The thought made him quake, and he hid the knife away, trembling
all over and glancing furtively about, like a criminal who fancies that
the accuser is already at hand.
Should he try to sleep? Oh, no, sleep was not for him; his trouble
was too haunting, too afflicting for that. He must have somebody
to mourn with. He would carry his despair to Roxy.
He had heard several distant gunshots, but that sort of thing
was not uncommon, and they had made no impression upon him.
He went out at the back door, and turned westward. He passed
Wilson’s house and proceeded along the lane, and presently saw
several figures approaching Wilson’s place through the vacant lots.
These were the duelists returning from the fight; he thought
he recognized them, but as he had no desire for white people’s company,
he stooped down behind the fence until they were out of his way.
Roxy was feeling fine. She said:
“Whah was you, child? Warn’t you in it?”
“In what?”
“In de duel.”
“Duel? Has there been a duel?”
“Co’se dey has. De ole Jedge has be’n havin’ a duel wid one o’ dem twins.”
“Great Scott!” Then he added to himself: “That’s what made him remake
the will; he thought he might get killed, and it softened him toward me.
And that’s what he and Howard were so busy about. . . .
Oh dear, if the twin had only killed him, I should be out of my–”
“What is you mumblin’ ’bout, Chambers? Whah was you?
Didn’t you know dey was gwine to be a duel?”
“No, I didn’t. The old man tried to get me to fight one with Count Luigi,
but he didn’t succeed, so I reckon he concluded to patch up
the family honor himself.”
He laughed at the idea, and went rambling on with a detailed account
of his talk with the judge, and how shocked and ashamed the judge was
to find that he had a coward in his family. He glanced up at last,
and got a shock himself. Roxana’s bosom was heaving with
suppressed passion, and she was glowering down upon
him with measureless contempt written in her face.
“En you refuse’ to fight a man dat kicked you, ‘stid o’ jumpin’
at de chance! En you ain’t got no mo’ feelin’ den to come
en tell me, dat fetched sich a po’ lowdown ornery rabbit into
de worl’! Pah! it make me sick! It’s de nigger in you,
dat’s what it is. Thirty-one parts o’ you is white, en on’y one
part nigger, en dat po’ little one part is yo’ _soul_.
‘Tain’t wuth savin’; tain’t wuth totin’ out on a shovel en throwin’
en de gutter. You has disgraced yo’ birth. What would yo’ pa
think o’ you? It’s enough to make him turn in his grave.
The last three sentences stung Tom into a fury, and he said to
himself that if his father were only alive and in reach of assassination
his mother would soon find that he had a very clear notion of the
size of his indebtedness to that man, and was willing to pay it
up in full, and would do it too, even at risk of his life;
but he kept this thought to himself; that was safest in his
mother’s present state.
“Whatever has come o’ yo’ Essex blood? Dat’s what I can’t understan’.
En it ain’t on’y jist Essex blood dat’s in you, not by a long sight–
‘deed it ain’t! My great-great-great-gran’father en yo’
great-great-great-great-gran’father was Ole Cap’n John Smith,
de highest blood dat Ole Virginny ever turned out, en _his_
great-great-gran’mother, or somers along back dah, was Pocahontas
de Injun queen, en her husbun’ was a nigger king outen Africa–
en yit here you is, a slinkin’ outen a duel en disgracin’ our
whole line like a ornery lowdown hound! Yes, it’s de nigger in you!”
She sat down on her candle box and fell into a reverie.
Tom did not disturb her; he sometimes lacked prudence, but it was not
in circumstances of this kind, Roxana’s storm went gradually down,
but it died hard, and even when it seemed to be quite gone,