had pursued an action against the neighboring farmer without prejudice to Pomp; still, Pomp, being too full of imaginations of disaster, decided upon flight, and traversed the route north from the Great Dismal Swamp to Norfolk with two kine driven before him, his excuse when questioned being that he drove the cattle to market upon command.

“I was very welcome at Norfolk,” he said, “but I reckon, mostly for my beef.”

THE TALE OF  ISAAC THE  JOINER

Isaac, the pious carpenter, was enjoined from his youth to accept the teachings of Christ, which doctrine he received with joyful heart. He being possessed of a memory excellent in its acuity, most especially for those things which stirred up the embers in his breast and reflected the scintillant glory of the King of Kings, he quickly conned long passages of Scripture, though not a word could he read.

At length, he found himself preaching at the Sunday night dances held near his master’s house, and his sermons were not unwelcome. He spake of the end of bondage, and the Lord’s donation of a soul to each human body, which soul could never be degraded nor yielded up; which spirits, when gathered in Heaven, would be of no low or high degree, and would wear no garments nor finery nor frip, but all should stand equal and justified before the Throne. Beautiful clothing, said he, and the jewels of the wealthy are of tough, heavy fabric when weighed upon the airy bodies of spirits; and shall either drag the wealthy down, or fall away like so much chaff through their excellent and imperishable spirits in that giddy moment of the end. He bade his brethren: “Wait and be ready, for the Lord shall come.”

For this doctrine, as may be presumed, he was debarred from all preaching. His master indeed forbade him from leaving his quarters on Sunday nights, for fear that in preaching of equality before the Lord on High, Isaac might incite riot on Earth.

This was a tribulation; Isaac wanted sorely the camaraderie of his heretic congregation, their sweet witness; he missed the singing and tears, the prayers of love and fellow-feeling, the entreaties of sorrow assuaged.

Every Sunday, he knelt through the evening and prayed to the Lord, that he might be delivered and be freed to partake of God’s Word.

And behold: At ten o’clock one Sunday night, his master came to him, and demanded he take up a scythe and go down to the chicken-house, for a body of Lord Dunmore’s Negroes was landed and seized upon the fowls for provender.

So Isaac went down the hill toward the river with his scythe in his hand. He saw the ship waiting for him upon the waters, the boat upon the shore. And he saw the adversary stealing the fruits of his master’s fields and paddocks, carrying off chickens and leading goats by ropes. They spied him and paused in their depredations.

He raised his hand in greeting.

“At long last,” said he, “you are come.”

And he went down to welcome them.

THE TALE OF  SLANT

Slant’s tale was most affecting. He told it me himself. Slant’s childhood and youth were spent upon a tobacco plantation presided over by a benevolent widow by the name of Croak and her son, who was of Slant’s age. The son deplored slavery and oft would grow into a fury at the sight of mistreatment of his mother’s slaves. He saw to it that Slant and his fellows were not used unkindly; their diet of Indian corn, for example, to be supplemented with helpings of meat, and new huts built for such hands as did not live in the servants’ quarters in the house.

When Mrs. Croak died, her son, not yet having achieved his majority, was helpless to interfere with the wishes of his trustees, whose discipline upon the plantation was much harsher than had ever been offered by the widow, their desire to profit from the farm being greater than their attachment to its persons. They discounted the boy’s protests for their impracticality and sought to rationalize expenditure.

This was a severe period on that plantation, and saw many unhappy restrictions upon the small luxuries and freedoms the servants had been accorded. There was much toil, and still complaints from the trustees’ overseers that the slaves were unaccountably lazy and devious. ’Twas in these years that the harshness and rigor of the discipline so made its mark upon Slant that he cannot speak without wrestling his words, and will not name what dire thing was done to him.

When Master Croak, the son, reached suitable age, he dismissed his trustees with curt thanks. He called his slaves all together in the yard. He spake kindly to them, and said, “You have undergone great hardship; and now shall be your reward. You know well, i’faith, I cannot abide the barbarism of your state. You have suffered indignities and evils that none should suffer. I cannot free you outright, for it would ruin me; but I can provide you with a small weekly sum for your labor, to be placed against your price, so you might, in three or four years, purchase yourselves of me and enjoy complete manumission. Once freed, you are at liberty, of course, to go where you will; but as you are like a family to me, I hope you shall choose to remain here, in this happy place, upon a footing as paid laborers. We shall be as a beacon to show those around us how great the bounty and fruits of amity may grow.”

The slaves, when they heard this, clustered close about him and embraced him; and he embraced them, and none could forbear weeping. That night, he laid out a feast for them, and they danced and sang until dawn.

The gentry of the neighborhood, hearing of his pronouncement, appeared in the following days to protest, saying that he would incite a rebellion in the neighborhood if others heard of his system. To the supplications of reason they eventually added the insult of imprecation, calling him a young cur and a scoundrel and, moreover, a fool. He ejected them with celerity, and his servants watched with some satisfaction as these lords of the leaf stalked back out to their chaises, disappointed in their designs.

Following this victory, young Croak undertook various improvements in the servants’ quarters, that each chamber might be warm in winter, cool in summer, and free of dirt and disease; and he altered substantially the diet afforded his field hands, proclaiming that work undertaken in health and in a spirit of felicity should always excel beyond the drudgery of the miserable.

Such was Master Croak’s scheme.

It is to be deplored that the experiment failed utterly. The trade in tobacco was suffering materially due to the unrest with the mother country and the late crisis in credit. This depression of the market was compounded, on the Croak estate, by the antagonism of every neighbor, who made of every favor a dispute; and, in the end, of course, despite Master Croak’s expostulations that there was in liberty a wondrous œconomy, there is a more wondrous financial potency to abject exploitation. Within two years the farm was bankrupt and the honest Croak was bankrupt, and had hanged himself in his bedchamber, leaving instructions in his will that all his slaves should be manumitted forthwith. It might well be predicted that the wider Croak family intervened before this instrument could be executed, and argued that the youth was clearly not of sound mind and so was unable to dispose of his property fitly. This necessitated a hearing to settle the contestation of the will.

A night some weeks ago, one of the overseers crept to the slave quarters, and alerted the hands that on the morrow, young Master Croak’s uncle and aunt would descend upon the estate and secure the Negroes who remained until such time as their case was heard; and, the courts being suspended and the government in confusion, it might be some years before the suit was settled, and by that time, Slant and his kin would be accustomed to the yoke of tyranny; and, said the overseer, “Master Croak would not wish this. He wished you free. You all must fly tonight.”

Most of them lit out for the western hills or for Florida; Slant stole a small boat and set out to join Dunmore. He was washed down the James and then rowed up the Elizabeth, and reached us when I have recorded, since when, he is delighted to have taken a new name, Slant, and will no longer answer to the old, which we do not know; though he has taken his master’s last name, in memory of that tragic youth’s attempts at generosity.

Thus the tale of Slant Croak.

THE TALE OF  PRIVATE  JOCKO

Jocko grew up among the great Canoe Houses of Old Calabar, and was accustomed to the sight of white men who visit that port for their dismal trade. One day as he walked along the street, he observed a small hut that had not been there two days previous, around which was a cluster of youths, all clamoring for admittance. The door of this hut would open, and one man would go in, and another come out. When they went into the hut, their hands were empty; when they set out from the hut, each of the men carried a sack with some small object in it.

Emboldened by curiosity at this mysterious transaction, Jocko approached and inquired about this practice; and he was told, to his great surprise, that