The Sport of the Gods

people loose upon the country the way they did, without knowledge of what the first principle of liberty was. The natural result is that these people are irresponsible. They are unacquainted with the ways of our higher civilisation, and it’ll take them a long time to learn. You know Rome wasn’t built in a day. I know Berry, and I’ve known him for a long while, and a politer, likelier darky than him you would have to go far to find. And I haven’t the least doubt in the world that he took that money absolutely without a thought of wrong, sir, absolutely. He saw it. He took it, and to his mental process, that was the end of it. To him there was no injury inflicted on anyone, there was no crime committed. His elemental reasoning was simply this: This man has more money than I have; here is some of his surplus⁠—I’ll just take it. Why, gentlemen, I maintain that that man took that money with the same innocence of purpose with which one of our servants a few years ago would have appropriated a stray ham.”

“I disagree with you entirely, Mr. Talbot,” broke in Mr. Beachfield Davis, who was a mighty hunter.⁠—“Make mine the same, Jerry, only add a little syrup.⁠—I disagree with you. It’s simply total depravity, that’s all. All niggers are alike, and there’s no use trying to do anything with them. Look at that man, Dodson, of mine. I had one of the finest young hounds in the State. You know that white pup of mine, Mr. Talbot, that I bought from Hiram Gaskins? Mighty fine breed. Well, I was spendin’ all my time and patience trainin’ that dog in the daytime. At night I put him in that nigger’s care to feed and bed. Well, do you know, I came home the other night and found that black rascal gone? I went out to see if the dog was properly bedded, and by Jove, the dog was gone too. Then I got suspicious. When a nigger and a dog go out together at night, one draws certain conclusions. I thought I had heard bayin’ way out towards the edge of the town. So I stayed outside and watched. In about an hour here came Dodson with a possum hung over his shoulder and my dog trottin’ at his heels. He’d been possum huntin’ with my hound⁠—with the finest hound in the State, sir. Now, I appeal to you all, gentlemen, if that ain’t total depravity, what is total depravity?”

“Not total depravity, Beachfield, I maintain, but the very irresponsibility of which I have spoken. Why, gentlemen, I foresee the day when these people themselves shall come to us Southerners of their own accord and ask to be re-enslaved until such time as they shall be fit for freedom.” Old Horace was nothing if not logical.

“Well, do you think there’s any doubt of the darky’s guilt?” asked Colonel Saunders hesitatingly. He was the only man who had ever thought of such a possibility. They turned on him as if he had been some strange, unnatural animal.

“Any doubt!” cried Old Horace.

“Any doubt!” exclaimed Mr. Davis.

“Any doubt?” almost shrieked the rest. “Why, there can be no doubt. Why, Colonel, what are you thinking of? Tell us who has got the money if he hasn’t? Tell us where on earth the nigger got the money he’s been putting in the bank? Doubt? Why, there isn’t the least doubt about it.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said the Colonel, “but I thought, of course, he might have saved it. There are several of those people, you know, who do a little business and have bank accounts.”

“Yes, but they are in some sort of business. This man makes only thirty dollars a month. Don’t you see?”

The Colonel saw, or said he did. And he did not answer what he might have answered, that Berry had no rent and no board to pay. His clothes came from his master, and Kitty and Fannie looked to their mistress for the larger number of their supplies. He did not call to their minds that Fannie herself made fifteen dollars a month, and that for two years Joe had been supporting himself. These things did not come up, and as far as the opinion of the gentlemen assembled in the Continental bar went, Berry was already proven guilty.

As for the prisoner himself, after the first day when he had pleaded “Not guilty” and been bound over to the Grand Jury, he had fallen into a sort of dazed calm that was like the stupor produced by a drug. He took little heed of what went on around him. The shock had been too sudden for him, and it was as if his reason had been for the time unseated. That it was not permanently overthrown was evidenced by his waking to the most acute pain and grief whenever Fannie came to him. Then he would toss and moan and give vent to his sorrow in passionate complaints.

“I didn’t tech his money, Fannie, you know I didn’t. I wo’ked fu’ every cent of dat money, an’ I saved it myself. Oh, I’ll nevah be able to git a job ag’in. Me in de lockup⁠—me, aftah all dese yeahs!”

Beyond this, apparently, his mind could not go. That his detention was anything more than temporary never seemed to enter his mind. That he would be convicted and sentenced was as far from possibility as the skies from the earth. If he saw visions of a long sojourn in prison, it was only as a nightmare half consciously experienced and which with the struggle must give way before the waking.

Fannie was utterly hopeless. She had laid down whatever pride had been hers and gone to plead with Maurice Oakley for her husband’s freedom, and she had seen his hard, set face. She had gone upon her knees before his wife to cite Berry’s long fidelity.

“Oh, Mis’ Oakley,” she cried, “ef he did