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For while not exactly skeptical about Grandison’s perfervid loyalty, Dick had been a somewhat keen observer of human nature, in his own indolent way, and based his expectations upon the force of the example and argument that his servant could scarcely fail to encounter. Grandison should have a fair chance to become free by his own initiative; if it should become necessary to adopt other measures to get rid of him, it would be time enough to act when the necessity arose; and Dick Owens was not the youth to take needless trouble.
These lines, which occur just after Dick and Grandison arrive in New York, suggest that, unlike his father, Dick has the mental flexibility to be at least a bit suspicious about Grandison’s professions of gratitude and loyalty to the colonel. Grandison’s words and behavior, when the colonel questions him, strike Dick as “perfervid”—that is, somewhat overheated and exaggerated, given what needed to be said.
As an unemployed and idle man who enjoys playing cards, but who, as the judge says, would need a bit to restrain him if he ever applied himself, Dick has had the time to watch those around him and consider why they do what they do. Yet for much of the story, Dick’s biased perception of slaves keeps him from understanding Grandison’s actions. In the face of Grandison’s apparent resistance to freedom, he finds himself forced to “adopt other measures,” finally abandoning Grandison when Grandison refuses to abandon him. Grandison challenges Dick’s lazy approach to life, but Dick rises to the challenge in a way that the colonel can’t. He learns to think more of Grandison and grasps that he has underestimated the man.
“We’ll be going back soon enough,” replied Dick somewhat shortly, while he inwardly cursed the stupidity of a slave who could be free and would not, and registered a secret vow that if he were unable to get rid of Grandison without assassinating him, and were therefore compelled to take him back to Kentucky, he would see that Grandison got a taste of an article of slavery that would make him regret his wasted opportunities. Meanwhile he determined to tempt his servant yet more strongly.
These thoughts occur to Dick while he and Grandison are in Boston, where Dick sees Grandison speaking to a young white clergyman. Grandison evinces relief at leaving the conversation, complains that abolitionists are “pesterin’” him, and says he’d like to get home to Kentucky.
Thwarted again in his efforts to get Grandison to seize a chance at freedom, Dick indulges in a bit of self-pity and a brief fantasy about punishing Grandison by using “an article of slavery”—almost certainly a whip—when they get back to Kentucky. Dick hasn’t given up, but as a lazy and entitled man, he resents having to work at getting Grandison to abandon him. What is right for Grandison doesn’t matter at all to Dick, who just wants to get back to Charity and report on his “heroic” actions. On a second reading of the story, of course, readers are aware that Chesnutt’s wry irony is at work in this scene. Grandison is feigning and, while they travel, quietly gathering help and information, laying plans for his escape. He is not at all wasting his opportunities.
