They disengaged her hands, and led Berry away.
“Take her out,” said Oakley sternly to the servants; and they lifted her up and carried her away in a sort of dumb stupor that was half a swoon.
They took her to her little cottage, and laid her down until she could come to herself and the full horror of her situation burst upon her.
V
The Justice of Men
The arrest of Berry Hamilton on the charge preferred by his employer was the cause of unusual commotion in the town. Both the accuser and the accused were well known to the citizens, white and black—Maurice Oakley as a solid man of business, and Berry as an honest, sensible negro, and the pink of good servants. The evening papers had a full story of the crime, which closed by saying that the prisoner had amassed a considerable sum of money, it was very likely from a long series of smaller peculations.
It seems a strange irony upon the force of right living, that this man, who had never been arrested before, who had never even been suspected of wrongdoing, should find so few who even at the first telling doubted the story of his guilt. Many people began to remember things that had looked particularly suspicious in his dealings. Some others said, “I didn’t think it of him.” There were only a few who dared to say, “I don’t believe it of him.”
The first act of his lodge, “The Tribe of Benjamin,” whose treasurer he was, was to have his accounts audited, when they should have been visiting him with comfort, and they seemed personally grieved when his books were found to be straight. The A.M.E. church, of which he had been an honest and active member, hastened to disavow sympathy with him, and to purge itself of contamination by turning him out. His friends were afraid to visit him and were silent when his enemies gloated. On every side one might have asked, Where is charity? and gone away empty.
In the black people of the town the strong influence of slavery was still operative, and with one accord they turned away from one of their own kind upon whom had been set the ban of the white people’s displeasure. If they had sympathy, they dared not show it. Their own interests, the safety of their own positions and firesides, demanded that they stand aloof from the criminal. Not then, not now, nor has it ever been true, although it has been claimed, that negroes either harbour or sympathise with the criminal of their kind. They did not dare to do it before the sixties. They do not dare to do it now. They have brought down as a heritage from the days of their bondage both fear and disloyalty. So Berry was unbefriended while the storm raged around him. The cell where they had placed him was kind to him, and he could not hear the envious and sneering comments that went on about him. This was kind, for the tongues of his enemies were not.
“Tell me, tell me,” said one, “you needn’t tell me dat a bird kin fly so high dat he don’ have to come down some time. An’ w’en he do light, honey, my Lawd, how he flop!”
“Mistah Rich Niggah,” said another. “He wanted to dress his wife an’ chillen lak white folks, did he? Well, he foun’ out, he foun’ out. By de time de jedge git thoo wid him he won’t be hol’in’ his haid so high.”
“W’y, dat gal o’ his’n,” broke in old Isaac Brown indignantly, “w’y, she wouldn’ speak to my gal, Minty, when she met huh on de street. I reckon she come down off’n huh high hoss now.”
The fact of the matter was that Minty Brown was no better than she should have been, and did not deserve to be spoken to. But none of this was taken into account either by the speaker or the hearers. The man was down, it was time to strike.
The women too joined their shrill voices to the general cry, and were loud in their abuse of the Hamiltons and in disparagement of their high-toned airs.
“I knowed it, I knowed it,” mumbled one old crone, rolling her bleared and jealous eyes with glee. “W’enevah you see niggahs gittin’ so high dat dey own folks ain’ good enough fu’ ’em, look out.”
“W’y, la, Aunt Chloe I knowed it too. Dem people got so owdacious proud dat dey wouldn’t walk up to de collection table no mo’ at chu’ch, but allus set an’ waited twell de basket was passed erroun’.”
“Hit’s de livin’ trufe, an’ I’s been seein’ it all ’long. I ain’t said nuffin’, but I knowed what ’uz gwine to happen. Ol’ Chloe ain’t lived all dese yeahs fu’ nuffin’, an’ ef she got de gif’ o’ secon’ sight, ’tain’t fu’ huh to say.”
The women suddenly became interested in this half assertion, and the old hag, seeing that she had made the desired impression, lapsed into silence.
The whites were not neglecting to review and comment on the case also. It had been long since so great a bit of wrongdoing in a negro had given them cause for speculation and recrimination.
“I tell you,” said old Horace Talbot, who was noted for his kindliness towards people of colour, “I tell you, I pity that darky more than I blame him. Now, here’s my theory.” They were in the bar of the Continental Hotel, and the old gentleman sipped his liquor as he talked. “It’s just like this: The North thought they were doing a great thing when they come down here and freed all the slaves. They thought they were doing a great thing, and I’m not saying a word against them. I give them the credit for having the courage of their convictions. But I maintain that they were all wrong, now, in turning these
