The Hour and the Man Part 17

"And the children?"

"The children may be found in the schools, sitting side by side in peace. The quarrels of the children of different mothers (quarrels often fatal in the fields) disappear in the schools. The reports well exhibit the history of our expanding system."

"G.o.d be thanked!" Toussaint uttered in a low voice.

"Under the religions rule of your excellency," said the young priest, "enforced by so pure an example of piety, the morals of this colony will be established, and the salvation of its people secured."

"You," said Toussaint, "the servants of Christ, are the true rulers of this island and its inhabitants. I am your servant in guarding external order, during a period which you will employ in establis.h.i.+ng your flocks in the everlasting wisdom and peace of religion. I hold the inferior office of keeping our enemies in awe, and enabling our people to find subsistence and comfort. My charge is the soil on which, and the bodies in which, men live. You have in charge their souls, in which lies the future of this world and of the next. You are the true rulers of Saint Domingo; and we bow to you as such."

Every head was immediately bowed, and the priests went out, amidst the obeisances of the whole a.s.semblage--some of the order wondering, perhaps, whether every mind there was as sincere in its homage as that of the Commander-in-chief.

The superintendents of the cultivators came next--negroes dressed in check s.h.i.+rts, white linen jackets and trousers, and with the usual Madras handkerchief on the head. They, too, handed in reports; and to them also did Toussaint address his questions, with an air of respect almost equal to that with which he had spoken to the priests.

"I grieve," said he, "that you cannot yet fulfil your function altogether in peace. My generals and I have done what we can to preserve our fields from devastation, and our cultivators from the dangers and the fears of ambushed foes; but Rigaud's forces are not yet subdued; and for a while we must impose upon our cultivators the toil of working armed in the field. We are soldiers here," he added, looking round upon his officers, "but I hope there is not one of us who does not honour the hoe more than the gun. How far have you been able to repair in the south-eastern districts the interruption in the September planting?"

The superintendent of those districts came forward, and said that some planting had been effected in November, the sprouts of which now looked well. More planting had been done during the early part of the present month; and time would show the result.

"Good!" said Toussaint. "Some of the finest crops I have seen have risen from January plants, though it were best it were done in September. How do you report about the rats?"

"The nuisance is still great," replied the head superintendent; "their uninterrupted possession of the fields during the troubles has made them very powerful. Would that your excellency were as powerful to conquer the rats as the mulattoes!"

"We have allies," said Toussaint, gravely--"an army more powerful than that which I command. Where are the ants!"

"They have closed their campaign. They cleared the fields for us in the autumn; but they have disappeared."

"For a time only. While there are rats, they will reappear."

"And when there are no more rats, we must call in some force, if your excellency knows of such, to make war upon the an Is; for they are only a less evil than that which they cure."

"If they were absent, you would find some worse evil in their stead-- pestilence, perhaps. Teach your children this, if you hear them complain of anything to which Providence has given life and an errand among us. The cocoa walks at Plaisance--are they fenced to the north?"

"Completely. The new wood has sprung up from the ashes of the fires, like a mist from the lake."

"Are the cottages enlarged and divided, as I recommended?"

"Universally. Every cottage inhabited by a family has now two rooms, at least. As your excellency also desired, the cultivators have spent their leisure hours in preparing furniture--from bedsteads to baskets.

As the reports will explain, there are some inventions which it is hoped will be inspected by your excellency--particularly a ventilator, to be fixed in the roofs of cottages; a broad shoe for walking over the salt marshes; and--"

"The cooler," prompted a voice from behind.

"And a new kind of cooler, which preserves liquids, and even meats, for a longer time than any previously known to the richest planter in the island. This discovery does great credit to the sagacity of the labourer who has completed it."

"I will come and view it. I hope to visit all our cultivators--to verify your reports with my own eyes. At present, we are compelled, like the Romans, to go from arms to the plough, and from the plough to arms; but, when possible, I wish to show that I am not a negro of the coast, with my eye ever abroad upon the sea, or on foreign lands. I desire that we should make use of our own means for our own welfare.

Everything that is good shall be welcomed from abroad as it arrives; but the liberty of the blacks can be secured only by the prosperity of their agriculture."

"I do not see why not by fisheries," observed Paul, to the party in the piazza, as he caught his brother's words. "If Toussaint is not fond of fish, he should remember that other people are."

"He means," said Therese, "that toil, peaceful toil, with its hope, and its due fruit, is best for the blacks. Now, you know, Paul L'Ouverture, that if the fields of the ocean had required as much labour as those of the plain, you would never have been a fisherman."

"It is pleasanter on a hot day to dive than to dig; and easier to draw the net for an hour than to cut canes for a day--is it not, uncle?"

asked Aimee.

"If the Commander-in-chief thinks toil good for us," said Moyse, "why does he disparage war? Who knows better than he what are the fatigues of a march? and the wearisomeness of an ambush is greater still. Why does he, of all men, disparage war?"

"Because," said Madame, "he thinks there has been enough hatred and fighting. I have to put him in mind of his own glory in war, or he would be always forgetting it--except, indeed, when any one comes from Europe. When he hears of Bonaparte, he smiles; and I know he is then glad that he is a soldier too."

"Besides his thinking that there has been too much fighting," said Aimee, "he wishes that the people should labour joyfully in the very places where they used to toil in wretchedness for the whites."

Therese turned to listen, with fire in her eyes.

"In order," continued Aimee, "that they may lose the sense of that misery, and become friendly towards the whites."

Therese turned away again, languidly.

"There are whites now entering," said Paul; "not foreigners, are they?"

"No," said Madame. "Surely they are Creoles; yes, there is Monsieur Caze, and Monsieur Hugonin, and Monsieur Charrier. I think these gentlemen have all been reinstated in their properties since the last levee. Hear what they say."

"We come," exclaimed aloud Monsieur Caze, the spokesman of the party of white planters; "we come, overwhelmed with amazement, penetrated with grat.i.tude, to lay our thanks at your feet. All was lost. The estates on which we were born, the lands bequeathed to us by our fathers, were wrenched from our hands, ravaged, destroyed. We and our families fled-- some to the mountains--some to the woods--and many to foreign lands.

Your voice reached us, inviting us to our homes. We trusted that voice; we find our lands restored to us, our homes secure, and the pa.s.sions of war stilled, like this atmosphere after the storms of December. And to you do we owe all--to you, possessed by a magnanimity of which we had not dared to dream!"

"These pa.s.sions of war, of which you speak," said Toussaint, "need never have raged, if G.o.d had permitted the whites to dream what was in the souls of the blacks. Let the past now be forgotten. I have restored your estates because they were yours; but I also perceive advantages in your restoration. By circ.u.mstances--not by nature, but by circ.u.mstances--the whites have been able to acquire a wide intelligence, a depth of knowledge, from which the blacks have been debarred. I desire for the blacks a perpetual and friendly intercourse with those who are their superiors in education. As residents, therefore, you are welcome; and your security and welfare shall be my care. You find your estates peopled with cultivators?"

"We do."

"And you understand the terms on which the labour of your fellow-citizens may be hired? You have only to secure to them one-fourth of the produce, and you will, I believe, be well served. If you experience cause of complaint, your remedy will be found in an appeal to the superintendent of cultivators of the district, or to myself. Over the cultivators no one else, I now intimate to you, has authority."

The gentlemen bowed, having nothing to say on this head.

"It may be in your power," continued Toussaint, after applying to his secretary for a paper from the ma.s.s on the table--"it may be in your power to do a service to the colony, and to individuals mentioned in this paper, by affording information as to where they are to be found, if alive; which of them are dead; and which of the dead have left heirs.

Many estates remain unclaimed. The list is about to be circulated in the colony, in France, and in the United States. If you should chance to be in correspondence with any of the owners or their heirs, make it known to them from me that they will be welcome here, as you are. In the mean time we are taking the best care in empower of their estates.

They must rebuild such of their houses as have been destroyed; but their lands are cultivated under a commission, a part of the produce being a.s.signed to the cultivators, the rest to the public treasury."

Toussaint read the list, watching, as did every one present, the countenances of the Creoles as each name was p.r.o.nounced. They had information to offer respecting one or two only; to the rest they gave sighs or mournful shakes of the head.

"It is afflicting to us all," said Toussaint, "to think of the slaughter and exile of those who drank wine together in the white mansions of yonder plain. But a wiser cheerfulness is henceforth to spread its suns.h.i.+ne over our land, with no tempest brewing in its heats."

"Have we heard the whole list?" asked Monsieur Charrier, anxiously.

"All except three, whose owners or agents have been already summoned.

These three are, the Athens estate, Monsieur Dank; the Breda estate, the attorney of which, Monsieur Bayou--"

"Is here!" cried a voice from the lower part of the room. "I landed just now," exclaimed Bayou, hastening with extended arms to embrace Toussaint; "and I lose not a moment--"

"Gently, sir," said the Commander-in-chief, drawing back two steps.

"There is now a greater distance between me and you than there, once was between you and me. There can be no familiarity with the chief of a newly-redeemed race."

Monsieur Bayou fell back, looking in every face around him, to see what was thought of this. Every face was grave.