"Civil Disobedience" Read online

  “I was here, writing, but I know you went to jail the day before,” answered Alcott. “I salute you, Henry. That’s the way. We can’t outfight their arms, but we can surely raise our voices for the cause.”

  “May not violence sometimes be justified?” Thoreau asked as a test of Bronson’s principles.

  “I hate to think so, Henry,” answered Bronson.

  Thoreau sighed. No, of course Bronson Alcott wasn’t Breslin’s killer.

  “I think you’re looking for someone to take you to Canada, Mr. Wheatley,” added Bronson. “I’ve had a letter about you from friends, and I shall try to think of just the right person.” He and Thoreau had once helped a runaway together, and on his own, Bronson had assisted other fugative slaves. Thoreau admired his friend greatly for that.

  After a while, Louisa escorted the two visitors back to the door. Saying goodbye, she took one large black hand in her two small white ones. “I hope you will be well and happy, Mr. Wheatley,” she declared with the greatest of sincerity, making Thoreau smile. Thoreau’s own sisters were cut of a similar cloth, and along with his mother, belonged to the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society.

  ***

  On the road back to the Walden Woods, Thoreau went over what this trip to town had accomplished. He’d alerted his fellow abolitionists to Mr. Wheatley’s need for help and felt assured they would take action on the fugative’s behalf. But his feeble efforts to find the killer had come to nothing.

  Thoreau let out a sound expressing his frustration, then he said, “I simply can’t figure out who could have killed Mr. Breslin.” Of course he’d only considered the best of men in Concord since they were the people he knew well.

  Not expecting an answer to his exclamation, Thoreau was surprised when Mr. Wheatley spoke up next. “I know who killed Mr. Breslin, sir. Or at least who placed the body where you found it. I was there.”

  Mr. Wheatley could have knocked Thoreau over with a feather duster, Thoreau was that astonished. And at first nothing but stutters would come out of Thoreau’s mouth. Then he demanded to be told who might have done such a thing.

  “The man you called a poacher, sir,” answered Mr. Wheatley without emotion. “When I heard someone coming through the bushes with a great rustling, I hid at once. I knew Mr. Breslin was after me, as I explained, and there he was dead and this man dragging him to within 20 feet of your little cabin...”

  “Swinburn,” Thoreau interrupted. “Why didn’t you tell me from the start?”

  “Well, sir, you didn’t ask me, and I’ve been taught to keep my mouth shut when my comments aren’t wanted.” Mr. Wheatley seemed quite calm in relating this as well. But immediately Thoreau understood. Being a slave made a man virtually voiceless.

  They walked on while Thoreau thought out what he must next do. Swinburn was the killer, thus here was someone who belonged in jail, and not just overnight. Swinburn hadn’t even killed Breslin on moral grounds. In fact, God alone knew why Swinburn had shot the slave catcher at all. Probably mistook him for Thoreau or a member of his circle.

  ***

  That night after Thoreau and Mr. Wheatley had eaten the meat pies Thoreau’s mother had left while they’d been in town, the two men set forth again into the woods. They returned to the place where they’d buried the corpse, and Thoreau marveled at his own cleverness in insisting that the grave not be dug too deep.

  Still the work was arduous and by the time they’d carted the body back to Thoreau’s house, he was tired. Taking a moment to forget Mr. Breslin, the two men lay down for a nap.

  The moon was low in the sky when Thoreau came to consciousness. Had they missed their opportunity? Was it nearly dawn?

  But no, his pocket watch gave the time as only half past three, the perfect hour to steal toward the town of Concord.

  Thoreau stepped carefully onto the floor. He didn’t want to wake Mr. Wheatley and was thankful he had kept on his outdoor pants and cotton shirt.

  Outside he went and pushed his little one-wheel cart with its heavy burden from around where they’d hidden it. The going would be rough up to the packed dirt road. He pushed and rested. At just that moment, the door of his cabin gave out a creak and then a “woosh.” Thoreau turned to look. Mr. Wheatley’s form stepped out of the entry. The Negro trotted toward Thoreau.

  “You didn’t wake me,” the colored man whispered in complaint when he reached the writer.

  “You’re not to come with,” Thoreau whispered back. He wasn’t exactly sure why whispering was necessary just because this was the middle of the night and because they were doing something dangerous. No one was in the vicinity to hear them, anyway.

  If Thoreau was caught, nothing much would really happen to him. Maybe he’d go to jail again, but probably not. No one his right mind would imagine Thoreau to have murdered the dead man.

  Wheatley, on the other hand, if they were found out, was liable to be hanged or something too dreadful to be imagined. Thoreau was determined to go it alone.

  The two argued in whispers, with Thoreau insisting that Wheatley stay put and with Wheatley stubbornly keeping pace and trying to take charge of the little cart carrying the mortal remains of slave catcher Breslin.

  Finally, already winded and not even half to the road, Thoreau gave in and let Mr. Wheatley steer the cart while he, Thoreau, attempted from time to time to push the inanimate legs out of the way. They made slow but steady headway.

  Swinburn, to Thoreau’s great happiness, lived reasonably close to Walden Pond. Though the two men were drenched in sweat by the time they got there, they were in no danger of sunup anytime soon. They dumped the body at the poacher’s door, and hurried to be away and back to the woods as soon as possible.

  “I wonder if this was a wise thing to do,” observed Wheatley once they’d paused by the water to wash even the suggestion of the dead man off of them.

  Every step of the way back, Thoreau had considered exactly the same thing. “I don’t know,” he answered. But the die is cast, as Julius Caesar— according to Suetonius— had said, or, really, “jacta alea est.”

  ***

  They slept until the pounding on the door. Apprehended! Thoreau only feared for Mr. Wheatley as, bleary-eyed, the writer made his way to the door and opened up with a trembling hand. Of course, the town authorities had but to push at the door and enter therein if they wanted to arrest him. Thoreau had no lock on his cabin.

  But their visitor wasn’t from the town of Concord. He was a Salem official—Nathaniel Hawthorne, once again.

  Mr. Wheatley had jumped up and now sat down on one of Thoreau’s straight-back chairs.

  “You two have overslept this morning,” observed Hawthorne brightly.

  Thoreau groaned and went to make a pot of tea. He ached from all the work he and Wheatley had done the day before.

  Hawthorne turned to the colored man. “My wife and I have ordered up a coach to take us to Salem later this morning. If you come with us, I can get you on a ship to Canada from there. It won’t be a problem. And sailing at this time of year should be more pleasure than pain.”

  Hawthorne looked at Mr. Wheatley while Thoreau looked at Hawthorne. “A captain you trust, Nath?”

  “Of course. He’s one of us and outspoken. “

  Now both men looked at Mr. Wheatley.

  “Thank you so much, sir,” the fugitive said. “I’m forever in your debt. Both you gentlemen...”

  Ah, there. It was settled. “I’ll miss your fine company,” Thoreau told Mr. Wheatley.

  “But you haven’t heard the latest gossip from town,” exclaimed Hawthorne. “The streets are buzzing.”

  Thoreau and Mr. Wheatley avoided one another’s gaze except out of the corners of their eyes.

  “The old guy, Swinburn, was arrested for murder early this morning,” Hawthorne announced.

  “Oh,” responded Thoreau, with only a hint of interest.

  “Someone spotted a dead man at his door and ran for the bailiff.” Hawthorne smil
ed—somewhat ghoulishly, Thoreau thought. Hawthorne went on, “Swinburn, they say, couldn’t explain it. He admitted that he’d seen the corpse in the woods—he’s a poacher, you know—but said he hadn’t killed the man.”

  Thoreau felt strange. He sat down. Hawthorne immediately followed suit.

  “Yet the body had obviously been buried for a day or two—it had dirt on it, they say.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Thoreau murmured.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” offered Hawthorne with enthusiasm. “Do you think the incident would make a telling literary story?”

  “Oh, yes, I suppose so,” said Thoreau.

  “Well, anyway, that wasn’t an end to the entire matter. It gets even stranger.” Hawthorne leaned forward to deliver his punchline.

  Thoreau felt as if he couldn’t breathe.

  “Yes, indeed.” Hawthorne drew out the suspense of his conclusion before finally taking up his tale once more. “An hour later, Farmer Delaney came to the jail. He admitted to the shooting, but said it was merely accidental. He, too, had been poaching—not very far from here, actually—on Emerson land.”

  “Oh my,” said Thoreau. He really was stunned.

  “He simply left the body where it was, hadn’t buried it or anything, as he thought it ought to be found.”

  “Of course,” muttered Thoreau. “One would want the dead man’s family to know.”

  “So now Delaney will have to go on trial.” At this point in his story Hawthorne appeared rather more somber. “He’s one of us, you realize—an abolitionist. I’d hate to see him go to prison.”

  The cabin walls closed in on Thoreau. “Something will have to be done for Delaney.”

  “Naturally,” said Hawthorne. “He’s one of us.”

  The three men sat and exchanged unreadable glances, while Thoreau wondered if he ought to tell exactly what it was he knew. But the fact remained that, in the end, the truth had come out. Thoreau had tried to arrange a sort of justice, but only if the guilty party was a man he didn’t care for. Now, someone he liked would enter the docket and Thoreau felt terrible. He hoped Delaney would be found innocent, just as he’d earlier hoped Swinburn would be convicted for the murder.

  Thoreau wondered what Hawthorne might make of the story as a piece of fiction if he knew the whole account of this rather dreadful affair.

  Then and there Thoreau swore to himself: This would be one incident very much missing from the journals covering his stay at Walden pond.

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