Uncle Tom's Cabin
and began to sob disconsolately.
Marie was one of those unfortunately constituted mortals, in whose eyes
whatever is lost and gone assumes a value which it never had in
possession. Whatever she had, she seemed to survey only to pick flaws
in it; but, once fairly away, there was no end to her valuation of it.
While this conversation was taking place in the parlor another was
going on in St. Clare’s library.
Tom, who was always uneasily following his master about, had seen him
go to his library, some hours before; and, after vainly waiting for him
to come out, determined, at last, to make an errand in. He entered
softly. St. Clare lay on his lounge, at the further end of the room. He
was lying on his face, with Eva’s Bible open before him, at a little
distance. Tom walked up, and stood by the sofa. He hesitated; and,
while he was hesitating, St. Clare suddenly raised himself up. The
honest face, so full of grief, and with such an imploring expression of
affection and sympathy, struck his master. He laid his hand on Tom’s,
and bowed down his forehead on it.
“O, Tom, my boy, the whole world is as empty as an egg-shell.”
“I know it, Mas’r,—I know it,” said Tom; “but, oh, if Mas’r could only
look up,—up where our dear Miss Eva is,—up to the dear Lord Jesus!”
“Ah, Tom! I do look up; but the trouble is, I don’t see anything, when
I do, I wish I could.”
Tom sighed heavily.
“It seems to be given to children, and poor, honest fellows, like you,
to see what we can’t,” said St. Clare. “How comes it?”
“Thou has ‘hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes,’”
murmured Tom; “‘even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.’”
“Tom, I don’t believe,—I can’t believe,—I’ve got the habit of
doubting,” said St. Clare. “I want to believe this Bible,—and I can’t.”
“Dear Mas’r, pray to the good Lord,—‘Lord, I believe; help thou my
unbelief.’”
“Who knows anything about anything?” said St. Clare, his eyes wandering
dreamily, and speaking to himself. “Was all that beautiful love and
faith only one of the ever-shifting phases of human feeling, having
nothing real to rest on, passing away with the little breath? And is
there no more Eva,—no heaven,—no Christ,—nothing?”
“O, dear Mas’r, there is! I know it; I’m sure of it,” said Tom, falling
on his knees. “Do, do, dear Mas’r, believe it!”
“How do you know there’s any Christ, Tom! You never saw the Lord.”
“Felt Him in my soul, Mas’r,—feel Him now! O, Mas’r, when I was sold
away from my old woman and the children, I was jest a’most broke up. I
felt as if there warn’t nothin’ left; and then the good Lord, he stood
by me, and he says, ‘Fear not, Tom;’ and he brings light and joy in a
poor feller’s soul,—makes all peace; and I ’s so happy, and loves
everybody, and feels willin’ jest to be the Lord’s, and have the Lord’s
will done, and be put jest where the Lord wants to put me. I know it
couldn’t come from me, cause I ’s a poor, complainin’ cretur; it comes
from the Lord; and I know He’s willin’ to do for Mas’r.”
Tom spoke with fast-running tears and choking voice. St. Clare leaned
his head on his shoulder, and wrung the hard, faithful, black hand.
“Tom, you love me,” he said.
“I ’s willin’ to lay down my life, this blessed day, to see Mas’r a
Christian.”
“Poor, foolish boy!” said St. Clare, half-raising himself. “I’m not
worth the love of one good, honest heart, like yours.”
“O, Mas’r, dere’s more than me loves you,—the blessed Lord Jesus loves
you.”
“How do you know that Tom?” said St. Clare.
“Feels it in my soul. O, Mas’r! ‘the love of Christ, that passeth
knowledge.’”
“Singular!” said St. Clare, turning away, “that the story of a man that
lived and died eighteen hundred years ago can affect people so yet. But
he was no man,” he added, suddenly. “No man ever had such long and
living power! O, that I could believe what my mother taught me, and
pray as I did when I was a boy!”
“If Mas’r pleases,” said Tom, “Miss Eva used to read this so
beautifully. I wish Mas’r’d be so good as read it. Don’t get no
readin’, hardly, now Miss Eva’s gone.”
The chapter was the eleventh of John,—the touching account of the
raising of Lazarus, St. Clare read it aloud, often pausing to wrestle
down feelings which were roused by the pathos of the story. Tom knelt
before him, with clasped hands, and with an absorbed expression of
love, trust, adoration, on his quiet face.
“Tom,” said his Master, “this is all _real_ to you!”
“I can jest fairly _see_ it Mas’r,” said Tom.
“I wish I had your eyes, Tom.”
“I wish, to the dear Lord, Mas’r had!”
“But, Tom, you know that I have a great deal more knowledge than you;
what if I should tell you that I don’t believe this Bible?”
“O, Mas’r!” said Tom, holding up his hands, with a deprecating gesture.
“Wouldn’t it shake your faith some, Tom?”
“Not a grain,” said Tom.
“Why, Tom, you must know I know the most.”
“O, Mas’r, haven’t you jest read how he hides from the wise and
prudent, and reveals unto babes? But Mas’r wasn’t in earnest, for
sartin, now?” said Tom, anxiously.
“No, Tom, I was not. I don’t disbelieve, and I think there is reason to
believe; and still I don’t. It’s a troublesome bad habit I’ve got,
Tom.”
“If Mas’r would only pray!”
“How do you know I don’t, Tom?”
“Does Mas’r?”
“I would, Tom, if there was anybody there when I pray; but it’s all
speaking unto nothing, when I do. But come, Tom, you pray now, and show
me how.”
Tom’s heart was full; he poured it out in prayer, like waters that have
been long suppressed. One thing was plain enough; Tom thought there was
somebody to hear, whether there were or not. In fact, St. Clare felt
himself borne, on the tide of his faith and feeling, almost to the
gates of that heaven he seemed so vividly to conceive. It seemed to
bring him nearer to Eva.
“Thank you, my boy,” said St. Clare, when Tom rose. “I like to hear
you, Tom; but go, now, and leave me alone; some other time, I’ll talk
more.”
Tom silently left the room.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Reunion
Week after week glided away in the St. Clare mansion, and the waves of
life settled back to their usual flow, where that little bark had gone
down. For how imperiously, how coolly, in disregard of all one’s
feeling, does the hard, cold, uninteresting course of daily realities
move on! Still must we eat, and drink, and sleep, and wake again,—still
bargain, buy, sell, ask and answer questions,—pursue, in short, a
thousand shadows, though all interest in them be over; the cold
mechanical habit of living remaining, after all vital interest in it
has fled.
All the interests and hopes of St. Clare’s life had unconsciously wound
themselves around this child. It was for Eva that he had managed his
property; it was for Eva that he had planned the disposal of his time;
and, to do this and that for Eva,—to buy, improve, alter, and arrange,
or dispose something for her,—had been so long his habit, that now she
was gone, there seemed nothing to be thought of, and nothing to be
done.
True, there was another life,—a life which, once believed in, stands as
a solemn, significant figure before the otherwise unmeaning ciphers of
time, changing them to orders of mysterious, untold value. St. Clare
knew this well; and often, in many a weary hour, he heard that slender,
childish voice calling him to the skies, and saw that little hand
pointing to him the way of life; but a heavy lethargy of sorrow lay on
him,—he could not arise. He had one of those natures which could better
and more clearly conceive of religious things from its own perceptions
and instincts, than many a matter-of-fact and practical Christian. The
gift to appreciate and the sense to feel the finer shades and relations
of moral things, often seems an attribute of those whose whole life
shows a careless disregard of them. Hence Moore, Byron, Goethe, often
speak words more wisely descriptive of the true religious sentiment,
than another man, whose whole life is governed by it. In such minds,
disregard of religion is a more fearful treason,—a more deadly sin.
St. Clare had never pretended to govern himself by any religious
obligation; and a certain fineness of nature gave him such an
instinctive view of the extent of the requirements of Christianity,
that he shrank, by anticipation, from what he felt would be the
exactions of his own conscience, if he once did resolve to assume them.
For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not
to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake and come
short.
Still St. Clare was, in many respects, another man. He read his little
Eva’s Bible seriously and honestly; he thought more soberly and
practically of his relations to his servants,—enough to make him
extremely dissatisfied with both his past and present course; and one
thing he did, soon after his return to New Orleans, and that was to
commence the legal steps necessary to Tom’s emancipation, which was to
be perfected as soon as he could get through the necessary formalities.
Meantime, he attached himself to Tom more and more, every day. In all
the wide world, there was nothing that seemed to remind him so much of
Eva; and he would insist on keeping him constantly about him, and,
fastidious and unapproachable as he was with regard to his deeper
feelings, he almost thought aloud to Tom. Nor would any one have
wondered at it, who had seen the expression of affection and devotion
with which Tom continually followed his young master.
“Well, Tom,” said St. Clare, the day after he had commenced the legal
formalities for his enfranchisement, “I’m going to make a free man of
you;—so have your trunk packed, and get ready to set out for Kentuck.”
The sudden light of joy that shone in Tom’s face as he raised his hands
to heaven, his emphatic “Bless the Lord!” rather discomposed St. Clare;
he did not like it that Tom should be so ready to leave him.
“You haven’t had such very bad times here, that you need be in such a
rapture, Tom,” he said drily.
“No, no, Mas’r! ’tan’t that,—it’s bein’ a _freeman!_ that’s what I’m
joyin’ for.”
“Why, Tom, don’t you think, for your own part, you’ve been better off
than to be free?”
“_No, indeed_, Mas’r St. Clare,” said Tom, with a flash of energy. “No,
indeed!”
“Why, Tom, you couldn’t possibly have earned, by your work, such
clothes and such living as I have given you.”
“Knows all that, Mas’r St. Clare; Mas’r’s been too good; but, Mas’r,
I’d rather have poor clothes, poor house, poor everything, and have ’em
_mine_, than have the best, and have ’em any man’s else,—I had _so_,
Mas’r; I think it’s natur, Mas’r.”
“I suppose so, Tom, and you’ll be going off and leaving me, in a month
or so,” he added, rather discontentedly. “Though why you shouldn’t, no
mortal knows,” he said, in a gayer tone; and, getting up, he began to
walk the floor.
“Not while Mas’r is in trouble,” said Tom. “I’ll stay with Mas’r as
long as he wants me,—so as I can be any use.”
“Not while I’m in trouble, Tom?” said St. Clare, looking sadly out of
the window. . . . “And when will _my_ trouble be over?”
“When Mas’r St. Clare’s a Christian,” said Tom.
“And you really mean to stay by till that day comes?” said St. Clare,
half smiling, as he turned from the window, and laid his hand on Tom’s
shoulder. “Ah, Tom, you soft, silly boy! I won’t keep you till that
day. Go home to your wife and children, and give my love to all.”
“I ’s faith to believe that day will come,” said Tom, earnestly, and
with tears in his eyes; “the Lord has a work for Mas’r.”
“A work, hey?” said St. Clare, “well, now, Tom, give me your views on
what sort of a work it is;—let’s hear.”
“Why, even a poor fellow like me has a work from the Lord; and Mas’r