The Deliverance | Page 5

a tinge of bitterness in
his chuckle. "Why, in my day, an' that was up to the very close of the
war, you might stand at the big gate an' look in any direction you
pleased till yo' eyes bulged fit to bust, but you couldn't look past the
Blake land for all yo' tryin'. These same fields here we're passin'
through I've seen set out in Blake tobaccy time an' agin, an' the farm I
live on three miles beyond the Hall belonged to the old gentleman, God
bless him! up to the day he died. Lord save my soul! three hunnard as
likely niggers as you ever clap sight on, an' that not countin' a good
fifty that was too far gone to work."
"All scattered now, I suppose?"
"See them little cabins over yonder?" With a dirty forefinger he pointed
to the tiny trails of smoke hanging low above the distant tree-tops. "The
county's right speckled with 'em an' with thar children--all named Blake
arter old marster, as they called him, or Corbin arter old miss. When
leetle Mr. Christopher got turned out of the Hall jest befo' his pa died,
an' was shuffled into the house of the overseer, whar Bill Fletcher used
to live himself, the darkies all bought bits o'land here an' thar an' settled
down to do some farmin' on a free scale. Stuck up, suh! Why, Zebbadee
Blake passed me yestiddy drivin' his own mule-team, an' I heard him
swar he wouldn't turn out o' the road for anybody less'n God A'mighty
or Marse Christopher!"
"A-ahem!" exclaimed Carraway, with relish; "and in the meantime, the
heir to all this high-handed authority is no better than an illiterate
day-labourer."
Peterkin snorted. "Who? Mr. Christopher? Well, he warn't more'n ten
years old when his pa went doty an' died, an' I don't reckon he's had
much larnin' sence. I've leant on the gate myself an' watched the nigger
children traipsin' by to the Yankee woman's school, an' he drivin' the
plough when he didn't reach much higher than the handle. He' used to
be the darndest leetle brat, too, till his sperits got all freezed out o' him.
Lord! Lord! thar's such a sight of meanness in this here world that it
makes a body b'lieve in Providence whether or no."
Carraway meditatively twirled his walking-stick. "Raises tobacco now

like the rest, doesn't he?"
"Not like the rest--bless you, no, suh. Why, the weed thrives under his
very touch, though he can't abide the smell of it, an' thar's not a farmer
in the county that wouldn't ruther have him to plant, cut, or cure than
any ten men round about. They do say that his pa went clean crazy
about tobaccy jest befo' he died, an' that Mr. Christopher gets dead sick
when he smells it smokin' in the barn, but he kin pick up a leaf
blindfold an' tell you the quality of it at his first touch."
For a moment the lawyer was silent, pondering a thought he evidently
did not care to utter. When at last he spoke it was in the measured tones
of one who overcomes an impediment in his speech.
"Do you happen to have heard, I wonder, anything of his attitude
toward the present owner of the Hall?"
"Happen to have heard!" Peterkin threw back his head and gasped.
"Why, the whole county has happened to hear of it, I reckon. It's been
common talk sence the day he got his first bird-gun, an' his nigger,
Uncle Boaz, found him hidin' in the bushes to shoot old Fletcher when
he came in sight. I tell you, if Bill Fletcher lay dyin' in the road, Mr.
Christopher would sooner ride right over him than not. You ask some
folks, suh, an' they'll tell you a Blake kin hate twice as long as most
men kin love."
"Ah, is it so bad as that?" muttered Carraway.
"Well, he ain't much of a Christian, as the lights go," continued Sol,
"but I ain't sartain, accordin' to my way of thinkin', that he ain't got a
better showin' on his side than a good many of 'em that gits that befo'
the preacher. He's a Blake, skin an' bone, anyhow, an' you ain't goin' to
git this here county to go agin him--not if he was to turn an' spit at
Satan himself. Old Bill Fletcher stole his house an' his land an' his
money, law or no law--that's how I look at it--but he couldn't steal his
name, an' that's what counts among the niggers, an' the po' whites, too.
Why, I've seen a whole parcel o' darkies stand stock still when Fletcher
drove up to the bars with his spankin' pair of bays, an' then mos' break
tha' necks