Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

Chapter IX. The Death

CHAPTER IX The Death DEATH is ALWAYS SUDDEN. However gradual may be its approaches , it is, in its effects upon the survivor, always sudden at last. Tiff thought, at first, that his mistress was in a fainting-fit, and tried every means to restore her. It was affecting to see him chafing the thin, white, pearly hands, in his large, rough, black paws; raising the head upon his arm, and calling in a thousand tones of fond endearment , pouring out a perfect torrent of loving devotion on the cold, unheeding ear. But, then, spite of all he could do, the face settled itself , and the hands would not be warmed; the thought of death struck him suddenly, and, throwing himself on the floor by the bed, he wept with an exceeding loud and bitter cry. Something in his heart revolted against awakening that man who lay heavily breathing by her side. He would not admit to himself, at this moment, that this man had any right in her, or that the sorrow was any part of his sorrow. But the cry awoke Cripps, who sat up bewildered in bed, clearing the hair from his eyes with the back of his hand. "Tiff, what the durned are you howling about?" Tiff got up in a moment, and, swallowing down his grief and his tears, pointed indignantly to the still figure on the bed. "Dar! dar! Wouldn't b'lieve her last night! Now what you think of dat ar? See how you look now! Good Shepherd hearn you abusing de poor lamb, and he's done took her whar you'll never see her again!" Cripps had, like coarse, animal men generally, a stupid and senseless horror of death;—he recoiled from the lifeless form, and sprang from the bed with an expression of horror. "Well, now, who would have thought it?" he said. "That I should be in bed with a corpse! I hadn't the least idea!" "No, dat's plain enough, you didn't! You'll believe it now, won't you? Poor little lamb, lying here suffering all alone! I tell you, when 99 100 DRED folks have been sick so long, dey has to die to make folks believe anything ails 'em!" "Well, really," said Cripps, "this is really—why, it an't comfortable ! darned if it is! Why, I'm sorry about the gal! I meant to steam her up, or done something with her. What's we to do now?" "Pretty likely you don't know! Folks like you, dat never tends to nothing good, is always flustered when de Master knocks at de do'! 7 knows what to do, though. Ps boun' to get up de crittur, and go up to de old plantation, and bring down a woman and do something for her, kind of decent. You mind the chil'en till I come back." Tiff took down and drew on over his outer garment a coarse, light, woollen coat, with very long skirts and large buttons, in which he always arrayed himself in cases of special solemnity. Stopping at the door before he went out, he looked over Cripps from head to foot, with an air of patronizing and half-pitiful contempt, and delivered himself as follows: "Now, mas'r, Ps gwine up, and will be back quick as possible; and now do pray be decent, and let dat ar whiskey alone for one day in your life, and 'member death, judgment, and 'ternity. Just act, now, as if you'd got a streak of something in you, such as a man ought for to have who is married to one of de very fustest families in old Virginny. 'Fleet, now, on your latter end; may be will do your poor old soul some good; and don't you go for to waking up the chil'en before I gets back. They'll learn de trouble soon enough." Cripps listened to this oration with a stupid, bewildered stare, gazing first at the bed, and then at the old man, who was soon making all the speed he could towards Canema. Nina was not habitually an early riser, but on this morning she had awaked with the first peep of dawn, and, finding herself unable to go to sleep again, she had dressed herself, and gone down to the garden. She was walking up and down in one of the alleys, thinking over the perplexities of her own affairs, when her ear...