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 UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 
 
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; 
 
 OR, 
 
 LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY. 
 
 BY 
 
 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 
 
 BY THE EEV. JAMES SHEEMAN, 
 
 OF SURBEY CHAPEL. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SL *-' - 
 G. BOHN. %TOEK STEEET. COVENt GAHDEN. 
 ~ ' . -^ ' ' 
 
 1852> 
 
 i^ a ^^^ - M 
 
 f JBRARY 1 j 
 
 r* A T TT?r^rXTT A 
 
LONDON : 
 BEADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS WHITEFRIARS. 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 THE scenes of this story, as its title indicates, lie among 
 a race hitherto ignored by the associations of polite and 
 refined society; an exotic race, whose ancestors, born 
 beneath a tropic sun, brought with them, and perpetuated 
 to their descendants, a character so essentially unlike the 
 hard and dominant Anglo-Saxon race, as for many years to 
 have won from it only misunderstanding and contempt. 
 
 But, another and better day is dawning ; every, influence 
 of literature, of poetry and of art, in our times, is becoming 
 more and more in unison with the great master chord of 
 Christianity, " good will to man." 
 
 The poet, the painter, and the artist, now seek out and 
 embellish the common and gentler humanities of life, and, 
 under the allurements of fiction, breathe a humanising and 
 subduing influence, favourable to the development of the 
 great principles of Christian brotherhood. 
 
 The hand of benevolence is everywhere stretched out, 
 searching into abuses, righting wrongs, alleviating distresses, 
 and bringing to the knowledge and sympathies of the world 
 the lowly, the oppressed, and the forgotten. 
 
 In this general movement, unhappy Africa at last is 
 
vi PBEFACE. 
 
 remembered; Africa, who began the race of civilisation 
 and human progress in the dim, gray dawn of early time, 
 but who, for centuries, has lain bound and bleeding at 
 the foot of civilised and Christianised humanity, imploring 
 compassion in vain. 
 
 But the heart of the dominant race, who have been 
 her conquerors, her hard masters, has at length been 
 turned towards her in mercy; and it has been seen how 
 far nobler it is in nations to protect the feeble than to 
 oppress them. Thanks be to Grod, the world has at last 
 outlived the slave-trade ! 
 
 The object of these sketches is to awaken sympathy and 
 feeling for the African race, as they exist among us ; to 
 show their wrongs and sorrows, under a system so neces- 
 sarily cruel and unjust as to defeat and do away the good 
 effects of all that can be attempted for them, by their best 
 friends, under it. 
 
 In doing this, the author can sincerely disclaim any 
 invidious feeling towards those individuals who, often 
 without any fault of their own, are involved in the trials 
 and embarrassments of the legal relations of slavery. 
 
 Experience has shown her that some of the noblest of 
 minds and hearts are often thus involved; and no one 
 knows better than they do, that what may be gathered of 
 the evils of slavery from sketches like these, is not the half 
 that could be told, of the unspeakable whole. 
 
 In the northern states, these representations may, 
 perhaps, be thought caricatures ; in the southern states are 
 witnesses who know their fidelity. "What personal know- 
 ledge the author has had, of the truth of incidents such 
 as here are related, will appear in its time. 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 It is a comfort to hope, as so many of the world's sorrows 
 and wrongs have, from age to age, been lived down, so 
 a time shall come when sketches similar to these shall 
 be valuable only as memorials of what has long ceased 
 to be. 
 
 "When an enlightened and Christianised community shall 
 have, on the shores of Africa, laws, language, and literature, 
 drawn from among us, may then the scenes of the house 
 of bondage be to them like the remembrance of Egypt 
 to the Israelite, a motive of thankfulness to Him who hath 
 redeemed them ! 
 
 For, while politicians contend, and men are swerved this 
 way and that by conflicting tides of interest and passion, 
 the great cause of human liberty is in the hands of One, 
 of whom it is said : 
 
 " He shall not fail nor be discouraged 
 Till He have set judgment in the earth." 
 
 " He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, 
 The poor, and him that hath no helper.'' 
 
 " He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, 
 And precious shall their blood be in His sight." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L PAGE 
 
 IN WHICH THE READER is INTRODUCED TO A MAN OF HUMANITY 1 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 THE MOTHER 12 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 THE HUSBAND AND FATHER 15 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 AN EVENING IN UNCLE TOM'S CABIN . . . . e .21 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SHOWING THE FEELINGS OP LIVING PROPERTY ON CHANGING 
 
 OWNERS * . ^ ....,.' . . . 33 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 DISCOVERY .42 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 THE MOTHER'S STRUGGLE . . . . . . . . 52 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 ELIZA'S ESCAPE 66 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 IN WHICH IT APPEARS THAT A SENATOR IS BUT A MAN . . . 83 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE PROPERTY is CARRIED OFF . 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 IN WHICH PROPERTY GETS INTO AN IMPROPER STATE OF MIND . Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 SELECT INCIDENT OF LAWFUL TRADE 125 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE QUAKER SETTLEMENT . ,143 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 EVANGELINE ^ 152 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 OF TOM'S NEW MASTER, AND VARIOUS OTHER MATTERS . .163 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 TOM'S MISTRESS AND HER OPINIONS .... , 180 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE FREE MAN'S DEFENCE . 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 OPHELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS 218 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Miss OPHELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS, CONTINUED . 235 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 TOPSY . . .'..'.. . " . . . 256 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 KENTUCK -.'_.', .^ \ .* : -.;'.-. . 272 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 "THE GRASS WTTHERETH THE FLOWER FADETH. . . . 278 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. PAOE 
 
 HENRIQUE 285 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 FORESHADOWINGS 293 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 THE LITTLE EVANGELIST 300 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 DEATH 305 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 "THIS IS THE LAST OP EARTH" 319 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 REUNION 327 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 THE UNPROTECTED . .343 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 THE SLAVE WAREHOUSE 351 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 THE MIDDLE PASSAGE 362 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 DARK PLACES . . V 4 . . 369 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 CA~SSY 378 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE QUADROON'S STORY . . . % 386 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE TOKENS . . -Y' i . . .397 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVL PAGE 
 
 EMMELINE AND CASSY ......... 404 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 LIBERTY ........... 4U 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 THE VICTORY . . . t ' , ....... 418 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THE STRATAGEM . . , ,. , ..... 429 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 THE MARTYR ..... .',.. * . . . . 440 
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 THE YOUNG MASTER .. ... .'.. ..... 447 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 AN AUTHENTIC GHOST STORY . ., . .--,. 464r 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 RESULTS . . ... . . . rt , ., A -, . . 461 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 THE LIBERATOR . . . . . . . . +.. . . . 469 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS ... . ..... 473 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 TO HENRY G. BOHN, ESQ. 
 
 SIB, 
 
 FOE, the copy of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," which you 
 have done me the honour to send for my acceptance, I beg 
 to express my obligations. Its excellent typography, and 
 almost unparalleled cheapness, place it above any edition 
 which I have seen. I was about to wish it success ; but I 
 have since learned that the entire edition of 5000 copies was 
 soldln a single day a fact as extraordinary to me as the book 
 itself. However, as the slave cannot, I beg on his behalf to 
 thank you for the enterprise you have thrown into a mere 
 speculation, and thereby have assisted to plead his cause. 
 And now I have my pen in hand, I am tempted to write a 
 few words about the book, and the subject of which it 
 treats. 
 
 " Uncle Tom's Cabin" needs no panegyric from me. The 
 public have done justice to its thrilling contents by pur- 
 chasing and perusing many thousands of copies. By the 
 verdict of the people of England and America it has taken 
 its place as a standard work among the beauties of English 
 literature. The genius which has strung together so many 
 real incidents in slave life the dramatic beauty with which 
 the scenes are painted the rich vein of humour which 
 pervades almost every dialogue the variety of characters 
 introduced as well among slaveholders as slaves and the 
 genuine nature displayed in every page, render it as irre- 
 sistibly attractive to the learned and unlearned as Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim's Progress or De Foe's Robinson Crusoe. Youth 
 and age are alike enchanted by its representations, and know 
 
xitf INTEODCCTOEY EEMAEKS. 
 
 not how to lay it down when its perusal has been com- 
 menced. 
 
 Besides all that is beautiful in the work as a composition, 
 its truthfulness and piety are, in my estimation, its chief 
 charms. To exquisite womanly tenderness it unites the most 
 dignified and scriptural sentiments. It equally opens the 
 flood-gates of the affections and enlightens and sanctifies the 
 judgment. Not only is the imagination pleased with the 
 graphic sketches, as the eye would be with the beauties of a 
 landscape, but the mind becomes ennobled and strengthened 
 by the doctrines advanced ; as he who sits down to a sump- 
 tuous feast may admire the elegance and ornaments with 
 which it is served, but rises refreshed and nourished by the 
 healthful provision of which he has partaken. 
 
 Against this characteristic of the book, critics, favourable 
 to the present state of slavery, have directed their chief 
 objections. They tell us that the characters are overdrawn 
 that the cruelties are not so extreme, nor the slaves so 
 pious, as the authoress has represented; that, with few 
 exceptions, the slaveholders are a humane and indulgent 
 race, and the slaves in general are as happy as our poor in 
 England ; that we must estimate Mrs. Stowe's book as an 
 exaggerated description of " the domestic institution of 
 slavery in America," and make due allowance for the femi- 
 nine weakness which has transgressed the bounds of simple 
 truth. Happily for the cause of righteousness, the details 
 of the work have received a confirmation as singular as 
 it is valuable. The Earl of Carlisle, it is well known, a 
 few years ago visited America. His Lordship's position 
 would gain him access to all their institutions ; and we can 
 conceive that only the best features of slavery were seen by 
 him, and those which were repulsive were, as much as possible, 
 kept out of his way. Notwithstanding this, upon a review 
 of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" appearing in the "Leeds Mercury," 
 Lord Carlisle sent the following letter to Edward Baines, 
 Esq., the intelligent editor of that paper : 
 
 " NA WORTH CASTLE, Sept. 6. 
 "Mr DEAE MR. BAINES, 
 
 " I write a line to thank you, as privately or as pub- 
 licly as you think fittest, for your admirable comment upon 
 
INTBODTJCTOHY EEMAEKS. XV 
 
 an admirable book, ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' It gave me the 
 more special pleasure, from having been somewhat dis- 
 heartened and disappointed in other quarters. There are, 
 however, very few subjects, I will not say there are none, 
 upon which I have not found that our sympathies flow in 
 common. With respect to the work in question, its genius, 
 its pathos, its humour, must sufficiently commend themselves 
 to its nearly unparalleled number of readers : I feel that I 
 have seen and known enough to convince my own mind 
 equally of its general fairness, fidelity, and truth. 
 
 " Very faithfully yours, 
 
 CARLISLE." 
 
 The testimony of a man who is no unreflecting enthusiast, 
 but a statesman of large views and cool judgment, on the 
 work before us, must be regarded as that of the most calm 
 and enlightened of judges, and the most unexceptionable of 
 witnesses. His Lordship has conferred a great boon on the 
 slave by thus endorsing Mrs. Stowe's book, while his 
 opinion will give to English readers the very confidence 
 they required. 
 
 It has been stated that books like the present are not the 
 legitimate means to put down slavery. "We might ask then 
 very fairly, what are ? Are we to wait till slaveholders 
 propose the abolition of slaves ? or till a pro-slavery legisla- 
 ture, which has just passed the Fugitive Slave Bill, and 
 ruled America by slaveholders for above sixty years, volun- 
 tarily declare the slaves free ? How, but by enlightening 
 and influencing public opinion, can we expect the abomina- 
 tion to cease ? Public opinion, guided by religious sentiment 
 drawn from the Word of God, alone settled the question in 
 England, and that, too, will effect it in America if she will 
 listen ; and, if not, it is by no means difficult to divine what 
 must be the sad result. Slavery is an unmixed, unmitigated 
 evil in any civilised country. Under the light of the Gospel 
 it deprives man, not only guiltless, but unaccused of crime, 
 of every civil and religious right ; denies him legal compen- 
 sation for any wrong however grievous ; annihilates con- 
 jugal and parental relations; consigns him at pleasure to 
 heathenism ; withholds from him the Bible and education ; 
 and reduces him to the condition of brutes. 
 
Xvi INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, 
 
 For making the Israelites slaves, and tyrannically inflicting 
 cruelties on their persons and children, we justly condemn 
 Pharaoh ; the crime, even in a heathen, was in the sight of 
 G-od very aggravated. In what light, then, must He view 
 the sin of the professed ministers of his Son, who is " the 
 Saviour of all men," or of the officers and members of His 
 Church, who are bound to "love one another with pure 
 hearts fervently," when they hold as chattels their fellow- 
 creatures, whose souls are as precious as their own, and 
 redeemed with the same precious blood, deny them the 
 knowledge of salvation, and forbid them the means of reading 
 the only book which Grod has designed for all men ? The 
 following statistics may well amaze us : 
 
 SLAVES HELD BY MINISTERS AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 Denominations. Ministers. Members. No. of Slaves. 
 
 Methodists 5,080 1,178,637 219,563 
 
 Presbyterians, Old and New Schools 3,264 333,458 77,000 
 
 Baptists 6,598 812,921 125,000 
 
 Campbellites 101,000 
 
 Episcopalians 1,404 67,550 88,000 
 
 Other denominations . . . 50,000 
 
 Total number of slaves held by ministers of the gospel 
 and members of the different Protestant Churches . 660,563 
 
 The denominations above cited have under their control 
 89 colleges, with 5495 students ; and 26 theological semi- 
 naries, with about 700 students. Some of these colleges 
 and seminaries have been built and endowed partly by the 
 sale of slaves, and all are looking for slaveholding patronage. 
 When we contemplate the above facts, and consider the 
 influence which the Church and the ministry have in 
 America, it is impossible not to think of the truth contained 
 in the memorable saying of the distinguished Albert 
 Barnes : 
 
 "THERE is NO POWER OUT OF THE CHURCH THAT COULD SUSTAIN 
 SLAVERY AN HOUR IF IT WERE NOT SUSTAINED IN IT." 
 
 It must be remembered that, beside these ministers and 
 church members, who hold slaves and deal with them as 
 property sell children from their parents and divide husband 
 
INTEODUCTOEY EEMAEKS. xvii 
 
 and wife lacerate their flesh and ruin their souls a large 
 number, if not a majority, of the ministers of religion in 
 America patronise the system of slavery, though they hold 
 no slaves themselves. Some indeed profess in theory to 
 abominate slavery, but they stand aloof from all efforts to 
 suppress it. You will never hear a petition presented in public 
 to either God or man from their lips for the emancipation 
 of the slave. Dr. Gardener Spring, an eminent Presby- 
 terian clergyman of New York, well known in this country 
 by his religious publications, has declared that, " if by one 
 prayer he could liberate every slave in the world, he would 
 not offer it." The E^v. Dr. Parker, of Philadelphia, affirms, 
 in a recent thanksgiving sermon , that " there are no evils in 
 slavery but such as are inseparable from any other relation 
 in civil and social life." Professor Moses Stuart, the 
 celebrated commentator, in reply to Bev. President Eisk, 
 of the Wesleyan University, represents Paul as " sending 
 Onesimus back to Philemon to be a servant for life," in 
 direct contradiction of the Apostle's statement, " not 
 now as a servant but above a servant, a brother beloved 
 especially to me, but how much more to thee, both in the 
 flesh and in the Lord." And how does he send him back ? 
 he first preaches the Gospel to him, instrumentally converts 
 him, writes a letter to his former master, sends it by the 
 liberated man himself without officer to watch or chains 
 to bind him ! "Will the conduct of those who attempt to 
 carry out the Fugitive Slave Law bear any comparison with 
 that of Paul ? 
 
 I ask, therefore, what but public opinion will influence 
 such teachers of "good will to man?" If conscience is 
 made by education, lessons of instruction must be given 
 them by the press. Mrs. Stowe delicately, but decidedly, 
 refers once or twice in her book to this sad ministerial 
 delinquency ; but I should have expected at least a chapter 
 devoted to scenes in ministers' houses, and to sermons deli- 
 vered by them from the sacred desk. This strikes me as a 
 great omission ; for. however ministers may like to have 
 their portrait exhibited in their robes, and adorning the 
 drawing-rooms of their congregation, it creates another sen- 
 sation to be represented in type, in the undress of life, 
 admonishing a mother with a whip, because she pleads and 
 
xviii rffTRODTTCTOBY EEMAEKS. 
 
 weeps when that minister tears her child from her bosom, 
 and sells it to a stranger. 
 
 And I cannot but hope that Mrs. Stowe, whose rare and 
 sanctified talents command the eye and ear of the multitude, 
 will turn her attention to the ecclesiastical state of the 
 question, and show to American ministers their sin and 
 shame. It would confer a real blessing on them; for 
 slavery is the bane of all the churches; it sits like an 
 incubus on their prosperous development ; it prevents divine 
 influence from flowing among them, and is a barrier to 
 the progress of those revivals for which so many of their 
 churches have been eminent. Get the ministers to act and 
 speak aright, and you gain the churches ; get the churches 
 to do their duty, and you move the legislature; for no 
 enlightened legislature can long resist a deep religious sense 
 of right to our fellow-men, when calmly, but firmly expressed 
 even by a minority. 
 
 Though deeply distressed for the present state of the 
 injured and oppressed slave, there is hope for the future. 
 His emancipation is certain it is only a question of time. 
 The tendencies of the age to improvement and progress 
 are all in favour of abolition. Every step taken for the 
 diffusion of light the establishment of free institutions, and 
 the reformation of ancient abuses directly or indirectly 
 tends to the downfall of slavery. The experiment which has 
 been so successfully made in the West Indies, of the libera- 
 tion of thousands without injury to life or property the 
 advancement of black men, once slaves, to honourable posts 
 at the bar and in the senate the acquisition of piety and 
 learning by many slaves, in spite of the restrictions imposed 
 upon them have taught literary and theological objectors 
 that they must seek for new arguments against emancipation. 
 Such pleas as the dangers of freedom the inferiority of 
 the negro the curse on Canaan the contentment of the 
 slave in slavery the superior prudence of gradualism 
 which were so formidable twenty years ago, are seldom 
 mentioned now except in derision. The little heroic band, 
 who against public sentiment have sacrificed property, repu- 
 tation and comfort, to defend the oppressed, and insist on 
 the rights of their black brethren, have received large addi- 
 tions by the passing of the Fugitive Slave Bill and, having 
 
IXTJtODUCTOKY KEMAEKS. xix 
 
 truth on their side, must ere long succeed. Opposed 
 as they have been by those who should have co-operated 
 with them, and forsaken by some who made loud pro- 
 fessions of attachment to the cause, they have never 
 despaired of ultimate success. The work of Mrs. Stowe 
 has already given a blow to slavery which it will never 
 recover : it will create a new era in the cause of emanci- 
 pation ; it will enlist millions of sympathetic hearts, who 
 never before properly understood the question ; and it will 
 produce a sober excitement among the thoughtful and reli- 
 gious in America against the accursed system. Besides, it 
 has set an example of treating this subject, of which there 
 will be many imitators, each, with varied talent, maintaining 
 the great truth that all men are free, and pouring broadside 
 after broadside on the citadel of slavery, until it falls. And 
 if we add to this, that God is on the side of justice and 
 mercy that it is predicted, " He shall judge the poor of the 
 people, He shall save the children of the needy, and break 
 in pieces the oppressor" we must have confidence in our 
 Leader and our cause. 
 
 Let every Christian abolitionist, then, take heart and 
 hope. Let them, with unsparing liberality, circulate such 
 works as " Uncle Tom's Cabin." Let them seek for stations 
 in the Church or State where they can use a power favour- 
 able to emancipation. And, above all, let fervent prayer 
 to Almighty God arise, that He may pour out an influence 
 which can move the heart of ministers of religion, and 
 senators on the floor of "Washington, " to break every yoke, 
 and let the oppressed go free." 
 
 Men of thought ! be up and stirring 
 
 Night and day ; 
 Sow the seed withdraw the curtain, 
 
 Clear the way ! 
 Men of action, aid and cheer them, 
 
 As ye may ! 
 
 There's a fount about to stream, 
 There's a light about to beam, 
 There's a warmth about to glow, 
 There's a flower about to blow ; 
 There's a midnight blackness changing 
 
 Into grey : 
 Men of thought, and men of action, 
 
 Clear the way ! 
 
XX INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Once the welcome light has broken, 
 
 Who shall say 
 What the unimagined glories 
 
 Of the day ? 
 What the evil that shall perish 
 
 In its ray 1 
 
 Aid the dawning, tongue and pen ; 
 Aid it, hopes of honest men ; 
 Aid it, paper aid it, type 
 Aid it, for the hour is ripe, 
 And our earnest must not slacken 
 
 Into play. 
 Men of thought, and men of action, 
 
 Clear the way ! 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Tours very truly, 
 
 JAMES SHERMAN. 
 
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN WHICH THE EEADEE IS INTRODUCED TO A MAN 
 OF HUMANITY. 
 
 LITE in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two 
 gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well- 
 furnished dining-parlour in the town of P , in Kentucky. 
 
 There were no servants present, and the gentlemen, with 
 chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing some 
 subject with great earnestness. 
 
 For convenience sake we have said, hitherto, two gentlemen. 
 One of the parties, however, when critically examined, did 
 not seem, strictly speaking, to come under the species. 
 He was a short, thick-set man, with coarse, commonplJfee 
 features, and that swaggering air of pretension which marks 
 a low man who is trying to elbow his way upward in the 
 world. He was much over-dressed, in a gaudy vest of many 
 colours, a blue neckerchief, bedropped gaily with yellow spots, 
 and arranged with a flaunting tie, quite in keeping with the 
 general air of the man. His hands, large and coarse, were 
 plentifully bedecked with rings ; and he wore a heavy gold 
 wafcchchain, with a bundle of seals of portentous size, and a 
 great variety of colours, attached to it, which, in the ardour 
 of conversation, he was in the habit of flourishing and jingling 
 with evident satisfaction. His conversation was in free and 
 
Z THE SLATE-DEALER S YISIT. 
 
 easy defiance of " Murray's Grammar," and was garnished at 
 convenient intervals with various profane expressions, which 
 not even the desire to be graphic in our account shall induce 
 us to transcribe. 
 
 His companion, Mr. Shelby, had the appearance of a 
 gentleman; and the arrangements of the house, and the 
 general air of the housekeeping, indicated easy and even 
 opulent circumstances. As we before stated, the two were 
 in the midst of an earnest conversation. 
 
 " That is the way I should arrange the matter," said Mr. 
 Shelby. 
 
 " I can't make trade that way I positively can't, Mr. 
 Shelby," said the other, holding up a glass of wine between 
 his eye and the light. 
 
 " Why, the fact is, Haley, Tom is an uncommon fellow ; 
 he is certainly worth that sum anywhere, steady, honest, 
 capable, manages my whole farm like a clock." 
 
 " You mean honest, as niggers go," said Haley, helping 
 himself to a glass of brandy. 
 
 " No ; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, 
 pious fellow. He got religion at a camp-meeting, four years 
 ago ; and I believe he really did get it. I've trusted him, 
 since then, with everything I have, money, house, horses, 
 and let him come and go round the country ; and I always 
 found him true and square in everything." 
 
 " Some folks don't believe there is pious niggers, Shelby," 
 said Haley, with a candid nourish of his hand ; " but I do. 
 I had a fellow, now, in this yer last lot I took to Orleans 
 'twas as good as a meetin' now, really, to hear that critter 
 pray, and he was quite gentle and quiet like. He fetched 
 me a good sum, too ; for I bought him cheap of a man that 
 was 'bliged to sell out ; so I realised six hundred on him. 
 Yes, I consider religion a valeyable thing in a nigger, when 
 it's the genuine article, and no mistake." 
 
 "Well, Tom's got the real article, if ever a fellow had," 
 rejoined the other. " Why, last fall, I let him go to Cincinnati 
 alone, to do business for me, and bring home five hundred 
 dollars. { Tom,' says I to him, ' I trust you, because I think 
 you're a Christian I know you wouldn't cheat.' Tom comes 
 back sure enough I knew he would. Some low fellows, 
 they say, said to him : * Tom, why don't you make tracks for 
 
BUSINESS CONVERSATION. 3 
 
 Canada ?' 'Ah, master trusted me, and I couldn't !' They 
 told me about it. I am sorry to part with Tom, I must say. 
 You ought to let him cover the whole balance of the debt ; 
 and you would, Haley, if you had any conscience." 
 
 " Well, I've got just as much conscience as any man in 
 business can afford to keep, just a little, you know, to 
 swear by, as 'twere," said .the trader, jocularly ; " and then 
 I'm ready to do anything* in reason, to 'blige friends ; but 
 this yer, you see, is a leetle too hard on a fellow a leetle 
 too hard." 
 
 The trader sighed contemplatively, and poured out some 
 more brandy. < 
 
 " Well, then, Haley, how will you trade ?" said Mr. Shelby, 
 after an uneasy interval of silence. 
 
 " Well, haven't you a boy or gal that you could throw in 
 with Tom?" 
 
 " Hum ! none that I could well spare. To tell the truth, 
 it's only hard necessity makes me willing to sell at all. I 
 don't like parting with any of my hands, that's a fact." 
 
 Here the door opened, and a small quadroon boy, between 
 four and five years of age, entered the room. There was 
 something in his appearance remarkably beautiful and en- 
 gaging. His black hair, fine as floss silk, hung in glossy 
 curls about his round, dimpled face, while a pair of large dark 
 eyes, full of fire and softness, looked out from beneath the 
 rich long lashes, as he peered curiously into the apartment. 
 A gay robe of scarlet and yellow plaid, carefully made ' and 
 neatly fitted, set off to advantage the dark and rich style of 
 his beauty ; and a certain comic air of assurance, blended 
 with bashfulness, showed that he had been not unused to 
 being petted and noticed by his master. 
 
 "Halloa, Jim Crow!" said Mr. Shelby, whistling, and 
 snapping a bunch of raisins towards him ; " pick that up, 
 now !" 
 
 The child scampered, with all his little strength, after the 
 prize, while his master laughed. 
 
 " Come here, Jim Crow," said he. 
 
 The child came up, and the master patted the curly head 
 and chucked him under the chin. 
 
 " Now, Jim, show this gentleman how you can dance and 
 sing." 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE SLAVE-CHILD. 
 
 The boy commenced one of those wild, grotesque songs 
 common among the negroes, in a rich, clear voice, accom- 
 panying his singing with many comic evolutions of the hands, 
 feet, and whole body, all in perfect time to the music. 
 
 "Bravo!" said Haley, throwing him a quarter of an 
 orange. 
 
 " Now, Jim, walk like old Uncle Cudjoe when he has the 
 rheumatism," said his master. 
 
 Instantly the flexible limbs of the child assumed the 
 appearance of deformity and distortion, as with his back 
 humped up, and his master's stick in his hand, he hobbled 
 about the room, his childish face drawn into a doleful pucker, 
 and spitting from right to left, in imitation of an old man. 
 
 Both gentlemen laughed uproariously. 
 
 " Now, Jim," said his master, " show us how old Elder 
 Bobbins leads the psalm." 
 
 The boy drew his chubby face down to a formidable length, 
 and commenced toning a psalm-tune through his nose with 
 imperturbable gravity. 
 
 "Hurrah! bravo! what a young 'un!" said Haley; 
 " that chap's a^ case, I'll promise. Tell you what," said he, 
 suddenly clapping his hand on Mr. Shelby's shoulder, 
 " fling in that chap, and I'll settle the business I will. 
 Come, now, if that ain't doing the thing up about the 
 Tightest!" 
 
 At this moment the door was pushed gently open, and a 
 young quadroon woman, apparently about twenty-five, entered 
 the room. 
 
 There needed only a glance from the child to her, to iden- 
 tify her as its mother. There was the same rich, full, dark 
 eye, with its long lashes; the same ripples of silky black hair. 
 The brown of her complexion gave way on the cheek to a 
 perceptible flush, which deepened as she saw the gaze of the 
 strange man fixed upon her in bold and undisguised admira- 
 tion. Her dress was of the neatest possible fit, and set off 
 to advantage her finely-moulded shape. A delicately-formed 
 hand, and a trim foot and ankle, were items of appearance 
 that did not escape the quick eye of the trader, well used to 
 run up at a glance the points of a fine female article. 
 
 "Well, Eliza?" said her master, as she stopped and 
 looked hesitatingly at him. 
 
PAETICTJLAES OF TBADE. 5 
 
 "I was looking for Harry, please, sir;" and the boy 
 bounded toward her, showing his spoils, which he had 
 gathered in the skirt of his robe. 
 
 "Well, take him away,- then," said Mr. Shelby; and 
 hastily she withdrew, carrying the child on her arm. 
 
 " By Jupiter," said the trader, turning to him in admira- 
 tion ; " there's an article now ! You might make your 
 fortune on that ar gal in Orleans, any day. I've seen over a 
 thousand, in my day, paid down for gals not a bit handsomer." 
 
 "I don't want to make my fortune on her," said Mr. 
 Shelby, dryly; and, seeking to turn the conversation, he 
 uncorked a bottle of fresh wine, and asked his companion's 
 opinion of it. 
 
 " Capital, sir first chop ! " said the trader ; then turning, 
 and slapping his hand familiarly on Shelby's shoulder, he 
 added : " Come, how will you trade about the girl ? what 
 shall I say for her ? what' 11 you take ? " 
 
 " Mr. Haley, she is not to be sold," said Shelby ; " my 
 wife would not part with her for her weight in gold." 
 
 " Ay, ay, women always say such things, 'cause they ha'nt 
 no sort of calculation. Just show 'em how many watches, 
 feathers, and trinkets one's weight in gold would buy, and 
 that alters the case, /reckon." 
 
 " I tell you, Haley, this must not be spoken of. I say no, 
 and I mean no," said Shelby, decidedly. 
 
 " Well, you'll let me have the boy, though ? " said the 
 trader ; " you must own I've come down pretty handsomely 
 for him." 
 
 "What on earth can you want with the child ?" said 
 Shelby. 
 
 " Why, I've got a friend that's going into this yer branch 
 of the business wants to buy up handsome boys to raise for 
 the market. Fancy articles entirely sell for waiters, and so 
 on, to rich 'uns, that can pay for handsome 'uns. It sets off 
 one of yer great places a real handsome boy to open door, 
 wait, and tend. They fetch a good sum ; and this little devil 
 is such a comical, musical concern, he's just the article." 
 
 " I would rather not sell him," said Mr. Shelby, thought- 
 fully ; " the fact is, sir, I'm a humane man, and I hate to 
 take the boy from his mother, sir." 
 
 " Oh, you do ? La ! yes something of that ar natur. 
 
6 THE HUMANE THING. 
 
 I understand perfectly. It is mighty onpleasaut gettin' on 
 with women sometimes. I al'ays hates these yer screechin', 
 screamin' times. They are mighty onpleasant ; but, as I 
 manages business, I generally avoids them, sir. Now, what 
 if you get the girl off for a day, or a week, or so ; then the 
 thing's done quietly, all over before she comes home. Tour 
 wife might get her some earrings, or a new gown, or some 
 such truck, to make up with her." 
 
 " I'm afraid not." 
 
 " Lor bless ye, yes ! These critters an't like white folks, 
 you know ; they gets over things, only manage right. Now, 
 they say," said Haley, assuming a candid and confidential 
 air, " that this kind o' trade is hardening to the feelings ; but 
 I never found it so. Fact is, I never could do things up the 
 way some fellers manage the business. I've seen 'em as 
 would pull a woman's child out of her arms, and set him up 
 to sell, and she screechin' like mad all the time ; very bad 
 policy damages the article makes 'em quite unfit for 
 service sometimes. I knew a real handsome gal once, in 
 Orleans, as was entirely ruined by this sort of handling. 
 The fellow that was trading for her didn't want her baby ; 
 and she was one of your real high sort, when her blood was 
 up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms, and 
 talked, and went on real awful. It kinder makes my blood 
 run cold to think on't ; and when they carried off the child, 
 and locked her up, she jest went ravin' mad, and died in a 
 week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want 
 of management, there's where 'tis. It's always best to do 
 the humane thing, sir ; that's been my experience." 
 
 And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded his 
 arm, with an air of virtuous decision, apparently considering 
 himself a second Wilberforce. 
 
 The subject appeared to interest the gentleman deeply; 
 for while Mr. Shelby was thoughtfully peeling an orange, 
 Haley broke out afresh, with becoming diffidence, but as 
 if actually driven by the force of truth to say a few 
 words more. 
 
 " It don't look well, now, for a feller to be praisin' himself; 
 but I say it jest because it's the truth. I believe I'm 
 reckoned to bring in about the finest droves of niggers that 
 is brought in at least I've been told so ; if I have once, I 
 
TOM LOKEB'S SYSTEM. 7 
 
 reckon I have a hundred times all in good case fat and 
 likely, and I lose as few as any man in the business. And I 
 lays it all to my management, sir ; and humanity, sir, I may 
 say, is the great pillar of my management." 
 
 Mr. Shelby did not know what to say, and so he said, 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 " Now, I've been laughed at for my notions, sir, and I've 
 been talked to. They an't pop'lar and they an't common ; 
 but I stuck to 'em, sir ; I've stuck to 'em, and realised well 
 on 'ein ; yes, sir, they have paid their passage, I may say ;" 
 and the trader laughed at his joke. 
 
 There was something so piquant and original in theseX 
 elucidations of humanity, that Mr. Shelby could not help J 
 laughing in company. Perhaps you laugh too, dear reader ; / 
 but you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange C 
 forms now- a- days, and there is no end to the odd things that ) 
 humane people will say and do. 
 
 Mr. Shelby's laugh encouraged the trader to proceed. 
 
 "It's strange, now; but I never could beat this into 
 people's heads. Now, there was Tom Loker, my old partner, 
 down in Natchez ; he was a clever fellow, Tom was, only the 
 very devil with niggers on principle 'twas, you see, for a 
 better-hearted feller never broke bread ; 'twas his system, sir. 
 I used to talk to Tom. ' Why, Tom,' I used to say, ' when 
 your gals takes on and cry, what's the use o' crackin' on 'em 
 over the head, and knockin' on 'em round ? It's ridiculous,' 
 says I, ' and don't do no sort o' good. Why, I don't see no 
 harm in their cryin',' says I; 'it's natur,' says I, 'and if 
 natur can't blow off one way, it will another. Besides, Tom,' 
 says I, ' it jest spiles your gals ; they get sickly, and down in 
 the mouth ; and sometimes they gets ugly particular yallow 
 gals do, and it's the devil and all gettin' on 'em broke in. 
 Now,' says I, ' why can't you kinder coax 'em up and speak 
 'em fair ? Depend on it, Tom, a little humanity, thrown in 
 along, goes a heap further than all your jawin' and crackin' ; 
 and it pays better,' says I, ' depend on't.' But Tom couldn't 
 get the hang on't ; and he spiled so many for me, that I had 
 ifco break off with him, though he was a good-hearted fellow, 
 and as fair a business hand as is goin'." 
 
 " And do you find your ways of managing do the business 
 better than Tom's ? " said Mr. Shelby. 
 
b KENTUCKY NIG GEES. 
 
 " Why, yes, sir, I may so. You see, when I anyways can, 
 I takes a leetle care about the onpleasant parts, like selling 
 young uns and that get the gals out of the way out of sight, 
 out of mind, you know : and when it's clean done, and can't 
 be helped, they naturally get used to it. 'Tan't, you know, 
 as if it was white folks, that's brought up in the way of 
 'spectin' to keep their children and wives, and all that. 
 Niggers, you know, that's fetched up properly, ha'n't no kind 
 of 'spectations of no kind : so all these things comes easier." 
 
 " I'm afraid mine are not properly brought up, then," 
 said Mr. Shelby. 
 
 "S'pose not. You Kentucky folks spile your niggers. 
 You mean well by 'em, but 'taint no real kindness, arter all. 
 Now, a nigger, you see, what's got to be hacked and tumbled 
 round the world, and sold to Tom, and Dick, and the Lord 
 knows who, 'tan't no kindness to be givin' on him notions 
 and expectations, and bringin' on him up too well, for the 
 rough and tumble comes all the harder on him arter. Now, 
 I venture to say, your niggers would be quite chop-fallen in 
 a place where some of your plantation niggers would be 
 singing and whooping like all possessed. Every man, you 
 know, Mr. Shelby, naturally thinks well of his own ways ; 
 and I think, I treat niggers just about as well as it's ever 
 worth while to treat 'em." 
 
 " It's a happy thing to be satisfied," said Mr. Shelby, with 
 a slight shrug, and some perceptible feelings of a disagreeable 
 nature. 
 
 "Well," said Haley, after they had both silently picked 
 their nuts for a season, " what do you say ? " 
 
 " I'll think the matter over, and talk with my wife," said 
 Mr. Shelby. " Meantime, Haley, if you want the matter 
 carried on in the quiet way you speak of, you'd best not let 
 your business in this neighbourhood be known. It will get 
 out among my boys, and it will not be a particularly quiet 
 business getting away any of my fellows, if they know it, I'll 
 promise you." 
 
 " Oh, certainly ! by all means, mum ! of course ! But I'll 
 tell you, I'm in a devil of a hurry, and shall want to know, as 
 soon as possible, what I may depend on," said he, rising and 
 putting on his overcoat. 
 
 " Well, call up this evening, between six and seven, and 
 
STATE OF KENTUCKY. 9 
 
 you shall have my answer," said Mr. Shelby, and the trader 
 bowed himself out of the apartment. 
 
 " I'd like to have been able to kick the fellow down the 
 steps," said he to himself, as he saw the door fairly closed, 
 " with his impudent assurance ; but he knows how much he 
 has me at advantage. If anybody had ever said to me that 
 I should sell Tom down south to one of those rascally traders, 
 I should have said, ' Is thy servant a dog, that he should do 
 this thing ? ' And now it must come, for aught I see. And 
 Eliza's child, too ! I know that I shall have some fuss with 
 wife about that ; and, for that matter, about Tom, too. So 
 much for being in debt heigho ! The fellow sees his 
 advantage, and means to push it." 
 
 Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be 
 seen in the State of Kentucky. The general prevalence of 
 agricultural pursuits of a quiet and gradual nature, not 
 requiring those periodic seasons of hurry and pressure that 
 are called for in the business of more southern districts, makes 
 the task of the negro a more healthful and reasonable one 
 while the master, content with a more gradual style of acqui- 
 sition, has not those temptations to hard-heartedness which 
 always overcome frail human nature when the prospect of 
 sudden and rapid gain is weighed in the balance, with no 
 heavier counterpoise than the interests of the helpless and 
 unprotected. 
 
 Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the 
 good-humoured indulgence of some masters and mistresses, 
 and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted 
 to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal insti- 
 tution, and all that; but over and above the scene there 
 broods a portentous shadow the shadow of law. So long 
 as the law considers all these human beings, with beating 
 hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging 
 to a master so long as the failure, or misfortune, or impru- 
 dence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any 
 day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for 
 one of hopeless misery and toil so long it is impossible to 
 make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated 
 administration of slavery. 
 
 Mr. Shelby was a fair average kind of man, good-natured 
 and kindly, and disposed to easy indulgence of those around 
 
10 
 
 him; and there had never been a lack of anything which 
 might contribute to the physical comfort of the negroes on 
 his estate. He had, however, speculated largely and quite 
 loosely had involved himself deeply, and his notes to a 
 large amount had come into the hands of Haley ; and this 
 small piece of information is the key to the preceding 
 conversation. 
 
 Now, it had so happened that, in approaching the door, 
 Eliza had caught enough of the conversation to know that 
 a trader was making offers to her master for somebody. 
 
 She would gladly have stopped at the door to listen, as 
 she came out ; but her mistress just then calling, she was 
 obliged to hasten away. 
 
 Still she thought she heard the trader make an offer for 
 her boy ; could she be mistaken ? Her heart swelled and 
 throbbed, and she involuntarily strained him so tight, that 
 the little fellow looked up into her face in astonishment. 
 
 "Eliza, girl, what ails you to-day?" said her mistress, 
 when Eliza had upset the wash-pitcher, knocked down the 
 work-stand, and, finally, was abstractedly offering her mistress 
 a long night-gown in place of the silk dress she had ordered 
 her to bring from the wardrobe. 
 
 Eliza started. " O, missis !" she said, raising her eyes; 
 then, bursting into tears, she sat down in a chair and began 
 sobbing. 
 
 " Why, Eliza, child ! what ails you ? " said her mistress. 
 
 " O, missis, missis ! " said Eliza, " there's been a -trader 
 talking with master in the parlour ! I heard him." 
 
 " Well, silly child, suppose there has." 
 
 " O, missis, do you suppose mas'r would sell my Harry ? " 
 And the poor creature threw herself into a chair and sobbed 
 convulsively. 
 
 " Sell him ! ISTo, you foolish girl ! You know your 
 master never deals with those southern traders, and never 
 means to sell any of his servants as long as they behave well. 
 Why, you silly child, who do you think would want to buy 
 your Harry ? Do you think alLthe world are set on him as 
 you are, you goosie ? Come, cheer up, and hook my dress. 
 There now, put my back hair up in that pretty braid you 
 learnt the other day, and don't go listening at doors any 
 more." 
 
MRS. SHELBY'S CHARACTER. 11 
 
 " "Well, but, missis, you never would give your consent 
 to to " 
 
 " Nonsense, child ! to be sure I shouldn't. "What do you 
 talk so for ? I would as soon have one of my own children 
 sold. But really, Eliza, you are getting altogether too 
 proud of that little fellow. A man can't put his nose into 
 the door, but you think he must be coming to buy him." 
 
 Reassured by .her mistress's confident tone, Eliza pro- 
 ceeded nimbly and adroitly with her toilet, laughing at her 
 own fears as she proceeded. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby was a woman of a high class, both intel- 
 lectually and morally. To that natural magnanimity and 
 generosity of mind which one often marks as characteristic 
 of the women of Kentucky, she added high moral and reli- 
 gious sensibility and principle, carried out with great energy 
 and ability into practical results. Her husband, who made 
 no professions to any particular religious character, never- 
 theless reverenced and respected the consistency of hers, 
 and stood, perhaps, a little in awe of her opinion. Certain 
 it was, that he gave her unlimited scope in all her benevolent 
 efforts for the comfort, instruction, and improvement of her 
 servants, though he never took any decided part in them 
 himself. In fact, if not exactly a believer in the doctrine of 
 the efficiency of the extra good works of saints, he really 
 seemed somehow or other to fancy that his wife had piety 
 and benevolence enough for two to indulge a 'shadowy 
 expectation of getting into heaven through her superabun- 
 dance of qualities to which he made no particular pretension. 
 
 The heaviest load on his mind, after his conversation with 
 the trader, lay in the foreseen necessity of breaking to his 
 wife the arrangement contemplated meeting the importu- 
 nities and opposition which he knew he should have reason 
 to encounter. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby, being entirely ignorant of her husband's 
 embarrassments, and knowing only the general kindliness 
 of his temper, had been quite sincere in the entire incredulity 
 with which she had met Eliza's suspicions. In fact, she 
 dismissed the matter from her mind without a second 
 thought, and, being occupied in preparations for an evening 
 visit, it passed out of her thoughts entirely. 
 
12 T1IE MOTHES. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE MOTHER. 
 
 ELIZA had been brought up by her mistress, from girl- 
 hood, as a petted and indulged favourite. 
 
 The traveller in the south must often have remarked that 
 peculiar air of refinement, that softness of voice and manner, 
 which seems in many cases to be a particular gift to the 
 quadroon and mulatto women. These natural graces in the 
 quadroon are often united with beauty of the most dazzling 
 kind, and in almost every case with a personal appearance 
 prepossessing and agreeable. Eliza, such as we have 
 described her, is not a fancy sketch, but taken from remem- 
 brance, as we saw her years ago in Kentucky. Safe under 
 the protecting care of her mistress, Eliza had reached 
 maturity without those temptations which make beauty so 
 fatal an inheritance to a slave. She had been married to a 
 bright and talented young mulatto man, who was -a slave on 
 a neighbouring estate, and bore the name of George Harris. 
 
 This young man had been hired out by his master to 
 work in a bagging factory, where his adroitness and ingenuity 
 caused him to be considered the first hand in the place. He 
 had invented a machine for the cleaning of the hemp, which, 
 considering the education and circumstances of the inventor, 
 displayed quite as much mechanical genius as Whitney's 
 cotton-gin.* 
 
 He was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing 
 manners, and was a general favourite in the factory. Never- 
 theless as this young man was in the eye of the law not a 
 man, but a thing, all these superior qualifications were 
 subject to the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded, tyrannical 
 master. This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of 
 
 * A machine of this description was really the invention of a young 
 coloured man in Kentucky. 
 
HISTORY OF GEORGE HARRIS. 13 
 
 George's invention, took a ride over to the factory, to see 
 what this intelligent chattel had been about. He was 
 received with great enthusiasm by the employer, who 
 congratulated him on possessing so valuable a slave. 
 
 He was waited upon over the factory, shown the machinery 
 by G-eorge, who, in high spirits, talked so fluently, held him- 
 self so erect, looked so handsome and manly, that his master 
 began to feel an uneasy consciousness of inferiority. "What 
 business had his slave to be marching round the country, 
 inventing machines, and holding up his head among gentle- 
 men ? He'd soon put a stop to it. He'd take him back, 
 and put him to hoeing and digging, and " see if he'd step 
 about so smart." Accordingly, the manufacturer and all 
 hands concerned were astounded when he suddenly demanded 
 George's wages, and announced his intention of taking him 
 home. 
 
 " But, Mr. Harris," remonstrated the manufacturer, 
 " isn't this rather sudden ? " 
 
 " What if it is ? Isn't the man mine ?" 
 
 " We would be willing, sir, to increase the rate of 
 compensation." 
 
 " No object at all, sir. I don't need to hire any of my 
 hands out, unless I've a mind to." 
 
 " But, sir, he seems peculiarly adapted to this business." 
 
 " Dare say he may be ; never was much adapted to anything 
 that I set him about, I'll be bound." 
 
 " But only think of his inventing this machine," interposed 
 one of the workmen, rather unluckily. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! a machine for saving work, is it ? He'd 
 invent that, I'll be bound ; let a nigger alone for that, any 
 time. They are all labour-saving machines themselves, every 
 one of 'em. No, he shall tramp ! " 
 
 George had stood like one transfixed, at hearing his doom 
 thus suddenly pronounced by a power that he knew was 
 irresistible. He folded his arms, tightly pressed in his lips, 
 but a whole volcano of bitter feelings burned in his bosom, 
 and sent streams of fire through his veins. He breathed 
 short, and his large dark eyes flashed like live coals ; and he 
 might have broken out into some dangerous ebullition, had 
 not the kindly manufacturer touched him on the arm, and 
 said, in a low tone, 
 
14 LITTLE HAEET. 
 
 " Give way, George ; go with him for the present. We'll 
 try to help you, yet." 
 
 The tyrant observed the whisper, and conjectured its 
 import, though he could not hear what was said ; and he 
 inwardly strengthened himself in his determination to keep 
 the power he possessed over his victim. 
 
 George was taken home, and put to the meanest drudgery 
 of the farm. He had been able to repress every disrespectful 
 word ; but the flashing eye, the gloomy and troubled brow, 
 were part of a natural language that could not be repressed 
 indubitable signs, which showed too plainly that the man 
 could not become a thing. 
 
 It was during the happy period of his employment in the 
 factory that George had seen and married his wife. During 
 that period being much trusted and favoured by his 
 employer he had free liberty to come and go at discretion. 
 The marriage was highly approved of by Mrs. Shelby, who, 
 with a little womanly complacency in match-making, felt 
 pleased to unite her handsome favourite with one of her own 
 class who seemed in every way suited to her : and so they were 
 married in her mistress's great parlour, and her mistress 
 herself adorned the bride's beautiful hair with orange- 
 blossoms, and threw over it the bridal veil, which certainly 
 could scarce have rested on a fairer head ; and there was no 
 lack of white gloves, and cake and wine of admiring guests 
 to praise the bride's beauty, and her mistress's indulgence and 
 liberality. For a year or two Eliza saw her husband fre- 
 quently, and there was nothing to interrupt their happiness, 
 except the loss of two infant children, to whom she was 
 passionately attached, and whom she mourned with a grief 
 so intense as to call for gentle remonstrance from her 
 mistress, who sought, with maternal anxiety, to direct her 
 naturally passionate feelings within the bounds of reason 
 and religion. 
 
 After the birth of little Harry, however, she had gradually 
 become tranquillised and settled ; and every bleeding tie and 
 throbbing nerve, once more entwined with that little life, 
 seemed to become sound and healthful; and Eliza was a 
 happy woman up to the time that her husband was rudely 
 torn from his kind employer, and brought under the iron 
 sway of his legal owner. 
 
THE HUSBAND AND FATHEE. 15 
 
 The manufacturer, true to his word, visited Mr. Harris a 
 week or two after George had been taken away, when, as he 
 hoped, the heat of the occasion had passed away, and tried 
 every possible inducement to lead him to restore him to his 
 former employment. 
 
 " You needn't trouble yourself to talk any longer," said 
 he, doggedly; "I know my own business, sir." 
 
 "I did not presume to interfere with it, sir. I only 
 thought that you might think it for your interest to let your 
 man to us on the terms proposed." 
 
 " Oh, I understand the matter well enough. I saw your 
 winking and whispering, the day I took him out of the 
 factory ; but you don't come it over me that way. It's a free 
 country, sir ; the man's mine, and I do what I please witli 
 him that's it!" 
 
 And so fell George's last hope ; nothing before him but a 
 life of toil and drudgery, rendered more bitter by every little 
 smarting vexation and indignity which tyrannical ingenuity 
 could devise. 
 
 A very humane jurist once said, " The worst use you can 
 put a man to is to hang him." No ! there is another use 
 that a man can be put to that is WOESE ! 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE HUSBAND AND FATHER. 
 
 MBS. SHELBY had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in 
 the verandah, rather dejectedly looking after the retreating 
 carriage, when a hand was laid on her shoulder. She turned, 
 and a bright smile lighted up her fine eyes. 
 
 " George, is it you ? How you frightened me ! "Well ; I 
 am so glad you's come ! Missis is gone to spend the after- 
 noon ; so come into my little room, and we'll have the time 
 all to ourselves." 
 
 Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment 
 
16 GEOEGE AND ELIZA. 
 
 opening on the verandah, where she generally sat at her 
 sewing, within call of her mistress. 
 
 " How glad I am ! why don't you smile ? and look at 
 Harry how he grows!" The boy stood shyly regarding 
 his father through his curls, holding close to the skirts of his 
 mother's dress. "Isn't he beautiful?" said Eliza, lifting 
 his long curls, and kissing him. 
 
 "I wish he'd never been born!" said George bitterly. 
 " I wish I'd never been born myself!" 
 
 Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, and leaned her 
 head on her husband's shoulder, and burst into tears. 
 
 " There now, Eliza, it's too bad for me to make you feel 
 so, poor girl!" said he, fondly, "it's too bad. Oh, how I 
 wish you never had seen me you might have been happy !" 
 
 " George ! George ! how can you talk so ? What dreadful 
 thing has happened, or is going to happen ? I am sure we've 
 been very happy till lately." 
 
 " So we have, dear," said George. Then drawing his child 
 on his knee, he gazed intently on his glorious dark eyes, and 
 passed his hands through his long curls. 
 
 "Just like you, Eliza ; and you are the handsomest woman 
 I ever saw, and the best one I ever wish to see ; but, oh, I 
 wish I'd never seen you, nor you me !" 
 
 " Oh, George, how can you ? " 
 
 " Yes, Eliza, it's all misery, misery, misery ! My life is 
 bitter as wormwood ; the very life is burning out of me. 
 I'm a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge ; I shall only drag you 
 down with me, that's all. What's the use of our trying to 
 do anything, trying to know anything, trying to be anything ? 
 What's the use of living ? I wish I was dead ! " 
 
 " Oh, now, dear George, that is really wicked ! I know 
 how you feel about losing your place in the factory, and you 
 have a hard master ; but pray be patient, and perhaps some- 
 thing " 
 
 "Patient!" said he, interrupting her ; "haven't I been 
 patient ? Did I say a word when he came and took me 
 away, for no earthly reason, from the place where everybody 
 was kind to me ? I'd paid him truly every cent of my 
 earnings : and they all say I worked well." 
 
 " Well, it is dreadful," said Eliza, " but, after all, he is 
 your master, you know." 
 
HUSBAND AND WIFE'S ABGUMENT. 17 
 
 " My master ! and who made him my master ? That's 
 what I think of what right has he to me ? I'm a man as 
 much as he is ; I am a better man than he is ; I know 
 more about business than he does ; I'm a better manager 
 than he is ; I can read better than he can ; I can write a 
 better hand ; and I've learned it all myself, and no thanks 
 to him I've learned it in spite of him ; and now what right 
 has he to make a dray-horse of me ? to take me from things 
 I can do, and do better than he can, and put me to work that 
 any horse can do ? He tries to do it ; he says he'll bring 
 me down and humble me, and he puts me to just the hardest, 
 meanest, and dirtiest work, on purpose." 
 
 " Oh, George George you frighten me ! Why, I never 
 heard you talk so : I'm afraid you'll do something dreadful. 
 I don't wonder at your feelings at all ; but oh, do be care- 
 ful do, do for my sake for Harry's ! " 
 
 " I have been careful, and I have been patient ; but it's 
 growing worse and worse flesh and blood can't bear it any 
 longer. Every chance he can get to insult and torment me, 
 he takes. I thought I could do my work well, and keep on 
 quiet, and have some time to read and learn out of work- 
 hours ; but the more he sees I can do, the more he loads on. 
 He says that though I don't say anything, he sees I've got 
 the devil in me, and he means to bring it out ; and one of 
 these days it will come out in a way that he won't like, or 
 I'm mistaken." 
 
 " Oh, dear, what shall we do ? " said Eliza, mournfully. 
 
 " It was only yesterday," said George, " as I was busy 
 loading stones into a cart, that young Mas'r Tom stood 
 there, slashing his whip so near the horse, that the creature 
 was frightened. I asked him to stop as pleasant as I 
 could ; he just kept right on. I begged him again, and 
 then he turned on me, and began striking me. I held his 
 hand, and then he screamed, and kicked, and ran to his 
 father, and told him that I was fighting him. He came in a 
 rage, and said he'd teach me who was my master ; and he 
 tied me to a tree, and cut switches for young master, and 
 told him that he might whip me till he was tired ; and he 
 did do it. If I don't make him remember it some time ! " 
 
 And the brow of the young man grew dark, and his eyes 
 burned with an expression that made his young wife tremble. 
 
 o 
 
18 LOYE ME, LOTE MY DOG. 
 
 " Who made this man my master that's what I want to 
 know?" he said. 
 
 " "Well," said Eliza, mournfully, " I always thought that 
 I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn't be a 
 Christian!" 
 
 "There is some sense in it, in your case; they have 
 brought you up like a child fed you, clothed you, indulged 
 you, and taught you, so that you have a good education, 
 that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have 
 been kicked, and cuffed, and sworn at, and at the best only 
 let alone ; and what do I owe ? I've paid for all my keeping 
 a hundred times over. I won't bear it no, I won't I " he 
 said, clenching his hand with a fierce frown. 
 
 Eliza trembled and was silent. She had never seen her 
 husband in this mood before ; and her gentle system of 
 ethics seemed to bend like a reed in the surges of such 
 passions. 
 
 " You know poor little Carlo that you gave me ? " added 
 George ; " the creature has been about all the comfort that 
 I've had. He has slept with me nights, and followed me 
 around days, and kind o' looked at me as if he understood 
 how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding him with 
 with a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen-door, and 
 Mas'r came along, and said I was feeding him up at his 
 expense, and that he couldn't afford to have every nigger 
 keeping his dog, and ordered me to tie a stone to his neck, 
 and throw him in the pond." 
 
 " Oh, George, you didn't do it! " 
 
 " Do it ! not I ; but he did. Mas'r and Tom pelted the 
 poor drowning creature with stones. Poor thing ! he looked 
 at me so mournful, as if he wondered why I didn't save him. 
 I had to take a flogging because I wouldn't do it myself. I 
 don't care ; Mas'r will find out that I am one that whipping 
 won't tame. My day will come yet, if he don't look out." 
 
 " What are you going to do ? Oh, G-eorge, don't do 
 anything wicked ; if you only trust in God, and try to do 
 right, he'll deliver you." 
 
 " I an't a Christian like you, Eliza ; my heart's full of 
 bitterness ; I can't trust in God. Why does He let things 
 be so ? " 
 
 " Oh, George, we must have faith ! Mistress says that 
 
THOSE WHO BIDE IN CABBIAGES. 19 
 
 when all things go wrong to us, we must believe that God is 
 doing the very best." 
 
 " That's easy to say, for people that are sitting on their 
 sofas and riding in their carriages ; but let 'em be where I 
 am, I guess it would come some harder. I wish I could be 
 good ; but my heart burns, and can't be reconciled anyhow. 
 You couldn't, in my place ; you can't now, if I tell you all 
 I've got to say. You don't know the whole yet." 
 
 " What can be coming now ? " 
 
 " Well, lately Mas'r has been saying, that he was a fool 
 to let me marry off the place ; that he hates Mr. Shelby 
 and all his tribe, because they are proud, and hold their 
 heads up above him, and that I've got proud notions 
 from you ; and he says he won't let me c6me here any 
 more, and that I shall take a wife and settle down on his 
 place. At first he only scolded and grumbled these things : 
 but yesterday he told me that I should take Mina for a 
 wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he would 
 sell me down river." 
 
 " Why, but you were married to me, by the minister, as 
 much as if you'd been a white man," said Eliza, simply. 
 
 " Don't you know a slave can't be married ? There is no 
 law in this country for that : I can't hold you for my wife, 
 if he chooses to part us. That's why I wish I'd never seen 
 you why I wish I'd never been born ; it would have 
 been better for us both it would have been better for 
 this poor child if he had never been born. All this may 
 happen to him yet ! " 
 
 " Oh, but master is so kind ! " 
 
 " Yes, but who knows ? he may die ; and then he may 
 be sold to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that 
 he is handsome, and smart, and bright ? I tell you, Eliza, 
 that a sword will pierce through your soul for every good 
 and pleasant thing your child is or has it will make him 
 worth too much for you to keep." 
 
 The words smote heavily on Eliza's heart; the vision 
 of the trader came before her eyes, and, as if some one 
 had struck her a deadly blow, she turned pale and gasped 
 for breath. She looked nervously out on the verandah, 
 where the boy, tired of the grave conversation, had retired, 
 and where he was riding triumphantly up and down on 
 
 o 2 
 
20 GEOBGE'S FAEEWELL. 
 
 Mr. Shelby's walking-stick. She would have spoken to tell 
 her husband her fears, but checked herself. 
 
 " No, no, he has enough to bear, poor fellow ! " she 
 thought. " No, I won't tell him ; besides, it an't true ; 
 missis never deceives us." 
 
 " So,. Eliza, my girl," said the husband, mournfully, 
 "bear up, now, and good bye; for I'm going." 
 
 " Going, George ! going where ? " 
 
 "To Canada," said he, straightening himself up; "and 
 when I'm there, I'll buy you that's all the hope that's 
 left us. You hare a kind master, that won't refuse to sell 
 you. I'll buy you and the boy God helping me, I will! " 
 
 "Oh, dreadful! if you should betaken!" 
 
 " I won't be taken, Eliza I'll die first ! I'll be free, or 
 I'll die!" 
 
 " You won't kill yourself? " 
 
 " No need of that ; they will kill me fast enough ; they 
 never will get me down the river alive." 
 
 " Oh, George, for my sake, do be careful ! Don't do any- 
 thing wicked; don't lay hands on yourself, or anybody 
 else. You are tempted too much too much ; but don't 
 go you must but go carefully, prudently ; pray God to 
 help you." 
 
 " Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mas'r took it into 
 his head to send me right by here, with a note to Mr. 
 Symmes, that lives a mile past. I believe he expected I 
 should come here to tell you what I have. It would please 
 him, if he thought it would aggravate ' Shelby's folks,' as 
 he calls 'em. I'm going home quite resigned, you under- 
 stand, as if all was over. I've got some preparations made, 
 and there are those that will help me ; and, in the course 
 of a week or so, I shall be among the missing, some day. 
 Pray for me, Eliza ; perhaps the good Lord will hear you" 
 
 " Oh, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in Him ; 
 then you won't do anything wicked." 
 
 " Well, now, good bye" said George, holding Eliza's 
 hands, and gazing into her eyes, without moving. They 
 stood silent; then there were last words, and sobs, and 
 bitter weeping such parting as those may make whose hope 
 to meet again is as the spider's web ; and the husband and 
 wife were parted. 
 
AN EVENING IN UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AN EVENING IN TJNCLE TOM^S CABIN. 
 
 THE cabin of Uncle Tom was a small log building, close 
 adjoining to " the house," as the negro, par excellence, desig- 
 nates his master's dwelling. In front it had a neat garden- 
 patch, where, every summer, strawberries, raspberries, and a 
 variety of fruits and vegetables, flourished under careful 
 tending. The whole front of it was covered by a large scarlet 
 bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which, entwisting and 
 interlacing, left scarce a vestige of the rough logs to be seen. 
 Here, also, in summer, various brilliant annuals, such as 
 marigolds, petunias, four-o' clocks, found an indulgent corner 
 in which to unfold their splendours, and were the delight 
 and pride of Aunt Chloe's heart. 
 
 Let us enter the dwelling. The evening meal at the house 
 is over, and Aunt Chloe, who presided over its preparation 
 as head cook, has left to inferior officers in the kitchen the 
 business of clearing away and washing dishes, and come out 
 into her own snug territories, to " get her ole man's supper ;" 
 therefore, doubt not that it is her you see by the fire, pre- 
 siding with anxious interest over certain frizzling items in a 
 stewpan, and anon, with grave consideration, lifting the 
 cover of a bake-kettle, from whence steam forth indubitable 
 intimations of " something good." A round, black, shining 
 face is hers, so glossy as to suggest the idea that she might 
 have been washed over with white of eggs, like one of her 
 own tea-rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams with 
 satisfaction and contentment from under her well-starched 
 checked turban, bearing on it, however, if we must confess 
 it, a little of that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes 
 the first cook of the neighbourhood, as Aunt Chloe was 
 universally held and acknowledged to be. 
 
 A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of 
 her soul. Not a chicken, or turkey, or duck in the barn-yard, 
 
22 AUNT CHLOE. 
 
 but looked grave when they saw her approaching, and seemed 
 evidently to be reflecting on their latter end ; and certain it 
 was that she was always meditating on trussing, stuffing, and 
 roasting, to a degree that was calculated to inspire terror in 
 any reflecting fowl living. Her corn-cake, in an its varieties 
 of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins, and other species too numerous 
 to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised com- 
 pounders ; and she would shake her fat sides with honest 
 pride and merriment as she would narrate the fruitless efforts 
 that one and another of her compeers had made to attain to 
 her elevation. 
 
 The arrival of company at the house, the arranging of 
 dinners and suppers " in style," awoke all the energies of her 
 soul ; and no sight was more welcome to her than a pile of 
 travelling trunks launched on the verandah, for then she 
 foresaw fresh efforts and fresh triumphs. 
 
 Just at present, however, Aunt Chloe is looking into the 
 bake-pan, in which congenial operation we shall leave her till 
 we flnish our picture of the cottage. 
 
 In one corner of it stood a bed, covered neatly with a 
 snowy spread ; and by the side of it was a piece of carpeting 
 of some considerable size. On this piece of carpeting Aunt 
 Chloe took her stand, as being decidedly in the upper walks 
 of life ; and it and the bed by which it lay, and the whole 
 corner, in fact, were treated with distinguished consideration, 
 and made, so far as possible, sacred from the marauding 
 inroads and desecrations of little folks. In fact, that corner 
 was the drawing-room of the establishment. In the other 
 corner was a bed of much humbler pretensions, and evidently 
 designed for use. The wall over the fireplace was adorned 
 with some very brilliant Scriptural prints, and a portrait of 
 General Washington, drawn and coloured in a manner which 
 would certainly have astonished that hero, if ever he had 
 happened to meet with its like. 
 
 On a rough bench in the coroner, a couple of woolly- 
 headed boys, with glistening black eyes and fat shining 
 cheeks, were busy in superintending the first walking opera- 
 tions of the baby, which, as is usually the case, consisted in 
 getting up on its feet, balancing a moment, and then tumbling 
 down each successive failure being violently cheered, as 
 something decidedly clever. 
 
T7NCLE TOM'S KITCHEN. 23 
 
 A table, somewhat rheumatic in its limbs, was drawn out 
 in front of the fire, and covered with a cloth, displaying cups 
 and saucers of a decidedly brilliant pattern, with other symp- 
 toms of an approaching meal. At this table was seated 
 Uncle Tom, Mr. Shelby's best hand, who, as he is to be the 
 hero of our story, we must daguerreotype for our readers. 
 He was a large, broad-chested, powerfully-made man, of a 
 full glossy black, and a face whose truly African features 
 were characterised by an expression of grave and steady 
 good sense, united with much kindliness and benevolence. 
 There was something about his whole air self-respecting and 
 dignified, yet united with a confiding and humble simplicity. 
 
 He was very busily intent at this moment on a slate lying 
 before him, on which he was carefully and slowly endeavour- 
 ing to accomplish a copy of some letters; in which operation 
 he was overlooked by young Mas'r G-eorge, a smart, bright 
 boy of thirteen, who appeared fully to realise the dignity of 
 his position as instructor. 
 
 " Not that way, Uncle Tom not that way," said he, 
 briskly, as Uncle Tom laboriously brought up the tail of his 
 g the wrong side out ; " that makes a q, you see." 
 
 " La sakes, now, does it ? " said Uncle Tom, looking with 
 a respectful, admiring air, as his young teacher flourishingly 
 scrawled ^'s and y's innumerable for his edification; and 
 then, taking the pencil in his big, heavy fingers, he patiently 
 recommenced. 
 
 " How easy white folks al'as does things ! " said Aunt 
 Chloe, pausing while she was greasing a griddle with a scrap 
 of bacon on her fork, and regarding young Master G-eorge 
 with pride. " The way he can write, now ! and read, too ! 
 and then to come out here evenings and read his lessons to 
 us, it's mighty interestin' ! " 
 
 " But, Aunt Chloe, I'm getting mighty hungry," said 
 George. " Isn't that cake in the skillet almost done ?" 
 
 " Mose done, Mas'r George," said Aunt Chloe, lifting the 
 lid, and peeping in ; " browning beautiful a real lovely 
 brown. Ah, let me alone for dat ! Missis let Sally try to 
 make some cake t'other day, jes to larn her, she said. ' Oh, 
 go way, missis,' says I ; ' it really hurts my feelins, now, to 
 see good vittles spiled dat ar way ! Cake ris all to one side 
 no shape at all, no more than my shoe go way ! ' " 
 
24 NEGEO COOKERY. 
 
 And with this final expression of contempt for Sally's 
 greenness, Aunt Chloe whipped the cover of the bake-kettle, 
 and disclosed to view a neatly-baked pound-cake, of which 
 no city confectioner need to have been ashamed. This 
 being evidently the central point of the entertainment, 
 Aunt Chloe began now to bustle about earnestly in the 
 supper department. 
 
 " Here you, Mose and Pete, get out de way, you niggers ! 
 Get away, Polly, honey : mammy'll give her baby somefin 
 by-and-by. Now, Mas'r George, you jest take off dem books, 
 and set down now with my old man, and I'll take up de 
 sausages, and have de first griddle full of cakes on your 
 plates in less dan no time." 
 
 " They wanted me to come to supper in the house," said 
 George, "but I knew what was what too well for that, 
 Aunt Chloe." 
 
 " So you did so you did, honey," said Aunt Chloe, 
 heaping the smoking batter-cakes on his plate : " you 
 know'd your old aunty 'd keep the best for you. Oh, let you 
 alone for dat go way !" 
 
 And with that Aunty gave George a nudge with her 
 finger, designed to be immensely facetious, and turned again 
 to her griddle with great briskness. 
 
 " Now for the cake," said Mas'r George, when the 
 activity of the griddle department had somewhat subsided : 
 and with that the youngster nourished a large knife over the 
 article in question. 
 
 "La bless you, Mas'r George!" said Aunt Chloe, with 
 earnestness, catching his arm ; " you wouldn't be for cuttin' 
 it wid dat ar great heavy knife ! Smash all down spile all 
 de pretty rise of it ! Here, I've got a thin old knife I keeps 
 sharp a purpose. Dar now, see comes apart light as a 
 feather ! Now eat away you won't get anything to beat 
 datar!" 
 
 " Tom Lincoln says," said George, speaking with his 
 mouth full, " that their Jinny is a better cook than you." 
 
 "Dem Lincons an't much 'count no way!" said Aunt 
 Chloe, contemptuously ( "I mean, set alongside our folks. 
 They's 'spectable folks enough in a kinder plain way : but, 
 as to gettin' up anything in style, they don't begin to have a 
 notion on't. Set Mas'r Lincon, now, alongside Mas'r Shelby. 
 
KITCHEN COISTEESATIOIT. 25 
 
 G-ood Lor ! and Missis Lincon can she kinder sweep it 
 into a room like my missis so kinder splendid, yer know ? 
 Oh, go way! don't tell me nothin' of dem Lincons !" and 
 Aunt Chloe tossed her head as one who hoped she did know 
 something of the world. 
 
 " Well, though, I've heard you say," said G-eorge, " that 
 Jinny was a pretty fair cook." 
 
 " So I did," said Aunt Chloe ; " 1 may say dat. G-ood, 
 plain, common cookin', Jinny'll do ; make a good pone o* 
 bread bile her taters far her corn-cakes isn't extra, not 
 extra, now Jinny's corn-cakes isn't, but then they's far. 
 But, Lor, come to de higher branches, and what can she do ? 
 Why, she makes pies sartin she does; but what kinder 
 crust ? Can she make your real flecky paste, as melts in 
 your mouth and lies all up like a puff ? Now, I went over 
 thar when Miss Mary was gwino to be married, and Jinny 
 she jest showed me de weddin' pies. Jinny and I is good 
 friends, ye know. I never said nothin' : but go long Mas'r 
 G-eorge ! Why, I shouldn't sleep a wink for a week if I 
 had a batch of pies like dem ar. Why, dey wa'n't no 
 'count 't all." 
 
 " I suppose Jinny thought they were ever so nice," said 
 Greorge. 
 
 " Thought so ! didn't she ? Thar she was showing 'em, 
 as innocent ! Ye see, it's jest here, Jinny don't know. Lor, 
 the family an't nothing ! She can't be 'spected to know ! 
 'Tan't no fault o' hern. Ah, Mas'r George, you doesn't 
 know half your privileges in yer family and bringin' up !" 
 Here Aunt Chloe sighed, and rolled up her eyes with 
 emotion. 
 
 "I'm sure Aunt Chloe, I understand all my pie-and- 
 pudding privileges," said Greorge. " Ask Tom Lincoln if I 
 don't crow over him every time I meet him." 
 
 Aunt Chloe sat back in her chair, and indulged in a 
 hearty guffaw of laughter at this witticism of young Mas'r' s, 
 laughing till the tears rolled down her black, shining cheeks, 
 and varying the exercise with playfully slapping and poking 
 Mas'r Greorgey, and telling him to go way, and that he was 
 a case that he was fit to kill her, and that he sartin would 
 kill her one of these days ; and, between each of these san- 
 guinary predictions, going off into a laugh, each longer and 
 
26 THE GREAT CHICKEN- PIE. 
 
 stronger than the other, till George really began to think 
 that he was a very dangerously witty fellow, and that it 
 became him to be careful how he tailed "as funny as he 
 could." 
 
 " And so ye telled Tom, did ye ? Lor, what young 
 uns will be up ter ! Te crowed over Tom ? Lor, Mas'r 
 Greorge, if ye wouldn't make a hornbug laugh ! ' ' 
 
 "Yes," said George, " I says to him, ' Tom, you ought to 
 see some of Aunt Chloe's pies ; they're the right sort,' 
 says I." 
 
 " Pity, now, Tom couldn't," said Aunt Chloe, on whose 
 benevolent heart the idea of Tom's benighted condition 
 seemed to make a strong impression. " Ye oughter just 
 ask him here to dinner some o' these times, Mas'r Greorge," 
 she added ; " it would look quite pretty of ye. Ye know, 
 Mas'r Greorge, ye oughtenter feel 'bove nobody on 'count 
 yer privileges, 'cause all our privileges is gi'n to us ; we 
 ought al'ays to 'member that," said Aunt Chloe, looking 
 quite serious. 
 
 " Well, I mean to ask Tom here some day next week," 
 said Greorge ; " and you do your prettiest, Aunt Chloe, and 
 we'll make him stare. Won't we make him eat so he won't 
 get over it for a fortnight ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes sartin," said Aunt Chloe, delighted; "you'll 
 see. Lor ! to think of some of our dinners ! Yer mind dat 
 ar great chicken-pie I made when we guv de dinner to 
 General Knox ? I and missis, we come pretty near quarrel- 
 ling about dat ar crust. "What does get into ladies sometimes 
 I don't know ; but sometimes, when a body has de heaviest 
 kind o' 'sponsibility on 'em, as ye may say, and is all kinder 
 ' seris ' and taken up, dey takes dat ar time to be hangin' 
 round and kinder interferin' ! Now, missis, she wanted me 
 to do dis way, and she wanted me to do dat way ; and finally 
 I got kinder sarcy, and says I, ' Now, missis, do jist look at 
 dem beautiful white hands o' yourn, with long fingers, and all 
 a sparkling with rings, like my white lilies when de dew's 
 ,on 'em ; and look at my great black stumpin' hands. Now, 
 don't ye think that de Lord must have meant me to make de 
 pie-crust, and you to stay in de parlour ? ' Dar ! I was jist 
 so sarcy, Mas'r George." 
 
 "And what did mother say ? " said George. 
 
END OF THE FEAST. 27 
 
 " Say ? why, she kinder larfed in her eyes dem great 
 handsome eyes o' hern ; and says she, ' Well, Aunt Chloe, I 
 think you are about in the right on't," says she; and she 
 went off in de parlour. She oughter cracked me over de 
 head for bein' so sarcy; but dar's whar 'tis I can't do 
 nothin' with ladies in de kitchen." 
 
 " Well, you made out well with that dinner I remember 
 everybody said so," said George. 
 
 " Didn't I ? And wan't I behind de dinin'-room door dat 
 bery day ? and did'nt I see de Gineral pass his plate three 
 times for some more dat bery pie ? and, says he, * You must 
 have an uncommon cook, Mrs. Shelby.' Lor ! I was fit to 
 split myself." 
 
 " And de Grineral, he knows what cookin' is," said Aunt 
 Chloe, drawing herself up with an air. " Bery nice man, de 
 Grineral ! He comes of one of de bery fastest families in 
 Old Virginny ! He knows what's what, now, as well as 
 I do de Grineral. Te see, there's pints in all pies, Mas'r 
 George ; but tan't every body knows what they is, or orter 
 be. But the Gineral, he knows ; I knew by his 'marks he 
 made. Yes, he knows what de pints is ! " 
 
 By this time Master George had arrived at that pass to 
 which even a boy can come (under uncommon circumstances), 
 when he really could not eat another morsel, and, therefore, 
 he was at leisure to notice the pile of woolly heads and 
 glistening eyes which were regarding their operations 
 hungrily from the opposite corner. 
 
 " Here, you Mose, Pete," he said, breaking off liberal bits, 
 and throwing it at them; "you want some, don't you? 
 Come, Aunt Chloe, bake them some cakes." 
 
 And George and Tom moved to a comfortable seat in the 
 chimney-corner, while Aunt Chloe, after baking a goodly 
 pile of cakes, took her baby on her lap, and began alternately 
 filling its mouth and her own, and distributing to Mose and 
 Pete, who seemed rather to prefer eating theirs as they rolled 
 about on the floor under the table, tickling each other, and 
 occasionally pulling the baby's toes. 
 
 " Oh, go long, will ye ? " said the mother, giving now and 
 then a kick, in a kind of general way, under the table, when 
 the movement became too obstreperous. " Can't ye be 
 decent when white folks come to see ye ? Stop dat ar, now, 
 
28 AGGRAVATING YOUNG UNS. 
 
 will ye? Better mind yerselves, or I'll take ye down a 
 button-hole lower, when Mas'r Greorge is gone ! " 
 
 What meaning was couched under this terrible threat it is 
 difficult to say ; but certain it is that its awful indistinctness 
 seemed to produce very little impression on the young sinners 
 addressed. 
 
 " La, now ! " said Uncle Tom, " they are so Ml of tickle 
 all the while, they can't behave theirselves." 
 
 Here the boys emerged from under the table, and, with 
 hands and faces well plastered with molasses, began a vigorous 
 kissing of the baby. 
 
 " Get along wid ye !" said the mother, pushing away their 
 woolly heads. " Ye'll all stick together, and never get clar, 
 if ye do dat fashion. Glo long to de spring and wash yerselves ! ' ' 
 she said, seconding her exhortations by a slap, which 
 resounded very formidably, but which seemed only to knock 
 out so much more laugh from the young ones, as they 
 tumbled precipitately over each other out-of-doors, where 
 they fairly screamed with merriment. 
 
 "Did ye ever see such aggravating young uns?" said 
 Aunt Chloe, rather complacently, as, producing an old towel, 
 kept for such emergencies, she poured a little water out of 
 the cracked teapot on it, and began rubbing oif the molasses 
 from the baby's face and hands ; and having polished her 
 till she shone, she set her down in Tom's lap, while she 
 busied herself in clearing away supper. The baby employed 
 the intervals in pulling Tom's nose, scratching his face, and 
 burying her fat hands in his woolly hair ; which last operation 
 seemed to afford her special content. 
 
 " Ain't she a peart young un ? " said Tom, holding her 
 from him to take a full-length view ; then, getting up, he set 
 her on his broad shoulder, and began capering and dancing 
 with her, while Mas'r Greorge snapped at her with his pocket- 
 handkerchief, and Mose and Pete, now returned again, roared 
 after her like bears, till Aunt Chloe declared that they " fairly 
 took her head oif" with their noise. As, according to her own 
 statement, this surgical operation was a matter of daily 
 occurrence in the cabin, the declaration no whit abated the 
 merriment, till every one had roared, and tumbled, and 
 danced themselves down to a state of composure. 
 
 " Well, now, I hopes you're done," said Aunt Chloe, 
 
PEEPAEATIONS FOE MEETING. 29 
 
 who had been busy in pulling out a rude box of a trundle- 
 bed ; " and now, you Mose and you Pete, get into thar ; for 
 we's going to have the meetinV 
 
 " Oh, mother, we don't wanter. We wants to sit up to 
 meetin' meetin's is so curis. We likes 'em." 
 
 " La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let 'em sit up," 
 said Mas'r George, decisively, giving a push to the rude 
 machine. 
 
 Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly 
 delighted to push the thing under, saying, as she did so, 
 " Well, mebbe 'twill do 'em some good." 
 
 The house now resolved itself into a committee of the 
 whole, to consider the accommodations and arrangements for 
 the meeting. 
 
 "What we's to do for cheers, now, I declare I don't 
 know," said Aunt Chloe. As the meeting had been held at 
 Uncle Tom's weekly, for an indefinite length of time, without 
 anymore "cheers," there seemed some encouragement to 
 hope that a way would be discovered at present. 
 
 " Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest 
 cheer, last week," suggested Mose. 
 
 " You go long ! I'll boun' you pulled 'em out ; some o' 
 your shines," said Aunt Chloe. 
 
 " Well, it '11 stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall !" 
 said Mose. 
 
 "Den Uncle Peter mus'n't sit in it, 'cause he al'ays 
 hitches when he gets a singing. He hitched pretty nigh 
 across de room t'other night," said Pete. 
 
 " Good Lor ! get him in it, then," said Mose, " and den 
 he'd begin, ' Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell,' and 
 den down he'd go. And Mose imitated precisely the nasal 
 tones of the old man, tumbling on the floor to illustrate the 
 supposed catastrophe. 
 
 "Come, now, be decent, can't ye?" said Aunt Chloe; 
 "an'tyer shamed?" 
 
 Mas'r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, 
 and declared decidedly that Mose was a " buster." So the 
 maternal admonition seemed rather to fail of effect. 
 
 " Well, ole man," said Aunt Chloe, " you'll have to tote 
 in them ar bar'ls." 
 
 " Mother's barl's is like dat ar widder's Mas'r George was 
 
30 THE MEETING. 
 
 reading 'bout in de good book dey never fails," said Mose, 
 aside to Pete. 
 
 "I'm sure one on 'em caved in last week," said Pete, 
 " and let 'em all down in de middle of de singin' ; dat ar 
 was failin', warn't it?" 
 
 During this aside between Mose and Pete, two empty 
 casks had been rolled into the cabin, and being secured from 
 rolling by stones on each side, boards were laid across them, 
 which arrangement, together with the turning down of certain 
 tubs and pails, and the disposing of the rickety chairs, at last 
 completed the preparation. 
 
 " Mas'r George is such a beautiful reader, now, I know 
 he'll stay to read for us," said Aunt Chloe ; " 'pears like 
 't will be much more interestin'." 
 
 G-eorge very readily consented, for your boy is always 
 ready for any thing that makes him of importance. 
 
 The room was soon filled with a motley assemblage, 
 from the old grey-headed patriarch of eighty to the young girl 
 and lad of fifteen. A little harmless gossip ensued on various 
 themes, such as where old Aunt Sally got her new red head- 
 kerchief, and how " missis was a-going to give Lizzy that 
 spotted muslin gown, when she'd got her new berage made 
 up ; " and how Mas'r Shelby was thinking of buying a new 
 sorrel colt, that was going to prove an addition to the glories 
 of the place. A few of the worshippers belonged to families 
 hard by, who had got permission to attend, and who brought 
 in various choice scraps of information, about the sayings and 
 doings at the house and on the place, which circulated as freely 
 as the same sort of small change does in higher circles. 
 
 After awhile the singing commenced, to the evident 
 delight of all present. Not even all the disadvantage of 
 nasal intonation could prevent the effect of the naturally 
 fine voices, in airs at once wild and spirited. The words 
 were sometimes the well-known and common hymns sung 
 in the churches about, and sometimes of a wilder, more 
 indefinite character, picked up at camp-meetings. 
 
 The chorus to one of them, which ran as follows, was sung 
 with great energy and unction : 
 
 " Die on the field of battle, 
 Die on the field of battle, 
 Glory in my souL" 
 
KEGEO WORSHIP. 31 
 
 Another special favourite had oft repeated the words 
 
 " Oh, I'm going to glory won't you come along with me ? 
 Don't you see the angels beck'ning, and calling me away ? 
 Don't you see the golden city and the everlasting day ] " 
 
 There were others, which made incessant mention of 
 "Jordan's banks," and "Canaan's fields," and the "New 
 Jerusalem ;" for the negro mmd v impassioned and, imagi- 
 native, always attaches itself to hymns and expressions of a 
 vivid and pictorial nature ; and, as they sang, some laughed, 
 and some cried, and some clapped hands, or shook hands 
 rejoicingly with each other, as if they had fairly gained the 
 other side of the river. 
 
 Various exhortations or relations of experience followed, 
 and intermingled with the singing. One old grey-headed 
 woman, long past work, but much revered as a sort of 
 chronicle of the past, rose, and leaning on her staif, said : 
 
 " Well, chil'en ! Well, I'm mighty glad to hear ye all 
 and see ye all once more, 'cause I don't know when I'll be 
 gone to glory ; but I've done got ready, chil'en ; 'pears like 
 I'd got my little bundle all tied up, and my bonnet on, jest 
 a waitin' for the stage to come along and take me home ; 
 sometimes, in the night, I think I hear the wheels a rattlin', 
 and I'm looking out all the time : now, you jest be ready 
 too, for I tell ye all, chil'en," she said, striking her staff 
 hard on the floor, " dat ar glory is a mighty thing ! It's a 
 mighty thing, chil'en you don'no nothin' about it it's 
 wonderful" And the old creature sat down, with streaming 
 tears, as wholly overcome, while the whole circle struck up 
 
 " Oh, Canaan, bright Canaan, 
 I'm bound for the land of Canaan." 
 
 Mas'r George, by request, read the last chapters of 
 Revelation, often interrupted by such exclamations as " The 
 sakes now ! " " Only hear that ! " " Jest think on't ! " " Is 
 all that a comin' sure enough ? " 
 
 G-eorge, who was a bright boy, and well trained in religious 
 things by his mother, finding himself an object of general 
 admiration, threw in expositions of his own, from time to 
 time, with a commendable seriousness and gravity, for which 
 he was admired by the young and blessed by the old ; and it 
 
32 THE HUMAN TKADER. 
 
 was agreed, on all hands, that a " minister couldn't lay it off 
 better than he did ; " that " 'twas reely 'mazin' ! " 
 
 Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters 
 in the neighbourhood. Having, naturally, an organisation 
 in which the morale was strongly predominant, together 
 with a greater breadth and cultivation of mind than obtained 
 among his companions, he was looked up to with great 
 respect, as a sort of minister among them ; and the simple, 
 hearty, sincere style of his exhortations, might have edified 
 even better educated persons. But it was in prayer that he 
 especially excelled. Nothing could exceed the touching 
 simplicity, the childlike earnestness of his prayer, enriched 
 with the language of Scripture, which seemed so entirely to 
 have wrought itself into his being as to have become a part 
 of himself, and to drop from his Hps unconsciously ; in the 
 language of a pious old negro, he "prayed right up." And 
 so much did his prayer always work on the devotional feeling 
 of his audiences, that there seemed often a danger that it- 
 would be lost altogether in the abundance of the responses 
 which broke out everywhere around him. 
 
 While this scene was passing in the cabin of the man, one 
 quite otherwise passed in the halls of the master. 
 
 The trader and Mr. Shelby were seated together in the 
 dining-room afore-named, at a table covered with papers and 
 writing utensils. 
 
 Mr. Shelby was busy in counting some bundles of bills, 
 which, as they were counted, he pushed over to the trader, 
 who counted them likewise. 
 
 "All fair," said the trader; "and now for signing these 
 yer." 
 
 Mr. Shelby hastily drew the bills of sale towards him, and 
 signed them like a man that hurries over some disagreeable 
 business, and then pushed them over with the money. Haley 
 produced, from a well-worn valise, a parchment, which, after 
 looking over it a moment, he handed to Mr. Shelby, who 
 took it with a gesture of suppressed eagerness. 
 
 " Wai, now the thing's done!" said the trader, getting up. 
 
 " It's done ! " said Mr. Shelby, in a musing tone ; and, 
 fetching a long breath, he repeated, " It's done ! " 
 
FEELINGS ON CHANGING OWNERS. 83 
 
 " Yer don't seem to feel much pleased with it, 'pears to 
 me," said the trader. 
 
 " Haley," said Mr. Shelby, " I hope you'll remember that 
 you promised, on your honour, you wouldn't sell Tom, 
 without knowing what sort of hands he's going into." 
 
 " Why, you've just done it, sir," said the trader. 
 
 " Circumstances, you well know, obliged me," said Shelby, 
 haughtily. 
 
 "Wai, you know, they may 'blige me, too," said the 
 trader. " Howsomever, I'll do the very best I can in gettin' 
 Tom a good berth ; as to my treating on him bad, you 
 needn't be a grain afeard. If there's anything that I thank 
 the Lord for, it is that I'm never noways cruel." 
 
 After the expositions which the trader had previously 
 given of his humane principles, Mr. Shelby did not feel 
 particularly reassured by these declarations ; but as they 
 were the best comfort the case admitted of, he allowed 
 the trader to depart in silence, and betook himself to a 
 solitary cigar. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 SHOWING THE FEELINGS OP LIVING PROPERTY ON 
 CHANGING OWNERS. 
 
 ME. and Mrs. Shelby had retired to their apartment for 
 the night. He was lounging in a large easy chair, looking 
 over some letters that had come in the afternoon mail, and 
 she was standing before her mirror, brushing out the com- 
 plicated braids and curls in which Eliza had arranged her 
 hair ; for, noticing her pale cheeks and haggard eyes, she 
 had excused her attendance that night, and ordered her to 
 bed. The employment, naturally enough, suggested her 
 conversation with the girl in the morning ; and, turning to 
 her husband, she said, carelessly, 
 
 " By-the-by, Arthur, who was that low-bred fellow that 
 you lugged in to our dinner- table to-day ? " 
 *" Haley is his name," said Shelby, turning himself rather 
 
34 MES. SHELBY'S SUEPEISE. 
 
 uneasily in his chair, and continuing with his eyes fixed on 
 a letter. 
 
 " Haley ! Who is he, and what may be his business here, 
 pray ? " 
 
 " Well, he's a man that I transacted some business with 
 last time I was at Natchez," said Mr. Shelby. 
 
 " And he presumed on it to make himself quite at home, 
 and call and dine here, eh ? " 
 
 "Why, I invited him ; I had some accounts with him," 
 said Shelby. 
 
 " Is he a negro-trader ? " said Mrs. Shelby, noticing a 
 certain embarrassment in her husband's manner. 
 
 " Why, my dear, what put that into your head ? " said 
 Shelby, looking up. 
 
 "Nothing only Eliza came in here, after dinner, in a 
 great worry, crying and taking on, and said you were talking 
 with a trader, and that she heard him make an offer for her 
 boy the ridiculous little goose ! " 
 
 " She did, eh ? " said- Mr. Shelby, returning to his paper, 
 which he seemed for a few moments quite intent upon, not 
 perceiving that he was holding it bottom upwards. 
 
 "It will have to come out," said he, mentally ; "as well 
 now as ever." 
 
 " I told Eliza," said Mrs. Shelby, as she continued brush- 
 ing her hair, " that she was a little fool for her pains, and 
 that you never had anything to do with that sort of persons. 
 Of course, I knew you never meant to sell any of our people 
 least of all, to such a fellow." 
 
 "Well, Emily," said her husband, "so I have always 
 felt and said ; but the fact is, that my business lies so that 
 I cannot get on without. I shall have to sell some of my 
 hands." 
 
 " To that creature ? Impossible ! Mr. Shelby, you cannot 
 be serious." 
 
 " I am sorry to say that I am," said Mr. Shelby. I've 
 agreed to sell Tom." 
 
 " What ! our Tom ? that good, faithful creature ! been 
 your faithful servant from a boy ! Oh Mr. Shelby ! and 
 you have promised him his freedom, too you and I have 
 spoken to him a hundred times of it. Well, I can believe 
 anything now ; I can believe now that you could sell little 
 
PECUNIABY DIFFICULTIES. 35 
 
 Harry, poor Eliza's only child ! " said Mrs. Shelby, in a tone \ 
 between grief and indignation. 
 
 " Well, since you must know all, it is so. I have agreed 
 to sell Tom and Harry both ; and I don't know why I am 
 to be rated as if I were a monster for doiggjwhat every, one . 
 ~ 
 
 __ 
 
 " But why, of all others, choose these ? " said Mrs. Shelby. 
 "Why sell them of all on the place, if you must sell at all?" 
 
 " Because they will bring the highest sum of any that's 
 why. I could choose another, if you say so. The fellow 
 made me a high bid on Eliza, if that would suit you any 
 better," said Mr. Shelby. 
 
 " The wretch ! " said Mrs. Shelby, vehemently. 
 
 " Well, I didn't listen to it a moment out of regard to 
 your feelings, I wouldn't ; so give me some credit." 
 
 "My dear," said Mrs. Shelby, recollecting herself, "for- 
 give me. I have been hasty. I was surprised, and entirely 
 unprepared for this ; but surely you will allow me to intercede 
 for these poor creatures. Tom is a noble-hearted, faithful 
 fellow, if he is black. I do believe, Mr. Shelby, that if he 
 were put to it, he would lay down his life for you." 
 
 " I know it I dare say ; but what's the use of all this ? 
 I can't help myself." 
 
 " Why not make a pecuniary sacrifice ? I'm willing to 
 bear my part of the inconvenience. Oh Mr. Shelby, I have 
 tried tried most faithfully, as a Christian woman should 
 to do my duty to thesej)oor, simple, dependent creatures. I 
 have cared for them, instructed them, watchett* over themfand 
 known all their little cares and joys, for years ; and how can 
 I ever hold up my head again among them, if, for the sake 
 of a little paltry gain, we sell such a faithful, excellent, con- 
 fiding creature as poor Tom, and tear from him in a moment 
 all we have taught him to love and value ? I have taught 
 them the duties of the family, of parent and child, and 
 husband and wife ; and how can I bear to have this open 
 acknowledgment that we care for no tie, no duty, no relation, 
 however sacred, compared with money ? I have talked with 
 Eliza about her boy her duty to him as a Christian mother, 
 to watch over him, pray for him, and bring him up in a 
 Christian way ; and now what can I say, if you tear him away, 
 and sell him, soul and body, to a profane, unprincipled man, 
 
36 AN LNTEBESTING CONYEKSATION. 
 
 just to save a little money? I have told her that one soul is 
 worth more than all the money in the world ; and how will 
 she believe me when she sees us turn round and sell her 
 child? sell him, perhaps, to certain ruin of body and soul!" 
 
 " I'm sorry you feel so about it, Emily indeed I am," 
 said Mr. Shelby ; " and I respect your feelings, too, though 
 I don't pretend to share them to their full extent ; but I 
 tell you now, solemnly, it's of no use I can't help myself. 
 I didn't mean to tell you this, Emily ; but, in plain words, 
 there is no choice between selling these two and selling 
 everything. Either they must go or all must. Haley has 
 come into possession of a mortgage, which, if I don't clear 
 off with him directly, will take everything before it. I've 
 raked, and scraped, and borrowed, and all but begged, and 
 the price of these two was needed to make up the balance, 
 and I had to give them up. Haley fancied the child ; he 
 agreed to settle the matter that way, and no other. I was 
 in his power, and had to do it. If you feel so to have them 
 sold, would it be any better to have all sold ? " 
 
 Mrs. Shelby stood like one stricken. Finally, turning to 
 her toilet, she rested her face in her hands, and gave a sort 
 of groan. 
 
 " This is Grod's curse on slavery ! a bitter, bitter, most 
 accursed thing ! a curse to the master, and a curse to the 
 slave ! I was a fool to think I could make anything good 
 out of such a deadly evil. It is a sin to hold a slave under 
 laws like ours ; I always felt it was I always thought so 
 when I was a girl I thought so still more after I joined the 
 church ; but I thought I could gild it over. I thought by 
 kindness, and care, and instruction, I could make the 
 condition of mine better than freedom. Fool that I was ! " 
 
 " Why, wife, you are getting to be an Abolitionist, quite." 
 
 " Abolitionist ! If they knew all I know about slavery, 
 they might talk ! We don't need them to tell us ; you know 
 I never thought that slavery was right never felt willing 
 to own slaves." 
 
 " Well, therein you differ from many wise and pious men," 
 said Mr. Shelby. " You remember Mr. B.'s sermon the 
 other Sunday ? " 
 
 " I don't want to hear such sermons ; I never wish to 
 hear Mr. B. in our church again. Ministers can't help the 
 
THE UNSUSPECTED LISTENER. 37 
 
 evil, perhaps can't cure it, any more than we can but 
 defend it ! It always went against my common sense. And 
 I think you didn't think much of that sermon, either." 
 
 " Well," said Shelby, " I must say these ministers some- 
 times carry matters further than we poor sinners would 
 exactly dare to do. "We men of the world must wink pretty 
 hard at various things, and get used to a deal that isn't the 
 exact thing. But we don't quite fancy when women and 
 ministers come out broad and square, and go beyond us in 
 matters of either modesty or morals, that's a fact. But now, 
 my dear, I trust you see the necessity of the thing, and 
 you see that I have donetha very best that 
 
 
 
 lery of any amount," she addft^, ^ mi ght f 'illy, "butwould^ 
 h^liMalira^chjclQ- something P-^itLJEas an expensive one 
 when it was bought. If I could only at least save Eliza's 
 child, I would sacrifice anything I have." 
 
 "I'm sorry, very sorry, Emily," said Mr. Shelby, "I'm 
 sorry this takes hold of you so ; but it will do no good. 
 The fact is, Emily, the thing's done ; the bills of sale are 
 already signed and in Haley's hands ; and you must be 
 thankful it is no worse. That man has had it in his power 
 'to ruin us all, and now he is fairly off. If you knew the 
 man as I do, you'd think that we had had a narrow escape." 
 
 " Is he so hard, then ? " ^^ 
 
 " Why, not a cruel man, exactly, but a man of leather a ^V 
 man alive to nothing but trade and profit ; cool, and unhesi- \ 
 tating, and unrelenting as death and the grave. He'd sell 
 his own mother at a good percentage not wishing the old J 
 woman any harm either." 
 
 "And this wretch owns that good, faithful Tom, and 
 Eliza's child?" 
 
 " Well, my dear, the fact is, that this goes rather hard 
 with me it's a thing I hate to think of: Haley wants _ to 
 drive matters, and take possession to-morrow. I'm going 
 to get out my horse bright and early, and be off. I can't 
 see Tom, that's a fact ; and you had better arrange a drive 
 somewhere, and carry Eliza off. Let the thing be done 
 when she is out of sight " 
 
38 A MOTHER'S ANGUISH. 
 
 " No, no," said Mrs. Shelby ; " I'll be in no sense accom- 
 plice or help in this cruel business. I'll go and see poor old 
 Tom, Q-od help him in his distress ! They shall see, at 
 any rate, that their mistress can feel for and with them. 
 As to Eliza, I dare not think about it. The Lord forgive 
 us ! What have we done that this cruel necessity should 
 come on us ! " 
 
 There was one listener to this conversation whom Mr. 
 and Mrs. Shelby little suspected. 
 
 Communicating with their apartment was a large closet, 
 opening by a door into the outer passage. When Mrs. 
 Shelby had dismissed Eliza for the night, her feverish and 
 excited mind had suggested the idea of this closet ; .and she 
 had hidden herself there, and, with her ear pressed close 
 against the crack of the door, had lost not a word of the 
 conversation. 
 
 When the voices died into silence, she rose and crept 
 stealthily away. Pale, shivering, with rigid features and 
 compressed lips, she looked an entirely altered being from 
 the soft and timid creature she had been hitherto. She 
 moved cautiously along the entry, paused one moment at her 
 mistress's door, and raised her hands in mute appeal to 
 Heaven, and then turned and glided into her own room. It 
 was a quiet, neat apartment, on the same floor with her 
 mistress's. There was the pleasant, sunny window, where 
 she had often sat singing at her sewing ; there a little case 
 of books, and various little fancy articles ranged by them, 
 the gifts of Christmas holidays ; there was her simple 
 wardrobe in the closet and in the drawers ; here was, in 
 short, her home, and, on the whole, a happy one it had been 
 to her. But there, on the bed, lay her slumbering boy, his 
 long curls falling negligently around his unconscious face, 
 his rosy mouth half open, his little fat hands thrown out 
 over the bed-clothes, and a smile spread like a sunbeam over 
 his whole face. 
 
 "Poor boy! poor fellow!" said Eliza; "they have sold 
 you ! but your mother will save you yet ! " 
 
 No tear dropped over that pillow. In such straits as 
 these the heart has no tears to give ; it drops only blood, 
 bleeding itself away in silence. She took a piece of paper 
 and a pencil, and wrote hastily, 
 
ELIZA'S FLIGHT. 39 
 
 " Oh, missis ! dear missis ! don't think me ungrateful 
 don't think hard of me, any way I heard all you and master 
 said to-night. I am going to try to save my boy you will 
 not blame me! G-od bless and reward you for all your 
 kindness ! " 
 
 Hastily folding and directing this, she went to a drawer 
 and made up a little package of clothing for her boy, which 
 she tied with a handkerchief firmly round her waist ; and so 
 fond is a mother's remembrance, that, even in the terrors of 
 that hour, she did not forget to put in the little package one 
 or two of his favourite toys, reserving a gaily-painted parrot 
 to amuse him when she should be called on to awaken him. 
 It was some trouble to arouse the little sleeper ; but, after 
 some effort, he sat up, and was playing with his bird, while 
 his mother was putting on her bonnet and shawl. 
 
 ""Where are you going, mother ? " said he, as she drew 
 near the bed with his little coat and cap. 
 
 His mother drew near, and looked so earnestly into his 
 eyes, that he at once divined that something unusual was 
 the matter. 
 
 " Hush, Harry," she said ; " mustn't speak loud, or 
 they will hear us. A wicked man was coming to take little 
 Harry away from his mother, and carry him 'way off in the 
 dark, but mother won't let him she's going to put on her 
 little boy's cap and coat, and run off with him, so the ugly 
 man can't catch him." 
 
 Saying these words, she had tied and buttoned on the 
 child's simple outfit, and taking him in her arms, she 
 whispered to him to be very still ; and, opening a door in 
 her room which led into the outer verandah, she glided 
 noiselessly out. 
 
 It was a sparkling frosty, starlight night, and the mother 
 wrapped the shawl close round her child, as, perfectly quiet 
 with vague terror, he clung round her neck. 
 
 Old Bruno, a great Newfoundland, who slept at the end 
 of the porch, rose, with a low growl, as she came near. She 
 gently spoke his name, and the animal, an old pet and play- 
 mate of hers, instantly wagging his tail, prepared to follow 
 her, though apparently revolving much in his simple dog's 
 head what such an indiscreet midnight promenade might 
 mean. Some dim ideas of imprudence or impropriety in the 
 
40 AUNT CHLOE'S ADYICE. 
 
 measure seemed to embarrass him considerably ; for he often 
 stopped, as Eliza glided forward, and looked wistfully, first 
 at her and then at the house, and then, as if reassured by 
 reflection, he pattered along after her again. A few minutes 
 brought them to the window of Uncle Tom's cottage, and 
 Eliza stopping, tapped lightly on the window-pane. 
 
 The prayer meeting at Uncle Tom's had, in the order of 
 hymn-singing, been protracted to a very late hour ; and as 
 Uncle Tom had indulged himself in a few lengthy solos after- 
 wards, the consequence was, that, although it was now 
 between twelve and one o'clock, he and his worthy helpmeet 
 were not yet asleep. 
 
 " Good Lord! what's that? " said Aunt Chloe, starting 
 up, and hastily drawing the curtain. " My sakes alive, if it 
 a' nt Lizzy ! Get on your clothes, ole man, quick ! There's 
 ole Bruno, too, a-pawin' round wat on airth ! I'm gwine 
 to open the door." 
 
 And, suiting the action to the word, the door flew open, 
 and the light of the tallow candle, which Tom had hastily 
 lighted, fell on the haggard face and dark wild eyes of the 
 fugitive. 
 
 " Lord bless you ! I'm skeered to look at ye, Lizzy ! Are 
 ye tuck sick, or what's come over ye ? " 
 
 " I'm running away, Uncle Tom and Aunt Chloe carry- 
 ing oft 7 my child. Master's sold him ! " 
 
 "Sold him?" echoed both, lifting up their hands in 
 dismay. 
 
 "Yes, sold him!" said Eliza, firmly; "I crept into the 
 closet by mistress's door to-night, and I heard master tell 
 missis that he had sold my Harry and you, Uncle Tom, both 
 to a trader, and that he was going off this morning on his 
 horse, and that the man was to take possession to-day." 
 
 Tom had stood during this speech with his hands raised, 
 and his eyes dilated, like a man in a dream. Slowly and 
 gradually, as its meaning came over him, he collapsed, rather 
 than seated himself, on his old chair, and sunk his head 
 down upon his knees. 
 
 " The good Lord have pity on us ! " said Aunt Chloe. 
 " Oh, it don't seem as if it was true ! What has he done 
 that mas'r should sell him?" 
 
 " He hasn't done anything it isn't for that. Master don't 
 
UNCLE TOM'S DETEEMINATION. 41 
 
 want to sell, and missis she's always good I heard her 
 plead and beg for us ; but he told her 'twas no use that he 
 was in this man's debt, and that this man had got the power 
 over him and that if he didn't pay him off clear, it would 
 end in his having to sell the place and all the people, and 
 move off. Yes, I heard him say there was no choice between 
 selling these two and selling all, the man was driving them 
 so hard. Master said he was sorry ; but oh, missis ! you 
 ought to have heard her talk ! If she an't a Christian and 
 an angel, there never was one. I'm a wicked girl to leave 
 her so ; but then I can't help it. She said herself one soul 
 was worth more than the world ; and this boy has a soul, and 
 if I let him be carried off, who knows what'll become of it ? 
 It must be right ; but if it an't right, the Lord forgive me, 
 for I can't help doing it ! " 
 
 " Well, ole man ! " said Aunt Chloe, "why don't you go 
 too ? Will you wait to be toted down the river, where they 
 kill niggers with hard work and starving ? I'd a heap rather 
 die "than go there, any day ! There's time for ye ; be off with 
 Lizzy you've got a pass to come and go anytime. Come, 
 bustle up, and I'll get your things together." 
 
 Tom slowly raised his head, and looked sorrowfully but/ 
 quietly around, and said : 
 
 " No, no ; I an't going. Let Eliza go it's her right. I 
 wouldn't be the one to say no. 'Tan't in natwr for her to 
 stay ; but you heard what she said ! If I must be sold, 
 or all the people on the place, and everything go to rack, 
 why, let me be sold. I s'pose I can b'ar it as well as any 
 on 'em," he added, while something like a sob and a sigh 
 shook his broad, rough chest convulsively. " Mas'r always 
 found me on the spot he always will. I never have broke 
 trust, nor used my pass noways contrary to my word, and I 
 never will. It's better for me alone to go than to break up 
 the place and sell all. Mas'r an't to blame, Chloe ; and he'll 
 take care of you and the poor " 
 
 Here he turned to the rough trundle-bed full of little 
 woolly heads, and broke fairly down. He leaned over the 
 back of the chair, and covered his face with his large hands. 
 Sobs, heavy, hoarse, and loud, shook the chair, and great 
 tears fell through his fingers on the floor just such tears, 
 sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born 
 
42 DISCOYERY. 
 
 son ; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the 
 cries of your dying babe for, sir, he was a man, and you are 
 but another man. And, woman, though dressed in silks and 
 jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life's great straits and 
 mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow ! 
 
 "And now," said Eliza, as she stood in the door, " I saw 
 my husband only this afternoon, and I little knew then what 
 was to come. They have pushed him to the very last stand- 
 ing-place, and he told me to-day that he was going to run 
 away. Do try, if you can, to get word to him. Tell him 
 how I went, and why I went ; and tell him I'm going to 
 try and find Canada. You must give my love to him, and 
 tell him, if I never see him again," she turned away, and 
 stood with her back to them for a moment, and then added, 
 in a husky voice, " tell him to be as good as he can, and try 
 and meet me in the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 " Call Bruno in there," she added. " Shut the door on 
 him, poor beast ! He mustn't go with me." 
 
 A few last words and tears, a few simple adieus and 
 blessings, and, clasping her wondering and aifrighted child 
 in her arms, she glided noiselessly away. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DISCOVERY. 
 
 ME. and Mrs. Shelby, after their protracted discussion of 
 the night before, did not readily sink to repose, and in 
 consequence slept somewhat later than usual the ensuing 
 morning. 
 
 " I wonder what keeps Eliza," said Mrs. Shelby, after 
 giving her bell repeated pulls, to no purpose. 
 
 Mr. Shelby was standing before his dressing-glass, sharpen- 
 ing his razor ; and just then the door opened, and a coloured 
 boy entered with his shaving-water. 
 
 " Andy," said his mistress, " step to Eliza's door, and tell 
 her I have rung for her three times. Poor thing !" she 
 added to herself, with a sigh. 
 
HALEY'S DISAPPOINTMENT. 43 
 
 Andy soon returned, with eyes very wide with astonishment. 
 
 " Lor, missis ! Lizzy's drawers is all open, and her things 
 all lying every which way: and I believe she's just done 
 clared out !" 
 
 The truth flashed upon Mr. Shelby and his wife at the 
 same moment. He exclaimed, 
 
 " Then she suspected it, and. she's off"!" 
 
 "The Lord be thanked!" said Mrs. Shelby; "I trust 
 she is." 
 
 " Wife, you talk like a fool ! Really, it will be something 
 pretty awkward for me if she is. Haley saw that I hesitated 
 about selling this child, and he'll think I connived at it to 
 get him out of the way. It touches my honour." And 
 Mr. Shelby left the room hastily. 
 
 There was great running and ejaculating, and opening and 
 shutting of doors, and appearance of faces in all shades of 
 colour in different places, for about a quarter of an hour. 
 One person only, who might have shed some light on the 
 matter, was entirely silent, and that was the head cook, 
 Aunt Chloe. Silently, and with a heavy cloud settled down 
 over her once joyous face, she proceeded making out her 
 breakfast biscuits, as if she heard and saw nothing of the 
 excitement around her. 
 
 Very soon about a dozen young imps were roosting, like 
 so many crows, on the verandah railings, each one determined 
 to be the first one to apprise the strange mas'r of his ill luck: 
 
 " He'll be rael mad, I'll be bound," said Andy. 
 
 " Won't he swar !" said little black Jake. 
 
 " Yes, for he does swar," said woolly-headed Mandy. " I 
 hearn him yesterday, at dinner. I hearn all about it then, 
 'cause I got into the closet where missis keeps the great 
 jugs, and I hearn every word." And Mandy, who had never 
 in her life thought of the meaning of a word she had heard, 
 more than a black cat, now took airs of superior wisdom, 
 and strutted about, forgetting to state that, though actually 
 coiled up among the jugs at the time specified, she had been 
 fast asleep all the time. 
 
 When at last Haley appeared, booted and spurred, he was 
 saluted with the bad tidings on every hand. The young 
 imps on the verandah were not disappointed in their hope of 
 hearing him " swar," which he did with a fluency and fervency 
 
44 SHAEP RECBIMINAlIOl*. 
 
 which delighted them all amazingly, as they ducked and 
 dodged hither and thither to be out of the reach of his 
 riding- whip ; and all whooping off together, they tumbled in 
 a pile of immeasurable giggle, on the withered turf under 
 the verandah, where they kicked up their heels and shouted 
 to their full satisfaction. 
 
 " If I had the little devils ! " muttered Haley between his 
 teeth. 
 
 "But you han't got 'em though!" said Andy, with a 
 triumphant nourish, and making a string of indescribable 
 mouths at the unfortunate trader's back, when he was fairly 
 beyond hearing. 
 
 " I say now, Shelby, this yer's a most extro'rnary busi- 
 ness !" said Haley, as he abruptly entered the parlour. " It 
 seems that gal's off, with her young un." 
 
 "Mr. Haley, Mrs. Shelby is present," said Mr. Shelby. 
 
 "I beg pardon, ma'am," said Haley, bowing slightly, with 
 a still lowering brow ; " but still I say, as I said before, this 
 yer's a sing'lar report. Is it true, sir ?" 
 
 " Sir," said Mr. Shelby, " if you wish to communicate with 
 me, you must observe something of the decorum of a gentle- 
 man. Andy, take Mr. Haley's hat and riding- whip. Take 
 a seat, sir. Yes, sir ; I regret to say that the young woman, 
 excited by overhearing, or having reported to her, some- 
 thing of this business, has taken her child in the night, and 
 made off." 
 
 " I did expect fair dealing in this matter, I confess," said 
 Haley. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Mr. Shelby, turning sharply round upon 
 him, " what am I to understand by that remark ? If any man 
 calls my honour in question, I have but one answer for him." 
 
 The trader cowered at this, and in a somewhat lower tone 
 said that " it was plaguy hard on a fellow, that had made a 
 fair bargain to be gulled that way." 
 
 " Mr. Haley," said Mr. Shelby, " if I did not think you 
 had some cause for disappointment, I should not have borne 
 from you the rude and unceremonious style of your entrance 
 into my parlour this morning. I say thus much, however, 
 since appearances call for it, that I shall allow of no insinua- 
 tions cast upon me, as if I were at all partner to any 
 unfairness in this matter. Morever, I shall feel bound to 
 
NIGGER CALCULATIONS. 45 
 
 give you every assistance, in the use of horses, servants, &c., 
 in the recovery of your property. So, in short, Haley," said 
 he, suddenly dropping from the tone of dignified coolness to 
 his ordinary one of easy frankness, " the best way for you is 
 to keep good-natured and eat some breakfast ; and we will 
 then see what is to be done." 
 
 Mrs. Shelby now rose, and said her engagements would 
 prevent her being at the breakfast-table that morning ; and, 
 deputing a very respectable mulatto w r oman to attend to the 
 gentlemen's coffee at the sideboard, she left the room. 
 
 " Old lady don't like your humble servant, over and above," 
 said Haley, with an uneasy effort to be very familiar. 
 
 " I am not accustomed to hear my wife spoken of w r ith 
 such freedom," said Mr. Shelby dryly. 
 
 "Beg pardon; of course, only a joke, you know," said 
 Haley, forcing a laugh. 
 
 " Some jokes are less agreeable than others," rejoined 
 Shelby. 
 
 " Devilish free, now I've signed those papers, cuss him !" 
 muttered Haley to himself; " quite grand, since yesterday !" 
 
 Never did fall of any prime minister at court occasion 
 wider surges of sensation than the report of Tom's fate 
 among his compeers on the place. It was the topic in every 
 mouth, everywhere ; and nothing was done in the house or 
 in the field, but to discuss its probable results. Eliza's flight 
 an unprecedented event on the place was also a great 
 accessory in stimulating the general excitement. 
 
 Black Sam, as he was commonly called, from his being 
 about three shades blacker than any other son of ebony on 
 the place, was revolving the matter profoundly in all its 
 phases and bearings, with a comprehensiveness of vision and 
 a strict look-out to his own personal well-being that would 
 have dene-credit to any white patriot in Washington. 
 
 " It's an ill wind dat blows nowhar dat ar a fact," said 
 Sam sententiously, giving an additional hoist to his panta- 
 loons, and adroitly substituting a long nail in place of a 
 missing suspender-button, with which effort of mechanical 
 genius he seemed highly delighted. 
 
 " Yes, it's an ill wind blows nowhar," he repeated. " Now, 
 dar, Tom's down wal, course der's room for some nigger to 
 be up; and why not dis nigger? dat's de idee. Tom, a 
 
46 THE CHASE DETEBMINED. 
 
 ridin' round de country boots blacked pass in his pocket 
 all grand as Cuffee ; who but he ? Now, why shouldn't 
 Sam ? dat's what I want to know." 
 
 " Halloo, Sam Oh Sam ! Mas'r wants you to cotch Bill 
 and Jerry," said Andy, cutting short Sam's soliloquy. 
 
 " High ! what's afoot now, young un ?" 
 
 " Why, you don't know, I s'ppose, that Lizzy's cut stick, 
 and clared out, with her young un ?" 
 
 "You teach your granny! " said Sam, with infinite con- 
 tempt ; " knowed it a heap sight sooner than you did. This 
 nigger an't so green, now !" 
 
 " Well, anyhow, mas'r wants Bill and Jerry geared right 
 up ; and you and I's to go with Mas'r Haley, to look arter 
 her." 
 
 " G-ood, now ! dat's de time o' day!" said Sam. " It's Sam 
 dat's called for in dese yer times. He's de nigger. See if I 
 don't cotch her, now ; mas'r '11 see what Sam can do !" 
 
 " Ah ! but, Sam," said Andy, " you'd better think twice ; 
 for missis don't want her cotched, and she'll be in your 
 wool." 
 
 " High ! " said Sam, opening his eyes. " How you know 
 dat?" 
 
 " Heard her say so, my own self, dis blessed mornin', when 
 I bring in mas'r' s shaving water. She sent me to see why 
 Lizzy didn't come to dress her ; and when I telled her she 
 was off, she jest riz up, and ses she, ' The Lord be praised !' 
 And mas'r he seemed rael mad, and ses he, ' Wife, you talk 
 like a fool !' But, Lor ! she'll bring him to ! I knows well 
 enough how that'll be it's allers best to stand missis' side 
 the fence, now I tell yer." 
 
 Black Sam upon this scratched his woolly pate, which, if it 
 did not contain very profound wisdom, still contained a great 
 deal of a particular species much in demand among politicians 
 of all complexions and countries, and vulgarly denominated 
 "knowing which side the bread is buttered;" so, stopping 
 with grave consideration, he again gave a hitch to his panta- 
 loons, which was his regularly organised method of assisting 
 his mental perplexities. 
 
 " Der an't no sayin' never 'bout no kind o' thing in dis 
 yer world," he said, at last. 
 
 Sam spoke like a philosopher, emphasising this as if he 
 
MBS. SHELBY'S ADYICE. 47 
 
 had had a large experience in different sorts of worlds, and 
 therefore had come to his conclusions advisedly. 
 
 " Now, sartin I'd a said that missis would a scoured the 
 varsal world after Lizzy," added Sam, thoughtfully. 
 
 "So she would," said Andy; "but can't ye see through 
 a ladder, ye black nigger ? Missis don't want dis yer Mas'r 
 Haley to get Lizzy's boy; dat's de go." 
 
 "High!" said Sam, with an indescribable intonation 
 known only to those who have heard it among the negroes. 
 
 " And I'll tell yer more'n all," said Andy ; " I specs you'd 
 better be making tracks for dem bosses mighty sudden, too 
 for I hearn missis 'quirin' arfcer yer ; so you've stood foolin' 
 long enough." 
 
 Sam, upon this, began to bestir himself in real earnest ; 
 and after a while appeared, bearing down gloriously towards 
 the house, with Bill and Jerry in a full canter, and adroitly 
 throwing himself off before they had any idea of stopping, he 
 brought them up alongside of the horse-post like a tornado. 
 Haley's horse, which was a skittish young colt, winced and 
 bounced, and pulled hard at his halter. 
 
 "Ho, ho!" said Sam, "skeery, are ye?" and his black 
 visage lighted up with a curious, mischievous gleam. " I'll 
 fix ye now," said he. 
 
 There was a large beech-tree overshadowing the place, 
 and the small, sharp, triangular beech-nuts lay scattered 
 thickly on the ground. With one of these in his fingers, 
 Sam approached the colt, stroked and petted, and seemed 
 apparently busy in soothing his agitation. On pretence of 
 adjusting the saddle, he adroitly slipped under it the sharp 
 little nut, in such a manner that the least weight brought 
 upon the saddle would annoy the nervous sensibilities of the 
 animal, without leaving any perceptible graze or wound. 
 
 "Dar!" he said, roiling his eyes with an approving grin; 
 "me fix 'em!" 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Shelby appeared on the balcony, 
 beckoning to him. Sam approached with as good a deter- 
 mination to pay court as did ever suitor after a vacant place 
 at St. James'fe or "Washington. 
 
 " Why have you been loitering so, Sam ? I sent Andy to 
 tell you to hurry."* 
 
 "Lord bless you, missis!" said Sam, "horses won't be 
 
48 THE NIGGER'S PLOT. 
 
 cotched all in a minnit ; they'd done clared out way down to 
 the south pasture, and the Lord knows whar !" 
 
 " Sam, how often must I tell you not to say ' Lord bless 
 you, and the Lord knows,' and such things ? It's wicked." 
 
 " Lord, bless my soul ! I done forget, missis ! I won't 
 say nothing of de sort no more." 
 
 " Why, Sam, you just have said it again." 
 
 " Did I ? O Lord ! I mean I didn't go fur to say it." 
 
 " You must be careful, Sam." 
 
 " Just let me get my breath, missis, and I'll start fair. 
 I'll be berry careful." 
 
 " Well, Sam, you are to go with Mr. Haley, to show him 
 the road, and help him. Be careful of the horses, Sam; 
 know Jerry was a little lame last week ; don^ride them 
 too fast." 
 
 Mrs. Shelby spoke the last words with a low voice, and 
 strong emphasis. 
 
 "Let dis child alone for dat!" said Sam, rolling up his 
 eyes with a volume of meaning. "Lord knows! High! 
 Didn't say dat !" said he, suddenly catching his breath, with 
 a ludicrous nourish of apprehension, which made his mistress 
 laugh, spite of herself, " Yes, missis, I'll look out for de 
 bosses!" 
 
 " Now, Andy," said Sam, returning to his stand under the 
 beech-tree, " you see I wouldn't be 't all surprised if dat ar 
 gen'lman's crittur should gib a fling, by and by, when he 
 comes to be a gettin' up. You know, Andy, critturs will do 
 such things;" and therewith Sam poked Andy in the side, 
 in a highly suggestive manner. 
 
 "High!" said Andy, with an air of instant appreciation. 
 
 "Yes, you see, Andy, missis wants to make time, dat 
 ar's clar to der most or'nary 'bserver. I jis make a little for 
 her. Now, you see, get all dese yer bosses loose, caperin' 
 permiscus round dis yer lot and down to de wood dar, and I 
 spec mas'r won't be off in a hurry." 
 
 Andy grinned. 
 
 "Yer see," said Sam, "yer see, Andy, if any such thing 
 should happen as that Mas'r Haley's horse should begin to 
 act contrary, and cut up, you and I jist let's go of our'n to 
 help him, and we'll help him oh yes !" And Sam and Andy 
 laid their heads back on their shoulders, and broke into a 
 
THE PLOT SUCCESSFUL. 49 
 
 low immoderate laugh, snapping their fingers and nourishing 
 their heels with exquisite delight. 
 
 At this instant Haley appeared on the verandah. Some- 
 what mnllifip^^p^rfonri ftnpg^f p good coffee, he came 
 out smiling and talking, in tolerably "restored humour. Sam 
 and Andy, clawing for certain fragmentary palm- leaves, 
 which they were in the habit of considering as hats, flew to 
 the horse-posts, to be ready to " help mas'r." 
 
 Sam's palm-leaf had been ingeniously disentangled from 
 all pretensions to braid, as respects its brim : and the slivers 
 starting apart, and standing upright, gave it a blazing air of 
 freedom and defiance, quite equal to that of any Fejee chief; 
 while the whole brim of Andy's being departed bodily, he 
 rapped the crown on his head with a dexterous thump, and 
 looked about well pleased, as if to say, " "Who says I haven't 
 got a hat?" 
 
 "Well, boys," said Haley, "look alive now; we must lose 
 no time." 
 
 " Not a bit of him, mas'r ! " said Sam, putting Haley's 
 rein in his hand, and holding his stirrup, while Andy was 
 untying the other two horses. 
 
 The "**** ffifrfoy touched the saddlfr the mettlesome 
 " m tKlF 
 
 creature "bounded from tKl&riih with a sudden spring, that 
 threw liis master sprawling, some feet off, on the soft, dry 
 'turfL'Sam, with frantic ejaculations, made a dive at the reins, 
 but only succeeded in brushing the blazing palm-leaf afore- 
 named into the horses' eyes, which by no means tended to 
 allay the confusion of his nerves. So, with great vehemence, 
 he overturned Sam, and giving two or three contemptuous 
 snorts, flourished his heels vigorously in the air, and was soon 
 prancing away towards the lower end of the lawn, followed 
 by Bill and Jerry, whom Andy had not failed to let loose, 
 according to contract, speeding them off with various direful 
 ejaculations. And now ensued a miscellaneous scene of con- 
 fusion. Sam and Andy ran and shouted, dogs barked here 
 and there, and Mike, Mose, Mandy, Fanny, and all the 
 smaller specimens on the place, both male and female, raced, 
 clapped hands, whooped and shouted, with outrageous 
 ofiiciousness and untiring zeal. 
 
 ^jjlgy'ft h^ whidi wa.st a. whijjp one, and y^vjgst ar> ^ 
 spirited, appeared to enter into the spirit of the scene with 
 
50 HALEY DEFEATED. 
 
 great gusto : and having for his coursing ground a lawn of 
 nearly half a mile in extent, gently sloping down on every side 
 into indefinite woodland, he appeared to take infinite delight 
 in seeing how near he could allow his pursuers to approach 
 him, and then, when within a hand's breadth, whisk off with a 
 start and a snort, like a mischievous beast as he was, and 
 career far down into some alley of the wood-lot. Nothing was 
 further from Sam's mind than to have any one of the troop 
 taken until such season as should seem to him most befitting, 
 and the exertions that he made were certainly most heroic. 
 Like the sword of Coeur de Lion, which always blazed in the 
 front and thickest of the battle, Sam's palm-leaf was to be 
 seen everywhere when there was the least danger that a horse 
 could be caught; there he would bear down full tilt, shouting, 
 " Now for it ! cotch him ! cotch him ! " in a way that would 
 set everything to indiscriminate rout in a moment. 
 
 Haley ran up and down, and cursed and swore and stamped 
 miscellaneously. Mr. Shelby in vain tried to shout directions 
 from the balcony, and Mrs. Shelby from her chamber window 
 alternately laughed and wondered, not without some inkling 
 of what lay at the bottom of all this confusion. 
 
 At last, about twelve o'clock, Sam appeared triumphant, 
 
 mounted on Jerry, with Haley's horse by his side, reeking 
 
 with sweat, but with flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, 
 
 ^showing that Jlie_jDirit of freedom had^ not jet entirely 
 
 subsidecT~~ 
 
 "He's cotched!" he exclaimed, triumphantly. "If't 
 hadn't been for me, they might a bust theirselves, all on 'em; 
 but I cotched him ! " 
 
 "You!" growled Haley, in no amiable mood. " If it 
 hadn't been for you, this never would have happened." 
 
 " Lord bless us, mas'r," said Sam, in a tone of the deepest 
 concern, " and me that has been racin' and chasm' till the 
 swet jest pours off me !" 
 
 "Well, well!" said Haley, "you've lost me near three 
 hours, with your cursed nonsense. Now let's be off, and 
 have no more fooling." 
 
 "Why, mas'r," said Sam, in a deprecating tone, "I 
 believe you mean to kill us all clar, horses and all. Here we 
 are all just ready to drop down, and the critters all in a reek 
 of sweat. Why, mas'r won't think of startin' on now till 
 
THE FACULTY OF OBSEBYATION. 51 
 
 arter dinner. Mas'r's hoss wants rubben down ; see now lie 
 splashed hisself ; and Jerry limps too : don't think missis 
 would be willing to have us start dis yer way, no how. Lord 
 bless you, mas'r, we can ketch up, if we do stop. Lizzy never 
 was no great of a walker." 
 
 Mrs. Shelby, who, greatly to her amusement, had over- 
 heard this conversation from the verandah, now resolved to do 
 her part. She came forward, and, courteously expressing 
 her concern for Haley's accident, pressed him to stay to 
 dinner, saying that the cook should bring it on the table 
 immediately. 
 
 Thus, all things considered, Haley, with rather an equi- 
 vocal grace, proceeded to the parlour, while Sam, rolling his 
 eyes after him with unutterable meaning, proceeded gravely 
 with the horses to the stable-yard. 
 
 " Did yer see him, Andy ? did yer see him ?" said Sam, 
 when he had got fairly beyond the shelter of the barn, and 
 fastened the horse to a post. " Lor, if it warn't as good 
 as a meetin' now to see him a dancin' and kickin' and swarin' 
 at us. Didn't I hear him ? Swar away, old fellow (says I 
 to myself) ; will yer have yer hoss now, or wait till you cotch 
 him ? (says I). Lor, Andy, I think I can see him now." 
 And Sam and Andy leaned up against the barn, and laughed 
 to their hearts' content. 
 
 " Yer oughter seen how mad he looked, when I brought 
 the hoss up. Lord, he'd a killed me, if he durs' to ; and 
 there I was a standin' as innercent and as humble." 
 
 "Lor, I seed you," said Andy; "an't you an old hoss, 
 Sam?" 
 
 " Bather 'spects I am," said Sam; "did yer see missis 
 upstars at the winder? I seed her laughin'." 
 
 " I'm sure, I was racin' so, I didn't see nothing," said 
 Andy. 
 
 " Well, yer see," said Sam, proceeding gravely to wash 
 down Haley's pony, " I'se 'quired what yer may call a habit 
 o' ^observation, AJndy. It's a very 'portant habit, Andy; 
 and I commend yer to be cultivatin' it, now yer young. Hist 
 up that hind foot, Andy. Ter see, Andy, it's ^observation 
 makes all de difference in niggers.. Didn't I see which way 
 the wind blew dis yer mornin' ? Didn't I see what missis 
 wanted, though she never let on ? Dat ar's bobservation, 
 
 2 
 
52 THE MOTHEE'S STEUGGLE. 
 
 Andy. I 'spects it's what you may call a faculty. Faculties 
 is different in different peoples, but cultivation of 'em goes a 
 great way." 
 
 " I guess if I hadn't helped your bobservation dis mornin', 
 yer wouldn't have seen your way so smart," said Andy. 
 
 "Andy," said Sam, "you's a promisin' child, der an't no 
 manner o' doubt. I thinks lots of yer, Andy ; and I don't 
 feel noways ashamed to take idees from you. We oughtenter 
 overlook nobody, Andy, 'cause the smartest on us gets tripped 
 up sometimes. And so, Andy, let's go up to the house now. 
 I'll be boun' missis '11 give us an uncommon good bite dis 
 yer time." 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 THE MOTHEE'S STETJGGLE. 
 
 IT is impossible to conceive of a human creature more 
 wholly desolate and forlorn than Eliza when she turned her 
 footsteps from Uncle Tom's cabin. 
 
 Her husband's suffering and dangers, and the danger of 
 her child, all blended in her mind, with a confused and stun- 
 ning sense of the risk she was running, in leaving the only 
 home she had ever known, and cutting loose from the protec- 
 tion of a friend whom she loved and revered. Then there was 
 the parting from every familiar object, the place where she 
 had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the 
 groves where she had walked many an evening in happier 
 days, by the side of her young husband, everything as it 
 lay in the clear, frosty starlight, seemed to speak reproach- 
 fully to her, and ask her whither could she go from a home 
 like that ? 
 
 But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a 
 paroxysm of frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger. 
 Her boy was old enough to have walked by her side, and, in an 
 indifferent case, she would only have led him by the hand ; 
 but now the bare thought of putting him out of her arms 
 made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with a 
 convulsive grasp, as she went rapidly forward. 
 
THE MOTHER AITD CHILD. 53 
 
 The frosty ground creaked beneath her feet, and she 
 trembled at the sound ; every quaking leaf and fluttering 
 shadow sent the blood backward to her heart, and quickened 
 her footsteps. She wondered within herself at the strength 
 that seemed to be come upon her ; for she felt the weight of 
 her boy as if it had been a feather, and every flutter of fear 
 seemed to increase the supernatural power that bore her on, 
 while from her pale lips burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, 
 the prayer to a Friend above, " Lord, help; Lord, save me !" 
 
 If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were 
 going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, to-morrow 
 morning, if you had seen the man, and heard that the 
 papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from 
 twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape, how 
 fast could you walk ? How many miles could you make in 
 those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom, the 
 little sleepy head on your shoulder, the small, soft arms 
 trustingly holding on to your neck ? 
 
 For the child slept. At first the novelty and alarm kept 
 him waking; but his mother so hurriedly repressed every 
 breath or sound, and so assured him that if he were only 
 still she would certainly save him, that he clung quietly 
 round her neck, only asking as he found himself sinking to 
 
 " Mother, I don't need to keep awake, do I ? " 
 
 " No, my ,darling ; sleep if you want to." 
 
 " But, mother, if I do get a sleep, you won't let him 
 get me ? " 
 
 " ISTo ! so may God help me ! " said his mother, with a 
 paler cheek, and a brighter light in her large dark eyes. 
 
 "You're sure, an't you, mother ? " 
 
 " Yes, sure ! " said the mother, in a voice that startled 
 herself ; for it seemed to her to come from a spirit within, 
 that was no part of her ; and the boy dropped his little 
 weary head on her shoulder, and was soon asleep. How the 
 touch of those warm arms, the gentle breathings that came 
 in her neck, seemed to add fire and spirit to her move- 
 ments ! It seemed to her as if strength poured into her in 
 electric streams, from every gentle touch and movement of 
 the sleeping, confiding child. Sublime is the dominion of 
 the mind over the body, that, for a time, can make flesh 
 
54 THE FLIGHT CONTINUED. 
 
 and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so 
 that the weak becomes so mighty. 
 
 The boundaries of the farm, the grove, the wood-lot, 
 passed by her dizzily, as she walked on ; and still she went, 
 leaving one familiar object after another, slacking not, 
 pausing not, till reddening daylight found her many a long 
 mile from all traces of any familiar objects upon the open 
 highway. 
 
 She had often been, with her mistress, to visit some con- 
 nexions, in the little village of T , not far from the Ohio 
 
 river, and knew the road well. To go thither, to escape 
 across the Ohio river, were the first hurried outlines of 
 her plan of escape ; beyond that she could only hope in 
 Grod. 
 
 When horses and vehicles began to move along the high- 
 way, with that alert perception peculiar to a state of excite- 
 ment, and which seems to be a sort of inspiration, she 
 became aware that her headlong pace and distracted air 
 might bring on her remark and suspicion. She therefore 
 put the boy on the ground, and, adjusting her dress and 
 bonnet, she walked on at as rapid a pace as she thought 
 consistent with the preservation of appearances. In her 
 little bundle she had provided a store of cakes and apples, 
 which she used as expedients for quickening the speed of 
 the child, rolling the apple some yards before them, when 
 the boy would run with all his might after it ; and this ruse, 
 often repeated, carried them over many a half-mile. 
 
 After a while, they came to a thick patch of woodland, 
 through which murmured a clear brook. As the child 
 complained of hunger and thirst, she climbed over the fence 
 with him; and sitting down behind a large rock which 
 concealed them from the road, she gave him a breakfast 
 out of her little package. The boy wondered and grieved 
 that she could not eat ; and when, putting his arms round 
 her neck, he tried to wedge some of his cake into her 
 mouth, it seemed to her that the rising in her throat would 
 choke her. 
 
 " No, no, Harry darling ! mother can't eat till you are 
 safe ! "We must go on on till we come to the river ! " 
 And she hurried again into the road, and again constrained 
 herself to walk regularly and composedly forward. 
 
A DILEMMA. 55 
 
 She was many miles past any neighbourhood where she 
 was personally known. If she should chance to meet any 
 who knew her, she reflected that the well-known kindness 
 of the family would be of itself a blind to suspicion, as 
 making it an unlikely supposition that she could be a fugi- 
 tive. As she was also so white as not to be known as of 
 coloured lineage without a critical survey, and her child 
 was -white also, it was much easier for her to pass on 
 unsuspected. 
 
 On this presumption, she stopped at noon at a neat farm- 
 house, to rest herself, and buy some dinner for her child and 
 self; for, as the danger decreased with the distance, the 
 supernatural tension of the nervous system lessened, and 
 she found herself both weary and hungry. 
 
 The good woman, kindly and gossiping, seemed rather 
 pleased than otherwise with having somebody come in to talk 
 with ; and accepted, without examination, Eliza's statement, 
 that she " was going on a little piece, to spend a week with 
 her friends," all which she hoped in her heart might prove 
 strictly true. 
 
 An hour before sunset she entered the village of T ,\ 
 
 by the Ohio river, weary and foot-sore, but still strong in \ 
 heart. Her first glance was at the river, which lay like ^\\ 
 Jordan between her and the Canaan of liberty on the other 1 \ 
 side. 
 
 It was now early spring, and the river was swollen and 
 turbulent ; great cakes of floating ice were swinging heavily 
 to and fro in the turbid waters. Owing to the peculiar form 
 of the shore on the Kentucky side, the land bending far out 
 into the water, the ice had been lodged and detained in great 
 quantities, and the narrow channel which swept round the 
 bend was full of ice, piled one cake over another, thus forming 
 a temporary barrier to the descending ice, which lodged, and 
 formed a great undulating raft, filling up the 'whole river, 
 and extending almost to the Kentucky shore. 
 
 Eliza stood for a moment, contemplating this unfavourable 
 aspect of things, which she saw at once must prevent the 
 usual ferry-boat from running, and then turned into a small 
 public-house on the bank, to make a few inquiries. 
 
 The hostess, who was busy in various fizzing and stewing 
 operations, over the fire, preparatory to the evening meal, 
 
56 A DISAPPOINTMENT. 
 
 stopped, with a fork in her hand, as Eliza's sweet and 
 plaintive voice arrested her. 
 
 "What is it?" she said. 
 
 " Isn't there any ferry or boat, that takes people over to 
 B , now ? " she said. 
 
 " No, indeed ! " said the woman ; " the boats has stopped 
 running." 
 
 Eliza's look of dismay and disappointment struck the 
 woman, and she said, inquiringly 
 
 " Maybe you're wanting to get over ? anybody sick ? 
 Te seem mighty anxious." 
 
 "I've got a child that's very dangerous," said Eliza. " I 
 never heard of it till last night, and I've walked quite a piece 
 to-day, in hopes to get to the ferry." 
 
 " Well, now, that's onlucky," said the woman, whose 
 motherly sympathies were much aroused ; " I'm re'lly con- 
 sarned for ye. Solomon ! " she called from the window, 
 towards a small back building. A man in leather apron and 
 very dirty hands appeared at the door. 
 
 " I say, Sol," said the woman, " is that ar man going to 
 tote them bar'ls over to-night ? " 
 
 " He said he should try, if 'twas anyway prudent," said 
 the man. 
 
 " There's a man a piece down here that's going over with 
 some truck this evening, if he durs' to ; he'll be in here to 
 supper to-night, so you'd better set down and wait. That's 
 a sweet little fellow," added the woman, offering him a 
 cake. 
 
 " But the child, wholly exhausted, cried with weariness. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! he isn't used to walking, and I've hurried 
 him on so," said Eliza. 
 
 " Well, take him into this room," said the woman, opening 
 into a small bedroom, where stood a comfortable bed. Eliza 
 laid the weary boy upon it, and held his hands in hers till 
 he was fast asleep. For her there was no rest. As a fire 
 in her bones, the thought of the pursuer urged her on ; and 
 she gazed with longing eyes on the sullen, surging waters 
 that lay between her and liberty. 
 
 Here we must take our leave of her for the present, to ' 
 follow the course of her pursuers. 
 
THE DELATED DIKNEE. 57 
 
 Though Mrs. Shelby had promised that the dinner should 
 be hurried on table, yet it was soon seen, as the thing has 
 often been seen before, that it required more than one to 
 make a bargain. So, although the order was fairly given 
 out in Haley's hearing, and carried to Aunt Chloe by at 
 least half-a-dozen juvenile messengers, that dignitary only 
 gave certain very gruff snorts and tosses of her head, and 
 went on with every operation in an unusually leisurely and 
 circumstantial manner. 
 
 For some singular reason an impression seemed to reign 
 among the servants generally that missis would not be 
 particularly disobliged by delay ; and it was wonderful what 
 a number of counter-accidents occurred constantly to retard 
 the course of things. One luckless wight contrived to upset 
 the gravy ; and then gravy had to be got up de novo, with 
 due care and formality. Aunt Chloe watching and stirring 
 with dogged precision, answering shortly to all suggestions 
 of haste, that she " warn't a-going to have raw gravy on the 
 table, to help nobody's catchings." One tumbled down 
 with the water, and had to go to the spring for more ; and 
 another precipitated the butter into the path of events ; and 
 there was from time to time, giggling news brought into the 
 kitchen that " Mas'r Haley was mighty oneasy, and that he 
 couldn't sit in his cheer noways, but was a walkin' and 
 stalkin' to the winders and through the porch." 
 
 "Sarves him right!" said Aunt Chloe, indignantly. 
 " He'll get wus nor oneasy one of these days, if he don't 
 mend his ways. His Master '11 be sending for him, and then 
 see how he'll look!" 
 
 "He'll go to torment, and no mistake," said little Jake. 
 
 " He desarves it," said Aunt Chloe, grimly ; " he's broke a 
 many, many, many hearts ! I tell ye all," she said, stopping 
 with a fork uplifted in her hands, "it's like what Mas'r 
 G-eorge reads in B-avelations souls a callin' under the altar ! 
 and a callin' on the Lord for vengeance on sich ! and by 
 and by the Lord He'll hear 'em so He will ! " 
 
 Aunt Chloe, who was much revered in the kitchen, was 
 listened to with open mouth; and, the dinner being now 
 fairly sent in, the whole kitchen was at leisure to gossip with 
 her, and to listen to her remarks. 
 
58 UNCLE TOM'S PIETY. 
 
 
 "Sich'll be burnt up for ever, and no mistake; won't 
 ther ? " said Andy. 
 
 "I'd be glad to see it, I'll be boun'," said little Jake. 
 
 " Chil'en ! " said a voice that made them all start. It 
 was Uncle Tom, who had come in and stood listening to the 
 conversation at the door. 
 
 "Chil'en," he said, "I'm afeard you don't know what 
 ye're sayin'. Forever is a dre'ful word, chil'en ; it's awful 
 to think on't. You oughtenter wish that ar to any human 
 critter." 
 
 "We wouldn't to anybody but the soul-drivers," said 
 Andy ; " nobody can help wishing it to them, they's so awful 
 wicked." 
 
 " Don't natur herself kinder cry out on 'em ? " said Aunt 
 Chloe. "Don't dey tear der sucking baby right off his 
 mother's breast, and sell him ? And der little children as is 
 crying and holding on by her clothes, don't they pull 'em 
 off and sells 'em ? Don't dey tear wife and husband apart?" 
 said Aunt Chloe, beginning to cry, " when it's jest takin' the 
 very life on 'em ? and all the while does they feel one bit ? 
 don't dey drink, and smoke, and take it oncommon easy ? 
 Lor, if the devil don't get them, what's he good for ? " And 
 Aunt Chloe covered her face with her checked apron, and 
 began to sob in good earnest. 
 
 /* " Pray for them that 'spitefully use you, the good book 
 /says," says Tom. 
 
 - " Pray for 'em," said Aunt Chloe ; " Lor, it's too tough ! 
 I can't pray for 'em." 
 
 "It's natur, Chloe, and natur' s strong," said Tom, "but 
 the Lord's grace is stronger. Besides, you oughter think 
 what an awful state a poor critter's soul's in that'll do 
 them ar things; you oughter thank Grod that you an't 
 like him, Chloe. I'm sure I'd rather be sold ten thousand 
 times over than to have all that ar poor critter's got to 
 answer for." 
 
 " So'd I a heap," said Jake. " Lor, shouldn't we cotch it, 
 Andy?" 
 
 Andy shrugged his shoulders, and gave an acquiescent 
 whistle. 
 
 " I'm glad mas'r didn't go off this morning, as he looked 
 to," said Tom; " that ar hurt me more than sellin', it did. 
 
A PAELOUB SUMMONS. 59 
 
 Mebbe ifc might have been natural for him, but 'twould have 
 come desp't hard on me, as has known him from a baby ; 
 but I've seen mas'r, and I begin to feel sort o' reconciled 
 to the Lord's will now. Mas'r couldnt help hisself ; he 
 did right, but I'm feared things will be kinder goin' to 
 rack when I'm gone. Mas'r can't be 'spected to be a 
 pryin' round everywhar, as I've done, a ke'epin' up all the 
 ends. The boys all means well, but they's powerful car'less. 
 That ar troubles me." 
 
 The bell here rung, and Tom was summoned to the 
 parlour. 
 
 "Tom," said his master kindly, "I want you to notice 
 that I give this gentleman bonds to forfeit a thousand dollars 
 if you are not on the spot when he wants you ; he's going 
 to-day to look after his other business, and you can have the 
 day to yourself. Go anywhere you like, boy." 
 
 " Thank you, mas'r," said Tom. 
 
 "And mind yerself," said the trader, " and don't come it 
 over your master with any o' yer nigger tricks ; for I'll take 
 every cent out of him, if you an't thar. If he'd hear to me, 
 he wouldn't trust any on ye slippery as eels ! " 
 
 "Mas'r," said Tom and he stood very straight "I was 
 jist eight years old when ole missis put you into my arms, and 
 you wasn't a year old. ' Thar,' says she, ' Tom, that's to be 
 your young mas'r ; take good care on him,' says she. And 
 now I jist ask you, mas'r, have I ever broke word to you, or 
 gone contrary to you, 'specially since I was a Christian ? " 
 
 Mr. Shelby was fairly overcome, and the tears rose to 
 his eyes. 
 
 " My good boy," said he, " the Lord knows you say but 
 the truth ; and if I was able to help it, all the world shouldn't 
 buy you." 
 
 " And sure as I am a Christian woman," said Mrs. Shelby, 
 "you shall be redeemed as soon as I can anyway bring 
 together means. Sir," she said to Haley, " take good account 
 of who you sell him to, and let me know." 
 
 " Lor, yes, for that matter," said the trader, " I may bring 
 him up in a year, not much the wuss for wear, and trade him 
 back." 
 
 " I'll trade with you, then, and make it for your advan- 
 tage," said Mrs. Shelby. 
 
60 TBACKING NIGGEBS. 
 
 /" Of course," said the trader, " all's equal with me ; li'ves 
 /trade 'em up as down, so I does a good business. AH I 
 / want is a livin' you know, ma'am ; that's all any on us wants, 
 y^JI 'spose." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Shelby both felt annoyed and degraded by 
 the familiar impudence of the trader, and yet both saw the 
 absolute necessity of putting a constraint on their feelings. 
 The more hopelessly sordid and insensible he appeared, the 
 greater became Mrs. Shelby's dread of his succeeding in 
 re-capturing Eliza and her child, and of course the greater her 
 motive for detaining him by every female artifice. She, 
 therefore, graciously smiled, assented, chatted familiarly, and 
 did all she could to make time pass imperceptibly. 
 
 At two o'clock Sam and Andy brought the horses up to 
 the posts, apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by 
 the scamper of the morning. 
 
 Sam was there new oiled from dinner, with an abundance 
 of zealous and ready officiousness. As Haley approached, 
 he was boasting, in nourishing style, to Andy, of the evident 
 and eminent success of the operation, now that he had 
 " farly come to it." 
 
 " Your master, I s'pose, don't keep no dogs ?" said Haley, 
 thoughtfully, as he prepared to mount. 
 
 "Heaps on 'em," said Sam, triumphantly; thar's Bruno 
 he's a roarer ! and, besides that, 'bout every nigger of us 
 keeps a pup of some natur' or uther." 
 
 " Poh ! " said Haley and he said something else, too, 
 with regard to the said dogs, at which Sam muttered, 
 
 "I don't see no use cussin' on 'em, noway." 
 
 '" But your master don't keep no dogs (I pretty much know 
 he don't) for trackin' out niggers ? " 
 
 Sam knew exactly what he meant, but he kept on a look 
 of earnest and desperate simplicity. 
 
 " Our dogs all smells round considable sharp. I 'spect 
 they's the kind, though they han't never had no practice. 
 They's far dogs, though, at most anything, if you'd get 'em 
 started. Here, Bruno," he called, whistling to the lumber- 
 ing Newfoundland, who came pitching tumultuously toward 
 them. 
 
 " You go hang ! " said Haley, getting up. " Come, tumble 
 up, now." 
 
THE STEAIGHT BOAD. 61 
 
 Sam tumbled up accordingly, dexterously contriving to 
 tickle Andy as he did so, which occasioned Andy to split out 
 into a laugh, greatly to Haley's indignation, who made a cut 
 at him with his riding-whip. 
 
 " I's 'stonished at yer, Andy," said Sam, with awful 
 gravity. "This yer's a seris business, Andy. Ter 
 musn't be a makin' game. This yer an't no way to help 
 mas'r." 
 
 " I shall take the straight road to the river," said Haley, 
 decidedly, after they had come to the boundaries of the 
 estate. " I know the way of all of 'em they makes tracks 
 for the underground." 
 
 " Sartin," said Sam, " dat's de idee. Mas'r Haley hits de 
 thing right in de middle. Now, der's two roads to de river 
 de dirt road and der pike which mas'r mean to take ? " 
 
 Andy looked up innocently at Sam, surprised at hearing 
 this new geographical fact, but instantly confirmed what he 
 said by a vehement reiteration. 
 
 " 'Cause," said Sam, " I'd rather be 'clined to 'magine that 
 Lizzy 'd take de dirt road, bein' it's the least travelled." 
 
 Haley, notwithstanding that he was a very old bird, and 
 naturally inclined to be suspicious of chaff, was rather brought 
 up by this view of the case. 
 
 " If yer warn't both on yer such cussed liars now ! " he 
 said, contemplatively, as he pondered a moment. 
 
 The pensive, reflective tone in which this was spoken 
 appeared to amuse Andy prodigiously, and he drew a little 
 behind and shook so as apparently to run a great risk of 
 falling off his horse, while Sam's face was immoveably 
 composed into the most doleful gravity. 
 
 " Course," said Sam, "mas'r can do as he'd ruther ; go de 
 straight road, if mas'r thinks best it's all one to us. Now, 
 when I study 'pon it, I think de straight road de best 
 
 "She would naturally go a lonesome way," said Haley, 
 thinking aloud, and not minding Sam's remark. 
 
 " Dar a'nt no sayin'," said Sam ; " gals is pecular. They 
 never does nothin' ye thinks they will ; mose gen'lly the 
 contrar. Grals is nat'lly made contrary ; and so, if you thinks 
 they've gone one road, it is sartin you'd better go t'other, 
 and then you'll be sure to find 'em. Now, my private 'pinion 
 
62 THE DIET BOAD. 
 
 is, Lizzy took der dirt road; so I think w'd better take de 
 straight one." 
 
 This profound generic view of the female sex did not 
 seem to dispose Haley particularly to the straight road ; and 
 he announced decidedly that he should go the other, and 
 askedJSam when they should come to it. 
 
 ".A little piece a-head," said Sam, giving a wink to Andy 
 with the eye which was on Andy's side of the head ; and he 
 added gravely, " but I've studded on de matter, and I'm 
 quite clar we ought not to go dat ar way. I nebber been 
 over it no way. It's despit lonesome, and we might lose 
 our way whar we'd come to, de Lord only knows." 
 
 " Nevertheless," said Haley, " I shall go that way." 
 
 " Now I think on't, I think I hearn 'em tell that dat ar road 
 was all fenced up and down by der creek, and thar ; an't it, 
 Andy?" 
 
 Andy wasn't certain, he'd only "hearn tell" about that 
 road, but never been over it. In short, he was strictly 
 non-committal. 
 
 Haley, accustomed to strike the balance of probabilities 
 between lies of greater or lesser magnitude, thought that it 
 lay in favour of the dirt road aforesaid. The mention of the 
 thing he thought he perceived was involuntary on Sam's 
 part at first ; and his confused attempts to dissuade him he 
 set down to a desperate lying, on second thoughts, as being 
 unwilling to implicate Eliza. 
 
 When, therefore, Sain indicated the road, Haley plunged 
 briskly into it, followed by Sam and Andy. 
 
 Now, the road, in fact, was an old one that had formerly 
 been a thoroughfare to the river, but abandoned for many 
 years after the laying of the new pike. It was open for 
 about an hour's ride, and after that it was cut across by 
 various farms and fences. Sam knew this fact perfectly 
 well ; indeed, the road had been so long closed up that Andy 
 had never heard of it. He therefore rode along with an air 
 of dutiful submission, only groaning and vociferating 
 occasionally that " 'twas desp't rough, and bad for Jerry's 
 foot." 
 
 " Now, I jest give yer warning," said Haley, " I know 
 yer ; yer won't get me to turn off" this yer road, with all yer 
 fussin' so you shet up ! " 
 
63 
 
 " Mas'r will go his own way ! " said Sam, with rueful sub- 
 mission, at the same time winking most portentously to 
 Andy, whose delight was now very near the explosive point. 
 
 Sain was in wonderful spirits ; professed to keep a very 
 brisk look-out at one time exclaiming that he saw " a gal's 
 bonnet " on the top of some distant eminence, or calling to 
 Andy "if that thar was'nt Lizzy down in the hollow" 
 always making these exclamations in some rough or craggy 
 part of the road, where the sudden quickening of speed was 
 a special inconvenience to all parties concerned, and thus 
 keeping Haley in a state of constant commotion. 
 
 After riding about an hour in this way, the whole party 
 made a precipitate and tumultuous descent into a barn-yard 
 belonging to a large farming establishment. Not a soul was 
 in sight, all the hands being employed in the fields; but, 
 as the barn stood conspicuously and plainly square across the 
 road, it was evident that their journey in that direction had 
 reached a decided finale. 
 
 " Wan't dat ar what I tell'd mas'r ? " said Sam, with an 
 air of injured innocence. "How does strange gentlemen 
 'spect to know more about a country dan de natives born 
 and raised?" 
 
 " You rascal ! " said Haley, " you knew all about this." 
 
 " Didn't I tell yer I know'd, andyer wouldn't believe me ? 
 I tell'd mas'r it was all shet up, and fenced up, and I didn't 
 'spect we could get through Andy heard me." 
 
 It was all too true to be disputed, and the unlucky man 
 had to pocket his wrath with the best grace he was able, and 
 all three faced to the right about, and took up their line of 
 march for the highway. 
 
 In consequence of all the various delays, it was about 
 three quarters of an hour after Eliza had laid her child to 
 sleep in the village tavern that the party came riding into 
 the same place. Eliza was standing by the window, looking 
 out in another direction, when Sam's quick eye caught a 
 glimpse of her. Haley and Andey were two yards behind. 
 At this crisis Sam contrived to have his hat blown off, and 
 uttered a loud and characteristic ejaculation, which startled 
 her at once, she drew suddenly back ; the whole train swept 
 by the window, round to the front door. 
 
 A thousand lives seemed to be concentrated in that one 
 
64 THE MIRACULOUS ESCAPE. 
 
 moment to Eliza. Her room opened by a side-door to the 
 river. She caught her child, and sprang down the steps 
 towards it. The trader caught a full glimpse of her, just as 
 she was disappearing down the bank ; and throwing himself 
 from his horse, and calling loudly on Sam and Andy, he was 
 after her like a hound after a deer. In that dizzy moment, 
 her feet to her scarce seemed to touch the ground, and a mo- 
 ment brought her to the water's edge. Bight on behind they 
 came ; and, nerved with strength such as Grod gives only to 
 the desperate, with one wild cry and flying leap, she vaulted, 
 sheer over the turbid current by the shore, on to the raft of 
 ice beyond. It was a desperate leap impossible to any- 
 thing but madness and despair ; and Haley, Sam, and Andy 
 instinctively cried out, and lifted up their hands, as she 
 did it. 
 
 The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted 
 pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she stayed 
 there not a moment. "With wild cries and desperate energy 
 she leaped to another and still another cake ; stumbling 
 leaping slipping springing upwards again ! Her shoes 
 are gone her stockings cut from her feet while blood 
 marked every step ; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till 
 dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man 
 helping her up the bank. 
 
 " Yer a brave gal, now, whoever ye ar ! " said the man, 
 with an oath. 
 
 Eliza recognised the voice and face of a man who owned a 
 farm not far from her old home. 
 
 " Oh Mr. Symmes ! save me do save me do hide me ! " 
 said Eliza. 
 
 "Why, what's this?" said the man. "Why, if 'tant 
 Shelby's gal ! " 
 
 "My child! this boy he'd sold him! There is his 
 mas'r," said she, pointing to the Kentucky shore. " Mr. 
 Symmes, you've got a little boy." 
 
 " So I have," said the man, as he roughly, but kindly, drew 
 her up the steep bank. " Besides, you are a right brave gal. 
 I like grit wherever I see it." 
 
 When they had gained the top of the bank the man 
 paused. 
 
 " I'd be glad to do something for ye," said he, " but then 
 
THE NOBLE KEtfTUCKLOT. 65 
 
 there's nowhar I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell 
 ye to go thar" said he, pointing to a large white house 
 which stood by itself, off the main street of the village. 
 " Go thar ; they're kind folks. Thar's no kind o' danger 
 but they'll help you they're up to all that sort o'thing." 
 
 " The Lord bless you ! " said Eliza, earnestly. 
 
 "No 'casion, no 'casion in the world," said the man. 
 "What I've done's of no 'count." 
 
 " And oh, surely, sir, you won't tell any one ! " 
 
 " Gro to thunder, gal ! What do you take a feller for ? 
 In course not," said the man. " Come, now, go along like a 
 likely, sensible gal, as you are. You've arnt your liberty, 
 and you shall have it, for all me." 
 
 The woman folded her child to her bosom, and walked 
 firmly and swiftly away. The man stood and looked 
 after her. 
 
 " Shelby, now, mebbe won't think this yer the most neigh- 
 bourly thing in the world ; but what's a feller to do ? If he 
 catches one of my gals in the same fix, he's welcome to pay 
 back. Somehow I never could see no kind o' critter a strivin' 
 and pantin,' and trying to clar theirselves, with the dogs arter 
 'em, and go agin' 'em. Besides, I don't see no kind of 'casion 
 for me to be hunter and catcher for other folks, neither." 
 
 So spoke this poor, heathenish Kentuckian, who had not 
 been instructed in his constitutional relations, and, conse- 
 quently, was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianised 
 manner, which, if he had been better situated and more 
 enlightened, he would not have been left to do. 
 
 Haley had stood a perfectly amazed spectator of the scene 
 till Eliza had disappeared up the bank, when he turned a 
 blank, inquiring look, on Sam and Andy. 
 
 "That ar was a tolerable fair stroke of business," said 
 Sam. 
 
 " The gal's got seven devils in her, I believe," said Haley. 
 " How like a wild cat she jumped !" 
 
 "Wai, now," said Sam, scratching his head, "I hope 
 mas'r '11 'scuse us tryin' dat ar road. Don't think I feel 
 spry enough for dat ar, no way!" and Sam gave a hoarse 
 chuckle. 
 
 " You laugh !" said the trader, with a growl. 
 Lord bless you, mas'r, I couldn't help it, now," said Sam, 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 giving way to the long pent-up delight of his soul. " She 
 looked so curi's, a leapin' and springin', ice a crackin', and 
 only to hear her plump ! ker chunk ! ker splash ! Spring ! 
 Lord ! how she goes it !" And Sam and Andy laughed till 
 the tears rolled down their cheeks. 
 
 "I'll make ye laugh t'other side yer mouths!" said the 
 trader, laying about their heads with his riding-whip. 
 
 Both ducked, and ran shouting up the bank, and were on 
 their horses before he was up. 
 
 " Grood evening, mas'r," said Sam, with much gravity. 
 " I berry much 'spect missis be anxious 'bout Jerry. Mas'r 
 Haley won't want us no longer. Missis wouldn't hear of our 
 ridin' the critters over Lizzy's bridge to-night ;" and, with a 
 facetious poke into Andy's ribs, he started off, followed by the 
 latter, at full speed, their shouts of laughter coming faintly 
 on the wind. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 ELIZA'S ESCAPE. 
 
 ELIZA made her desperate retreat across the river just in 
 the dusk of twilight. The grey mist of evening, rising slowly 
 from the river, enveloped her as she disappeared up the 
 bank, and the swollen current and floundering masses of ice 
 presented a hopeless barrier between her and her pursuer. 
 Haley, therefore, slowly and discontentedly returned to the 
 little tavern, to ponder further what was to be done. The 
 woman opened to him the door of a little parlour, covered 
 with a rag carpet, where stood a table with a very shining 
 black oil-cloth, sundry lank, high-backed wood chairs, with 
 some plaster images, in resplendent colours, on the mantel- 
 shelf, above a very dimly-smoking grate ; a long hard- wood 
 settle extended its uneasy length by the chimney, and here 
 Haley sat him down to meditate on the instability of human 
 hopes and happiness in general. 
 
 "What did I want with the little cuss, now," he said to 
 himself, " that I should have got myself treed like a 'coon, 
 as I am, this yer way?" and Haley relieved himself by 
 
A LUCKY EENCONTEE. 67 
 
 repeating over a not very select litany of imprecations 
 on himself, which, though there was the best possible 
 reason to consider them as true, we shall, as a matter of 
 taste, omit. 
 
 He was startled by the loud and dissonant voice of a man 
 who was apparently dismounting at the door. He hurried to 
 the window. 
 
 " By the land ! if this yer an't the nearest, now, to what 
 I've heard folks call Providence," said Haley. "I do b'lieve 
 that ar's Tom Loker." 
 
 Haley hastened out. Standing by the bar, in the corner 
 of the room, was a brawny, muscular man, full six feet in 
 height, and broad in proportion. He was dressed in a coat 
 of buffalo-skin, made with the hair outward, which gave him 
 a shaggy and fierce appearance, perfectly in keeping with the 
 whole air of his physiognomy. In the head and face, every 
 organ and lineament expressive of brutal and unhesitating 
 violence was in a state of the highest possible development. 
 Indeed, could our readers fancy a bull-dog come unto man's 
 estate, and walking about in a hat and coat, they would have 
 no unapt idea of the general style and effect of his physique. 
 He was accompanied by a travelling companion, in many 
 respects an exact contrast to himself. He was short and 
 slender, lithe and cat-like in his motions, and had a peering, 
 mousing expression about his keen black eyes, with which 
 every feature of his face seemed sharpened into sympathy ; 
 his thin, long nose, ran out as if it waseager to bore into the 
 nature of things in general ; his sleek, thin black hair was 
 stuck eagerly forward, and all his motions and evolutions 
 expressed a dry, cautious acuteness. The great big man 
 poured out a big tumbler half full of raw spirits, and gulped 
 it down without a word. The little man stood tip-toe, and, 
 putting his head first to one side and then to the other, and 
 snuffing considerately in the directions of the various bottles, 
 ordered at last a mint julep, in a thin and quivering voice, 
 and with an air of great circumspection. "When poured out, 
 he took it and looked at it with a sharp, complacent air, like 
 a man who thinks he has done about the right thing, and hit 
 the nail on the head, and proceeded to dispose of it in short 
 and well-advised sips. 
 
 " "Wai, now, who'd a thought this yer luck 'ad come to me? 
 
 v 2 
 
68 THREE WORTHIES. 
 
 "Why, Loker, how are ye ?" said IJaley, coming forward and 
 extending his hand to the big man. 
 
 "The devil!" was the civil reply. "What brought you 
 here, Haley?" 
 
 The mousing man, who bore the name of Marks, instantly 
 stopped his sipping, and, poking his head forward, looked 
 shrewdly on the new acquaintance, as a cat sometimes looks 
 at a moving dry leaf, or some other possible object of pursuit. 
 
 "I say, Tom, this yer's the luckiest thing in the world. 
 I'm in a devil of a hobble, and you must help me out." 
 
 "Ugh! awl like enough!" grunted his complaisant ac- 
 quaintance. " A body may be pretty sure of that, when you're 
 glad to see 'em : something to be made off of 'em. "What's 
 the blow now?" 
 
 "You've got a friend here?" said Haley, looking doubt- 
 fully at Marks ; "partner, perhaps ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have. Here, Marks ! here's that ar feller that I 
 was in with in Natchez." 
 
 " Shall be pleased with his acquaintance," said Marks, 
 thrusting out a long thin hand, like a raven's claw. " Mr. 
 Haley, I believe?" 
 
 " The same, sir," said Haley. " And now, gentlemen, 
 seein' as we've met so happily, I think I'll stand up to a 
 small matter of a treat in this here parlour. So, now, old 
 'coon," said he to the man at the bar, " get us hot water, and 
 sugar, and cigars, and plenty of the real stuff, and we'll have 
 a blow-out." 
 
 Behold, then, the candles lighted, the fire stimulated to 
 the burning-point in the grate, and our three worthies seated 
 round a table, well spread with all the accessories to good 
 fellowship enumerated before. 
 
 Haley began a pathetic recital of his peculiar troubles. 
 Loker shut up his mouth, and listened to him with gruff 
 and surly attention. Marks, who was anxiously and with 
 much fidgeting, compounding a tumbler of punch to his own 
 peculiar taste, occasionally looked up from his employment, 
 and, poking his sharp nose and chin almost into Haley's face, 
 gave the most earnest heed to the whole narrative. The 
 conclusion of it appeared to amuse him extremely, for he 
 shook his shoulders and sides in silence, and perked up his 
 thin lips with an air of great internal enjoyment. 
 
TROUBLES IN TBADE. 69 
 
 " So, then, ye'r fairly sewed up, an't ye ?" he said ; " he ! 
 he ! he ! It's neatly done, too." 
 
 " This yer young-un business makes lots of trouble in the 
 trade," said Haley, dolefully. 
 
 " If we could get a breed of gals that didn't care, now, for \ 
 their young uns," said Marks, "tell ye, I think 'twould be j 
 'bout the greatest mod'rn improvement I knows on;" and j 
 Marks patronised his joke by a quiet introductory sniggle. * 
 
 "Jest so," said Haley; "I never coulda't see into it. 
 Young uns is heaps of trouble to 'em one would think, 
 now, they'd be glad to get clar on 'em; but they arn't. 
 And the more trouble a young un is, and the more good for 
 nothing, as a gen'l thing, the tighter they sticks to 'em." 
 
 " Wai, Mr. Haley," said Marks, "jest pass the hot water. 
 Yes, sir ; you say jest what I feel and all'us have. Now, I 
 bought a gal once when I was in the trade, a tight, likely 
 wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart and she 
 had a young un that was mis'able sickly ; it had a crooked 
 back, or something or other, and I jest gin't away to a man 
 that thought he'd take his chance raisin' on't, being it 
 didn't cost nothin' never thought, yer know, of the gal's 
 takin' on about it but, Lord, yer oughter seen how she 
 went on ! Why, re'lly, she did seem to me to valley the 
 child more 'cause 'twas sickly and cross, and plagued her ; 
 and she warn't making-b'lieve, neither cried about it, she 
 did, and lopped round, as if she'd lost every friend she had. 
 It re'lly was droll to think on't. Lord, there an't no end to 
 women's notions." 
 
 " Wai, jest so with me," said Haley. " Last summer, 
 down on feed River, I got a gal traded off on me, with a 
 likely-lookin' child enough, and his eyes looked as bright as 
 yourn ; but, come to look, I found him stone-blind. Pact 
 he was stone-blind. Wai, ye see, I thought there warn't no 
 harm in my jest passing him along, and not sayin' nothin' ; 
 and I'd got him nicely swopped off for a keg o' whiskey ; 
 but come to get him away from the gal, she was jest like a 
 tiger. So' twas before we started, and I hadn't got my gang 
 chained up ; so what should she do but ups on a cotton-bale, 
 like a cat, ketches a knife from one of the deck hands, and, 
 I'll tell ye, she made all fly for a minnit, till she saw 'twan't 
 no use ; and she jest turns round and pitches head-first, 
 
70 MODES OF DOIFG BUSINESS. 
 
 young un and all, into the river went down plump, and 
 never ris." 
 
 "Bah!" said Tom Loker, who had listened to these 
 stories with ill-repressed disgust. " Shif 'less, both on ye ! 
 My gals don't cut up no such shines, I tell ye ! " 
 
 " Indeed ! how do you help it ? " said Marks, briskly. 
 " Help it ? why, I buys a gal, and if she's got a young un 
 sto be sold, I jest walks up and puts my fist to her face, and 
 says, ' Look here, now, if you give me one word out of your 
 / head, I'll smash yer face in. I won't hear one word not 
 the beginning of a word.' I says to 'em, ' This yer young 
 un's mine and not yourn, and you've no kind o' business 
 with it. I'm going to sell it, first chance ; mind you don't 
 cut up none o' yer shines about it, or I'll make ye wish ye'd 
 never been born.' I tell ye, they sees it an't no play, when I 
 gets hold. I makes 'em as whist as fishes ; and if one on 'em 
 
 begins and gives a yelp, why" and Mr. Loker brought 
 
 down his fist with a thump that fully explained the hiatus. 
 
 " That ar's what ye may call emphasis" said Marks, 
 poking Haley in the side, and going into another small 
 giggle. " An't Tom peculiar ? he ! he ! he ! I say, Tom, I 
 'spect you make 'em understand, for all niggers' heads is 
 woolly. They don't never have no doubt o' your meaning, 
 Tom. If you an't the devil, Tom, you's his twin-brother ; 
 I'll say that for ye." 
 
 Tom received the compliment with becoming modesty, and 
 began to look as affable as was consistent, as John Bunyan 
 says, " with his doggish nature." 
 
 /"" Haley, who had been imbibing very freely of the staple of 
 / the evening, began to feel a sensible elevation and enlarge- 
 / xnent of his moral faculties a phenomenon not unusual with 
 V gentlemen of a serious and reflective turn, under similar 
 ^Circumstances . 
 
 "Wai, now, Tom," he said, "ye re'lly is too bad, as I 
 al'ays have told ye. Te know, Tom, you and I used to talk 
 over these yer matters down in Natchez, and I used to 
 prove to ye that we made full as much, and was as well off 
 for this yer world, by treatin' on 'em well, besides keepin' a 
 better chance for comin' in the kingdom at last, when wust 
 comes to wust, and thar an't nothing else left to get, ye 
 know." 
 
BELIEYING- IN EELIGIO1T. 71 
 
 " Boh !" said Tom, " don't I know ? don't make me too 
 sick with any yer stuff my stomach is a leetle riled, now;'* 
 and Tom drank half a glass of raw brandy. 
 
 " I say," said Haley, and leaning back in his chair and 
 gesturing impressively, " I'll say this, now I al'ays meant to 
 drive jny_trade^sQ.ja_sJfco make money on't, fust and foremost, 
 as much as any man ; but then, trade an't everything, and 
 money an't everything, 'cause we's all got souls. I don't 
 care, now, who hears me say it and I think a cussed sight 
 on it, so I may as well come out with it. I b'lieve in 
 religion, and one of these days, when I've got matters tight 
 and snug, I calculate to 'tend to my soul, and them ar 
 matters : and so what's the use of doin' any more wicked- 
 ness than's re'lly necessary ? it don't seem to me tt's 'tall 
 prudent." 
 
 "'Tend to yer soul!" repeated Tom contemptuously : 
 " take a bright look-out to find a soul in you save yourself 
 any care on that score. If the devil sifts you through a hair 
 sieve, he won't find one." 
 
 "Why, Tom, you're cross," said Haley; "why can't ye 
 take it pleasant, now, when a feller's talking for your good ?" 
 
 " Stop that ar jaw o' yourn, there," said Tom, gruffly. " I 
 can stand most any talk o' yourn but your pious talk that 
 kills me right up. After all, what's the odds between me and ' v 
 you ? 'Tan't that you care one bit more, or have a bit more i 
 feelin' it's clean, sheer, dog meanness, wanting to\cheat the 
 devil and save your own skin ; don't I see through it ? And 
 your ' gettin' religion,' as you call it, arter all, is too p'isin t 
 mean for any crittur ; run up a bill with the devil all your / 
 life, and then sneak out when pay-time comes ! Boh !" r 
 
 " Come, come, gentlemen, I say, this isn't business," said 
 Marks. " There's different ways, you know, of looking at 
 all subjects. Mr. Haley is a very nice man, no doubt, and 
 has his own conscience ; and, Tom, you have your ways, and 
 very good ones, too, Tom : but quarrelling, you know, won't 
 answer no kind of purpose. Let's go to business. JS"ow, 
 Mr. Haley, what is it ? you want us to undertake to catch 
 this yer gal ?" 
 
 " The gal's no matter of mine she's Shelby's ; it's only 
 the boy. I was a fool for buying the monkey !" 
 
 " You're generally a fool !" said Tom gruffly. 
 
72 A GAME OF SPECULATION. 
 
 " Come, now, Loker, none of your huffs," said Marks, 
 licking his lips ; " you see, Mr. Haley's a puttin' us in a way 
 of a good job, I reckon ; just hold still these yer arrange* 
 ments is my forte. This yer gal, Mr. Haley, how is she ? 
 what is she?" 
 
 " Wai ! white and handsome well brought up. I'd a gin 
 Shelby eight hundred or a thousand, and then made well 
 on her." 
 
 " White and handsome well brought up!" said Marks, 
 his sharp eyes, nose, and mouth all alive with enterprise. 
 " Look here, now, Loker, a beautiful opening. We'll do a 
 business here on our own account ; we does the catchin' ; 
 the boy, of course, goes to Mr. Haley we takes the gal to 
 Orleans to speculate on. An't it beautiful ?" 
 
 Tom, whose great, heavy mouth had stood ajar during this 
 communication, now suddenly snapped it together, as a big 
 dog closes on a piece of meat, and seemed to be digesting 
 the idea at his leisure. 
 
 " Ye see," said Marks to Haley, stirring his punch as he 
 did so, " ye see, we has justices convenient at all p'ints along 
 shore that does up any little jobs in our line quite reasonable. 
 Tom, he does the knockin' down, and that ar ; and I come 
 in all dressed up shining boots everything first chop, when 
 the swearin's to be done. You oughter see, now," said 
 Marks, in a glow of professional pride, " how I can tone it 
 off. One day, I'm Mr. Twickem, from New Orleans; 
 'nother day, I'm just come from my plantation on Pearl 
 River, where I works seven hundred niggers ; then, again, I 
 come out a distant relation of Henry Clay, or some old 
 cock in Kentuck. Talents is different you know. Now, 
 Tom's a roarer when there's any thumping or fighting to be 
 done ; but at lying, he an't good, Tom an't ye see it don't 
 come natural to him ; but, Lord, if thar's a feller in the 
 country that can swear to anything and everything, and put 
 in all the circumstances and flourishes with a longer face, 
 and carry 't through better 'n I can, why, I'd like to see him, 
 that's all ! I b'lieve, my heart, I could get along, and snake 
 through, even if justices were more particular than they 
 Sometimes I rather wish they was more particular ; 'twould 
 be a heap more relishin' if they was more fun, yer know." 
 
 Tom Loker, who, as we have made it appear, was a "" 
 
THE BITER BIT. 73 
 
 of slow thoughts and movements, here interrupted Marks by 
 bringing his heavy fist down on the table, so as to make all 
 ring again. " It 'II do /" he said. 
 
 " Lord bless ye, Tom, ye needn't break all the glasses," 
 said Marks ; " save your fist for time o' need." 
 
 " But, gentlemen, an't I to come in for a share of the 
 profits ?" said Haley. 
 
 " An't it enough we catch the boy for ye ?" said Loker. 
 "What do ye want?" 
 
 "Wai," said Haley, "if I gives you the job, it's worth 
 something say ten per cent, on the profits, expenses paid." 
 
 " Now," said Loker, with a tremendous oath, and striking 
 the table with his heavy fist, "don't I knew you, Dan 
 Haley ? Don't you think to come it over me ! Suppose 
 Marks and I have taken up the catchin' trade, jest to com- 
 modate gentlemen like you, and get nothin' for ourselves ? 
 Not by a long chalk ! We'll have the gal out and out, and 
 you keep quiet, or, ye see, we'll have both what's to hinder? 
 Han't you show'd us the game ? It's as free to us as you, 
 I hope. If you or Shelby wants to chase us, look where the 
 partridges was last year : if you find them or us you're 
 quite welcome." 
 
 " Oh, wal, certainly, jest let it go at that," said Haley, 
 alarmed ; " you catch the boy for the job ; you allers did 
 trade far with me, Tom, and was up to yer word." 
 
 "Ye know that," said Tom; "I don't pretend none of 
 your snivelling ways, but I won't lie in my 'counts with the 
 devil himself. What I ses I'll do, I will do ; you know that, 
 Dan Haley." 
 
 " Jes so, jes so, I said so, Tom," said Haley ; " and if 
 you'd only promise to have the boy for me in a week, at any 
 point you'll name, that's all I want." 
 
 " But it a'nt all I want by a long jump," said Tom. " Te 
 don't think I did business with you, down in Natchez, for 
 nothing, Haley ; I've learned to hold an eel when I catch 
 him. You've got to fork over fifty dollars, flat down, or this 
 child don't start a peg. I know yer." 
 
 " Why, when you have a job in hand that may bring a 
 clean profit of somewhere about a thousand or sixteen 
 hundred? Why, Tom, you're onreasonable," said Haley. 
 
 " Yes, and hasn't we business booked for five weeks to 
 
74 A EETAINIISTG FEE. 
 
 come all we can do ? And suppose we leaves all, and goes 
 to bushwhacking round arter yer young un, and finally 
 doesn't catch the gal and gals allers is the devil to catch 
 
 it's for our trouble that's/^, an't it, Marks ? " 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," said Marks, with a conciliatory 
 tone. " It's only a retaining fee, you see he ! he ! he ! we 
 lawyers, you know. Wai, we must all keep good-natured, 
 keep easy, yer know. Tom '11 have the boy for yer anywhere 
 ye'll name ; won't ye, Tom ? " 
 
 " If I find the young un, I'll bring him on to Cincinnati, 
 and leave him at Granny Belcher's, on the landing," said 
 Loker. 
 
 Marks had got from his pocket a greasy pocket-book, and, 
 taking a long paper from thence, he sat down, and fixing his 
 keen black eyes on it, began mumbling over its contents : 
 " ' Barnes Shelby County boy Jim, three hundred dollars 
 for him, dead or auve. Edwards Dick and Lucy man and 
 wife, six hundred dollars ; wench Polly and two children 
 six hundred for her or her head ' I'm jest a running over 
 our business, to. see if we can take up this yer handily. 
 "Loker," he said, after a pause, "we must set Adams and 
 Springer on the track of these yer; they've been booked 
 some time." 
 
 "They'll charge too much," said Tom. 
 
 "I'll manage that ar; they's young in the business, and 
 must 'spect to work cheap," said Marks, as he continued to 
 read. " Ther's three on 'em easy cases, 'cause all you've got 
 to do is to shoot 'em, or swear they is shot; they couldn't, of 
 course, charge much for that. Them other cases," he said,, 
 folding the paper, " will bear puttin' off a spell. So now let's 
 come to the particulars. Now, Mr. Haley, you saw this yer 
 gal when she landed ? " 
 
 " To be sure plain as I see you." 
 
 " And a man helpin' on her up the bank ?" said Loker. 
 
 "To be sure, I did." 
 
 "Most likely," said Mark, "she's took in somewhere; 
 but where' s, a question. Tom, what do you say ? " 
 
 " We must cross the river to-night, no mistake," said Tom. 
 
THE CATCHING BUSINESS. 75 
 
 "But ther's no boat about," said Marks. "The ice is 
 running awfully, Tom ; an't it dangerous ? " 
 
 " Don'no nothing 'bout that, only it's got to be done," 
 said Tom, decidedly. 
 
 "Dear me," said Marks, fidgeting, "it'll be I say," he 
 said, walking to the window, "it's dark as a wolf's mouth, 
 and Tom" 
 
 " The long and short is, you're scared, Marks ; but I can't 
 help that, you've got to go. Suppose you want to lie by a 
 day or two, till the gal's been carried on the underground 
 line up to Sandusky or so, before you start." 
 
 " Oh no ; I an't a grain afraid," said Marks, " only " 
 
 " Only what ? " said Tom. 
 
 ""Wen, about the boat. Ter see there an't any boat." 
 
 " I heard the woman say there was one coming along this 
 evening, and that a man was going to cross over in it. Neck 
 or nothing, we must go with him," said Tom. 
 
 "I s'pose you've got good dogs," said Haley. 
 
 " First-rate," said Marks. " But what's the use ? you 
 han't got nothin' o' hers to smell on." 
 
 " Yes, I have," said Haley, triumphantly. " Here's her 
 shawl she left on the bed in her hurry ; she left her bonnet, 
 too." 
 
 " That ar's lucky," said Loker, " fork over." 
 
 " Though the dogs might damage the gal, if they come on 
 her unawares," said Haley. 
 
 " That ar's a consideration," said Marks. "Our dogs tore 
 a feller half to pieces, once, down in Mobile, 'fore we could 
 get 'em off." 
 
 " Well, ye see, for this sort that's to be sold for their 
 looks, that ar won't answer, ye see," said Haley. 
 
 "I do see," said Marks. "Besides, if she's got took in, 
 'tan't no go, neither. Dogs is no 'count in these yer up 
 states where these critters gets carried ; of course, ye can't 
 get on their track. They only does down in plantations, 
 where niggers, when they runs, has to do their own running, 
 and don't get no help." 
 
 " Well," said Loker, who had just stepped out to the bar 
 to make some inquiries, "they say the man's come with the 
 boat ; so, Marks! " 
 
 That worthy cast a rueful look at the comfortable quarters 
 
76 SAM AND ANDY EETUEN HOME. 
 
 he was leaving, but slowly rose to obey. After exchanging 
 a few words of further arrangement, Haley, with visible 
 reluctance, handed over the fifty dollars to Tom, and the 
 worthy trio separated for the night. 
 
 'If any of our refined and Christian readers object to the 
 society into which this scene introduces them, let us beg 
 them to fcegin and conquer their prejudices in time. The 
 catching business, we beg to remind them, is rising to the 
 dignity of a lawful and patriotic profession. If all the broad 
 land between the Mississippi and the Pacific becomes one 
 great market for bodies and souls, and human property 
 retains the locomotive tendencies of this nineteenth century, 
 the trader and catcher may yet be among our aristocracy. 
 
 While this scene was going on at the tavern, Sam and 
 Andy, in a state of high felicitation, pursued their way 
 home. 
 
 Sam was in the highest possible feather, and expressed his 
 exultation by all sorts of supernatural howls and ejaculations, 
 by divers odd motions and contortions of his whole system. 
 Sometimes he would sit backward, with his face to the 
 horse's tail and sides, and then, with a whoop and a 
 somerset, come right side up in his place again, and drawing 
 on a grave face, begin to lecture Andy in high-sounding 
 tones for laughing and playing the fool. Anon, slapping his 
 sides with his arms, he would burst forth in peals of laughter, 
 that made the old woods ring as they passed. With all 
 these evolutions, he contrived to keep the horses up to 
 the top of their speed, until, between ten and eleven, their 
 heels resounded on the gravel at the end of the balcony. 
 Mrs. Shelby flew to the railings. 
 
 " Is that you, Sam ? Where are they ? " 
 
 " Mas'r Haley's a-restin' at the tavern ; he's drefful 
 fatigued, missis." 
 
 " And Eliza, Sam ? " 
 
 " Wai, she's clar 'cross Jordan. As a body may say, in 
 the land o' Canaan." 
 
 " Why, Sam, what do you mean ? " said Mrs. Shelby, 
 breathless and almost faint, as the possible meaning of these 
 words came over her. 
 
SAM'S NABBATIYE. 77 
 
 " Wai, missis, de Lord He presarves His own. Lizzy's 
 done gone over the river into 'Hio, as 'markably as if the 
 Lord took her over in a charrit of fire and two hosses." 
 
 Sam's vein of piety was always nncommonly fervent in his 
 mistress' presence, and he made great capital of scriptural 
 figures and images. 
 
 " Come up here, Sam," said Mr. Shelby, who had followed 
 on to the verandah, " and tell your mistress what she wants. 
 Come, come, Emily," said he, passing his arm round her, 
 " you are cold, and all in a shiver ; you allow yourself to 
 feel too much." 
 
 " Eeel too much ! Am not I a woman a mother ? Are 
 we not both responsible to Grod for this poor girl? My 
 Grod, lay not this sin to our charge ! " 
 
 " What sin, Emily ? You see yourself that we have only 
 done what we were obliged to." 
 
 " There's an awful feeling of guilt about it, though," said 
 Mrs. Shelby. " I can't reason it away." 
 
 " Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive ! " called Sam, under 
 the verandah ; " take these yer hosses to der barn ; don't ye 
 hear mas'r a callin' ? " and Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in 
 hand, at the parlour door. 
 
 " JSTow, Sam, tell us distinctly how the matter was," said 
 Mr. Shelby. " Where is Eliza, if you know ? " 
 
 " Wai, mas'r, I saw her with my own eyes a crossin' on 
 the noatin' ice. She crossed most 'markably ; it wasn't no 
 less nor a miracle ; and I saw a man help her up the 'Hio 
 side, and then she was lost in the dusk." 
 
 " Sam, I think this rather apocryphal this miracle. 
 Crossing on floating ice isn't so easily done," said Mr. 
 Shelby. 
 
 "Easy! couldn't nobody a done it, without de Lord. 
 Why, now," said Sam, "'twas jist dis yer way. Mas'r 
 Haley, and me, and Andy, we comes up to de little tavern 
 by the river, and I rides a leetle ahead (I's so zealous to be 
 a cotchin' Lizzy, that I couldn't hold in, no-way) and when 
 I comes by the tavern winder, sure enough there she was, 
 right in plain sight, and dey diggin' on behind. Wai, I 
 loses off my hat, and sings out nuff to raise the dead. 
 Course Lizzy she hars, and she dodges back, when Mas'r 
 Haley he goes past the door ; and then, I tell ye, she clared 
 
78 1TEGEO INSTINCT. 
 
 out de side door ; she went down de river bank ; Mas'r 
 Haley he seed her, and yelled out, and him, and me, and 
 Andy, we took arter. Down she come to the river, and thar 
 was the current running ten feet wide by the shore, and 
 over t'other side ice a sawin' and a jiggling up and down, 
 kinder as 'twere a great island. We come right behind her, 
 and I thought my soul he'd got her sure enough when she 
 gin sich a screech as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar 
 over t'other side the current, on the ice, and then on she 
 went, a screeching and a jumpin' the ice went crack ! 
 c' wallop ! cracking ! chunk ! and she a boundin' like a buck ! 
 Lord, the spring that ar gal's got in her an't common, 
 I'm o' 'pinion." 
 
 Mrs. Shelby sat perfectly silent, pale with excitement, 
 while Sam told his story. 
 
 " Grod be praised, she isn't dead ! " she said ; " but where 
 is the poor child now ? " 
 
 " De Lord will pervide," said Sam, rolling up his eyes 
 piously. " As I've been a sayin', dis yer's a providence and 
 no mistake, as missis has allers been a instructin' on us. 
 Thar's allers instruments ris up to do de Lord's will. Now, 
 if 't hadn't been for me to-day, she'd a been took a dozen times. 
 Warn't it I started off de hosses dis yer mornin', and kept 
 'em chasin' till nigh dinner time ? And didn't I car Mas'r 
 Haley nigh five miles out of de road, dis evening, or else 
 he'd a come up with Lizzy as easy as a dog arter a 'coon. 
 These yer's all providences." 
 
 " They are a kind of providences that you'll have to be 
 pretty sparing of, Master Sam. I allow no such prac- 
 tices with gentlemen on my place," said Mr. Shelby, 
 with as much sternness as he could command, under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry 
 with a negro than with a child ; both instinctively see the 
 true state of the case, through all attempts to affect the 
 contrary ; and Sam was in no wise disheartened by this 
 rebuke, though he assumed an air of doleful gravity, and 
 stood with the corners of his mouth lowered in most 
 penitential style. 
 
 " Mas'r's quite right quite ; it was ugly on me there's 
 no disputin' that ar ; and of course mas'r and missis wouldn't 
 
SAM'S PECULIAR CHARACTER. 79 
 
 encourage no such works. I'm sensible of dat ar; but a 
 poor nigger like me's 'mazin' tempted to act ugly some- 
 times, when fellers will cut up such shines as dat ar Mas'r 
 Haley ; he an't no genTman noway : anybody's been raised 
 as I've been can't help a seein' dat ar." 
 
 " Well, Sam," said Mrs. Shelby, " as you appear to have a 
 proper sense of your errors, you may go now and tell Aunt 
 Chloe she may get you some of that cold ham that was left 
 of dinner to-day. You and Andy must be hungry." 
 
 " Missis is a heap too good for us," said Sam, making his 
 bow with alacrity, and departing. 
 
 It will be perceived, as has been before intimated, that 
 Master Sam had a native talent that might, undoubtedly, 
 have raised him to eminence in political life a talent of 
 making capital out of everything that turned up, to be 
 invested for his own especial praise and glory ; and having 
 done up his piety and humility, as he trusted, to the satis- 
 faction of the parlour, he clapped his palm-leaf on his head, 
 with a sort of rakish, free-and-easy air, and proceeded to the 
 dominions of Aunt Chloe, with the intention of nourishing 
 largely in the kitchen. 
 
 "I'll speechify these yer niggers," said Sam to himself, 
 " now I've got a chance. Lord, I'll reel it off to make 'em 
 stare!" 
 
 It must be observed that one of Sam's especial delights 
 had been to ride in attendance on his master to all kinds of 
 political gatherings, where, roosted on some rail fence, or 
 perched aloft in some tree, he would sit watching the 
 orators, with the greatest apparent gusto, and then, descend- 
 ing among the various brethren of his own colour, assembled 
 on the same errand, he would edify and delight them with 
 the most ludicrous burlesques and imitations, all delivered 
 with the most imperturbable earnestness and solemnity; 
 and though the auditors immediately about him were gene- 
 rally of his own colour, it not unfrequently happened that 
 they were fringed pretty deeply with those of a fairer com- 
 plexion, who listened, laughing and winking, to Sam's great 
 self-congratulation. In fact, Sam considered oratory as his 
 vocation, and never let slip an opportunity of magnifying his 
 office. 
 
 , between Sam and Aunt Chloe there had existed, 
 
80 A jNTGGEK REPAST. 
 
 from ancient times, a sort of chronic feud, or rather a 
 decided coolness ; but, as Sam was meditating- something in 
 the provision department as the necessary and obvious 
 foundation of his operations, he determined, on the present 
 occasion, to be eminently conciliatory ; for he well knew 
 that although " missis' orders " would undoubtedly be fol- 
 lowed to the letter, yet he should gain a considerable deal 
 by enlisting the spirit also. He, therefore, appeared before 
 Aunt Chloe with a touchingly subdued, resigned expression, 
 like one who has suffered immeasurable hardships in behalf 
 of a persecuted fellow-creature enlarged upon the fact that 
 missis had directed him to come to Aunt Chloe for whatever 
 might be wanting to make up the balance in his solids 
 and fluids and thus unequivocally acknowledged her right 
 and supremacy in the cooking department, and all thereto 
 pertaining. 
 
 The thing took accordingly. No poor, simple, virtuous 
 body was ever cajoled by the attentions of an electioneering 
 politician with more ease than Aunt Chloe was won over by 
 Master Sam's suavities ; and if he had been the prodigal son 
 himself, he could not have been overwhelmed with more 
 maternal bountifulness ; and he soon found himself seated, 
 happy and glorious, over a large tin pan, containing a sort of 
 olla podrida of all that had appeared on the table for two or 
 three days past. Savoury morsels of ham, golden blocks of 
 corn-cake, fragments of pie of every conceivable mathematical 
 figure, chicken wings, gizzards, and drumsticks, all appeared 
 in picturesque confusion ; and Sam, as monarch of all he sur- 
 veyed, sat with his palm-leaf cocked rejoicingly to one side, 
 and patronising Andy at his right hand. 
 
 The kitchen was full of all his compeers, who had hurried 
 and crowded in, from the various cabins, to hear the termi- 
 nation of the day's exploits. Now was Sam's hour of glory. 
 The story of the day was rehearsed, with all kinds of orna- 
 ment and varnishing which might be necessary to heighten 
 its effect ; for Sam, like some of our fashionable dilettanti, 
 never allowed a story to lose any of its gilding by passing 
 through his hands. Roars of laughter attended the nar- 
 ration, and were taken up and prolonged by all the smaller 
 fry, who were lying, in any quantity, about on the floor, or 
 perched in every corner. In the height of the uproar and 
 
CONSCIENCE AHi) PBINCIPLES. 81 
 
 laughter, Sam, however, preserved an immovable gravity, 
 only from time to time rolling his eyes up, and giving his 
 auditors divers inexpressibly droll glances, without departing 
 from the sententious elevation of his oratory. 
 
 "Ter see, fellow-countrymen," said Sam, elevating a 
 turkey's leg with energy, " yer see, now, what dis yer chile's 
 up ter, for 'fendin' ye'r allyes, all on yer. For him as 
 tries to get one o' our people, is as good as tryin' to get all ; 
 yer see the principle's de same dat ar's clar. And any 
 one o' these yer drivers that comes smelling round arter any 
 our people, why, he's got me in his way ; Tm the feller 
 he's got to set in with I'm the feller for ye all to come to, 
 bredren I'll stand up for yer rights I'll 'fend 'em to the 
 last breath!" 
 
 " Why, but Sam, yer telled me, only this mornin', that 
 you'd help this yer mas'r to cotch Lizzy ; seems to me yer 
 talk don't hang together," said Andy. 
 
 " I tell you now, Andy," said Sam, with awful superiority, 
 " don't yer be a-talkin' 'bout what yer don't know nothin' on; 
 boys like you Andy means well, but they can't be 'spected to 
 collusitate the great principles of action." 
 
 Andy looked rebuked, particularly by the hard word 
 "collusitate," which most of the youngerly members of the 
 company seemed to consider as a settler in the case, while 
 Sam proceeded, 
 
 " Dat ar was conscience, Andy ; when I thought of gwine 
 arter Lizzy, I railly 'spected mas'r was sot dat way. "When 1 
 found missis was sot the contrar, dat ar was conscience more 
 yet 'cause fellers allers gets more by stickin' to missis' 
 side so you see I's persistent either way, and sticks up to 
 conscience, and holds on to principles. Yes, principles" 
 said Sam, giving an enthusiastic toss to a chicken's neck 
 " what's principles good for, if we isn't persistent, I wanter 
 know ? Thar, Andy, you may have dat ar bone, 'tan't pickech 
 quite clean." 
 
 Sam's audience hanging on his words with open mouth, he 
 could not but proceed, 
 
 "Dis yer matter 'bout persistence, feller niggers," said 
 Sam, with the air of one entering into an abstruse subject, 
 " dis yer 'sistency's a thing what an't seed into very clar, by 
 most anybody. Now, yer see, when a feller stands up for a, 
 
82 SAM'S OBATION. 
 
 thing one day and night, de contrar de next, folks ses (and 
 nat'rally enough they ses), why he an't persistent hand me 
 dat ar bit o' corn-cake, Andy. But let's look inter it. I 
 hope the gen'lemen and der fair sex will 'scuse my usin' an 
 or'nary sort o' 'parison. Here ! I'm a tryin' to get top o' 
 der hay. "Wai, I puts up my larder dis yer side ; 'tan't no 
 go ; den, 'cause I don't try dere no more, but puts my larder 
 right de contrar side, an't I persistent ? I'm persistent in 
 wanting to get up which ary side my larder is ; don't yer see, 
 all on yer?" 
 
 "It's the only thing ye ever was persistent in, Lord 
 knows ! " muttered Aunt Chloe, who was getting rather 
 restive ; the merriment of the evening being to her some- 
 what after the Scripture comparison "like vinegar upon 
 nitre." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! " said Sam, rising, full of supper and glory, 
 for a closing effort. " Yes, my feller-citizens and ladies of 
 de other sex in geneml, I has principles I'm proud to 'oon 
 'em they's perquisite to dese yer times, and ter all times. 
 I has principles, and I sticks to 'em like forty jest any- 
 thing that I thinks is principle, I goes in to't ; I wouldn't 
 mind if dey burn me 'live, I'd walk right up to de stake, 
 I would, and say, Here I comes to shed my last blood fur my 
 principles, fur my country, furder gen'l interests of s'ciety." 
 s "Well," said Aunt Chloe, "one o' yer principles will 
 have to be to get to bed some time to-night, and not be a 
 keepin' everybody up till mornin' ; now, every one of you 
 young uns that don't want to be cracked had better be scase, 
 mighty sudden." 
 
 " Niggers ! all on yer," said Sam, waving his palm-leaf 
 with benignity, " I give yer my blessin' : go to bed now, and 
 be good boys." 
 
 And, with this pathetic benediction, the assembly dis- 
 persed. 
 
A SENATOB, IS BUT A MAN. 83 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 IN WHICH IT APPEARS THAT A SENATOR IS BUT A MAN. 
 
 THE light of the cheerful fire shone on the rug and carpet 
 of a cosy parlour, and glittered on the sides of the tea-cups, 
 and well-brightened tea-pot, as Senator Bird was drawing 
 off his boots, preparatory to inserting his feet in a pair of 
 new handsome slippers, which his wife had been working for 
 him while away on his senatorial tour. Mrs. Bird, looking 
 the very picture of delight, was superintending the arrange- 
 ments of the table, ever and anon mingling admonitory 
 remarks to a number of frolicsome juveniles, who were 
 effervescing in all those modes of untold gambol and mischief 
 that have astonished mothers ever since the flood. * 
 
 " Tom, let the door-knob alone there's a man ! Mary ! 
 Mary ; don't pull the cat's tail poor pussy ! Jim, you 
 mustn't climb on that table no, no ! You don't know, my 
 dear, what a surprise it is to us all to see you here to-night," 
 said she, at last, when she found a space to say something to 
 her husband. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I thought I'd just make a run down, spend the 
 night, and have a little comfort at home. I'm tired to death, 
 and my head aches ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bird cast a glance at a camphor-bottle, which stood in 
 the half-open closet, and appeared to meditate an approach 
 to it, but her husband interposed. 
 
 " No, no, Mary, no doctoring ! a cup of your good hot tea, 
 and some of our good home living, is what I want. It's a 
 tiresome business this legislating! " 
 
 And the senator smiled, as if he rather liked the idea of 
 considering himself a sacrifice to his country. 
 
 " Well,'' said his wife, after the business of the tea-table 
 was getting rather slack, " and what have they been doing in 
 the Senate ? " 
 
 JS"ow, it was a very unusual thing for gentle little Mrs. Bird 
 
 a 2 
 
84 " WHAT IS THE LAW ? " 
 
 ever to trouble her head with what was going on in the 
 house of the State, very wisely considering that she had 
 enough to do to mind her own. Mr. Bird, therefore, opened 
 his eyes in surprise, and said, 
 
 " Not very much of importance." 
 
 " Well ; but is it true that they have been passing a law 
 forbidding people to give meat and drink to those poor 
 coloured folks that come along ? I heard they were talking 
 of some such law, but I didn't think any Christian legislature 
 would pass it ! " 
 
 " Why, Mary, you are getting to be a politician all at 
 once." 
 
 " No, nonsense ! I wouldn't give a fip for all your politics, 
 generally, but I think tins is something downright cruel and 
 unchristian. I hope, my dear, no such law has been passed." 
 
 " There has been a law passed forbidding people to help 
 off the slaves that come over from Kentucky, my dear : so 
 much of that thing has been done by these reckless Abo- 
 litionists, that our brethren in Kentucky are very strongly 
 excited, and it seems necessary, and no more than Christian 
 and kind, that something should be done by our State to 
 quiet the excitement." 
 
 " And what is the law ? It don't forbid us to shelter 
 these poor creatures a night, does it ? and to give 'em some- 
 thing comfortable to eat, and a few old clothes, and send 
 them quietly about their business ? " 
 
 " Why yes, my dear ; that would be aiding and abetting, 
 you know." 
 
 Mrs. Bird was a timid, blushing little woman, of about 
 four feet in height, and with mild blue eyes, and a peach- 
 blow complexion, and the gentlest, sweetest voice in the 
 world ; as for courage, a moderate-sized cock-turkey had 
 been known to put her to rout at the very first gobble, and 
 a stout house-dog of moderate capacity would bring her into 
 subjection merely by a show of his teeth. Her husband and 
 children were her entire world, and in these she ruled more 
 by entreaty and persuasion than by command or argument. 
 There was only one thing that was capable of arousing her, 
 and that provocation came in on the side of her unusually 
 gentle and sympathetic nature ; anything in the shape of 
 cruelty would throw her into a passion, which was the more 
 
FEELINGS AND JUDGMENT. 85 
 
 alarming and inexplicable in proportion to the general soft- 
 ness of her nature. Generally the most indulgent and easy 
 to be entreated of all mothers, still her boys had a very 
 reverent remembrance of a most vehement chastisement she 
 once bestowed on them, because she found them leagued 
 with several graceless boys of the neighbourhood stoning a 
 defenceless kitten. 
 
 " I'll tell you what," Master Bill used to say, " I was 
 scared that time. Mother came at me so that I thought she 
 was crazy, and I was whipped and tumbled off to bed, without 
 any supper, before I could get over wondering what had 
 come about ; and, after ifhat, I heard mother crying outside 
 the door, which made me feel worse than all the rest. I'll 
 tell you what," he'd say, "we boys never stoned another 
 kitten!" 
 
 On the present occasion, Mrs. Bird rose quickly, with 
 very red cheeks, which quite improved her general appear- 
 ance, and walked up to her husband, with quite a resolute 
 air, and said, in a determined tone, 
 
 " Now, John, I want to know if you think such a law as 
 that is right and Christian ? " 
 
 " You won't shoot me, now, Mary, if I say I do ! " 
 
 " I never could have thought it of you, John ! You didn't 
 vote for it?" 
 
 " Even so, my fair politician." 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless, 
 houseless creatures ! It's a shameful, wicked, abominable 
 law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; 
 and I hope I shall have a chance, I do ! Things have got to 
 a'prelly "pass," if a woman can't give a warm supper and a 
 bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, 
 and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor 
 things!" 
 
 "But, Mary, just listen to me. Your feelings are all 
 quite right, dear, and interesting, and I love you for them ; 
 but then, dear, we mustn't suffer our feelings to run away 
 with our judgment. You must consider it's not a matter of 
 private feeling; there are great public interests involved, 
 there is such a state of public agitation rising, that we must 
 put aside our private feelings." 
 
 " Now, John, I don't know anything about politics, but I 
 
86 THE DISCOMFITED SENATOR. 
 
 can read my Bible ; and there I see that I must feed the 
 hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate ; and 
 that Bible I mean to follow." 
 
 " But in cases where your doing so would involve a great 
 public evil" 
 
 " Obeying G-od never brings on public evils. I know it 
 can't. It's always safest, all round, to do as He bids us." 
 
 " Now, listen to me, Mary, and I can state to you a very 
 clear argument, to show " 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, John ! you can talk all night, but you 
 wouldn't do it. I put it to you, John, would you now turn 
 away a poor, shivering, hungry creature from your door, 
 Decause he was a runaway ? Would you, now ? " 
 
 Now, if the truth must be told, our senator had the mis- 
 fortune to be a man who had a particularly humane and 
 accessible nature, and turning away anybody that was in 
 trouble never had been his forte ; and what was worse for 
 him in this particular pinch of the argument was, that his 
 wife knew it, and, of course, was making an assault on rather 
 an indefensible point. So he had recourse to the usual 
 means of gaining time for such cases made and provided ; he 
 said " ahem," and coughed several times, took out his pocket- 
 handkerchief, and began to wipe his glasses. Mrs. Bird, 
 seeing the defenceless condition of the enemy '.3 territory, 
 had no more conscience than to push her advantage. 
 
 "I should like to see you doing that, John I really 
 should ! Turning a woman out of doors in a snow-storm, 
 for instance, or may be you'd take her up and put her in 
 gaol, wouldn't you? You would make a great hand at that!" 
 
 " Of course, it would be a very painful duty," began 
 Mr. Bird, in a moderate tone. 
 
 " Duty, John ! don't use that word ! You know it isn't 
 a duty it can't be a duty ! If folks want to keep their 
 slaves from running away, let 'em treat 'em well that's my 
 doctrine. If I have slaves (as I hope I never shall have) I'd 
 risk their wanting to run away from me, or you either, John. 
 I tell you folks don't run away when they are happy f and 
 when they do run, poor creatures ! they suffer enough with 
 cold, and hunger, and fear, without everybody's turning 
 against them ; and, law or no law, I never will, so help me 
 God!" 
 
AN UNEXPECTED APPEABANCE. 87 
 
 * Mary ! Mary, my dear, let me reason with you." 
 
 "I hate reasoning, John especially reasoning on such 
 subjects. There's a way you political folks have of coming 
 round and round a plain right thing ; and you don't 
 believe in it yourselves, when it comes to practice. I 
 know you well enough, John. You don't believe it's right, 
 any more than I do ; and you wouldn't do it any sooner 
 than I." 
 
 At this critical juncture Old Cudjoe, the black man-of- 
 all-work, put his head in at the door, and wished " Missis 
 would come into the kitchen ; " and our senator, tolerably 
 relieved, looked after his little wife with a whimsical mixture 
 of amusement and vexation, and seating himself in the arm- 
 chair, began to read the papers. 
 
 After a moment his wife's voice was heard at the door, in 
 a quick, earnest tone, " John ! John ! I do wish you'd come 
 here a moment." 
 
 He laid down his paper and went into the kitchen, and 
 started, quite amazed at the sight that presented itself. A 
 young and slender woman, with garments torn and frozen, 
 with one shoe gone, and the stocking torn away from the cut 
 and bleeding foot, was laid back in a deadly swoon upon two 
 chairs. There was the impress of the despised race on her 
 face, yet nolle could help feeling its mournful and pathetic 
 beauty, while its stony sharpness, its cold, fixed, deathly 
 aspect, struck a solemn chill over him. He drew his breath 
 short, and stood in silence. His wife, and their only 
 coloured domestic, old Aunt Dinah, were busily engaged in 
 restorative measures ; while old Cudjoe had got the boy on 
 his knee, and was busy pulling off" his shoes and stockings, 
 and chafing his little cold feet. 
 
 " Sure, now, if she ain't a sight to behold ! " said old 
 Dinah, compassionately. " 'Pears like 'twas the heat that 
 made her faint. She was tol'able peart when she cum in, 
 and asked if she couldn't warm herself here a spell ; and I 
 was just a askin' her where she cum from, and she fainted 
 right down. Never done much hard work, guess, by the 
 looks of her hands." 
 
 " Poor creature !" said Mrs. Bird, compassionately, as the 
 woman slowly unclosed her large dark eyes, and looked 
 vacantly at her. Suddenly an expression of agony crossed 
 
88 THE SENATOB AND TttE MAN. 
 
 her face, and she sprang up, saying, " Oh, my Harry! Have 
 they got him ? " 
 
 The boy, at this, jumped from Cudjoe's knee, and running 
 to her side, put up his arms. " Oh, he's here ! he's here ! " 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am ! " said she, wildly, to Mrs. Bird, " do pro- 
 tect us ! don't let them get him ! " 
 
 " Nobody shall hurt you here, poor woman," said Mrs. 
 Bird, encouragingly. " You are safe ; don't be afraid." 
 
 " Q-od bless you ! " said the woman, covering her face and 
 sobbing ; while the little boy, seeing her crying, tried to get 
 into her lap. 
 
 With many gentle and womanly offices, which none, knew 
 better how to render than Mrs. Bird, the poor woman was 
 in time rendered more calm. A temporary bed was provided 
 for her on the settle, near the fire ; and, after a short time, 
 she fell into a heavy slumber with the child, who seemed no 
 less weary, soundly sleeping on her arm ; for the mother 
 resisted, with nervous anxiety, the kindest attempts to take 
 him from her ; and even in sleep her arm encircled him with 
 an unrelaxing clasp, as if she could not even then be beguiled 
 of her vigilant hold. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bird had gone back to the parlour, where, 
 strange as it may appear, no reference was made on either 
 side to the preceding conversation ; but Mrs. Bird busied 
 herself with her knitting work, and Mr. Bird pretended to 
 be reading the paper. 
 
 " I wonder who and what she is ! " said Mr. Bird at last, 
 as he laid it down. 
 
 " When she wakes up and feels a little rested, we will 
 see," said Mrs. Bird. 
 
 " I say, wife ! " said Mr. Bird, after musing in silence 
 over his newspaper. 
 
 " Well, dear ? " 
 
 " She couldn't wear one of your gowns, could she, by any 
 letting down, or such matter ? She seems to be rather 
 larger than you are." 
 
 A quite perceptible smile glimmered on Mrs. Bird's face 
 as she answered, " We'll see." 
 
 Another pause, and Mr. Bird again broke out 
 
 "I say, wife!" 
 
ELIZA'S STOET. 89 
 
 "Well! mat now?" 
 
 " Why, there's that old bombazin cloak that you keep on 
 purpose to put over me when I take my afternoon's nap ; 
 you might as well give her that she needs clothes." 
 
 At this instant Dinah looked in to say that the woman 
 was awake, and wanted to see missis. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bird went into the kitchen, followed by the 
 two eldest boys, the smaller fry having by this time been 
 safely disposed of in bed. 
 
 The woman was now sitting up on the settle by the fire. 
 She was looking steadily into the blaze, with a calm, heart- 
 broken expression, very different from her former agitated 
 wildness. 
 
 "Did you want me?" said Mrs. Bird, in gentle tones. 
 " I hope you feel better now, poor woman ? " 
 
 A long-drawn, shivering sigh, was the only answer ; but 
 she lifted her dark eyes, and fixed them on her with such a 
 forlorn and imploring expression that the tears came into the 
 little woman's eyes. 
 
 " You needn't be afraid of anything ; we are friends here, 
 poor woman ! Tell me where you came from, and what you 
 want," said she. 
 
 "I came from Kentucky," said the woman. 
 
 " When ? " said Mr. Bird, taking up the interrogatory. 
 
 "To-night." 
 
 " How did you come ? " 
 
 "I crossed on the ice." 
 
 " Crossed on the ice ! " said every one present. 
 
 "Yes," said the woman slowly, " I did. G-od helping me, 
 I crossed on the ice ; for they were behind me right behind 
 and there was no other way ! " 
 
 "Law, missis," said Cudjoe, " the ice is all in broken-up 
 blocks, a swinging and a tettering up and down in the 
 water ! " 
 
 " I know it was I know it ! " said she, wildly ; " but I 
 did it ! wouldn't have thought I could I didn't think I 
 should get over, but I didn't care ! I could but die, if I 
 didn't. The Lord helped me; nobody knows how much 
 the Lord can help 'em, till they try," said the woman, with 
 a flashing eye. 
 
 " Were you a slave ? " said Mr. Bird, 
 
90 ITS EFFECTS ON MBS. BIRD. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I belonged to a man in Kentucky." 
 
 " Was he unkind to you ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; he was a good master." 
 
 " And was your mistress unkind to you ? " 
 
 " No sir no ! my mistress was always good to me." 
 
 " What could induce you to leave a good home, then, and 
 run away, and go through such dangers ? " 
 
 The woman looked up at Mrs. Bird with a keen scrutinis- 
 ing glance, and it did not escape her that she was dressed 
 in deep mourning. 
 
 "Ma'am," she said, suddenly, "have you ever lost a 
 child?" 
 
 The question was unexpected, and it was a thrust on a 
 new wound ; for it was only a month since a darling child 
 of the family had been laid in the grave. 
 
 Mr. Bird turned round and walked to the window, and 
 Mrs. Bird burst into tears ; but recovering her voice, she 
 said 
 
 " Why do you ask that ? I have lost a little one." 
 
 " Then you will feel for me. I have lost two, one after 
 another left 'em buried there when I came away ; and I 
 had only this one left. I never slept a night without him ; 
 he was all I had. He was my comfort and pride, day and 
 night ; and, ma'am, they were going to take him away from 
 me to sell him sell him down south, ma'am, to go all 
 alone a baby that had never been away from his mother in 
 his life! I couldn't stand it, ma'am. I knew I never 
 should be good for anything if they did ; and when I knew 
 the papers were signed, and he was sold, I took him and 
 came off in the night; and they chased me the man 
 that bought him, and some of mas'r's folks and they 
 were coming down right behind me, and I heard 'em. I 
 jumped right on to the ice, and how I got across I don't 
 know ; but, first I knew, a man was helping me up the 
 bank." 
 
 The woman did not sob nor weep. She had gone to a 
 place where tears are dry ; but every one around her was, 
 in some way characteristic of themselves, showing signs of 
 hearty sympathy. 
 
 The two little boys, after a desperate rummaging in their 
 pockets, in search of those pocket-handkerchiefs which 
 
QUESTIONS AND EEPLIES. 91 
 
 mothers know are never to be found there, had thrown 
 themselves disconsolately into the skirts of their mother's 
 gown, where they were sobbing, and wiping their eyes and 
 noses, to their heart's content ; Mrs. Bird had her face fairly 
 hidden in her pocket-handkerchief; and old Dinah, with 
 tears streaming down her black, honest face, was ejaculating, 
 " Lord, have mercy on us ! " with all the fervour of a camp- 
 meeting ; while old Cudjoe, rubbing his eyes very hard with 
 his cuffs, and making a most uncommon variety of wry faces, 
 occasionally responded in the same key, with great fervour. 
 Our senator was a statesman, and of course could not be 
 expected to cry, like other mortals ; and so he turned his 
 back to the company, and looked out of the window, and 
 seemed particularly busy in clearing his throat and wiping 
 his spectacle-glasses, occasionally blowing his nose in a 
 manner that was calculated to excite suspicion, had any one 
 been in a state to observe critically. 
 
 " How came you to tell me you had a kind master ? " he 
 suddenly exclaimed, gulping down very resolutely some kind 
 of rising in his throat, and turning suddenly round upon, the 
 woman. 
 
 " Because he was a kind master I'll say that of him, 
 any way ; and my mistress was kind ; but they couldn't 
 help themselves. They were owing money ; and there was 
 some way, I can't tell how, that a man had a hold on them, 
 and they were obliged to give him his will. I listened, and 
 heard him telling mistress that, and she begging and plead- 
 ing for me, and he told her he couldn't help himself and 
 that the papers were all drawn; and then it was I took 
 him and left my home, and came away. I knew 'twas no 
 use in my trying to live, if they did it ; for 't 'pears like 
 this child is all I have." 
 
 " Have you no husband ? " 
 
 "Yes, but he belongs to another man. His master is 
 real hard to him, and won't let him come to see me, hardly 
 ever ; and he's grown harder and harder upon us, and he 
 threatens to sell him down south. It's like I'll never see 
 Trim again!" 
 
 The quiet tone in which the woman pronounced these 
 words might have led a superficial observer to think that 
 she was entirely apathetic; but there was a calm, settled 
 
92 THE SENATOE'S PROJECTS. 
 
 depth of anguish in her large, dark eye, that spoke of 
 something far otherwise. 
 
 "And where do you mean to go, my poor woman?" 
 said Mrs. Bird. 
 
 " To Canada, if I only knew where that was. Is it very 
 far off, is Canada ? " said she, looking up, with a simple, 
 confiding air, to Mrs. Bird's face. 
 
 " Poor thing ! " said Mrs. Bird, involuntarily. 
 
 " Is't a very great way off, think ? " said the woman, 
 earnestly. 
 
 " Much further than you think, poor child! " said Mrs. 
 Bird ; " but we will try to think what can be done for you. 
 Here, Dinah, make her up a bed in your own room, close 
 by the kitchen, and I'll think what to do for her in the 
 morning. Meanwhile, never fear, poor woman. Put your 
 trust in God; He will protect you." 
 
 Mrs. Bird and her husband re-entered the parlour. She 
 sat down in her little rocking-chair before the fire, swaying 
 thoughtfully to and fro. Mr. Bird strode up and down the 
 room, grumbling to himself. " Pish ! pshaw ! confounded 
 awkward business ! " At length, striding up to his wife, 
 he said, 
 
 " I say, wife, she'll have to get away from here this 
 very night. That fellow will be down on the scent bright 
 and early to-morrow morning. If 'twas only the woman, 
 she could lie quiet till it was over; but that little chap 
 can't be kept still by a troop of horse and foot, I'll warrant 
 me ; he'll bring it all out, popping his head out of some 
 window or door. A pretty kettle of fish it would be for 
 me, too, to be caught with them both here just now ! No ; 
 they'll have to be got off to-night." 
 
 " To-night ! How is it possible ? Where to ? " 
 
 " Well, I know pretty well where to," said the senator, 
 beginning to put on his boots, with a reflective air ; and, 
 stopping when his leg was half in, he embraced his knee 
 with both hands, and seemed to go off in deep meditation. 
 
 " It's a confounded awkward, ugly business," said he at 
 last beginning to tug at his boot-straps again, " and that's 
 a fact ! " After one boot was fairly on, the senator sat with 
 the other in his hand, profoundly studying the figure of the 
 carpet. " It will have to be done, though, for aught I see 
 
HEADS AND HEAETS. 93 
 
 hang it all ! " And he drew the other boot anxiously on, 
 and looked out of the window. 
 
 Now, little Mrs. Bird was a discreet woman a woman 
 who never in her life said, " I told you so ! " and, on the 
 present occasion, though pretty well aware of the shape 
 her husband's meditations were taking, she very prudently 
 forbore to meddle with them, only sat very quietly in her 
 chair, and looked quite ready to hear her liege lord's inten- 
 tions, when he should think proper to utter them. 
 
 " You see," he said, "there's my old client, Yan Trompe, 
 has come over from Kentucky, and set all his slaves free ; 
 and he has bought a place seven miles up the creek, here 
 back in the woods, where nobody goes, unless they go on 
 purpose ; and it's a place that isn't found in a hurry. There 
 she'd be safe enough : but the plague of the thing is, nobody 
 could drive a carriage there to-night but me." 
 
 " "Why not ? Cudjoe is an excellent driver." 
 
 " Ay, ay, but here it is. The creek has to be crossed 
 twice ; and the second crossing is quite dangerous unless one 
 knows it as I do. I have crossed it a hundred times on 
 horseback, and know exactly the turns to take. And so, 
 you see, there's no help for it. Cudjoe must put in the 
 horses, as quietly as may be, about twelve o'clock, and I'll 
 take her over ; and then, to give colour to the matter, he 
 must carry me on to the next tavern, to take the stage 
 for Columbus that comes by about three or four, and so it 
 will look as if I had had the carriage only for that. I shall 
 get into business bright and early in the morning. But I'm 
 thinking I shall feel rather cheap there, after all that's been 
 said and done ; but, hang it, I can't help it." 
 
 " Tour heart is better than your head, in this case, John," 
 said the wife, laying her little white hand on his. " Could 
 I ever have loved you, had I not known you better than 
 you know yourself? " And the little woman looked so 
 handsome, with the tears sparkling in her eyes, that the 
 senator thought he must be a decidedly clever fellow to 
 get such a pretty creature into such a passionate admira- 
 tion of him ; and so what could he do but walk off soberly 
 to see about the carriage? At the door, however, he 
 stopped a moment, and then, coming back, he said, with 
 some hesitation 
 
94 MBS. BIBD'S WABDBOBE. 
 
 " Mary, I don't know how you'd feel about it, but there's 
 that drawer full of things of of poor little Henry's." So 
 saying, he turned quickly on his heel, and shut the door 
 after him. 
 
 His wife opened the little bed-room door adjoining her 
 room, and, taking the candle, set it down on the top of a 
 bureau there ; then from a small recess she took a key, and 
 put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer, and made a 
 sudden pause, while two boys, who, boy-like, had followed 
 close on her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant 
 glances, at their mother. And, O mother that reads this, 
 has there never been in your house a drawer, or a closet, the 
 opening of which has been to you like the opening again of 
 a little grave ? Ah ! happy mother that you are, if it has 
 not been so ! 
 
 Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little 
 coats of many a form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows 
 of small stockings ; and even a pair of little shoes, worn and 
 rubbed at the toes, were peeping from the folds of a paper. 
 There was a toy horse and waggon, a top, a ball memorials 
 gathered with many a tear and many a heart-break ! She 
 sat down by the drawer, and, leaning her head on her hands 
 over it, wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the 
 drawer; then, suddenly raising her head, she began, with 
 nervous haste, selecting the plainest and most substantial 
 articles, and gathering them into a bundle. 
 
 "Mama," said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, 
 " are you going to give away those things ?" 
 
 "My dear boys," she said, softly and earnestly, "if our 
 dear, loving little Henry looks down from heaven, he would 
 be glad to have us do this. I could not find it in my heart 
 to give them away to any common person to anybody that 
 was happy ; but I give them to a mother more heart-broken 
 and sorrowful than I am ; and I hope Grod will send His 
 blessings with them!" 
 
 There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all 
 spring up into joys for others ; whose earthly hopes, laid 
 in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which 
 spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the 
 distressed. Among such was the delicate woman who 
 sits there by the lamp, dropping slow tears, while she 
 
A SEFATOB IN A FIX. 95 
 
 prepares the memorials of her own lost one for the outcast 
 wanderer. 
 
 After a while, Mrs. Bird opened a wardrobe, and, taking 
 from thence a plain, serviceable dress or two, she sat down 
 busily to her work-table, and, with needle, scissors, and 
 thimble at hand, quietly commenced the "letting down" 
 process which her husband had recommended, and continued 
 busily at it till the old clock in the corner struck twelve, and 
 she heard the low rattling of wheels at the door. 
 
 " Mary," said her husband, coming in, with his overcoat in 
 his hand, "you must wake her up now: we must be off." 
 
 Mrs. Bird hastily deposited the various articles she had 
 collected in a small plain trunk, and locking it, desired her 
 husband to see it in the carriage, and then proceeded to call 
 the woman. Soon arrayed in a cloak, bonnet, and shawl, 
 that had belonged to her benefactress, she appeared at the 
 door with her child in her arms. Mr. Bird hurried her into 
 the carriage, and Mrs. Bird pressed on after her to the 
 carriage steps. Eliza leaned out of the carriage, and put 
 out her hand, a hand as soft and beautiful as was given in 
 return. She fixed her large dark eyes, full of earnest mean- 
 ing, on Mrs. Bird's face, and seemed going to speak. Her 
 lips moved, she tried once or twice . but there was no sound, 
 and pointing upward, with a look never to be forgotten, she 
 fell back in the seat, and covered her face. The door was 
 shut, and the carriage drove on. 
 
 What a situation now, for a patriotic senator, that had 
 been all the week before spurring up the legislature of his 
 native state to pass more stringent resolutions against 
 escaping fugitives, their harbourers and abettors ! 
 
 Our good senator in his native state had not been ex- 
 ceeded by any of his brethren at Washington, in the sort of 
 eloquence which has won for them immortal renown ! How 
 sublimely he had sat with his hands in his pockets, and 
 scouted all sentimental weakness of those who would put 
 the welfare of a few miserable fugitives before great state 
 interests ! 
 
 He was as bold as a lion about it, and "mightily con- 
 vinced" not only himself, but everybody that heard him; 
 but then his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters 
 that spell the word ; or, at the most, the image of a little 
 
96 AJT OHIO BAILROAD, 
 
 newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle, with 
 " Ean away from the subscriber" under it. The magic of 
 the real presence of distress, the imploring human eye, the 
 frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of help- 
 less agony, these he had never tried. He had never thought 
 that a fugitive might be a hapless mother, a defenceless 
 child, like that one which was now wearing his lost boy's 
 little well-known cap ; and so, as our poor senator was not 
 stone or steel, as he was a man, and a downright noble- 
 hearted one, too, he was, as everybody must see, in a sad 
 case for his patriotism. And you need not exult over him, 
 good brother of the Southern States, for we have some 
 inklings that many of you, under similar circumstances, 
 would not do much better. We have reason to know, in 
 Kentucky, as in Mississippi, are noble and generous hearts, 
 to whom never was tale of suffering told in vain. Ah, 
 good brother! is it fair for you to expect of us services 
 which your own brave, honourable heart, would not allow 
 you to render, were you in our place ? 
 
 Be that as it may, if our good senator was a political 
 sinner, he was in a fair way to expiate it by his night's 
 penance. There had been a long continuous period of rainy 
 weather, and the soft rich earth of Ohio, as every one knows, 
 is admirably suited to the manufacture of mud, and the road 
 was an Ohio railroad of the good old times. 
 
 " And pray what sort of a road may that be ?" says some 
 eastern traveller, who has been accustomed to connect no 
 ideas with a railroad but those of smoothness or speed. 
 
 Know, then, innocent eastern friend, that in benighted 
 regions of the west, where the mud is of unfathomable and 
 sublime depth, roads are made of round rough logs, arranged 
 transversely side by side, and coated over in their pristine 
 freshness with earth, turf, and whatsoever may come to 
 hand, and then the rejoicing native calleth it a road, and 
 straightway essayeth to ride thereupon. In process of time, 
 the rains wash off all the turf and grass aforesaid, move the 
 logs hither and thither, in picturesque positions, up, down, 
 and crosswise, with divers chasms and ruts of black mud 
 intervening. 
 
 Over such a road as this our senator went stumbling 
 along, making moral reflections as continuously as under 
 
JOHN YAN TEOMPE. 99 
 
 " If there's anybody comes," said the good man, stretching 
 his tall, muscular form upward, " why, here I'm ready for 
 him ; and I've got seven sons, each six foot high, and they'll 
 be ready for 'em. Give our respects to 'em," said John ; 
 " tell 'em it's no matter how soon they call, make no kinder 
 difference to us," said John, running his fingers through the 
 shock of hair that thatched his head, and bursting out into 
 a great laugh. 
 
 Weary, jaded, and spiritless, Eliza dragged herself up to 
 the door, with her child lying, in a heavy sleep, on her arm. 
 The rough man held the candle to her face, and, uttering a 
 kind of compassionate grunt, opened the door of a small bed- 
 room adjoining to the large kitchen where they were stand- 
 ing, and motioned her to go in. He took down a candle, and 
 lighting it, set it upon the table, and then addressed himself 
 to Eliza. 
 
 " Now, I say, gal, you needn't be a bit afeard, let who 
 will come here. I'm up to all that sort o' thing," said he, 
 pointing to two or three goodly rifles over the mantelpiece: 
 " and most people that know me know that 'twouldn't be 
 healthy to try to get anybody out o' my house when I'm 
 agin it. So now you jist go to sleep now, as quiet as if yer 
 mother was a rockin' ye," said he, as he shut the door. 
 
 "Why, this is an uncommon handsome un," he said to 
 the senator. "Ah, well; handsome uns has the greatest 
 cause to run sometimes, if they has any kind o' feeling, such 
 as decent women should. I know all about that." 
 
 The senator, in a few words, briefly explained Eliza's 
 history. 
 
 " O ! ou ! aw ! now, I want to know ! " said the good man, 
 pitifully ; " sho ! now, sho ! That's natur' now, poor crittur ! 
 hunted down, now, like a deer hunted down jest for havia* 
 natural feelin's, and doin' what no kind o' mother could help 
 a doin' ! I tell ye what, these yer things make me come the 
 nighest to swearin', now, o' most anything," said honest 
 John, as he wiped his eyes with the back of a great, freckled, 
 yellow hand. " I tell ye what, stranger, it was years and 
 years before I'd jine the church, 'cause the ministers round 
 in our parts used to preach that the Bible went in for these 
 ere cuttings up ; and I couldn't be up to 'em with their 
 Greek and Hebrew, and so I took up agin 'em Bible and all. 
 
100 THE PROPERTY IS CARRIED OFF. 
 
 I never jined the church till I found a minister that was up 
 to 'em all in Greek and all that, and he said right the con- 
 trary ; and then I took right hold, and jined the church I 
 did now, fact," said John, who had been all this time 
 uncorking some very frisky bottled cider, which at this 
 juncture he presented. 
 
 "Te'd better jest put up here, now, till daylight," said 
 he, heartily, " and I'll call up the old woman, and have a 
 bed got ready for you in no time." 
 
 " Thank you, my good friend," said the senator, "I must 
 be along, to take the night stage for Columbus." 
 
 " Ah, well, then, if you must, I'll go a piece with you, and 
 show you a cross road that will take you there better than 
 the road you came on. That road's mighty bad." 
 
 John equipped himself, and, with a lantern in hand, was 
 soon seen guiding the senator's carriage towards a road that 
 ran down in a hollow, back of his dwelling. When they 
 parted, the senator put into his hand a ten-dollar bill. 
 
 " It's for her," he said briefly. 
 
 "Ay, ay," said John, with equal conciseness. 
 
 They shook hands and parted. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PROPERTY IS CARRIED OFF. 
 
 THE February morning looked gray and drizzling through 
 the window of TJncle Tom's cabin. It looked on downcast 
 faces, the images of mournful hearts. The little table stood 
 out before the fire, covered with an ironing-cloth ; a coarse 
 but clean shirt or two, fresh from the iron, hung on the back 
 of a chair by the fire, and Aunt Chloe had another spread 
 out before her on the table. Carefully she rubbed and 
 ironed every fold and every hem, with the most scrupulous 
 exactness, every now and then raising her hand to her face 
 to wipe off the tears that were coursing down her cheeks. 
 
 Tom sat by, with his Testament open on his knee, and his 
 head leaning upon his hand ; but neither spoke. It was yet 
 
CHLOE'S PJOINT OF FAITH. 101 
 
 early, and the children lay all asleep together in their little 
 rude trundle-bed. 
 
 Tom, who had to the full the gentle, domestic heart, 
 which, woe for them ! has been a peculiar characteristic of 
 his unhappy race, got up and walked silently to look at his 
 children. 
 
 " It's the last time," he said. 
 
 Aunt Chloe did not answer, only rubbed away over and 
 over on the coarse shirt, already as smooth as hands could 
 make it ; and finally setting her iron suddenly down with a 
 despairing plunge, she sat down to the table, and " lifted up 
 her voice and wept." 
 
 " S'pose we must be resigned ; but, Lord ! how ken I ? 
 If I know'd anything whar you's goin', or how they'd sarve 
 you ! Missis says she'll try and 'deem ye, in a year or two ; 
 but, Lor! nobody never comes up that goes down thar! 
 They kills 'em! I've hearn 'em tell how dey works 'em up 
 on dem ar plantations." 
 
 "There'll be the same God there, Chloe, that there is 
 here." 
 
 " "Well," said Aunt Chloe, " s'pose dere will ; but de Lord 
 lets drefful things happen, sometimes. I don't seem to get 
 no comfort dat way." 
 
 "I'm in the Lord's hands," said Tom; "nothin' can go 
 no furder than He lets it ; and thar's one thing I can thank 
 Him for. It's me that's sold and going down, and not you 
 nur the chil'en. Here you're safe ; what comes will come 
 only on me ; and the Lord, He'll help me I know He will." 
 
 Ah, brave, manly heart, smothering thine own sorrow to 
 comfort thy beloved ones ! Tom spoke with a thick utter- 
 ance, and with a bitter choking in his throat but he spoke 
 brave and strong. 
 
 " Let's think on our marcies ! " he added tremulously, as if 
 he was quite sure he needed to think on them very hard indeed. 
 
 " Marcies ! " said Aunt Chloe, " don't see no marcy in't ! 
 tan't right ! tan't right it should be so ! Mas'r never ought 
 ter left it so that ye could be took for his debts. Te've arn't 
 him all he gets for ye, twice over. He owed ye yer freedom, 
 and ought ter gin't to yer years ago. Mebbe he can't help 
 himself now, but I feel it's wrong. Nothing can't beat that 
 ar out o' me. Sich a faithful crittur as ye've been, and allers 
 
102 
 
 sot his business 'fore yer own every way, and reckoned on 
 him more than yer own wife and chil'en ! Them as sells 
 heart's love and heart's blood, to get out thar scrapes, de 
 Lord '11 be up to 'em!" 
 
 " Chloe ! now, if ye love me, ye won't talk so, when per- 
 haps jest the last time we'll ever have together ! And I'll 
 tell ye, Chloe, it goes agin me to hear one word agin mas'r. 
 "Wan't he put in my arms a baby ? it's nature I should 
 think a heap of him. And he couldn't be 'spected to think 
 so much of poor Tom. Mas'rs is used to having all these 
 yer things done for 'em, and nat'lly they don't think so much 
 on't. They can't be 'spected to, no way. Set him 'longside 
 of other mas'rs who's had the treatment and the livin' I 
 have had ? And he never would have let this yer come on 
 me if he could have seed it aforehand. I know he wouldn't." 
 
 "Wai, any way, thar's wrong about it somewhar" said 
 Aunt Chloe, in whom a stubborn sense of justice was a pre- 
 dominant trait ; " I can't jest make out whar 'tis, but thar's 
 wrong somewhar, I'm clar o' that." 
 
 " Yer ought ter look up to the Lord above ; He's above 
 all thar don't a sparrow fall without Him." 
 
 " It don't seem to comfort me, but I 'spect it orter," said 
 Aunt Chloe. " But dar's no use talkin' : I'll jest wet up de 
 corn-cake, and get ye one good breakfast, 'cause nobody 
 knows when you'll get another." 
 
 / In order to appreciate the sufferings of the negroes 
 old south, it must be remembered that all the instinctive 
 affections of that race are peculiarly strong. Their local 
 attachments are very abiding. They are not naturally 
 daring and enterprising, but home-loving and affectionate. 
 Add to this all the terrors with which ignorance invests the 
 unknown, and add to this, again, that selling to the south is 
 set before the negro from childhood as the last severity of 
 punishment. The threat that terrifies more than whipping 
 or torture of any kind is the threat of being sent down river. 
 We have ourselves heard this feeling expressed by them, and 
 seen the unaffected horror with which-they will sit in their 
 gossiping hours, and tell frightful stories of that " down 
 river," which to them is 
 
 " That undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
 No traveller returns." 
 
ATTNT CHLOE'S BBEAKFAST. 103 
 
 A missionary among the fugitives in Canada told us that 
 many of the fugitives confessed themselves to have escaped 
 from comparatively kind masters, and that they were induced 
 to brave the perils of escape, in almost every case, by the 
 desperate horror with which they regarded being sold south 
 a doom which was hanging either over themselves or 
 their husbands, their wives, or children. This nerves the 
 African, naturally patient, timid, and unenterprising, with 
 heroic courage, and leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, 
 the perils of the wilderness, and the more dread penalties of 
 re-capture. 
 
 The simple morning meal now smoked on the table, for 
 Mrs. Shelby had excused Aunt Chloe's attendance at the 
 great house that morning. The poor soul had expended all 
 her little energies on this farewell feast had killed and 
 dressed her choicest chicken, and prepared her corn-cake 
 with scrupulous exactness, just to her husband's taste, and 
 brought out certain mysterious jars on the mantelpiece, 
 some preserves that were never produced except on extreme 
 occasions. 
 
 "Lor, Pete," said Mose, triumphantly, "ha' n't we got a 
 buster of a breakfast!" at the same time catching at a 
 fragment of the chicken. 
 
 Aunt Chloe gave him a sudden box on the ear. " Thar 
 now ! crowing over the last breakfast yer poor daddy's gwine 
 to have to home!" 
 
 " O Chloe ! " said Tom, gently. 
 
 "Wai, I can't help it," said Aunt Chloe, hiding her face 
 in her apron. " I's so tossed about, it makes me act ugly." 
 
 The boys stood quite still, looking first at their father and 
 then at their mother, while the baby, climbing up her clothes, 
 began an imperious, commanding cry. 
 
 " Thar! " said Aunt Chloe, wiping her eyes and taking up 
 the baby ; " now I's done, I hope now do eat something. 
 This yer's my nicest chicken. Thar, boys, ye shall have some, 
 poor critturs ! Ter mammy' si been cross to yer." 
 
 The boys needed no second invitation, and went in with 
 great zeal for the eatables ; and it was well they did so, as 
 otherwise there would have been very little performed to any 
 purpose by the party. 
 
 " Now," said Aunt Chloe, bustling about after breakfast, 
 
104 MBS. SHELBY'S VISIT. 
 
 " I must put up yer clothes. Jest like as not he'll take 'em 
 all away. I know thar ways mean as dirt, they is ! "Wai, 
 now, yer flannels for rheumatis is in this corner; so be 
 earful, 'cause there won't nobody make ye no more. Then 
 here's yer old shirts, and these yer is new ones. I toed off 
 these yer stockings last night, and put de ball in 'em to 
 mend with. But Lor ! who'll ever mend for ye ?" and Aunt 
 Ohloe, again overcome, laid her head on the box side, and 
 sobbed. " To think on't ! no crittur to do for ye, sick or 
 well ! I don't railly think I ought ter be good now 1 " 
 
 The boys having eaten everything there was on the 
 breakfast-table, began now to take some thought of the 
 case; and seeing their mother crying, and their father 
 looking very sad, began to whimper and put their hands to 
 their eyes. Uncle Tom had the baby on his knee, and was 
 letting her enjoy herself to the utmost extent, scratching his 
 face and pulling his hair, and occasionally breaking out into 
 clamorous explosions of delight, evidently arising out of her 
 own internal reflections. 
 
 " Ay, crow away, poor crittur ! " said Aunfc Chloe ; " ye'll 
 have to come to it, too ! Te'll live to see yer husband sold, 
 or mebbe be sold yerself ; and these yer boys, they's to be 
 sold, I s'pose, too, jest like as not, when dey gets good for 
 somethin' ; an't no use in niggers havin' nothin' ! " 
 
 Here one of the boys called out, " Thar's missis a-comin' 
 in!" 
 
 "She can't do .no good; what's she coming for ?" said 
 Aunt Chloe. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby entered. Aunt Chloe set a chair for her in 
 a manner decidedly gruff and crusty. She did not seem to 
 notice either the action or the manner. She looked pale and 
 anxious. 
 
 " Tom," she said, " I come to" and stopping suddenly, 
 
 and regarding the silent group, she sat down in the chair, 
 and, covering her face with her handkerchief, began to sob. 
 
 "Lor, now, missis, don't don't!" said Aunt Chloe, 
 bursting out in her turn ; and for a few moments they all 
 wept in company. And in those tears they all shed together, 
 the high and the lowly, melted away all the heart-burnings 
 and anger of the oppressed. Oh, ye who visit the distressed, 
 do ye know that everything your money can buy, given with 
 
TOM'S DEPARTURE. 105 
 
 a cold, averted face, is not worth one honest tear shed in real 
 sympathy ? 
 
 "My good fellow," said Mrs. Shelby, "I can't give you 
 anything to do you any good. If I give you money it will 
 only be taken from you. But I tell you solemnly, and 
 before Grod, that I will keep trace of you, and bring you 
 back as soon as I can command the money ; and, till then, 
 trust in Grod!" 
 
 Here the boys called out that Mas'r Haley was coming, 
 and then an unceremonious kick pushed open the door. 
 Haley stood there in very ill humour, having ridden hard the 
 night before, and being not at all pacified by his ill-success 
 in re-capturing his prey. 
 
 "Come," said he, "ye nigger, ye'r ready? Servant, 
 ma'am," said he, taking off his hat, as he saw Mrs. Shelby. 
 
 Aunt Chloe shut and corded the box, and getting up, 
 looked gruffly on the trader, her tears seeming suddenly 
 turned to sparks of fire. 
 
 Tom rose up meekly to follow his new master, and raised 
 up his heavy box on his shoulder. His wife took the baby 
 in her arms to go with him to the wagon, and the children, 
 still crying, trailed on behind. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby, walking up to the trader, detained him for a 
 few moments, talking with him in an earnest manner; 
 and while she was thus talking, the whole family party 
 proceeded to a wagon that stood ready harnessed at the 
 door. A crowd of all the old and young hands on the place 
 stood gathered around it, to bid farewell to their old asso- 
 ciate. ' Tom had been looked up to, both as a head servant 
 and a Christian teacher, by all the place, and there was 
 much honest sympathy and grief about him, particularly 
 among the women. 
 
 " Why, Chloe, you bar it better J n we do ! " said one of 
 the women, who had been weeping freely, noticing the 
 gloomy calmness with which Aunt Chloe stood by the 
 wagon. 
 
 " I'se done my tears!" said she, looking grimly at the 
 trader, who was coming up. " I does not feel to cry 'fore 
 dat ar old limb, nohow ! " 
 
 " Get in! " said Haley to Tom, as he strode through the 
 crowd of servants, who looked at him with lowering brows. 
 
106 PUTTING ON THE SHACKLES. 
 
 Tom got in, and Haley drawing out from under the 
 wagon-seat a heavy pair of shackles, made them fast round 
 each ankle. 
 
 A smothered groan of indignation ran through the whole 
 circle, and Mrs. Shelby spoke from the verandah, 
 
 "Mr. Haley, I assure you that precaution is entirely 
 unnecessary." 
 
 " Don't know, ma'am ; I've lost one five hundred dollars 
 from this yer place, and I can't afford to run no more 
 risks." 
 
 " What else could she 'spect on him ? " said Aunt Chloe, 
 indignantly ; while the two boys, who now seemed to com- 
 prehend at once their father's destiny, clung to her gown, 
 sobbing and groaning vehemently. 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Tom, " that Mas'r George happened to 
 be away." 
 
 George had gone to spend two or three days with a com- 
 panion on a neighbouring estate, and having departed early 
 in the morning, before Tom's misfortune had been made 
 public, had left without hearing of it. 
 
 " Give my love to Mas'r George," he said earnestly. 
 
 Haley whipped up the horse, and with a steady, mournful 
 look, fixed to the last on the old place, Tom was whirled 
 
 ray. 
 
 Mr. Shelby at this time was not at home. He had sold 
 Tom under the spur of a driving necessity, to get out of the 
 power of a man whom he dreaded, and his first feeling, after 
 the consummation of the bargain, had been that of relief. 
 "But his wife's expostulations awoke his half-slumbering 
 regrets; anil Tom's manly disinterestedness increased the 
 unpleasantness of his feelings. It was in vain that he said 
 to himself that he had a right to do it, that everybody did it, 
 and that some did it without even the excuse of necessity ; 
 he could not satisfy his own feelings ; and that he might not 
 witness the unpleasant scenes of the consummation, he had 
 gone on a short business tour up the country, hoping that all 
 would be over before he returned. 
 
 Tom and Haley rattled on along the dusty road, whirling 
 past every old familiar spot, until the bounds of the estate 
 were fairly passed, and they found themselves out on the 
 open pike. After they had ridden about a mile, Haley 
 
THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP. 107 
 
 suddenly drew up at the door of a blacksmith's shop, when, 
 taking out with him a pair of handcuffs, he stepped into the 
 shop to have a little alteration in them. 
 
 " These yer's a little too small for his build," said Haley, 
 showing the fetters, and pointing out to Tom. 
 
 " Lor ! now, if thar an't Shelby's Tom. He an't sold him, 
 now ? " said the smith. 
 
 "Yes he has," said Haley. 
 
 " Now, ye don't ! Well, reely," said the smith, " who'd a 
 thought it ! Why, ye needn't go to fetterin' him up this yer 
 way. He's the faithfullest, best crittur" 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Haley ; " but your good fellows are just 
 the critturs to want ter run off. Them stupid ones, as 
 doesn't care whar they go, and shiftless, drunken ones, as 
 don't care for nothin', they'll stick by, and like as not be 
 rather pleased to be toted round; but these yer prime 
 fellows they hates it like sin. No way but to fetter 'em ; 
 got legs they'll use 'em, no mistake." 
 
 "Well," said the smith, feeling among his tools, "them 
 plantations down thar, stranger, an't jest the place a 
 Kentuck nigger wants to go to ; they dies thar tol'able fast, 
 don't they?" 
 
 " Wai, yes, tol'able fast, ther dying is ; what with the 
 'climating and one thing and another, they dies so as to 
 keep the market up pretty brisk," said Haley. 
 
 " Wai, now, a feller can't help thinkin' it's a mighty pity 
 to have a nice, quiet, likely fellow, as good un as Tom is, 
 go down to be fairly ground up on one of them ar sugar 
 plantations." 
 
 " Wai, he's got a far chance. I promised to do well by 
 him. I'll get him in house-servant in some good old family, 
 and then if he stands the fever and 'climating, he'll have a 
 berth good as any nigger ought ter ask for." 
 
 " He leaves his wife and chil'en up here, s'pose ? " 
 
 "Yes; but he'll get another thar. Lord, thar' s women 
 enough everywhar," said Haley. 
 
 Tom was sitting very mournfully on the outside of the 
 shop while this conversation was going on. Suddenly he 
 heard the quick, short click of a horse's hoof behind him ; 
 and before he could fairly awake from his surprise, young 
 Master Greorge sprang into the wagon, threw his arms 
 
108 MASTER GEORGE SHELBY 
 
 tumultuously round his neck, and was sobbing and scolding 
 with energy. 
 
 " I declare, it's real mean ! I don't care what they say, 
 any of 'em ! It's a nasty, mean shame ! If I was a man 
 they shouldn't do it they should not, so / " said George, 
 with a kind of subdued howl. 
 
 " Mas'r George ! this does me good ! " said Tom. " I 
 couldn't bar to go off without seem' ye ! It does me real 
 good, ye can't tell ! " Here Tom made some movement of 
 his feet, and George's eye fell on the fetters. 
 
 " "What a shame ! " he exclaimed, lifting his hands. " I'll 
 knock that old fellow down I will ! " 
 
 " No, you won't, Mas'r George ; and you must not talk so 
 loud. It won't help me any to anger him." 
 
 " Well, I won't, then, for your sake ; but only to think of it 
 isn't it a shame ? They never sent for me, nor sent me any 
 word, and if it hadn't been for Tom Lincon, I shouldn't have 
 heard it. I tell you, I blew 'em up well, all of 'em, at home ! " 
 
 " That ar wasn't right, I'm feard, Mas'r George." 
 
 " Can't help it ! I say it's a shame ! Look here, Uncle 
 Tom," said he, turning his back to the shop, and speaking 
 in a mysterious tone, " Tve brought you my dollar I " 
 
 " Oh ! I couldn't think o' takin' on't, Mas'r George, no 
 ways in the world ! " said Tom, quite moved. 
 
 " 'But jou shall take it!" said George. "Look here; I 
 told Aunt Chloe I'd do it, and she advised me just to make 
 a hole in it, and put a string through, so you could hang it 
 round your neck, and keep it out of sight ; else this mean 
 scamp would take it away. I tell ye, Tom, I want to blow 
 him up ! it would do me good ! " 
 
 his aonar round -torn s necK ; - out mere, now, outton your 
 coat tight over it, and keep it, and remember, every time you 
 see it, that I'll come down after you, and bring you back. 
 Aunt Chloe and I have been talking about it. I told her 
 not to fear ; I'll see to it, and I'll tease father's life out, if 
 he don't do it." 
 
 " Mas'r George, ye mustn't talk so 'bout yer father ! " 
 
 " Lor, Uncle Tom, I don't mean anything bad." 
 
 "And now, Mas'r George," said Tom, "ye must be a 
 
COMFOBTS TINGLE TOM. 109 
 
 good boy ; 'member how many hearts is sot on ye. AT ays 
 keep close to yer mother. Don't be getting into any of them 
 foolish ways boys has, of getting too big to mind their 
 mothers. Tell ye what Mas'r George, the Lord gives good 
 many things twice over ; but he don't give ye a mother but 
 once. Te'll never see sich another woman, Mas'r George, 
 if ye live to be a hundred years old. So now, you hold on 
 to her, and grow up, and be a comfort to her, thar's my own 
 good boy you will now, won't ye ? " 
 
 " Yes, I will, Uncle Tom," said George, seriously. 
 
 " And be careful of yer speaking, Mas'r George. Young 
 boys, when they comes to your age, is wilful, sometimes 
 it's natur they should be. But real gentlemen, such as I 
 hopes you'll be, never lets fall no words that isn't 'spectful 
 to thar parents. Ye an't 'fended, Mas'r George ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, Uncle Tom ; you always did give me good 
 advice." 
 
 "I's older, ye know," said Tom, stroking the boy's fine, 
 curly head with his large, strong hand, but speaking in a 
 voice as tender as a woman's, " and I sees all that's bound 
 up in you. Mas'r George, you has everything larnin', 
 privileges, readin', writin' and you'll grow up to be a great, 
 learned, good man, and all the people on the place and your 
 mother and father '11 be so proud on ye ! Be a good mas'r, 
 like yer father ; and be a Christian, like yer mother. 'Mem- 
 ber yer Creator in the days o' yer youth, Mas'r George." 
 
 " I'll be real good, Uncle Tom, I tell you," said George. 
 " I'm going to be a first-rater ; and don't you be discou- 
 raged. I'll have you back to the place yet. As I told Aunt 
 Chloe this morning, I'll build your house all over, and you 
 shall have a room for a parlour with a carpet on it, when I'm 
 a man. Oh, you'll have good times yet ! " 
 
 Haley now came to the door, with the handcuffs in his 
 hands. 
 
 " Look here now Mister," said George, with an air of 
 great superiority, as he got out, " I shall let father and 
 mother know how you treat Uncle Tom ! " 
 
 " You're welcome," said the trader. 
 
 " I should think you'd be ashamed to spend all your life 
 buying men and women, and chaining them, like cattle ! I 
 should think you'd feel mean ! " said George. 
 
110 SUPERFLUOUS EXHORTATIONS. 
 
 "So long as your grand folks wants to buy men and 
 women, I'm as good as they is," said Haley ; " tan't any 
 meaner sellin' on 'em, than 'tis buyin' ! " 
 
 " I'll never do either when I'm a man," said George. 
 " I'm ashamed this day that I'm a Kentuckian. I always 
 was proud of it before ; " and George sat very straight on 
 his horse, and looked round with an air as if he expected 
 the state would be impressed with his opinion. 
 
 "Well, good-by, Uncle Tom; keep a stiff upper lip," said 
 George. 
 
 " Good-by, Mas'r George," said Tom, looking fondly and 
 admiringly at him. " God .Almighty bless you ! Ah ! 
 Kentucky han't got many like you! " he said, in the fulness 
 of his heart, as the frank, boyish face was lost to his view. 
 Away he went, and Tom looked, till the clatter of his horse's 
 heels died away, the last sound or sight of his home. But 
 over his heart there seemed to be a warm spot, where those 
 young hands had placed that precious dollar. Tom put up 
 his hand, and held it close to his heart. 
 
 " Now, I tell ye what, Tom," said Haley, as he came up 
 to the wagon, and threw in the handcuffs, " I mean to start 
 far with ye, as I gen' ally do with my niggers ; and I'll tell 
 ye now, to begin with, you treat me far, and I'll treat you 
 far ; I an't never hard on my niggers. Calculates to do the 
 best for 'em I can. Now, ye see, you'd better jest settle 
 down comfortable, and not be tryin' no tricks ; because 
 niggers' tricks of all sorts I'm up to, and it's no use. If 
 niggers is quiet, and don't try to get off, they has good 
 times with me ; and if they don't, why, it's thar fault, and 
 not mine." 
 
 Tom assured Haley that he had no present intentions of 
 running off. In fact the exhortation seemed rather a 
 superfluous one to a man with a great pair of iron fetters on 
 his feet. But Mr. Haley had got in the habit of commencing 
 his relations with his stock with little exhortations, of this 
 nature, calculated, as he deemed, to inspire cheerfulness 
 and confidence, and prevent the necessity of any unpleasant 
 scenes. 
 
 And here, for the present, we take our leave of Tom, to 
 pursue the fortunes of other characters in our story. 
 
IMPEOPER STATE OF MIND OF PROPERTY. Ill 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 IN WHICH PROPERTY GETS INTO AN IMPROPER STATE 
 OF MIND. 
 
 IT was late in a drizzly afternoon that a traveller alighted 
 
 at the door of a small country hotel, in the village of N , 
 
 in Kentucky. In the bar-room he found assembled quite a 
 miscellaneous company, whom stress of weather had driven 
 to harbour, and the place presented the usual scenery of 
 such reunions. Great, tall, raw-boned Kentuckians, attired 
 in hunting-shirts, and trailing their loose joints over a vast 
 extent of territory, with the easy lounge peculiar to the 
 race rifles stacked away in the corner, shot-pouches, game- 
 bags, hunting-dogs, and little negroes, all rolled together in 
 the corners were the characteristic features in the picture. 
 At each end of the fire-place sat a long-legged gentleman, 
 with his chair tipped back, his hat on his head, and the heels 
 of his muddy boots reposing sublimely on the mantelpiece a 
 position, we will inform our readers, decidedly favourable to 
 the turn of reflection incident to Western taverns, where 
 travellers exhibit a decided preference for this particular 
 mode of elevating their understandings. 
 
 Mine host, who stood behind the bar, like most of his 
 countrymen was great of stature, good-natured, and loose- 
 jointed, with an enormous shock of hair on his^ h0ad, and a 
 great tall hat on the top of that. 
 
 In fact, everybody in the room bore on his head this 
 characteristic emblem of man's sovereignty ; whether it were 
 felt hat, palm -leaf, greasy beaver, or fine new chapeau, there 
 it reposed with true republican independence. In truth, it 
 appeared to be the characteristic mark of every individual. 
 Some wore them tipped rakishly on one side these were 
 your men of humour, jolly free-and-easy dogs ; some had them 
 jammed independently down over their noses these were 
 your hard characters, thorough men, who, when they wore 
 
112 A. KENTUCKY HOTEL. 
 
 their hats, wanted to wear them, and to wear them just as 
 they had a mind to ; there were those who had them set far 
 over back wide-awake men, who wanted a clear prospect ; 
 while careless men, who did not know or care how their hats 
 sat, had them shaking about in all directions. The various 
 hats, in fact, were quite a Shaksperian study. 
 
 Divers negroes, in very free-and-easy pantaloons, and with 
 no redundancy in the shirt line, were scuttling about, hither 
 and thither, without bringing to pass any very particular 
 results, except expressing a generic willingness to turn over 
 everything in creation generally for the benefit of mas'r and 
 his guests. Add to this picture a jolly, crackling, rollicking 
 fire, going rejoicingly up a great wide chimney the outer 
 door and every window being set wide open, and the calico 
 window curtain flopping and snapping in a good stiff breeze 
 of damp raw air and you have an idea of the jollities of a 
 Kentucky tavern. 
 
 Tour Kentuckian of the present day is a good illustration 
 of the doctrine of transmitted instincts and peculiarities. 
 His fathers were mighty hunters men who lived in the 
 woods, and slept under the free, open heavens, with the stars 
 to hold their candles ; and their descendant to this day 
 always acts as if the house were his camp wears his hat at 
 all hours, tumbles himself about, and puts his heels on the 
 tops of chairs or mantelpieces, just as his father rolled on 
 the greensward, and put his upon trees and logs keeps all 
 the windows and doors open, winter and summer, that he 
 may get air enough for his great lungs calls everybody 
 "stranger" with nonchalant bonhomie, and is altogether the 
 frankest, easiest, most jovial creature living. 
 
 Into such an assembly of the free-and-easy our traveller 
 entered. He was a short, thick- set man, carefully dressed, 
 with a round, good-natured countenance, and something 
 rather fussy and particular in his appearance. He was very 
 careful of his valise and umbrella, bringing them in with his 
 own hands, and resisting, pertinaciously, all offers from the 
 various servants to relieve him of them. He looked round 
 the bar-room with rather an anxious air, and retreating with 
 his valuables to the warmest corner, disposed them under his 
 chair, sat down, and looked rather apprehensively up at the 
 worthy whose heels illustrated the end of the mantelpiece, 
 
A IHGGEE ADYEETISEMETTT. 113 
 
 who was spitting from right to left with a courage and 
 energy rather alarming to gentlemen of weak nerves and 
 particular habits. 
 
 "I say, stranger, how are ye ?" said the aforesaid gentle- 
 man, firing an honorary salute of tohacco-juice in the 
 direction of the new arrival. 
 
 " Well, I reckon," was the reply of the other, as he 
 dodged, with some alarm, the threatening honour. 
 
 " Any news ?" said the respondent, taking out a strip of 
 tobacco and a large hunting-knife from his pocket. 
 
 "Not that I know of," said the man. 
 
 " Chaw ?" said the first speaker, handing the old gentleman 
 a bit of his tobacco, with a decidedly brotherly air. 
 
 " No, thank ye ; it don't agree with me ;" said the little 
 man, edging off. 
 
 "Don't, eh?" said the other, easily, and stowing away 
 the morsel in his own mouth, in order to keep up the supply 
 of tobacco-juice, for the general benefit of society. 
 
 The old gentleman uniformly gave a little start whenever 
 his long-sided brother fired in his direction : and this being 
 observed by his companion, he very good-naturedly turned 
 his artillery to another quarter, and proceeded to storm one 
 of the fire-irons with a degree of military talent fully 
 sufficient to take a city. 
 
 " What's that ? " said the old gentleman, observing 
 some of the company formed in a group around a large 
 handbill. . I 
 
 " Nigger advertised !" said one of the company, briefly. 
 
 Mr. Wilson for that was the old gentleman's name, 
 rose up, and after carefully adjusting his valise and umbrella, 
 proceeded deliberately to take out his spectacles and fix: 
 them on his nose ; and, this operation being performed, read 
 as follows : 
 
 " Ran away from the subscriber, my mulatto boy, G-eorge. 
 Said G-eorge six feet in height, a very light mulatto, brown 
 curly hair ; is very intelligent, speaks handsomely, can read 
 and write ; will probably try to pass for a white man ; is 
 deeply scarred on his back and shoulders ; has been branded 
 in his right hand with the letter H. 
 
 " I will give four hundred dollars for him alive, and the 
 same sum for satisfactory proof that he has been killed." 
 
114 HOW TO TREAT NIGGERS. 
 
 The old gentleman read this advertisement from end to 
 end, in a low voice, as if he were studying it. 
 
 The long-legged veteran, who had been besieging the fire- 
 irons, as before related, now took down his cumbrous length, 
 and rearing aloft his tall form, walked up to the advertise- 
 ment, and very deliberately spit a full discharge of tobacco- 
 juice on it. 
 
 " There's my mind upon that !" said he, briefly, and sat 
 down again. 
 
 " Why, now, stranger, what's that for ?" said mine host. 
 
 " I'd do it all the same to the writer of that ar paper, if 
 lie was here," said the long man, coolly resuming his old 
 employment of cutting tobacco. " Any man that owns a 
 boy like that, and can't find any better way o' treating on 
 him deserves to lose him. Such papers as these is a shame 
 to Kentucky ; that's my mind right out, if anybody wants to 
 know." 
 
 " Well, now, that's a fact," said mine host, as he made an 
 entry in his book. 
 
 " I've got a gang of boys, sir," said the long man, resuming 
 his attack on the fire-irons, " and I jest tells 'em ' Boys,' 
 says I, ' run now ! dig ! put ! jest when ye want too ! I 
 never shall come to look after you !' That's the way I keep 
 mine. Let 'em know they are free to run any time, and it 
 jest breaks up their wanting to. More 'n all, I've got free 
 papers for 'em all recorded, in case I gets keeled up any o' 
 these times, and they knows it: I tell ye, stranger, there 
 an't a fellow in Our parts gets more out of his niggers than 
 I do. Why, my boys have been to Cincinnati, with five 
 hundred dollars' worth of colts, and brought me back the 
 money, all straight, time and agin. It stands to reason they 
 should. Treat 'em like dogs, and you'll have dogs' works 
 and dogs' actions. Treat 'em like men, and you'll have 
 men's works." And the honest drover, in his warmth, 
 endorsed this moral sentiment by firing a perfect feu de joie 
 at the fire-place. 
 
 "I think you're altogether right, friend," said Mr. 
 Wilson ; " and this boy described here is a fine fellow 
 no mistake about that. He worked for me some half-dozen 
 years in my bagging factory, and he was my best hand, sir. 
 He is an ingenious fellow, too ; he invented a machine for 
 
"WHAT'S THE USE OF TALENT?" 115 
 
 the cleaning of hemp a really valuable affair ; it's gone 
 into use in several factories. His master holds the patent 
 of it." 
 
 " I'Jl warrant ye," said the drover, " holds it, and makes 
 money out of it, and then turns round and brands the boy 
 in his right hand. If I had a fair chance, I'd mark him, I 
 reckon, so that he'd carry it one while." 
 
 " These yer knowin' boys is allers aggravatin' and sarcy," 
 said a coarse-looking fellow, from, the other side of the room ; 
 "that's why they gets cut up and marked so. If they 
 behave themselves, they wouldn't." 
 
 " That is to say, the Lord made 'em men, and it's a hard 
 squeeze getting 'em down into beasts," said the drover, dryly. 
 
 " Bright niggers isn't no kind of 'vantage to their masters," 
 continued the other, well intrenched in a coarse, unconscious 
 obtuseness, from the contempt of his opponent. " What's 
 the use o' talents and them things, if you can't get the use 
 on 'em yourself ? Why, all the use they make on't is to get 
 round you. I've had one or two of these fellers, and I jest 
 sold 'em down river. I knew I'd got to lose 'em, first or 
 last, if I didn't." 
 
 " Better send orders up to the Lord, to make you a set, 
 and leave out their souls entirely," said the drover. 
 
 Here the conversation was interrupted by the approach 
 of a small one-horse buggy to the inn. It had a genteel 
 appearance and a well-dressed, gentlemanly man sat on the 
 seat, with a coloured servant driving. 
 
 The whole party examined the new comer with the interest 
 with which a set of loafers in a rainy day usually examine 
 every new comer. He was very tall, with a dark, Spanish 
 complexion, fine expressive black eyes, and close-curling hair, 
 also of a glossy blackness. His well-formed aquiline nose, 
 straight thin lips, and the admirable contour of his finely- 
 formed limbs, impressed the whole company instantly with 
 the idea of something uncommon. He walked easily in 
 among the company, and with a nod indicated to his waiter 
 where to place his trunk, bowed to the company, and with 
 his hat in his hand, walked up leisurely to the bar, and gave 
 in his name as Henry Butler, Oaklands, Shelby County. 
 Turning, with an indifferent air, he sauntered up to the 
 advertisement, and read it over. 
 
 12 
 
116 AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 
 
 " Jim," he said to his man, " seems to me we met a boy 
 something like this, up at Bernan's, didn't we ?" 
 
 " Tes, mas'r," said Jim, " only I an't sure about the 
 hand." 
 
 " Well, I didn't look, of course," said the stranger, with a 
 careless yawn. Then, walking up to the landlord, he desired 
 him to furnish him with a private apartment, as he had 
 some writing to do immediately. 
 
 The landlord was all obsequious, and a relay of about seven 
 negroes, old and young, male and female, little and big, were 
 soon whizzing about, like a covey of partridges, bustling, 
 hurrying, treading on each other's toes, and tumbling over 
 each other, in their zeal to get mas'r' s room ready, while he 
 seated himself easily on a chair in the middle of the room, 
 and entered into conversation with the man who sat next 
 to him. 
 
 The manufacturer, Mr. Wilson, from the time of the 
 entrance of the stranger, had regarded him with an air of 
 disturbed and uneasy curiosity. He seemed to himself to have 
 met and been acquainted with him somewhere, but he could 
 not recollect. Every few moments, when the man spoke, or 
 moved, or smiled, he would start and fix his eyes on him, and 
 then suddenly withdraw them, as the bright dark eyes met 
 his with such unconcerned coolness. At last, a sudden 
 recollection seemed to flash upon him, for he stared at the 
 stranger with such an air of blank amazement and alarm, 
 that he walked up to him. 
 
 "Mr. Wilson, I think," said he, in a tone of recognition, 
 and extending his hand. " I beg your pardon, I didn't 
 recollect you before. I see you remember me Mr. Butler, 
 of Oaklands, Shelby County." 
 
 " Ye yes yes , sir," said Mr. Wilson, like one speaking 
 in a dream. 
 
 Just then a negro boy entered, and announced that mas'r' s 
 room was ready. 
 
 " Jim, see to the trunks," said the gentleman negligently ; 
 then addressing himself to Mr. Wilson, he added "I 
 should like to have a few moments' conversation with you 
 on business, in my room, if you please." 
 
 Mr. Wilson followed him, as one who walks in his sleep; and 
 they proceeded to a large upper chamber, where a new-made 
 
GEOBGE HARBISON'S DISGUISE. 117 
 
 fire was crackling, and various servants flying about, putting 
 finishing touches to the arrangements. 
 
 When all was done, and the servants departed, the young 
 man deliberately locked the door, and putting the key in his 
 pocket, faced about, and folding his arms on his bosom, 
 looked Mr. Wilson full in the face. 
 
 " George !" said Mr. Wilson. 
 
 " Yes, George," said the young man. 
 
 " I couldn't have thought it." 
 
 " I am pretty well disguised, I fancy," said the young man, 
 with a smile. " A little walnut bark has made my yellow 
 skin a genteel brown, and I've died my hair black ; so you 
 see I don't answer to the advertisement at all." 
 
 " George, but this is a dangerous game you are playing. 
 I could not have advised you to it." 
 
 " I can do it on my own responsibility," said George, with 
 the same proud smile. 
 
 We remark, en passant, that George was, by his father's 
 side, of white descent. His mother was one of those unfor- 
 tunates of her race marked out by personal beauty to be the 
 slave of the passions of her possessor, and the mother of 
 children who may never know a father. From one of the 
 proudest families in Kentucky he had inherited a set of fine 
 European features, and a high, indomitable spirit. From his 
 mother he had received only a slight mulatto tinge, amply 
 compensated by its accompanying rich, dark eye. A slight 
 change in the tint of the skin and the colour of his hair had 
 metamorphosed him into the Spanish-looking fellow he then 
 appeared ; and as gracefulness of movement and gentlemanly 
 manners had always been perfectly natural to him, he found 
 no difficulty in playing the bold part he had adopted that 
 of a gentleman travelling with his domestic. 
 
 Mr. Wilson, a good-natured but extremely fidgety and 
 cautious old gentleman, ambled up and down the room, 
 appearing, as John Bunyan hath it, " much tumbled up and 
 down in his mind," and divided between his wish to help 
 George, and a certain confused notion of maintaining law 
 and order : so as he shambled about, he delivered himself as 
 follows : 
 
 "Well, George, I 'spose you're running away leaving 
 your lawful master, George (I don't wonder at it) at the 
 
118 ABGUTMENTS PEG AND CON. 
 
 same time I am sorry, G-eorge yes, decidedly I think I 
 must say that, George it's my duty to tell you so." 
 
 " Why are you sorry, sir?" said Greorge, calmly. 
 
 " Why, to see you, as it were, setting yourself in opposition 
 to the laws of your country." 
 
 "My country!" said Greorge, with a strong and bitter 
 emphasis ; " what country have I but the grave ? and I 
 wish to God that I was laid there !" 
 
 " Why, George, no no it won't do ; this way of talking 
 is wicked unscriptural. Greorge, you've got a hard master 
 in fact, he is well he conducts himself reprehensibly I 
 can't pretend to defend him. But you know how the angel 
 commanded Hagar to return to her mistress and submit 
 herself under her hand ; and the apostle sent back Onesimus 
 to his master." 
 
 " Don't quote Bible at me that way, Mr. Wilson," said 
 Greorge, with a flashing eye : " don't ! for my wife is a 
 Christian, and I mean to be, if ever I get to where I can ; 
 but to quote Bible to a fellow in my circumstances is enough 
 to make him give it up altogether. I appeal to God 
 Almighty ; I'm willing to go with the case to Him, and ask 
 Him if I do wrong to seek my freedom." 
 
 " These feelings are quite natural, George," said the good- 
 natured man, blowing his nose. " Tes, they're natural, but 
 it is my duty not to encourage 'em in you. Tes, my boy, 
 I'm sorry for you, now ; it's a bad case very bad ; but the 
 apostle says, ' Let every one abide in the condition in which 
 he is called.' We must all submit to the indications of 
 Providence, Greorge don't you see ?" 
 
 G-eorge stood with his head drawn back, his arms folded 
 tightly over his broad breast, and a bitter smile curling his 
 lips. 
 
 " I wonder, Mr. Wilson, if the Indians should come and 
 take you a prisoner away from your wife and children, and 
 want to keep you all your life hoeing corn for them, if you'd 
 think it your duty to abide in the condition in which you 
 were called ! I rather think that you'd think the first stray 
 horse you could find an indication of Providence shouldn't 
 you ?" 
 
 The little old gentleman stared with both eyes at this 
 illustration of the case ; but though not much of a reasoner, 
 
THE COUNTRY OF A SLAVE. 119 
 
 he had the sense in which some logicians on this particular 
 subject do not excel that of saying nothing, where nothing 
 could be said. So, as he stood carefully stroking his 
 umbrella, and folding and patting down all the creases in it, 
 he proceeded on with his exhortations in a general way. 
 
 " You see, George, you know, now, I always have stood 
 your friend ; and whatever I've said, I've said for your good. 
 'Now, here, it seems to me, you're running an awful risk. 
 You can't hope to carry it out. If you're taken, it will be 
 worse with you than ever ; they'll only abuse you, and half- 
 kill you, and sell you down river." 
 
 " Mr. Wilson, I know all this," said G-eorge. " I do run 
 
 a risk, but " he threw open his overcoat, and showed two 
 
 pistols and a bowie-knife. "There!" he said, "I'm ready 
 for 'em ! Down south I never will go ! No ! if it comes to 
 that, I can earn myself at least six feet of free soil the first 
 and last I shall ever own in Kentucky !" 
 
 " "Why, George, this state of mind is awful ! it's getting 
 really desperate, George ! I'm concerned. Going to break 
 the laws of your country !" 
 
 " My country again ! Mr. Wilson, you have a country ; 
 but what country have /, or any one like me, born of slave 
 mothers ? What laws are there for us ? We don't make 
 them we don't consent to them we have nothing to do 
 with them ; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us 
 down. Haven't I heard your Eourth-of-July speeches? 
 Don't you tell us all, once a-year, that governments derive 
 their just power from the consent of the governed ? Can't 
 a fellow think, that hears such things ? Can't he put this 
 and that together, and see what it comes to ?" 
 
 Mr. Wilson's mind was one of those that may not unaptly 
 be represented by a bale of cotton downy, soft, benevolently 
 fuzzy and confused. He really pitied George with all his 
 heart, and had a sort of dim and cloudy perception of the 
 style of feeling that agitated him ; but he deemed it his duty 
 to go on talking good to him, with infinite pertinacity. 
 
 " George, this is bad. I must tell you, you know, as a 
 friend, you'd better not be meddling with such notions ; 
 they are bad, George, very bad, for boys in your condition 
 very ;" and Mr. Wilson sat down to a table, and began 
 nervously chewing the handle of his umbrella. 
 
120 GEORGE'S STORY. 
 
 " See here, now, Mr. "Wilson," said Greorge, coming up, 
 and sitting himself determinately down in front of him; 
 " look at me, now. Don't I sit before you, every way, just 
 as much a man as you are ? Look at my face look at my 
 hands look at my body," and the young man drew himself 
 up proudly. " Why am I not a man, as much as anybody ? 
 "Well, Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you. I had a father 
 one of your Kentucky gentlemen who didn't think 
 enough of me to keep me from being sold with his dogs and 
 horses, to satisfy the estate, when he died. I saw my 
 mother put up at sheriff's sale, with her seven children. 
 They were sold before her eyes, one by one, all to different 
 masters ; and I was the youngest. She came and kneeled 
 down before old mas'r, and begged him to buy her with me, 
 that she might have at least one child with her ; and he 
 kicked her away with his heavy boot. I saw him do it ; and 
 the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when 1 
 was tied to his horse's neck, to be carried off to his place." 
 
 "Well, then?" 
 
 " My master traded with one of the men, and bought my 
 oldest sister. She was a pious, good girl a member of the 
 Baptist church and as handsome as my poor mother had 
 been. She was well brought up, and had good manners. At 
 first, I was glad she was bought, for I had one friend near 
 me. I was soon sorry for it. Sir, I have stood at the door 
 and heard her whipped, when it seemed as if every blow cut 
 into my naked heart, and I couldn't do anything to help 
 her ; and she was whipped, sir, for wanting to live a decent 
 Christian life, such as your laws give no slave-girl a right to 
 live ; and at last I saw her chained with a trader's gang, to 
 be sent to market in Orleans sent there for nothing else 
 but that and that's the last I know of her. Well, I grew 
 up long years and years no father, no mother, no sister, 
 not a living soul that cared for me more than a dog: 
 nothing but whipping, scolding, starving. Why, sir, I've 
 been so hungry that I have been glad to take the bones 
 they threw to their dogs; and yet, when I was a little 
 fellow, and laid awake whole nights and cried, it wasn't the 
 hunger, it wasn't the whipping, I cried for. No, sir ; it was 
 for my mother and my sisters it was because I hadn't a 
 friend to love me on earth. I never knew what peace or 
 
ME. WILSON CONVERTED. 121 
 
 comfort was. I never had a kind word spoken to me till I 
 came to work in your factory. Mr. Wilson, you treated me 
 well ; you encouraged me to do well, and to learn to read and 
 write, and to try to make something of myself; and God 
 knows how grateful I am for it. Then, sir, I found my wife ; 
 you've seen her, you know how beautiful she is. When 
 I found she loved me, when I married her, I scarcely could 
 believe I was alive, I was so happy ; and, sir, she is as good 
 as she is beautiful. But now, what ? Why, now comes my 
 master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, 
 and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt I And 
 why ? Because, he says, I forgot who I was ; he says, to 
 teach me that I am only a nigger ! After all, and last of all, 
 he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her * 
 up, and live with another woman. And all this your laws 
 give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, 
 look at it ! There isn't one^of all these things, that have 
 broken the hearts of my mother and my sister, and my wife 
 and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power 
 to do, in Kentucky, and none can say to him nay ! Do you 
 call these the laws of my country? Sir I haven't any , 
 country, any more than I have any father. But I'm going / 
 to have one. I don't want anything of your country, except 
 to be let alone to go peaceably out of it ; and when I get 
 to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that 
 shall be my country, and its laws I will obey. BiitjJLany 
 man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate. 
 I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe*. Xou . 
 say your~lalhers did it ; if it was right for them, it is right 
 forTHE" 
 
 This" speech, delivered partly while sitting at the table, 
 and partly walking up and down the room delivered with 
 tears, and flashing eyes, and despairing gestures was alto- 
 gether too much for the good-natured old body to whom 
 it was addressed, who had pulled out a great yellow silk 
 pocket-handkerchief, and was mopping up his face with great 
 energy. 
 
 "Blast 'em all!" he suddenly broke out. "Haven't I 
 always said so the infernal old cusses ? I hope I an't 
 swearing now. Well! go a-head, George, go a-head; but, 
 be careful, my boy ; don't shoot anybody, George, unless 
 
122 A GENEROUS OFFER. 
 
 well you'd letter not shoot, I reckon ; at least, I wouldn't 
 kit anybody, you know. Where is your wife, George ?" he 
 added, as he nervously rose, and began walking the room. 
 
 " Gone, sir gone, with her child in her arms, the Lord 
 only knows where. Gone after the north star ; and when 
 we ever meet, or whether we meet at all in this world, no 
 creature can tell." 
 
 " Is it possible ! astonishing ! from such a kind family ? " 
 
 " Kind families get in debt, and the laws of our country 
 allow them to sell the child out of its mother's bosom to pay 
 its master's debts," said George, bitterly. 
 
 " Well, well," said the honest old man, fumbling in his 
 pocket. "I s'pose, perhaps, I an' t following my judgment 
 hang it, I won't follow my judgment ! " he added, suddenly ; 
 "so here, George," and taking out a roll of bills from his 
 pocket-book, he offered them to George. 
 
 "No, my kind, good sir ! " gaid George, "you've done a 
 deal for me, and this might get you into trouble. I 
 
 j,ve money enough, I hope, to take me as far as I need it." 
 
 " No ; but you must, George. Money is a great help 
 everywhere ; can't have too much, if you get it honestly. 
 
 \e it do take it, now do, my boy ! " 
 
 " On condition, sir, that I may repay it at some future 
 time, I will," said George, taking up the money. 
 
 " And now, George, how long are you going to travel in 
 this way ? not long, or far, I hope. It's well carried on, 
 but too bold. And this black fellow, who is he ? " 
 
 " A true fellow, who went to Canada more than a year 
 ago. He heard, after he got there, that his master was so 
 angry at him for going off that he whipped his poor old 
 mother ; and he has come all the way back to comfort her, 
 and get a chance to get her away." 
 
 " Has he got her ? " 
 
 " Not yet ; he has been hanging about the place, and 
 found no chance yet. Meanwhile, he is going with me as 
 far as Ohio, to put me among friends that helped him, and 
 then he will come back after her." 
 
 " Dangerous, very dangerous ! " said the old man. 
 
 George drew himself up, and smiled disdainfully. 
 
 The old gentleman eyed him from head to foot, with a sort 
 of innocent wonder. 
 
THE MAEK ON THE HAND. 123 
 
 " George, something has brought you out wonderfully. 
 You hold up your head, and speak and move like another 
 man," said Mr. Wilson. 
 
 " Because I'm a, free man ! " said George, proudly. " Yes, 
 sir ; I've said ' Mas'r ' for the last time to any man. I'm 
 free ! " 
 
 " Take care ! You are not sure you may be taken." 
 
 " All men are free and equal in the grave, if it comes to 
 that, Mr. Wilson," said George. 
 
 " I'm perfectly dumbfoundered with your boldness ! " said 
 Mr. Wilson, " to come right here to the nearest tavern ! " 
 
 " Mr. Wilson, it is so bold, and this tavern is so near, that 
 they will never think of it ; they will look for me on ahead, 
 and you yourself wouldn't know me. Jim's master don't 
 live in this county ; he isn't known in these parts. Besides, 
 he is given up ; nobody is looking after him, and nobody will 
 take me up from the advertisement, I think." 
 
 " But the mark in your hand ? " 
 
 George drew off his glove, and showed a newly-healed 
 scar in his hand. 
 
 " That is a parting proof of Mr. Harris' regard," he said, 
 scornfully. " A fortnight ago, he took it into his head to 
 give it to me, because, he said, he believed I should try to 
 get away one of these days. Looks interesting, doesn't 
 it ? " he said, drawing his glove on again. 
 
 " I declare, my very blood runs cold when I think of it 
 your condition and your risks ! " said Mr. Wilson. 
 
 " Mine has run cold a good many years, Mr. Wilson ; at 
 present, it's about up to the boiling point," said George. 
 
 " Well, my good sir," continued George, after a few 
 moments' silence, " I saw you knew me ; I thought I'd just 
 have this talk with you, lest your surprised looks should 
 bring me out. I leave early to-morrow morning, before 
 daylight ; by to-morrow night I hope to sleep safe in Ohio. 
 I shall travel by daylight, stop at the best hotels, go to the 
 dinner-tables with the lords of the land. So, good-bye, sir ; 
 if you hear that I'm taken, you may know that I'm dead ! " 
 
 George stood up like a rock, and put out his hand with 
 the air of a prince. The friendly little old man shook it 
 heartily, and after a little shower of caution, he took his 
 umbrella, and fumbled his way out of the room. ' 
 
124 
 
 G-eorge stood thoughtfully looking at the door as the old 
 man closed it. A thought seemed to flash across his inind. 
 He hastily stepped to it, and opening it said 
 
 " Mr. Wilson, one word more." 
 
 The old gentleman entered again, and George, as before, 
 locked the door, and then stood for a few moments looking 
 on the floor irresolutely. At last, raising his head with a 
 sudden effort 
 
 "Mr. Wilson, you have shown yourself a Christian in 
 your treatment of me I want to ask one last deed of 
 Christian kindness of you." 
 
 WeU, George." ' 
 
 " Well, sir, what you said was true. I am running a 
 dreadful risk. There isn't on earth a living soul to care if I 
 die," he added, drawing his breath hard, and speaking with 
 a great effort. " I shall be kicked out and buried like a dog, 
 and nobody '11 think of it a day after only my poor wife ! 
 Poor soul ! she'll mourn and grieve ; and if you'd only con- 
 trive, Mr. Wilson, to send this little pin to 'her. She gave 
 it to me for a Christmas present, poor child ! Give it to 
 her, and tell her I loved her to the last. Will you ? Will 
 you ? " he added earnestly. 
 
 " Yes, certainly ; poor fellow ! " said the old gentleman, 
 taking the pin, with watery eyes, and a melancholy quiver in 
 his voice. 
 
 " Tell her one thing," said George, " it's my last wish, it 
 she can get to Canada, to go there. No matter how kind 
 her mistress is no matter how much she loves her home ; beg 
 her not to go back for slavery always ends in misery. TeU 
 her to bring up our boy a free man, and then he won't suffer 
 as I have. Tell her this, Mr. Wilson, will you ? " 
 
 " Yes, George, I'll tell her ; but I trust you won't die. 
 Take heart, you're a brave fellow. Trust in the Lord, 
 George. I wish in my heart you were safe through, though 
 that's what I do." 
 
 " Is there a God to trust in ? " said George, in such a tone 
 of bitter despair as arrested the old gentleman's words. 
 " Oh, I've seen things all my life that have made me feel 
 that there can't be a God. You Christians don't know how 
 these things look to us. There is a God for you, but is there 
 any for us ? " 
 
SELECT INCIDENT OF LATVTFTJL TEADE. 125 
 
 "Oh, now, don't don't, my boy!" said the old man, 
 almost sobbing as he spoke ; " don't feel so. There is 
 there is ; clouds and darkness are round about Him, but 
 righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne. 
 There 's a God, George believe it ; trust in Him, and I 'm 
 sure He'll help you. Everything will be set right if not 
 in this life, in another." 
 
 The real piety and benevolence of the simple old man 
 invested him with a temporary dignity and authority as he 
 spoke. Greorge stopped his distracted walk up and down the 
 room, stood thoughtfully a moment, and then said quietly 
 
 " Thank you for saying that, my good friend ; I '11 think 
 of that." 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 SELECT INCIDENT OP LAWFUL TRADE. 
 
 " In Ramah there was a voice heard, weeping, and lamentation, 
 and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not 
 be comforted." 
 
 MR. HALEY and Tom jogged onward in their wagon, each 
 for a time, absorbed in his own reflections. Now, the reflec- 
 tions of two men sitting side by side are a curious thing 
 seated on the same seat, having the same eyes, ears, hands, 
 and organs of all sorts, and having pass before their eyes the 
 same objects : it is wonderful what a variety we shall find in 
 these same reflections ! 
 
 As, for example, Mr. Haley : he thought first of Tom's 
 length, and breadth, and height, and what he would sell for, 
 if he was kept fat and in good case till he got him into 
 market. He thought of how he shonld-make out his gang; 
 lie thought of the respective market value of certain supposi- 
 titious men and women and children who were to compose it, 
 and other kindred topics of the business ; then he thought of 
 himself, and how humane he was, that whereas other men 
 chained their "niggers" hand and foot both, he only put fet- 
 ters on the feet, and left Tom the use of his hands, as long as 
 he behaved wen : and he sighed to think how ungrateful 
 
126 AN EXECUTORS' SALE. 
 
 human nature was, so that there was even room to doubt 
 whether Tom appreciated his mercies. He had been taken 
 in so by " niggers " whom he had favoured ; but still he was 
 astonished to consider how good-natured he yet remained ! 
 
 As to Tom, he was thinking over some words of an un- 
 fashionable old book, which kept running through his head, 
 again and again, as follows : " We have here no continuing 
 city, but we seek one to come ; wherefore God himself is not 
 ashamed to be called our God ; for He hath prepared for us a 
 city." These words of an ancient volume, got up principally 
 by " ignorant and unlearned men," have, through all time, 
 kept up somehow a strange sort of power over the minds of 
 poor, simple fellows, like Tom. They stir up the soul from 
 its depths, and rouse, as with trumpet call, courage, energy, 
 and enthusiasm, where before was only the blackness of 
 despair. 
 
 Mr. Haley pulled out of his pocket sundry newspapers, 
 and began looking over their advertisements with absorbed 
 interest. He was not a remarkably fluent reader, and was in 
 the habit of reading in a sort of recitative, half-aloud, by 
 way of calling in his ears to verify the deductions of his eyes. 
 In this tone he slowly recited the following paragraph : 
 
 " EXECUTORS' SALE. NEGROES! Agreeably to order of Court, will 
 be sold, on Tuesday, February 20, before the Court-house door, in the 
 town of Washington, Kentucky, the following negroes : Hagar, aged 
 60 ; John, aged 30 ; Ben, aged 21 ; Saul, aged 25 ; Albert, aged 14. 
 Sold for the benefit of the creditors and heirs of the estate of Jesse 
 Blutchford, Esq. 
 
 "SAMUEL Moimis, 1 VnfOMIfrM . 
 "THOMAS FLINT, J ****** 
 
 " This yer I must look at," said he to Tom, for want of 
 somebody else to talk to. " Ye see I am going to get up a 
 prime gang to take down with ye, Tom; it'll make it sociable 
 and pleasant like good company will, ye know. We must 
 drive right to Washington first and foremost, and then I'll 
 clap you into jail while I does the business." 
 
 Tom received this agreeable intelligence quite meekly; 
 simply wondering, in his own heart, how many of these 
 doomed men had wives and children, and whether they would 
 feel as he did about leaving them. It is to be confessed, too, 
 that the naive, off-hand information that he was to be thrown 
 
AUNT HAGAR. 127 
 
 into jail, by no means produced an agreeable impression on a 
 poor fellow who had always prided himself on a strictly 
 honest and upright course of li^e. Yes, Tom, we must 
 confess it, was rather proud of his honesty, poor fellow not 
 having very much else to be proud of; if he had belonged 
 to some of the higher walks of society, he, perhaps would 
 never have been reduced to such straits. However, the day 
 wore on, and the evening saw Haley and Tom comfortably 
 accommodated in Washington the one in a tavern, the 
 other in a jail. 
 
 About eleven o'clock the next day a mixed throng was 
 gathered around the court-house steps smoking, chewing, 
 spitting, swearing, and conversing, according to their re- 
 spective tastes and turns, waiting for the auction, to com- 
 mence. The men and women to be sold sat in a group apart, 
 talking in a low tone to each other. The woman who had 
 been advertised by the name of Hagar was a regular African 
 in feature and figure. She might have been sixty, but was 
 older than that by hard work and disease, was partially blind, 
 and somewhat crippled with rheumatism. By her side stood 
 her only remaining son, Albert, a bright-looking little fellow 
 of fourteen years. The boy was the only survivor of a large 
 family, who had been successively sold away from her to a 
 southern market. The mother held on to him with both her 
 shaking hands, and eyed with intense trepidation every one 
 who walked up to examine him. 
 
 " Don't be fear'd, Aunt Hagar," said the oldest of the 
 men. " I spoke to Mas'r Thomas 'bout it, and he thought 
 he might manage to sell you in a lot both together." 
 
 " Dey needn't call me worn out yet," said she, lifting her 
 shaking hands. " I can cook yet, and scrub, and scour I'm 
 wuth a buying, if I do come cheap ; tell em dat ar you tell 
 'em," she added, earnestly. 
 
 Haley here forced his way into the group, walked up to 
 the old man, pulled his mouth open and looked in, felt of his 
 teeth, made him stand and straighten himself, bend his back, 
 and perform various evolutions to show his muscles ; and then 
 passed on to the next, and put him through the same trial. 
 "Walking up last to the boy, he felt of his arms, straightened 
 his hands, and looked at his fingers, and made him jump, to 
 show his agility. 
 
128 THE SLATE-MARKET. 
 
 " He an't gwine to be sold widout me! " said the old woman, 
 with passionate eagerness ; " he and I goes in a lot together ; 
 I's rail strong yet, mas'r, and can do heaps o' work heaps 
 on it, mas'r." 
 
 "On plantation?" said Haley, with a contemptuous 
 glance. " Likely story ! " and, as if satisfied with his exami- 
 nation, he walked out and looked, and stood with his hands 
 in his pocket, his cigar in his mouth, and his hat cocked on 
 one side, ready for action. 
 
 " "What think of 'em ?" said a man who had been following 
 Haley's examination, as if to make up his own mind from it. 
 
 " Wai," said Haley, spitting, " I shall put in, I think, for 
 the youngerly ones and the boy." 
 
 " They want to sell the boy and the old woman together," 
 said the man. 
 
 " Find it a tight pull ; why, she's an old rack o' bones 
 not worth her salt." 
 
 " You wouldn't then ?" said the man. 
 
 " Anybody' d be a fool 'twould. She's half blind, crooked 
 with rheumatis, and foolish to boot." 
 
 " Some buys up these yer old critturs, and ses there's a 
 sight more wear in 'em than a body'd think," said the man 
 reflectively. 
 
 "No go, 'tall," said Haley; "wouldn't take her for a 
 present fact: I've seen, now." 
 
 "Wai, 'tis kinder pity, now, not to buy her with her 
 son her heart seems so sot on him; s'pose they fling her in 
 cheap." 
 
 " Them that's got money to spend that ar way, it's all 
 well enough. I shall bid off on that ar boy for a plantation- 
 hand ; wouldn't be bothered with her no way not if they'd 
 give her to me," said Haley. 
 
 " She'll take on desp't," said the man. 
 
 "Nat'lly, she will," said the trader, coolly. 
 
 The conversation was here interrupted by a busy hum in 
 the audience ; and the auctioneer, a short, bustling, important 
 fellow, elbowed his way into the crowd. The old woman 
 drew in her breath, and caught instinctively at her son. 
 
 " Keep close to your mammy, Albert close dey'll put 
 us up togedder," she said. 
 
 " mammy, I'm fear'd they won't," said the boy. 
 
AUNT HAGAR AND HER CHILD. 129 
 
 "Dey must, child; I can't live, no ways, if they don't," 
 said the old creature vehemently. 
 
 The stentorian tones of the auctioneer, calling out to clear 
 the way, now announced that the sale was about to com- 
 mence. A place was cleared, and the bidding began. The 
 different men on the list were soon knocked off at prices 
 which showed a pretty brisk demand in the market ; two of 
 them fell to Haley. 
 
 " Come, now, young un, said the auctioneer, giving the boy 
 a touch with his hammer, "be up and show your springs,now." 
 
 " Put us two up togedder, togedder do please, mas'r," 
 said the old woman, holding fast to her boy. 
 
 " Be off," said the man gruffly, pushing her hands away ; 
 " you come last. Now, darkey, spring ; " and, with the word, 
 he pushed the boy toward the block, while a deep heavy 
 groan rose behind him. The boy paused, and looked back ; 
 but there was no time to stay, and dashing the tears from 
 his large, bright eyes, he was up in a moment. 
 
 His fine figure, alert limbs, and bright face, raised an 
 instant competition, and half-a-dozen bids simultaneously met 
 the ear of the auctioneer. Anxious, half-frightened, he looked 
 from side to side, as he heard the clatter of contending 
 bids now here, now there till the hammer fell. Haley 
 had got him. He was pushed from the block towards his 
 new master, but stopped one moment, and looked back, when 
 his poor old mother, trembling in every limb, held out her 
 shaking hands toward him. 
 
 " Buy me," too, mas'r ; for de dear Lord's sake! buy me 
 I shall die if you don't! " 
 
 " You'll die if I do, that's the kink of it," said Haley. 
 " No ! " And he turned on his heel. 
 
 The bidding for the poor old creature was summary. The 
 man who had addressed Haley, and who seemed not destitute 
 of compassion, bought her for a trifle, and the spectators 
 began to disperse. 
 
 The poor victims of the sale, who had been brought up in 
 one place together for years, gathered round the despairing 
 old mother, whose agony was pitiful to see. 
 
 " Couldn't dey leave me one ? Mas'r allers said I should 
 have one he did," she repeated over and over, in heart- 
 broken tones. 
 
130 THE OHIO STEAMBOAT. 
 
 " Trust in the Lord, Aunt Hagar," said the oldest of the 
 men, sorrowfully. 
 
 " What good will it do ? " said she, sobbing passionately. 
 
 Mother ! mother ! Don't ! don't ! " said the boy. " They 
 say you's got a good master." 
 
 " I don't care I don't care. Albert ! O my boy ! you's 
 my last baby. Lord, how ken I ? " 
 
 " Come, take her off, can't some of ye ? " said Haley dryly. 
 " Don't do no good for her to go on that ar way." 
 
 The old men of the company, partly by persuasion and 
 partly by force, loosed the poor creature's last despairing 
 hold, and as they led her off to her new master's waggon, 
 strove to comfort her. 
 
 " Now ! " said Haley, pushing his three purchases toge- 
 ther, and producing a bundle of handcuffs, which he pro- 
 ceeded to put on their wrists ; and fastening each handcuff 
 to a long chain, he drove them before him to the jail. 
 
 A few days saw Haley, with his possessions, safely deposited 
 on one of the Ohio boats. It was the commencement of his 
 gang, to be augmented as the boat moved on by various 
 other merchandise of the same kind, which he, or his agent, 
 had stored for him in various points along shore. 
 
 The La Belle Hiviere, as brave and beautiful a boat as 
 ever walked the waters of her namesake river, was floating 
 gaily down the stream, under a brilliant sky, the stripes and 
 stars of free America waving and fluttering overhead ; the 
 guards crowded with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, 
 walking and enjoying the delightful day. All* was full of 
 life, buoyant, and rejoicing ! all but Haley's gang, who were 
 stored, with other freight, on the lower deck, and who, some- 
 how, did not seem to appreciate their various privileges, aa 
 they sat in a knot, talking to each other in low tones. 
 
 "Boys," said Haley, coming up briskly, "I hope you 
 keep up good heart and are cheerful. Now, no sulks, ye see; 
 keep stiff upper lip, boys ; do well by me, and I'll do well 
 by you." 
 
 The boys addressed responded the invariable " Yes, mas'r," 
 for ages the watchword of poor Africa ; but it 's to be owned 
 they did not look particularly cheerful. They had their 
 various little prejudices in favour of wives, mothers, sisters, 
 and children, seen for the last time ; and though " they that 
 
\ 
 
 BOTH SIDES OE THE QUESTION. 131 
 
 wasted them required of them mirth," it was not instantly 
 forthcoming. 
 
 " I've got a wife," spoke out the article enumerated as 
 " John, aged thirty," and he laid his chained hand on Tom's 
 knee, " and she don't know a word about this, poor girl." 
 
 " Where does she live ? " said Tom. 
 
 " In a tavern, a piece down here," said John ; " I wish, 
 now, I could see her once more in this world," he added. 
 
 Poor John ! It was rather natural ; and the tears that 
 fell as he spoke came as naturally as if he had been a white 
 man. Tom drew a long breath from a sore heart, and tried, 
 in his poor way to comfort him. 
 
 And overhead, in the cabin, sat fathers and mothers, hus- 
 bands and wives ; and merry, dancing children, moved round 
 among them, like so many little butterflies, and everything 
 was going on quite easy and comfortable. 
 
 " O, mamma ! " said a boy, who had just come up from 
 below ; " there's a negro trader on board, and he's brought 
 four or five slaves down there." 
 
 "Poor creatures!" said the mother, in a tone between 
 grief and indignation. 
 
 " What's that ? " said another lady. 
 
 " Some poor slaves below," said the mother. 
 
 " And they've got chains on," said the boy. 
 
 " What a shame to our country that such sights are to be 
 seen! " said another lady. 
 
 " Oh, there's a great deal to be said on both sides of the 
 subject," sain a genteel woman, who sat at her state-room door, 
 sewing, while her little girl and boy were playing round __ 
 "I've been south, and I must say I think the negroes are 
 better off than they would be to be free." 
 
 " In some respects, some of them are well off, I grant," 
 said the lady to whose remark sKe~EaoT answered. " The most 
 dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is itg_outrages on the 
 feelings and affections the separating of families, for 
 
 a bad thing, certainly," said the other lady, 
 holding up a baby's dress she had just completed, and 
 looking intently on its trimmings ; " but then, I fancy, it 
 don't occur often." 
 
 "Oh, it does," said the first lady, eagerly; "I've lived 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE DECBEES OF PEOYIDENCE. 
 
 many years in Kentucky and Virginia both, and I've seen 
 enough to make one's heart sick. Suppose, ma'am, your two 
 children there, should be taken from you, and sold ? " 
 
 " We can't reason from our feelings to those of this class 
 of persons," said the other lady, sorting out some worsteds 
 on her lap. 
 
 " Indeed, ma'am, you can know nothing of them if you say 
 so," answered the first lady, warmly. " I was born and 
 brought up among them. I know they do feel, just as 
 keenly even more so, perhaps as we do." 
 
 The lady said " Indeed ! " yawned, and looked out the 
 cabin widow, and finally repeated, for a finale, the remark 
 with which she had begun "After all, I think they are 
 better off than they would be to be free." 
 
 " It's undoubtedly the intention of Providence that the 
 African race should be servants kept in a low condition," 
 said a grave-looking gentleman in black, a clergyman, seated 
 by the cabin-door. " ' Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of 
 servants shall he be,' the Scripture says." 
 
 " I say, stranger, is that ar what that text means ? " said 
 a tall man, standing by. 
 
 " Undoubtedly. It pleased Providence, for some inscru- 
 table reason, to doom the race to bondage ages ago ; and we 
 must not set up our opinion against that." 
 
 " "Well, then, we'll all go a-head and buy up niggers," said 
 the man, " if that's the way of Providence : won't we, squire ?" 
 said he, turning to Haley, who had been standing, with his 
 hands in his pockets, by the stove, and intently "listening to 
 the conversation. 
 
 " Yes," continued the tall man ; " we must all be resigned 
 to the decrees of Providence. Niggers must be sold, and 
 trucked round, and kept under ; it's what thev's made for. 
 'Pears like this yer view's quite refreshing, an't it stranger?" 
 said he to Haley. 
 
 "I never thought on't," said Haley. " I couldn't have 
 said as much, myself; I han't no laming. I took up the 
 trade just to make a living ; if 't an't right, I calculated to 
 'pent on't in time, ye know." 
 
 " And now you'll save yerself the trouble, won't ye ? " said 
 the tall man. " See what 'tis, now, to know Scripture. If 
 ye'd only studied yer Bible, like this yer good man, ye might 
 
THE TWO CLEEGYMEN. 133 
 
 have know'd it before, and saved ye a heap o' trouble. Ye 
 could jist have said, ' Cussed be' what's his name? and 
 'twould all have come right." And the stranger, who was 
 no other than the honest drover, whom we introduced to 
 our readers in the Kentucky tavern, sat down, and began 
 smoking, with a curious smile on his long, dry face. 
 
 A tall, slender young man, with a face expressive of great 
 feeling and intelligence, here broke in, and repeated the 
 words, " ' All things whatsoever ye would that men should 
 do unto you, do ye even so unto them.' I suppose," he 
 added, " that is Scripture, as much as ' Cursed be Canaan ? ' ' 
 
 " "Wai, it seems quite as plain a text, stranger," said John, 
 the drover, " to poor fellows like us, now ; " and John smoked 
 on like a volcano. 
 
 The young man paused, looked as if he was going to say 
 more, when suddenly the boat stopped, and the company 
 made the usual steamboat rush to see where they were 
 landing. 
 
 "Both them ar chaps parsons ?" said John to one of the 
 men, as they were going out. 
 
 The man nodded. 
 
 As the boat stopped, a black woman came running wildly 
 up the plank, darted into the crowd, flew up to where the 
 slave-gang sat, and threw her arms round that unfortunate 
 piece of merchandise before enumerated, " John, aged thirty," 
 and with sobs and tears bemoaned him as her husband. 
 
 But what needs tell the story, told too oft every day told 
 of heartstrings rent and broken the weak broken and 
 torn for the profit and convenience of the strong ! It needs 
 not to be told: every day is telling it telling it, too, in the 
 ear of One who is not deaf, though He be long silent. 
 
 The young man who had spoken for the cause of humanity 
 and God before stood with folded arms, looking on this 
 scene. He turned, and Haley was standing at his side. 
 " My friend," he said, speaking with thick utterance, "how 
 can you, how dare you, carry on a trade like this ? Look at 
 those poor creatures ! Here I am, rejoicing in my heart that 
 'I am going home to my wife and child ! and the same bell 
 which is a signal to carry me onward towards them will 
 part this poor man and his wife for ever. Depend upon it, 
 God will bring you into judgment for this." 
 
134 THE DECEIVED MOTHEE. 
 
 The trader turned away in silence. 
 
 " I say, now," said the drover, touching his elbow, " there's 
 differences in parsons, an't there ? ' Cussed be Canaan/ 
 don't seem to go down with this 'un, does it ?" 
 
 Haley gave an uneasy growl. 
 
 "And that ar an't the worst on't," said John; "mabbe 
 it won't go down with the Lord, neither, when ye come 
 to settle with Him, one o' these days, as all on us must, 
 I reckon." 
 
 Haley walked reflectively to the other end of the boat. 
 
 " If I make pretty handsomely on one or two next gangs," 
 he thought, "I reckon I'll stop off this yer: it's really 
 getting dangerous." And he took out his pocket-book, and 
 began adding over his accounts a process which many 
 gentlemen besides Mr. Haley have found a specific for an 
 uneasy conscience. 
 
 The boat swept proudly away from the shore and all went 
 on merrily, as before. Men talked, and loafed, and read, 
 and smoked. Women sewed, and children played, and the 
 boat passed on her way. 
 
 One day, when she lay-to for awhile, at a small town in 
 Kentucky, Haley went up into the place on a little matter 
 of business. 
 
 Tom, whose fetters did not prevent his taking a moderate 
 circuit, had drawn near the side of the boat, and stood 
 listlessly gazing over the railings. After a time, he saw the 
 trader returning, with an alert step, in company with a 
 coloured woman, bearing in her arms a young child. She 
 was dressed quite respectably, and a coloured man followed 
 her, bringing along a small trunk. The woman came cheer- 
 fully onward, talking, as she came, with the man who bore 
 her trunk, and so passed up the plank into the boat. The bell 
 rung, the steamer whizzed, the engine groaned and coughed, 
 and away swept the boat down the river. 
 
 The woman walked forward among the boxes and bales of 
 the lower deck, and sitting down, busied herself with chir- 
 rupping to her baby. 
 
 Haley made a turn or two about the boat, and then, coming 
 up, seated himself near her, and began saying something to 
 her in an indifferent under-tone. 
 
 Tom soon noticed a heavy cloud passing over the 
 
AND HER LITTLE CHILD, 135 
 
 woman's brow, and that she answered rapidly, and with 
 great vehemence. 
 
 "I don't believe it; I won't believe it!" he heard her 
 say. " You're jist a foolin' with me." 
 
 " If you won't believe it, look here !" said the man, draw- 
 ing out a paper; "this yer's the bill of sale, and there's 
 your master's name to it ; and I paid down good solid cash 
 for it, too, I can tell you so now !" 
 
 " I don't believe mas'r would cheat me so ; it can't be 
 true !" said the woman with increasing agitation. 
 
 " You can ask any of these men here that can read 
 writing. Here!" he said, to a man that was passing by, 
 " jis read this yer, won't you ! This yer gal won't believe 
 me, when I tell her what 'tis." 
 
 " Why, it's a bill of sale, signed by John Eosdick," said 
 the man, " making over to you the girl Lucy and her child. 
 It's all straight enough, for aught I see." 
 
 The woman's passionate exclamations collected a crowd 
 around her, and the trader briefly explained to them the 
 cause of the agitation. 
 
 " He told me that I was going down to Louisville, to hire 
 out as cook to the same tavern where my husband works ; 
 that's what mas'r told me, his own self, and I can't believe 
 he'd lie to me," said the woman. = ' 
 
 " But he has sold you, my poor woman, there's no doubt 
 about it," said a good-natured looking man, who had been 
 examining the papers ; "he has done it, and no mistake." 
 
 " Then it's no account talking," said the woman, suddenly 
 growing quite calm ; and, clasping her child tighter in her 
 arms, she sat down on her box, turned her back round, and 
 gazed listlessly into the river. 
 
 " G-oing to take it easy, after all !" said the trader. " Gal's 
 got grit, I see." 
 
 The woman looked calm as the boat went on ; and a 
 beautiful, soft, summer breeze passed, like a compassionate 
 spirit, over her head the gentle breeze that never inquires 
 whether the brow is dusky or fair that it fans. And she 
 saw sunshine sparkling on the water, in golden ripples, and 
 heard gay voices, full of ease and pleasure, talking around 
 her everywhere ; but her heart lay as if a great stone had 
 fallen on it. Her babv raised himself up against her, and 
 
136 DISQUISITION CONCEBimrG EAISIN*. 
 
 stroked her cheeks with his little hands ; and, springing up 
 and down, crowing and chatting, seemed determined to 
 arouse her. She strained him suddenly and tightly in her 
 arms, and slowly one tear after another fell on his wonder- 
 ing, unconscious face : and gradually she seemed, little by 
 little, to grow calmer, and busied herself with tending and 
 nursing him. 
 
 The child, a boy of ten months, was uncommonly large 
 and strong of his age, and very vigorous in his limbs. 
 Never for a moment still, he kept his mother constantly 
 busy in holding him, and guarding his springing activity. 
 
 "That's a fine chap!" said a man, suddenly stopping 
 opposite to him, with his hands in his pockets. " How old 
 is he?" 
 
 " Ten months and a half," said the mother. 
 
 The man whistled to the boy, and offered him part of a 
 stick of candy, which he eagerly grabbed at, and very soon 
 had it in a baby's general depository ; to wit, his mouth. 
 
 " Rum fellow ! " said the man. " Knows what's what !" 
 and he whistled and walked on. When he had got to the 
 other side of the boat, he came across Haley, who was 
 smoking on top of a pile of boxes. 
 
 The stranger produced a match and lighted a cigar, 
 saying, as he did so 
 
 "Decentish kind o' wench you've got round there, 
 stranger." 
 
 "Why, I reckon she is tol'able fair," said Haley, blowing 
 the smoke out of his mouth. 
 
 " Taking her down south ?" said the man. 
 
 Haley nodded and smoked on. 
 
 " Plantation hand ?" said the- man. 
 
 " Wai," said Haley, "I'm filling out an order for a plan- 
 tation, and I think I shall put her in. They telled me she 
 was a good cook , and they can use her for that, or set her 
 at the cotton-picking. She's got the right fingers for that ; 
 I looked at 'em. SeU well, either way ;" and Haley resumed 
 his cigar, 
 
 " They won't want the young 'un on a plantation," said 
 the man. 
 
 " I shall sell him first chance I find," said Haley, lighting 
 another cigar. 
 
A HABD BABGAIN. 137 
 
 "S'pose you'd be selling him tol' able cheap?" said the 
 stranger, mounting the pile of boxes, and sitting down 
 comfortably. 
 
 "Don't know 'bout that,'* said Haley; "he's a pretty 
 smart young 'un straight, fat, strong : flesh as hard as a 
 brick!" 
 
 " Very true ; but then there's all the bother and expense 
 of raisin'." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Haley ; " they is raised as easy as any 
 kind of critter there is going ; they an't a bit more trouble 
 than pups. This yer chap will be running all round in a 
 month." 
 
 " I've got a good place for raisin', and I thought of takin' 
 in a little more stock," said the man. " One cook lost a 
 young 'un last week got drowned in the wash-tub, while 
 she was a hangin' out clothes ; and I reckon it would be well 
 enough to set her to raisin' this yer." 
 
 Haley and the stranger smoked a while in silence ; neither 
 seeming willing to broach the test question of the interview. 
 At last the man resumed : 
 
 " You wouldn't think of wantin' more than ten dollars for 
 that ar chap, seeing you must get him off yer hand, any 
 how?" 
 
 Haley shook his head and spit impressively. 
 
 " That won't do, noways," he said, and began his smoking 
 again. 
 
 " "Well, stranger, what will you take ? " 
 
 "Well, now," said Haley, "I could raise that ar chap 
 myself, or get him raised ; he's oncommon likely and healthy, 
 and he'd fetch a hundred dollars six months hence ; and, in a 
 year or two, he'd bring two hundred, if I had him in the right 
 spot ; so I shan't take a cent less nor fifty for him now." 
 
 " stranger ! that's ridiculous altogether," said the man. 
 
 " Fact !" said Haley, with a decisive nod of his head. 
 
 "I'll give thirty for him," said the stranger, "but not 
 a cent more." 
 
 "Now, I'll tell ye what I will do," said Haley, spitting again, 
 with renewed decision. " I'll split the difference, and say 
 forty-five ; and that's the most I will do." 
 
 '* Well, agreed ! " said the man, after an interval. 
 
 " Done ! " said Haley. " Where do you land ? " 
 
138 
 
 THE BEEEAYED MOTHEE. 
 
 "At Louisville," said the man. 
 
 " Louisville," said Haley. "Very fair; we get there about 
 dusk. Chap will be asleep all fair get him off quietly, and 
 no screaming happens beautiful I like to do everything 
 quietly- I hates all kind of agitation and fluster." And 
 so, after a transfer of certain bills had passed from the man's 
 pocket-book to the trader's, he resumed his cigar. 
 
 It was a bright, tranquil evening when the boat stopped at 
 the wharf at Louisville. The woman had been sitting with 
 her baby in her arms, now wrapped in a heavy sleep. When 
 she heard the name of the place called out, she hastily laid 
 the child down in a little cradle formed by the hollow among 
 the boxes, first carefully spreading under it her cloak, and 
 then she sprung to the side of the boat, in hopes that among 
 the various hotel-waiters that thronged the wharf, she might 
 see her husband. In this hope she pressed forward to the 
 front rails, and stretching far over them, strained her eyes 
 intently on the moving heads on the shore, and the crowd 
 pressed in between her and the child. 
 
 " Now's your time," said Haley, taking the sleeping child 
 up, and handing him to the stranger. " Don't wake him iip 
 and set him to crying, now ; it would make a devil of a fuss 
 with the gal." The man took the bundle carefully, and was 
 soon lost in the crowd that went up the wharf. 
 
 When the boat, creaking, and groaning, and puffing, had 
 loosed from the wharf, and was beginning slowly to strain 
 herself along, the woman returned to her old seat. The 
 trader was sitting there the child was gone ! 
 
 " Why, why where ? " she began in bewildered surprise. 
 
 " Lucy," said the trader, " your child's gone ; you may as 
 well know, it first as last. You see, I know'd you couldn't 
 take him down south ; and I got a chance to sell him to a 
 first-rate family, that'll raise him better than you can." 
 
 The trader had arrived at that stage of Christian and 
 political perfection which has been recommended by some 
 preachers and politicians of the north, lately, in which he had 
 completely overcome every humane weakness and prejudice. 
 His heart was exactly where yours, sir, and mine could be 
 brought with proper effort and cultivation. The wild look of 
 anguish and utter despair that the woman cast on him might 
 have disturbed one less practised but he was used to it. He 
 
HEART AGONIES. 139 
 
 > 
 
 had seen that same look hundreds of times. You can get 
 used to such things, too, my friend; and it is the great 
 object of recent efforts to make our whole northern commu- 
 nity used to them, for the__gloiy of the Union. So the 
 trader only regardectTEe mortal anguTsB^whtuh he saw 
 working in those dark features, those clenched hands, and 
 suffocating breathings, as necessary incidents of the trade, 
 and merely calculated whether she was going to scream, and 
 get up a commotion on the boat ; for, like other supporters 
 of our peculiar institutions, he decidedly disliked agitation. 
 
 But the woman did not scream. The shot had passed too 
 straight and direct through the heart for cry or tear. 
 
 Dizzily she sat down. Her slack hands fell lifeless by her 
 side. Her eyes looked straight forward, but she saw nothing. 
 All the noise and hum of the boat, the groaning of the 
 machinery, mingled dreamily to her bewildered ear ; and the 
 poor, dumb-stricken heart had neither cry nor tear to show 
 for its utter misery. She was quite calm. 
 
 The trader, who, considering his advantages, was almost 
 as humane as some of our politicians, seemed to feel called on 
 ( to administer such consolation as the case admitted of. 
 
 " I know this yer comes kinder hard at first, Lucy," said 
 he ; " but such a smart, sensible gal as you are, won't give 
 way to it. You see it's necessary, and can't be helped." 
 
 " Oh, don't, mas'r, don't ! " said the woman, with a voice 
 like one that is smothering. 
 
 " You're a smart wench, Lucy," he persisted. " I mean 
 to do well by ye, and get ye a nice place down the river ; and 
 you'll soon get another husband, such a likely gal as you " 
 
 " Oh, mas'r, if you only won't talk to me now," said the 
 woman, in a voice of such quick and living anguish, that the 
 trader felt that there was something at present in the case 
 beyond his style of operation. He got up, and the woman 
 turned away, and buried her head in her cloak. 
 
 The trader walked up and down for a time, and occasionally 
 stopped and looked at her. 
 
 " Takes it hard, rather," he soliloquised; "but quiet, tho'. 
 Let her sweat a while she'll come right by and by." 
 
 Tom had watched the whole transaction from first to last, 
 and had a perfect understanding of its results. To him it 
 lookedlike something unutterably horrible and cruel, because, 
 
140 THE STJICIDE. 
 
 poor, ignorant black soul, he had not learned to generalise, 
 and to take enlarged views. If he had only been instructed 
 by certain ministers of Christianity, he might have thought 
 better of it, and seen in it an every-day incident of a lawful 
 trade ; a trade which is the vital support of an institution 
 which an American divine * tells us, has " no evils but such as 
 are inseparable from any other relations in social and domestic 
 life" But Tom, as we see, being a poor, ignorant fellow, 
 whose reading had been confined entirely to the New Tes- 
 tament, could not comfort and solace himself with views like 
 these. His very soul bled within him for what seemed to 
 him the wrongs of the poor suffering thing that lay like a 
 crushed weed on the boxes ; the feeling, living, bleeding, yet 
 immortal thing, which American state law coolly classes 
 with the bundles, and bales, and boxes, among which she 
 is lying. * 
 
 Tom drew near, and tried to say something ; but she only 
 groaned. Honestly, and with tears running down his own 
 cheeks, he spoke of a heart of love in the skies, of a pitying 
 Jesus, and an eternal home; but the ear was deaf with 
 anguish, and the palsied heart could not feel. 
 
 Night came on night, calm, unmoved, and glorious, 
 shining down with her innumerable and solemn angel eyes, 
 twinkling, beautiful, but silent. There was no speech nor 
 language, no pitying voice or helping hand, from that distant 
 sky. One after another the voices of business or pleasure 
 died away ; all on the boat were sleeping, and the ripples at 
 the prow were plainly heard. Tom stretched himself out 
 on a box, and there, as he lay, he heard, ever and anon, 
 a smothered sob or cry from the prostrate creature. " Oh, 
 what shall I do ? O Lord ! O good Lord, do help me ! " and 
 so, ever and anon, until the murmur died away in silence. 
 
 At midnight Tom waked with a sudden start. Something 
 black passed quickly by him to the side of the boat, and he 
 heard a splash in the water. No one else saw or heard any- 
 thing. He raised his head the woman's place was vacant ! 
 He got up, and sought about him in vain. The poor bleed- 
 ing heart was still at last, and the river rippled and dimpled 
 just as brightly as if it had not closed above it. 
 
 * Dr. Joel Parker, of Philadelphia. 
 
DEATH, A HABD CTJSTOMEB. 141 
 
 Patience ! patience ! ye whose hearts swell indignant at 
 wrongs like these. Not one throb of anguish, not one tear 
 of the oppressed, is forgotten by the Man of Sorrows, the 
 Lord of G-lory. In his patient, generous bosom, he bears the 
 anguish of a world. Bear thou, like him, in patience, and 
 labour in love ; for, sure as he is Grod, " the year of his 
 redeemed shall come." 
 
 The trader waked up bright and early, and came out to 
 see to his live stock. It was now his turn to look about in 
 perplexity. 
 
 " Where alive is that gal ? " he said to Tom. 
 
 Tom, who had learned the wisdom of keeping counsel, did 
 not feel called on to state his observations and suspicions, 
 but said he did not know. 
 
 " She surely couldn't have got off in the night at any of 
 the landings, for I was awake and on the look-out whenever 
 the boat stopped. I never trust these yer things to other 
 
 folks.;' 
 
 This speech was addressed to Tom quite confidentially, as 
 if it was something that would be specially interesting to him. 
 Tom made no answer. 
 
 The trader searched the boat from stem to stern, among 
 boxes, bales, and barrels, around the machinery, by the 
 chimneys, in vain 
 
 " Now, I say, Tom, be fair about this yer," he said, when, 
 after a fruitless search, he came where Tom was standing. 
 " You know something about it, now. Don't tell me I 
 know you do. I saw the gal stretched out here about ten 
 o'clock, and agin at twelve, and agin between one and two ; 
 and then at four she was gone, and you was a sleeping right 
 there all the time. Now, you know something you can't 
 help it." 
 
 " "Well, mas'r," said Tom, " towards morning something 
 brushed by me, and I kinder half woke ; and then I hearn 
 a great splash, and then I clare woke up, and the gal was 
 gone. That's all I know on't." 
 
 The trader was not shocked nor amazed ; because, as we 
 said before, he was used to a great many things that you are 
 not used to. Even the awful presence of Death struck no 
 eolemn chill upon him. He had seen Death many times 
 met him in the way of trade, and got acquainted with him 
 
142 
 
 and he only thought of him as a hard customer, that embar- 
 rassed his property operations very unfairly ; and so he only 
 swore that the gal was a baggage, and that he was devilish 
 unlucky, and that, if things went on in this way, he should 
 not make a cent on the trip. In short, he seemed to consider 
 himself an ill-used man, decidedly ; but there was no help for 
 it, as the woman had escaped into a State which never will 
 give up a fugitive not even at the demand of the whole 
 glorious Union. The trader, therefore, sat discontentedly 
 down, with his little account-book, and put down the missing 
 body and soul under the head of losses ! 
 
 " He's a shocking creature, isn't he, this trader ? so 
 unfeeling ! It's dreadful, really ! " 
 
 " Oh, but nobody thinks anything of these traders ! They 
 are universally despised never received into any decent 
 society." 
 
 But who, sir, makes the trader ? Who is most to blame ? 
 The enlightened, cultivated, intelligent man, who supports 
 the system of which the trader is the inevitable result, or 
 the poor trader himself? You make the public sentiment 
 that calls for his trade, that debauches and depraves him, 
 till he feels no shame in it; and in what are you. better 
 than he ? 
 
 Are you educated and he ignorant, you high and he low, 
 you refined and he coarse, you talented and he simple ? 
 
 In the day of a future judgment these very considerations 
 may make it more tolerable for him than for you. 
 
 In concluding these little incidents of lawful trade, we 
 must beg the world not to think that American legislators 
 are entirely destitute of humanity, as might perhaps be 
 unfairly inferred from the great efforts made in our national 
 body to protect and perpetuate this species of traffic. 
 
 Who does not know how our great men are outdoing 
 themselves in declaiming against the foreign slave-trade ? 
 There are a perfect host of Clarksons and Wilberforces risen 
 up among us on that subject, most edifying to hear and 
 behold. Trading negroes from Africa, dear reader, is so 
 horrid! It is not to be thought of! But trading them 
 from Kentucky that's quite another thing ! 
 
THE QUAKER SETTLEMENT. 143 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 THE QUAKER SETTLEMENT. 
 
 A QUIET scene now rises before us. A large, roomy, 
 neatly-painted kitchen, its yellow floor glossy and smooth, 
 and without a particle of dust ; a neat, well-blacked cooking- 
 stove ; rows of shining tin, suggestive of unmentionable good 
 things to the appetite ; glossy green wood chairs, old and 
 firm ; a small flag-bottomed rocking-chair, with a patch-work 
 cushion in it, neatly contrived out of small pieces of different 
 coloured woollen goods, and a larger sized one, motherly and 
 old, whose wide arms breathed hospitable invitation, seconded 
 by the solicitation of its feather cushions a real, comfort- 
 able, persuasive old chair, and worth, in the way of honest, 
 homely enjoyment, a dozen of your plush or brochetelle 
 drawing-room gentry ; and in the chair, gently swaying back 
 and forward, her eyes bent on some fine sewing, sat our old 
 friend Eliza. Yes, there she is, paler and thinner than in her 
 Kentucky home, with a world of quiet sorrow lying under 
 the shadow of her long eyelashes, and marking the outline of 
 her gentle mouth ! It was plain to see how old and firm the 
 girlish heart was grown under the discipline of heavy sorrow ; 
 and when, anon, her large dark eye was raised to follow the 
 gambols of her little Harry, who was sporting, like some 
 tropical butterfly, hither and thither over the floor, she 
 showed a depth of firmness and steady resolve that was never 
 there in her earlier and happier days. 
 
 By her side sat a woman with a bright tin pan in her lap 
 into which she was carefully sorting some dried peaches. She 
 might be fifty-five or sixty; but hers was one of those faces that 
 time seems to touch only to brighten and adorn. The snowy 
 lisse crape cap, made after the strait Quaker pattern, the 
 plain white muslin handkerchief, lying in placid folds across 
 her bosom, the drab shawl and dress, showed at once the 
 community to which she belonged. Her face was round and 
 
144 ELIZA AND HEB, CHILD 
 
 rosy, with a healthful downy softness, suggestive of a ripe 
 peach. Her hair, partially silvered by age, was parted 
 smoothly back from a high placid forehead, on which time 
 had written no inscription except " Peace on earth, good will 
 to men ;" and beneath shone a large pair of clear, honest, 
 loving, brown eyes : you only needed to look straight into 
 them, to feel that you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and 
 true as ever throbbed in woman's bosom. So much has been 
 said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don't somebody, 
 wake up to the beauty of old women ? If any wanT to get up 
 "Hn" maplralkm under Ihia head, ^we refer them to our good 
 friend Rachel Halliday, just as she sits there in her little 
 rocking-chair. It had a turn for quacking and squeaking 
 that chair had either from having taken cold in early life, or 
 from some asthmatic affection, or perhaps from nervous 
 derangement ; but as she gently swung backward and forward, 
 the chair kept up a kind of subdued " creechy crawchy," that 
 would have been intolerable in any other chair. But old 
 Simeon Halliday often declared it was as good as any music 
 to him ; and the children all avowed that they wouldn't miss 
 of hearing mother's chair for anything in the world. For 
 why ? for twenty years or more, nothing but loving words, 
 and gentle moralities, and motherly loving-kindness, had come 
 from that chair head-aches and heart-aches innumerable had 
 been cured there difficulties spiritual and temporal solved 
 there all by one good, loving woman. Grod bless her ! 
 
 " And so thee still thinks of going to Canada, Eliza ? " she 
 said, as she was quietly looking over her peaches. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," said Eliza, firmly. " I must go onward. I 
 dare not stop." 
 
 " And what'll thee do when thee gets there ? Thee must 
 think about that, my daughter." 
 
 " My daughter," came naturally from the lips of Eachel 
 Halliday; for hers was just the face and form that made 
 " mother " seem the most natural word in the world. 
 
 Eliza's hands trembled, and some tears fell on her fine 
 work ; but she answered firmly, 
 
 " I shall do anything I can find. I hope I can find 
 something." 
 
 " Thee knows thee can stay here as long as thee pleases," 
 said Rachel. 
 
QTTAKEE COURTESIES. 145 
 
 " Oh, thank you," said Eliza, "but" she pointed to 
 Harry " I can't sleep nights ; I can't rest. Last night I 
 dreamed I saw that man coming into the yard/' she said, 
 shuddering. 
 
 " Poor child! " said Rachel, wiping her eyes ; " but thee 
 mustn't feel so. The Lord hath ordered it so that never 
 hath a fugitive been stolen from our village. I trust thine 
 will not be the first." 
 
 The door here opened, and a little, short, round, pin- 
 cushiony woman stood at the door, with a cheery, blooming 
 face, like a ripe apple. She was dressed, like Rachel, in 
 sober gray, with the muslin folded neatly across her round, 
 plump little chest. 
 
 " Ruth Stedman," said Rachel, coming joyfully forward; 
 "how is thee, Ruth?" she said, heartily taking both her 
 hands. 
 
 " Nicely," said Ruth, taking off her little drab bonnet, 
 and dusting it with her handkerchief, displaying, as she did 
 so, a round little head, on which the Quaker cap sat with a 
 sort of jaunty air, despite all the stroking and patting of the 
 small fat hands, which were busily applied to arranging it. 
 Certain stray locks of decidedly curly hair, too, had escaped 
 here and there, and had to be coaxed and cajoled into their 
 place again ; and then the new comer, who might have been 
 five-and-twenty, turned from the small looking-glass, before 
 which she had been making these arrangements, and looked 
 well pleased as most people who looked at her might have 
 been : for she was decidedly a wholesome, whole-hearted, 
 chirruping little woman, as ever gladdened man's heart 
 withal. 
 
 " Ruth, this friend is Eliza Harris ; and this is the little 
 boy I told thee of." 
 
 " I am glad to see thee, Eliza very," said Ruth, shaking 
 hands, as if Eliza were an old friend she had long been 
 expecting : " and this is thy dear boy I brought a cake for 
 him," she said, holding out a little heart to the boy, who 
 came up, gazing through his curls, and accepted it shyly. 
 
 " Where's thy baby, Ruth ? " said Rachel. 
 
 " Oh, he's coming ; but thy Mary caught him as I came 
 in, and ran off with him to the barn, to show him to the 
 children." 
 
146 QTJAKER CHAEITTES. 
 
 At this moment the door opened, and Mary, an honest, 
 rosy-looking girl, with large brown eyes, like her mother's, 
 came in with the baby. 
 
 " Ah ! ha ! " said Eachel, coming up, and taking the great, 
 white, fat fellow in her arms ; " how good he looks, and how 
 he does grow!" 
 
 " To be sure he does," said little bustling Euth, as she 
 took the child, and began taking off a little blue silk hood, 
 and various layers and wrappers of outer garments : and 
 having given a twitch here, and a pull there, and variously 
 adjusted and arranged him, and kissed him heartily, she set 
 him on the floor to collect his thoughts. Baby seemed quite 
 used to this mode of proceeding, for he put his thumb in his 
 mouth (as if it were quite a thing of course), and seemed 
 soon absorbed in his own reflections, while the mother seated 
 herself, and taking out a long stocking of mixed blue and 
 white yarn, began to knit with briskness. 
 
 " Mary, thee'd better fill the kettle, hadn't thee ? " gently 
 suggested the mother. 
 
 Mary took the kettle to the well, and soon re-appearing, 
 placed it over the stove, where it was soon purring and 
 steaming, a sort of censer of hospitality and good cheer. 
 The peaches, moreover, in obedience to a few gentle whispers 
 from Eachel, were soon deposited, by the same hand, in a 
 stew-pan over the fire. 
 
 Eachel now took down a snowy moulding-board, and, tying 
 on an apron, proceeded quietly to making up some biscuits, 
 first saying to Mary, " Mary, hadn't thee better tell John to 
 get a chicken ready ? " and Mary disappeared accordingly. 
 
 " And how is Abigail Peters ? " said Eachel, as she went 
 on with her biscuits. 
 
 " Oh, she's better," said Euth. " I was in this morning ; 
 made the bed, tidied up the house. Leah Hills went in this 
 afternoon, and baked bread and pies enough to last some 
 days; and I engaged to go back to get her up this 
 evening." 
 
 " I will go in to-morrow, and do any cleaning there may 
 be, and look over the mending," said Eachel. 
 
 " Ah ! that is well," said Euth. " I've heard," she added, 
 " that Hannah Stanwood is sick. John was up there, last 
 night I must go there to-morrow." 
 
JOYFUL INTELLIGENCE. 147 
 
 " John can come in here to his meals, if thee needs to 
 stay all day," suggested Eachel. 
 
 "Thank thee, Eachel; we'll see to-morrow. But here 
 comes Simeon." 
 
 Simeon Halliday, a tall, straight, muscular man, in drab 
 coat and pantaloons, and broad-brimmed hat, now entered. 
 
 " How is thee, Ruth ? " he said, warmly, as he spread his 
 broad open hand for her little fat palm ; " and how is 
 John?" 
 
 " Oh ! John is well, and all the rest of our folks," said 
 Euth, cheerily. 
 
 " Any news, father ? " said Eachel, as she was putting her 
 biscuits into the oven. 
 
 "Peter Stebbins told me that they should be along 
 to-night, with friends, 11 said Simeon, significantly, as he 
 was washing his hands at a neat sink, in a little back 
 porch. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Eachel, looking thoughtfully, and glancing 
 at Eliza. 
 
 " Did thee say thy name was Harris ? " said Simeon to 
 Eliza, as he re-entered. 
 
 Eachel glanced quickly at her husband, as Eliza tremu- 
 lously answered " yes ; " her fears, ever uppermost, sug- 
 gesting that possibly there might be advertisements out 
 for her. 
 
 "Mother!" said Simeon, standing in the porch, and 
 calling Eachel out. 
 
 "What does thee want, father?" said Eachel, rubbing 
 her floury hands, as she went into the porch. 
 
 " This child's husband is in the settlement, and will be 
 here to-night," said Simeon. 
 
 "Now, thee doesn't say that, father ?" said Eachel, all 
 her face radiant with joy. 
 
 " It's really true. Peter was down yesterday, with the 
 wagon, to the other stand, and there he found an old woman 
 and two men, and one said his name was Greorge Harris ; 
 and, from what he told of his history, I am certain who he 
 is. He is a bright, likely fellow, too." 
 
 " Shall we tell her now ? " said Simeon. 
 
 "Let's tell Euth," said Eachel. "Here, Euth ! come 
 
 here!" 
 
 i 2 
 
148 HOW ELIZA EECEIVES THE NEWS. 
 
 Ruth laid down her knitting-work, and was in the back 
 porch in a moment. 
 
 "Ruth, what does thee think?" said Rachel, "Father 
 says Eliza's husband is in the last company, and will be here 
 to-night." 
 
 A burst of joy from the little Quakeress interrupted the 
 speech. She gave such a bound from the floor, as she 
 clapped her little hands, that two stray curls fell from under 
 her Quaker cap, and lay brightly on her white neckerchief. 
 
 " Hush thee, dear ! " said Rachel gently ; " hush, Ruth ! 
 Tell us ; shall we tell her now ? " 
 
 " Now ! to be sure, this very minute. Why, now, suppose 
 'twas my John, how should I feel ? Do tell her right off." 
 
 " Thee uses thyself only to learn how to love thy neigh- 
 bour, Ruth," said Simeon, looking with a beaming face on 
 Ruth. 
 
 " To be sure. Isn't it what we are made for ? If I didn't 
 love John and the baby, I should not know how to feel for 
 her. Come, now, do tell her do ! " and she laid her hands 
 persuasively on Rachel's arm. " Take her into thy bedroom, 
 there, and let me fry the chicken while thee does it." 
 
 Rachel came out into the kitchen, where Eliza was sewing, 
 and opening the door of a small bedroom, said gently, " Come 
 in here with me, my daughter ; I have news to tell thee." 
 
 The blood flushed in Eliza's pale face ; she rose, trembling 
 with nervous anxiety, and looked towards her boy. 
 
 " No, no," said little Ruth, darting up, and seizing her 
 hands. " Never thee fear ; it's good news, Eliza go in, go 
 in ! " And she gently pushed her to the door, which closed 
 after her ; and then, turning round, she caught little Harry 
 in her arms, and began kissing him. 
 
 " Thee '11 see thy father, little one. Does thee know it ? 
 Thy father is coming," she said, over and over again, as the 
 boy looked wonderingly at her. 
 
 Meanwhile, within the door, another scene was going on. 
 Rachel Halliday drew Eliza towards her, and said, "The 
 Lord hath had mercy on thee, daughter ; thy husband hath 
 escaped from the house of bondage." 
 
 The blood flushed to Eliza's cheek in a sudden glow, and 
 went back to her heart with as sudden a rush. She sat 
 down pale and faint. 
 
ELIZA'S DBEAM. 149 
 
 " Have courage, child," said Rachel, laying her hand on 
 her head. " He is among friends, who will bring him here 
 to-night." 
 
 " To-night ! " Eliza repeated : " To-night ! " The words 
 lost all meaning to her ; her head was dreamy and confused; 
 all was mist for a moment. 
 
 When she awoke, she found herself snugly tucked up on 
 the bed with a blanket over her, and little Ruth rubbing 
 her hands with camphor. She opened her eyes in a state of 
 dreamy, delicious languor, such as one has who has long 
 been bearing a heavy load, and now feels it gone, and would 
 rest. The tension of the nerves, which had never ceased a 
 moment since the first hour of her flight, had given way, 
 and a strange feeling of security and rest came over her ; 
 and, as she lay, with her large dark eyes open, she followed, 
 as in a quiet dream, the motions of those about her. She 
 saw the door open into the other room; saw the supper- 
 table, with its snowy cloth ; heard the dreamy murmur of 
 the singing tea-kettle; saw Ruth tripping backward and 
 forward, with plates of cake and saucers of preserves, and 
 ever and anon stopping to put a cake into Harry's hand, or 
 pat his head or twine his long curls round her snowy fingers. 
 She saw the ample motherly form of Rachel, as she ever and 
 anon came to the bedside, and smoothed and arranged some- 
 thing about the bed-clothes, and gave a tuck here and there, 
 by way of expressing her good- will ; and was conscious of 
 a kind of sunshine beaming down upon her from her large, 
 clear, brown eyes. She saw Ruth's husband come in saw 
 her fly up to him, and commence whispering very earnestly, 
 ever and anon, with impressive gesture, pointing her little 
 finger toward the room. She saw her. with the baby in her 
 arms, sitting down to tea ; she saw them all at table, and 
 little Harry in a high chair, under the shadow of Rachel's 
 ample wing ; there were low murmurs of talk, gentle 
 tinkling of tea-spoons and musical clatter of cups and 
 saucers, and all mingled in a delightful dream of rest ; and 
 Eliza slept as she had not slept before since the fearful mid- 
 night hour when she had taken her child and fled through 
 the frosty starlight. 
 
 She dreamed of a beautiful country a land, it seemed to 
 her, of rest green shores, pleasant islands, and beautifully 
 
150 AN INDIANA BBEAKFAST. 
 
 glittering water ; and there, in a house which kind voices 
 told her was a home, she saw her boy playing, a free and 
 happy child. She heard her husband's footsteps ; she felt 
 him coming nearer ; his arms were around her, his tears fall- 
 ing on her face, and she awoke ! It was no dream. The 
 daylight had long faded ; her child lay calmly sleeping by 
 her side ; a candle was burning dimly on the stand, and her 
 husband was sobbing by her pillow. 
 
 The next morning was a cheerful one at the Quaker house. 
 " Mother " was up betimes, and surrounded by busy girls 
 and boys, whom we had scarce time to introduce to our readers 
 yesterday, and who all moved obediently to Each el's gentle 
 " Thee had better," or more gentle " Hadn't thee better ? " 
 in the work of getting breakfast ; for a breakfast in the 
 luxurious valleys of Indiana is a thing complicated and mul- 
 tiform, and, like picking up the rose-leaves and trimming 
 the bushes in Paradise, asking other hands than those of the 
 original mother. While, therefore, John ran to the spring for 
 fresh water, and Simeon the second sifted meal for corn- 
 cakes, and Mary groiind coffee, Rachel moved gently and 
 quietly about, making biscuits, cutting up chicken, and 
 diffusing a sort of sunny radiance over the whole proceeding 
 If there was any danger of friction or collision 
 
 from the ill-regulated zeal of so many young operators, her 
 gentle " Come, come ' " or "I wouldn't, now," was quite 
 sufficient to allay the difficulty. Bards have written of the 
 cestus of Yenus, that turned the heads of all the world in 
 successive generations. We had rather, for our part, have 
 the cestus of E-achel Halliday, that kept heads from being 
 turned, and made everything go on harmoniously. We 
 think it is more suited to our modern days, decidedly. 
 
 While all other preparations were going on, Simeon the 
 elder stood in his shirt-sleeves before a little looking-glass in 
 the corner, engaged in the anti-patriarchal operation of 
 shaving. Everything went on so sociably, so quietly, so har- 
 moniously, in the great kitchen it seemed so pleasant to 
 every one to do just what they were doing, there was such 
 an atmosphere of mutual confidence and good-fellowship 
 everywhere even the knives and forks had a social clatter 
 
A QTJAKEE COLLOQUY. 151 
 
 as they went on to the table ; and the chicken and ham had 
 a cheerful and joyous fizzle in the pan, as if they rather 
 enjoyed being cooked than otherwise; and when George 
 and Eliza and little Harry came out, they met such a 
 hearty, rejoicing welcome, no wonder it seemed to them like 
 a dream. 
 
 At last they were all seated at breakfast, while Mary- 
 stood at the stove, baking griddle cakes, which, as they 
 gained the true, exact, golden-brown tint of perfection, were 
 transferred quite handily to the table. 
 
 E-achel never looked so truly and benignly happy as at 
 the head of her table. There was so much motherliness and 
 full-heartedness even in the way she passed a plate of cakes 
 or poured a cup of coffee, that it seemed to put a spirit into 
 the food and drink she offered. 
 
 It was the first time that ever George had sat down on 
 equal terms at any white man's table ; and he sat down, at 
 first, with some constraint and awkwardness ; but they all 
 exhaled and went off like fog in the genial morning rays of 
 this simple, overflowing kindness. 
 
 This, indeed, was a home home a word that George had 
 never yet known a meaning for ; and a belief in God, and 
 trust in His providence, began to encircle his heart, as, with 
 a golden cloud of protection and confidence, dark, misan- 
 thropic, pining, atheistic doubts, and fierce despair, melted 
 away before the light of a living Gospel, breathed in living 
 faces, preached by a thousand unconscious acts of love and 
 good -will, which, like the cup of cold water given in the 
 name of a disciple, shall never lose their reward. 
 
 "Father, what if thee should get found out again?" said 
 Simeon second, as he buttered his cake. 
 
 "I should pay my fine," said Simeon, quietly. 
 
 " But what if they put thee in prison ?" 
 
 "Couldn't thee and mother manage the farm?" said 
 Simeon, smiling. 
 
 " Mother can do almost everything," said the boy. " But 
 isn't it a shame to make such laws ?" 
 
 " Thee mustn't speak evil of thy rulers, Simeon," said his 
 father, gravely. " The Lord only gives us our worldly goods 
 that we may do justice and mercy ; if our rulers require a 
 price of us for it, we must deliver it up." 
 
152 EVANQELINE. 
 
 " Well, I hate those old slaveholders !" said the boy, who 
 felt as unchristian as became any modern reformer. 
 
 "I am surprised at thee, son," said Simeon; "thy mother 
 never taught thee so. I would do even the same for the 
 slaveholder as for the slave, if the Lord brought him to my 
 door in affliction." 
 
 Simeon second blushed scarlet; but his mother only 
 smiled, and said, " Simeon is my good boy ; he will grow 
 older by and by, and then he will be like his father." 
 
 " I hope, my good sir, that you are not exposed to any 
 difficulty on our account?" said George anxiously. 
 
 " Fear nothing, George, for therefore are we sent into the 
 world. If we would not meet trouble for a good cause, we 
 were not worthy of our name." 
 
 " But, for me" said George : " I could not bear it." 
 
 " Fear not, then, friend George ; it is not for thee, but for 
 God and man, we do it," said Simeon. "And now thou must 
 lie by quietly this day, and to-night, at ten o'clock, Phineas 
 Fletcher will carry thee onward to the next stand thee and 
 the rest of thy company. The pursuers are hard after thee ; 
 we must not delay." 
 
 " If that is the case, why wait till evening ?" said George. 
 
 "Thou art safe here by daylight, for every one in the 
 settlement is a Friend, and all are watching. It has been 
 found safer to travel by night."^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 EVANGELINE. 
 
 " A young star ! which shone 
 O'er life too sweet an image for such glass ! 
 A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded ; 
 A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded." 
 
 THE Mississippi ! How, as by an enchanted wand, have 
 its scenes been changed, since Chateaubriand wrote his 
 prose-poetic description of it, as a river of mighty, unbroken 
 solitudes, rolling amid undreamed wonders of vegetable and 
 animal existence. 
 
TOM FINDS GRACE "WITH HALET. 153 
 
 But, as in an hour, this river of dreams and wild romance 
 has emerged to a reality scarcely less visionary and splendid. 
 "What other river of the world bears on its bosom to the 
 ocean the wealth and enterprise of such another country ? 
 a country whose products embrace all between the tropics and 
 the poles ! Those turbid waters, hurrying, foaming, tearing 
 along, an apt resemblance of that headlong tide of business 
 which is poured along its wave by a race more vehement 
 and energetic than any the old world ever saw. Ah ! would 
 that they did not also bear along a more fearful freight, the 
 tears of the oppressed, the sighs of the helpless, the bitter 
 prayers of poor, ignorant hearts to an unknown God 
 unknown, unseen, and silent, but who will yet " come out of 
 his place to save all the poor of the earth ! " 
 
 The slanting light of the setting sun quivers on the sea- 
 like expanse of the river ; the shivery canes, and the tall, 
 dark cypress, hung with wreaths of dark, funereal moss, glow 
 in the golden ray, as the heavily-laden steamboat marches 
 onward. 
 
 Piled with cotton-bales from many a plantation, up over 
 deck and sides, till she seems in the distance a square, mas- 
 sive block of grey, she moves heavily onward to the nearing 
 mart. We must look some time among its crowded decks 
 before we shall find again our humble friend Tom. High on 
 the upper deck, in a little nook among the everywhere 
 predominant cotton bales, at last we may find him. 
 
 Partly from confidence inspired by Mr. Shelby's repre- 
 sentations, and partly from the remarkably inoffensive 
 and quiet character of the man, Tom had insensibly won 
 his way far into the confidence even of such a man as 
 Haley. 
 
 At first he had watched him narrowly through the day, 
 and never allowed him to sleep at night unfettered ; but the 
 uncomplaining patience and apparent contentment of Tom's 
 manner led him gradually to discontinue these restraints, 
 and for some time Tom had enjoyed a sort of parole of 
 honour, being permitted to come and go freely where he 
 pleased on the boat. 
 
 Ever quiet and obliging, and more than ready to lend a 
 hand in every emergency which occurred among the workmen 
 below, he had won the good opinion of all the hands, and 
 
154 TOM*S MIND REVERTS TO HOME. 
 
 spent many hours in helping them with as hearty a good 
 will as ever he worked on a Kentucky farm. 
 
 When there seemed to be nothing for him to do, he would 
 climb to a nook among the cotton-bales of the upper deck, 
 and busy himself in studying over his Bible and it is there 
 we see him now. 
 
 ^IFor a hundred or more miles above New Orleans, the 
 river is higher than the surrounding country, and rolls its 
 tremendous volume between massive levees twenty feet in 
 height. The traveller from the deck of the steamer, as from 
 some floating castle top, overlooks the whole country for 
 miles and mnes around. Tom, therefore, had spread out full 
 before him, in plantation after plantation, a map of the life 
 to which he was approaching. 
 
 He saw the distant slaves at their toil ; he saw afar their 
 villages of huts, gleaming out in long rows on many a planta- 
 tion, distant from the stately mansions and pleasure-grounds 
 of the master ; and as the moving picture passed on, his poor 
 foolish heart would be turning backward to the Kentucky 
 farm, with its old shadowy beeches to the master's house, 
 with its wide, cool halls, and near by, the little cabin, overgrown 
 with the multiflora and bignonia. There he seemed to see 
 familiar faces of comrades, who had grown up with him from 
 infancy ; he saw his busy wife, bustling in her preparations 
 for his evening meals ; he heard the merry laugh of his boys 
 at their play, and the chirrup of the baby at his knee, and 
 then, with a start, all faded, and he saw again the cane- 
 brakes and cypresses and gliding plantations, and heard again 
 the creaking and groaning of the machinery, all telling him 
 too plainly that all that phase of life had gone by for ever. 
 
 In such a case you write to your wife, and send messages 
 to your children ; but Tom could not write the mail for 
 him had no existence, and the gulf of separation was 
 unbridged by even a friendly word or signal. 
 
 Is it strange, then, that some tears fall on the pages of 
 his Bible, as he lays it on the cotton-bale, and with patient 
 finger, threading his slow way from word to word, traces out 
 its promises ? Having learned late in life, Tom was but a 
 slow reader, and passed on laboriously from verse to verse. 
 Fortunate for him was it that the book he was intent on 
 was one which slow reading cannot injure nay, one whose 
 
SCBIPTT7KE COHFOBTS. 155 
 
 words, like ingots of gold, seem often to need to be weighed 
 separately, that the mind may take in their priceless value. 
 Let us follow him a moment, as, pointing to each word, and 
 pronouncing each half aloud, he reads 
 
 " Let not your heart be troubled. In my 
 Father's house are many mansions. I go to 
 prepare a place for you." 
 
 Cicero, when he buried his darling and only daughter, Ittfi! 
 a heart as full of honest grief as poor Tom's perhaps no 
 fuller, for both were only men ; but Cicero could pause over 
 no such sublime words of hope, and look to no such future 
 re-union ; and if he had seen them, ten to one he would not 
 have believed he must fill his head first with a thousand 
 questions of authenticity of manuscript, and correctness of 
 translation. But to poor Tom, there it lay, just what he 
 needed, so evidently true and divine that the possibility of a 
 question never entered his simple head. It must be true ; 
 for if not true, how could he live ? 
 
 As for Tom's Bible, though it had no annotations and 
 helps in margin from learned commentators, still it had been 
 embellished with certain way-marks and guide-boards of 
 Tom's own invention, and which helped him more than the 
 most learned expositions could have done. It had been his 
 custom to get the Bible read to him by his master's children, 
 in particular by young Master George ; and as they read he 
 would designate, by bold strong marks and dashes, with 
 pen and ink, the passages which more particularly gratified 
 his ear or affected his heart. His Bible was thus marked 
 through from one end to the other, with a variety of styles 
 and designations ; so he could in a moment seize upon his 
 favourite passages, without the labour of spelling out what 
 lay between them ; and while it lay there before him, every 
 passage breathing of some old home scene, and recalling 
 some past enjoyment, his Bible seemed to him all of this life 
 that remained, as well as the promise of a future one. 
 
 Among the passengers on the boat was a young gentle- 
 man of fortune and family, resident in New Orleans, who 
 bore the name of St. Clare. He had with him a daughter 
 between five and six years of age, together with a lady, who 
 seemed to claim relationship to both, and to have the little 
 one especially under her charge. 
 
156 THE LITTLE GIEL IIS" THE STEAM-BOAT. 
 
 Tom had often caught glimpses of this little girl, for she 
 was one of those busy, tripping creatures that can be no 
 more contained in one place than a sunbeam or a summer 
 breeze ; nor was she one that, once seen, could be easily 
 forgotten. 
 
 Her form was the perfection of childish beauty, without 
 its usual chubbiness and squareness of outline. There was 
 about it an undulating and aerial grace, such as one might 
 dream of for some mythic and allegorical being.' Her face 
 was remarkable, less for its perfect beauty of feature than for 
 a singular and dreamy earnestness of expression, which made 
 the ideal start when they looked at her, and by which the 
 dullest and most literal were impressed, without exactly know- 
 ing why. The shape of her head and the turn of her neck 
 and bust was peculiarly noble ; and the long, golden-brown 
 hair that floated like a cloud around it, the deep, spiritual 
 gravity of her violet blue eyes, shaded by heavy fringes of 
 golden brown all marked her out from other children, and 
 made every one turn and look after her, as she glided hither 
 and thither on the boat. Nevertheless, the little one was 
 not what you would have called either a grave child or a 
 sad one. On the contrary, an airy and innocent playfulness 
 seemed to flicker like the shadow of summer leaves over her 
 childish face and around her buoyant figure. She was 
 always in motion, always with a half smile on her rosy 
 mouth, flying hither and thither, with an undulating and 
 cloud-like tread, singing to herself as she moved, as in a 
 happy dream. Her father and female guardian were inces- 
 santly busy in pursuit of her, but, when caught, she melted 
 from them again like a summer cloud : and as no word of 
 chiding or reproof ever fell on her ear for whatever she chose 
 to do, she pursued her own way all over the boat. Always 
 dressed in white, she seemed to move like a shadow through 
 all sorts of places, without contracting spot or stain; and 
 there was not a corner or nook, above or below, where those 
 fairy footsteps had not glided, and that visionary golden 
 head, with its deep blue eyes, fleeted along. 
 
 The fireman, as he looked up from his sweaty toil, some- 
 times found those eyes looking wonderingly into the raging 
 depths of the furnace, and fearfully and pityingly at him, as 
 if she thought him in some dreadful danger. Anon the 
 
FAIRY FOOTSTEPS. 157 
 
 steersman at the wheel paused and smiled, as the picture- 
 like head gleamed through the window of the round-house, 
 and in a moment was gone again. A thousand times a day 
 rough voices blessed her, and smiles of unwonted softness 
 stole over hard faces, as she passed ; and when she tripped 
 fearlessly over dangerous places, rough, sooty hands were 
 stretched involuntarily out to save her, and smooth her path. 
 
 Tom, who had the soft impressible nature of his kindly 
 race, ever yearning toward the simple and child-like, watched 
 the little creature with daily increasing interest. To him she 
 seemed something almost divine ; and whenever her golden 
 head and deep blue eyes peered out upon him from behind 
 some dusky cotton-bale, or looked down upon him over some 
 ridge of packages, he half believed that he saw one of the 
 angels stepped out of his New Testament. 
 
 Often and often she walked mournfully round the place 
 where Haley's gang of men and women sat in their chains. 
 She would glide in among them, and look at them with an 
 air of perplexed and sorrowful earnestness ; and sometimes 
 she would lift their chains with her slender hands, and then 
 sigh woefully, as she glided away. Several times she appeared 
 suddenly among them, with her hands full of candy, nuts, and 
 oranges, which she would distribute joyfully to them, and 
 then be gone again. 
 
 Tom watched the little lady a great deal, before he 
 ventured on any overtures towards acquaintanceship. He 
 knew an abundance of simple acts to propitiate and invite 
 the approaches of the little people, and he resolved to play 
 his part right skilfully. He could cut cunning little baskets 
 out of cherry-stones, could make grotesque faces on hickory 
 nuts, or odd-jumping figures out of elder-pith, and he 
 was a very Pan in the manufacture of whistles of all sizes 
 and sorts. His pockets were full of miscellaneous articles 
 of attraction, which he had hoarded in days of old for his 
 master's children, and which he now produced, with com- 
 mendable prudence and economy, one by one, as overtures 
 for acquaintance and friendship. 
 
 The little one was shy, for all her busy interest in every- 
 thing going on, and it was not easy to tame her. FOT a 
 while, she would perch like a canary-bird on some box or 
 package near Tom, while busy in the little arts aforenamed, 
 
158 EVANGELINE ST. OLAEE. 
 
 and take from him, with, a kind of grave bashfulness, the 
 little articles he offered. But at last they got on quite 
 confidential terms. 
 
 " What's little missy's name ? " said Tom at last, when he 
 thought matters were ripe to push such an inquiry. 
 
 " Evangeline St. Clare," said the little one, " though 
 papa and everybody else call me Eva. Now, what's your 
 name?" 
 
 "My name's Tom; the little chil'en used to call me 
 Uncle "Tom, way back thar in Kentuck." 
 
 " Then I mean to call you Uncle Tom, because, you see, 
 I like you," said Eva. " So, Uncle Tom, where are you 
 going?" 
 
 " I don't know, Miss Eva." 
 
 " Don't know ? " said Eva. 
 
 "No. I am going to be sold to somebody. I don't 
 know who." 
 
 " My papa can buy you," said Eva, quickly ; " and if he 
 buys you, you will have good times. I mean to ask him to, 
 this very day." 
 
 " Thank you, my little lady," said Tom. 
 
 The boat here stopped at a small landing to take in wood, 
 and Eva, hearing her father's voice, bounded nimbly away. 
 Tom rose up, and went forward to offer his service in 
 wooding, and soon was busy among the hands. 
 
 Eva and her father were standing together by the railings 
 to see the boat start from the landing-place, the wheel had 
 made two or three revolutions in the water, when, by some 
 sudden movement, the little one suddenly lost her balance, 
 and fell sheer over the side of the boat into the water. Her 
 father, scarce knowing what he did, was plunging in after 
 her, but was held back by some behind him, who saw that 
 more efficient aid had followed his child. 
 
 Tom was standing just under her, on the lower deck, as 
 she fell. He saw her strike the water and sink, and was 
 after her in a moment. A broad-chested, strong-armed fellow, 
 it was nothing for him to keep afloat in the water, till, in a 
 moment or two, the child rose to the surface, and he caught 
 her in his arms, and, swimming with her to the boat-side, 
 handed her up, all dripping, to the grasp of hundreds of 
 hands, which, as if they had all belonged to one man, were 
 
TOM'S BEAYE EXPLOIT. 159 
 
 stretched eagerly out to receive her. A few moments more, 
 and her father bore her, dripping and senseless, to the ladies' 
 cabin, where, as is usual in cases of the kind, there ensued a 
 very well-meaning and kind-hearted strife among the female 
 
 occupants generally, as to who should do the most things to 
 r.ialvc a disturbance, and- to hinder her recovery in every way / 
 possible: - -- 
 
 It was a sultry close day, the next day, as the steamer 
 drew near to New Orleans. A general bustle of expectation 
 and preparation was spread through the boat ; in the cabin, 
 one and another were gathering their things together and 
 arranging them preparatory to going ashore. The steward 
 and chambermaid, and all, were busily engaged in cleaning, 
 furbishing, and arranging the splendid boat, preparatory to a 
 grand entree. 
 
 On the lower deck sat our friend Tom, with his arms 
 folded, and anxiously, from time to time, turning his eyes 
 towards a group on the other side of the boat. 
 
 There stood the fair Evangeline, a little paler than the 
 day before, but otherwise exhibiting no traces of the accident 
 which had befallen her. A graceful, elegantly-formed young 
 man, stood by her, carelessly leaning one elbow on a bale of 
 cotton, while a large pocket-book lay open before him. It 
 was quite evident, at a glance, that the gentleman was Eva's 
 father. There was the same noble cast of head, the same 
 large blue eyes, the same golden-brown hair ; yet the expres- 
 sion was wholly different. In the large, clear blue eyes, 
 though in form and colour exactly similar, there was wanting 
 that misty, dreamy depth of expression ; all was clear, bold, 
 and bright, but with a light wholly of this world : the beau- 
 tifully-cut mouth had a proud and somewhat sarcastic ex- 
 pression, while an air of free-and-easy superiority sat not 
 ungracefully in every turn and movement of his fine form. 
 <He was listening with a good-humoured, negligent air, half 
 comic, half contemptuous, to Haley, who was very volubly 
 expatiating on the quality of the article for which they were 
 bargaining. 
 
 " All the moral and Christian virtues bound in black 
 morocco, complete ! " he said, when Haley had finished. 
 
160 HALEY PEAISES TOM'S GOOD QUALITIES. 
 
 " Well, now, my good fellow, what's the damage ? as they 
 say in Kentucky ; in short what's to be paid out for this 
 business ? How much are you going to cheat me, now ? 
 Out with it!" 
 
 " Wai," said Haley, " if I should say thirteen hundred 
 dollars for that ar fellow, I shouldn't but just save myself I 
 shouldn't, now, re'ly." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said the young man, fixing his keen, 
 mocking blue eye on him ; " but I suppose you would let me 
 have him for that, out of a particular regard for me ? " 
 
 " Well, the young lady here seems to be sot on him, and 
 nat'lly enough." 
 
 " Oh, certainly, there's a call on your benevolence, my 
 friend. Now, as a matter of Christian charity, how cheap 
 could you afford to let him go, to oblige a young lady that's 
 particular sot on him ? " 
 
 " Wai, now, just think on't," said the trader ; " just look 
 at them limbs broad-chested, strong as a horse. Look at 
 his head ; them high forrads al'ays shows calculatin' niggers, 
 that'll do any kind o' thing. I've marked that ar. Now, a 
 nigger of that ar heft and build is worth considerable, just, 
 as you may say, for his body, supposin' he's stupid : but 
 come to put in his calculatin' faculties, and them which I 
 can show he has oncommon, why, of course, it makes him 
 come higher. Why, that ar fellow managed his master's 
 whole farm. He has a strornary talent for business." 
 
 " Bad, bad, very bad ; knows altogether too much ! " said 
 the young man, with the same mocking smile playing about 
 his mouth. " Never will do in the world. Tour smart 
 fellows are always running off, stealing horses, and raising 
 the devil generally. I think you'll haye to take off a couple 
 of hundred for his smartness." 
 
 " Wai, there might be something in that ar, if it warn't 
 for his character; but I can show recommends from his 
 master and others, to prove he is one of your real pious the 
 most humble, pray in', pious critter ye ever did see. Why, 
 he's been called a preacher in them parts he came from." 
 
 "And I might use him for a family chaplain, possibly," 
 added the young man, dryly. " That's quite an idea. Reli- 
 gion is a remarkably scarce article at our house." 
 
 " You're joking, now." 
 
WHAT TOM IS WANTED FOE. 161 
 
 " How do you know I am ? Didn't you just warrant 
 him for a preacher ? Has he been examined by any synod 
 or council ? Come, hand over your papers." 
 
 If the trader had not been sure, by a certain good- 
 humoured twinkle in the large blue eye, that all this banter 
 was sure, in the long run, to turn out a cash concern, he 
 might have been somewhat out of patience ; as it was, he laid 
 down a greasy pocket-book on the cotton bales, and began 
 anxiously studying over certain papers in it, the young man 
 standing by the while, looking down on him with an air of 
 careless, easy drollery ; 
 
 " Papa, do buy him ! it's no matter what you pay,'* 
 whispered Eva softly, getting up on a package, and putting 
 her arm around her father's neck. "You have money 
 enough, I know. I want him." 
 
 " What for, pussy ? Are you going to use him for a 
 rattle-box, or a rocking-horse, or what ?" 
 
 " I want to make him happy." 
 
 " An original reason, certainly." 
 
 Here the trader handed up a certificate, signed by Mr. 
 Shelby, which the young man took with the tips of his long 
 fingers, and glanced over carelessly. 
 
 "A gentlemanly hand," he said, "and well spelt, too. 
 "Well, now, but I'm not sure, after all, about this religion," 
 said he, the old wicked expression returning to his eye ; 
 "the country is almost ruined with pious white people: 
 such pious politicians as we have just before elections such 
 pious goings on in all departments of church and state, 
 that a fellow does not know who'll cheat him next. I don't 
 know, either, about religion's being up in the market, just 
 now. I have not looked in the papers lately, to see how it 
 sells. How many hundred dollars, now, do you put on for 
 this religion?" 
 
 "You like to be a jokin', now," said the trader; "but 
 then there's sense under all that ar. I know there's 
 differences in religion. Some kinds is mis'rable: there's 
 your meetin' pious; there's your singin', roarin' pious; 
 them ar an't no account, in black or white : but these rayly 
 is; and I've seen it in niggers as often as any, your rail 
 softly, quiet, stiddy, honest pious, that the hull world 
 couldn't tempt 'em to do nothing that they thinks is 
 
 M 
 
162 A BILL OF SALE. 
 
 wrong ; and ye see in this letter what Tom's old master says 
 about him." 
 
 "Now," said the young man, stooping gravely over his 
 book of bills, " if you can assure me that I really can buy 
 this kind of. pious, and that it will be set down to my 
 account in the book up above, as something belonging to 
 me, I wouldn't care if I did go a little extra for it. How 
 d'ye say?" 
 
 "Wai, raily, I can't do that," said the trader. "I'm a 
 thinking that every man '11 have to hang on his own hook, 
 in them ar quarters." 
 
 " Bather hard on a fellow that pays extra on religion, and 
 can't trade with it in the State where he wants it most, an't 
 it, now ?" said the young man, who had been making out a 
 roll of bills while he was speaking. " There, count your 
 money, old boy!" he added, as he handed the roll to the 
 trader. 
 
 "All right," said Haley, his face beaming with delight; 
 and pulling out an old inkhorn, he proceeded to fill out 
 a bill of sale, which, in a few moments, he handed to the 
 young man. 
 
 " I wonder, now, if I was divided up and inventoried," 
 said the latter, as he ran over the paper, " how much I might 
 bring. Say so much for the shape of my head, so much for 
 a high forehead, so much for arms, and hands, and legs, and 
 then so much for education, learning, talent, honesty, reli- 
 gion ! Bless me, 1 there would be small charge on that last, 
 I'm thinking. But come, Eva," he said; and taking the 
 hand of his daughter, he stepped across the boat, and care- 
 lessly putting the tip of his finger under Tom's chin, said, 
 good-humouredly, "Look up, Tom, and see how you like 
 your new master." 
 
 Tom looked up. It was not in nature to look into that 
 gay, young, handsome face, without a feeling of pleasure ; 
 and Tom felt the tears start in his eyes as he said, heartily, 
 " God bless you, mas'r !" 
 
 "Well, I hope he Mall. What's your name? Tom? 
 Quite as likely to do it for your asking as mine, from all 
 accounts. Can you drive horses, Tom ? " 
 
 "I've been al'ays used to horses," said Tom. "Mas'r 
 Shelby raised heaps on 'em." 
 
TOM'S NEW MASTER. 163 
 
 " "Well, I think I shall put you in coachy, on condition 
 that you won't be drunk more than once a week, unless in 
 cases of emergency, Tom." 
 
 Tom looked surprised and rather hurt, and said, " I never 
 drink, mas'r." 
 
 " I've heard that story before, Tom ; but then we'll see. 
 It will be a special accommodation to all concerned if you 
 don't. Never mind, my boy," he added, good-humouredly, 
 seeing Tom still look grave ; " I don't doubt you mean to 
 do well." 
 
 " I sartin do, mas'r," said Tom. 
 
 " And you shall have good times," said Eva. " Papa is 
 very good to everybody 5 only he always will laugh at them." 
 
 c ' Papa islnuch obliged to you for his recommendation," 
 said St. Clare, laughing, as he turned on his heel, and walked 
 away. 
 
 CHAPTEE XY. 
 
 OF TOM'S NEW MASTER, AND VARIOUS OTHER MATTERS. 
 
 SINCE the thread of our humble hero's life has now become 
 interwoven with that of higher ones, it is necessary to give 
 some brief introduction to them. 
 
 Augustine St. Clare was the son of a wealthy planter of 
 Louisiana. The family had its origin in Canada. Of two 
 brothers, very similar in temperament and character, one 
 had settled on a nourishing farm in Yermont, and the other 
 became an opulent planter in Louisiana. The mother of 
 Augustine was a Huguenot French lady, whose family had 
 emigrated to Louisiana during the days of its early settle- 
 ment. Augustine and another brother were the only children 
 of their parents. Having inherited from his mother an 
 exceeding delicacy of constitution, he was, at the instance of 
 physicians, during many years of his boyhood, sent to the 
 care of his uncle in Yermont, in order that his constitution 
 might be strengthened by the cold of a more bracing 
 climate. 
 
 In childhood he was remarkable for an extreme and 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE IIISTOKY OF ST. CLAEE. 
 
 marked sensitiveness of character, more akin to the softness 
 of woman than the ordinary hardness of his own sex. Time, 
 however, overgrew this softness with the rough bark of man- 
 hood, and but few knew how living and fresh it still lay at 
 the core. His talents were of the very first order, although 
 his mind showed a preference always for the ideal and the 
 aesthetic ; and there was about him that repugnance to the 
 actual business of life which is the common result of this 
 balance of the faculties. Soon after the completion of his 
 college course, his whole nature was kindled into one intense 
 and passionate effervescence of romantic passion. His hour 
 came the hour that comes only once ; his star rose in the 
 horizon that star that rises so often in vain, to be remem- 
 bered only as a thing of dreams ; and it rose for him Hi vain. 
 To drop the figure, he saw and won the love of a high-minded 
 and beautiful woman, in one of the northern states, and they 
 were affianced. He returned south to make arrangements 
 for their marriage, when, most unexpectedly, his letters were 
 returned to him by mail, with a short note from her guardian, 
 stating to him that ere this reached him the lady would be 
 the wife of another. Stung to madness, he vainly hoped, as 
 many another has done, to fling the whole thing from his 
 heart by one desperate effort. Too proud to supplicate or 
 seek explanation, he threw himself at once into a whirl of 
 fashionable society, and in a fortnight from the time of the 
 fatal letter was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of 
 the season ; and as soon as arrangements could be made, he 
 became the husband of a fine figure, a pair of bright, dark 
 eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; and, of course, 
 everybody thought him a happy fellow. 
 
 The married couple were enjoying their honeymoon, and 
 entertaining a brilliant circle of friends in their splendid 
 villa near Lake Pontchartrain, when one day a letter was 
 brought to him in that well-remembered writing. It was 
 handed to him while he was in full tide of gay and successful 
 conversation, in a whole room-full of company. He turned 
 deadly pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved his 
 composure, and finished the playful warfare of badinage 
 which he was at the moment carrying on with a lady 
 opposite ; and, a short time after, was missed from the 
 circle. In his room, alone, he opened and read the letter, 
 
DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 165 
 
 now worse than idle and useless to be read. It was from 
 her, giving a long account of a persecution to which she had 
 been exposed by her guardian's family, to lead her to unite 
 herself with their son ; and she related how, for a long time, 
 his letters had ceased to arrive ; how she had written time 
 and again, till she became weary and doubtful; how her 
 health had failed under her anxieties, and how, at last, she 
 had discovered the whole fraud which had been practised on 
 them both. The letter ended with expressions of hope and 
 thankfulness, and professions of undying affection, which 
 were more bitter than death to the unhappy young man. 
 He wrote to her immediately : 
 
 " I have received yours but too late. I believed all I 
 heard. I was desperate. I am married, and all is over. 
 Only forget it is all that remains for either of us." 
 
 And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for 
 Augustine St. Clare ; but the real remained the real, like 
 the flat, bare, oozy tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, 
 with all its company of gliding boats and white-winged ships, 
 its music of oars and chiming waters, has gone down, and 
 there it lies, flat, slimy, bare exceedingly reaj. 
 
 Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die, 
 and that is the end of it ; and in a story this is very conve- 
 nient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes 
 life bright dies to us. There is a most busy and important 
 round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying, 
 selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what is com- 
 monly called living, yet to be gone through ; and this yet 
 remained to Augustine. Had his wife been a whole woman, 
 she might yet have done something as woman can to 
 mend the broken threads of life, and weave again into a 
 tissue of brightness. But Marie St. Clare could not even 
 see that they had been broken. As before stated, she con- 
 sisted of a fine figure, a pair of splendid eyes, and a hundred 
 thousand dollars ; and none of these items were precisely 
 the ones to minister to a mind diseased. 
 
 "When Augustine, pale as death, was found lying on the 
 sofa, and pleaded sudden sick-headache as the cause of his 
 distress, she recommended to him to smell of hartshorn ; and 
 when the paleness and headache 'came on week after week, 
 she only said that she never thought Mr. St. Clare was 
 
166 THE IDEAL OF A. WIFE. 
 
 sickly ; but it seems lie was very liable to sick-headaches, 
 and that it was a very unfortunate thing for her, because he 
 didn't enjoy going into company with her, and it seemed odd 
 to go so much alone, when they were just married. Augustine 
 was glad in his heart that he had married so undiscerning a 
 woman ; but as the glosses and civilities of the honeymoon 
 wore away he discovered that a beautiful young woman, who 
 has lived all her life to be caressed and waited on, might prove 
 quite a hard mistress in domestic life. Marie never had pos- 
 sessed much capability of affection, or much sensibility ; and 
 the little that she had had been merged into a most intense 
 and unconscious selfishness ; a selfishness the more hopeless 
 from its quiet obtuseness, its utter ignorance of any claims 
 but her own. From her infancy she had been surrounded 
 with servants, who lived only to study her caprices ; the idea 
 that they had either feelings or rights had never dawned 
 upon her, even in distant perspective. Her father, whose 
 only child she had been, had never denied her anything that 
 lay within the compass of human possibility ; and when she 
 entered life, beautiful, accomplished, and an heiress, she 
 had, of course, all the eligibles and non-eligibles of the other 
 sex sighing at her feet, and she had no doubt that Augustine 
 was a most fortunate man in having obtained her. It is a 
 great mistake to suppose that a woman with no heart will 
 be an easy creditor in the exchange of affection. There is 
 not on earth a more merciless exactor of love from others 
 than a thoroughly selfish woman ; and the more unlovely she 
 grows, the more jealously and scrupulously she exacts love, 
 to the uttermost farthing. "When, therefore, St. Clare began 
 to drop off those gallantries and small attentions which flowed 
 at first through the habitude of courtship, he found his sultana 
 no way ready to resign her slave ; there were abundance of 
 tears, poutings, and small tempests ; there were discontents, 
 pinings, upbraidings. St.. Clare was good-natured and self- 
 indulgent, and sought to buy off with presents and flatteries ; 
 and when Marie became mother to a beautiful daughter, he 
 really felt awakened for a time to something like tenderness. 
 St. Clare's mother had been a woman of uncommon eleva- 
 tion and purity of character, and he gave to this child his 
 mother's name, fondly fancying that she would prove a 
 reproduction of her image. The thing had been remarked 
 
NEW EFGLAKD FARM-HOUSE. 167 
 
 with petulant jealousy by his wife, and she regarded her 
 husband's absorbing devotion to the child with suspicion and 
 dislike ; all that was given to her seemed so much taken 
 from herself. Prom the time of the birth of this child her 
 health gradually sunk. A life of constant inaction, bodily 
 and mental the friction of ceaseless ennui and discontent, 
 united to the ordinary weakness which attended the period 
 of maternity in course of a few years changed the 
 blooming young belle into a yellow, faded, sickly woman, 
 whose time was divided among a variety of fanciful diseases, 
 and who considered herself, in every sense, the most ill-used 
 and suffering person in existence. 
 
 There was no end of her various complaints ; but her prin- 
 cipal forte appeared to He in sick-headache, which sometimes 
 would confine her to her room three days out of six. As, of 
 course, all family arrangements fell into the hands of servants, 
 St. Clare found his menage anything but comfortable. His 
 only daughter was exceedingly delicate, and he feared that, 
 with no one to look after her and attend to her, her health 
 and life might yet fall a sacrifice to her mother's inefficiency. 
 He had taken her with him on a tour to Vermont, and had 
 persuaded his cousin, Miss Ophelia St. Clare, to return with 
 him to his southern residence ; and they are now returning 
 on this boat, where we have introduced them to our readers. 
 
 And now, while the distant domes and spires of New 
 Orleans rise to our view, there is yet time for an introduction 
 to Miss Ophelia. 
 
 "Whoever has travelled in the New England States will 
 remember, in some cool village, the large farm-house, with its 
 clean-swept grassy yard, shaded by the dense and massive 
 foliage of the sugar-maple ; and remember the air of order 
 and stillness, of perpetuity and unchanging repose, that 
 seemed to breathe over the whole place. Nothing lost, or 
 out of order, not a picket loose in the fence, not a particle 
 of litter in the turfy yard, with its clumps of lilac-bushes 
 growing up under the windows. "Within, he will remember 
 wide, clean rooms, where nothing ever seems to be doing or 
 going to be done, where everything is once and for ever 
 rigidly in place, and where all household arrangements move 
 with the punctual exactness of the old clock in the corner. 
 In the family "keeping-room," as it is termed, he will 
 
168 OPHELIA ST. CLARE. 
 
 remember the staid, respectable old bookcase, with its glass 
 doors, where Rollin's History, Milton's Paradise Lost, 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Scott's Family Bible, 
 stand side by side in decorous order, with multitudes of 
 other books, equally solemn and respectable. There are no 
 servants in the house, but the lady in the snowy cap, with 
 the spectacles, who sits sewing every afternoon among her 
 daughters, as if nothing ever had been done, or were to be 
 done she and her girls, in some long-forgotten forepart of 
 the day, " did up the work" and for the rest of the time, 
 probably at all hours when you would see them, it is " done 
 up" The old kitchen-floor never seems stained or spotted ; 
 the tables, the chairs, and the various cooking utensils, never 
 seem deranged or disordered : though three and sometimes 
 four meals a day are got there, though the family washing 
 and ironing is there performed, and though pounds of butter 
 and cheese are in some silent and mysterious manner there 
 brought into existence. 
 
 On such a farm, in such a house and family, Miss Ophelia 
 had spent a quiet existence of some forty-five years, when 
 her cousin invited her to visit his southern mansion. The 
 eldest of a large family, she was still considered by her father 
 and mother as one of "the children," and the proposal that 
 she should go to Orleans was a most momentous one to the 
 family circle. The old grey-headed- father took down Morse's 
 Atlas out of the bookcase, and looked out the exact latitude 
 and longitude ; and read Flint's Travels in the South and 
 "West, to make up his own mind as to the nature of the 
 country. 
 
 The good mother inquired, anxiously, " if Orleans wasn't 
 an awful wicked place ; " saying, " that it seemed to her 
 most equal to going to the Sandwich Islands, or any where 
 among the heathen." 
 
 It was known at the minister's, and at the doctor's, and 
 at Miss Peabody's milliner's shop, that Ophelia St. Clare 
 was " talking about going away down to Orleans with her 
 cousin ; and, of course, the whole village could do no less 
 than help this very important process of talking about the 
 matter. The minister, who inclined strongly to Abolitionist 
 views, was quite doubtful whether such a step might not tend 
 somewhat to encourage the southerners in holding on to 
 
HEE CHAEACTEB. 169 
 
 their slaves ; wliile the doctor, who was a stanch Colonisa- 
 tionist, inclined to the opinion that Miss Ophelia ought to 
 go, to show the Orleans people that we don't think hardly 
 of them, after all. He was of opinion, in fact, that southern 
 people needed encouraging. When, however, the fact ^that 
 she had resolved to go was fully before the public mind', she 
 was solemnly invited out to tea by all her friends and 
 neighbours for the space of a fortnight, and her prospects 
 and plans duly canvassed and inquired into. Miss Mosely, 
 who came into the house to help to do the dress-making, 
 acquired daily accessions of importance from the develop- 
 ments with regard to Miss Ophelia's wardrobe which she had 
 been enabled to make. It was credibly ascertained that 
 Squire Sinclare, as his name was commonly contracted in 
 the neighbourhood, had counted out fifty dollars, and given 
 them to Miss Ophelia, and told her to buy any clothes she 
 thought best ; and that two new silk dresses, and a bonnet, 
 had been sent for from Boston. As to the propriety of this 
 extraordinary outlay, the public mind was divided ; some 
 affirming that it was well enough, all things considered, for 
 once in one's life, and others stoutly affirming that the money 
 had better have been sent to the missionaries ; but all parties 
 agreed that there had been no such parasol seen in those 
 parts as had been sent on from New York, and that she had 
 one silk dress that might fairly be trusted to stand alone, 
 whatever might be said of its mistress. There were credible 
 rumours, also, of a hem-stitched pocket-handkerchief; and 
 report even went so far as to state that Miss Ophelia had one 
 pocket-handkerchief with lace all around it it was even 
 added that it was worked in the corners ; but this latter 
 point was never satisfactorily ascertained, and remains, in 
 fact, unsettled to this day. 
 
 Miss Ophelia, as you now behold her, stands before you, 
 in a very shining brown linen travelling-dress, tall, square- 
 formed, and angular. Her face was thin, and rather sharp 
 in its outlines ; the lips compressed, like those of a person 
 who is in the habit of making up her mind definitely on all 
 subjects ; while the keen, dark eyes had a peculiarly 
 searching, advised movement, and travelled over everything, 
 as if they were looking for something to take care of. 
 
 All her movements were sharp, decided, and energetic j 
 
170 NEW ENGLAND WOMEN. 
 
 and, though she was never much of a talker, her words were 
 remarkably direct and to the purpose when she did speak. 
 
 In her habits, she was a living impersonation of order, 
 method, and exactness. In punctuality, she was as inevitable 
 as a clock, and as inexorable as a railroad engine ; and she 
 held in most decided contempt and abomination anything of 
 a contrary character. 
 
 The great sin of sins, in her eyes the sum of all evils 
 was expressed by one very common and important word in 
 her vocabulary " shiftlessness." Her finale and ultimatum 
 of contempt consisted in a very emphatic pronunciation of 
 the word "shiftless;" and by this she characterised all 
 modes of procedure which had not a direct and inevitable 
 relation to accomplishment of some purpose then definitely 
 had in mind. People who did nothing, or who did not know 
 exactly what they were going to do, or who did not take the 
 most direct way to accomplish what they set their hands to, 
 were objects of her entire contempt ; a contempt shown less 
 frequently by anything she said than by a kind of stony 
 grimness, as if she scorned to say anything about the 
 matter. 
 
 As to mental cultivation, she had a clear, strong, active 
 mind, was well and thoroughly read in history and the older 
 English classics, and thought with great strength within 
 certain narrow limits. Her theological tenets were all made 
 up, labelled in the most positive and distinct forms, and put 
 by, like the bundles in her patch trunk ; there were just so 
 many of them, and there were never to be any more. So, 
 also, were her ideas with regard to most matters of practical 
 life such as housekeeping in all its branches, and the 
 various political relations of her native village. And, under- 
 laying all, deeper than anything else, higher and broader, lay 
 the strongest principle of her being conscientiousness. 
 Nowhere is conscience so dominant and all-absorbing as 
 with New-England women. It is the granite formation, 
 which lies deepest, and rises out, even to the tops of the 
 highest mountains. 
 
 Miss Ophelia was the absolute bond-slave of the " ought" 
 Once make her certain that the " path of duty," as she 
 commonly phrased it, lay in any given direction, and fire and 
 water could not keep her from it. She would walk, straight 
 
MISS OPHELIA'S DUTIES. 171 
 
 down into a well, or up to a loaded cannon's mouth, if she 
 were only quite sure that there the path lay. Her standard 
 of right was so high, so all-embracing, so minute, and making 
 so few concessions to human frailty, that though she strove 
 with heroic ardour to reach it, she never actually did so, and 
 of course was burdened with a constant and often harassing 
 sense of deficiency. This gave a severe and somewhat 
 gloomy cast to her religious character. 
 
 But how in the world can Miss Ophelia get along with 
 Augustine St. Clare gay, easy, unpunctual, unpractical, 
 sceptical, in short, walking with impudent and nonchalant 
 freedom over every one of her most cherished habits and 
 opinions ? 
 
 To tell the truth, then, Miss Ophelia loved him. When 
 a boy, it had been hers to teach him his catechism, mend his 
 clothes, comb his hair, and bring him up generally in the 
 way he should go ; and her heart having a warm side to it, 
 Augustine had, as he usually did with most people, monopo- 
 lised a large share of it for himself, and therefore it was that 
 he succeeded very easily in persuading her that the " path of 
 duty" lay in the direction of New Orleans, and that she 
 must go with him to take care of Eva, and keep everything 
 from going to wreck and ruin during the frequent illnesses of 
 his wife. The idea of a house without anybody to take 
 care of it went to her heart ; then she loved the lovely little 
 girl, as few could help doing; and though she regarded 
 Augustine as very much of a heathen, yet she loved him, 
 laughed at his jokes, and forbore with his failings, to an 
 extent which those who knew him thought perfectly 
 incredible. But what more or other is to be known of 
 Miss Ophelia, our reader must discover by a personal 
 acquaintance. 
 
 There she is, sitting now in her state room, surrounded 
 by a mixed multitude of little and big carpet-bags, boxes, 
 baskets, each containing some separate responsibility which 
 she is tying, binding up, packing or fastening, with a face of 
 great earnestness. 
 
 " Now, Eva, have you kept count of your things ? Of 
 course you haven't children never do : there's the spotted 
 carpet-bag and the little blue band-box with your best 
 bonnet that's two ; then the India-rubber satchel is three j 
 
172 ETA AND HER AUNT. 
 
 and my tape and needle-box is four; and my band-box, 
 five ; and my collar-box, six ; and that little hair trunk, 
 seven. What have you done with your sunshade ? Give it 
 to me, and let me put a paper round it, and tie it to my 
 Umbrella with my shade : there now." 
 
 " Why, aunty, we are only going up home what is the 
 use?" 
 
 " To keep it nice, child ; people must take care of their 
 things if they ever mean to have anything. And now, Eva, 
 is your thimble put up ?" 
 
 " Eeally, aunty, I don't know." 
 
 " Well, never mind ; I'll look your box over. Thimble, 
 wax, two spoons, scissors, knife, tape-needle ; all right put 
 it in here. What did you ever do, child, when you were 
 coming on with only your papa ? I should have thought 
 you'd a lost everything you had." 
 
 " Well, aunty, I did lose a great many ; and then, when 
 we stopped anywhere, papa would buy some more of whatever 
 it was." 
 
 " Mercy on us, child, what a way! " 
 
 " It was a very easy way, aunty," said Eva. 
 
 " It's a dreadful shiftless one," said aunty. 
 
 "Why, aunty, what'll you do now?" said Eva. "That 
 trunk is too full to be shut down." 
 
 " It must shut down," said aunty, with the air of a 
 general, as she squeezed the things in, and sprung upon 
 the lid; still a little gap remained about the mouth of 
 the trunk. 
 
 " G-et up here, Eva ! " said Miss Ophelia, courageously ; 
 " what has been done can be done again. This trunk has got 
 to le shut and locked, there are no two ways about it." 
 
 And the trunk, intimidated, doubtless, by this resolute 
 statement, gave in. The hasp snapped sharply in its hole, 
 and Miss Ophelia turned the key, and pocketed it in triumph. 
 
 " Now we're ready. Where's your papa ? I think it 
 time this baggage was set out. Do look out, Eva, and see if 
 you see your papa." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he's down the other end of the gentlemen's 
 cabin, eating an orange." 
 
 " He can't know how near we are coming," said aunty ; 
 " hadn't you better run and speak to him ?" 
 
THE VANQUISHED TEUNK. 173 
 
 " Papa never is in a hurry about anything," said Eva, 
 "and we haven't come to the landing. Do step on the 
 guards, aunty. Look ! there's our house, up that street ! " 
 
 The boat now began, with heavy groans, like some vast, 
 tired monster, to prepare to push up among the multiplied 
 steamers at the levee. Eva joyously pointed out the various 
 spires, domes, and way-marks, by which she recognised her 
 native city. 
 
 " Yes, yes, dear ; very fine," said Miss Ophelia. " But 
 mercy on us ! the boat has stopped ! where is your father ?" 
 
 And now ensued the usual turmoil of landing waiters 
 running twenty ways at once men tugging trunks, carpet- 
 bags, boxes women anxiously calling to their children, and 
 everybody crowding in a dense mass to the plank towards 
 the landing. ' * 
 
 Miss Ophelia seated herself resolutely on the lately van- 
 quished trunk, and marshalling all her goods and chattels 
 in fine military order, seemed resolved to defend them to 
 the last. 
 
 " Shall I take your trunk, ma'am ?" " Shall I take your 
 baggage ? " " Let me 'tend to your baggage, missis." 
 "Shan't I carry out these yer, missis?" rained down upon 
 her unheeded. She sat with grim determination, upright as 
 a darning-needle stuck in a board, holding on her bundle of 
 umbrella and parasols, and replying with a determination 
 that was enough to strike dismay even into a hackman, won- 
 dering to Eva, in each interval, " what upon earth her papa 
 could be thinking of ; he couldn't have fallen over, now but 
 something must have happened ;" and just as she had begun 
 to work herself into a real distress, he came up with his 
 usually careless motion, and giving Eva a quarter of the 
 orange he was eating ,said 
 
 " Well, Cousin Vermont, I suppose you are all ready ?" 
 
 "I've been ready, waiting, nearly an hour," said Miss 
 Ophelia ; " r%e^an to be really concerned about you." 
 
 " That's a clever fellow, now," said he. " Well, the car- 
 riage is waiting, and the crowd are now off, so that one can 
 walk out in a decent and Christian manner, and not be 
 pushed and shoved. Here," he added to a driver who stood 
 behind him, " take these things." 
 
 " I'll go and see to his putting them in," said Miss Ophelia. 
 
174 A NEW ORLEANS MANSION. 
 
 " Oh, pshaw ! cousin ; what's the use ?" said St. Clare. 
 
 "Well, at any rate, I'll carry this, and this, and this," 
 said Miss Ophelia, singling out three boxes and a small 
 carpet-bag. 
 
 " My dear Miss Vermont, positively you mustn't come the 
 Green Mountains over us that way. You must adopt at 
 least a piece of a southern principle, and not walk out under 
 all that load. They'll take you for a waiting-maid ; give 
 them to this fellow ; he'll put them down as if they were 
 eggs, now." 
 
 Miss Ophelia looked despairingly as her cousin took all 
 her treasures from her, and rejoiced to find herself once 
 more in a carriage with them in a state of preservation. 
 
 " Where's Tom P" said Eva. 
 
 " Oh, he's on the outside, pussy. I'm going to take Tom 
 up to mother for a peace-offering, to make up for that 
 drunken fellow that upset the carriage." 
 
 " Oh, Torn will make a splendid driver, I know," said 
 Eva ; "he'll never get drunk." 
 
 The carriage stopped in front of an ancient mansion, built 
 in that odd mixture of Spanish and French style, of which 
 there are specimens in some parts of New. Orleans. It was 
 built in the Moorish fashion a square building enclosing a 
 court-yard, into which the carriage drove through an arched 
 gateway. The court, in the inside, had evidently been 
 arranged to gratify a picturesque and voluptuous ideality. 
 Wide galleries ran all around the four sides, whose Moorish 
 arches, slender pillars, and arabesque ornaments, carried the 
 mind back, as in a dream, to the reign of Oriental romance 
 in Spain. In the middle of the court, a fountain threw 
 high its silvery water, falling in a never-ceasing spray into a 
 marble basin, fringed with a deep border of fragrant violets. 
 The water in the fountain, pellucid as crystal, was alive with 
 myriads of gold and silver fishes, twinkling and darting 
 through it like so many living jewels. Around the fountain 
 ran a walk, paved with a mosaic of pebbles, laid in various 
 fanciful patterns ; and this again was surrounded by turf, 
 smooth as green velvet, while a carriage-drive inclosed the 
 whole. Two large orange-trees, now fragrant with blossoms, 
 threw a delicious shade ; and, ranged in a circle round upon 
 the turf were marble vases of arabesque sculpture, containing 
 
THE JOT OF HOME. 175 
 
 the choicest flowering plants of the tropics. Huge pome- 
 granate trees, with their glossy leaves and name-coloured 
 flowers, dark-leaved Arabian jessamines, with their silvery 
 stars, geraniums, luxuriant roses bending beneath their 
 heavy abundance of flowers, golden jessamines, lemon-scented 
 verbena, all united their bloom and fragrance, while here and 
 there a mystic old aloe, with its strange, massive leaves, sat 
 looking like some hoary old enchanter, sitting in weird 
 grandeur among the more perishable bloom and fragrance 
 around it. 
 
 The galleries that surrounded the court were festooned 
 with a curtain of some kind of Moorish stuff, and could be 
 drawn down at pleasure to exclude the beams of the sun. On 
 the whole, the appearance of the place was luxurious and 
 romantic. 
 
 As the carriage drove in, Eva seemed like a bird ready to 
 burst from a cage, with the wild eagerness of her delight. 
 
 " Oh, isn't it beautiful, lovely ! My own, dear, darling 
 home ! " she said to Miss Ophelia. " Isn't it beautiful ? " 
 
 " 'Tis a pretty place," said Miss Ophelia, as she alighted ; 
 " though it looks rather old and heathenish to me." 
 
 Tom got down from the carriage, and looked about with an 
 air of calm, still enjoyment. The negro, it must be remem- 
 bered, is an exotic of the most gorgeous and superb countries 
 of the world, and he has deep in his heart a passion for all 
 that is splendid, rich, and fanciful ; a passion which, rudely 
 indulged by an untrained taste, draws on them the ridicule 
 of the colder and more correct white race. 
 
 St. Clair, who was in his heart a poetical voluptuary, 
 smiled as Miss Ophelia made her remark on his premises, 
 and, turning to Tom, who was standing looking round, his 
 beaming black face perfectly radiant with admiration, he 
 
 Tom, my boy, this seems to suit you." 
 
 " Tes, mas'r, it looks about the right thing," said Tom. 
 
 All this passed in a moment, while trunks were being 
 hustled off, hackman paid, and while a crowd of all ages and 
 sizes men, women, and children, came running through the 
 galleries, both above and below, to see mas'r come in. Tore- 
 most among them was a highly-dressed young mulatto man, 
 evidently a very distingue personage, attired in the ultra 
 
176 ME. ADOLPH. 
 
 extreme of the mode, and gracefully waving a scented 
 cambric handkerchief in his hand. 
 
 This personage had been exerting himself, with great 
 alacrity, in driving all the flock of domestics to the other 
 end of the verandah. 
 
 " Back ! all of you. I am ashamed of you," he said in a 
 tone of authority. "Would you intrude on master's domestic 
 relations, in the first hour of his return ? " 
 
 All looked abashed at this elegant speech, delivered with 
 quite an air, and stood huddled together at a respectful dis- 
 tance, except two stout porters, who came up and began 
 conveying away the baggage. 
 
 Owing to Mr. Adolph's systematic arrangements, when 
 St. Clair turned round from paying the hackinan, there was 
 nobody in view but Mr. Adolph himself, conspicuous in 
 satin vest, gold guard-chain, and white pants, and bowing 
 with inexpressible grace and suavity. 
 
 " Ah, Adolph, is it you?" said his master, offering his 
 hand to him ; " how are you, boy ? " while Adolph poured 
 forth, with great fluency, an extemporary speech, which he 
 had been preparing, with great care, for a fortnight before. 
 
 " Well, well," said St. Clare, passing on, with his usual 
 air of negligent drollery, " that's very well got up, Adolph. 
 See that the baggage is well bestowed. I'll come to the 
 people in a minute;" and so saying, he led Miss Ophelia to 
 a large parlour that opened on to the verandah. 
 
 While this had been passing, Eva had flown like a bird 
 through the porch and parlour, to a little boudoir opening 
 likewise on the verandah. 
 
 A tall, dark-eyed, sallow woman, half rose from a couch on 
 which she was reclining. 
 
 " Mamma ! " said Eva, in a sort of rapture, throwing 
 herself on her neck, and embracing her over and over again. 
 
 " That'll do take care, child don't you make my head 
 ache ! " said the mother, after she had languidly kissed her. 
 
 St. Clare came in, embraced his wife, in true, orthodox, 
 husbandly fashion, and then presented to her his cousin. 
 Marie lifted her large eyes on her cousin with an air of some 
 curiosity, and received her with languid politeness. A 
 crowd of servants now pressed to the entry door, and among 
 them a middle-aged mulatto woman, of very respectable 
 
MASTER'S WELCOME HOME. 177 
 
 appearance, stood foremost, in a tremor of expectation and 
 joy, at the door. 
 
 " Oh, there's Mammy ! " said Eva, as she flew across the 
 room ; and, throwing herself into her arms, she kissed her 
 repeatedly. 
 
 This woman did not tell her that she made her head ache, 
 but, on the contrary, she hugged her, and laughed, and cried, 
 till her sanity was a thing to be doubted of; and when 
 released from her, Eva flew from one to another, shaking 
 hands and kissing, in a way that Miss Ophelia afterwards 
 declared fairly turned her stomach. 
 
 " Well ! " said Miss Ophelia, " you southern children can 
 do something that I couldn't." 
 
 " What, now, pray ? " said St. Clare. 
 
 " Well, I want to be kind to everybody, and I wouldn't 
 have anything hurt ; but, as to kissing " 
 
 " Niggers," said St. Clare, " that you're not up to ; eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's it. How can she ? " 
 
 St. Clare laughed as he went into the passage. " Halloa ! 
 here, what's to pay out here ? Here, you all Mammy, 
 Jimmy, Polly, Sukey glad to see mas'r ? " he said, as he 
 went shaking hands from one to another. " Look out for the 
 babies !" he added, as he stumbled over a sooty little urchin, 
 who was crawling upon all-fours. " If I step upon anybody, 
 let 'em mention it." 
 
 There was an abundance of laughing and blessing mas'r, 
 as St. Clare distributed small pieces of change among them. 
 
 " Come, now, take yourselves off, like good boys and 
 girls," he said ; and the whole assemblage, dark and light, 
 disappeared through a door into a large verandah, followed 
 by Eva, who carried a large satchel, which she had been 
 filling with apples, nuts, candy, ribbons, laces, and toys of 
 every description, during her whole homeward journey. 
 
 As St. Clare turned to go back, his eye fell upon Tom, 
 who was standing uneasily, shifting from one foot to the 
 other, while Adolph stood negligently leaning against the 
 banisters, examining Tom through an opera-glass, with an 
 air that would have done credit to any dandy living. 
 
 "Puh! you puppy," said his master, striking down the 
 opera-glass ; " is that the way you treat your company ? 
 Seems to me, Dolph," he added, laying his finger on the 
 
 N 
 
178 TOM INDUCTED COACHMAN. 
 
 elegant figured satin vest that Adolph was sporting, " seems 
 to me that's my vest." 
 
 " Oh ! master, this vest all stained with wine ! of 
 course a gentleman in master's standing never wears a vest 
 like this. I understood I was to take it. It does for a poor 
 nigger-feller, like me." 
 
 And Adolph tossed his head, and passed his fingers 
 through his scented hair, with a grace. 
 
 " So, that's it, is it ? " said St. Clare, carelessly. " "Well, 
 here, I'm going to show this Tom to his mistress, and then 
 you take him to the kitchen ; and mind you don't put on 
 any of your airs to him. He's worth two such puppies as 
 you/' 
 
 " Master always will have his joke," said Adolph, laugh- 
 ing. " I'm delighted to see master in such spirits." 
 
 " Here, Tom," said St. Clare, beckoning. 
 
 Tom entered the room. He looked wistfully on the 
 velvet carpets, and the before unimagined splendours of 
 mirrors, pictures, statues, and curtains, and, like the Queen 
 of Sheba before Solomon, there was no more spirit in him. 
 He look ^d afraid even to set his feet down. 
 
 " See .Vere, Marie," said St. Clare to his wife, " I've 
 bought yoi a coachman, at last, to order. I tell you he's a 
 regular hearse for blackness and Luoriety, and will drive you 
 like a funeral, if you want. Open your eyes, now, and look 
 at him. Now, don't say I never think about you when I'm 
 gone." 
 
 Marie opened her eyes, and fixed them on Tom, without 
 rising. 
 
 " I know he'll get drunk," she said. 
 
 " No, he's warranted a pious and sober article." 
 
 " Well, I hope he may turn out well," said the lady; "it's 
 more than I expect, though." 
 
 "Dolph," said St. Clare, "show Tom down stairs; and 
 mind yourself," he added ; " remember what I told you." 
 
 Adolph tripped gracefully forward, and Tom, with lumber- 
 ing tread, went after. 
 
 " He's a perfect behemoth !" said Marie. 
 
 " Come, now, Marie," said St. Clare, seating himself on a 
 stool beside her sofa, " be gracious, and say something pretfcv 
 to a follow." 
 
MAEIE ST. CLAEE. 179 
 
 " TouVe been gone a fortnight beyond the time," said the 
 lady, pouting. 
 
 " Well, you know I wrote you the reason." 
 
 " Such a short, cold letter f" said the lady. 
 
 " Dear me ! the mail was just going, and it had to be that 
 or nothing." 
 
 "That's just the way always," said the lady; "always 
 something to make your journeys long, and letters short." 
 
 " See here, now," he added, drawing an elegant velvet case 
 out of his pocket, and opening it, " here's a present I got for 
 you in New York." It was a daguerreotype, clear and soft 
 as an engraving, representing Eva and her father sitting 
 hand in hand. 
 
 Marie looked at it with a dissatisfied air. 
 
 " What made you sit in such an awkward position ?" she 
 said. 
 
 " Well, the position may be a matter of opinion ; but what 
 do you think of the likeness ?" 
 
 " If you don't think anything of my opinion in one case, I 
 suppose you wouldn't in another," said the lady, shutting the 
 daguerreotype. 
 
 " Hang the woman !" said St. Clare, mentally ; but aloud 
 he added, " Come, now, Marie, what do you think of the 
 likeness ? Don't be nonsensical, now." 
 
 " It's very inconsiderate of you, St. Clare," said the lady, 
 " to insist on my talking and looking at things. You know 
 I've been lying all day with the sick-headache ; and there's 
 been such a tumult made ever since you came, I'm half 
 dead." 
 
 "You're subject to the sick-headache, ma'am ?" said Miss 
 Ophelia, suddenly rising from the depths of the large arm- 
 chair, where she had sat quietly, taking an inventory of the 
 furniture, and calculating its expense. 
 
 " Yes, I'm a perfect martyr to it," said the lady. 
 
 " Juniper-berry tea is good for sick-headache," said Miss 
 Ophelia ; " at least, Augustine, Deacon Abraham Perry's 
 wife, used to say so ; and she was a great nurse." 
 
 " I'll have the first juniper-berries that get ripe in our 
 garden by the lake brought in for that especial purpose," 
 said St. Clare, gravely pulling the bell as he did so; 
 " meanwhile, cousin, you must be wanting to retire to your 
 
 N 2 
 
180 TOM'S MISTRESS AND HER OPINIONS. 
 
 apartment, and refresh yourself a little after your journey. 
 Dolph," he added, " tell Mammy to come here." The decent 
 mulatto woman whom Eva had caressed so rapturously soon 
 entered ; she was dressed neatly, with a high red and yellow 
 turban on her head, the recent gift of Eva, and which the 
 child had been arranging on her head. " Mammy," said St. 
 Clare, " I put this lady under your care ; she is tired, and 
 wants rest. Take her to her chamber, and be sure she is 
 made comfortable;" and Miss Ophelia disappeared in the 
 rear of Mammy. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TOM'S MISTRESS AND HER OPINIONS. 
 
 "AND now, Marie," said St. Clare, "your golden days are 
 dawning. Here is our practical, business-like New England 
 cousin, who will take the whole budget of cares off your 
 shoulders, and give you time to refresh yourself, and grow 
 young and handsome. The ceremony of delivering the keys 
 had better come off forthwith." 
 
 This remark was made at the breakfast-table, a few 
 mornings after Miss Ophelia had arrived. 
 
 " I'm sure she's welcome," said Marie, leaning her head 
 languidly on her hand. " I think she'll find one thing, if she 
 does, and that is, that it's we mistresses that are the slaves, 
 down here." 
 
 " Oh, certainly, she will discover that, and a world of 
 wholesome truths besides, no doubt," said St. Clare. 
 
 " Talk about our keeping slaves, as if we did it for our 
 convenience'' said Marie. " I'm sure, if we consulted that, 
 we might let them all go at once." 
 
 Evangeline fixed her large, serious eyes on her mother's 
 face, with an earnest and perplexed expression, and said 
 simply, " What do you keep them for, mamma ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure, except for a plague ; they are 
 the plague of my life. I believe that more of my ill- 
 health is caused by them than by any one thing ; and 
 
MAMMY AND HEE MISTRESS. 181 
 
 ours, I know, are the very worst that ever anybody was 
 plagued with." 
 
 " Oh, come, Marie, you've got the blues this morning," 
 said St. Clare. " You know 'tisn't so. There's Mammy, the 
 best creature living what could you do without her ? " 
 
 " Mammy is the best I ever knew," said Marie ; " and 
 yet Mammy, now, is selfish dreadfully selfish ; it's the fault 
 of the whole race." 
 
 " Selfishness is a dreadful fault," said St. Clare, gravely. 
 
 " Well, now, there's Mammy," said Marie ; " I think it's 
 selfish of her to sleep so sound nights ; she knows I need 
 little attentions almost every hour, when my worst turns are 
 on, and yet she's so hard to wake. I absolutely am worse, 
 this very morning, for the efforts I had to make to wake her 
 last night." 
 
 " Hasn't she sat up with you a good many nights lately, 
 mamma ? " said Eva. 
 
 " How should you know that ? " said Marie, sharply ; 
 " she's been complaining, I suppose." 
 
 " She didn't complain ; she only told me what bad nights 
 you'd had so many in succession ! " 
 
 " Why don't you let Jane or Rosa take her place a night 
 or two," said St. Clare, "and let her rest ? " 
 
 " How can you propose it ? " said Marie. " St. Clare, 
 you really are inconsiderate ! So nervous as I am, the least 
 breath disturbs me ; and a strange hand about me would 
 drive me absolutely frantic. If Mammy felt the interest in 
 me she ought to, she'd wake easier of course she would. 
 I've heard of people who had such devoted servants,, but it 
 never was my luck ; " and Marie sighed. 
 
 Miss Ophelia had listened to this conversation with an air 
 of shrewd, observant gravity ; and she still kept her lips 
 tightly compressed, as if. determined fully to ascertain her 
 longitude and position, before she committed herself. 
 
 " Now, Mammy has a sort of goodness," said Marie ; 
 "she's smooth and respectful, but she's selfish at heart. 
 Now, she never will be done fidgeting and worrying about 
 that husband of hers. You see, when 1 was married and 
 came to live here, of course I had to bring her with me, and 
 her husband, my father couldn't spare. He was a black- 
 smith, and, of course, very necessary ; and I thought and 
 
182 DIFFERENT OPINIONS OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 said, at the time, that Mammy and he had better give each 
 other up, as it wasn't likely to be convenient for them ever 
 to live together again. I wish now I'd insisted on it, and 
 married Mammy to somebody else ; but I was foolish and 
 indulgent, and didn't want to insist. I told Mammy at the 
 time that she musn't ever expect to see him more than once 
 or twice in her life again, for the air of father's place doesn't 
 agree with my health, and I can't go there ; and I advised 
 her to take up with somebody else ; but no she wouldn't. 
 Mammy has a kind of obstinacy about her, in spots, that 
 everybody don't see as I do." 
 
 " Has she children ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Yes ; she has two." 
 
 " I suppose she feels the separation from them ?" 
 
 " "Well, of course, I couldn't bring them. They were 
 little dirty things I couldn't have them about ; and, besides, 
 they took up too much of her time ; but I believe that 
 Mammy has always kept up a sort of sulkiness about this. 
 She won't marry anybody else ; and I do believe now, though 
 she knows how necessary she is to me, and how feeble my 
 health is, she would go back to her husband to-morrow, if 
 she only could. I do, indeed," said Marie ; " they are just so 
 selfish, now, the best of them." 
 
 " It's distressing to reflect upon," said St. Clare, dryly. 
 
 Miss Ophelia looked keenly at him, and saw the flush of 
 mortification and repressed vexation, and the sarcastic curl 
 of the lip, as he spoke. 
 
 "Now, Mammy has always been a pet with me," said 
 Marie. " I wish some of your northern servants could look 
 at her closets of dresses, silks and muslins, and one real 
 linen cambric, she has hanging there. I've worked some- 
 times whole afternoons, trimming her caps, and getting her 
 ready to .go to a party. As to abuse, she don't know what 
 it is. She never was whipped more than once or twice in her 
 whole life. She has her strong coffee or her tea every day, 
 with white sugar in it. It's abominable, to be sure; but 
 St. Clare will have high life below stairs, and they, every 
 one of them, live just as they please. The fact is, our 
 servants are over indulged. I suppose it is partly our fault 
 that they are selfish, and act like spoiled children ; but I've 
 talked to St. Clare till I am tired." 
 
EYA'S KIND OITEB. 183 
 
 " And I, too," said St. Clare, taking up the morning paper. 
 
 Eva, the beautiful Eva, had stood listening to her mother, 
 with that expression of deep and mystic earnestness which 
 was peculiar to her. She walked softly round to her mother's 
 chair, and put her arms round her neck. ; ; 
 
 " Well, Eva, what now ? " said Marie. 
 
 " Mamma, couldn't I take care of you one night just 
 one ? I know I shouldn't make you nervous, and I shouldn't 
 sleep. I often lie awake nights thinking " 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, child nonsense ! " said Marie ; you are 
 such a strange child !" 
 
 " But may I, mamma ? I think," she said timidly, " that 
 Mammy isn't well. She told me her head ached all the 
 time lately." 
 
 " Oh, that's just one of Mammy's fidgets ! Mammy is 
 just like all the rest of them makes such a fuss about 
 every little head-ache or finger-ache ; it'll never do to en- 
 courage it never ! I'm principled about this matter," said 
 she, turning to Miss Ophelia ; " you'll find the necessity of it. 
 If you encourage servants in giving way to every little dis- 
 agreeable feeling, and complaining of every little ailment, 
 you'll have your hands full. I never complain myself 
 nobody knows what I endure. I feel it a duty to bear it !! 
 quietly, and I do." 
 
 Miss Ophelia's round eyes expressed an undisguised 
 amazement at this peroration, which struck St. Clare as so 
 supremely ludicrous that he burst into a loud laugh. 
 
 " St. Clare always laughs when I make the least allusion 
 to my ill-health," said Marie, with the voice of a suffering 
 martyr. " I only hope the day won't come when he'll 
 remember it ! " and Marie put her handkerchief to her eyes. 
 
 Of course there was rather a foolish silence. Pinally, St. 
 Clare got up, looked at his watch, and said he had an engage- 
 ment down street. Eva tripped away after him, and Miss 
 Ophelia and Marie remained at the table alone. 
 
 " Now, that's just like St. Clare ! " said the latter, with- 
 drawing her handkerchief with somewhat of a spirited 
 flourish, when the criminal to be affected by it was no 
 longer in sight. 
 
 " He never realises, never can, never will, what I suffer, 
 and have for years. If I was one of the complaining 
 
184 MRS. ST. CLARE AKD MISS OPHELIA. 
 
 sort, or ever made any fuss about my ailments, there would 
 be some reason for it. Men do get tired, naturally, of a 
 complaining wife. But I've kept things to myself, and 
 borne, and borne, till St. Clare has got in the way of 
 thinking I can bear anything." 
 
 Miss Ophelia did not exactly know what she was expected 
 to answer to this. 
 
 While she was thinking what to say, Marie gradually 
 wiped away her tears, and smoothed her plumage in a 
 general sort of way, as a dove might be supposed to make 
 toilet after a shower, and began a housewifely chat with 
 Miss Ophelia, concerning cupboards, closets, linen-presses, 
 store-rooms, and other matters, of which the latter was, by 
 common understanding, to assume the direction giving her 
 so many cautions, directions, and charges, that a head less 
 systematic and business-like than Miss Ophelia's would have 
 been utterly dizzied and confounded. 
 
 " And now," said Marie, " I believe I've told you every- 
 thing ; so that, \vhen my next sick turn comes on, you'll be 
 able to go forward entirely, without consulting me ; only 
 about Eva she requires watching." 
 
 " She seems to be a good child, very," said Miss Ophelia ; 
 " I never saw a better child." 
 
 "Eva's peculiar," said her mother, "very. There are 
 things about her so singular: she isn't like me, now, a 
 particle: " and Marie sighed, as if this was a truly melancholy 
 consideration. 
 
 Miss Ophelia in her own heart said, " I hope she isn't," 
 but had prudence enough to keep it down. 
 
 " Eva always was disposed to be with servants ; and I 
 think that well enough with some -children. Now, I always 
 played with father's little negroes it never did me any 
 harm. But Eva somehow always seems to put herself on an 
 equality with every creature that comes near her. It's a 
 strange thing about the child. I never have been able to 
 break her of it. St. Clare, I believe, encourages her in it. 
 The fact is, St. Clare indulges every creature under this roof 
 but his own wife." 
 
 Again Miss Ophelia sat in blank silence. 
 
 " Now, there's no way with servants," said Marie, "but 
 to put them down, and keep them down. It was always 
 
FAMILY DIFFICULTIES. 185 
 
 natural to me, from a child. Eva is enough to spoil a whole 
 house-full. YVhat she will do when she comes to keep house 
 herself, I'm sure I don't know. I hold to being kind to 
 servants I always am; but you must make 'em know 
 their place. Eva never does ; there's no getting into the 
 child's head the first beginning of an idea what a servant's 
 place is ! You heard her offering to take care of me nights, 
 to let Mammy sleep ! That's just a specimen of the way 
 the child would be doing all the time, if she was left to 
 herself." 
 
 " Why," said Miss Ophelia bluntly, " I suppose you think 
 your servants are human creatures, and ought to have some 
 rest when they are tired ?" 
 
 " Certainly, of course. I'm very particular in letting them 
 have every thing that comes convenient anything that 
 doesn't put one at all out of the way, you know. Mammy 
 can make up her sleep, some time or other ; there's no diffi- 
 culty about that. She's the sleepiest concern that ever I 
 saw ; sewing, standing, or sitting, that creature will go to 
 sleep, and sleep anywhere and everywhere. No danger but 
 Mammy gets sleep enough. But this treating servants as if 
 they were exotic flowers or china vases is really ridiculous," 
 said Marie, as she plunged languidly into the depths of a 
 voluminous and pillowy lounge, and drew towards her an 
 elegant cut-glass vinaigrette. 
 
 "You see," she continued, in a faint and lady-like voice, 
 like the last dying breath of an Arabian jessamine, or some- 
 thing equally ethereal, " you see, Cousin Ophelia, I don't 
 often speak of myself. It isn't my habit ; 'tisn't agreeable 
 to me. In fact, I haven't strength to it. But there are 
 points where St. Clare and I differ. St. Clare never under- 
 stood me, never appreciated me. I think it lies at the root 
 of all my ill-health. St. Clare means well, I am bound to 
 believe ; but men are constitutionally selfish and inconsiderate 
 to woman. That, at least, is my impression." 
 
 Miss Ophelia, who had not a small share of the genuine 
 New England caution, and a very particular horror of being 
 drawn into family difficulties, now began to foresee some- 
 thing of this kind impending : so, composing her face into a 
 grim neutrality, and drawing out of her pocket about a yard 
 and a quarter of stocking, which she kept as a specific against 
 
186 AN INTERESTING CONVERSATION. 
 
 what Dr. Watts asserts to be a personal habit of Satan 
 when people have idle hands, she proceeded to knit most 
 energetically, shutting her lips together in a way that said, as 
 plain as words could, " You needn't try to make me speak. 
 I don't want anything to do with your affairs" in fact, 
 she looked about as sympathising as a stone lion. But 
 Marie didn't care for that. She had got somebody to talk 
 to, and she felt it her duty to talk, and that was enough ; and 
 reinforcing herself by smelling again at her vinaigrette, she 
 went on. 
 
 " Tou see, I brought my own property and servants into 
 the connection when I married St. Clare, and I am legally 
 entitled to manage them my own way. St. Clare had his for- 
 tune and his servants, and I'm well enough content he should 
 manage them his way ; but St. Clare will be interfering. He 
 has wild extravagant notions about things, particularly about 
 the treatment of servants. He really does act as if he set 
 his servants before me, and before himself, too ; for he lets 
 them make him all sorts of trouble, and never lifts a finger. 
 Now, about some things, St. Clare is really frightful he 
 frightens me good-natured as he looks, in general. Now, 
 he has set down his foot that, come what will, there shall not 
 be a blow struck in this house, except what he or I strike ; 
 and he does it in a way that I really dare not cross him. 
 "Well, you may see what that leads to ; for St. Clare wouldn't 
 raise his hand, if every one of them walked over him, and I 
 you see how cruel it would be to require me to make the 
 exertion. Now, you know these servants are nothing but 
 grown-up children." 
 
 " I don't know anything about it, and I thank the Lord 
 that I don't ! " said Miss Ophelia, shortly. 
 
 " "Well, but you will have to know something, and know 
 it to your cost, if you stay here. You don't know what a 
 provoking, stupid, careless, unreasonable, childish, ungrateful 
 set of wretches they are." 
 
 Marie seemed wonderfully supported, always, when she 
 got upon this topic; and she now opened her eyes, and 
 seemed quite to forget her languor. 
 
 " You don't know, and you can't, the daily, hourly trials 
 that beset a housekeeper from them, every where and every 
 way. But it's no use to complain to St. Clare. He talks 
 
MISS OPHELIA'S KNITTING-NEEDLES. 187 
 
 the strangest stuff. He says we have made them what they 
 are, and ought to bear with them. He says their faults are 
 all owing to us, and that it would be cruel to make the fault 
 and punish it too. He says we shouldn't do any better, in 
 their place ; just as if one could reason from them to us, 
 you know." 
 
 " Don't you believe that the Lord made them of one blood 
 with us ? " said Miss Ophelia, shortly. 
 
 " No, indeed, not I ! A pretty story, truly ! They are a 
 degraded race." 
 
 " Don't you think they've got immortal souls ? " said Miss 
 Ophelia, with increasing indignation. 
 
 " Oh, well," said Marie, yawning, " that, of course 
 nobody doubts that. But as to putting them on any sort of 
 equality with us, you know, as if we could be compared, 
 why, it's impossible ! Now, St. Clare really has talked to 
 me as if keeping Mammy from her husband was like keeping 
 me from mine. There's no comparing in this way. Mammy 
 couldn't have the feelings that I should. It's a different 
 thing altogether of course, it is ; and yet St. Clare pretends 
 not to see it. And just as if Mammy could love her little 
 dirty babies as I love Eva ! Yet St. Clare once really and 
 soberly tried to persuade me that it was my duty, with my 
 weak health, and all I suffer, to let Mammy go back, and 
 take somebody else in her place. That was a little too 
 much even for me to bear. I don't often show my feelings. 
 I make it a principle to endure everything in silence ; it's 
 a wife's hard lot, and I bear it. But I did break out, that 
 time ; so that he has never alluded to the subject since. 
 But I know by his looks, and little things that he says, that 
 he thinks so as much as ever; and it's so trying, so 
 provoking ! " 
 
 Miss Ophelia looked very much as if she was afraid she 
 should say something; but she rattled away with her 
 needles in a way that had volumes of meaning in it, if 
 Marie could only have understood it. 
 
 " So, you just see," she continued, " what you've got to 
 manage. A household without any rule ; where servants 
 have it all their own way, do what they please, and have 
 what they please, except so far as I, with my feeble health, 
 have kept up government. I keep my cowhide about, and 
 
188 THE CALABOOSE. 
 
 sometimes I do lay it on ; but the exertion is always too 
 much for me. If St. Clare would only have this thing done 
 as others do " 
 
 "And how's that?" 
 
 " Why, send them to the calaboose, or some of the other 
 places, to be flogged. That's the only way. If I wasn't 
 such a poor, feeble piece, I believe I should manage with 
 twice the energy that St. Clare does." 
 
 " And how does St. Clare contrive to manage ? " said Miss 
 Ophelia. " You say he never strikes a blow." 
 
 " Well, men have a more commanding way, you know ; 
 it is easier for them : besides, if you ever looked full in his 
 eye, it's peculiar that eye and if he speaks decidedly, 
 there's a kind of flash. I'm afraid of it, myself; and the 
 servants know they must mind. I couldn't do as much by 
 a regular storm and scolding as St. Clare can by one turn 
 of his eye, if once he is in earnest. Oh, there's no trouble 
 about St. Clare ; that's the reason he has no more feeling 
 for me. But you'll find, when you come to manage, that 
 there's no getting along without severity they are so bad, 
 so deceitful, so lazy." 
 
 "The old tune," said St. Clare, sauntering in. "What 
 an awful account these wicked creatures will have to settle, 
 at last, especially for being lazy! You see, cousin," said he, 
 as he stretched himself at full length on a lounge opposite to 
 Marie, " it's wholly inexcusable in them, in the light of the 
 example that Marie and I set them, this laziness." 
 
 " Come, now, St. Clare, you are too bad!" said Marie. 
 
 " Am I, now ? Why, I thought I was talking good, quite 
 remarkably for me. I try to enforce your remarks, Marie, 
 always." 
 
 "You know you meant no such thing, St. Clare," said 
 Marie. 
 
 " Oh, I must have been mistaken, then. Thank you, my 
 dear, for setting me right." 
 
 " You do really try to be provoking," said Marie. 
 
 " Oh, come, Marie, the day is growing warm, and I have 
 just had a long quarrel with Dolph, which has fatigued me 
 excessively ; so, pray be agreeable now, and let a fellow 
 repose in the light of your smile." 
 
 " What's the matter about Dolph ? " said Marie. " That 
 
ME. ADOLPH'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 189 
 
 fellow's impudence has been growing to a point that is per- 
 fectly intolerable to me. I only wish I had the undisputed 
 management of him a while. I'd bring him down." 
 
 " What you say, my dear, is marked with your usual 
 acuteness and good sense," said St. Clare. " As to Dolph, 
 the case is this : that he has so long been engaged in imi- 
 tating my graces and perfections, that he has at last really 
 mistaken himself for his master ; and I have been obliged to 
 give him a little insight into his mistake." 
 
 " How ? " said Marie. 
 
 " Why, I was obliged to let him understand explicitly that 
 I preferred to keep some of my clothes for my own personal 
 wearing ; also, I put his magnificence upon an allowance of 
 Cologne water, and actually was so cruel as to restrict him 
 to one dozen of my cambric handkerchiefs. Dolph was 
 particularly huffy about it, and I had to talk to him like a 
 father to bring him round." 
 
 " Oh ! St. Clare, when will you learn how to treat your 
 servants ? It's abominable, the way you indulge them ! " 
 said Marie. 
 
 " Why, after all, what's the harm of the poor dog's wanting 
 to be like his master ? and if I haven't brought him up any 
 better than to find his chief good in Cologne and cambric 
 handkerchiefs, why shouldn't I give them to him ? " 
 
 "And why havn't you brought him up better?" said 
 Miss Ophelia, with blunt determination. 
 
 " Too much trouble ; laziness, cousin, laziness which 
 ruins more souls than you can shake a stick at. If it weren't 
 for laziness, I should have been a perfect angel, myself. I'm 
 inclined to think that laziness is what your old Dr. Botherem, 
 up in Vermont, used to call the ' essence of moral evil.' It's 
 an awful consideration, certainly." 
 
 " I think you slaveholders have an awful responsibility 
 upon you," said Miss Ophelia. " I wouldn't have it for a 
 thousand worlds. You ought to educate your slaves, and 
 treat them like reasonable creatures, like immortal creatures, 
 that you've got to stand before the bar of God with. That's 
 my mind," said the good lady, breaking suddenly out with a 
 tide of zeal that had been gaining strength in her mind all 
 the morning. 
 
 " Oh ! come, come," said St. Clare, getting up quickly ; 
 
190 MBS. ST. CLARE'S OPINION OF NIGGERS. 
 
 " what do you know about us ? " And he sat down to the 
 piano, and rattled a lively piece of music. St. Clare had a 
 decided genius for music. His touch was brilliant an<J firm, 
 and his fingers flew over the keys with a rapid and bird-like 
 motion, airy, and yet decided. He played piece after piece, 
 like a man who is trying to play himself into a good humour. 
 After pushing the music aside, he rose up, and said gaily, 
 " Well, now, cousin, you've given us a good talk, and done 
 your duty ; on the whole, I think the better of you for it. I 
 make no manner of doubt that you threw a very diamond of 
 truth at me, though you see it hit me so directly in the face, 
 that it wasn't exactly appreciated at first." 
 
 " For my part, I don't see any use in such sort of talk," 
 said Marie. " I'm sure, if anybody does more for servants 
 than we do, I'd like to know who : and it don't do 'em a bit 
 good not a particle; they get worse and worse. As to 
 talking to them, or anything like that, I'm sure I have 
 talked till I was tired and hoarse, telling them their duty, 
 and all that ; and I'm sure they can go to church when they 
 like, though they don't understand a word of the sermon, 
 more than so many pigs, so it isn't of any great use for 
 them to go, as I see ; but they do go, and so they have every 
 chance : but, as I said before, they are a degraded race, and 
 always will be, and there isn't any help for them ; you can't 
 make anything of them, if you try. You see, cousin Ophelia, 
 I've tried, and you haven't ; I was born and bred among 
 them, and I know." 
 
 Miss Ophelia thought she had said enough, and therefore 
 sat silent. St. Clare whistled a tune. 
 
 " St. Clare, I wish you wouldn't whistle," said Marie ; "it 
 makes my head worse." 
 
 " I won't" said St. Clare. " Is there anything else you 
 wouldn't wish me to do ? " 
 
 " I wish you would have some kind of sympathy for my 
 trials ; you never have any feeling for me." 
 
 " My dear accusing angel ! " said St. Clare. 
 
 " It's provoking to be talked to in that way." 
 
 " Then, how will you be talked to ? I'll talk to order- 
 any way you'll mention, only to give satisfaction." 
 
 A gay laugh from the court rang through the silken 
 
TTNCLE TOM AND MISS ETA. 191 
 
 curtains of the verandah. St. Clare stepped out, and lifting 
 up the curtain, laughed too. 
 
 " What is it ?" said Miss Ophelia, coming to the railing. 
 
 There sat Tom, on a little mossy seat in the court, every 
 one of his button-holes stuck full of cape jessamines, and 
 Eva, gaily laughing, was hanging a wreath of roses round 
 his neck ; and then she sat down on his knee, like a chip 
 sparrow, still laughing. 
 
 " Tom, you look so funny ; " 
 
 Tom had a sober, benevolent smile, and seemed, in his 
 quiet way, to be enjoying the fun quite as much as his little 
 mistress. He lifted his eyes, when he saw his master, with 
 a half-deprecating, apologetic air. 
 
 " How can you let her ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Why not ? " said St. Clare. 
 
 " Why, I don't know, it seems so dreadful! " 
 
 " You would think no harm in a child's caressing a large 
 dog, even if he was black; but a creature that can think, and 
 reason, and feel, and is immortal, you shudder at : confess it, 
 cousin. I know the feeling among some of you northerners 
 well enough. Not that there is a particle of virtue in our 
 not having it ; but custom with us does what Christianity ^ 
 ought to do obliterates the feeling of personal prejudice. 
 I have often noticed, in my travels north, how much stronger 
 this was with you than with us. You loathe them as you 
 would a snake or a toad, yet you are indignant at their 
 wrongs. You would not have them abused, but you don't 
 want to have anything to do with them yourselves. You 
 would send them to Africa, out of your sight and smell, 
 and then send a missionary or two to do up all the self- 
 denial of elevating them compendiously. Isn't that it?" 
 
 *" Well, cousin," said Miss Ophelia, thoughtfully, " there 
 may be some truth in this." 
 
 " What would the poor and lowly do without children ? '' 
 said St. Clare, leaning on the railing, and watching Eva as 
 she tripped off, leading Tom with her. " Your little child 
 is your only true democrat. Tom, now, is a hero to Eva ; 
 his stories are wonders in her eyes, his songs and Methodist 
 hymns are better than an opera, and the traps and little 
 bits of trash in his pocket a mine of jewels, and he the 
 most wonderful Tom that ever wore a black skin. This is 
 
192 PEOFESSION AND PEACTICE. 
 
 one of the roses of Eden that the Lord has dropped down 
 expressly for the poor and lowly, who get few enough of any 
 other kind." 
 
 " It's strange, cousin," said Miss Ophelia ; " one might 
 almost think you were a professor, to hear you talk." 
 
 " A professor ?" said St. Clare. 
 
 " Yes ; a professor of religion." 
 
 " Not at all ; not a professor, as your town folks have it ; 
 and, what is worse, I'm afraid, not a practiser, either." 
 
 "What makes you talk so, then?" 
 
 "Nothing is easier than talking," said St. Clare. "I 
 believe Shakspeare makes somebody say, ' I could sooner 
 show twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the 
 twenty to follow my own showing.' Nothing like division 
 of labour. My forte lies in talking, and yours, cousin, lies 
 in doing." 
 
 In Tom's external situation, at this time, there was, as 
 the world says, nothing to complain of. Little Eva's fancy 
 for him the instinctive gratitude and loveliness of a noble 
 nature had led her to petition her father that he might be 
 her especial attendant, whenever she needed the escort of a 
 servant, in her walks or rides ; and Tom had general orders 
 to let everything else go, and attend to Miss Eva whenever 
 she wanted him orders which our readers may fancy were 
 far from disagreeable to him. He was kept well dressed, 
 for St. Clare was fastidiously particular on this 'point. His 
 stable services were merely a sinecure, and consisted simply 
 in a daily care and inspection, and directing an under-servant 
 in his duties ; for Marie St. Clare declared that she could 
 not have any smell of the horses about him when he came 
 near her, and that he must positively not be put to any 
 service that would make him unpleasant to her, as her 
 nervous system was entirely inadequate to any trial of that 
 nature : one snuff of anything disagreeable, being, according 
 to her account, quite sufficient to close the scene, and put 
 an end to all her earthly trials at once. Tom, therefore, in 
 his well-brushed broadcloth suit, smooth beaver, glossy boots, 
 faultless wristbands and collar, with his grave, good-natured 
 black face, looked respectable enough to be a bishop of 
 Carthage, as men of his colour were in other ages. 
 
HOPES FOE AFRICA. 193 
 
 Then, too, lie was in a beautiful place, a consideration to 
 which his sensitive race are never indifferent ; and he did 
 enjoy with a quiet joy the birds, the flowers, the fountains, 
 the perfume, and light and beauty of the court, the silken 
 hangings, and pictures, and lustres, and statuettes, and 
 gilding, that made the parlours within a kind of Aladdin's 
 palace to him. 
 
 If ever Africa shall show an elevated and cultivated race 
 and come it must, some time, her turn to figure in the 
 great drama of human improvement life will awake there 
 with a gorgeousness and splendour of which our cold western 
 tribes faintly have conceived. In that far-off mystic land of 
 gold, and gems, and spices, and waving palms, and wondrous 
 flowers, and miraculous fertility, will awake new forms of 
 art, new styles of splendour ; and the negro race, no longer 
 
 despised and fcTMJdflT 1 ^^^n, wi'11 | pftrTmp^jHlhnw fi^fK grmi 
 
 of the latest and most magnificent revelations of human life. 
 Certainryrthey will, in their gentleness, their lowly docility 
 of heart, their aptitude to repose on a superior mind and rest 
 on a higher power, their childlike simplicity of affection, and 
 facility of forgiveness. In all these they will exhibit the 
 highest form of the peculiarly Christian life, and, perhaps, 
 as Grod chasteneth whom he loveth, he hath chosen poor 
 Africa in the furnace of affliction, to make her the highest 
 and noblest in that kingdom which he will set up when 
 every other kingdom has been tried and failed ; for the first 
 shall be last, and the last first. 
 
 Was this what Marie St. Clare was thinking of, as she 
 stood, gorgeously dressed, on the verandah, on Sunday 
 morning, clasping a diamond bracelet on her slender wrist ? 
 Most likely it was. Or, if it wasn't that, it was something 
 else ; for Marie patronised good things, and she was going 
 now, in full force diamonds, silk, and lace, and jewels and 
 all to a fashionable church, to be very religious. Marie 
 always made a point to be very pious on Sundays. There 
 she stood, so slender, so elegant, so airy and undulating in 
 all her motions, her lace scarf enveloping her like a mist. 
 She looked a graceful creature, and she felt very good and 
 very elegant indeed. Miss Ophelia stood at her side, a 
 perfect contrast. It was not that she had not as handsome 
 a silk dress and shawl, and as fine a pocket-handkerchief; 
 
 
 
194 MAMMY AND MISS ETA. 
 
 but stiffness and squareness, and bolt-uprightness, enveloped 
 her with as indefinite yet appreciable a presence as did grace 
 her elegant neighbour ; not the grace of God, however that 
 is quite another thing. 
 
 " Where's Eva?" said Marie. 
 
 " The child stopped on the stairs, to say something to 
 Mammy." 
 
 And what was Eva saying to Mammy on the stairs ? 
 Listen, reader, and you will hear, though Marie does not. 
 
 "Dear Mammy, I know your head is aching dreadfully." 
 
 " Lord bless you, Miss Eva, my head allers aches lately ! 
 You don't need to worry." 
 
 " "Well, I'm glad you're going out ; and here " and the 
 little girl threw her arms around her " Mammy, you shall 
 take my vinaigrette." 
 
 " What ! your beautiful gold thing, thar, with them dia- 
 monds ! Lor, miss, 'twouldn't be proper, noways." 
 
 " Why not ? You need it, and I don't. Mamma always 
 uses it for headache, and it'll make you feel better. No, you 
 shall take it, to please me, now." 
 
 " Do hear the darling talk ! " said Mammy, as Eva thrust 
 it into her bosom, and, kissing her, ran down stairs to her 
 mother. 
 
 " What were you stopping for ? " 
 
 " I was just stopping to give Mammy my vinaigrette, to 
 take to church with her." 
 
 " Eva ! " said Marie, stamping impatiently, " your gold 
 vinaigrette to Mammy ! When will you learn what's proper ? 
 Gro right and take it back this moment ! " 
 
 Eva looked downcast and aggrieved, and turned slowly. 
 
 " I say, Marie, let the child alone ; she shall do as she 
 pleases," said St. Clare. 
 
 " St. Clare, how will she ever get along in the world ? " 
 said Marie. 
 
 "The Lord knows," said St. Clare ; "but she'll get along 
 in heaven better than you or I." 
 
 " O papa, don't," ,said Eva, softly touching his elbow ; "it 
 troubles mother." 
 
 "Well, cousin, are you ready to go to- meeting?" said 
 Miss Ophelia, turning square about on St. Clare. 
 
 "I'm not going, thank you." 
 
 ' 
 
PIETY A2TD BESPECTABILITY. 195 
 
 " I do wish St. Clare ever would go to church," said 
 Marie ; " but he hasn't a particle of religion about him. It 
 really isn't respectable." 
 
 " I know it," said St. Clare. " You ladies go to church 
 to learn how to get along in the world, I suppose, and your 
 piety sheds respectability on us. If I did go at all, I would 
 go where Mammy goes : there's something to keep a fellow 
 awake there, at least." 
 
 " What ! those shouting Methodists ? Horrible ! " said 
 Marie. 
 
 " Anything but the dead sea of your respectable churches, 
 Marie. Positively, it's too much to ask of a man. Eva, do 
 you like to go ? Come, stay at home and play with me." 
 
 " Thank you, papa, but I'd rather go to church." 
 
 " Isn't it dreadful tiresome ? " said St. Clare. 
 
 "I think it is tiresome, some," said Eva, "and I am 
 sleepy, too ; but I try to keep awake." 
 
 " What do you go for, then ? " 
 
 "Why, you know, papa," she said in a whisper, "cousin 
 
 _LU 10-Li. V &\J Y V^J- y UAJ- WUV/l-iA*-. j 44JLUW.&. MiXJk* 
 
 You sweet little obliging soul ! " said St. Clare, kissing 
 her; " go along, that's a good girl, and pray for me." 
 
 " Certainly, I always do," said the child, as she sprang 
 after her mother into the carriage. 
 
 St. Clare stood on the steps and kissed his hand to her as 
 the carriage drove away ; large tears were in his eyes. 
 
 " O Evangeline ! rightly named," he said ; " hath not God 
 made -thee an evangel to me ? " 
 
 So he felt a moment ; and then he smoked a cigar, and 
 read the Picayune, and forgot his little gospel. Was he 
 much unlike other folks ? 
 
 " You see, Evangeline," said her mother, " it's always right 
 and proper to be kind to servants, but it isn't proper to treat 
 them just as we would our relations, or people in our own 
 class of life. Now, if Mammy was sick, you wouldn't want -~. 
 to put her in your own bed ? " 
 
 "I should feel just like it, mamma," said Eva, "because 
 then it would be handier to take care of her, and because, ^ 
 you know, my bed is better than hers." 
 
 O it 
 
196 A SPLEKDID SERMON. 
 
 Marie was in utter despair at the entire want of moral 
 perception evinced in this reply. 
 
 " What can I do to make this child understand me F" she 
 said 
 ^Nothing," said Miss Ophelia, significantly. 
 
 Eva looked sorry and disconcerted for a moment, but 
 children, luckily, do not keep to one impression long ; and 
 in a few moments she was merrily laughing at various things 
 which she saw from the coach-windows as it rattled along. 
 * * * * * 
 
 " "Well, ladies," said St. Clare, as they were comfortably 
 seated at the dinner-table, " and what was the bill of fare 
 at church to-day ? " 
 
 " Oh, Dr. G- - preached a splendid sermon ! " said 
 Marie. " It was just such a sermon as you ought to hear ; 
 it expressed Y views exactly." 
 
 "It 
 
 must haVS ft&M VMJPJ improving," said St. Clare. 
 " The subject must have been an extensive one." 
 
 " Well, I mean all my views about society and such 
 things," said Marie. " The text was, ' He hath made every- 
 thing beautiful in its season ; ' and he showed how all the 
 orders and distinctions in society came from G-od ; and that 
 it was so appropriate, you know, and beautiful, that some 
 should be high and some low, and that some were born to 
 
 le and some to serve, and all that, you know; and he 
 applied it so well to all* this ridiculous fuss that is made 
 about slavery, and he proved distinctly that the Bible was on 
 our side, and supported all our institutions so convincingly. 
 I only wish you'd heard him." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't need it," said St. Clare. " I can learn what 
 does me as much good as that from the Picayune any time, 
 and smoke a cigar besides ; which I can't do, you know, 
 in a church." 
 
 " Why," said Miss Ophelia, "don't you believe in these 
 views ? " 
 
 " Who I ? You know I'm such a graceless dog that 
 these religious aspects of such subjects don't edify me much. 
 If I was to say anything on this slavery matter, I would say 
 out, fair and square, ' We're in for it ; we've got 'em and 
 mean to keep 'em it's for our convenience and our 
 interest; for that's the long and short of it; that's just 
 
IS SLA.YERY RIGHT OR WBONG ? 197 
 
 the whole of what all this sanctified stuff amounts to, 
 after all ; and, I think that will be intelligible to every- 
 body, everywhere." 
 
 "I do think, Augustine, you are so irreverent!" said 
 Marie. " I think it's shocking to hear you talk." 
 
 " Shocking ! it's the truth. This religious talk on such 
 matters, why don't they carry it a little further, and show 
 the beauty, in its season, of a fellow's taking a glass too 
 much, and sitting a little too late over his cards and various 
 providential arrangements of that sort, which are pretty 
 frequent among us young men ; we'd like to hear that those 
 are right and godly, too." 
 
 "Well," said Miss Ophelia, "do you think slavery right 
 or wrong ?" 
 
 " I'm not going to have any of your horrid New England 
 directness, cousin," said St. Clare, gaily. " If I answer that 
 question, I know you'll be at me with half-a-dozen others, 
 each one harder than the last ; and I'm not a ffoing to defineL 
 my position. I am one of the sort that livesBy throwing 
 stones at other people's glass-houses ; but I never mean Jo 
 put up one for them to stone.*' 
 
 "That's just the way lie 1 ? always talking," said Marie ; 
 " you can't get any satisfaction out of him. I believe it's 
 just because he don't like religion that he's always running 
 out in this way he's been doing." 
 
 " Eeligion ! " said St. Clare, in a tone that made both 
 ladies look at him. " Eeligion ! Is what you hear at church 
 religion ? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and 
 ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, 
 religion ? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less 
 generous, less just, less considerate for man than even my 
 own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature ? No I When I look 
 for a religion, I must look for something above me, and not 
 something beneath." 
 
 " Then you don't believe that the Bible justifies slavery ?" 
 said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " The Bible was my mother's book," said St. Clare. " By 
 it she lived and died, and I would be very sorry to think it 
 did. I'd as soon desire to have it proved that my mother 
 could drink brandy, chew tobacco, and swear, by way of 
 satisfying me th at I did right_jn_doing the same. It wouldn't 
 
198 SOCIETY AND SCEIPTTJEE. 
 
 make me at all more satisfied with these things in myself, 
 and it would take from me tt|9 /irn.fort of respecting her 
 and it really is a comfort, in this world, to have anything one 
 can respect. In short, you see," said he, suddenly resuming 
 his gay tone, " all I want is that different things be kept in 
 different boxes. The whole frame-work of society, both in 
 Europe a ^ r 1 A m p ri ?* ; i g * -^ ^ JJILgLzgi?jy s things" which will 
 not stand the scrutiny of any very ideal standard of morality. 
 It's pretty generally understood that men don't aspire after 
 the absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of 
 the world. Now, when any one speaks "up, like a man, and 
 says slavery is necessary to us, we can't get along without it, 
 we should be beggared if we give it up, and, of course, we 
 mean to hold on to it this is strong, clear, well-defined 
 language ; it has the respectability of truth to it ; and if we 
 may judge by their practice, the majority of the world will 
 bear us out in it. But when he begins to put on a long face, 
 and snuffle, and quote Scripture, I incline to think he isn't 
 much better than he should be." 
 
 " Tou are very uncharitable," said Marie. 
 
 "Well," said St. Clare, "suppose that something should 
 bring down the price of cotton once and for ever, and make 
 the whole slave property a drug in the market ; don't you 
 think we should soon have another version of the Scripture 
 doctrine. What a flood of light would pour into the 
 church, all at once, and how immediately it would be dis- 
 covered that everything in the Bible and reason went the 
 other way ! " 
 
 "Well, at any rate," said Marie, as she reclined herself 
 on a lounge, " I'm thankful I'm born where slavery exists ; 
 and I believe it's right indeed I feel it must be ; and, at 
 any rate, I'm sure I couldn't get along without it." 
 
 " I say, what do you think, pussy ?" said her father to 
 Eva, who came in at this moment, with a flower in her 
 hand. 
 
 "What about, papa?" 
 
 " W r hy, which do you like the best ; to live as they do 
 at your uncle's, up in Vermont, or to have a house full of 
 servants, as we do ? " 
 
 " Oh^of course, our wayjs the pleasantest," said Eva. 
 
 " WhylJoT" said BlTCfceTstroEFg her H 
 
TOM TUEKED SINGING-MASTER. 199 
 
 " Why, it makes an many more round you to love, YOU J 
 know," said Eva, looking up earnestly. 
 """"Now, that's just likeEva^ salcfMarie ; "just one of her 
 odd speeches." 
 
 " Is it an odd speech, papa ? " said Eva, whisperingly, as 
 she got upon his knee. 
 
 " Eather, as this world goes, pussy," said St. Clare. " But 
 where has my little Eva been, all dinner-time ? " 
 
 " Oh, I've been up in Tom's room, hearing him sing, and 
 Aunt Dinah gave me my dinner." 
 
 " Hearing Tom sing, eh ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! He sings such beautiful things about the New 
 Jerusalem, and bright angels, and the land of Canaan." 
 
 " I dare say : it's better than the opera, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and he's going to teach them to me." 
 
 " Singing-lessons, eh ? you are coming on." 
 
 " Yes, he sings for me, and I read to him in my Bible ; . 
 and he explains what it means, you know." 
 
 " On my word," said Marie, laughing, "that is the latest 
 joke of the season." 
 
 " Tom isn't a bad hand, now, at explaining Scripture, I'll 
 dare swear," said St. Clare. " Tom has a natural genius for 
 religion. I wanted the horses out early this morning, and 
 I stole up to Tom's cubiculum there, over the stables, and 
 there I heard him holding a meeting by himself; and, in 
 fact, I haven't heard anything quite so savoury as Tom's 
 prayer this some time. He put in for me with a zeal that 
 was quite apostolic." 
 
 " Perhaps he guessed you were listening. I've heard of 
 that trick before." 
 
 " If he did, he wasn't very politic ; for he gave the Lord 
 his opinion of me pretty freely. Tom seemed to think there 
 was decidedly room for improvement in me, and seemed 
 very earnest that I should be converted." 
 
 " I hope you'll lay it to heart," said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " I suppose you are much of the same opinion," said St. 
 Clare. " Well, we shall see shan't we, Eva ? " 
 
 b-vo'j'. iwo^nj 
 
 -. Yflflioi 
 
200 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 THEEE was a gentle bustle at tlie Quaker house, as the 
 afternoon drew to a close. Uachel Halliday moved quietly 
 to and fro, collecting from her household stores such need- 
 ments as could be arranged in the smallest compass, for the 
 wanderers who were to go forth that night. The afternoon 
 shadows stretched eastward, and the round red sun stood 
 thoughtfully on the horizon, and his beams shone yellow and 
 calm into the little bed-room where George and his wife 
 were sitting. He was sitting with his child on his knee, 
 and his wife's hand in his. Both looked thoughtful and 
 serious, and traces of tears were on their cheeks. 
 
 "Yes, Eliza," said George, " I know all you say is true. 
 You are a good child a great deal better than I am ; and I 
 will try to do as you say. I'll try to act worthy of a free 
 man. I'll try to feel like a Christian. God Almighty knows 
 that I've meant to do well tried hard to do well when 
 everything has been against me ; and now I'll forget all the 
 past, and put away every hard and bitter feeling, and read 
 my Bible, and learn to be a good man." 
 
 '"And when we get to Canada," said Eliza, "I can help 
 you. I can do dressmaking very well; and I understand 
 fine washing and ironing; and between us we can find 
 something to live on." 
 
 " Yes, Eliza, so long as we have each other and our boy. 
 
 Eliza, if these people only knew what a blessing it is for 
 a man to feel that his wife and child belong to him ! I've 
 often wondered to see men that could call their wives and 
 children their own, fretting and worrying about anything 
 else. Why, I feel rich and strong, though we have nothing 
 but our bare hands. I feel as if I could scarcely ask God 
 for any more. Yes, though I've worked hard every day ^ill 
 
 1 am twenty-five years old, and have not a cent of monev, 
 
SLEEPING WITH OKE EAE OPEK. 201 
 
 nor a roof to cover me, nor a spot of land to call my own, 
 yet if they will only let me alone now, I will be satisfied 
 thankful ; I will work, and send back the money for you and 
 my boy. As to my old master, he has been paid five times 
 over for all he ever spent forme. I don't owe him anything." 
 
 " But yet we are not quite out of danger," said Eliza ; 
 " we are not yet in Canada." 
 
 " True," said George : " but it seems as if I smelt the free 
 air, and it makes me strong." 
 
 At this moment voices were heard in the outer apartment, 
 in earnest conversation, and very soon a rap was heard on 
 the door. Eliza started and opened it. 
 
 Simeon Halliday was there, and with him a Quaker 
 brother, whom he introduced as Phineas Fletcher. Phineas 
 was tall and lathy, red-haired, with an expression of great 
 acuteness and shrewdness in his face. He had not the 
 placid, quiet, unworldly air of Simeon Halliday; on the 
 contrary, a particularly wide-awake and au-fait appearance, 
 like a man who rather prides himself on knowing what he is 
 about, and keeping a bright look-out ahead ; peculiarities 
 which sorted rather oddly with his broad brim and formal 
 phraseology. 
 
 " Our friend Phineas hath discovered something of im- 
 portance to the interest of thee and thy party, George," said 
 Simeon : " it were well for thee to hear it." 
 
 " That I have," said Phineas, " and it shows the Tise of a 
 man's always sleeping with one ear open in certain places, as 
 I've always said. Last night I stopped at a little lone tavern, 
 back on the road. Thee remembers the place, Simeon, where 
 we sold some apples, last year, to that fat woman with the 
 great ear-rings. Well, I was tired with hard driving ; and, 
 after my supper, I stretched myself down on a pile of bags 
 in the corner, and pulled a buffalo over me, to wait till my 
 bed was ready ; and what does I do, but get fast asleep." 
 
 " With one ear open, Phineas ? " said Simeon, quietly. 
 
 " No ! I slept, ears and all, for an hour or two, for I was- 
 pretty well tired ; but when I came to myself a little, I found 
 that there were some men in the room, sitting round a table, 
 drinking and talking ; and I thought, before I made much 
 muster, I'd just see what they were up to, especially as I 
 heard them say something about the Quakers. ' So,' says 
 
202 A FAMILY PICTURE. 
 
 one, * they are up in the Quaker settlement, no doubt,' says 
 he. Then I listened with both ears, and I found that they 
 were talking about this very party. So I lay and heard them 
 lay off all their plans. This young man, they said, was to be 
 sent back to Kentucky, to his master, who was going to make 
 an example of him, to keep all niggers from running away ; 
 and his wife two of them were going to run down to New 
 Orleans to sell, on their own account, and they calculated to 
 get sixteen or eighteen hundred dollars for her ; and the 
 child, they said, was going to a trader, who had bought him ; 
 and then there was the boy Jim, and his mother, they were 
 to go back to their masters in Kentucky. They said that 
 there were two constables, in a town a little piece ahead, 
 who would go in with 'em to get 'em taken up, and the 
 young woman was to be taken before a judge : and one of 
 the fellows, who is small and smooth-spoken, was to swear 
 to her for his property, and get her delivered over to him to 
 take south. They've got a right notion of the track we are 
 going to-night ; and they'll be down after us, six or eight 
 strong. So, now, what's to be done ? " 
 
 The group that stood in various attitudes, after this com- 
 munication, were worthy -of a painter. Rachel Halliday, 
 who had taken her hands out of a batch of biscuit to hear 
 the news, stood with them upraised and floury, and with a 
 face of the deepest concern. Simeon looked profoundly 
 thoughtful ; Eliza had thrown her arms around her husband, 
 and was looking up to him. George stood with clenched 
 hands and glowing eyes, and looking as any other man 
 might look whose wife was to be sold at auction, and son 
 sent to a trader, all under the shelter of a Christian nation's 
 laws. 
 
 " What shall we do, George ? " said Eliza, faintly. 
 
 " I know what / shall do," said George, as he stepped 
 into the little room, and began examining his pistols. 
 
 "Ay, ay," said Phineas, nodding his head to Simeon; 
 "thou seest, Simeon, how it will work." 
 
 " I see," said Simeon, sighing ; " I pray it come not to 
 that." 
 
 " I don't want to involve any one with or for me," 
 said George. " If you will lend me your vehicle and 
 direct me, I will drive alone to the next stand. Jim is 
 
GEOKGE'S DETEJJMI^ATIOS. 203 
 
 a giant in strength, and brave as death and despair, and 
 so am I." 
 
 "Ah, well, friend," said Phineas, "but thee'll need a 
 driver, for all that. Thee's quite welcome to do all the 
 fighting, thee knows ; but I know a thing or two about the 
 road that thee doesn't." 
 
 " But I don't want to involve you," said George. 
 
 " Involve ? " said Phineas, with a curious and keen expres- 
 sion of face. " When thee does involve me, please to let me 
 know." 
 
 " Phineas is a wise and skilful man," said Simeon. " Thee 
 does well, George, to abide by his judgment; and," he 
 added, laying his hand kindly on George's shoulder, and 
 pointing to the pistols, "be not over-hasty with these 
 young blood is hot." 
 
 " I will attack no man," said George. " All I ask of this 
 country is to be let alone, and I will go out peaceably ; but" 
 he paused, and his brow darkened and his face worked " I've 
 had a sister sold in that New Orleans market. I know what 
 they are sold for ; and am I going to stand by and see them 
 take my wife and sell her, when (rod has given me a pair of 
 strong arms to defend her ? No ; God help me ! I'll fight 
 to the last breath, before they shall take my wife and son. 
 Can you blame me ? " 
 
 " Mortal man cannot blame thee, George. Flesh and 
 blood could not do otherwise," said Simeon. "Woe unto 
 the world because of offences, but woe unto them through 
 whom the offence cometh." 
 
 " Would not even you, sir, do the same, in my place ? " 
 
 "I pray that I be not tried," said Simeon ; " the flesh is 
 weak." 
 
 " I think my flesh would be pretty tolerable strong in 
 such a case," said Phineas, stretching out a pair of arms like 
 the sails of a windmill. " I an't sure, friend George, that I 
 shouldn't hold a fellow for thee if thee had any accounts to 
 settle with him." 
 
 "If man should ever resist evil," said Simeon, "then 
 George should feel free to do it now : but the leaders of our 
 people taught a more excellent way ; for the wrath of man 
 worketh not the righteousness of God : but it goes sorely 
 against the corrupt will of man, and none can receive it save 
 
204 SHREWD PHI:N T EAS FLETCHEE. 
 
 they to whom it is given. Let us pray the Lord that we be 
 not tempted." 
 
 " And so / do," said Phineas ; " but if we are tempted too 
 much why, let them look out, that's all." 
 
 " It's quite plain thee wasn't born a Friend," said Simeon, 
 smiling. "The old nature hath its way in thee pretty 
 strong as yet." 
 
 To tell the truth, Phineas had been a hearty two-fisted 
 backwoodsman, a vigorous hunter, and a dead shot at a 
 buck ; but having wooed a pretty Quakeress, had been moved 
 by the power of her charms to join the society in his neigh- 
 bourhood ; and though he was an honest, sober, and efficient 
 member, and nothing particular could be alleged against him, 
 yet the more spiritual among them could not but discern an 
 exceeding lack of savour in his developments. 
 
 " Friend Phineas will ever have ways of his own," said 
 E-achel Halliday, smiling ; " but we all think that his heart 
 is in the right place, after all." 
 
 "Well," said George, "isn't best that we hasten our 
 flight ? " 
 
 " I got up at four o'clock, and came on with all speed, full 
 two or three hours ahead of them, if they start at the time 
 they planned. It isn't safe to start till dark, at any rate ; 
 for there are some evil persons in the villages ahead, that 
 might be disposed to meddle with us, if they saw our wagon, 
 and that would delay us more than the waiting ; but in two 
 hours I think we may venture. I will go over to Michael 
 Cross, and engage him to come behind on his swift nag, 
 and keep a bright look-out on the road, and warn us if any 
 company of men come on. Michael keeps a horse that can 
 soon get ahead of most other horses ; and he could shoot 
 ahead and let us know, if there were any danger. I am going 
 out now to warn Jim and the old woman to be in readiness, 
 and to see about the horse. "We have a pretty fair start, 
 and stand a good chance to get to the stand before they can 
 come up with us. So, have good courage, friend George ; 
 this isn't the first ugly scrape that I've been in with thy 
 people," said Phineas, as he closed the door. 
 
 "Phineas is pretty shrewd," said Simeon. "He will do 
 the best that can be done for thee, George." 
 
 "All I am sorry for," said George, "is the risk to you." 
 
MIGHT AND EIGHT. 205 
 
 " Thee'll much oblige us, friend George, to say no more 
 about that. "What we do we are conscience-bound to do ; 
 we can do no other way. And now, mother," said he, turn- 
 ing to Rachel, " hurry thy preparations for these friends, for 
 we must not send them away fasting." 
 
 And while Rachel and her children were busy making 
 corn-cake, and cooking ham and chicken, and hurrying on 
 the et ceteras of the evening meal, George and his wife sat in 
 their little room with their arms folded about each other, in 
 such talk as husband and wife have when they know that a 
 few hours may part them for ever. 
 
 "Eliza," said George, "people that have friends and 
 houses, and lands, and money, and all those things, can't 
 love as we do, who have nothing but each other. Till I 
 knew you, Eliza, no creature ever had loved me, but my poor 
 heartbroken mother and sister. I saw poor Emily that- 
 morning the trader carried her off. She came to the corner 
 where I was lying asleep, and said, * Poor George, your last 
 friend is going. What will become of you, poor boy?' 
 And I got up and threw my arms round her, and cried and 
 sobbed, and she cried too; and those were the last kind 
 words I got for ten long years ; and my heart all withered 
 up, and felt as dry as ashes, till I met you. And your 
 loving me why it was almost like raising one from the 
 dead ! I've been a new man ever since ! And now, Eliza, 
 I'll give my last drop of blood, but they shall not take you 
 from me. Whoever gets you must walk over my dead 
 body." 
 
 "O Lord, have mercy!" said Eliza, sobbing. "If he 
 will only let us get out of this country together, that is all 
 we ask." 
 
 "Is God on their side?" said George, speaking less to\\ 
 his wife than pouring out his own bitter thoughts. " Does 
 he see all they do? Why does he let such things hap- 
 pen? and they tell us that the Bible is on their side; 
 certainly all the power is. They are rich, and healthy, and 
 happy; they are members of churches, expecting to go to 
 heaven ; and they get along so easy in the world, and have 
 it all their own way ; and poor, honest, faithful Christians 
 Christians as good or better than they are lying in the 
 very dust under their feet. They buy 'em and sell 'em, and< 
 
206 THE WOEDS OF INSPIRATION. 
 
 make trade of their hearts' blood, and groans and tears and 
 God lets them." 
 
 " Friend George," said Simeon, from the kitchen, " listen 
 to this Psalm ; it may do thee good." 
 
 George drew his seat near the door, and Eliza, wiping her 
 tears, came forward also to listen, while Simeon read as 
 follows : 
 
 " ' But as for me, my feet were almost gone ; my steps 
 had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious of the foolish, 
 when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They are not in 
 trouble like other men, neither are they plagued like other 
 men. Therefore pride compasseth them as a chain ; violence 
 covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with 
 fatness ; they have more than heart could wish. They are 
 corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression; they 
 speak loftily. Therefore his people return, and the waters 
 of a full cup are wrung out to them, and they say, How 
 doth God know? and, Is there knowledge in the Most 
 High ? ' Is not that the way thee feels, George ? " 
 
 " It is so, indeed," said George, "as well as I could have 
 written it myself." 
 
 " Then, hear," said Simeon: " ' "When I thought to know 
 this it was too painful for me, until I went unto the sanctuary 
 of God. Then understood I their end. Surely thou didst 
 set them in slippery places, thou castedst them down to 
 destruction. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, 
 when thou awakest thou shalt despise their image. Never- 
 theless, I am continually with thee ; thou hast holden me by 
 my right hand. Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and 
 afterwards receive me to glory. It is good for me to draw 
 near unto God. I have put my trust in the Lord God.' " 
 
 The words of holy trust, breathed by the friendly old man, 
 stole like sacred music over the harassed and chafed spirit of 
 George ; and after he ceased he sat with a gentle and subdued 
 expression on his fine features. 
 
 " If this world were all, George," said Simeon, " thee 
 might, indeed, ask, Where is the Lord ? But it is often those 
 who have least of all in this life whom He chooseth for the 
 kingdom. Put thy trust in Him, and, no matter what befalls 
 thee here, He will make all right hereafter." 
 
 If these words had been spoken by some easy, self-indul- 
 
PREPARATION TOR SLIGHT. 207 
 
 gent exporter, from whose mouth they might have come 
 merely as pious and rhetorical flourish, proper to be used to 
 people in distress, perhaps they might not have had much 
 effect ; but coming from one who daily and calmly risked 
 fine and imprisonment for the cause of God and man, they 
 had a weight that could not but be felt, and both the poor, 
 desolate fugitives, found calmness and strength breathing 
 into them from it. 
 
 And nowXRachel took Eliza's hand kindly, and led the 
 way to the supper-table. As they were sitting down, a light 
 tap sounded at the door, and Ruth entered. 
 
 " I just ran in," she said, " with these little stockings for 
 the boy three pair, nice, warm, woollen ones. It will be so 
 cold, thee knows, in Canada. Does thee keep up good 
 courage, Eliza?" she added, tripping round to Eliza's side 
 of the table, and shaking her warmly by the hand, and 
 slipping a seed-cake into Harry's hand. " I brought a little 
 parcel of these for him," she said, tugging at her pocket to 
 get out the package. " Children, thee knows, will always 
 be eating." 
 
 " Oh, thank you ; you are too kind," said Eliza. 
 
 " Come, Ruth, sit down to supper," said Rachel. 
 
 " I couldn't any way. I left John with the baby, and 
 some biscuits in the oven ; and I can't stay a moment, else 
 John will burn up all the biscuits, and give the baby all the 
 sugar in the bowl. That's the way he does," said the little 
 Quakeress, laughing. " So, good by, Eliza ; good by, George ; 
 the Lord grant thee a safe journey ;" and with a few tripping 
 steps Ruth was out of the apartment. 
 
 A little while after supper a large covered wagon drew up 
 before the door ; the night was clear starlight, and Phineas 
 jumped briskly down from his seat to arrange his passen- 
 gers. George walked out of the door, with his child on 
 one arm and his wife on the other. His step was firm, his 
 face settled and resolute. Rachel and Simeon came out 
 after them. 
 
 " You get out a moment," said Phineas, to those inside, 
 "and let me fix the back of the wagon, there, for the 
 women-folks and the boy." 
 
 " Here are the two buffaloes," said Rachel. " Make the 
 seats as comfortable as may be ; it's hard riding all night." , 
 
208 DEPABTUEE OF THE FTJGITIYES. 
 
 Jim came out first, and carefully assisted out his old mother, 
 who clung to his arm and looked anxiously about, as if she 
 expected the pursuer every moment. 
 
 " Jim, are your pistols all in order? " said George, in a 
 low, firm voice. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Jim. 
 
 " And you've no doubt what you shall do if they 
 come?" 
 
 " I rather think I haven't," said Jim, throwing open his 
 broad chest, and taking a deep breath. " Do you think I'll 
 let them get mother again?" 
 
 During this brief colloquy Eliza had been taking her leave 
 of her kind friend Rachel, and was handed into the carriage 
 by Simeon, and, creeping into the back part with her boy, 
 sat down among the bufialo-skins. The old woman was next 
 handed in and seated, and George and Jim placed on a 
 rough board seat front of them, and Phineas mounted in 
 front. 
 
 " Farewell, my friends ! " said Simeon, from without. 
 
 " God bless you ! " answered all from within. 
 
 And the wagon drove off, rattling and jolting over the 
 frozen road. 
 
 There was no opportunity for conversation, on account of 
 the roughness of the way and the noise of the wheels. The 
 vehicle therefore rumbled on, through long, dark stretches of 
 woodland, over wide dreary plains, up hills and down valleys, 
 and on, on, on they jogged, hour after hour. The child soon 
 fell asleep, and lay heavily in his mother's lap. The poor, 
 frightened old woman at last forgot her fears ; and even 
 Eliza, as the night waned, found all her anxieties insufficient 
 to keep her eyes from closing. Phineas seemed, on the 
 whole, the briskest of the company, and beguiled his long 
 drive with whistling certain very un- Quaker-like songs as 
 he went on. 
 
 But about three o'clock George's ear caught the hasty 
 and decided click of a horse's hoof coming behind them at 
 some distance, and jogged Phineas by the elbow. Phineas 
 pulled up his horses and listened. 
 
 " That must be Michael," he said; " I think I know the 
 sound of his gallop ; " and he rose up and stretched his head 
 anxiously back over the road, 
 
THE PUESTJIT. 209 
 
 {tr 
 
 A man riding in hot haste was now dimly descried at the 
 top of a distant hill. 
 
 " There he is, I do believe ! " said Phineas. George and 
 Jim both sprang out of the wagon, before they knew what 
 they were doing. All stood intensely silent, with their faces 
 turned towards the expected messenger. On he came. 
 Now he went down into a valley, where they could not see 
 him ; but they heard the sharp, hasty tramp, rising nearer 
 and nearer ; at last they saw him emerge on the top of an 
 eminence, within hail. 
 
 "Yes, that's Michael !" said Phineas; and, raising his 
 voice, " Halloa, there, Michael ! " 
 
 "Phineas! is that thee ? " 
 
 " Yes ; what news ? they coming ? " 
 
 " Bight on behind, eight or ten of them, hot with brandy, } 
 swearing and foaming like so many wolves ! " 
 
 And just as he spoke a breeze brought the faint sound of 
 galloping horsemen towards them. 
 
 " In with you quick, boys, in ! " said Phineas- " If you 
 must fight, wait till I get you a piece a-head." And, with 
 the word, both jumped in, and Phineas lashed the horses to 
 a run, the horseman keeping close beside them. The wagon 
 rattled, jumped, almost flew, over the frozen ground; but 
 plainer, and still plainer, came the noise of pursuing horse- 
 men behind. The women heard it, and, looking anxiously 
 out, saw, far in the rear, on the brow of a distant hill, a 
 party of men looming up against the red-streaked sky of 
 early dawn. Another hill, and their pursuers had evidently 
 caught sight of their wagon, whose white, cloth-covered 
 top, made it conspicuous at some distance, and a loud yell of 
 brutal triumph came forward on the wind. Eliza sickened, 
 and strained her child closer to her bosom ; the old woman 
 prayed and groaned, and George and Jim clenched their 
 pistols with the grasp of despair. The pursuers gained on 
 them fast ; the carriage made a sudden turn, and brought 
 them near a ledge of a steep overhanging rock, that rose in 
 an isolated ridge or clump in a large lot, which was, all 
 around it quite clear and smooth. This isolated pile, or 
 range of rocks, rose up black and heavy against the bright- 
 ening sky, and seemed to promise shelter and concealment. 
 It was a place well known to Phineas, who had been familiar 
 
210 PHINEAS FLETCHER'S GEKEBALSHIP. 
 
 with the spot in his hunting days ; and it was to gain this 
 point he had been racing his horses. 
 
 " Now for it ! " said he, suddenly checking his horses, and 
 springing from his seat to the ground. " Out with you, in a 
 twinkling, every one, and up into these rocks with me. 
 Michael, thee tie thy horse to the wagon, and drive ahead 
 to Amariah's, and get him and his boys to come back and 
 talk to these fellows." 
 
 In a twinkling they were all out of the carriage. 
 
 " There," said Phineas, catching up Harry, " you, each of 
 you, see to the women ; and run, now, if you ever did run." 
 
 There needed no exhortation. Quicker than we can say 
 it, the whole party were over the fence, making with all 
 speed for the rocks, while Michael, throwing himself from 
 his horse, and fastening the bridle to the wagon, began 
 driving it rapidly away. 
 
 " Come ahead ! " said Phineas, as they reached the rocks, 
 and saw, in the mingled starlight and dawn, the traces of a 
 rude but plainly marked footpath leading up among them ; 
 " this is one of our old hunting dens. Come up ! " 
 
 Phineas went before, springing up the rocks like a goat, 
 with the boy in his arms. Jim came second, bearing his 
 trembling old mother over his shoulder, and Greorge and 
 Eliza brought up the rear. The party of horsemen came 
 up to the fence, and, with mingled shouts and oaths, were 
 dismounting, to prepare to follow them. A few moments' 
 scrambling brought them to the top of the ledge ; the path 
 then passed between a narrow defile, where only one could 
 walk at a time, till suddenly they came to a rift or chasm 
 more than a yard in breadth, and beyond which lay a pile 
 of rocks, separate from the rest of the ledge, standing full 
 thirty feet high, with its sides steep and perpendicular as 
 those of a castle. Phineas easily leaped the chasm, and sat 
 down the boy on a smooth, flat platform of crisp white moss, 
 that covered the top of the rock. 
 
 " Over with you ! " he called : " spring, now, once, for 
 your lives ! " said he, as one after another sprang across. 
 Several fragments of loose stone formed a kind of breast- 
 work, which sheltered their position from the observation of 
 those below. 
 
 " Well, here we all are," said Phineas, peeping over the 
 
THE ATTACK. 211 
 
 stone breastwork to watch the assailants, who were coming 
 tumultuously up tinder the rocks. " Let 'em get us, if they 
 can. Whoever comes here has to walk single file between 
 those two rocks, in fair range of your pistols, boys, d'ye 
 see ? " 
 
 " I do see," said G-eorge ; " and now, as this matter is 
 ours, let us take all the risk, and do all the fighting." 
 
 " Thee's quite welcome to do the fighting, Greorge," said 
 Phineas, chewing some checkerberry-leaves as he spoke ; 
 " but I may have the fun of looking on, I suppose. But 
 see, these fellows are kinder debating down there, and 
 looking up, like hens when they are going to fly up on to 
 the roost. Hadn't thee better give 'em a word of advice, 
 before they come up, just to tell 'em handsomely they'll be 
 shot if they do ?" 
 
 The party beneath, now more apparent in the light of 
 the dawn, consisted of our old acquaintances, Tom Loker 
 and Marks, with two constables, and a posse consisting of 
 such rowdies at the last tavern as could be engaged by 
 a little brandy to go and help the fun of trapping a set of 
 niggers. 
 
 " "Well, Tom, yer coons are farly treed," said one. 
 
 " Yes, I see 'em go up right here," said Tom ; " and here's 
 a path. I'm for going right up. They can't jump down in 
 a hurry, and it won't take long to ferret 'em out." 
 
 " But, Tom, they might fire at us from behind the rocks," 
 said Marks. " That would be ugly, you know." 
 
 "Ugh!" said Tom, with a sneer. "Always for saving 
 your skin, Marks ! JSTo danger ! Niggers are too plaguy 
 scared!" 
 
 " I don't know why I shouldn't save my skin," said Marks. 
 " It's the best I've got; and niggers do fight like the devil, 
 sometimes." 
 
 At this moment G-eorge appeared on the top of a rock 
 above them, and, speaking in a calm, clear voice, said 
 
 " Gentlemen, who are you, down there, and what do you 
 want ? " 
 
 " We want a party of runaway niggers," said Tom Loker. 
 " One Greorge Harris, and Eliza Harris, and their son, and 
 Jim Selden, and an old woman. We've got the officers here, 
 and a warrant to take 'em ; and we're going to have 'em 
 
 p2 
 
212 DECLABATION OE INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 too. D'ye near ? An'* y u & eor g e Harris, that belongs to 
 Mr. Harris, of Shelby county, Kentucky ? " 
 
 " I am George Harris. A Mr. Harris, of Kentucky, did 
 call me his property. But now I'm a free man, standing on 
 God's free soil ; and my wife and my child I claim as mine. 
 Jim and his mother are here. We have arms to defend our- 
 selves, and we mean to do it. You can come up, if you like ; 
 but the first one of you that comes within the range of our 
 bullets is a dead man, and the next, and the next ; and so on 
 till the last." 
 
 " Oh, come ! come ! " said a short, puffy man, stepping 
 forward, and blowing his nose as he did so. " Young man, 
 this an't no kind of talk at all for you. You see, we're 
 officers of justice. We've got the law on our side, and the 
 power, and so forth ; so you'd better give up peaceably, you 
 see ; for you'll certainly have to give up at last." 
 
 " I know very well that you've got the law on your side, 
 and the power," said George, bitterly. "You mean to take 
 my wife to sell in New Orleans, and put my boy like a calf 
 in a trader's pen, and send Jim's old mother to the brute 
 that whipped and abused her before, because he couldn't 
 abuse her son. You want to send Jim and me back to be 
 whipped and tortured, and ground down under the heels 
 of them that you call masters ; and your laws will bear you 
 out in it more shame for you and them ! But you haven't 
 got us. We don't own your laws; we don't own your 
 country; we stand here as free, under God's sky, as you 
 are ; and, by the great God that made us, we'll fight for our 
 liberty till we die." 
 
 George stood out in fair sight on the top of the rock, as 
 he made his declaration of independence ; the glow of dawn 
 gave a flush to his swarthy cheek, and bitter indignation and 
 despair gave fire to his dark eye ; and, as if appealing from 
 man to the justice of God, he raised his hand to heaven as 
 he spoke. 
 
 If it had been only a Hungarian youth, now, bravely de- 
 fending in some mountain fastness the retreat of fugitives 
 escaping from Austria into America, this would have been 
 sublime heroism ; but as it was a youth of African descent, 
 defending the retreat of fugitives through America into 
 Canada, of course we are too well instructed and patriotic 
 
WHAT IS HEEOISM ? 213 
 
 to see any heroism in it ; and if any of our readers do, they 
 must do it on their own private responsibility. When 
 despairing Hungarian fugitives make their way, against all 
 the search-warrants and authorities of their lawful govern- 
 ment, to America, press and political cabinet ring with 
 applause and welcome. When despairing African fugitives 
 do the same thing, it is what is it ? 
 
 Be it as it may, it is certain that the attitude, eye, 
 voice, manner of the speaker, for a moment struck the party 
 below to silence. There is something in boldness and deter- 
 mination that for a time hushes even the rudest nature. 
 Marks was the only one who remained wholly untouched. 
 He was deliberately cocking his pistol, and in the momen- 
 tary silence that followed G-eorge's speech, he fired at him. 
 
 " Te see, ye get jist as much for him dead as alive in 
 Kentucky," he said, coolly, as he wiped his pistol on his 
 coat-sleeve. 
 
 George sprang backward Eliza uttered a shriek the 
 ball had passed close to his hair, had nearly grazed the 
 cheek of his wife, and stuck in the tree above. 
 
 " It's nothing, Eliza," said George, quickly. 
 
 " Thee'd better keep out of sight, with thy speechifying," 
 said Phineas ; " they're mean scamps." 
 
 " Now, Jim," said Greorge, " look that your pistols are all 
 right and watch that pass with me. The first man that 
 shows himself I fire at ; you take the second, and so on. It 
 won't do, you know, to waste two shots on. one." 
 
 " But what if you don't hit ? " 
 
 " I shall hit," said Greorge, coolly. 
 
 " Good ! Now, there's stuff in that fellow," muttered 
 Phineas, between his teeth. 
 
 The party below, after Marks had fired, stood, for a 
 moment, rather undecided. 
 
 " I think you must have hit some on 'em," said one of 
 the men. " I heard a squeal ! " 
 
 " I'm going right up for one," said Tom. " I never was 
 afraid of niggers, and I aint going to be now. Who goes 
 after ? " he said, springing up the rocks. 
 
 G-eorge heard the words distinctly. He drew up his 
 pistol, examined it, pointed it towards that point in the defile 
 where the first man would appear. 
 
214 DISCOMFITURE OF TOM LOKEE. 
 
 One of the most courageous of the party followed Tom, 
 and, the way being thus made, the whole party began push- 
 ing up the rock the hindermost pushing the front ones 
 faster than they would have gone of themselves. On they 
 came, and in a moment the burly form of Tom appeared in 
 sight, almost at the verge of the chasm. 
 
 George fired the shot entered his side; but though 
 wounded he would not retreat, but, with a yell like that of 
 a mad bull, he was leaping right across the chasm into the 
 party. 
 
 " Friend," said Phineas, suddenly stepping to the front, 
 and meeting him with a push from his long arms, " thee isn't 
 wanted here." 
 
 Down he fell into the chasm, crackling down among trees, 
 bushes, logs, loose stones, till he lay, bruised and groaning, 
 thirty feet below. The fall might have killed him, had ifc 
 not been broken and moderated by his clothes catching in 
 the branches of a large tree; but he came down with 
 some force, however more than was at all agreeable or 
 convenient. 
 
 " Lord, help us ! they are perfect devils ! " said Marks, 
 heading the retreat down the rocks with much more of a will 
 than he had joined the ascent, while all the party came 
 tumbling precipitately after him the fat constable, in par- 
 ticular, blowing and puffing in a very energetic manner. 
 
 "I say fellers," said Marks, " you jist go round and pick 
 up Tom, there, while I run and get on to my horse, to go 
 back for help that's you ; " and without minding the hoot- 
 ings and jeers of his company, Marks was as good as his 
 word, and was soon seen galloping away. 
 
 " Was ever such a sneaking varmint ? " said one of the 
 men. " To come on his business, and he clear out and leave 
 us this yer way ! " 
 
 " "Well, we must pick up that feller," said another. " Cuss 
 me if I much care whether he is dead or alive." 
 
 The men, led by the groans of Tom, scrambled and 
 crackled through stumps, logs, and bushes, to where that 
 hero lay groaning and sweating with alternate vehemence. 
 
 " Te keep it a-going pretty loud, Tom," said one. "Ye 
 much hurt ? " 
 
 " Don't know. Get me up, can't ye ? Blast that infernal 
 
THE ENEMY EETEEAT. 215 
 
 Quaker ! If it had not been for him, I'd a pitched some on 
 'em down here, to see how they liked it." 
 
 "With much labour and groaning, the fallen hero was 
 assisted to rise ; and, with one holding him up under each 
 shoulder, they got him as far as the horses. 
 
 " If you could only get me a mile back to that ar tavern. 
 Give me a handkerchief or something, to stuff into this 
 place, and stop this infernal bleeding." 
 
 George looked over the rocks, and saw them trying to 
 lift the burly form of Tom into the saddle. After two 
 or three ineffectual attempts, he reeled, and fell heavily 
 to the ground. 
 
 " Oh, I hope he isn't killed ! " said Eliza, who, with all the 
 party, stood watching the proceeding. 
 
 " Why not ? " said Phineas. Serves him right." 
 
 " Because after death comes the judgment," said Eliza. 
 
 " Yes," said the old woman, who had been groaning and 
 praying, in her Methodist fashion, during all the encounter, 
 " it is an awful case for the poor crittur's soul." 
 
 " On my word, they're leaving him, I do believe," said 
 Phineas. 
 
 It was true ; for, after some appearance of irresolution and 
 consultation, the whole party got on their horses and rode 
 away. "When they were quite out of sight, Phineas began 
 to bestir himself. 
 
 " Well, we must go down and walk a piece," he said. " I 
 told Michael to go forward and bring help, and be along 
 back here with the wagon ; but we shall have to walk a 
 piece along the road, I reckon, to meet them. The Lord 
 grant he be along soon ! It's early in the day : there won't 
 be much travel afoot yet awhile ; we an't much more than 
 two miles from our stopping-place. If the road hadn't been 
 so rough last night, we could have outrun 'em entirely." 
 
 As the party neared the fence, they discovered in the 
 distance, along the road, their own wagon coming back, 
 accompanied by some men on horseback. 
 
 " Well, now, there's Michael, and Stephen, and Amariah," 
 exclaimed Phineas, joyfully. " Now we are made as safe as 
 if we'd got there." 
 
 " Well, do stop, then," said Eliza, " and do something for 
 that poor man; he's groaning dreadfully." 
 
216 THE FIEST LAW OF NATUBE. 
 
 "It would be no more than Christian," said G-eorge; 
 " let's take him up and carry him on." 
 
 " And doctor him up among the Quakers !" said Phineas ; 
 " pretty well, that ! "Well, I don't care if we do. Here, 
 let's have a look at him ! " and Phineas, who, in the course 
 of his hunting and backwoods life, had acquired some rude 
 experience of surgery, kneeled down by the wounded man, 
 and began a careful examination of his condition. 
 
 " Marks," said Tom, feebly ; " is that you, Marks ? " 
 
 "No, I reckon 't an't, friend," said Phineas. "Much 
 Marks cares for thee, if his own skin's safe. He's off, long 
 ago." 
 
 [ believe I'm done for," said Tom. "The cussed 
 sneaking dog, to leave me to die alone ! My poor old mother 
 always told me 't would be so." 
 
 " La, sakes ! jist hear the poor crittur. He's got a 
 mammy, now," said the old negress. "I can't help kinder 
 pityin' on him." 
 
 " Softly, softly ; don't thee snap and snarl, friend," said 
 Phineas, as Tom winced and pushed his hand away. " Thee 
 has no chance, unless I stop the bleeding." And Phineas 
 busied himself with making some off-hand surgical arrange- 
 ments with his own pocket-handkerchief, and such as could 
 be mustered in the company. 
 
 "You pushed me down there," said Tom faintly. 
 
 " Well, if I hadn't, thee would have pushed us down, thee 
 sees," said Phineas, as he stooped to apply his bandage. 
 " There, there let me fix this bandage. We mean well to 
 thee ; we bear no malice. Thee shall be taken to a house 
 where they'll nurse thee first-rate as well as thy own 
 mother could." 
 
 Tom groaned, and shut his eyes. In men of his class, 
 vigour and resolution are entirely a physical matter, and ooze 
 out with the flowing of the blood ; and the gigantic fellow 
 really looked piteous in his helplessness. 
 
 The other party now came up. The seats were taken out 
 of the wagon. The buffalo-skins, doubled in fours, were 
 spread all along one side, and four men, with great difficulty, 
 lifted the heavy form of Tom into it. Before he was gotten 
 in, he fainted entirely. The old negress, in the abundance of 
 her compassion, sat down on the bottom, and took his head 
 
CHAEITY TO AN ENEMY. 217 
 
 in her lap. Eliza, George and Jim, bestowed themselves, as 
 well as they could, in the remaining space, and the whole 
 party set forward. 
 
 " What do you think of him ? " said George, who sat by 
 Phineas, in front. 
 
 " Well, it's only a pretty deep flesh-wound ; but then 
 tumbling and scratching down that place didn't help him 
 much. It has bled pretty freely pretty much dreaned him 
 out, courage and all ; but he'll get over it, and may be learn 
 a thing or two by it." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear you say BO," said George. " It would 
 always be a heavy thought to me if I'd caused his death, even 
 in a just cause." 
 
 "Yes," said Phineas, "killing is an ugly operation, any 
 way they'll fix it, man or beast. I've been a great hunter in 
 my day, and I tell thee I've seen a buck that was shot down, 
 and a dying, look that way on a feller with his eye that it 
 reely most made a feller feel wicked for killing on him ; and 
 human creatures is a more serious consideration yet, bein', 
 as thy wife says, that the judgment comes to 'em after death. 
 So I don't know as our people's notions on these matters is 
 too strict ; and, considerin' how I was raised, I fell in with 
 them pretty considerably." 
 
 " What shall you do with this poor fellow ? " said George. 
 
 " Oh, carry him along to Amariah's. There's old Grand- 
 mam Stephens there Dorcas, they call her she's most an 
 amazin' nurse. She takes to nursing real natural, and an't 
 never better suited than when she gets a sick body to tend. 
 We may reckon on turning him over to her for a fortnight 
 or so." 
 
 A ride of about an hour more brought the party to a neat 
 farm-house, where the weary travellers were received to an 
 abundant breakfast. Tom Loker was soon carefully depo- 
 sited in a much cleaner and softer bed than he had ever been 
 in the habit of occupying. His wound was carefully dressed 
 and bandaged, and he lay languidly opening and shutting 
 his eyes on the white window-curtains and gently-gliding 
 figures of his sick room, like a weary child. And here, for 
 the present, we shall take our leave of one party. 
 
218 MISS OPHELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 MISS OPHELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS. 
 
 OTTB friend Tom, in his own simple musings, often com- 
 pared his more fortunate lot, in the bondage into which he 
 was cast, with that of Joseph in Egypt ; and, in fact, as time 
 went on, and he developed more and more under the eye of 
 his master, the strength of the parallel increased. 
 
 St. Clare was indolent and careless of money. Hitherto 
 the providing and marketing had been principally done by 
 Adolph, who was, to the full, as careless and extravagant as 
 his master ; and, between them both, they had carried on the 
 dispersing process with great alacrity. Accustomed, for 
 many years, to regard his master's property as his own care, 
 Tom saw, with an uneasiness he could scarcely repress, the 
 wasteful expenditure of the establishment : and, in the quiet 
 indirect way which his class often acquire, would sometimes 
 make his own suggestions. 
 
 St. Clare at first employed him occasionally ; but, struck 
 with his soundness of mind and good business capacity, he 
 confided in him more and more, till gradually all the 
 marketing and providing for the family were entrusted 
 to him. 
 
 "No, no, Adolph," he said, one day, as Adolph was 
 deprecating the passing of power out of his hands ; " let 
 Tom alone. You only understand what you wantTom 
 understands cost and come too ; and there may be some 
 end to money, by and 'by, if we don't let somebody do 
 that." 
 
 Trusted to an unlimited extent by a careless master, who 
 handed him a bill without looking at it, and pocketed the 
 change without counting it, Tom had every facility and 
 temptation to hishonesty ; and nothing but an impregnable 
 simplicity of nature, strengthened by Christian faith, could 
 have kept him from it. But, to that nature, the very 
 
219 
 
 unbounded trust reposed in him was bond and seal for the 
 most scrupulous accuracy. 
 
 "With Adolph the case had been different. Thoughtless 
 and self-indulgent, and unrestrained by a master who found 
 it easier to indulge than to regulate, he had fallen into an 
 absolute confusion as to meum and tuum with regard to 
 himself and his master, which sometimes troubled even 
 St. Clare. His own good sense taught him that such a 
 training of his servants was unjust and dangerous. A sort 
 of chronic remorse went with him everywhere, although not 
 strong enough to make any decided change in his course ; 
 and this very remorse reacted again into indulgence. He 
 passed lightly over the most serious faults, because he told 
 himself that, if he had done his part, his dependants had not 
 fallen into them. 
 
 Tom regarded his gay, airy, handsome young master, with 
 an odd mixture of fealty, reverence, and fatherly solicitude. 
 That he never read the Bible ; never went to church ; that 
 he jested and made free with any and everything that came 
 in the way of his wit ; that he spent his Sunday evenings at 
 the opera or theatre; that he went to wine-parties, and 
 clubs, and suppers, oftener than was at all expedient were 
 all things that Tom could see as plainly as anybody, and on 
 which he based a conviction that " mas'r wasn't a Christian ;" 
 a conviction, however, which he would have been very slow 
 to express to any one else, but on which he founded many 
 prayers, in his own simple fashion, when he was by himself 
 in his little dormitory. Not that Tom had not his own way 
 of speaking his mind occasionally, with something of the 
 tact often observable in his class ; as, for example, the very 
 day after the Sabbath we have described, St. Clare was 
 invited out to a convivial party of choice spirits, and was 
 helped home, between one and two o'clock at night, in a 
 condition when the physical had decidedly attained the 
 upper hand of the intellectual. Tom and Adolph assisted 
 to get him composed for the night, the latter in high spirits, 
 evidently regarding the matter as a good joke, and laughing 
 heartily at the rusticity of Tom's horror, who really was 
 simple enough to lie awake most of the rest of the night, 
 praying for his young master. 
 
 " "Well, Tom, what are you waiting for ? " said St. Clare, 
 
220 TOM'S BEPBOOF TO HIS MASTER. 
 
 the next day, as . lie sat in his library, in dressing-gown and 
 slippers. St. Clare had just been intrusting Tom with some 
 money, and various commissions. " Isn't all right there, 
 Tom ? " he added, as Tom still stood waiting. 
 
 "I'm 'fraid not, mas'r," said Tom, with a grave face. 
 
 St. Clare laid down his paper, and set down his coffee-cup, 
 and looked at Tom. 
 
 " Why, Tom, what's the case ? You look as solemn as a 
 coffin." ' 
 
 " I feel very bad, mas'r. I al'ays have thought that mas'r 
 would be good to everybody." 
 
 " Well, Tom, haven't I been ? Come, now, what do you 
 want ? There's something you haven't got, I suppose, and 
 this is the preface." 
 
 " Mas'r al'ays been good to me. I haven't nothing to 
 complain of, on that head. But there is one that mas'r isn't 
 good to." 
 
 " Why, Tom, what's got into you ? Speak out ; what do 
 you mean ?" 
 
 "Last night, between one and two, I thought so. I studied 
 upon the matter then. Mas'r isn't good to himself" 
 
 Tom said this with his back to his master, and his hand 
 on the door-knob. St. Clare felt his face flush crimson, but 
 he laughed. 
 
 " Oh, that's all, is it ?" he said gaily. 
 
 "All!" said Tom, turning suddenly round and falling on 
 his knees. " 0, my dear young mas'r ! I'm 'fraid it will be 
 loss of all all body and soul. The good Book says, ' it 
 biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder,' my dear 
 mas'r!" 
 
 Tom's voice choked, and the tears ran down his cheeks. 
 
 "You poor silly fool!" said St. Clare, with tears in his 
 own eyes. " G-et up, Tom : I'm not worth crying over." 
 
 But Tom wouldn't rise, and looked imploring. 
 
 " Well, I won't go to any more of their cursed nonsense, 
 Tom," said St. Clare; "on my honour, I won't. I don't 
 know why I haven't stopped long ago. I've always despised 
 it, and myself for it ; so now, Tom, wipe up your eyes, and go 
 about your errands. Come, come," he added, " no blessings. 
 I'm not so wonderfully good now," he said, as he gently 
 pushed Tom to the door. " There, I'll pledge my honour to 
 
221 
 
 you, Tom, you don't see me so again," he said; and Tom 
 went off, wiping his eyes, with great satisfaction. 
 
 " I'll keep my faith with him, too," said St. Clare, as he 
 closed the door. 
 
 \ And St. Clare did so ; for gross sensualism, in any form, 
 was not the peculiar temptation of his nature. 
 
 But, all this time, who shall detail the tribulations mani- 
 fold of our friend Miss Ophelia, who had begun the labours 
 of a Southern housekeeper ? 
 
 There is all the difference in the world in the servants of 
 Southern establishments, according to the character and 
 capacity of the mistresses who have brought them up. 
 
 South as well as north, there are women who have an 
 extraordinary talent for command and tact in educating. 
 Such are enabled, with apparent ease, and without severity, 
 to subject to their will, and bring into harmonious and 
 systematic order, the various members of their small estate, 
 to regulate their peculiarities, and so balance and compensate 
 the deficiencies of one by the excess of another as to produce 
 a harmonious and orderly system. 
 
 Such a housekeeper was Mrs. Shelby, whom we have 
 already described ; and such our readers may remember to 
 have met with. If they are not common at the South, it is 
 because they are not common in the world. They are to be 
 found there as often as anywhere ; and, when existing, find 
 in that peculiar state of society a brilliant opportunity to 
 exhibit their domestic talent. 
 
 Such a housekeeper Marie St. Clare was not, nor her 
 mother before her. Indolent and childish, unsystematic and 
 improvident, it was not to be expected that servants trained 
 under her care should not be so likewise ; and she had very 
 justly described to Miss Ophelia the state of confusion she 
 would find in the family, though she had not ascribed it to 
 the proper cause. 
 
 The first morning of her regency, Miss Ophelia was up at 
 four o'clock ; and having attended to all the adjustments of 
 her own chamber, as she had done ever since she came there, 
 to the great amazement of the chambermaid, she prepared 
 for a vigorous onslaught on the cupboards and closets of the 
 establishment, of which she had the keys. 
 
 The store-room, the linen-presses, the china-closet, the 
 
222 AUNT DINAH THE COOK. 
 
 kitchen and cellar, that day, all went under an awful review. 
 Hidden things of darkness were brought to light to an 
 extent that alarmed all the principalities and powers of 
 kitchen and chamber, and caused many wonderings and 
 murmurings about "dese yer northern ladies" from the 
 domestic cabinet. 
 
 Old Dinah, the head cook, and -principal of all rule and 
 authority in the kitchen department, was filled with wrath at 
 what she considered an invasion of privilege. No feudal 
 baron in Magna Charta times could have more thoroughly 
 resented some incursion of the Crown. 
 
 Dinah was a character in her own way, and it would 
 be injustice to her memory not to give the reader a little 
 idea of her. She was a native and essential cook, as 
 much as Aunt Chloe cooking being an indigenous 
 talent of the African race ; but Chloe was a trained and 
 methodical one, who moved in an orderly domestic harness, 
 while Dinah was a self-taught genius, and, like geniuses 
 in general, was positive, opinionated, and erratic, to the 
 last degree. 
 
 Like a certain class of modern philosophers, Dinah per- 
 fectly scorned logic and reason in every shape, and always 
 took refuge in intuitive certainty ; and here she was perfectly 
 impregnable. No possible amount of talent or authority, or 
 explanation, could ever make her believe that any other way 
 was better than her own, or that the course she had pursued 
 in the smallest matter could be in the least modified. This 
 had been a conceded point with her old mistress, Marie's 
 mother ; and " Miss Marie," as Dinah always called her 
 young mistress, even after her marriage, found it easier to 
 submit than contend; and so Dinah had ruled supreme. 
 This was the easier, in that she was perfect mistress of that 
 diplomatic art which unites the utmost subservience of 
 manner with the utmost inflexibility as to measure. 
 
 Dinah was mistress of the whole art and mystery of 
 excuse-making in all its branches. Indeed, it was an axiom 
 with her that the cook can do no wrong ; and a cook in a 
 Southern kitchen finds abundance of heads and shoulders on 
 which to lay off every sin and frailty, so as to maintain her 
 own immaculateness entire. If any part of the dinner was 
 a failure, there were fifty indisputably good reasons for it ; 
 
AUNT DINAH'S KITCHEN. 223 
 
 and it was the fault undeniably of fifty other people whom 
 Dinah berated with unsparing zeal. 
 
 But it was very seldom that there was any failure in 
 Dinah's last results. Though her mode of doing everything 
 was peculiarly meandering and circuitous, and without any 
 sort of calculation as to time and place, though her kitchen 
 generally looked as if it had been arranged by a hurricane 
 blowing through it, and she had about as many places for 
 each cooking utensil as there were days in the year, yet, if 
 one would have patience to wait her own good time, up 
 would come her dinner in perfect order, and in a style of 
 preparation with which an epicure could find no fault. 
 
 It was now the season of incipient preparation for dinner. 
 Dinah, who required large intervals of reflection and repose, 
 and was studious of ease in all her arrangements, was seated 
 on the kitchen floor, smoking a short stumpy pipe, to which 
 she was much addicted, and which she always kindled up, as 
 a sort of censer, whenever she felt the need of an inspiration 
 in her arrangements. It was Dinah's mode of invoking the 
 domestic Muses. 
 
 Seated around her were various members of that rising 
 race with which a Southern household abounds, engaged in 
 shelling peas, peeling potatoes, picking pin-feathers out of 
 fowls, and other preparatory arrangements, Dinah every 
 once in a while interrupting her meditations to give a poke 
 or a rap on the head to some of the young operators, with 
 the pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled 
 over the woolly heads of the younger members with a rod of 
 iron, and seemed to consider them born for no earthly 
 purpose but to " save her steps," as she phrased it. It was 
 the spirit of the system under which she had grown up, and 
 she carried it out to its full extent. ' / 
 
 Miss Ophelia, after passing on her reformatory touA 
 through all the other parts of the establishment, now \ 
 entered the kitchen. Dinah had heard, from various sources, 1 
 what was going on, and resolved to stand on defensive and V 
 conservative ground, mentally determined to oppose and / 
 ignore every new measure, without any actual and observable/ 
 contest. 
 
 The kitchen was a large brick-floored apartment, with a 
 great old-fashioned fireplace stretching along one side of it, 
 
224 UNPLEASANT INQUIRIES. 
 
 an arrangement which St. Clare had vainly tried to persuade 
 Dinah to exchange for the convenience of a modern cook- 
 stove. Not she. No Puseyite, or Conservative of any 
 school, was ever more inflexibly attached to time-honoured 
 inconveniences than Dinah. 
 
 "When St. Clare had first returned from the north, im- 
 pressed with the system and order of his uncle's kitchen 
 arrangements, he had largely provided his own with an array 
 of cupboards, drawers, and various apparatus, to induce 
 systematic regulation, under the sanguine illusion that it 
 would be of any possible assistance to Dinah in her 
 arrangements. He might as well have provided them for a 
 squirrel or a magpie. The more drawers and closets there 
 were, the more hiding-holes could Dinah make for the 
 accommodation of old rags, hair-combs, old shoes, ribbons, 
 cast-off artificial flowers, and other articles of virtu, wherein 
 her soul delighted. 
 
 When Miss Ophelia entered the kitchen, Dinah did not 
 rise, but smoked on in sublime tranquillity, regarding her 
 movements obliquely out of the corner of her eye, but 
 apparently intent only on the operations around her. 
 
 Miss Ophelia commenced opening a set of drawers. 
 
 " What is this drawer for, Dinah ? " she said. 
 
 " It's handy for most anything, missis," said Dinah. So 
 it appeared to be. From the variety it contained, Miss 
 Ophelia pulled out first a fine damask table-cloth stained 
 with blood, having evidently been used to envelope some 
 raw meat. 
 
 " What's this, Dinah ? You don't wrap up meat in your 
 mistress's best table-cloths ? " 
 
 " Lor, missis, no ; the towels was all a missin' so 
 I jest did it. I laid out to wash that ar that's why I put 
 it thar." 
 
 " Shiftless ! " said Miss Ophelia to herself, proceeding to 
 tumble over the drawer, where she found a nutmeg-grater 
 and two or three nutmegs, a Methodist hymn-book, a couple 
 of soiled Madras handkerchiefs, some yarn and knitting 
 work, a paper of tobacco and a pipe, a few crackers, one or 
 two gilded china-saucers with some pomade in them, one 
 or two thin old shoes, a piece of flannel carefully pinned up 
 inclosing some small white onions, several damask table 
 
TJSSATISFACTOIIY REPLIES. 225 
 
 napkins, some coarse crash towels, some twine and darning- 
 needles, and several broken papers, from which sundry sweet 
 herbs were sifting into the drawer. 
 
 " Where do you keep your nutmegs, Dinah ? " said Miss 
 Ophelia, with the air of one who prayed for patience. 
 
 " Most anywhar, missis ; there's some in that cracked 
 teacup, up there, and there's some over in that ar cupboard." 
 
 " Here are some in the grater," said Miss Ophelia, holding 
 them up. , 
 
 " Laws, yes, I put 'em there this morning. I likes to 
 keep my things handy," said Dinah. " You, Jake ! what are 
 you stopping for! You'll cotch it ! Be still, thar!" she 
 added, with a dive of her stick at the criminal. 
 
 " What's this ? " said Miss Ophelia, holding up the saucer 
 of pomade. 
 
 "Laws, it's my har grease; I put it thar to have it 
 handy." 
 
 " Do you use your mistress's best saucers for that ? " 
 
 " Law ! it was cause I was driv, and in sich a hurry ; I 
 was gwine to change it this very day." 
 
 " Here are two damask table-napkins." 
 
 " Them table-napkins I put thar to get 'em washed out, 
 some day." 
 
 " Don't you have some place here on purpose for things 
 to be washed?" 
 
 " Well, Mas'r St. Clare got dat ar chest, he said, for dat ; 
 but I likes to mix up biscuit and hev my things on it some 
 days, and then it an't handy a liftin' up the lid." 
 
 " Whv don't you mix your biscuits on the pastry-table, 
 there?" 
 
 " Law, missis, it gets sot so full of dishes, and one thing 
 and another, der an't no room, noways" 
 
 " But you should wasli your dishes, and clear them away." 
 
 " Wash my dishes!" said Dinah; in a high key, as her 
 wrath began to rise over her habitual respect of manner. 
 " What does ladies know 'bout work, I want to know ? 
 When 'd mas'r ever get his dinner if I was to spend all my 
 time a washin' and a puttin' up dishes ? Miss Marie never 
 telled me so, nohow." 
 
 " Well, here are these onions." 
 
 " Laws, yes ! " said Dinah ; " thar is whar I put 'em, now. 
 
 Q 
 
226 AUNT DINAH INDIGNANT. 
 
 I couldn't 'member. Them's particular onions I was a savin' 
 for dis yer very stew. I'd forgot they was in dat ar old 
 flannel." 
 
 Miss Ophelia lifted out the sifting paper of sweet herbs. 
 
 " I wish missis wouldn't touch dem ar. I likes to keep 
 my things where I knows whar to go to 'em," said Dinah, 
 rather decidedly. 
 
 " But you don't want these holes in the papers." 
 
 " Them's lymdy for siftin' on't out," said Dinah. 
 
 " But you see it spills all over the drawer." 
 
 " Laws, yes ! if missis will go a tumblin' things all up so, 
 it will. Missis has spilt lots dat ar way," said Dinah, coming 
 uneasily to the drawers. " If missis only will go up stars till 
 my clarin'-up time comes, I'll have everything right ; but I 
 can't do nothin' when ladies is round, a henderin'. You, 
 Sam, don't you gib the baby dat ar sugar-bowl ! I'll crack 
 ye over, if you don't mind ! " 
 
 " I'm goiug through the kitchen, and going to put every- 
 thing in order, once, Dinah ; and then I'll expect you to keep 
 it so." 
 
 " Lor, now ! Miss Phelia, dat ar an't no way for ladies 
 to do. I never did see ladies doin' no sich ; my old missis 
 nor Miss Marie never did, and I don't see no kinder need 
 on't;" and Dinah stalked indignantly about, while Miss 
 Ophelia piled and sorted dishes, emptied dozens of scattering 
 bowls of sugar into one receptacle, sorted napkins, table-cloths, 
 and towels for washing ; washing, wiping, and arranging 
 with her own hands, and with a speed and alacrity which 
 perfectly amazed Dinah. 
 
 " Lor, now ! if dat ar de way dem northern ladies do, dey 
 an't ladies, nohow," she said to some of her satellites, when 
 at a safe hearing distance. "I has things as straight as 
 anybody, when my clarin'-up time comes ; but I don't want 
 ladies round a henderin' and getting my things all where I 
 can't find 'em." 
 
 To do Dinah justice, she had, at regular periods, paroxysms 
 of reformation and arrangement, which she called " clarin'-up 
 times," when she would begin with great zeal, and turn 
 every drawer and closet wrong side outward, on to the floor 
 or tables, and make the ordinary confusion sevenfold more 
 confounded. Then she would light her pipe, and leisurely go 
 
227 
 
 over her arrangements, looking things over, and discoursing 
 upon them ; making all the young fry scour most vigorously 
 on the tin things, and keeping up for several hours a most 
 energetic state of confusion, which she would explain to the 
 satisfaction of all inquirers by the remark that she was 
 a "clarin 5 up." " She couldn't hev things a gwine on so as 
 they had been, and she was gwine to make these yer 
 young ones keep better order ; " for Dinah herself somehow 
 indulged the illusion that she, herself, was the soul of order, 
 and it was only the young uns, and the everybody else in the 
 house, that were the cause of anything that fell short of 
 perfection in this respect. When all the tins were scoured, 
 and the tables scrubbed snowy white, and everything that 
 couH offend tucked out of sight in holes and corners, 
 Dinah would dress herself up in a smart dress, clean apron, 
 and high, brilliant Madras turban, and tell all marauding 
 " young uns," to keep out of the kitchen, for she was gwine 
 to have things kept nice. Indeed, these periodic seasons 
 were often an inconvenience to the whole household ; for 
 Dinah would contract such an immoderate attachment to 
 her scoured tin, as to insist upon it that it shouldn't be used 
 again for any possible purpose, at least till the ardour of the 
 " clarin' -up " period abated. 
 
 Miss Ophelia, in a few days, thoroughly reformed every 
 department of the house to a systematic pattern ; but her 
 labours in all departments that depended on the co-operation 
 of servants were like those of Sisyphus or the Danaides. In 
 despair, she one day appealed to St. Clare. 
 
 " There is no such thing as getting anything like* system 
 in this family!" 
 
 " To be sure there isn't," said St. Clare. 
 
 " Such shiftless management, such waste, such confusion, 
 1 never saw ! " 
 
 " I dare say you didn't." 
 
 " You would not take it so coolly if you w r ere house- 
 keeper." 
 
 " My dear cousin, you may as well understand, once for 
 all, that we masters are divided into two classes, oppressors 
 and oppressed. We who are good-natured and hate severity, . 
 make up our minds to a good deal of inconvenience. If we 
 will keep a shambling, loose, untaught set in the community, 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 A DOMESTIC DISCUSSION. 
 
 for our convenience, why, we must take the consequence. 
 Some rare cases I have seen of persons who, by a peculiar 
 tact, can produce order and system without severity ; but 
 I'm not one of them, and so I made up my mind, long 
 ago, to let things go just as they do. I will not have 
 the poor derils thrashed and cut to pieces, and they know 
 it ; and, of course, they know the staff is in their own 
 hands." 
 
 " But to have no time, no place, no order all going on 
 in this shiftless way ! " 
 
 " My dear Vermont, you natives up by the North Pole 
 set an extravagant value on time ! "What on earth is the 
 use of time to a fellow who has twice as much of it as he 
 knows what to do with ? As to order and system, where 
 there is nothing to be done but to lounge on the sofa and read, 
 an hour sooner or later in breakfast or dinner isn't of much 
 account. Now, there's Dinah gets you a capital dinner 
 soup, ragout, roast fowl, dessert, ice creams and all and 
 she creates it all out of Chaos and old Night down there 
 in that kitchen. I think it really sublime, the way she 
 manages. But, heaven bless us ! if we are to go down 
 there, and view all the smoking and squatting about, the 
 hurryscurryation of the preparatory process, we should never 
 eat more ! My good cousin, absolve yourself from, that ! 
 It's more than a Catholic penance, and does no more good. 
 You'll only lose your own temper, and utterly confound 
 Dinah. Let her go her own way." 
 
 " But, Augustine, you don't know how I found things." 
 
 " Don't I ? Don't I know that the rolling-pin is under 
 her bed, and the nutmeg-grater in her pocket with her 
 tobacco that there are sixty-five different sugar-bowls, one 
 in every hole in the house that she washes dishes with a 
 dinner napkin one day and with the fragment of an old 
 petticoat the next ! But the upshot is, she gets up glorious 
 dinners, makes superb coffee ; and you must judge her as 
 warriors and statesmen are judged, by her success." 
 
 "But the waste the expense ! " 
 
 " Oh, well ! Lock everything you can, and keep the key. 
 Give out by driblets, and never inquire for odds and ends 
 it isn't best." 
 
 " That troubles me, Augustine. I can't help feeling as if 
 
PEOPLE IS THE BEOAD EOAD. 229 
 
 these servants were not strictly honest. Are you sure they 
 can be relied on ? " 
 
 Augustine laughed immoderately at the grave and anxious 
 face with which Miss Ophelia propounded the question. 
 
 " Oh, cousin, that's too good. Honest I as if that's a 
 thing to be expected ! Honest ! why, of course, they 
 arn't. Why should they be ? What upon earth is to 
 make them so ? " 
 
 " Why don't you instruct ? " 
 
 " Instruct ! Oh, fiddlestick ! What instructing do you 
 think I should do ! I look like it ! As to Marie, she has 
 spirit enough, to be sure, to kill off a whole plantation, if I'd 
 let her manage ; but she wouldn't get the cheatery out of 
 them." 
 
 " Are there no honest ones ? " 
 
 " Well, now and then one, whom Nature makes so im- \ 
 practicably simple, truthful, and faithful, that the worst 
 possible influence can't destroy it. But, you see, from the 
 mother's breast the coloured child feels and sees that there 
 are none but underhand ways open to it. It can get along 
 no other way with its parents, its mistress, its young master 
 and missie play-fellows. Cunning and deception become 
 necessary, inevitable habits. It isn't fair to expect anything 
 else of him. He ought not to be punished for it. As to 
 honesty, the slave is kept in that dependent, semi-childish 
 state, that there is no making him realise the rights of pro- 
 perty, or feel that his master's goods are not his own, if he 
 can get them. For my part I don't see how they can be 
 honest. Such a fellow as Tom here is, is a moral miracle ! " 
 
 " And what becomes of their souls ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " That isn't my affair, as I know of," said St. Clare ; " I 
 am only dealing in facts of the present life. The fact is, that 
 the whole race are pretty generally understood to be turned 
 over to the devil, for our benefit, in this world, however it 
 may turn out in another ! " 
 
 "This is perfectly horrible.!" said Miss Ophelia; "you 
 ought to be ashamed of yourselves ! " 
 
 " I don't know as I am. We are in pretty good company; 
 for all that," said St. Clare, "as people in the broad road 
 generally are. Look at the high and the low, all the 
 world over, and it's the same story ; the lower class used 
 
230 DETJtfKEtf PRT7E, THE NIGGEB. 
 
 up, body, soul, and spirit, for the good of the upper. It 
 is so in England; it is so everywhere; and yet all 
 Christendom stands aghast, with virtuous indignation, 
 because we do the thing in a little different shape from what 
 they do it." 
 
 " It isn't so in Vermont." 
 
 " Ah, well, in New England, and in the free States, you 
 have the better of us, I grant. But there's the bell ; so, 
 cousin, let us for a while lay aside our sectional prejudices, 
 and come out to dinner." 
 
 As Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen in the latter part 
 of the afternoon, some of the sable children called out, " La, 
 sakes ! thar's Prue a coming, grunting along like she allers 
 does." 
 
 A tall, bony, coloured woman now entered the kitchen, 
 bearing on her head a basket of rusks and hot rolls. 
 
 " Ho, Prue ! you've come," said Dinah. 
 
 Prue had a peculiar scowling expression of countenance, 
 and a sullen grumbling voice. She set down her basket, 
 squatted herself down, and resting her elbows on her knees 
 said, 
 
 " Lord ! I wish I's dead ! " 
 
 " Why do you wish you were dead ?" said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 "I'd be out of my misery," said the woman gruffly, without 
 taking her eyes from the floor. 
 
 " What need you getting drunk, then, and cutting up, 
 Prue ? " said a spruce quadroon chambermaid, dangling, as 
 she spoke, a pair of coral ear-drops. 
 
 The woman looked at her with a sour, surly glance. . 
 
 " May be you'll come to it, one of these yer days. I'd be 
 glad to see you, I would ; then you'll be glad of a drop, like 
 me, to forget your misery." 
 
 "Come, Prue," said Dinah, "let's look at your rusks. 
 Here's missis will pay for them." ^?fi 
 
 Miss Ophelia took out a couple of dozen. 
 
 " Thar's some tickets in that ar old cracked jug on the 
 top shelf," said Dinah. " You, Jake, climb up and get it 
 down." 
 
 " Tickets what are they for ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " We buy tickets of her mas'r, and she gives us bread 
 for 'em." 
 
DIFFEEENCES OF CASTE. 233 
 
 " And they counts my money and tickets, when I gets 
 home, to see if I's got the change ; and if I han't they half 
 kills me." 
 
 "And serves you right," said Jane, the pert chambermaid, 
 " if you will take their money to get drunk on. That's what 
 she does, missis." 
 
 " And that's what I will do ; I can't live no other ways 
 drink and forget my misery." 
 
 " You are very wicked and very foolish," said Miss Ophe- 
 lia, " to steal your master's money to make yourself a brute 
 with." 
 
 " It's mighty likely, missis ; but I will do it yes, I will. 
 Lord ! I wish I's dead, I do ; I wish I's dead, and out of 
 my misery ! " and slowly and stiffly the old creature rose, 
 and got her basket on her head again ; but before she went 
 out she looked at the quadroon girl, who still stood playing 
 with her ear-drops. 
 
 " Ye think ye're mighty fine with them ar, a frolickin', 
 and a tossin' your head, and a lookin' down on every- 
 body. Well, never mind you may live to be a poor, old, 
 cut- up crittur, like me. Hope to the Lord ye will, I do ; 
 then see if ye won't drink drink drink yerself into 
 torment; and sarve ye right, too ugh!" and, with a 
 malignant howl the woman left the room. 
 
 " Disgusting old beast ! " said Adolph, who was getting 
 his master's shaving- water. "If I was her master, I'd cut 
 her up worse than she is." 
 
 " Ye couldn't do that ar, no ways," said Dinah. " Her 
 back's a far sight now she can't never get a dress together 
 over it." 
 
 " I think such low creatures ought not to be allowed to go 
 round to genteel families," said Miss Jane. " What do you 
 think, Mr. St. Clare ? " she said, coquettishly tossing her 
 head at Adolph. 
 
 It must be observed that, among other appropriations from 
 his master's stock, Adolph was in the habit of adopting his 
 name and address ; and that the style under which he 
 moved, among the coloured circles of New Orleans, was 
 that of Mr. St. Clare. 
 
 " I'm certainly of your opinion, Miss Benoir," said 
 Adolph. 
 
232 COMMOTION IN THE KITCHEN. 
 
 Benoir was the name of Marie St. Clare's family, and Jane 
 was one of her servants. 
 
 " Pray, Miss Benoir, may I be allowed to ask if those 
 drops are for the ball to-morrow night ? They are certainly 
 bewitching ! " 
 
 " I wonder, now, Mr. St. Clare, what the impudence of 
 you men will come to ! " said Jane, tossing her pretty head 
 till the ear-drops twinkled again. " I shan't dance with you 
 for a whole evening, if you go to asking me any more 
 questions." 
 
 " Oh, you couldn't be so cruel, now ! I was just dying to 
 know whether you would appear in your pink tarletane,'' 
 said Adolph. 
 
 " What is it ? " said Rosa, a bright, piquant little quad- 
 roon, who came skipping down stairs at this moment. 
 
 " Why, Mr. St. Clare's so impudent ! " 
 
 " On my honour/' said Adolph, " I'll leave it to Miss 
 Rosa, now." 
 
 " I know he's always a saucy creature," said Rosa, poising 
 herself on one of her little feet, and looking maliciously at 
 Adolph. " He's always getting me so angry with him." 
 
 " O ladies, ladies, you will certainly break my heart, 
 between you," said Adolph. " I shall be found dead in my 
 bed some morning, and you'll have it to answer for." 
 
 " Do hear the horrid creature talk ! " said both ladies, 
 laughing immoderately. 
 
 " Come, clar out, you ! I can't have you cluttering up 
 the kitchen," said Dinah, " in my way, foolin' round here." 
 
 "Aunt Dinah's glum, because she can't go to the ball," 
 said Rosa. 
 
 "Don't want none o' your light-coloured balls," said 
 Dinah; "cuttin* round, makin' b'lieve you's white folks. 
 1" ^"Arter all, you's niggers, much as I am." 
 
 " Aunt Dinah greases her wool stiff, every day, to make it 
 lie straight," said Jane. 
 
 " And it will be wool, after all," said Rosa, maliciously 
 shaking down her long, silky curls. 
 
 "Well, in the Lord's sight, an't wool as good as liar, any 
 time?" said Dinah. "I'd like to have missis say which is 
 worth the most a couple such as you, or one like me. Get 
 out wid ye, ye trumpery I won't have ye round! " 
 
UNCLE TOM AND DKUNKEN PEUE. 233 
 
 Here the conversation was interrupted in a two-fold 
 manner. St. Clare's voice was heard at the head of the 
 stairs, asking Adolph if he meant to stay all night with his 
 shaving- water ; and Miss Ophelia, coming out of the dining- 
 room, said 
 
 " Jane and Rosa, what are you wasting your time for 
 here ? Go in and attend to your muslins." 
 
 Our friend Tom, who had been in the kitchen during the 
 conversation with the old rusk-woman, had followed her out 
 into the street. He saw her go on, giving every once in a 
 while a suppressed groan. At last she set her basket down 
 on a door- step, and began arranging the old faded shawl 
 which covered her shoulders. 
 
 " I'll carry your basket a piece," said Tom, compas- 
 sionately. 
 
 " Why should ye ? " said the woman. " I don't want no 
 help." 
 
 <k You seem to be sick, or in trouble, or somethin','' said 
 Tom. 
 
 " I an't sick," said the woman, shortly. 
 
 "I wish," said Tom, looking at her earnestly, "I wish I 
 could persuade you to leave off drinking. Don't you know 
 it will be the ruin of ye, body and soul ? " 
 
 " I knows I'm gwine to torment," said the woman, 
 sullenly. " Ye don't need to tell me that ar. I's ugly 
 I's wicked I's gwine straight to torment. O Lord! I wish 
 1'sthar!" 
 
 Tom shuddered at these frightful words, spoken with a 
 sullen, impassioned earnestness. 
 
 " Lord have mercy on ye ! poor crittur. Han't ye 
 never heard of Jesus Christ ? " 
 
 " Jesus Christ ! who's He ? " 
 
 " Why, He's the Lord," said Tom. 
 
 " I think I've hearn tell o' the Lord, and the judgment 
 and torment. I've hearn o' that." 
 
 " But didn't anybody ever tell you of the Lord Jesus, that 
 loved us poor sinners, and died for us ? " 
 
 " Don't know iiothin' 'bout that," said the woman ; " nobody 
 han't never loved me, since my old man died." 
 
 ' : Where was you raised ? " said Tom. 
 
 < Up in Kentuck. A man kept me to breed chil'en for 
 
234 FIEST WOEDS OF HOPE. 
 
 market, and sold 'em as fast as they got big enough ; last 
 of all, he sold me to a speculator, and my master got me 
 o' him." 
 
 7 " "What set you into this bad way of drinkin' ? " 
 
 / " To get shet o' my misery. I had one child after I come 
 
 / here ; and I thought then I'd have one to raise, cause mas'r 
 
 / wasn't a speculator. It was the peartest little thing ! and 
 
 J missis she seemed to think a heap on't, at first ; it never 
 
 J: T cried it was likely and fat. But missis tuck sick, and I 
 
 / tended her ; and I tuck the fever, and my milk all left me, 
 
 U and the child it pined to skin and bone, and missis wouldn't 
 
 ' buy milk for it. She wouldn't hear to me, when I telled her 
 
 I hadn't milk. She said she knowed I could feed it on what 
 
 other folks eat ; and the child kinder pined and cried, and 
 
 cried, and cried, day and night, and got all gone to skin and 
 
 bones, and missis got sot agin it, and she said 'twarn't 
 
 nothin' but crossness. She wished it was dead, she said; 
 
 and she wouldn't let me have it o' nights, cause, she said, it 
 
 kept me awake, and made me good for nothing. She made 
 
 me sleep in her room ; and I had to put it a way off in a 
 
 little kind o' garret, and thar it cried itself to death, one 
 
 i night. It did; and I tuck to drinkin', to keep its crying 
 
 V out of my ears! I did and I will drink! I will, if I do 
 
 \ go to torment for it ! Mas'r says I shall go to torment, and 
 
 I tell him I've got thar now ! " 
 
 "O ye poor crittur!" said Tom, "ha'nt nobody never 
 telled ye how the Lord Jesus loved ye, and died for ye ? 
 Han't they telled ye that He'll help ye, and ye can go to 
 heaven, and have rest, at last ? " 
 
 "I looks like gwine to heaven," said the woman; "an't 
 thar where white folks is gwine? S'pose they'd have me 
 thar ? I'd rather go to torment, and get away from mas'r 
 and missis. I had so," she said, as, with her usual groan, 
 she got her basket on her head, and walked sullenly away. 
 
 Tom turned, and walked sorrowfully back to the house. 
 In the court he met little Eva a crown of tuberoses on her 
 head, and her eyes .radiant with delight. 
 
 Ms " Tom ! here you are. I'm glad I've found you. Papa 
 ^ / says you may get out the ponies and take me in my little 
 / new carriage," she said, catching his hand. " But what's 
 I the matter, Tom ? you look sober." 
 
MISS OPHELIA'S EXPEKIENCES, CONTINUED. 235 
 
 "I feel bad, Miss Eva," said Tom, sorrowfully. "But 
 I'll get the horses for you." 
 
 " But do tell me, Tom, what is the matter. I saw you 
 talking to cross old Prue." 
 
 Tom, in simple, earnest phrase, told Eva the woman's 
 history. She did not exclaim, or wonder, or weep, as other 
 children do. Her cheeks grew pale, and a deep, earnest 
 shadow passed over her eyes. She laid both hands on her 
 bosom, and sighed heavily. 
 
 .,'' - n ;':, ;.-* ; 
 
 CHAPTEE. XIX. 
 MISS OPHELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS, CONTINUED. 
 
 " TOM, you needn't get me the horses. I don't want to 
 go," she said. 
 
 " Why not, Miss Eva ? " 
 
 " These things sink into my heart, Tom," said Eva ; "they 
 sink into my heart," she repeated earnestly. " I don't 
 wan't to go ; " and she turned from Tom, and went into the 
 house. 
 
 A few days after another woman came, in old Prue's place, 
 to bring the rusks ; Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen. 
 
 " Lor ! " said Dinah, " what's got Prue ? " 
 
 " Prue isn't comin' any more," said the woman, myste- 
 riously. 
 
 " Why not ? " said Dinah, " she an't dead, is she ? " 
 
 "We doesn't exactly know. She's down cellar," said the 
 woman, glancing at Miss Ophelia. 
 
 After Miss Ophelia had taken the rusks, Dinah followed 
 the woman to the door. 
 
 " What has got Prue, anyhow ? " she said. 
 
 The woman seemed desirous yet reluctant to speak, and 
 answered in a low, mysterious tone, 
 
 " Well, you mustn't tell nobody. Prue, she got drunk 
 agin and they had her down cellar and thar they left her 
 all day ; and I hearn 'em saying that the flies had got to her 
 and she's dead! " 
 
236 DEATH OF DRUNKEN PEUE. 
 
 Dinah held up her hands, and, turning, saw close by her 
 side the spirit-like form of Evaiigeline, her large, mystic eyes 
 dilated with horror, and every drop of blood driven from her 
 lips and cheeks. 
 
 " Lor bless us ! Miss Eva's gwine to faint away ! "What 
 got us all, to let her har such talk? Her pa'll be rail mad.". 
 
 " I shan't faint, Dinah," said the child, firmly ; " and why 
 shouldn't I hear it ? It an't so much for me to hear it a*s 
 for pool' Prue to suffer it." 
 
 " Lor salces ! it isn't for sweet delicate young ladies like 
 you these yer stories isn't; it's enough to kill 'em!" 
 
 Eva sighed again, and walked up stairs with a slow and 
 melancholy step. 
 
 Miss Ophelia anxiously inquired the woman's story. 
 Dinah gave a very garrulous version .of it, to which Tom 
 added the particulars which he had drawn from her on that 
 morning. 
 
 "An abominable business perfectly horrible!" sh'e ex- 
 claimed, as she entered the room where St. Clare lay, reading 
 his paper. 
 
 " Pray, what iniquity has turned up now ?" said he. 
 
 " What now ? why those folks have whipped Prue to 
 death ! " said Miss Ophelia, going on, with great strength of 
 detail into the story, and enlarging on its most shocking 
 particulars. 
 
 "I thought it would come to that some time," said 
 St. Clare, going on with his paper. 
 
 " Thought so ! an't you going to do anything about it ? " 
 said Miss Ophelia. " Haven't got any selectmen, or anybody 
 to interfere and look after such matters ?" 
 
 " It's commonly supposed that the property interest is a 
 sufficient guard in these cases. If people choose to ruin 
 their own possessions, I don't know what's to be done. It 
 seems the poor creature w r as a thief and a drunkard ; and so 
 there won't be much hope to get up sympathy for her." 
 
 " It is perfectly outrageous it is horrid, Augustine ! It 
 will certainly bring down vengeance upon you." 
 
 " My dear cousin, I didn't do it, and I can't help it ; I 
 would, if I could. If low-minded, brutal people, will act like 
 themselves, what am I to do ? They have absolute control ; 
 they are irresponsible despots. There would be no use in 
 
MISS OPHELIA'S INDIGKATIOX. 237 
 
 interfering; there is no law that amounts to anything 
 practically for such a case. The best we can do is to shut 
 our eyes and ears, and let it alone. It's the only resource 
 left us." 
 
 " How can you shut your eyes and ears ? How can you 
 let such things alone ?" 
 
 " My dear child, what do you expect ? Here is a whole / 
 class debased, uneducated, indolent, provoking put, with- > 
 out any sort of terms or conditions, entirely into the hands 
 of such people as the majority in our world are ; people 
 who have neither consideration nor self-control, who haven't 
 even an enlightened regard to their own interest for that's 
 the case with the largest half of mankind. Of course, in a 
 community so organised, what can a man of honourable and 
 humane feelings do, but shut his eyes all he can, and harden 
 his heart ? I can't buy every poor wretch I see. I can't 
 turn knight-errant, and undertake to redress every individual 
 case of wrong in euch a city as this. The most I can do is 
 to try and keep out of the way of it." 
 
 St. Clare's fine countenance was for a moment overcast ; 
 he looked annoyed : but, suddenly calling up a gay smile, 
 he said 
 
 " Come, cousin, don't stand there looking like one of the 
 Fates ; you've only seen a peep through the curtain a 
 specimen of what is going on the world over, in some shape 
 or other. If we are to be prying and spying into all the 
 dismals of life, we should have no heart to anything. 'Tia 
 like looking too close into the details of Dinah's kitchen;" 
 and St. Clare lay back on the sofa and busied himself with 
 his paper. 
 
 Miss Ophelia sat down and pulled out her knitting-work, t 
 and sat there, grim with indignation. She knit and knit ; 
 but while she mused the fire burned. At last she broke 
 out 
 
 " I tell you, Augustine, I can't get over things so, if you 
 can. It's a perfect abomination for you to defend such a 
 system that's my mind!" 
 
 " What now ?" said St. Clare, looking up. " At it again, 
 eh?" 
 
 " I say it's perfectly abominable for you to defend such a 
 system !" said Miss Ophelia, with increasing warmth. 
 
238 siircrnra AND 
 
 " I defend it, my dear lady ? "Who ever said I did defend 
 it?" said St. Clare. 
 
 " Of course you defend it you. all do all you South- 
 erners. "What do you have slaves for, if you don't ?" 
 
 " Are you such a sweet innocent as to suppose nobody in 
 this world ever does what they don't think is right ? Don't 
 you, or didn't you ever, do anything that you did not think 
 quite right ?" 
 
 " If I do I repent of it, I hope," said Miss Ophelia, 
 rattling her needles with energy. 
 
 "So do I," said St. Clare, peeling his orange; "I'm 
 repenting of it all the time." 
 
 " What do you keep on doing it for ? " 
 
 " Didn't you ever keep on doing wrong after you'd 
 repented, my good cousin ? " 
 
 " Well, only when I've been very much tempted," said 
 Miss Ophelia. 
 
 ""Well, I'm very much tempted," said St. Clare ; "that's 
 just my difficulty." 
 
 " But I always resolve I won't, and try to break it off." 
 
 "Well, I have been resolving I won't, off and on, these 
 ten years," said St. Clare; "but I haven't somehow, got 
 clear. Have you got clear of all your sins, cousin ? " 
 
 " Cousin Augustine," said Miss Ophelia, seriously, and 
 laying down her knitting- work, " I suppose I deserve that 
 you should reprove my short-comings. I know all you say 
 is true enough ; nobody else feels them more than I do : 
 but it does seem to me, after all, there is some difference 
 between me and you. It seems to me that I would cut off 
 my right hand sooner than keep on, from day to day, doing 
 what I thought was wrong. But then my conduct is so 
 inconsistent with my profession, I don't wonder you 
 reprove me." 
 
 " Oh, now, cousin," said Augustine, sitting down on the 
 floor, and laying his head back in her lap, " don't take on so 
 awfully serious ! You knowwhat a good-for-nothing, saucy 
 boy I always was. I love to poke you up that's all just 
 to see you get earnest. I do think you are desperately, 
 distressingly good ; it tires me to death to think of it." 
 
 " But this is a serious subject, my boy, Auguste," said 
 Miss Ophelia, laying her hand on his forehead. 
 
x""" 
 
 A CUBSED BUfcrtfESS. 239 
 
 " Dismally so," said he ; " and I well, I never want to 
 talk seriously in hot weather. What with musquitoes and 
 all, a fellow can't get himself up to any very sublime moral 
 nights ; and I believe," said St. Clare, suddenly rousing 
 himself up, " there's a theory now! I understand now why 
 northern nations are always more virtuous than southern 
 ones I see into that whole subject." 
 
 " O Auguste, you are a sad rattlebrain ! " 
 
 " Am I ? Well, so I am, I suppose, but for once I will be 
 serious, now; but you must hand that basket of oranges 
 you see you'll have to c stay me with flagons and comfort me 
 with apples' if I'm going to make this effort. Now," said 
 Augustine, drawing the basket up, " I'll begin : When, in 
 the course of human events, it becomes necessary for 
 a fellow to hold two or three dozen of his fellow worms 
 in captivity, a decent regard to the opinions of society 
 requires " 
 
 " I don't see that you are growing more serious," said 
 Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Wait I'm coming on you'll hear. The short of the 
 matter is, cousin," said he, his handsome face suddenly 
 settling into an earnest and serious expression, " on this 
 abstract question of slavery there can, as I think, be but 
 one opinion. Planters, who have money to make by it 
 clergymen, who have planters to please politicians, who 
 want to rule by it may warp and bend language and ethics 
 to a degree that shall astonish the world at their ingenuity ! 
 They can press Nature and the Bible, and nobody knows 
 what else, into the service ; but, after all, neither they nor 
 the world believe in it one particle the more. It comes 
 from the devil, that's the short of it ; and, to my mind, 
 it's a pretty respectable specimen of what he can do in his 
 own line." 
 
 Miss Ophelia stopped her knitting, and looked sur- 
 prised ; and St. Clare, apparently enjoying her astonishment 
 went on. 
 
 " You seem to wonder ; but if you will get me fairly at it, 
 I'll make a clean breast of it. This cursed business, accursed 
 of God and man, what is it ? Strip it of all its ornament, 
 run it down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what 
 is it ? Why, because my brother Quashy is ignorant and 
 
240 ST. CLARE'S OPINION UPON SLAVERY. 
 
 weak, and I am intelligent and strong because I know how, 
 and can do it therefore, I may steal all he has, keep it, and 
 give him only such and so much as suits my fancy. What- 
 ever is too hard, too dirty, too disagreeable for me, I may 
 set Quashy to doing. Because I don't like work, Quashy 
 shall work. Because the sun burns me, Quashy shall stay 
 in the sun. Quashy shall earn the money, and I will spend 
 it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I may walk 
 over dryshod. Quashy shall do my will, and not his, all the 
 days of his mortal life, and have such a chance of getting to 
 heaven at last as I find convenient. This I take to be about 
 what slavery is. I defy anybody on earth to read our slave- 
 code, as it stands in our law-books, and make anything else 
 of it. Talk of the abuses of slavery ! Humbug ! The 
 thing itself \& the essence of all abuse ! And the only reason 
 why the land don't sink under it, like Sodom and Gomorrah, 
 is because it is used in a way infinitely better than it is. 
 For pity's sake, for shame's sake, because we are men born 
 of women, and not savage beasts, many of us do not, and 
 dare not we would scorn to use the full power which our 
 savage laws put into our hands. And he who goes the 
 furthest, and does the worst, only uses within limits the 
 power that the law gives him." 
 
 St. Clare had started up, and, as his manner was when 
 excited, was walking, with hurried steps,* up and down the 
 floor. His fine face, classic as that of a Greek statue, seemed 
 actually to burn with the fervour of his feelings. His large 
 blue eyes flashed, and he gestured with an unconscious 
 eagerness. Miss Ophelia had never seen him in this mood 
 before, and she sat perfectly silent. 
 
 " I declare to you," said he, suddenly stopping before his 
 cousin " it's no sort of use to talk or to feel on this subject 
 but I declare to you, there have been times when I have 
 thought, if the whole country would sink, and hide all this 
 injustice and misery from the light, I would willingly sink 
 with it. When I have been travelling up and down on our 
 boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that 
 every brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was 
 allowed by our laws to become absolute despot of as many 
 men, women, and children, as he could cheat, steal, or 
 gamble money enough to buy when I have seen such men 
 
FAMILY BEMINISCENCES. 241 
 
 in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and 
 women I have been ready to curse my country, to curse 
 the human race ! " 
 
 " Augustine ! Augustine ! " said Miss Ophelia, " I'm sure 
 you've said enough. I never, in my life, heard anything like 
 this ; even at the North." 
 
 " At the North ! " said St. Clare, with a sudden change of 
 expression, and resuming something of his habitual careless 
 tone. " Pooh ! you northern folks are cold-blooded ; you 
 are cool in everything ! You can't begin to curse up hill 
 and down, as we can when we get fairly at it." 
 
 " Well, but the question is" said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Oh, yes, to be sure, the question is and a deuce of a 
 question it is! How came you in this state of sin and 
 misery ? Well, I shall answer in the good old words you 
 used to teach me, Sundays. I came so by ordinary genera- 
 tion. My servants were my father's, and, what is more, my 
 mother's ; and now they are mine, they and their increase, 
 which bids fair to be a pretty considerable item. My father, 
 you know, came first from New England ; and he was just 
 such another man as your father a regular old Roman ; 
 upright, energetic, noble-minded, with an iron will. Your 
 father settled down in New England, to rule over rocks and 
 stones, and to force an existence out of Nature ; and mine 
 settled in Louisiana, to rule over men and women, and force 
 an existence out of them. My mother," said St. Clare, 
 getting up and walking to a picture at the end of the room, 
 and gazing upward with a face fervent with veneration, 
 " she was divine ! Don't look at me so ! you know what I 
 mean ! She probably was of mortal birth ; but as far as ever 
 I could observe, there was no trace of any human weakness or 
 error about her ; and everybody that lives to remember her, 
 whether bond or free, servant, acquaintance, relation, all say 
 the same. Why, cousin, that mother has been all that has 
 stood between me and utter unbelief for years. .She was a 
 direct embodiment and personification of the New Testament 
 a living fact, to be accounted for, and to be accounted for 
 in no other way than by its truth. mother ! mother! " 
 said St. Clare, clasping his hands in a sort of transport ; 
 and then suddenly checking himself, he came back, and 
 seating himself on an ottoman, he went on : 
 
242 A BORN ARISTOCRAT. 
 
 " My brother and I were twins ; and they say, you know, 
 that twins ought to resemble each other ; but we were in all 
 points a contrast. He had black, fiery eyes, coal-black hair, 
 a strong, fine Roman profile, and a rich brown complexion, 
 I had blue eyes, golden hair, a Greek outline, and fair 
 complexion. He was active and observing, I dreamy and 
 inactive. He was generous to his friends and equals, but 
 proud, dominant, overbearing to inferiors, and utterly un- 
 merciful to whatever set itself up against him. Truthful 
 we both were: he from pride and courage, I from a sort 
 of abstract ideality. "We loved each other about as boys 
 generally do, off" and on, and in general ; he was my father's 
 pet, and I my mother's. 
 
 "There was a morbid sensitivenes and acuteness of 
 feeling in me on all possible subjects, of which he and my 
 father had no kind of understanding, and with which they 
 could have no possible sympathy. But mother did ; and so, 
 when I had quarrelled with Alfred, and father looked sternly 
 on me, I used to go off to mother's room, and sit by her. I 
 remember just how she used to look, with her pale cheeks, 
 her deep, soft, serious eyes, her white dress she always 
 wore white and I used to think of her whenever I read in 
 [Revelation about the saints that were arrayed in fine linen, 
 clean and white. She had a great deal of genius of one sort 
 or another, particularly in music, and she used to sit at her 
 organ, playing fine old majestic music of the Catholic church, 
 and singing with a voice more like an angel than a mortal 
 woman ; and I would lay my head down on her lap, and cry, 
 and dream, and feel oh, immeasurably ! things that I had 
 no language to say ! 
 
 " In those days, this matter of slavery had never been 
 canvassed as it has now ; nobody dreamed of any harm in it. 
 
 " My father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some pre- 
 existent state, he must have been in the higher circles of 
 spirits, and brought all his old court pride along with him ; 
 for it was ingrain, bred in the bone, though he was originally 
 of poor and not in any way of noble family. My brother 
 was begotten in his image. 
 
 " Now, an aristocrat, you know, the world over, has no 
 human sympathies, beyond a certain line in society. In 
 England the line is in one place, in Burmah in another, and 
 
A VERMONT OVEESEEB. 243 
 
 in America in another; but the aristocrat of all these 
 countries never goes over it. What would be hardship and 
 distress and injustice in his own class, is a cool matter of 
 course in another one. My father's dividing line was that 
 of colour. Among his equals, never was a man more just 
 and generous; but he considered the negro, through all 
 possible gradations of colour, as an intermediate link 
 between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of 
 justice or generosity on this hypothesis. I suppose, to 
 'be sure, if anybody had asked him, plump and fair, whether 
 they had human immortal souls, he might have hemmed and 
 hawed, and said ' Yes.' But my father was not a man much 
 troubled with spiritualism ; religious sentiment he had none, 
 beyond a veneration for Grod, as decidedly the head of the 
 upper classes. 
 
 " Well, my father worked some five hundred negroes ; he 
 was an inflexible, driving, punctilious business man ; every- 
 thing was to move by system to be sustained with unfailing 
 accuracy and precision, Now, if you take into account that 
 all this was to be worked out by a set of lazy, twaddling, 
 shiftless labourers, who had grown up all their lives in the 
 absence of every possible motive to learn how to do any- 
 thing but ' shirk,' as you Yermonters say, you'll see that 
 there might naturally be on his plantation a great many 
 things that looked horrible and distressing to a sensitive 
 child like me. 
 
 " Besides all, he had an overseer a great, tall, slab-sided, 
 two-fisted, renegade son of Yermont (begging your pardon), 
 who had gone through a regular apprenticeship in hardness 
 and brutality, and taken his degree to be admitted to prac- 
 tice. My mother never could endure him, nor I ; but he 
 obtained an entire ascendancy over my father; and this 
 man was the absolute despot of the estate. 
 
 " I was a little fellow then, but I had the same love that 
 I have now for all kinds of human things a, kind of passion 
 forjfchg. study of humanity, come in what shape it would, 
 was found in the cabins and among the field-hands a great 
 deal, and, of course, was a great favourite ; and all sorts of 
 complaints and grievances were breathed in my ear, and I 
 told them to mother, and we, between us, formed a sort 
 of committee for a redress of grievances-. We hindered and 
 
 B 2 
 
244 ST. CLAKE'S PATHEB. 
 
 repressed a great deal of cruelty, and congratulated ourselves 
 on doing a vast deal of good, till, as often happens, my zeal 
 overacted. Stubbs complained to my father that he couldn't 
 manage the hands, and must resign his position. Father 
 was a fond, indulgent husband, but a man that never flinched 
 from anything that he thought necessary ; and so he put 
 down his foot, like a rock, between us and the field-hands. 
 He told my mother, in language perfectly respectful and 
 deferential, but quite explicit, that over the house-servants 
 she should be entire mistress, but that with the field-hands 
 he could allow no interference. He revered and respected 
 her above all living beings ; but he would have said it all the 
 same to the Virgin Mary herself, if she had come in the way 
 of his system. 
 
 "I used sometimes to hear my mother reasoning cases 
 with him endeavouring to excite his sympathies. He 
 would listen to the most pathetic appeals with the most 
 discouraging politeness and equanimity. 'It all resolves 
 itself into this,' he would say ; * must I part with Stubbs, or 
 keep him ? Stubbs is the soul of punctuality, honesty, and 
 efficiency, a thorough business hand, and as humane as the 
 
 feneral run. "We can't have perfection ; and if I keep him, 
 must sustain his administration as a whole, even if there 
 are, now and then, things that are exceptional. All govern- 
 ment includes some necessary hardness. General rules will 
 bear hard on particular cases.' This last maxim my father 
 seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty. 
 After he had said that, he commonly drew up his feet on 
 the sofa, like a man that has disposed of a business, and 
 betook himself to a nap or the newspaper, as the case 
 might be. 
 
 " The fact is, my father showed the exact sort of talent 
 for a statesman. He could have divided Poland as easily as 
 an orange, or trod on Ireland as quietly and systematically 
 as any man living. At last my mother gave up, in despair. 
 It never will be known, till the last account, what noble and 
 sensitive natures like hers have felt, cast, utterly helpless, 
 into what seems to them an abyss of injustice and cruelty, 
 and which seems so to nobody about them. It has been an 
 age of long sorrow of such natures, in such a hell-begotten 
 sort of world as ours. What remained for her but to train 
 
A MOTHER'S TEACHING. 215 
 
 her children in her own views and sentiments ? Well, after 
 all you say about training, children will grow up substantially 
 what they are by nature and only that. From the cradle, 
 Alfred was an aristocrat ; and as he grew up, instinctively, 
 all his sympathies and all his reasonings were in that line, 
 and all mother's exhortations went to the winds. As to me, 
 they sunk deep into me. She never contradicted, in form, 
 anything that my father said, or seemed directly to differ 
 from him ; but she impressed, burnt into my very soul, with 
 all the force of her deep, earnest nature, an idea of the 
 dignity -and worth of the meanest human soul. I have 
 looked in her face with solemn a\ve, when she would point 
 up to the stars in the evening, and say to me, ' See there, 
 Auguste! the poorest, meanest soul on our place will be 
 living, when all these stars are gone for ever will live as 
 long as God lives!' 
 
 " She had some fine old paintings ; one, in particular, of 
 J esus healing a blind man. They were very fine, and used 
 to impress me strongly. ' See, there, Auguste,' she would 
 say ; ' the blind man was a beggar, poor and loathsome ; 
 therefore he would not heal him afar off I he called him to 
 him, ajid put Ms hands on him ! Eemember this, my boy.' 
 If I had lived to grow up under her care, she might have 
 stimulated me to I know not what of enthusiasm. I might 
 have been a saint, reformer, martyr but, alas ! alas ! I 
 went from her when I was only thirteen, and I never saw 
 her again ? " 
 
 St. Clare rested his head on his hands, and did not speak 
 for some minutes. After a while he looked up, and went 
 on : 
 
 " What poor, mean trash this whole business of human 
 virtue is ! A mere matter, for the most part, of latitude 
 and longitude, and geographical position, acting with natural 
 temperament. The greater part is nothing but an accident. 
 Your father, for example, settles in Vermont, in a town 
 where all are, in fact, free and equal; becomes a regular 
 church member and deacon, and in due time joins an 
 Abolitionist society, and thinks us all little better than 
 heathens. Yet he is, for all the world, in constitution and 
 habit, a duplicate of my father. I can see it leaking out in 
 fifty different ways -just that same strong, overbearing, 
 
246 DIFFERENCES AND RESEMBLANCES. 
 
 dominant spirit. You know very well how impossible it is 
 to persuade some of the folks in your village that Squire 
 Sinclair does not feel above them. The fact is, though he 
 has fallen on democratic times, and embraced a democratic 
 theory, he is to the heart an aristocrat, as much as my 
 father, who ruled over five or six hundred slaves." 
 
 Miss Ophelia felt rather disposed to cavil at this picture, 
 and was laying down her knitting to begin, but St. Clare 
 stopped her. 
 
 " Now I know every word you are going to say. I do 
 not say they were alike, in fact. One fell into a condition 
 where everything acted against the natural tendency, and 
 the other where everything acted for it ; and so one turned 
 out a pretty wilful, stout, overbearing old democrat, and the 
 other a wilful, stout old despot. If both had owned plan- 
 tations in Louisiana, they would have been as like as two old 
 bullets cast in the same mould." 
 
 " What an undutiful boy you are ! " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " I don't mean them any disrespect," said St. Clare. 
 " You know irreverence is not my forte. But to go back to 
 my history : 
 
 " When father died, he left the whole property to us twin 
 boys, to be divided as we should agree. There does not 
 breathe on God's earth a nobler-souled, more generous 
 fellow, than Alfred, in all that concerns his equals ; and we 
 got on admirably with this property question, without a 
 single unbrotherly word or feeling. We undertook to 
 work the plantation together; and Alfred, whose outward 
 life and capabilities had double the strength of mine, 
 became an enthusiastic planter, and a wonderfully suc- 
 cessful one. 
 
 " But two years' trial satisfied me that I could not be a 
 partner in that matter. To have a great gang of seven 
 hundred, whom I could not know personally, or feel any 
 individual interest in, bought and driven, housed, fed, 
 worked like so many horned cattle, trained up to military 
 precision the question of how little of life's commonest 
 enjoyments would keep them in working order, being a con- 
 stantly recurring problem, the necessity of drivers and over- 
 seers, the ever-necessary whip, first, last, and only argument 
 the whole thing was insufferably disgusting and loathsome 
 
THE ENJOYMENTS OF SLAYEEY. 247 
 
 to me ; and when I thought of my mother's estimate of one 
 poor human soul, it became even frightful. 
 
 " It's all nonsense to talk to me about slaves enjoying all 
 this ! To this day I have no patience with the unutterable 
 trash that some of your patronising Northerners have made 
 up, as in their zeal to apologise for our sins. We all know 
 better. Tell me that any man living wants to work all his 
 days, from day-dawn till dark, under the constant eye of a 
 master, without the power of putting forth one irresponsible 
 volition, on the same dreary, monotonous, unchanging toil, 
 and all for two pairs of pantaloons and a pair of shoes a-year, 
 with enough food and shelter to keep him in working order ! 
 Any man who thinks that human beings can, as a general 
 thing, be made about as comfortable that way as any other, 
 I wish he might try it. I'd buy the dog and work him, with 
 a clear conscience ! " 
 
 "I always have supposed," said Miss Ophelia, " that you, 
 all of you, approved of these things, and thought them right 
 according to Scripture." 
 
 " Humbug ! we are not quite reduced to that yet. Alfred, 
 who is as determined a despot as ever walked, does not pre- 
 tend to this kind of defence; no, he stands, high and 
 haughty, on that good, old, respectable ground, the right of 
 the strongest ; and he says, and I think quite sensibly, that 
 the American planter ig ' only doing, in another form, what 
 the English aristocracy and capitalists are doing by the 
 lower classes ;' that is, I take it, appropriating them, body 
 and bone, soul and spirit, to their use and convenience. He 
 defends both and I think, at least, consistently. He says 
 that there can be no high civilisation without enslavement 
 of the masses, either nominal or real. There must, he says, 
 be a lower class given up to physical toil and confined to 
 an animal nature ; and a higher one thereby acquires leisure 
 and wealth for a more expanded intelligence and improve- 
 ment, and becomes the directing soul of the lower. So he 
 reasons, because, as I said, he is born an aristocrat ; so I 
 don't believe, because I was born a democrat." 
 
 " How in the world can the two things be compared ? " 
 said Miss Ophelia. " The English labourer is not sold, traded, 
 parted from his family, whipped." 
 
 " He is as much at the will of his employer as if he were 
 
24.8 STATE OF THE ENGLISH LABOTJBEE. 
 
 sold to him. The slave-owner can whip his refractory slave 
 to death the capitalist can starve him to death. As to 
 family security, it is hard to say which is the worst 
 to have one's children sold, or see them starve to death 
 at home." 
 
 " But it's no kind of apology for slavery, to prove that it 
 
 isn't worse than some other bad thing." 
 
 I " I didn't give it for one nay, I'll say, besides, that ours 
 
 I is the more bold and palpable infringement of human rights. 
 
 * Actually buying a man up, like a horse looking at his 
 
 teeth, cracking his joints, and trying his paces, and then 
 
 paying down for him having speculators, breeders, traders, 
 
 and brokers in human bodies and souls sets the thing 
 
 before the eyes of the civilised world in a more tangible 
 
 form, though the thing done be, after all, in its nature, the 
 
 same : that is, appropriating one set of human beings to 
 
 the use and improvement of another, without any regard 
 
 to their own." 
 
 " I never thought of the matter in this light," said Miss 
 Ophelia, 
 
 " Well, I've travelled in England some, and I've looked 
 over a good many documents as to the state of their lower 
 classes ; and I really think there is no denying Alfred, when 
 he says that his slaves are better off than a large class of the 
 population of JEagland. You see, you must not infer, from 
 what I have told you, that Alfred is* what is called a hard 
 master ; for he isn't. He is despotic, and unmerciful to in- 
 subordination ; he would shoot a fellow down with as little 
 remorse as he would shoot a buck, if he opposed him. But, 
 in general, he takes a sort of pride in having his slaves 
 comfortably fed and accommodated. 
 
 " When I was with him, I insisted that he should do 
 something for their instruction ; and to please me, he did 
 get a chaplain, and used to have them catechised Sundays, 
 though I believe, in his heart, that he thought it would *do 
 about as much good to set a chaplain over his dogs and 
 horses. And the fact is, that a mind stupified and animalised 
 by every bad influence from the hour of birth, spending the 
 whole of every week-day in unreflecting toil, cannot be done 
 much with by a few hours on Sunday. The teachers of 
 Sunday-schools among the manufacturing population of 
 
A SENTIMENTALIST. 219 
 
 England, and among plantation-hands in our country, could 
 perhaps testify to the same result, there and here. Tet 
 some striking exceptions there are among us, from the fact 
 that the negro is naturally more impressible to religious 
 sentiment than the white." 
 
 "Well," said Miss Ophelia, "how came jou to give up 
 your plantation life ? " 
 
 " Well, we jogged on together some time, till Alfred saw 
 plainly that I was no planter. He thought it absurd, after 
 he had reformed, and altered, and improved everywhere, to 
 suit my notions, that I still remained unsatisfied. The fact 
 was, it was, after all, the THING that I "hated the using 
 these men and women, the perpetuation of all this ignorance, 
 brutality, and vice just to make money for me ! 
 
 " Besides, I was always interfering in the details. Being 
 myself one of the laziest of mortals, I had altogether too 
 much fellow-feeling for the lazy ; and when poor, shiftless 
 dogs put stones at the bottom of their cotton baskets to 
 make them weigh heavier, or filled their sacks with dirt, with 
 cotton at the top, it seemed so exactly like what I should 
 do if I were they, I couldn't and wouldn't have them flogged 
 for it. Well, of course, there was an end of plantation 
 discipline ; and Alf and I came to about the same point that 
 I and my respected father did, years before. So he told me 
 that I was a womanish sentimentalist, and would never do 
 for business life ; and advised me to take the bank-stock 
 and the New Orleans family mansion, and go to writing 
 poetry, and let him manage the plantation. So we parted, 
 and I came here." 
 
 " But why didn't you free your slaves ? " 
 
 " Well, I wasn't up to that. To hold them as tools for 
 money-making, I could not ; have them to heljp spend 
 money, you know, didn't look quite so ugly to me. Some 
 of them were old house-servants, to whom I was much 
 attached ; and the younger ones were children to the old. 
 All were well ^atisfiedto^be_as they were.''. He paused, 
 and walked ren^ctiTelyT^and down the room . 
 
 "There was," said St. Clare, "a time in my life when Jp 
 had plans and hopes of doing something in this world, mom. 
 than to float and drift. I had vague, indistinct yearnings toy 
 be a sort of emancipator to free my native land from this 
 
\ 
 
 250 FTTTTJBE BETBIBUTIOF. 
 
 spot and stain. All young men have had such fever-fits, I 
 suppose, some time but then" 
 
 " Why didn't you ? " said Miss Ophelia ; " you ought not 
 to put your hand to the plough, and look back." 
 
 " Oh, well, things didn't go with me as I expected, and I 
 got the despair of living that Solomon did. I suppose it was 
 a necessary incident to wisdom in us both ; but, somehow or 
 other, instead of being actor and regenerator in society, I 
 became a piece of drift-wood, and have been floating and 
 eddying about, ever since. Alfred scolds me every time we 
 meet, and he has the better of me, I grant ; for he really 
 does something. His life is a logical result of his opinions, 
 and mine is a contemptible non sequitur." 
 
 " My dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of 
 spending your probation ? " 
 
 " Satisfied ! Was I not just telling you I despised it ? 
 But then, to come back to this point we were on this 
 liberation business. I don't think my feelings about slavery 
 are peculiar. I find many men who, in their hearts, think 
 of it just as I do. The land groans under it ; and bad as 
 it is for the slave, it is worse, if- anything, for the master. 
 It takes no spectacles to see that a great class of vicious, 
 improvident , degraded people, among us, are an evil to us, 
 as well as to themselves. The capitalist and aristocrat of 
 England cannot feel that as we do, because they do not 
 mingle with the class they degrade as we do. They are in 
 our houses ; they are the associates of our children, and they 
 form their minds faster than we can ; for they are a race 
 that children always will cling to and assimilate with. If 
 Eva, now, was not more angel than ordinary, she would be 
 ruined. We might as well allow the small-pox to run among 
 them, and think our children would not take it, as to let 
 them be "uninstructed and vicious, and think our children 
 will not be affected by that. Yet our laws positively and 
 utterly forbid any efficient general educational system, and 
 they do it wisely, too; for just begin and thoroughly 
 educate one generation, and the whole thing would be 
 blown sky high. If we did not give them liberty, they would 
 take it." 
 
 "And what do you think will be the end of this?." said 
 Miss Ophelia. 
 
A SHAKING OF THE NATIONS. 251 
 
 " I don't know. One thing is certain that there is a 
 mustering among the masses, the world over ; and there is a 
 dies ir<B coming on, sooner or later. The same thing is 
 working, in Europe, in England, and in this country. My 
 mother used to tell me of a millennium that was coming, 
 when Christ should reign, and all men should be free and 
 happy. And she taught me, when I was a boy, to pray, 
 ' Thy kingdom come.' Sometimes I think all this sighing, 
 and groaning, and stirring among the dry bones foretels 
 what she used to tell me was coming. But who may abide 
 the day of his appearing ? " 
 
 " Augustine, sometimes I think you are not far from the 
 kingdom," said Miss Ophelia, laying down her knitting, and 
 looking anxiously at her cousin. 
 
 " Thank you for your good opinion ; but it's up and down 
 with me up to heaven's gate in theory, down to earth's 
 dust in practice. But there's the tea-bell do let's go and 
 don't say, now, I haven't had one downright serious talk for 
 once in my life." 
 
 At table, Marie alluded to the incident of Prue. " I 
 suppose you'll think, cousin," she said, "that we are all 
 barbarians." 
 
 " I think that's a barbarous thing," said Miss Ophelia; 
 " but I don't think you are all barbarians." 
 
 " Well, now," said Marie, " I know it's impossible to get 
 along with some of these creatures. They are so bad they 
 ought not to live. I don't feel a particle of sympathy for 
 such cases. If they'd only behave themselves, it would not 
 happen." 
 
 "But, mamma," said Eva, "the poor creature was un- 
 happy; that's what made her drink." 
 
 " Oh, fiddlestick ! as if that were any excuse ! I'm un- 
 happy, very often. I presume," she said, pensively, "that 
 I've had greater trials than ever she had. It's just because 
 they are so bad. There's some of them that you cannot 
 break in by any kind of severity. I remember father had a 
 man that was so lazy he would run away just to get rid of 
 work, and lie round in the swamps, stealing and doing all 
 sorts of horrid things. That man was caught and whipped, 
 time and again, and it never did him any good ; and the last 
 time he crawled off, though he couldn't but just go, he died 
 
252 CONQUERED BY KINDNESS. 
 
 in the swamp. There was no sort of reason for it, for 
 father's hands were always treated kindly." 
 
 " I broke a fellow in, once," said St. Clare, "that all the 
 overseers and masters had tried their hands on in vain." 
 
 "You!" said Marie; "well, I'd be glad to know when 
 you ever did anything of the sort." 
 
 " Well, he was a powerful, gigantic fellow a native-born 
 African ; and he appeared to have the rude instinct of free- 
 dom in him to an uncommon degree. He was a regular 
 African lion. They called him Scipio. Nobody could do 
 anything with him ; and he was sold round from overseer to 
 overseer, till at last Alfred bought him, because he thought 
 he could manage him. "Well, one day he knocked down the 
 overseer, and was fairly off into the swamps. I was on a 
 visit to Alf's plantation, for it was after we had dissolved 
 partnership. Alfred was greatly exasperated, but I told him 
 that it was his own fault, and laid him any wager that I 
 could break the man; and finally it was agreed that, if 
 ~L caught him, I should have him to experiment on. So they 
 mustered out a party of some six or seven, with guns and 
 dogs, for the hunt. /People, you know, can get up just as 
 much enthusiasm in hunting a man as a deer, if it is only 
 customaryj in fact, I got a little excited myself, though I 
 had only put in as a sort of mediator, in case he was caught. 
 
 "Well, the dogs bayed and howled, and we rode and 
 scampered, and finally we started him. He ran and bounded 
 like a buck, and kept us well in the rear for some time; but 
 at last he got caught in an impenetrable thicket of cane : then 
 he turned to bay, and I tell you he fought the dogs right 
 gallantly. He dashed them to right and left, and actually 
 killed three ,of them with only his naked fists, when a shot 
 from a gun brought him down, and he fell, wounded and 
 bleeding, almost at my feet. The poor fellow looked up at 
 me with manhood and despair both in his eye. I kept back 
 the dogs and the party, as they came pressing up, and 
 claimed him as my prisoner. It was all I could do to keep 
 them from shooting him, in the flush of success ; but I 
 persisted in my bargain, and Alfred sold him to me. Well, 
 I took him in hand, and in one fortnight I had him tamed 
 down as submissive and tractable as heart could desire." 
 
 " What in the world did you do to him ? " said Marie. 
 
THE STOEY OF SCIPIO. 253 
 
 " "Well, it was quite a simple process. I took him to my 
 own room, had a good bed made for him, dressed his wounds, 
 and tended him myself, until he got fairly on his feet again. 
 And in process of time, I had free papers made out for him, 
 and told him he might go where he liked." 
 
 " And did he go ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 "No. The foolish fellow tore the paper in. two, and 
 absolutely refused to leave me. I never had a braver, better 
 fellow trusty and true as steel. He embraced Christianity 
 afterwards, and became as gentle as a child. He used to 
 oversee my place on the lake, and did it capitally, too. I 
 lost him the first cholera season. In fact, he laid down his 
 life for me. For I was sick, almost to death; and when, 
 through the panic, everybody else fled, Scipio worked for me 
 like a giant, and actually brought me back into life again. 
 But, poor fellow ! he was taken, right after, and there was 
 no saving him. I never felt anybody's loss more." 
 
 Eva had come gradually nearer and nearer to her father, 
 as he told the story her small lips apart, her eyes wide and 
 earnest with absorbing interest. 
 
 As he finished, she suddenly threw her arms around his 
 neck, burst into tears, and sobbed convulsively. 
 
 " Eva, dear child ! what is the matter ? " said St. Clare, as 
 the child's small frame trembled and shook with the violence 
 of her feelings. " This child," he added, " ought not to hear 
 any of this kind of thing she's nervous." 
 
 " No, papa, I'm not nervous," said Eva, controlling her- 
 self suddenly, with a strength of resolution singular in such 
 a child. " I'm not nervous, but these things sink into my,. 
 
 hearth ' 
 
 """"""W'hat do you mean, Eva ? " 
 
 " I can't tell you, papa. I think a great many thoughts. 
 Perhaps some day I shall tell you." 
 
 " Well, think away, dear only don't cry and worry your 
 papa," said St. Clare. "Look here see what a beautiful 
 peach I have got for you ! " 
 
 Eva took it, and smiled, though there was still a nervous 
 twitching about the corners of her mouth. 
 
 " Come, look at the gold-fish," said St. Clare, taking her 
 hand and stepping on to the verandah. A few moments, and 
 merry laughs were heard through the silken curtains, as Eva 
 
254 TOM'S LETTEE HOME. 
 
 and St. Clare were pelting each other with roses, and chasing 
 each other among the alleys of the court. 
 
 There is danger that our humble friend Tom be neglected 
 amid the adventures of the higher born ; but if our readers 
 will accompany us up to a little loft over the stable, they 
 may, perhaps, learn a little of his affairs. It was a decent 
 room, containing a bed, a chair, and a small, rough stand, 
 where lay Tom's Bible and hymn-book ; and where he sits, 
 at present, with his slate before him, intent on something 
 that seems to cost him a great deal of anxious thought. 
 
 The fact was, that Tom's home yearnings had become so 
 strong, that he had begged a sheet of writing-paper of Eva ; 
 and, mustering up all his small stock of literary attainment 
 acquired by Mas'r Greorge's instructions, he conceived the 
 bold idea of writing a letter ; and he was busy now, on his 
 slate, getting out his first draught. Tom was in a good deal 
 of trouble, for the forms of some of the letters he had for- 
 gotten entirely, and of what he did remember he did not 
 know exactly which to use. And while he was working, 
 and breathing very hard in his earnestness, Eva alighted like 
 a bird on the round of his chair behind him, and peeped 
 over his shoulder. 
 
 " O Uncle Tom ! what funny things you are making, 
 there ! " 
 
 " I'm trying to write to my poor old woman, Miss Eva, 
 and my little chil'en," said Tom, drawing the back of his 
 hand over his eyes ; " but, somehow, I'm feared I shan't 
 make it out." 
 
 "I wish I could help you, Tom! I've learnt to write 
 some. Last year I could make all the letters, but I'm afraid 
 I've forgotten." 
 
 So Eva put her little golden head close to his, and the two 
 commenced a grave and anxious discussion, each one equally 
 earnest, and about equally ignorant ; and, with a deal of 
 consulting and advising over every word, the compo- 
 sition began, as they both felt very sanguine, to look quite 
 like writing. 
 
 "Yes, Uncle Tom, it really begins to look beautiful," said 
 Eva, gazing delighted on it. " How pleased your wife'll be, 
 
LITTLE EVA HELPS HIM. 255 
 
 and the poor little children ! Oh, it's a shame you ever had 
 to go away from them ! I mean to ask papa to let you 
 go back, some time." 
 
 " Missis said that she would send down money for me, as 
 soon as they could get it together," said Tom. "I'm 
 'spectin' she will. Young Mas'r George, he said he'd come 
 for me ; and he gave me this yer dollar as a sign ; " and 
 Tom drew from under his clothes the precious dollar. 
 
 "Oh, he'll certainly come, then!" said Eva. "I'm so 
 glad!" 
 
 " And I wanted to send a letter, you know, to let 'em 
 know whar I was, and tell poor Chloe that I was well off, 
 'cause she felt so drefful, poor soul ! " 
 
 " I say, Tom ! " said St. Clare's voice, coming in at the door 
 at this moment. 
 
 Tom and Eva both started. 
 
 "What's here ?" said St. Clare, coming up and looking 
 at the slate. 
 
 " Oh, it's Tom's letter. I'm helping him to write it," 
 said Eva ; " isn't it nice ? " 
 
 "I wouldn't discourage either of you," said St. Clare, 
 " but I rather think, Tom, you'd better get me to write 
 your letter for you. I'll do it, when I come home from 
 my ride." 
 
 " It's very important he should write," said Eva, "because 
 his mistress is going to send down money to redeem him, 
 you know, papa ; he told me they told him so." 
 
 St. Clare thought in his heart that this was probably only 
 one of those things which good-natured owners say to their 
 servants, to alleviate their horror of being sold, without any 
 intention of fulfilling the expectation thus excited. But he 
 did not make any audible comment upon it only ordered 
 Tom to get the horses out for a ride. 
 
 Tom's letter was written in due form for him that evening, 
 and safely lodged in the post-office. 
 
 Miss Ophelia still persevered in her labours in the 
 housekeeping line. It was universally agreed among all 
 the household, from Dinah down to the youngest urchin, 
 that Miss Ophelia was decidedly "curis" a term by which 
 a southern servant implies that his or her betters don't 
 exactly suit them. 
 
256 TOPST. 
 
 The higher circle in the family to wit, Adolph, Jane, 
 and Rosa agreed that she was no lady ; ladies never kept 
 working about as she did ; that she had no air at all ; and 
 they were surprised that she should be any relation of the 
 St. Clares. Even Marie declared that it was absolutely 
 fatiguing to see Cousin Ophelia always so busy. And, in 
 fact, Miss Ophelia's industry was so incessant as to lay 
 some foundation for the complaint. She sewed and stitched 
 away from daylight to dark, with the energy of one who 
 is pressed on by some immediate urgency ; and then, when 
 the light faded, and the work was folded away, with one 
 turn out came the ever-ready knitting- work, and there she 
 was again, going on as briskly as ever. It really was a 
 labour to see her. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 TOPSY. 
 
 morning, while Miss Ophelia was busy in some of her 
 domestic cares, St. Clare's voice was heard calling her at the 
 foot of the stairs. 
 
 " Come down here, cousin ; I've something to show you." 
 
 " What is it ? " said Miss Ophelia, coming down, with her 
 sewing in her hand. 
 
 " I've made a purchase for your department see here," 
 said St. Clare : and, with the word, he pulled along a little 
 negro girl, about eight or nine years of age. 
 
 She was one of the blackest of her race ; and her round 
 shining eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and 
 restless glances over everything in the room. Her mouth, 
 half open with astonishment at the wonders of the new mas'r's 
 parlour, displayed a white and brilliant set of teeth. Her 
 woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which stuck out 
 in every direction. The expression of the face was an odd 
 mixture of shrewdness and cunning, over which was oddly 
 drawn, like a kind of veil, an expression of the most doleful 
 gravity atid solemnity. She was dressed in a single filthy, 
 
TOPST. 257 
 
 ragged garment, made of bagging ; and stood with her hands 
 demurely folded before her. Altogether, there was some- 
 thing odd and goblin-like about her appearance something, 
 as Miss Ophelia afterwards said, " so heathenish," as to 
 inspire that good lady with utter dismay ; and, turning to 
 St. Clare, she said, 
 
 " Augustine, what in the world have you brought that 
 thing here for?" 
 
 " For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way she 
 should go. I thought she was rather a funny specimen in the 
 Jim Crow line. Here, Topsy," he added, giving a whistle, as 
 a man would to call the attention of a dog, " give us a song, 
 now, and show us some of your dancing." 
 
 The black, glassy eyes, glittered with a kind of wicked 
 drollery, and the thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an 
 odd negro melody, to which she kept time with her hands 
 and feet, spinning round, clapping her hands, knocking her 
 knees together, in a wild, fantastic sort of time, and producing 
 in her throat all those odd guttural sounds which distinguish 
 the native music of her race ; and finally, turning a summerset 
 or two, and giving a prolonged closing note, as odd and 
 unearthly as that of a steam-whistle, she came suddenly 
 down on the carpet, and stood with her hands folded, and 
 a most sanctimonious expression of meekness and solemnity 
 over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which 
 she shot askance from the corners of her eyes. 
 
 Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralysed with amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 St. Clare, like a mischievous fellow as he was, appeared 
 to enjoy her astonishment ; and, addressing the child again, 
 said, 
 
 " Topsy, this is your new mistress. I'm going to give 
 you up to her ; see, now, that you behave yourself." 
 
 " Yes, mas'r," said Topsy, with a sanctimonious gravity, 
 her wicked eyes twinkling as she spoke. 
 
 " You're going to be good, Topsy, you understand," said 
 St. Clare. 
 
 " Oh, yes, mas'r," said Topsy, with another twinkle, her 
 hands still devoutly folded. 
 
 " Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for ?" said Miss 
 Ophelia. " Your house is so full of these little plagues, now, 
 
258 A MISSIONARY WOEK. 
 
 that a body can't set their foot down without treading on 'em. 
 I get up in the morning, and find one asleep behind the door, 
 and see one black head poking out from under the table, one 
 lying on the door-mat ; and they are mopping, and mowing, 
 and grinning between all the railings, and tumbling over the 
 kitchen floor ! What on earth did you want to bring this 
 one for?" 
 
 " For you to educate didn't I tell you ? You're always 
 preaching about educating. I thought I would make you a 
 present of a fresh-caught specimen, and let you try your 
 hand on her, and bring her up in the way she should go." 
 
 " I don't want her, I am sure ; I have more to do with 
 'em now than I want to." 
 
 " That's you Christians, all over. You'll get up a society, 
 and get some poor missionary to spend all his days among 
 just such heathen. But let me see one of you that would 
 take one into your house with you, and take the labour of 
 their conversion on yourselves ! No ; when it comes to 
 that, they are dirty and disagreeable, and it's too much care, 
 and so on." 
 
 " Augustine, you know I didn't think of it in that light," 
 said Miss Ophelia, evidently softening. " "Well, it might be 
 a real missionary work," said she, looking rather more favour- 
 ably on the child. 
 
 St. Clare had touched the right string. Miss Ophelia's 
 conscientiousness was ever on the alert. " But," she added, 
 " I really didn't see the need of buying this one there are 
 enough now in your house to take all my time and skill." 
 
 " Well, then, cousin," said St. Clare, drawing her aside, 
 " I ought to beg your pardon for my good-for-nothing 
 speeches. You are so good, after all, that there's no sense 
 in them. Why, the fact is, this concern belonged to a 
 couple of drunken creatures that keep a low restaurant, that 
 I have to pass by every day, and I was tired of hearing her 
 screaming, and them beating and swearing at her. She 
 looked bright and funny, too, as if something might be made 
 of her ; so I bought her, and I'll give her to you. Try, now, 
 and give her a good orthodox New England bringing-up, 
 and see what it'll make of her. You know I haven't any 
 gift that way, but I'd like you to try." 
 
 " Well, I'll do what I can," said Miss Ophelia ; and she 
 
TOPSY'S FIRST TOILET. 259 
 
 approached her new subject very much as a person might be 
 supposed to approach a black spider, supposing him to have 
 benevolent designs toward it. 
 
 " She's dreadfully dirty, and half-naked," she said. 
 
 " Well, take her down stairs, and make some of them 
 clean and clothe her up." 
 
 Miss Ophelia carried her to the kitchen regions. 
 
 " Don't see what Mas'r St. Clare wants of 'nother nigger !" 
 said Dinah, surveying the new arrival with no friendly air. 
 " Won't have her round under my feet, /know ! " 
 
 " Pah ! " said Kosa and Jane, with supreme disgust ; " let 
 her keep out of our way ! What in the world mas'r wanted 
 another of these low niggers for, I can't see ! " 
 
 " You go long ! No more nigger dan you be, Miss 
 Rosa," said Dinah, who felt this last remark a reflection on 
 herself. " You seem to tink yourself white folks. You an't 
 nerry one, black nor white. I'd like to be one or turrer." 
 
 Miss Ophelia saw that there was nobody in the camp 
 that would undertake to oversee the cleansing and dressing 
 of the new arrival; and so she was forced to do it her- 
 self, with some very ungracious and reluctant assistance 
 from Jane. 
 
 It is not for ears polite to hear the particulars of the first 
 toilet of a neglected, abused child. In fact, in this world, 
 multitudes must live and die in a state that it would be too 
 great a shock to the nerves of their fellow-mortals even to 
 hear described. Miss Ophelia had a good, strong, practical 
 deal of resolution ; and she went through all the disgusting 
 details with heroic thoroughness, though it must be con- 
 fessed, with no very gracious air for endurance was the 
 utmost to which her principles could bring her. When she 
 saw, on the back and shoulders of the child, great welts and 
 calloused spots, ineffaceable marks of the system under 
 which she had grown up thus far, her heart became pitiful 
 within her. 
 
 " See there ! " said Jane, pointing to the marks, " don't 
 that show she's a limb ? We'll have fine works with her I 
 reckon. I hate these nigger young uns ! so disgustin' ! I 
 wonder that mas'r would buy her." 
 
 The " young un " alluded to heard all these comments with 
 the subdued and doleful air which seemed habitual to her, 
 
 s 2 
 
2GO TOPST'S IDEAS IN GEXEKAL. 
 
 only scanning, with a keen and furtive glance of her flickering 
 eyes, the ornaments which Jane wore in her ears. When 
 arrayed at last in a suit of decent and whole clothing, her 
 hair cropped short to her head, Miss Ophelia, with some 
 satisfaction, said she looked more Christian-like than she 
 did, and in her own mind began to mature some plans for her 
 instruction. 
 
 Sitting down before her, she began to question her. 
 
 " How old are you, Topsy ?" 
 
 " Dun no, missis," said the image, with a grin that showed 
 all her teeth. 
 
 " Don't know how old you are ? Didn't anybody ever 
 tell you ? Who was your mother ? " 
 
 " Never had none," said the child, with another grin. 
 
 " Never had any mother ! "What do you mean ? "Where 
 were you born ? " 
 
 " Never was born ! " persisted Topsy, with another grin, 
 that looked so goblin-like, that, if Miss Ophelia had been at 
 all nervous, she might have fancied that she had got hold of 
 some sooty gnome from the land of Diablerie ; but Miss 
 Ophelia was not nervous, but plain and business-like, and 
 she said, with some sternness 
 
 " You mustn't answer me in that way, child ; I'm not 
 playing with you. Tell me where you were born, and who 
 your father and mother were." 
 
 " Never was born," reiterated the creature, more emphati- 
 cally ; " never had no father nor mother, nor nothin'. I was 
 raised by a speculator, with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue 
 used to take car on us." 
 
 The child was evidently sincere ; and Jane, breaking into 
 a short laugh, said 
 
 "Laws, missis, there's heaps of 'em. Speculators buys 
 'em up cheap, when they's little, and gets 'em raised for 
 market." 
 
 " How long have you lived with your master and mistress ?" 
 
 " Dun no, missis." 
 
 " Is it a year, or more, or less ? " 
 
 " Dun no, missis." 
 
 " Laws, missis, those low negroes, they can't tell ; they 
 don't know anything about time," said Jane: "they don't 
 know what a year is ; thejdon't know their own ages." 
 
A YIEGrN" SOIL. 261 
 
 " Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy ? ' 
 
 The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual. 
 
 "Do you know who made you ? " 
 
 " Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short 
 laugh. 
 
 The idea appeared to amuse her considerably ; for her 
 eyes twinkled, and she added, 
 
 " I 'spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me." 
 
 " Do you know how to sew ? " said Miss Ophelia, who 
 thought she would turn her inquiries to something more 
 tangible. 
 
 " No, missis." 
 
 " What can you do ? what did you do for your master 
 and mistress ? " 
 
 " Fetch water, and wash dishes, and rub knives, and wait 
 on folks." 
 
 " Were they good to you ? " 
 
 " 'Spect they was," said the child, scanning Miss Ophelia 
 cunningly. 
 
 Miss Ophelia rose from this encouraging colloquy; St. 
 Clare was leaning over the back of her chair. * 
 
 " Ton find virgin soil there, cousin ; ut in your own \ 
 ideas you won't find many to pull up." 
 
 Miss Ophelia's ideas of education, like all her other ideas, 
 were very set and definite, and of the kind that prevailed in 
 New England a century ago, and which are still preserved in 
 some very retired and unsophisticated parts, where there 
 are no railroads. As nearly as could be expressed, they 
 could be comprised in very few words ; to teach them to 
 mind when they were spoken to ; to teach them the cate- 
 chism, sewing, and reading ; and to whip them if they told 
 lies. And though, of course, in the flood of light that is 
 now poured on education, these are left far away in the 
 rear, yet it is an undisputed fact that our grandmothers 
 raised some tolerably fair men and women under this regime, 
 as many of us can remember and testify. At all events, 
 Miss Ophelia knew of nothing else to do, and therefore 
 applied her mind to her heathen with the best diligence she 
 could command. 
 
 The child was announced and considered in the family as 
 Miss Ophelia's girl ; and, as she 'was looked upon with no 
 
262 TIEST INSTEUCTIONS. 
 
 gracious eye in the kitchen, Miss Ophelia resolved to con- 
 fine her sphere of operation and instruction chiefly to her 
 own chamber. With a self-sacrifice which some of our 
 readers will appreciate, she resolved, instead of comfortably 
 making her own bed, sweeping and dusting her own 
 chamber which she had hitherto done, in utter scorn of all 
 offers of help from the chambermaid of the establishment 
 to condemn herself to the martyrdom of instructing Topsy 
 to perform these operations. Ah, woe the day ! Did any 
 of our readers ever do the same, they will appreciate the 
 amount of her self-sacrifice. 
 
 Miss Ophelia began with Topsy by taking her into her 
 chamber the first morning, and solemnly commencing a 
 course of instruction in the art and mystery of bed-making. 
 
 Behold, then, Topsy, washed and shorn of all the little 
 braided tails wherein her heart had delighted, arrayed in a 
 clean gown, with well-starched apron, standing reverently 
 before Miss Ophelia, with an expression of solemnity well 
 befitting a funeral. 
 
 " Now, Topsy, I'm going to show you just how my bed 
 is to be made. I am very particular about my bed. You 
 must learn exactly how to do it." 
 
 " Tes, ma'am," says Topsy, with a deep sigh, and a face 
 of woeful earnestness. 
 
 " Now, Topsy, look here : this is the hem of the sheet 
 this is the right side of the sheet, and this is the wrong : 
 will you remember ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," says Topsy, with another sigh. 
 
 " Well, now, the under sheet you must bring over the 
 bolster so and tuck it clear down under the mattress nice 
 and smooth-^ so ; do you see ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," said Topsy, with profound attention. 
 
 " But the upper sheet," said Miss Ophelia, " must be 
 brought down in this way, and tucked under firm and 
 smooth at the foot so the narrow hem at the foot." 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," said Topsy, as before ; but we will add, 
 what Miss Ophelia did not see, that, during the time when 
 the good lady's back was turned, in the zeal of her manipu- 
 lations, the young disciple had contrived to snatch a pair of 
 gloves and a ribbon, which she had adroitly slipped into her 
 sleeves, and stood with her hands dutifully folded, as before. 
 
TOPST'S DELINQUENCIES. 263 
 
 " Now, Topsy, let's see you do this," said Miss Ophelia, 
 pulling off the clothes, and seating herself. 
 
 Topsy, with great gravity and adroitness, went through 
 the exercise completely to Miss Ophelia's satisfaction; 
 smoothing the sheets, patting out every wrinkle, and exhi- 
 biting, through the whole process, a gravity and seriousness 
 with which her instructress was greatly edified. By an 
 unlucky slip, however, a fluttering fragment of the ribbon 
 hung out of one of her sleeves, just as she was finishing, and 
 caught Miss Ophelia's attention. Instantly she pounced 
 upon it. "What's this? You naughty, wicked child 
 you've been stealing this ! " 
 
 The ribbon was pulled out of Topsy's own sleeve, yet was 
 she not in the least disconcerted; she only looked at it 
 with an air of the most surprised and unconscious innocence. 
 
 " Laws ! why that ar's Miss Peely's ribbon, an't it ? How 
 could it a got in my sleeve ? " 
 
 " Topsy, you naughty girl, don't you tell me a lie ; you 
 stole that ribbon ! " 
 
 " Missis, I declar for't, I didn't; never seed it till dis yer 
 blessed minnit." 
 
 " Topsy," said Miss Ophelia, " don't you know it's wicked 
 to tell lies?" 
 
 "I never tells no lies, Miss Peely," said Topsy, with 
 virtuous gravity ; " it's jist the truth I've been a tellin' now, 
 and an't nothin' else." 
 
 " Topsy, I shall have to whip you, if you tell lies so." 
 
 " Law, missis, if you's to whip all day, couldn't say no 
 other way," said Topsy, beginning to blubber. " I never 
 seed dat ar, it must a got caught in my sleeve. Miss Feely 
 must have left it on the bed, and it got caught in the 
 clothes, and so got in my sleeve." 
 
 Miss Ophelia was so indignant at the barefaced lie, that 
 she caught the child and shook her. 
 
 " Don't you tell me that again." 
 
 The shake brought the gloves on to the floor, from the 
 other sleeve. 
 
 " There, you ! " said Miss Ophelia, " will you tell me now 
 you didn't steal the ribbon ? " 
 
 Topsy now confessed to the gloves, but still persisted in 
 denying the ribbon. 
 
264 TOPST'S CONFESSION. 
 
 "Now, Topsy," said Miss Ophelia, "if you'll confess all 
 about it, I won't whip you this time." Thus adjured, Topsy 
 confessed to the ribbon and gloves, with woeful protesta- 
 tions of penitence. 
 
 " Well, now, tell me. I know you must have taken other 
 things since you have been in the house, for I let you run 
 about all day yesterday. Now, tell me if you took any- 
 thing, and I shan't whip you." 
 
 " Laws, missis ! I took Miss Eva's red thing she wars on 
 her neck." 
 
 " You did, you naughty child ! Well, what else ? " 
 
 " I took Bosa's yer-rings them red ones." 
 
 " Go bring them to me this minute, both of 'em." 
 
 " Laws, missis, I can't they's burnt up ! " 
 
 " Burnt up ? what a story ! Go get 'em, or I'll whip 
 you." 
 
 Topsy, with loud protestations, and tears, and groans, 
 declared that she could not. " They's burnt up they was." 
 
 " What did you burn 'em up for ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Cause I's wicked I is. I's mighty wicked, any how. 
 I can't help it." 
 
 Just at this moment Eva came innocently into the room, 
 with the identical coral necklace on her neck. 
 
 " Why, Eva, where did you get your necklace ? " said 
 Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Get it ? Why, I've had it on all day," said Eva. 
 
 " Did you have it on yesterday ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and what is funny, aunty, I had it on all night. I 
 forgot to take it off when I went to bed." 
 
 Miss Ophelia looked perfectly bewildered ; the more so 
 as Bosa at that instant came into the room, with a basket 
 of newly-ironed linen poised on her head, and the coral ear- 
 drops shaking in her ears. 
 
 " I'm sure I can't tell anything what to do with such a 
 child ! " she said, in despair. " What in the world did you 
 tell me you took those things for, Topsy ? " 
 
 " Why, missis said I must 'fess ; and I couldn't think of 
 no thin' else to 'fess," said Topsy, rubbing her eyes. 
 
 " But, of course, I didn't want you to confess things you 
 didn't do," said Miss Ophelia ; " that's telling a lie, just as 
 much as the other." 
 
THE TWO EXTREMES. 265 
 
 " Laws, now, is it ? " said Topsy, with an air of innocent 
 wonder. 
 
 " La, there an't any such thing as truth in that limb," 
 said Eosa, looking indignantly at Topsy. " If I was Mas'r 
 St. Clare, I'd whip her till the blood run, I would ! I'd let 
 her catch it ! " 
 
 " No, no, Eosa," said Eva, with an air of command, which 
 the child could assume at times ; " you mustnHj talk so, 
 Eosa. I can't bear to hear it." 
 
 " La, sakes ! Miss Eva, you's so good, you don't know 
 nothing how to get along with niggers. There's no way but 
 cut 'em well up, I tell ye." 
 
 " Eosa," said Eva, " hush ! Don't you say another word 
 of that sort," and the eye of the child flashed, and her cheek 
 deepened in colour. 
 
 Eosa was cowed in a moment. 
 
 " Miss Eva has got the St. Clare blood in her, that's plain. 
 She can speak for all the world just like her papa," she said, 
 as she passed out of the room. 
 
 Eva stood looking at Topsy. 
 
 There stood the two children, representatives of the two 
 extremes of society. The fair, high-bred child, with her 
 golden hair, her deep eyes, her spiritual, noble brow, and 
 prince-like movements ; and her black, keen, subtle, cringing, 
 yet acute neighbour. They stood the representatives of their 
 races. The Saxon, born of ages of cultivation, command, 
 education, physical and moral eminence ; the Afric, born of 
 ages of oppression, submission, ignorance, toil, and vice ! 
 
 Something, perhaps, of such thoughts struggled through 
 Eva's mind. But a child's thoughts are rather dim, undefined 
 instincts ; and in Eva's noble nature many such were yearning 
 and working, for which she had no power of utterance. When 
 Miss Ophelia expatiated on Topsy's naughty, wicked conduct, 
 the child looked perplexed and sorrowful, but said, sweetly 
 
 " Poor Topsy, why need you steal ? You're going to be 
 taken good care of now. I'm sure I'd rather give you any- 
 thing of mine than have you steal it." 
 
 It was the first word of kindness the child had ever heard 
 in her life ; and the sweet tone and manner struck strangely 
 on the wild, rude heart, and a sparkle of something like a 
 tear shone in the keen, round, glittering eye ; but it was 
 
266 MORAL SOPORIFICS. 
 
 followed by a short laugh and habitual grin. No ! the ear 
 that has never heard anything but abuse is strangely 
 incredulous of anything so heavenly as kindness ; and Topsy 
 only thought Eva's speech something funny and inexplicable 
 she did not believe it. 
 
 But what was to be done with Topsy ? Miss Ophelia 
 found the case a puzzler ; her rules for bringing up didn't 
 seem to apply. She thought she would take time to think 
 of it ; and, by the way of gaining time, and in hopes of 
 some indefinite moral virtues supposed to be inherent in 
 dark closets, Miss Ophelia shut Topsy up in one till she had 
 arranged her ideas further on the subject. 
 
 " I don't see," said Miss Ophelia to St. Clar,e, "how I'm 
 going to manage that child, without whipping her." 
 
 " Well, whip her, then, to your heart's content ; I'll give 
 you full power to do what you like." 
 
 " Children always have to be whipped," said Miss Ophelia ; 
 " I never heard of bringing them up without." 
 
 " Oh, well, certainly," said St. Clare ; " do as you think 
 best. Only I'll make one suggestion : I've seen this child 
 whipped with a poker, knocked down with the shovel or tongs, 
 whichever came handiest ; and, seeing that she is used to 
 that style of operation, I think your whippings will have to 
 be pretty energetic to make much impression." 
 
 " What is to be done with her, then ? " said Ophelia. 
 
 " You have started a serious question," said St. Clare ; 
 " I wish you'd answer it. What is to be done with a human 
 being that can be governed only by the lash ? that fails 
 it's a very common state of things down here." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know ; I never saw such a child as this." 
 
 " Such children are very common among us, and such men 
 and women too. How are they to be governed ? " said 
 St. Clare. 
 
 " I'm sure it's more than I can say," said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Or I either," said St. Clare. " The horrid cruelties and 
 outrages that once and a while find their way into the papers 
 such cases as Prue's, for example what do they come 
 from ? In many cases, it is a gradual hardening process on 
 both sides the owner growing more and more cruel, as the 
 servant more and more callous. Whipping and abuse 
 are like laudanum ; you have to double the dose as the 
 
TOPSY'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 267 
 
 sensibilities decline. I saw this very early when I became 
 an owner ; and I resolved never to begin, because I did not 
 know when I should stop ; and I resolved, at least, to protect 
 my own moral nature. The consequence is, that my servants 
 act like spoiled children ; but I think that better than for 
 us both to be brutalised together. You have talked a great 
 deal about our responsibilities in educating, cousin. I really 
 wanted you to try with one child, who is a specimen of 
 thousands among us." 
 
 " It is your system makes such children," said Miss 
 Ophelia. 
 
 " I know it ; but they are made they exist and what is 
 to be done with them ? " 
 
 " Well, I can't say I thank you for the experiment. But, 
 then, as it appears to be a duty, I shall persevere and try, 
 and do the best I can." said Miss Ophelia ; and Miss 
 Ophelia, after this, did labour, with a commendable degree 
 of zeal and energy, on her new subject. She instituted 
 regular hours and employments for her, and undertook to 
 teach her to read and to sew. 
 
 In the former art the child was quick enough. She 
 learned her letters as if by magic, and was very soon able 
 to read plain reading ; but the sewing was a more difficult 
 matter. The creature was as lithe as a cat, and as active 
 as a monkey, and the confinement of sewing was her abomi- 
 nation ; so she broke her needles, threw them slily out of 
 windows, or down in chinks of the walls; she tangled, 
 broke, and dirtied her thread, or, with a sly movement, would 
 throw a spool away altogether. Her motions were almost 
 as quick as those of a practised conjuror, and her command 
 of her face quite as great ; and though Miss Ophelia 
 could not help feeling that so many accidents could not 
 possibly happen in succession, yet she could not, without a 
 watchfulness which would leave her no time for anything 
 else, detect her. 
 
 Topsy was soon a noted character in the establishment. 
 Her talent for every species of drollery, grimace, and 
 mimicry for dancing, tumbling, climbing, singing, whistling, 
 imitating every sound that hit her fancy seemed inex- 
 haustible. In her play-hours she invariably had every child 
 in the establishment at her heels, open-mouthed with 
 
268 TOPST'S REVENGES. 
 
 admiration and wonder not excepting Miss Eva, who 
 appeared to be fascinated by her wild diablerie^as a dove 
 is sometimes charmed by a glittenug..srpent. Miss Ophelia 
 was uneasy that Eva should fancy Topsy's society so much, 
 and implored St. Clare to forbid it. 
 
 " Poh ! let the child alone," said St. Clare. " Topsy will 
 do her good." 
 
 " But so depraved a child are you not afraid she will 
 teach her some mischief ? " 
 
 " She can't teach her mischief ; she might teach it to some 
 children, but evil rolls off Eva's mind like dew off a cabbage- 
 leaf not a drop sinks in." 
 
 "Don't be too sure," said Miss Ophelia. "I know I'd 
 never let a child of mine play with Topsy." 
 
 " "Well, your children needn't," said St. Clare, " but mine 
 may ; if Eva could have been spoiled, it would have been 
 done years ago." 
 
 Topsy was at first despised and contemned by the upper 
 servants : they soon found reason to alter their opinion. It 
 was very soon discovered that whoever cast an indignity on 
 Topsy was sure to meet with some inconvenient accident 
 shortly after either a pair of ear-rings or some cherished 
 trinket would be missing, or an article of dress would be 
 suddenly found utterly ruined, or the person would stumble 
 accidentally into a pail of hot water, or a libation of dirty 
 slop would unaccountably deluge them from above when 
 in full gala dress ; and on all these occasions, when inves- 
 tigation was made, there was nobody found to stand 
 sponsor for the indignity. Topsy was cited, and had up 
 before all the domestic judicatories, time and again ; but 
 always sustained her examinations with most edifying inno- 
 cence and gravity of appearance. Nobody in the world 
 ever doubted who did the tilings ; but not a scrap of direct 
 evidence could be found to establish the suppositions, and 
 Miss Ophelia was too just to feel at liberty to proceed to 
 any lengths without it. 
 
 The mischiefs done were always so nicely timed, also, 
 as further to shelter the aggressor. Thus, the times for 
 revenge on Rosa and Jane, the two chambermaids, were 
 always chosen in those seasons when (as not unfrequently 
 happened) they were in disgrace with their mistress, when 
 
THE PEIDE OF WICKEDNESS. 269 
 
 any complaint from them would of course meet with no 
 sympathy. In short, Topsy soon made the household 
 understand the propriety of letting her alone ; and she was 
 let alone accordingly. 
 
 Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations, 
 learning everything that was taught her with surprising 
 quickness. With a few lessons she had learned to do the pro- 
 prieties of Miss Ophelia's chamber in a way with which even 
 that particular lady could find no fault. Mortal hands could 
 not lay spread smoother, adjust pillows more accurately, 
 sweep and dust and arrange more perfectly, than Topsy, 
 when she chose but she didn't very often choose. If 
 Miss Ophelia, after three or four days of careful and patient 
 supervision, was so sanguine as to suppose that Topsy had 
 at last fallen into her way, could do without overlooking, 
 and so go off and busy herself about something else, Topsy 
 would hold a perfect carnival of confusion for some one or 
 two hours. Instead of making the bed, she would amuse 
 herself with pulling oif the pillow-cases, butting her woolly 
 head among the pillows, till it would sometimes be grotesquely 
 ornamented with feathers sticking out in various directions ; 
 she would climb the posts, and hang head downward from 
 the tops ; nourish the sheets and spreads all over the apart- 
 ment ; dress the bolster up in Miss Ophelia's night-clothes, 
 and enact various scenic performances with that singing 
 and whistling, and making grimaces at herself in the looking- 
 glass ; in short, as Miss Ophelia phrased it, " raising Cain " 
 generally. 
 
 On one occasion, Miss Ophelia found Topsy with her 
 very best scarlet India Canton crape shawl wound round 
 her head for a turban, going on with her rehearsals before 
 the glass in great style Miss Ophelia having, with care- 
 lessness most unheard of in her, left the key for once in her 
 drawer. 
 
 " Topsy ! " she would say, when at the end of all patience, 
 " what does make you act so ? " 
 
 " Dun no, missis I 'spects 'cause I's so wicked ! " 
 " I don't know anything what I shall do with you, Topsy." 
 " Law, missis, you must whip me ; my old missis allers 
 whipped me. I an't used to workin' unless. I gets 
 whipped." 
 
270 TEACHING THE CATECHISM. 
 
 " "Why, Topsy, I don't want to whip you. You can do 
 well, if you've a mind to ; what is the reason you 
 wont ? " 
 
 " Laws, missis, I's used to whippin' ; I 'spects it's good 
 for me." 
 
 Miss Ophelia tried the recipe, and Topsy invariably made 
 a terrible commotion, screaming, groaning, and imploring ; 
 though half an hour afterwards, when roosted on some pro- 
 jection of the balcony, and surrounded by a flock of admiring 
 " young uns," she would express the utmost contempt of the 
 whole affair. 
 
 " Law, Miss Feely whip ! wouldn't kill a skeeter, her 
 whippins. Ought er see how old mas'r made the flesh fly ; 
 old mas'r know'd how ! " 
 
 Topsy always made great capital of her own sins and 
 enormities, evidently considering them as something pecu- 
 liarly distinguishing. 
 
 " Law, you niggers," she would say to some of her audi- 
 tors, " does you know you's all sinners ? "Well, you is, 
 everybody is. "White folks is sinners, too Miss Peely says 
 so ; but I 'spects niggers is the biggest ones ; but lor ! ye 
 an't any on ye up to me. I's so awful wicked there can't 
 nobody do nothin' with me. I used to keep old missis a 
 swarin' at me half de time. I 'spects I's the wickedest 
 crittur in the world ; " and Topsy would cut a summerset, 
 and come up brisk and shining on to a higher perch, and 
 evidently plume herself on the distinction. 
 
 Miss Ophelia busied herself very earnestly on Sundays, 
 teaching Topsy the catechism. Topsy had an uncommon, 
 verbal memory, and committed with a fluency that greatly 
 encouraged her instructress. 
 
 " What good do you expect it is going to do her ? " said 
 St. Clare. 
 
 ""Why, it always has done children good. It's what 
 children always have to learn, you know," said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Understand it or not ? " said St. Clare. 
 
 " Oh, children never understand it at the time ; but after 
 they are grown up, it'll come to them." 
 
 " Mine hasn't come to me yet," said St. Clare, " though 
 I'll bear testimony that you put it into me pretty thoroughly 
 when I was a boy." 
 
MISS OPHELIA'S VEXATIONS. 271 
 
 " Ah, you were always good at learning, Augustine. I 
 used to have great hopes of you," said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " "Well, haven't you now ? '" said St. Clare. 
 
 " I wish you were as good as you were when you were a 
 boy, Augustine." 
 
 " So do I, that's a fact, cousin," said St. Clare. " Well, 
 go ahead and catechise Topsy ; may be you'll make out some- 
 thing yet." 
 
 Topsy, w r ho had stood like a black statue during this dis- 
 cussion, with hands decently folded, now, at a signal from 
 Miss Ophelia, went on : 
 
 " Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own 
 will, fell from the state wherein they were created." 
 
 Topsy 's eyes twinkled, and she looked inquiringly. 
 
 " What is it, Topsy ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Please, missis, was dat ar state Kintuck ? " 
 
 " What state, Topsy ? " 
 
 " Dat state dey fell out of. I used to hear mas'r tell how 
 we came down from Kentuck." 
 
 St. Clare laughed. 
 
 " You'll have to give her a meaning, or she'll make one," 
 said he. " There seems to be a theory of emigration sug- 
 gested there." 
 
 " O Augustine, be still ! " said Miss Ophelia : " how can I 
 do anything if you'll be laughing ? " 
 
 " Well, I won't disturb the exercises again, on my 
 honour ; " and St. Clare took his paper into the parlour, 
 and sat down till Topsy had finished her recitations. They 
 were all very well, only that now and then she would oddly 
 transpose some important words, and persist in the mistake, 
 in spite of every effort to the contrary ; and St. Clare, after 
 all his promises of goodness, took a wicked pleasure in these 
 mistakes, calling Topsy to him whenever he had a mind to 
 amuse himself, and getting her to repeat the offending 
 passages, in spite of Miss Ophelia's remonstrances. 
 
 " How do you think I can do anything with the child, if 
 you will go on so, Augustine ? " she would say. 
 
 " Well, it is too bad ; I won't again ; but I do like to hear 
 the droll little image stumble over those big words ! " 
 
 " But you confirm her in the wrong way." 
 
 " What's the odds ? One word is as good as another to her." 
 
272 KENTTJCK. 
 
 " You wanted me to bring her up right ; and you ought 
 to remember she is a reasonable creature, and be careful of 
 your influence over her." 
 
 " Oh, dismal ! so I ought ; but, as Topsy herself says, I's 
 so wicked ! " 
 
 In very much this way Topsy 's training proceeded, for a 
 year or two Miss Ophelia worrying herself from day to day 
 with her, as a kind of chronic plague, to whose inflictions 
 she became, in time, as accustomed as persons sometimes do 
 to the neuralgia or sick-headache. 
 
 St. Clare took the same kind of amusement in the child 
 that a man might in the tricks of a parrot or a pointer. 
 Topsy, whenever her sins brought her into disgrace in other 
 quarters, always took refuge behind his chair ; and St. Clare, 
 in one way or other, would make peace for her. From him 
 she got many a stray picayune, which she laid out in nuts 
 and candies, and distributed, with careless generosity, to all 
 the children in the family ; for Topsy, to do her justice, was 
 good-natured and liberal, and only spiteful in self-defence. 
 She is fairly introduced into our corps de ballet, and will 
 figure from time to time, in her turn, with other performers. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 KENTUCK. 
 
 OUR readers may not be unwilling to glance back, for a 
 brief interval, at Uncle Tom's Cabin, on the Kentucky farm, 
 and see what has been transpiring among those whom he 
 had left behind. 
 
 It was late in the summer afternoon, and the doors and 
 windows of the large parlour all stood open, to invite any 
 stray breeze that might feel in a good humour to enter. 
 Mr. Shelby sat in a large hall opening into the room, and 
 running through the whole length of the house to a balcony 
 on either end. Leisurely tipped back in one chair, with his 
 heels in another, he was enjoying his after-dinner cigar. 
 Mrs. Shelby sat in the door, busy about some fine sewing ; 
 
WOMEN NEVER UNDERSTAND BUSINESS. 273 
 
 she seemed like one who had something on her mind, which 
 she was seeking an opportunity to introduce. 
 , "Do you know," she said, " that Chloe has had a letter 
 from Tom?" 
 
 " Ah ! has she ? Tom's got some friend there, it seems. 
 How is the old boy ?" 
 
 " He has been bought by a very fine family, I should 
 think," said Mrs. Shelby; "is kindly treated, and has not 
 much to do." 
 
 " Ah ! well, I'm glad of it very glad," said Mr. Shelby, 
 heartily. " Tom, I suppose, will get reconciled to a 
 southern residence hardly want to come up here again." 
 
 " On the contrary, he inquires very anxiously," said 
 Mrs. Shelby, " when the money for his redemption is to be 
 raised." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," said Mr. Shelby. " Once get 
 business running wrong, there does seem to be no end to it. 
 It's like jumping from one bog to another, all through a 
 swamp ; borrow of one to pay another, and then borrow of 
 another to pay one and these confounded notes falling due 
 before a man has time to smoke a cigar and turn round 
 dunning letters and dunning messages all scamper and 
 hurry-scurry." 
 
 " It does seem to me, my dear, that something might be 
 done to straighten matters. Suppose we sell off all the- 
 horses, and sell one of your farms, and pay up 
 square ?" 
 
 " Oh ! ridiculous, Emily ! You are the finest woman in 
 Kentucky, but still you haven't sense to know that you 
 don't understand business ; women never do, and never- 
 can." 
 
 " But, at least," said Mrs. Shelby, " could you not give' 
 me some little insight into yours ? a list of all your debts, 
 at least, and of all that is owed to you, and let me try and 
 see if I can't help you to economise." 
 
 " Oh, bother ! don't plague me, Emily ! I can't tell 
 exactly. I know somewhere about what things are likely to 
 be ; but there's no trimming and squaring my affairs, as 
 Chloe trims crust off her pies. You don't know anything 
 about business, I tell you." 
 
 And Mr. Shelby, not knowing any other way of enforcing 
 
\u 
 
 274 DEGRADATION AND QUIXOTISM. 
 
 his ideas, raised his voice; a mode of arguing very con- 
 venient and convincing, when a gentleman is discussing 
 matters of business with his wife. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby ceased talking, with something of a sigh. The 
 fact was, that though, as her husband had stated, she was a 
 woman, she had a clear, energetic, practical mind, and a 
 force of character every way superior to that of her husband; 
 so that it would not have been so very absurd a supposition 
 to have allowed her capable of managing, as Mr. Shelby 
 supposed. Her heart was set on performing her promise 
 to Tom and Aunt Chloe, and she sighed a-s discouragements 
 thickened around her. 
 
 "Don't you think we might, in some way, contrive to 
 raise that money ? Poor Aunt Chloe ! her heart is so set 
 on it !" 
 
 " I'm sorry if it is. I think I was premature in promising. 
 I'm not sure, now, but it's the best way to tell Chloe, and 
 let her make up her mind to it. Tom'll have another wife 
 in a year or two, and she had better take up with somebody 
 else." 
 
 " Mr. Shelby, I have taught my people that their mar- 
 riages are as sacred as ours. I never could think of giving 
 Chloe such advice." 
 
 " It's a pity, wife, that you have burdened them with a 
 morality above their condition and prospects. I always 
 thought so." 
 
 " It's only the morality of the Bible, Mr. Shelby." 
 
 "Well, well, Emily, I don't pretend to interfere with 
 your religious notions, only they seem extremely unfitted 
 for people in that condition." 
 
 " They are, indeed," said Mrs. Shelby ; " and that is why, 
 from my soul, I hate the whole thing. I tell you, my dear, 
 I cannot absolve myself from the promises I make to these 
 helpless creatures. If I can get the money no other way, I 
 will take music scholars ; I could get enough, I know, and 
 earn the money myself." 
 
 " You wouldn't degrade yourself that way, Emily ? I never 
 could consent to it." 
 
 " Degrade ! would it degrade me as much as to break my 
 faith with the helpless ? No, indeed !" 
 
 " Well, you are always heroic and transcendental," said 
 
AUNT CHLOE'S PROPOSITION. 275 
 
 Mr. Shelby, " but I think you had better think before you. 
 undertake such a piece of Quixotism." 
 
 Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance 
 of Aunt Chloe, at the end of the verandah. 
 
 " If you please, missis " said she. 
 
 " Well, Chloe, what is it ? " said her mistress, rising, and 
 going to the end of the balcony. 
 
 "If missis would come and look at dis yer lot o' 
 poetry." 
 
 Chloe had a particular fancy for calling poultry poetry, an 
 application of language in which she always persisted, not- 
 withstanding frequent corrections and advisings from the 
 young members of the family. 
 
 " La sakes !" she would say, " I can't see ; one jis good as 
 turrer, poetry suthin' good, any how ;" and so poetry Chloe 
 continued to call it. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby smiled as she saw a prostrate lot of chickens 
 and ducks, over which Chloe stood, with a very grave face of 
 consideration. 
 
 "I'm a thinkin' whether missis would be a havin' a 
 chicken pie o' dese yer." 
 
 " Eeally, Aunt Chloe, I don't much care ; serve them any 
 way you like." 
 
 Chloe stood handling them over abstractedly \ it was quite 
 evident that the chickens were not what she was thinking 
 of. At last, with the short laugh with which her tribe often 
 introduce a doubtful proposal, she said 
 
 " Laws me, missis, what should mas'r and missis be a 
 troublin' theirselves 'bout de money, and not a usin' what's 
 right in der hands ?" and Chloe laughed again. 
 
 "I don't understand you, Chloe," said Mrs. Shelby, 
 nothing doubting, from her knowledge of Chloe's manner, 
 that she had heard every word of the conversation that had 
 passed between her and her husband. 
 
 "Why, laws me, missis!" said Chloe, laughing again, 
 " other folks hires out der niggers, and makes money on 
 'em ! Don't keep sich a tribe eatin' 'em out of house and 
 home." 
 
 " Well, Chloe, who do you propose that we should hire 
 
 " Laws ! I ain't a proposin' nothin' ; only Sam he said 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 der was one of dese yer perfectioners, dey calls 'em, in 
 Louisville, said he wanted a good hand at cake and 
 
 d 
 
 try, and said he'd give four dollars a-week to one, he 
 
 "Veil, Chloe?" 
 
 " "Well, laws, I's a thinkin', missis, it's time Sally was put 
 along to be doin' something. Sally's been under my care, 
 now, dis some time, and she does most as well as me, con- 
 siderin' ; and if missis would only let me go, I would help 
 fetch up de money. I an't afraid to put my cake, nor pies 
 nother, long side no perfectioner's" 
 
 " Confectioner's, Chloe." 
 
 " Law sakes, missis ! 't an't no odds ; words is so curis, 
 can't never get 'em right!" 
 
 " But, Chloe, do you want to leave your children ?" 
 
 " Laws, missis ! de boys is big enough to do day's 
 works ; dey does well enough ; and Sally, she'll take de 
 baby she's such a peart young un, she won't take no 
 lookin' arter." 
 
 " Louisville is a good way off." 
 
 " Law sakes ! who's afeard ? it's down river, somer near 
 my old man, perhaps ?" said Chloe, speaking the last in the 
 tone of a question, and looking at Mrs. Shelby. 
 
 " JSTo, Chloe ; it's many a hundred miles off," said Mrs. 
 Shelby. 
 
 Chloe's countenance fell. 
 
 " Never mind ; your going there shall bring you nearer, 
 Chloe. Yes, you may go ; and your wages shall every 
 cent of them be laid aside for your husband's redemp- 
 tion." 
 
 As when a bright sunbeam turns a dark cloud to silver, so 
 Chloe's dark face brightened immediately ; it really shone. 
 
 " Laws ! if missis is'nt too good ! I was thinking of dat 
 ar very thing ; cause I shouldn't need no clothes, nor shoes, 
 nor nothin'. I could save every cent. How many weeks is 
 der in a yer, missis ? " 
 
 " Fifty-two," said Mrs. Shelby. 
 
 " Laws ! now, dere is ? and four dollars for each on 'em. 
 "Why, how much dat ar be ?" 
 
 "Two hundred and eight dollars," said Mrs. Shelby. 
 
 " "Why-e " said Chloe, with an accent of surprise and 
 
GEOBGE WHITES TO UNCLE TOM. 277 
 
 delight ; " and how long would it take me to work it out, 
 missis ? " 
 
 " Some four or five years, Chloe ; but then you needn't do 
 it all, I shall add something to it." 
 
 "I wouldn't hear to missis' givin' lessons nor nothin'. 
 Mas'r's quite right in dat ar ; 'twouldn't do no ways. 1 
 hope none our family eyer be brought to dat ar, while I's 
 got hands." 
 
 " Don't fear, Chloe ; I'll take care of the honour of the 
 family," said Mrs. Shelby, smiling. "But when do you 
 expect to go ?" 
 
 " Well, I warn't spectin' nothin'; only Sam, he's a gwine 
 to de river with some colts, and he said I could go 'long 
 with him ; so I jest put my things together. If missis was 
 willin' I'd go with Sam to-morrow mornin', if missis would 
 write my pass, and write me a commendation." 
 
 " "Well, Chloe, I'll attend to it, if Mr. Shelby has no 
 objections. I must speak to him." 
 
 Mrs. Shelby went up stairs, and Aunt Chloe, delighted, 
 went out to her cabin, to make her preparation. 
 
 "Law sakes, Mas'r George! ye didn't knowJ's a gwine 
 to Louisville to-morrow!" she said to George, as, entering 
 her cabin, he found her busy in sorting over her baby's 
 clothes. "I thought I'd jist look over Sis's things, and get 
 'em straightened up. But I'm gwine, Mas'r George gwine 
 to have four dollars a- week ; and missis is gwine to lay it all 
 up, to buy back my old man agin ! " 
 
 " Whew ! " said George, " here's a stroke of business, to 
 be sure ! How are you going ?" 
 
 " To-morrow, wid'Sarn. And now Mas'r George, I knows 
 you'll jist sit down and write to my old man, and tell him all 
 about it won't ye ?" 
 
 " To be sure," said George ; " Uncle Tom '11 be right glad 
 to hear from us. I'll go right in the house for paper and 
 ink ; and then, you know, Aunt Chloe, I can tell about the 
 new colts and all." 
 
 " Sartin, sartin, Mas'r George ; you go 'long, and I'll get 
 ye up a bit o' chicken, or some sich : ye won't have many 
 more suppers wid your poor old aunty." 
 
278 " THE GEASS WITHEEETH THE FLOWEE FADETH." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 "THE GRASS WITHERETH THE FLOWER FADETH." 
 
 LIFE passes with us all, a day at a time ; so it passed 
 with our friend Tom, till two years were gone. Though 
 parted from ail his soul held dear, and though often yearning 
 for what lay beyond, still was he never positively and con- 
 sciously miserable ; for, so well is the harp of human feeling 
 strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string 
 can wholly mar its harmony ; and, on looking back to seasons 
 which in review appear to us as those of deprivation and 
 trial, we can remember that each hour, as it glided, brought 
 its diversions and alleviations, so that, though not happy 
 wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable. 
 
 Tom read, in his only literary cabinet, of one who had 
 " learned, in whatsoever state he was, therewith to be con- 
 tent.'* It seemed to him good and reasonable doctrine, and 
 accorded well with the settled and thoughtful habit which 
 he had acquired from the reading of that same book. 
 
 His letter homeward, as we related in the last chapter, 
 was in due time answered by Master G-eorge, in a good, 
 round, schoolboy hand, that Tom said might be read " most 
 acrost the room." It contained various refreshing items of 
 home intelligence, with which our reader is fully acquainted ; 
 stated how Aunt Chloe had been hired out to a confectioner 
 in Louisville, where her skill in the pastry line was gaining 
 wonderful sums of money, all of which, Tom was informed, 
 was to be laid up to go to make up the sum of his redemp- 
 tion money ; Mose and Pete were thriving, and the baby 
 was trotting all about the house, under the care of Sally and 
 the family generally. 
 
 Tom's cabin was shut up for the present; but George 
 expatiated brilliantly on ornaments and additions to be 
 made to it when Tom came back. 
 
 The rest of this letter gave a list of George's school 
 
TOM AND ETA'S FKIENDSHIP. 279 
 
 studies, each one headed by a flourishing capital ; and also 
 told the names of four new colts that appeared on the 
 premises since Tom left ; and stated, in the same connexion, 
 that father and mother were well. The style of the letter 
 was decidedly concise and terse ; but Tom thought it the 
 most wonderful specimen of composition that had appeared 
 in modern times. He was never tired of looking at it, and 
 even held a council with Eva on the expediency of getting it 
 framed, to hang up in his room. Nothing but the difficulty 
 of arranging it so that both sides of the page would show at 
 once, stood in the way of this undertaking. 
 
 The friendship between Tom and Eva had grown with the 
 child's growth. It would be hard to say what place she 
 held in the soft, impressible heart of her faithful attendant. 
 He loved her as something frail and earthly, yet almost 
 worshipped her as something heavenly and divine. He 
 gazed on her as the Italian sailor gazes on his image of the 
 child Jesus with a mixture of reverence and tenderness ; 
 and to humour her graceful fancies, and meet those thou- 
 sand simple wants which invest childhood like a many- 
 coloured rainbow, was Tom's chief delight. In the market, 
 at morning, his eyes were always on the flower-stalls for 
 rare bouquets for her, and the choicest peach or orange was 
 slipped into his pocket to give to her when he came back ; 
 and the sight that pleased him most was her sunny head 
 looking out at the gate for his distant approach, and her 
 childish question, " Well, Uncle Tom, what have you got for 
 me to-day?" 
 
 Nor was Eva less zealous in kind offices, in return. 
 Though a child, she was a beautiful reader : a fine, musical 
 ear, a quick, poetic fancy, and an instinctive sympathy with 
 what is grand and noble, made her such a reader 01 the Bible 
 as Tom had never before heard. At first she read to please 
 her humble friend ; but soon her own earnest nature threw 
 out its tendrils, and wound itself around the majestic book ; 
 and Eva loved it, because it woke in her strange yearnings, 
 and strong, dim emotions, such as impassioned, imaginative 
 children love to feel. 
 
 The parts that pleased her most were the Revelation and 
 the Prophecies parts whose dim and wondrous imagery and 
 fervent language impressed her the more, that she questioned 
 
* 
 
 280 LAKE POTTTCHAETRAIN. 
 
 vainly of their meaning ; and she and her simple friend, the 
 old child and the young one, felfc just alike about it. All that 
 they knew was, that they spoke of a glory to be revealed a 
 wondrous something yet to come, wherein their soul rejoiced, 
 yet knew not why ; and though it be not so in tlte physical, 
 yet in moral science that which cannot be understood is not 
 always profitless. For the soul awakes, a trembling stranger, 
 between two dim eternities the eternal past, the eternal 
 future. The light shines only on a small space around her ; 
 therefore she needs must yearn towards the unknown; and the 
 voices and shadowy movings which come to her from out the 
 cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one echoes and answers 
 in her own expecting nature. Its mystic imageries are so 
 many talismans and gems inscribed with unknown hierogly- 
 phics; she folds them in her bosom, and expects to read 
 them when she passes beyond the veil. 
 
 At this time in our story, the whole St. Clare establish- 
 ment is, for the time being, removed to their villa on Lake 
 Pontchartrain. The heats of summer had driven all who 
 were able to leave the sultry and unhealthy city to seek the 
 shores of the lake, and its cool sea-breezes. 
 
 St. Clare's villa was an East Indian cottage, surrounded 
 by light verandahs of bamboo- work, and opening on all sides 
 into gardens and pleasure-grounds. The common sitting- 
 room opened on to a large garden, fragrant with every 
 picturesque plant and flower of the tropics, where winding 
 paths ran down to the very shores of the lake, whose silvery 
 sheet of water lay there rising and falling in the sunbeams 
 a picture never for an hour the same, yet every hour 
 more beautiful. 
 
 It is now one of those intensely golden sunsets which 
 kindles the whole horizon into one blaze of glory, and makes 
 the water another sky. The lake lay in rosy or golden 
 streaks, save where white-winged vessels glided hither and 
 thither, like so many spirits, and little golden stars twinkled 
 through the glow, and looked down at themselves as they 
 trembled in the water. 
 
 Tom and Eva were seated on a little mossy seat, in an 
 arbour at the foot of the garden. It was Sunday evening, 
 and Eva's Bible lay open on her knee. She read, " And I 
 saw a sea of glass, mingled with fire." 
 
1 
 
 TEE NEW JEEUSALEM. 281 
 
 " Tom," said Eva, suddenly stopping, and pointing to the 
 lake, " there 'tis." 
 
 "What, Miss Eva?" 
 
 " Don't you see there ?" said the child, pointing to the 
 glassy water, which, as it rose and fell, reflected the golden 
 glow of the sky. " There's a * sea of glass, mingled with 
 fire.' " 
 
 " True enough, Miss Eva," said Tom ; and Tom sang 
 
 " Oh, had I the wings of the morning, 
 
 I'd fly away to Canaan's shore : 
 Bright angels should convey me home, 
 To the New Jerusalem." 
 
 " Where do you suppose New Jerusalem is, Uncle Tom ?" 
 said Eva. 
 
 " Oh, up in the clouds, Miss Eva." 
 
 "Then I think I see it," said Eva. "Look in those 
 clouds ! they look like great gates of pearl ; and you can see 
 beyond them far, far off it's all gold. Tom, sing about 
 'spirits bright.'" 
 
 Tom sang the words of a well-known Methodist hymn 
 
 " I see a band of spirits bright, 
 
 That taste the glories there : 
 They all are robed in spotless white, 
 And conquering palms they bear." 
 
 " Uncle Tom, I've seen them" said Eva. 
 
 Tom had no doubt of it at all ; it did not surprise him in 
 the least. If Eva had told him she had been to heaven, he 
 would have thought it entirely probable. 
 
 " They come to me sometimes in my sleep, those spirits ; " 
 and Eva's eyes grew dreamy, and she hummed, in a low 
 voice 
 
 " They all are robed in spotless white, 
 And conquering palms they bear." 
 
 " Uncle Tom," said Eva, " I am going there." 
 "Where, Miss Eva?" 
 
 The child rose, and pointed her little hand to the sky ; 
 the glow of evening lit her golden hair and flushed cheek 
 

 
 282 LITTLE ETA BECOMES ILL. 
 
 with a kind of unearthly radiance, and her eyes were bent 
 earnestly on the skies. 
 
 "I'm going there I" she said, "to the spirits bright, 
 Tom ; Tm going, before long" 
 
 The faithful old heart felt a sudden thrust ; and Tom 
 thought how often he had noticed, within six months, that 
 Eva's little hands had grown thinner, and her skin more 
 transparent, and her breath shorter; and how, when she 
 ran or played in the garden, as she once could for hours, 
 she became soon so tired and languid. He had heard Miss 
 Ophelia speak often of a cough, that all her medicaments 
 could not cure ; and even now that fervent cheek and 
 little hand were burning with hectic fever ; and yet the 
 thought that Eva's words suggested had never come to him 
 till now. 
 
 Has there ever been a child like Eva ? Yes, there have 
 been ; but their names are always on grave-stones, and their 
 sweet smiles, their heavenly eyes, their singular words and 
 ways, are among the buried treasures of yearning hearts. 
 In how many families do you hear the legend that all the 
 goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar 
 charms of one who is not ! It is as if Heaven had an espe- 
 cial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a 
 season here, and endear to them the wayward human heart, 
 that they might bear it upward with them in their home- 
 ward flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the 
 eye when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and 
 wiser than the ordinary words of children hope not to 
 retain that child ; for the seal of Heaven is on it, and the 
 light of immortality looks out from its eyes. 
 
 Even so, beloved Eva ! fair star of thy dwelling ! Thou 
 art passing away ; but they that love thee dearest know 
 it not. 
 
 The colloquy between Tom and Eva was interrupted by a 
 hasty call from Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Eva Eva ! why, child, the dew is falling; you mustn't 
 be out there!" 
 
 Eva and Tom hastened in. 
 
 Miss Ophelia was old, and skilled in the tactics of nursing. 
 She was from New England, and knew well the first guileful 
 footsteps of that soft, insidious disease, which sweeps away so 
 
PEEVIS10XS OF FUTURITY. 283 
 
 many of the fairest and loveliest, and, before one fibre of life 
 seems broken, seals them irrevocably for death. 
 
 She had noted the slight, dry cough, the daily brighten- 
 ing cheek; nor could the lustre of the eye and the airy 
 buoyancy born of fever deceive her. 
 
 She tried to communicate her fears to St. Clare ; but he 
 threw back her suggestions with a restless petulance, unlike 
 his usual careless good-humour. 
 
 "Don't be croaking, cousin I hate it! " he would say ; 
 " don't you see that the child is only growing ? Children 
 always lose strength when they grow fast." 
 
 " But she has that cough ! " 
 
 " Oh, nonsense of that cough it is not anything ! She 
 has taken a little cold, perhaps." 
 
 " "Well, that was just the way Eliza Jane was taken, and 
 Ellen and Maria Sanders." 
 
 " Oh, stop these hobgoblin nurse-legends ! You old hands 
 get so wise, that a child cannot cough or sneeze, but you see 
 desperation and ruin at hand. Only take care of the child, 
 keep her from the night air, and don't let her play too hard, 
 and she'll do well enough." 
 
 So St. Clare said ; but he grew nervous and restless. He 
 watched Eva feverishly day by day, as might be told by the 
 frequency with which he repeated over that " the child was 
 quite well" that there wasn't anything in that cough it 
 was only some little stomach affection, such as children often 
 had. But he kept by her more than before, took her oftener 
 to ride with him, brought home, every few days, some receipt 
 or strengthening mixture "not," he said, "that the child 
 needed it, but then it would not do her any harm." 
 
 If it must be told, the thing that struck a deeper pang to 
 his heart than anything else was the daily increasing ma- 
 turity of the child's mind and feelings. While still retain- 
 ing all a child's fanciful graces, yet she often dropped, 
 unconsciously, words of such a reach of thought, and strange 
 unworldly wisdom, that they seemed to be an inspiration. 
 At such times, St. Clare would feel a sudden thrill, and 
 clasp her in his arms, as if that fond clasp could save her ; 
 and his heart rose up with wild determination to keep her, 
 never to let her go. 
 
 The child's whole heart and soul seemed absorbed in 
 
284 
 
 works of love and kindness. Impulsively generous she bad 
 alway been, but there was a touching and womanly thought- 
 fulness about her now that every one noticed. She still 
 loved to play with Topsy and the various coloured children ; 
 but she now seemed rather a spectator than an actor of 
 their plays, and she would sit for half an hour at a time 
 laughing at the odd tricks of Topsy and then a shadow 
 would seem to pass across her face, her eyes grew misty, and 
 her thoughts were afar. 
 
 "Mamma," she said suddenly, to her mother, one day, 
 " why don't we teach our servants to read ? " 
 
 " What a question, child ! People never do." 
 
 " Why don't they ? " said Eva. 
 
 " Because it is no use for them to read. It don't help 
 them to work any better, and they are not made for anything 
 else." 
 
 "But they ought to read the Bible, mamma, to learn 
 God's will." 
 
 " Oh, they can. get that read to them all they need." 
 
 " It seems to me, mamma, the Bible is for every one to 
 read themselves. They need it a great many times when 
 there is nobody to read it." 
 
 " Eva, you are an odd child," said her mother. 
 
 "Miss Ophelia has taught Topsy to read," continued 
 Eva, 
 
 " Yes, and you see how much good it does. Topsy is the 
 worst creature I ever saw ! " 
 
 " Here's poor Mammy ! " said Eva. " She loves the Bible 
 so much, and wishes so she could read ! And what will she 
 do when I can't read to her ? " 
 
 Marie was busy, turning over the contents of a drawer, as 
 she answered, 
 
 "Well, of course, by and by, Eva, you will have other 
 things to think of, besides reading the Bible round to 
 servants. Not but that is very proper ; I've done it myself, 
 when I had health. But when you come to be dressing and 
 going into company, you won't have time. See here ! " she 
 added, " these jewels I'm going to give you when you come 
 out. I wore them to my first ball. I can tell you, Eva, 
 I made a sensation." 
 
 Eva took the jewel-case, and lifted from it a diamond 
 
HENRIQUE. 285 
 
 necklace. Her large, thoughtful eyes rested on them, but 
 it was plain her thoughts were elsewhere. 
 
 ' How sober you look, child ! " said Marie. 
 
 ' Are these worth a great deal of money, mamma ? " 
 
 ' To be sure they are. Father sent to France for them. 
 They are worth a small fortune." 
 
 ' I wish I had them," said Eva, "to do what I pleased with! " 
 
 ' What would you do with them ? " 
 
 'I'd sell them, and buy a place in the free States, and 
 take all our people there, and hire teachers, to teach them to 
 read and write." 
 
 Eva was cut short by her mother's laughing. 
 
 " Set up a boarding-school ! Wouldn't you teach them to 
 play on the piano, and paint on velvet ? " 
 
 " I'd teach them to read their own Bible, and write their 
 own letters, and read letters that are written to them," said 
 Eva, steadily. " I know, mamma, it does come very hard on 
 them that they can't do these things. Tom feels it Mammy 
 does a great many of them do. I think it's wrong." 
 
 "Come, come, Eva; you are only a child! You know 
 nothing about these things," said Marie; "besides, your 
 talking makes my head ache." 
 
 Marie always had a headache on hand for any conversation 
 that did not exactly suit her. Eva stole away ; but after 
 that, she assiduously gave Mammy reading lessons. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 HENRIQUE. 
 
 ABOUT this time, St. Clare's brother Alfred, with his 
 eldest son, a boy of twelve, spent a day or two with the 
 family at the lake. 
 
 No sight could be more singular and beautiful than that 
 of these twin brothers. Nature, instead of instituting 
 resemblances between them, had made them opposites on 
 every point ; yet a mysterious tie seemed to unite them in 
 a closer friendship than ordinary. 
 
 They used to saunter, arm in arm, up and down the alleys 
 
286 DODO'S PUNISHMENT. 
 
 and walks of the garden Augustine, with his blue eyes and 
 golden hair, his ethereally flexible form and vivacious 
 features ; and Alfred, dark-eyed, with haughty Roman 
 profile, firmly-knit limbs, and decided bearing. They were 
 always abusing each other's opinions and practices, and yet 
 never a whit the less absorbed in each other's society ; in 
 fact, the very contrariety seemed to unite them, like the 
 attraction between opposite poles of the magnet. 
 
 Henrique, the eldest son of Alfred, was a noble, dark- 
 eyed, princely boy, full of vivacity and spirit ; and, from 
 the first moment of introduction, seemed to be perfectly 
 fascinated by the spirituelle graces of his cousin Evangeline. 
 
 Eva had a little pet pony, of a snowy whiteness. It was 
 easy as a cradle, and as gentle as its little mistress ; and this 
 pony was now brought up to the back verandah by Tom, 
 while a little mulatto boy of about thirteen led along a small 
 black Arabian, which had just been imported, at a great 
 expense, for Henrique. 
 
 Henrique had a boy's pride in his new possession ; and 
 as he advanced and took the reins out of the hands of 
 his little groom, he looked carefully over him, and his brow 
 darkened. 
 
 " What's this, Dodo, you little lazy dog ! you haven't 
 rubbed my horse down this morning." 
 
 "Yes, mas'r," said Dodo, submissively; "he got that dust 
 on his own self." 
 
 " You rascal, shut your mouth !" said Henrique, violently 
 raising his riding- whip. " How dare you speak ! " 
 
 The boy was a handsome, bright-eyed mulatto, of just 
 Henrique's size, and his curling hair hung round a high, 
 bold forehead. He had white blood in his veins, as could 
 be seen by the quick flush in his cheek, and the sparkle of 
 his eye, as he eagerly tried to speak. 
 
 " Mas'r Henrique !" he began. 
 
 Henrique struck him across the face with his riding-whip, 
 and, seizing one of his arms, forced him on to his knees, and 
 beat him till he was out of breath. 
 
 " There, you impudent dog ! Now will you learn not to 
 answer back when I speak to you ? Take the horse back, 
 
 and clean him properly. I'll teach you your place ! " 
 " Young mas'r, ' said Tom, " I 'specs what he was 
 
 gwine 
 
THE WAT PAPA MANAGES. 287 
 
 to say was, that the horse would roll when he was bringing 
 him up from the stable ; he's so full of spirits that's the 
 way he got that dirt on him : I looked to his cleaning." 
 
 " You hold your tongue till you're asked to speak !" said 
 Henrique, turning on his heel, and walking up the steps to 
 speak to Eva, who stood in her riding-dress. 
 
 " Dear cousin, I'm sorry this stupid fellow has kept you 
 waiting," he said. " Let's sit down here, on this seat, till 
 they come. What's the matter, cousin ? you look sober." 
 
 " How could you be so cruel and wicked to poor Dodo ? " 
 said Eva. 
 
 " Cruel wicked ! " said the boy, with unaffected surprise. 
 " What do you mean, dear Eva ?" 
 
 " I don't want you to call me dear Eva, when you do so," 
 said Eva. 
 
 " Dear cousin, you don't know Dodo ; it's the only way 
 to manage him, he's so full of lies and excuses. The only 
 way is to put him down at once not let him open his 
 mouth ; that's the way papa manages." 
 
 " But Uncle Tom said it was an accident, and he never 
 tells what isn't true." 
 
 " He's an uncommon old nigger, then ! " said Henrique. 
 " Dodo will lie as fast as he can speak." 
 
 " You frighten him into deceiving, if you treat him so." 
 
 " Why, Eva, you've really taken such a fancy to Dodo, 
 that I shall be jealous." 
 
 "But you beat him, and he didn't deserve it." 
 
 " Oh, well, it may go for some time when he does, and 
 don't get it. A few cuts never come amiss with Dodo he's 
 a regular spirit, I can tell you ; but I won't beat him again 
 before you, if it troubles you." 
 
 Eva was not satisfied, but found it in vain to try to make 
 her handsome cousin understand her feelings. 
 
 Dodo soon appeared with the horses. 
 
 "Well, Dodo, you've done pretty well this time," said his 
 young master, with a more gracious air. " Come, now, and 
 hold Miss Eva's horse, while I put her on to the saddle." 
 
 Dodo came and stood by Eva's pony. His face was 
 troubled ; his eyes looked as if he had been crying. 
 
 Henrique, who valued himself on his gentlemanly adroit- 
 ness in all matters of gallantry, soon had his fair cousin in 
 
288 REPUBLICAN EDUCATION. 
 
 the saddle, and, gathering the reins, placed them in her 
 hands. 
 
 But Eva bent to the other side of the horse, where Dodo 
 was standing, and said, as he relinquished the reins, " That's 
 a good boy, Dodo thank you ! " 
 
 Dodo looked up in amazement into the sweet young face ; 
 the blood rushed to his cheeks and the tears to his eyes. 
 
 " Here, Dodo," said his master, imperiously. 
 
 Dodo sprang and held the horse while his master mounted. 
 
 "There's a picayune for you to buy candy with, Dodo," 
 said Henrique ; "go get some." 
 
 And Henrique cantered down the walk after Eva. Dodo 
 stood looking after the two children. One had given him 
 money ; and one had given him what he wanted far more 
 a kind word kindly spoken. Dodo had been only a few 
 months away from his mother. His master had bought him 
 at a slave warehouse, for his handsome face, to be a match 
 to the handsome pony ; and he was now getting his breaking 
 in, at the hands of his young master. 
 
 The scene of the beating had been witnessed by the two 
 brothers St. Clare, from another part of the garden. 
 
 Augustine's cheek flushed; but he only observed, with his 
 usual sarcastic carelessness, " I suppose that's what we may 
 call republican education, Alfred ? " 
 
 " Henrique is a devil of a fellow, when his blood's up," 
 said Alfred, carelessly. 
 
 " I suppose you consider this an instructive practice for 
 him," said Augustine, dryly. 
 
 " I couldn't help it if I didn't. Henrique is a regular 
 little tempest his mother and I have given him up long 
 ago 4 . But, then, that Dodo is a perfect sprite no amount 
 of whipping can hurt him." 
 
 " And this by way of teaching Henrique the first verse of 
 a republican's catechism, ' All men are born free and 
 equal?'" 
 
 " Poh ! " said Alfred, " one of Tom Jefferson's pieces of 
 French sentiment and humbug. It's perfectly ridiculous to 
 have that going the rounds among us to this day." 
 
 " I think it is," said St. Clare, significantly. 
 
 " Because," said Alfred, " we can see plainly enough that 
 all men are not born free, nor born equal ; they are born 
 
THE BED EEPT7BLTCAN HTJMBTTG. 289 
 
 anything else. For my part, I think half this republican 
 talk is sheer humbug. It is the educated, the intelligent, 
 the wealthy, the refined, who ought to have equal rights, 
 and not the canaille." 
 
 "If you can keep the canaille of that opinion," said 
 Augustine. " They took their turn once, in France." 
 
 " Of course, they must be kept down, consistently, steadily, 
 as I should" said Alfred, setting his foot hard down, as if he 
 were standing on somebody. 
 
 "It makes a terrible slip when they get up," said 
 Augustine : " in St. Domingo, for instance." 
 
 "Poh!" said Alfred, "we'll take care of that in this 
 country. "We must set our face against all this educating, 
 elevating talk, that is getting about now ; the lower class 
 must not be educated." 
 
 "That is past praying for," said Augustine; "educated 
 they will be, and we have only to say how. Our system is 
 educating them in barbarism and brutality. "We are breaking 
 all humanising ties, and making them brute beasts ; and, if 
 they get the upper hand, such we shall find them." 
 
 " They never shall get the upper hand ! " said Alfred. 
 
 " That's right," said St. Clare ; "put on the steam, fasten 
 down the escape-valve, and sit on it, and see where you'll 
 land." 
 
 " Well," said Alfred, " we will see. I'm not afraid to sit 
 on the escape-valve, as long as the boilers are strong, and 
 the machinery works well." 
 
 " The nobles in Louis XYI.'s time thought just so ; and 
 Austria and Pius IX. think so now : and, some pleasant 
 morning, you may all be caught up to meet each other in 
 the air, when the boilers burst." 
 
 " Dies declarabit" said Alfred, laughing. 
 
 " I tell you," said Augustine, " if there is anything that 
 is revealed with the strength of a divine law in our times, it 
 is that the masses are to rise, and the under class become the 
 upper one." 
 
 " That's one of your red republican humbugs, Augustine ! 
 "Why didn't you ever take to the stump ? You'd make a 
 famous stump orator ! Well, I hope I shall be dead before 
 this millennium of your greasy masses comes on." 
 
 " Greasy or not greasy, they will govern you, when their 
 
290 THE AtfGLO-SAXON RACE. 
 
 time comes," said Augustine ; " and they will be just such 
 rulers as you make them. The French noblesse chose 
 to have the people i sans culottes? and they had ' sans 
 culotte ' governors to their hearts' content. The people of 
 Hayti" 
 
 " Oh, come, Augustine ! as if we hadn't enough of that 
 abominable, contemptible Hayti ! The Haytians were not 
 Anglo-Saxons; if they had been, there would have been 
 another story. The Anglo-Saxon is the dominant race of the 
 world, and is to be so." 
 
 " Well, there is a pretty fair infusion of Anglo-Saxon 
 blood among our slaves now," said Augustine. " There are 
 plenty among them who have only enough of the African to 
 give a sort of tropical warmth and fervour to our calculating 
 firmness and foresight. If ever the San Domingo hour 
 comes, Anglo-Saxon blood will lead on the day. Sons of 
 white fathers, with all our haughty feelings burning in their 
 veins, will not always be bought and sold and traded. They 
 will rise, and raise with them their mothers' race." 
 
 "Stuff! nonsense!" 
 
 " Well," said Augustine, " there goes an old saying to this 
 effect : ' As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be ; they 
 ate, they drank, they planted, they builded, and knew not 
 till the flood came and took them.' " 
 
 " On the whole, Augustine, I think your talents might 
 do for a circuit rider," said Alfred, laughing. " Never you 
 fear for us ! possession is our nine points. We've got the 
 power. This subject race," said he, stamping firmly, " is 
 down, and shall stay down ! We have energy enough to 
 manage our own powder." 
 
 " Sons trained like your Henrique will be grand guardians 
 of your powder-magazines," said Augustine ; " so cool and 
 self-possessed ! The proverb says, * They that cannot govern 
 themselves cannot govern others.' " 
 
 " There is a trouble there," said Alfred thoughtfully ; 
 " there's no doubt that our system is a difficult one to train 
 children under. It gives too free scope to the passions, 
 altogether, which, in our climate, are hot enough. I find 
 trouble with Henrique. The boy is generous and warm- 
 hearted, but a perfect fire-cracker when excited. I believe 
 I shall send him north for his education, where obedience is 
 
FALSEHOOD THE BADGE OF SLATEET. 291 
 
 more fashionable, and where he will associate more with 
 equals and less with dependants." 
 
 " Since training children is the staple work of the human 
 race," said Augustine, "I should think it something of a 
 consideration that our system does not work well there." 
 
 "It does not for some things," said Alfred; "for others, 
 again, it does. It makes boys manly and courageous ; and 
 the very vices of an abject race tend to strengthen in them 
 the opposite virtues. I think Henrique, now, has a keener 
 sense of the beauty of truth, from seeing lying and deception 
 the universal badge of slavery." 
 
 " A Christian-like view of the subject, certainly ! " said 
 Augustine. 
 
 " It's true, Christian-like or not ; and is about as Christian- 
 like as most other things in the world," said Alfred. 
 
 "That may be," said St. Clare. 
 
 " Well, there's no use in talking, Augustine. I believe 
 we've been round and round this old track five hundred 
 times, more or less. What do you say to a game of back- 
 gammon?" 
 
 The two brothers ran up the verandah steps, and were 
 soon seated at a light bamboo stand, with a backgammon- 
 board between them. As they were setting their men, 
 Alfred said, 
 
 " I tell you, Augustine, if I thought as you do, I should 
 do something." 
 
 " I dare say you would you are one of the doing sort ; 
 but what ? " 
 
 " Why, elevate your own servants, for % a specimen," said 
 Alfred, with a half-scornful smile. 
 
 " You might as well set Mount ^Etna on them flat, and 
 tell them to stand up under it, as tell me to elevate my 
 servants under all the superincumbent mass of society upon 
 them. One man can do nothing, against the whole action of 
 a community. Education, to do anything, must be a state 
 education ; or there must be enough agreed in it to make it 
 current." 
 
 " You take the first throw," said Alfred ; and the brothers 
 were soon lost in the game, and heard no more till the 
 scraping of horses' feet was heard under the verandah. 
 
 "There come the children," said Augustine, rising. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 A FATHER'S PRESENTIMENTS. 
 
 " Look here, Alf ! Did you ever see anything so beautiful?" 
 And, in truth, it was a beautiful sight. Henrique, with his 
 bold brow, and dark, glossy curls, and glowing cheek, was 
 laughing gaily, as he bent towards his fair cousin, as they 
 came on. She was dressed in a blue riding-dress, with a cap 
 of the same colour. Exercise had given a brilliant hue to 
 her cheeks, and heightened the effect of her singularly trans- 
 parent skin and golden hair. 
 
 " Good heavens ! what perfectly dazzling beauty ! " said 
 Alfred. " I tell you, Augustine, won't she make some hearts 
 ache, one of these days ! " 
 
 " She will, too truly God knows, I'm afraid so ! " said 
 St. Clare, in a tone of sudden bitterness, as he hurried down 
 to take her off her horse. 
 
 "Eva, darling! you're not much tired?" he said, as he 
 clasped her in his arms. 
 
 "No, papa," said the child ; but her short, hard breathing 
 alarmed her father. 
 
 " How could you ride so fast, dear P You know it's bad 
 for you." 
 
 " I felt so well, papa, and liked it so much, I forgot." 
 
 St. Clare carried her in his arms into the parlour, and laid 
 her on the sofa. 
 
 " Henrique, you must be careful of Eva," said he; "you 
 mustn't ride fast with her." 
 
 " I'll take her under my care," said Henrique, seating 
 himself by the sofa, and taking Eva's hand. 
 
 Eva soon found herself much better. Her father and uncle 
 
 going to 
 
 you again for ever 
 so long ! If I stay with you, I'll try to be good, and not be 
 cross to Dodo, and so on. I don't mean to treat Dodo ill; 
 but you know I've got such a quick temper. I'm not really 
 bad to him, though. I give him a picayune, now and then ; 
 and you see he dresses well. I think, on the whole, Dodo's 
 pretty well off." 
 
 " Would you think you were well off, if there were not 
 one creature in the world near you to love you ? " 
 
 " 1 ? Well, of course not." 
 
 " And you have taken Dodo away from all the friends he 
 
FOEESHADOWINGS. 293 
 
 ever had, and now he lias not a creature to love him : nobody 
 can be good that way." 
 
 " Well, I can't help it, as I know of. I can't get his 
 mother, and I can't love him myself, nor anybody else, as I 
 know of." 
 
 " Why can't you ? " said Eva. 
 
 " Love Dodo ! 'Why, Eva, you wouldn't have me ! I may 
 lilce him well enough ; but you don't love your servants." 
 
 "I do, indeed." 
 
 " How odd ! " 
 
 " Don't the Bible say we must love everybody. 
 
 " Oh, the Bible ! To be sure, it says a great many such 
 things ; but, then nobody ever thinks of doing them you 
 know, Eva, nobody does." 
 
 Eva did not speak ; her eyes were fixed and thoughtful 
 for a few moments. 
 
 "At any rate," she said, " dear cousin, do love poor Dodo, 
 and be kind to him, for my sake ! " 
 
 " I could love anything for your sake, dear cousin ; for I 
 really think you are the loveliest creature that I ever saw ! " 
 And Henrique spoke with an earnestness that flushed his 
 handsome face. Eva received it with perfect simplicity, 
 without even a change of feature ; merely saying, " I'm glad 
 you feel so, dear Henrique ! I hope you will remember." 
 
 The dinner-bell put an end to the interview. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 PORESHADOWINGS. 
 
 Two days after this, Alfred St. Clare and Augustine 
 parted ; and Eva, who had been stimulated by the society of 
 her young cousin to exertions beyond her strength, began to 
 fail rapidly. St. Clare was at last willing to call in medical 
 advice, a thing from which he had always shrunk, because it 
 was the admission of an unwelcome truth. But for a day or 
 two Eva was so unwell as to be confined to the house, and 
 the doctor was called. 
 
ETA'S ILLNESS. 
 
 Marie St. Clare had taken no notice of the child's gradually 
 decaying health and strength, because she was completely 
 absorbed in studying out two or three new forms of disease 
 to which she believed she herself was a victim. It was the 
 first principle of Marie's belief that nobody ever was or 
 could be so great a sufferer as herself; and therefore she 
 always repelled quite indignantly any suggestion that any 
 one around her could be sick. She was always sure in such 
 a case that it was nothing but laziness or want of energy, 
 and that if they had had the suffering she had they would 
 soon know the difference. 
 
 Miss Ophelia had several times tried to awaken her 
 maternal fears about Eva, but to no avail. 
 
 " I don't see as anything ails the child," she would say ; 
 " she runs about and plays." 
 
 " But she has a cough." 
 
 " Cough ! you don't need to tell me about a cough. I've 
 always been subject to a cough all my days. When I was 
 of Eva's age, they thought I was in a consumption. Night 
 after night Mammy used to sit up with me. Oh, Eva's 
 cough is not anything ! " 
 
 " But she gets weak, and is short-breathed." 
 
 " Law ! I've had that years and years ; it's only a nervous 
 affection." 
 
 " But she sweats so, nights ! " 
 
 " Well, I have these ten years. Very often, night after 
 night, my clothes will be wringing wet. There won't be a 
 dry thread in my night-clothes, and the sheets will be so 
 that Mammy has to hang them up to dry ! Eva doesn't 
 sweat anything like that ! " 
 
 Miss Ophelia shut her mouth for a season. But now that 
 Eva was fairly and visibly prostrated, and a doctor called, 
 Marie all on a sudden took a new turn. 
 
 She knew it she said, she always felt it, that she was 
 destined to be the most miserable of mothers. Here she 
 was, with her wretched health, and her only darling child 
 going down to the grave before her eyes ! And Marie routed 
 up Mammy nights, and rumpussed and scolded with more 
 energy than ever all day, on the strength of this new misery. 
 
 " My dear Marie, don't talk so ! " said St. Clare. " You 
 ought not to give up the case so, at once." 
 
THE BBIGHT AND THE DARK SIDE. 295 
 
 " You have not a mother's feelings, St. Glare ! You never 
 could understand me! you don't now." 
 
 " But don't talk so, as if it were a gone case ! " 
 
 " I can't take it as indifferently as you can, St. Clare. If 
 you don't feel when your only child is in this alarming state, 
 1 do. It's a blow too much for me, with all I was bearing 
 before." 
 
 "It's true," said St. Clare, "that Eva is very delicate 
 that I always knew ; and that she has grown so rapidly as to 
 exhaust her strength ; and that her situation is critical. But 
 just now she is only prostrated by the heat of the weather, 
 and by the excitement of her cousin's visit, and the exertions 
 she made. The physician says there is room for hope." 
 
 " Well, of course, if you can look on the bright side, pray 
 do ; it's a mercy if people haven't sensitive feelings in this 
 world. I am sure I wish I didn't feel as I do it only makes 
 me completely wretched ! I wish I could be as easy as the 
 rest of you ! " 
 
 And the " rest of them " had good reason to breathe the 
 same prayer, for Marie paraded her new misery as the reason 
 and apology for all sorts of inflictions on every one about 
 her. Every word that was spoken by anybody, everything 
 that was done or was not done everywhere, was only a new 
 proof that she was surrounded by hard-hearted, insensible 
 beings who were unmindful of her peculiar sorrows. Poor 
 Eva heard some of these speeches ; and nearly cried her 
 little eyes out in pity for her mamma, and in sorrow that she 
 should make her so much distress. 
 
 In a week or two there was a great improvement of symp- 
 toms one of those deceitful lulls by which her inexorable 
 disease so often beguiles the anxious heart, even on the verge 
 of the grave. Eva's step was again in the garden in the 
 balconies ; she played and laughed again, and her father, in a 
 transport, declared that they should soon have her as hearty 
 as anybody. Miss Ophelia and the physician alone felt no 
 encouragement from this illusive truce. There was one other 
 heart, too, that felt the same certainty, and that was the 
 little heart of Eva. What is it that sometimes speaks in the 
 soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly time is short ? Is 
 it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or the soul's impul- 
 sive throb, as immortality draws on ? Be it what it may, 
 
296 ETANGELINE'S PUBITY. 
 
 it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic cer- 
 tainty that Heaven was near ; calm as the light of sunset, 
 sweet as the bright stillness of autumn : there her little 
 heart reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved 
 her so dearly. 
 
 For the child, though nursed so tenderly, and though 
 life was unfolding before her with every brightness that 
 lo*ve and wealth could give, had no regret for herself in 
 dying. 
 
 In that Book which she and her simple old friend had 
 read so much together, she had seen and taken to her young 
 heart the image of One who loved the little child ; and as 
 she gazed and mused, he had ceased to be an image and a 
 picture of the distant past, and come to be a living, all-sur- 
 rounding reality. His love enfolded her childish heart with 
 more than mortal tenderness ; and it was to Him, she said, 
 she was going, and to His home. 
 
 But her heart yearned with sad tenderness for all that she 
 was to leave behind her father most ; for Eva, though she 
 never distinctly thought so, had an instinctive perception 
 that she was more in his heart than any other. She loved 
 her mother because she was so loving a creature, and all the 
 selfishness that she had seen in her only saddened and per- 
 plexed her ; for she had a child's implicit trust that her 
 mother could not do wrong. There was something about 
 her that Eva never could make out; and she always smoothed 
 it over with thinking that, after all, it was mamma, and she 
 loved her very dearly indeed. 
 
 She felt, too, for those fond, faithful servants, to whom 
 she was as daylight and sunshine. Children do not usually 
 generalise ; but Eva was an uncommonly mature child, and 
 the things that she had witnessed of the evils of the system 
 under which they were living had fallen, one by one, into 
 the depths of her thoughtful, pondering heart. She had 
 vague longings to do something for them to bless and save 
 not only them, but all in their condition longings that 
 contrasted sadly with the feebleness of her little frame. 
 
 " Uncle Tom," she said, one day, when she was reading 
 to her friend, " I can understand why Jesus wanted to die 
 for us." 
 "Why, Miss Eva?" 
 
THE LORD'S MARK ON THE FOREHEAD. 297 
 
 " Because I've felt so, too." 
 
 " What is it, Miss Eva ? I don't understand." 
 
 " I can't tell you ; but when I saw those poor creatures 
 on the boat, you know, when you came up and I, some had 
 lost their mothers, and some their husbands, and some 
 mothers cried for their little children ; and when I heard 
 about poor Prue oh, wasn't that dreadful ? and a great 
 many other times I've felt that I would be glad to die, if my 
 dying could stop all this misery. I would die for them, 
 Tom, if I could," said the child, earnestly, laying her little 
 thin hand on bis. 
 
 Tom looked at the child with awe: and when she, hearing 
 her father's voice, glided away, he wiped his eyes many times 
 as he looked after her. 
 
 " It's jest no use tryin' to keep Miss Eva here," he said 
 to Mammy, whom he met a moment after. " She's got the 
 Lord's mark in her forehead." 
 
 " Ah, yes, yes ! " said Mammy, raising her hands ; " I've 
 allers said so. She wasn't never like a child that's to live 
 there was allers something deep in her eyes. I've told 
 missis so many the time ; it's a comiii' true we all sees it 
 dear, little, blessed lamb ! " 
 
 Eva came tripping up the verandah steps to her father. 
 It was late in the afternoon, and the rays of the sun formed 
 a kind of glory behind her, as she came forward in her white 
 dress, with her golden hair and glowing cheeks, her eyes 
 unnaturally bright with the slow fever that burned in her 
 veins. 
 
 St. Clare had called her to show a statuette that he had 
 been buying for her ; but her appearance, as she came on, 
 impressed him suddenly and painfully. There is a kind of 
 beauty so intense, yet so fragile, that we cannot bear to look 
 at it. Her father folded her suddenly in his arms, and 
 almost forgot what he was going to tell her. 
 
 " Eva, dear, you are better now-a-days, are you not ? " 
 
 " Papa," said Eva, with sudden firmness, " I've had things 
 I wanted to say to you a great while. I want to say them 
 now, before I get weaker." 
 
 St. Clare trembled as Eva seated herself in his lap. She 
 laid her head on his bosom and said 
 
 " It's all no use, papa, to keep it to myself any longer. 
 
298 EVA'S YEABNINGS FOR THE HAPPINESS OF OTHEES. 
 
 The time is coming that I'm going to leave you. I am 
 going, and never to come back ! " and Eva sobbed. 
 
 " Oh, now, my dear little Eva ! " said St. Clare, trembling 
 as he spoke, but speaking cheerfully, " you've got nervous 
 and low-spirited : you must'nt indulge such gloomy thoughts. 
 See here, I've bought a statuette for you!" 
 
 " No, papa," said Eva, putting it gently away, " don't 
 deceive yourself ! I am not any better I know it perfectly 
 well ; and I am going before long. I am not nervous I am 
 not low-spirited. If it were not for you, papa, and my friends, 
 I should be perfectly happy. I want to go I long to go ! " 
 
 " Why, dear child, what has made your poor little heart 
 so sad ? You have had everything to make you happy that 
 could be given you ? " 
 
 " I had rather be in heaven, though only, for my friends' 
 sake I would be willing to live. There are a great many 
 things here that make me sad, that seem dreadful to me. I 
 had rather be there; but I don't want to leave you it 
 almost breaks my heart ! " 
 
 " What makes you sad, and seems dreadful, Eva ? " 
 
 " Oh, things that are done and done all the time. I feel 
 sad for our poor people ; they love me dearly, and they are all 
 good and kind to me. I wish, papa, they were all free." 
 
 " Why, Eva, child, don't you think they are well enough 
 off now?" 
 
 " Oh, but, papa, if anything should happen to you, what 
 would become of them ? There are very few men like you, 
 papa. Uncle Alfred isn't like you, and mamma isn't ; and 
 then think of poor old Prue's owners ! What horrid things 
 people do, and can do ! " And Eva shuddered. 
 
 " My dear child, you are too sensitive. I'm sorry I ever 
 let you hear such stories." 
 
 " Oh, that's what troubles me, papa. You want me to 
 live so happy, and never to have any pain, never suffer any- 
 thing, not even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures 
 have nothing but pain and sorrow all their lives ; it seems 
 selfish. I ought to know such things I ought to feel about 
 them. Such things always sunk into my heart, they went 
 down deep ; I've thought and thought about them. Papa, 
 isn't there any way to have all slaves made free ? " 
 
 " That's a difficult question, dearest. There's no doubt 
 
EYANGELINE'S LAST BEQUEST. 299 
 
 that this way is a very bad one, a great many people think 
 so ; I do myself. I heartily wish that there were not a 
 slave in the land, but then I don't know what is to be done 
 about it." 
 
 " Papa, you are such a good man, and so noble, and kind, 
 and you always have a way of saying things that is so 
 pleasant ; couldn't you go all round and try to persuade 
 people to do right ab6ut this ? When I am dead, papa, 
 then you will think of me, and do it for my sake. I would 
 do it if I could." 
 
 " When you are dead, Eva ! " said St. Clare, passionately. 
 " Oh, child, don't talk to me so ! You are all I have on 
 earth." 
 
 " Poor old Prue's child was all that she had ; and yet she 
 had to hear it crying, and she couldn't help it ! Papa, these 
 poor creatures love their children as much as you do me. 
 Oh, do something for them ! There's poor Mammy loves her 
 children ; I've seen her crying when she talked about them. 
 And Tom loves his children ; and it's dreadful, papa, that 
 such things are happening all the time ! " 
 
 " There, there, darling," said St. Clare, soothingly ; " only 
 don't distress yourself, and don't talk of dying, and I will do 
 anything you wish." 
 
 " And promise me, dear father, that Tom shall have his 
 freedom as soon as " She stopped, and said in a hesi- 
 tating tone " I am gone ! " 
 
 " Yes, dear, I will do anything in the world anything 
 you could ask me to." 
 
 " Dear papa," said the child, laying her burning cheek 
 against his, " how I wish we could go together." 
 
 " Where, dearest ? " said St. Clare. 
 
 " To our Saviour's home ; it's so sweet and peaceful there 
 it is all so loving there ! " The child spoke unconsciously, 
 as of a place where she had often been. " Don't you want 
 to go, papa ? " she said. 
 
 St. Clare drew her closer to him, but was silent. 
 
 " You will come to me," said the child, speaking in a 
 voice of calm certainty, which she often used unconsciously. 
 
 " I shall come after you. I shall not forget you." 
 
 The shadows of the solemn evening closed round them 
 deeper and deeper, as St. Clare sat silently holding tue Irttle 
 
300 THE LITTLE EVANGELIST. 
 
 frail form to his bosom. He saw no more the deep eyes, but 
 the voice came over him as a spirit voice ; and, as in a sort of 
 judgment vision, his whole past life rose in a moment before 
 his eyes his mother's prayers and hymns his own early 
 yearnings and aspirings for good ; and, between them and 
 this hour, years of worldliness and scepticism, and what man 
 calls respectable living. We can think much, very much, in 
 a moment. St. Clare saw and felt many things, but spoke 
 nothing ; and, as it grew darker, he took his child to her 
 bed-room, and when she was prepared for rest he sent away 
 the attendants, and rocked her in his arms, and sung to her 
 till she was asleep. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE LITTLE EVANGELIST. 
 
 IT was Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched on a 
 bamboo lounge in the verandah, solacing himself with a cigar. 
 Marie lay reclined on a sofa, opposite the window opening on 
 the verandah, closely secluded, under an awning of transpa- 
 rent gauze, from the outrages of the mosquitos, and languidly 
 holding in her hand an elegantly bound prayer-book. She 
 was holding it because it was Sunday, and she imagined she 
 had been reading it though, in fact, she had been only 
 taking a succession of short naps, with it open in her hands. 
 
 Miss Ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up 
 a small Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone 
 out, with Tom as driver, to attend it, and Eva had accompa- 
 nied them. 
 
 " I say, Augustine," said Marie, after dozing a while, 
 " I must send to the city after my old Doctor Posey ; I'm 
 sure I've got the complaint of the heart." 
 
 " "Well ; why need you send for him ? This doctor that 
 attends Eva seems skilful." 
 
 " I would not trust him in a critical case," said Marie, 
 " and I think I may say mine is becoming so ! I've been 
 thinking of it these two or three nights past ; I have such 
 distressing pains, and such strange feelings." 
 
TOPST AT HER OLD GAME. 301 
 
 " Marie, you are blue ; I don't believe it's heart-com- 
 plaint." 
 
 " I dare say you don't," said Marie ; " I was prepared to 
 expect that. You can be alarmed enough if Eva coughs or 
 has the least thing the matter with her, but you never think 
 of me." 
 
 " If it's particularly agreeable to you to have heart- 
 disease, why, I'll try and maintain you have it," said 
 St. Clare ; " I didn't know it was." 
 
 " Well, I only hope you won't be sorry for this when it's 
 too late ! " said Marie ; " but, believe it or not, my distress 
 about Eva, and the exertions I have made with that dear 
 child, have developed what I have long suspected." 
 
 What the exertions were which Marie referred to it would 
 have been difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this 
 commentary to himself, and went on smoking, like a hard- 
 hearted wretch of a man as he was, till a carriage drove up 
 before the verandah, and Eva and Miss Ophelia alighted. 
 
 Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to 
 put away her bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, 
 before she spoke a word on any subject ; while Eva came at 
 St. Clare's call, and was sitting on his knee, giving him an 
 account of the services they had heard. 
 
 They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia's 
 room (which, like the one in which they were sitting, 
 opened on to the verandah), and violent reproof addressed to 
 somebody. 
 
 " What new witchcraft has Tops been brewing ? " asked 
 St. Clare. " That commotion is of her raising, I'll be bound ! " 
 
 And, in a moment after, Miss Ophelia, in high indigna- 
 tion, came dragging the culprit along. 
 
 " Come out here, now!" she said. " I will tell your 
 master." 
 
 " What's the case now? " asked Augustine. 
 
 " The case is, that I cannot be plagued with this child 
 any longer ! It's past all bearing ; flesh and blood cannot 
 endure it ! Here. I locked her up, and gave her a hymn to 
 study ; and what does she do, but spy out where I put my 
 key, and has gone to my bureau, and got a bonnet-trimming, 
 and cut it all to pieces to make dolls' jackets ! I never saw 
 anything like it in my life.' 
 
302 TORY'S WICKED HEABT. 
 
 " I told you, cousin," said Marie, " that you'd find out 
 that these creatures can't be brought up without severity. 
 If I had my way, now," she said, looking reproachfully 
 at St. Clare, " I'd send that child out, and have her 
 thoroughly whipped ; I'd have her whipped till she couldn't 
 stand ! " 
 
 " I don't doubt it," said St. Clare. " Tell me of the lovely 
 rule of woman ! I never saw above a dozen women that 
 wouldn't half kill a horse, or a servant, either, if they had 
 their own way with them, let alone a man." 
 
 " There is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, St. 
 Clare ! " said Marie. " Cousin is a woman of sense, and she 
 sees it now as plain as I do." 
 
 Miss Ophelia had just the capability of indignation that 
 belongs to the thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had been 
 pretty actively roused by the artifice and wastefulness of the 
 child ; in fact, many of my lady readers must own that they 
 should have felt just so in her circumstances ; but Marie's 
 words went beyond her, and she felt less heat. 
 
 " I wouldn't have the child treated so for the world," she 
 said ; " but I am sure, Augustine, I don't know what to do. 
 I've taught and taught, I've talked till I'm tired, I've whipped 
 her, I've punished her in every way I can think of; and still 
 she's just what she was at first." 
 
 " Come here, Tops, you monkey!" said St. Clare, calling 
 the child up to him. 
 
 Topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and 
 blinking with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual 
 odd drollery. 
 
 " What makes you behave so ? " said St. Clare, who could 
 not help being amused with the child's expression. 
 
 " 'Spects it's my wicked heart," said Topsy, demurely ; 
 " Miss Feely says so." 
 
 " Don't you see how much Miss Ophelia has done for you ? 
 She says she has done everything she can think of." 
 
 " Lor, yes, mas'r ! old missus used to say so, too. She 
 whipped me a heap harder, and used to pull my har, and knock 
 my head agin the door ; but it didn't do me no good ! I 
 'spects, if they's to pull every spear o' har out o' my head, it 
 wouldn't do no good neither I's so wicked ! Laws ! I's 
 nothin' but a nigger, no ways ! " 
 
DON'T YOU LOVE ANYBODY, TOPSY ? 303 
 
 " Well, I shall have to give her up," said Miss Ophelia ; 
 " I can't have that trouble any longer." 
 
 " Well, I'd just like to ask one question," said St. Clare. 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " Why, if your Gospel is not strong enough to save one 
 heathen child, that you can have at home here, all to your- 
 self, what's the use of sending one or two poor missionaries 
 off with it among thousands of just such ? I suppose this 
 child is about a fair sample of what thousands of your 
 heathen are." 
 
 Miss Ophelia did not make an immediate answer ; and 
 Eva, who had stood a silent spectator of the scene thus far, 
 made a silent sign to Topsy to follow her. There was a little 
 glass-room at the corner of the verandah, which St. Clare used 
 as a sort of reading-room ; and Eva and Topsy disappeared 
 into this place. 
 
 " What's Eva going about now ? " said St. Clare ; " I mean 
 to see.'* 
 
 And, advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that 
 covered the glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying 
 his finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss 
 Ophelia to come and look. There sat the two children on 
 the floor, with their side faces towards them Topsy with her 
 usual air of careless drollery and unconcern ; but, opposite to 
 her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in 
 her large eyes. 
 
 " What does make you so bad, Topsy ? Why won't you 
 try and be good ? Don't you love anybody, Topsy ? " 
 
 " Dunno nothing 'bout love ; I loves candy and sich, that's 
 all," said Topsy. 
 
 " But you love your father and mother ? " 
 
 " Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva." 
 
 " Oh, I know," said Eva sadly; "but hadn't you any 
 brother or sister, or aunt, or" 
 
 " No, none on 'em never had nothing nor nobody." 
 
 " But, Topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might " 
 
 " Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I was ever so 
 good," said Topsy. " If I could be skinned, and come white, 
 I'd try then." 
 
 " But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. 
 Ophelia would love you if you were good." 
 
304 THE CHILD PEEACHEE. 
 
 Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh, that was her common 
 mode of expressing incredulity. 
 
 " Don't you think so ? " said Eva. 
 
 " No ; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger ! she'd's 
 soon have a toad touch her. There can't nobody love niggers, 
 and niggers can't do nothin'. I don't care," said Topsy, 
 beginning to whistle. 
 
 " O Topsy, poor child, /love you !" said Eva, with a sudden 
 burst of feeling, and laying her little, thin, white hand on 
 Topsy's shoulder ; " I love you, because you haven't had any 
 father, or mother, or friends because you've been a poor, 
 abused child ! I love you, and I want you to be good. I am 
 very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't live a great while, 
 and it really grieves me to have you be so naughty. I wish 
 you would try to be good, for my sake ; it's only a little while 
 I shall be with you." 
 
 The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with 
 tears ; large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, 
 and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that moment a ray 
 of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the 
 darkness of her heathen soul ! She laid her head down 
 between her knees, and wept and sobbed ; while the beautiful 
 child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some 
 bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner. 
 
 " Poor Topsy ! " said Eva, " don't you know that Jesus 
 loves all alike ? He is just as willing to love you as me. He 
 loves you just as I do, only more, because he is better. He 
 will help you to be good, and you can go to heaven at last, 
 and be an angel for ever, just as much as if you were white. 
 Only think of it, Topsy, you can be one of those spirits bright 
 Uncle Tom sings about." 
 
 " dear Miss Eva ! dear Miss Eva ! " said the child, " I will 
 try ! I will try ! I never did care nothin' about it before." 
 
 St. Clare at this instant dropped the curtain. " It puts 
 me in mind of mother," he said to Miss Ophelia. " It is true 
 what she told me : if we want to give sight to the blind, we 
 must be willing to do as Christ did call them to us, and 
 put our hands on them" 
 
 " I've always had a prejudice against negroes," said Miss 
 Ophelia ; " and it's a fact, I never could bear to have that 
 child touch me ; but I didn't think she knew it." 
 
DEATH. 305 
 
 "Trust any child to find that out," said St. Clare; 
 " there's no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the 
 trying in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial 
 favours you can do them, will never excite one emotion of 
 gratitude while that feeling of repugnance remains in the 
 heart ; it's a queer kind of fact, but so it is." 
 
 " I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia ; 
 " they are disagreeable to me this child in particular. How 
 can I help feeling so." 
 
 " Eva does, it seems." 
 
 " Well, she's so loving ! After all, though, she's no more 
 than Christ-like," said Miss Ophelia ; " I wish I were like 
 her. She might teach me a lesson." 
 
 " It wouldn't be the first time a little child had been used 
 [ to instruct an old disciple, if it were so," said St. Clare. 
 
 \ ' -: i. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 " Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb, 
 In life's early morning, hath hid from our eyes." 
 
 EYA'S bedroom was a spacious apartment, which, like all 
 the other rooms in the house, opened on to the broad 
 verandah. The room communicated, on one side, with her 
 father and mother's apartment; on the other, with that 
 appropriated to Miss Ophelia. St. Clare had gratified his 
 own eye and taste, in furnishing this room in a style that 
 had a peculiar keeping with the character of her for whom 
 it was intended. The windows were hung with curtains of 
 rose-coloured and white muslin ; the floor was spread with 
 a matting which had been ordered in Paris, to a pattern of 
 his own device, having round it a border of rose-buds and 
 leaves, and a centre-piece with full-blown roses. The bed- 
 stead, chairs, and lounges were of bamboo, wrought in 
 peculiarly graceful and fanciful patterns. Over the head of 
 the bed was an alabaster bracket, on which a beautiful 
 
306 TOPSY'S NOSEGAY. 
 
 sculptured angel stood, with drooping wings, holding out a 
 crown of myrtle-leaves. Prom this depended, over the bed, 
 light curtains of rose-coloured gauze, striped with silver, 
 supplying that protection from mosquitos which is an 
 indispensable addition to all sleeping accommodation in 
 that climate. The graceful bamboo lounges were amply 
 supplied with cushions of rose-coloured damask, while over 
 them, depending from the hands of sculptured figures, were 
 gauze curtains similar to those of the bed. A light, fanciful 
 bamboo table stood in the middle of the room, where a 
 Parian vase, wrought in the shape of a white lily, with its 
 buds, stood, ever filled with flowers. On this table lay 
 Eva's books and little trinkets, with an elegantly-wrought 
 alabaster writing-stand, which her father had supplied to 
 her when he saw her trying to improve herself in writing. 
 There was a fireplace in the room, and on the marble mantel 
 above stood a beautifully-wrought statuette of Jesus 
 receiving little children, and on either side marble vases, for 
 which it was Tom's pride and delight to offer bouquets every 
 morning. Two or three exquisite paintings of children, in 
 various attitudes, embellished the wall. In short, the eye 
 could turn nowhere without meeting images of childhood, 
 of beauty, and of peace. Those little eyes never opened, in 
 the morning light, without falling on something which 
 suggested to the heart soothing and beautiful thoughts. 
 
 The deceitful strength which had buoyed Eva up for a 
 little while was fast passing away ; seldom and more seldom 
 her light footstep was heard in the verandah, and oftener 
 and oftener she was found reclined on a little lounge by the 
 open window, her large, deep eyes fixed on the rising and 
 falling waters of the lake. 
 
 It was towards the middle of the afternoon, as she was 
 so reclining her Bible half-open, her little transparent 
 fingers lying listlessly between the leaves suddenly she 
 heard her mother's voice, in sharp tones, in the verandah. 
 
 " What now, you baggage ? what new piece of mischief? 
 You've been picking the flowers, eh ? " and Eva heard the 
 sound of a smart slap. 
 
 " Law, missis ! they's for Miss Eva," she heard a voice 
 say, which she knew belonged to Topsy. 
 
 " Miss Eva ! A pretty excuse ! you suppose she wants 
 
TOPST TRYING TO BE GOOD. 307 
 
 your flowers, you good-for-nothing nigger ! Get along off 
 with you ! " 
 
 In a moment, Eva was off from her lounge, and in the 
 verandah. 
 
 " Oh, don't, mother ! I should like the flowers ; do give 
 them to me ; I want them ! " 
 
 " Why, Eva, your room is full now." 
 
 " I can't have too many," said Eva. " Topsy, do bring 
 them here." 
 
 Topsy, who had stood sullenly, holding down her head, 
 now came up and offered her flowers. She did it with a 
 look of hesitation and bashfulness, quite unlike the eldritch 
 boldness and brightness which was usual with her. 
 
 " It's a beautiful bouquet ! " said Eva, looking at it. 
 
 It was rather a singular one a brilliant scarlet geranium, 
 and one single white japonica, with its glossy leaves. It 
 was tied up with an evident eye to the contrast of colour, 
 and the arrangement of every leaf had carefully been 
 studied. 
 
 Topsy looked pleased, as Eva said, " Topsy, you arrange 
 flowers very prettily. Here," she said, "is this vase, I 
 haven't any flowers for. I wish you'd arrange something 
 every day for it." 
 
 " Well, that's odd ! " said Marie. " What in the world 
 do you want that for ? " 
 
 " Never mind, mamma ; you'd as lief as not Topsy should 
 do it had you not ? " 
 
 " Of course, anything you please, dear ! Topsy, you 
 hear your young mistress ; see that you mind." 
 
 Topsy made a short curtsey, and looked down ; and, as 
 she turned away, Eva saw a tear roll down her dark cheek. 
 
 "You see, mamma, I knew poor Topsy wanted to do 
 something for me," said Eva to her mother. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! it's only because she likes to do mischief. 
 She knows she mustn't pick flowers so she does it ; that's 
 all there is to it. But, if you fancy to have her pluck them, 
 so be it." 
 
 " Mamma, I think Topsy is different from what she used 
 to be ; she's trying to be a good girl." 
 
 " She'll have to try a good while before she gets to be 
 good," said Marie, with a careless laugh. 
 
 x 2 
 
308 THANKFUL TOE ADVANTAGES. 
 
 " Well, you know, mamma, poor Topsy ! everything has 
 always been against her." 
 
 " Not since she's been here, I'm sure. If she hasn't heen 
 talked to, and preached to, and every earthly thing done 
 that anybody could do ; and she's just so ugly, and always 
 will be : you can't make anything of the creature ! " 
 
 " But, mamma, it's so different to be brought up as I've 
 been, with so many friends, so many things to make me 
 good and happy ; and to be brought up as she's been, all 
 the time till she came here ! " 
 
 " Most likely," said Marie, yawning. " Dear me, how hot 
 it is ! " 
 
 " Mamma, you believe, don't you, that Topsy could become 
 an angel, as well as any of us, if she were a Christian ? " 
 
 " Topsy ! what a ridiculous idea ! Nobody but you would 
 ever think of it. I suppose, she could, though." 
 
 " But, mamma, isn't God her Father, as much as ours ? 
 Isn't Jesus her Saviour ? " 
 
 " Well, that may be. I suppose G-od made everybody," 
 said Marie. " Where is my smelling-bottle ? " 
 
 " It's such a pity oh ! such a pity ! " said Eva, looking 
 out on the distant lake, and speaking half to herself. 
 
 " What's a pity ? " said Marie. 
 
 " Why, that any one, who could be a bright angel, and 
 live with angels, should go all down, down, down, and 
 nobody help them ! Oh, dear ! " 
 
 " Well, we can't help it ; it's no use worrying, Eva ! I 
 don't know what's to be done j we ought to be thankful for 
 our own advantages." 
 
 " I hardly can be," said Eva ; " I'm so sorry to think of 
 poor folks that haven't any." 
 
 " That's odd enough," said Marie. " I'm sure my religion 
 makes me thankful for my advantages." 
 
 " Mamma," said Eva, " I want to have some of my hair 
 cut off a good deal of it." 
 
 "What for?" said Marie. 
 
 " Mamma, I want to give some away to my friends, while 
 I am able to give it to them myself. Won't you ask aunty 
 to come and cut it for me ? " 
 
 Marie raised her voice, and called Miss Ophelia from the 
 other room. 
 
A BETTER COUNTRY. 309 
 
 The child half rose from her pillow as she came in, and, 
 shaking down her long golden brown curls, said, rather play- 
 fully, " Come, aunty, shear the sheep." 
 
 " What's that ? " said St. Clare, who had just then 
 entered with some fruit he had been out to get for her. 
 
 " Papa, I just want aunty to cut off some of my hair ; 
 there's too much of it, and it makes my head hot. Besides, 
 I want to give some of it away." 
 
 Miss Ophelia came with her scissors. 
 
 " Take care, don't spoil the looks of it ! " said her father ; 
 " cut underneath, where it won't show. Eva's curls are my 
 pride." 
 
 " papa ! " said Eva, sadly. 
 
 " Yes, and I want them kept handsome against the time 
 I take you up to your uncle's plantation, to see Cousin 
 Henrique," said St. Clare, in a gay tone. 
 
 "I shall never go there, papa; I am going to a better 
 jCPJintry. Oh, do believe me ! Don't you see, papa, that I 
 get weaker every day ? " .. 
 
 " Why do you insist that I shall believe such a cruel > 
 thing, Eva ? " said her father. 
 
 " Only_Jbecause it is true^ papa ;_ ancLifLyQii. will believe it 
 now, perhaps you will get to feel about it as I do." 
 
 St^laTe"ciosed his lips, and stooo" gloomily eyeing the 
 long beautiful curls, which, as they were separated from 
 the child's head, were laid, one by one, in her lap. She 
 raised them up, looked earnestly at them, twined them 
 around her thin fingers, and looked from time to time 
 anxiously at her father. 
 
 " It's 'just what I've been foreboding," said Marie ; " it's 
 just what has been preying on my health from day to day, 
 bringing me downward to the grave, though nobody regards 
 it. I have seen this long. St. Clare, you will see, after a 
 while, that I was right." 
 
 " Which will afford you great consolation, no doubt ! " 
 said St. Clare, in a dry, bitter tone. 
 
 Marie lay back on a lounge, and covered her face with her 
 cambric handkerchief. 
 
 Eva's clear blue eye looked earnestly from one to 
 the other. It was the calm, comprehending gaze of a 
 soul half loosed from its earthly bonds ; it was evident 
 
310 LITTLE ETA'S TAEEWELL. 
 
 she saw, felt, and appreciated the difference between 
 the two. 
 
 She beckoned with her hand to her father. He came, and 
 sat down by her. 
 
 " Papa, my strength fades away every day, and I know I 
 must go. There are some things I want to say and do, 
 that I ought to do ; and you are so unwilling to have 
 me speak a word on this subject. But it must come ; 
 there's no putting it off. Do be willing I should speak 
 now ! " 
 
 "My child, I am willing," said St. Clare, covering his 
 eyes with one hand, and holding up Eva's hand with the 
 other. 
 
 " Then I want to see all our people together. I have 
 some things I must say to them," said Eva. 
 
 " Well ! " said St. Clare, in a tone of dry endurance. 
 
 Miss Ophelia despatched a messenger, and soon the whole 
 of the servants were convened in the room. 
 
 Eva lay back on her pillows, her hair hanging loosely 
 about her face, her crimson cheeks contrasting painfully 
 with the intense whiteness of her complexion and the thin 
 contour of her limbs and features, and her large, soul-like 
 eyes, fixed earnestly on every one. 
 
 The servants were struck with a sudden emotion. The 
 spiritual face, the long locks of hair cut off and lying by 
 her, her father's averted face, and Marie's sobs, struck at 
 once upon the feelings of a sensitive and impressible race ; 
 and as they came in they looked one on another, sighed, and 
 shook their heads. There was a deep silence, like that of a 
 funeral. 
 
 Eva raised herself, and looked long and earnestly round at 
 every one. All looked sad and apprehensive. Many of the 
 women hid their faces in their aprons. 
 
 "I sent for you all, my dear friends," said Eva, "because 
 I love you. I love you all ; and I have something to say to 
 you, which I want you always to remember. ... I am going 
 
 to leave you. In a few more weeks, you will see me no 
 
 j> 
 more 
 
 Here the child was interrupted by bursts of groans, sobs, 
 and lamentations, which broke from all present, and in 
 which her slender voice was lost entirely. She waited a 
 
EYA'S ADVICE. 311 
 
 moment, and then, speaking in a tone that checked the sobs 
 of all, she said 
 
 " If you love me, you must not interrupt me so. Listen 
 to what I say. I want to speak to you about your souls. . . 
 Many of you, I am afraid, are very careless. You are 
 thinking only about this world. I want you to remember 
 that there is a beautiful world, where Jesus is. I am 
 going there, and you can go there ; it is for you, as much 
 as me. But if you want to go there, you must not live 
 idle, careless, thoughtless lives; you must be Christians. 
 You must remember that each one of you can become 
 angels, and be angels for ever. ... If you want to be 
 Christians, Jesus will help you. You must pray to him ; 
 you must read " 
 
 The child checked herself, looked piteously at them, and 
 said sorrowfully 
 
 "Oh, dear! you can't read. Poor souls!" and she hid 
 her face in the pillow and sobbed, while many a smothered 
 sob from those she was addressing, who were kneeling on 
 the floor, aroused her. 
 
 "Never mind," she said, raising her face and smiling 
 brightly through her tears, " I have prayed for you ; and I 
 know Jesus will help you, even if you can't read. Try all 
 to do the best you can ; pray every day ; ask Him to help 
 you, and get the Bible read to you whenever you can ; and 
 I think I shall see you all in heaven." 
 
 "Amen," was the murmured response from the lips of 
 Tom and Mammy, and some of the elder ones, who belonged 
 to the Methodist church. The younger and more thoughtless 
 ones, for the time completely overcome, were sobbing, with 
 their heads bowed upon their knees. 
 
 " I know," said Eva, " you all love me." 
 
 " Yes ; oh, yes ! indeed we do. Lord bless her!" was the 
 involuntary answer of all. 
 
 " Yes, I know you do. There isn't one of you that hasn't 
 always been very kind to me ; and I want to give you some- 
 thing that, when you look at, you shall always remember me. 
 I'm going to give all of you a curl of my hair ; and, when you 
 look at it, think that I loved you and am gone to heaven, 
 and that I want to see you all there." 
 
 It is impossible to describe the scene, as, with tears and 
 
312 PAETING GIFTS. 
 
 sobs, they gathered round the little creature, and took from 
 her hands what seemed to them a last mark of her love. 
 They fell on their knees; they sobbed, and prayed, and kissed 
 the hem of her garment ; and the elder ones poured forth 
 words of endearment, mingled in prayers and blessings, after 
 the manner of their susceptible race. 
 
 As each one took their gift, Miss Ophelia, who was appre- 
 hensive for the effect of all this excitement on her little 
 patient, signed to each one to pass out of the apartment. 
 
 At last, all were gone but Tom and Mammy. 
 
 " Here, Uncle Tom," said Eva, " is a beautiful one for 
 you. Oh, I am so happy, Uncle Tom, to think I shall see 
 you in heaven, for I'm sure I shall ; and Mammy, dear, good, 
 kind Mammy!" she said, fondly throwing her arms round 
 her old nurse, " I know you'll be there, too." 
 
 " Miss Eva, don't see how I can live without ye, no 
 how ! " said the faithful creature. " 'Pears like it's just 
 taking everything off the place to oncet ! " and Mammy gave 
 way to a passion of grief. 
 
 Miss Ophelia pushed her and Tom gently from the apart- 
 ment, and thought they were all gone ; but as she turned, 
 Topsy was standing there. 
 
 "Where did you start up from ? " she said, suddenly. 
 
 " I was here," said Topsy, wiping the tears from her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Miss Eva, I've been a bad girl ; but won't you give 
 me one, too?" 
 
 " Yes, poor Topsy ! to be sure I will. There every time 
 you look at that, think that I loved you, and wanted you to 
 be a good girl ! " 
 
 " O Miss Eva, I is trying! " said Topsy, earnestly ; "but 
 Lor, it's so hard to be good ! 'Pears like I ain't used to it, 
 no ways ! " 
 
 " Jesus knows it, Topsy ; he is sorry for you ; he will 
 help you." 
 
 Topsy, with her eyes hid in her apron, was silently passed 
 from the apartment by Miss Ophelia ; but, as she went, she 
 hid the precious curl in her bosom. 
 
 All being gone, Miss Ophelia shut the door. That 
 worthy lady had wiped away many tears of her own 
 during the scene, but concern for the consequence of 
 
GOD'S BITTER DEALINGS. 313 
 
 such an excitement to her young charge was uppermost 
 in her mind. 
 
 St. Clare had been sitting, during the whole time, with 
 his hand shading his eyes, in the same attitude. When they 
 were all gone, he sat so still. 
 
 " Papa ! " said Eva, gently laying her hand on his. 
 
 He gave a sudden start and shiver, but -made no answer. 
 
 " Dear papa ! " said Eva. 
 
 "I cannot" said St. Clare, rising, "I cannot have it so ! 
 The Almighty hath dealt very Utterly with me!" and 
 St. Clare pronounced these words with a bitter emphasis 
 indeed. 
 
 " Augustine ! has not Grod a right to do what He will with 
 his own ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but that doesn't make it any easier to 
 bear," said he, with a dry, hard, tearless manner, as he turned 
 away. 
 
 " Papa, you break my heart ! " said Eva, rising and throw- 
 ing herself into his arms ; " you must not feel so ! " and the 
 child sobbed and wept with a violence which alarmed them 
 all, and turned her father's thoughts at once to another 
 channel. 
 
 "There, Eva there, dearest! Hush! hush! I was 
 wrong ; I was wicked. I will feel any way, do any way 
 only don't distress yourself; don't sob so. I will be re- 
 signed ; I was wicked to speak as I did." 
 
 Eva soon lay like a wearied dove in her father's arms; 
 and he, bending over her, soothed her by every tender word 
 he could think of. 
 
 Marie rose and threw herself out of the apartment into 
 her own, when she fell into violent hysterics. 
 
 " You didn't give me a curl, Eva," said her father, smiling 
 sadly. 
 
 "They are all yours, papa," said she smiling "your's 
 and mamma's ; and you must give dear aunty as many as 
 she wants. I only gave them to our poor people myself, 
 because you know, papa, they might be forgotten when I 
 am gone, and because I hoped it might help them remem- 
 ber .... Tou are a Christian, are you not papa?" said 
 Eva, doubtfully. 
 
 " Why do you ask me ?" 
 
314 WHAT IS BEING A CHEISTIAN ? 
 
 " I don't know. You are so good, I don't see how you 
 can help it." 
 
 "What is being a Christian, Eva?" 
 
 " Loving Christ most of all," said Eva. 
 
 "Do you, Eva?" 
 
 " Certainly I do." 
 
 "You never saw him," said St. Clare. 
 
 "That makes no difference," said Eva. "I believe him, 
 and in a few days I shall see him ;" and the young face grew 
 fervent, radiant with joy. 
 
 St. Clare said no more. It was a feeling which he had 
 seen before in his mother ; but no chord within vibrated to it. 
 
 Eva after this declined rapidly ; there was no more any 
 doubt of the event ; the fondest hope could not be blinded. 
 Her beautiful room was avowedly a sick room ; and Miss 
 Ophelia day and night performed the duties of a nurse and 
 never did her friends appreciate her value more than in that 
 capacity. With so well-trained a hand and eye, such perfect 
 adroitness and practice in every art which could promote 
 neatness and comfort, and keep out of sight every disagree- 
 able incident of sickness with such a perfect sense of 
 time, such a clear, untroubled head, such exact accuracy 
 in remembering every prescription and direction of the 
 doctor's she was everything to him. They who had 
 shrugged their shoulders at her little peculiarities and set- 
 nesses, so unlike the careless freedom of southern manners, 
 acknowledged that now she was the exact person that was 
 wanted. 
 
 Uncle Tom was much in Eva's room. The child suffered 
 much from nervous restlessness, and it was a relief to her to 
 be carried ; and it was Tom's greatest delight to carry her 
 little frail form in his arms, resting on a pillow, now up and 
 down her room, now out into the verandah ; and when the 
 fresh sea-breezes blew from the lake, and the child felt 
 freshest in the morning, he would sometimes walk with her 
 under the orange trees in the garden, or, sitting down in 
 some of their old seats, sing to her their favourite old 
 hymns. 
 
 Her father often did the same thing; but his frame 
 was slighter; and when he was weary, Eva would say 
 to him, 
 
MRS. ST. CLARE'S ANNOYANCES. 315 
 
 " papa, let Tom take me. Poor fellow ! it pleases Mm ; 
 and you know it's all he can do now, and he wants to do 
 something !" 
 
 " So do I, Eva," said her father. ^ 
 
 " Well, papa, you can do everything, and are everything to 
 me. You read to me you sit up nights and Tom. has only 
 this one thing, and his singing ; and I know, too, he does it 
 easier than you can. He carries me so strong !" 
 
 The desire to do something was not confined to Tom. 
 Every servant in the establishment showed the same feeling, 
 and in their way did what they could. 
 
 Poor Mammy's heart yearned towards her darling ; but 
 she found no opportunity, night or day, as Marie declared 
 that the state of her mind was such, it was impossible for 
 her to rest ; and, of course, it was against her principles to 
 let any one else rest. Twenty times in a night Mammy 
 would be roused to rub her feet, to bathe her head, to find 
 her pocket-handkerchief, to see what the noise was in Eva's 
 room, to let down a curtain because it was too light, or to 
 put it up because it was too dark ; and, in the day-time, 
 when she longed to have some share in the nursing of her 
 pet, Marie seemed unusually ingenious in keeping her busy 
 anywhere and everywhere all over the house, or about her 
 own person ; so that stolen interviews and momentary 
 glimpses were all she could obtain. 
 
 " I feel it my duty to be particularly careful of myself, 
 now," she would say, " feeble as I am, and with the whole 
 care and nursing of that dear child upon me." 
 
 " Indeed, my dear," said St. Clare, " I thought our cousin 
 relieved you of that." 
 
 "You talk like a man, St. Clare just as if a mother 
 could be relieved of the care of a child in that state ; but, 
 then, it's all alike no one ever knows what I feel ! I can't 
 throw things off, as you do." 
 
 St. Clare smiled. You must excuse him, he couldn't help 
 it for St. Clare could smile yet. For so bright and placid 
 was the farewell voyage of the little spirit by such sweet 
 and fragrant breezes was the small bark borne towards the 
 heavenly shores that it was impossible to realise that it 
 was death that was approaching. The child felt no pain 
 only a tranquil, soft weakness, daily and almost insensibly 
 
316 MYSTERIOUS INTIMATIONS. 
 
 increasing ; and she was so beautiful, so loving, so trustful, 
 so happy, that one could not resist the. soothing influence of 
 that air of innocence and, peace which seemed to breathe 
 around her. St. Clare found a strange calm coming over 
 him. It was not hope that was impossible ; it was not 
 resignation ; it was only a calm resting in the present, 
 which seemed so beautiful that he wished to think of no 
 future. It was like that hush of spirit which we feel amid 
 the bright, mild woods of autumn, when the bright hectic 
 flush is on the trees, and the last lingering flowers by the 
 brook ; and we joy in it all the more, because we know that 
 soon it will all pass away. 
 
 The friend who knew most of Eva's own imaginings and 
 foreshadowings was her faithful bearer, Tom. To him she 
 said what she would not disturb her father by saying. To 
 him she imparted those mysterious intimations which the 
 soul feels, as the cords begin to unbind ere it leaves its clay 
 for ever. 
 
 Tom, at last, would not sleep in his room, but lay all night 
 in the outer verandah, ready to rouse at every call. 
 
 " Uncle Tom, what alive have you taken to sleeping any- 
 where and everywhere, like a dog, for ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 " I thought you was one of the orderly sort, that liked to lie 
 in bed in a Christian way." 
 
 " I do, Miss Feely," said Tom, mysteriously. " I do, but 
 now " 
 
 " Well, what now ? " 
 
 " "We mustn't speak loud ; Mas'r St. Clare won't hear 
 on't ; but, Miss Feely, you know there must be somebody 
 watchin' for the bridegroom." 
 
 " What do you mean, Tom ? " 
 
 " You know it says in Scripture, ' At midnight there was 
 a great cry made, Behold the bridegroom cometh.' That's 
 what I'm 'spectin' now every night, Miss Feely and I 
 couldn't sleep out o' hearin' no ways." 
 
 " Why, Uncle Tom, what makes you think so ? " 
 
 " Miss Eva, she talks to me. . The Lord, he sends his 
 messenger in the soul. I must be thar, Miss Eeely ; for 
 when that ar blessed child goes into the kingdom, they'll 
 open the door so wide, we'll all get a look in at the glory, 
 Miss Eeely." 
 
IT'S THE ANGELS. 317 
 
 " Uncle Tom, did Miss Eva say slie felt more unwell than 
 usual to-night? " 
 
 " No ; but she telTed me this morning she was coming 
 nearer thar's them that tells it to the child, Miss Eeely. 
 It's the angels. 'It's the trumpet sound afore the break o' 
 day,' " said Tom, quoting from a favourite hymn. 
 
 This dialogue passed between Miss Ophelia and Tom, 
 between ten and eleven one evening, after her arrangements 
 had all been made for the night, when, on going to bolt her 
 outer door, she found Tom * stretched along by it, in the 
 outer verandah. 
 
 She was not nervous or impressible; but the solemn, 
 heartfelt manner struck her. Eva had been unusually 
 bright and cheerful that afternoon, and had sat raised in 
 her bed, and looked over all her little trinkets and precious 
 things, and designated the friends to whom she would have 
 them given ; and her manner was more animated, and her 
 voice more natural, than they had known it for weeks. Her 
 father had been in in the evening, and had said that Eva 
 appeared more like her former self than ever she had done 
 since her sickness ; and when he kissed her for the night, he 
 said to Miss Ophelia, " Cousin, we may keep her with us, 
 after all ; she is certainly better : " and he had retired with a 
 lighter heart in his bosom than he had had there for weeks. 
 
 But at midnight strange, mystic hour, when the veil 
 between the frail present and the eternal future grows thin 
 then came the messenger ! 
 
 There was a sound in that chamber, first of one who 
 stepped quickly. It was Miss Ophelia, who had resolved to 
 sit up all night with her little charge, and who, at the turn of 
 the night, had discerned what experienced nurses signifi- 
 cantly call a " change." The outer door was quickly opened, 
 and Tom, who was watching outside, was on the alert in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Go for the doctor, Tom ! lose not a moment," said Miss 
 Ophelia ; and, stepping across the room, she rapped at St. 
 Clare's door. 
 
 " Cousin," she said, "I wish you would come." 
 Those words fell on his heart like clods upon a coffin. 
 Why did they ? He was up and in the room in an instant, 
 and bending over Eva, who still slept. 
 
318 A CHANGE. 
 
 "What was it he saw that made his heart stand still ? 
 "Why was no word spoken between the two ? Thou canst 
 say, who has seen that same expression on the face dearest 
 to thee; that look, indescribable, hopeless, unmistakable, 
 that says to thee that thy beloved is no longer thine. 
 
 On the face of the child, however, there was no ghastly 
 imprint only a high and almost sublime expression the 
 overshadowing presence of spiritual natures, the dawning of 
 immortal life in that childish soul. 
 
 They stood there so still, gazing upon her, that even the 
 ticking of the watch seemed too loud. In a few moments 
 Tom returned with the doctor. He entered, gave one look, 
 and stood silent as the rest. 
 
 " When did this change take place ? " said he, in a low 
 whisper, to Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " About the turn of the night," was the reply. 
 
 Marie, roused by the entrance of the doctor, appeared 
 hurriedly from the next room. 
 
 " Augustine ! Cousin ! Oh ! what ? " she hurriedly 
 
 began. 
 
 " Hush !" said St. Clare hoarsely ; " she is dying ! " 
 
 Mammy heard the words, and flew to awaken the servants. 
 The house was soon roused lights were seen, footsteps 
 heard, anxious faces thronged the verandah, and looked 
 tearfully through the glass doors ; but St. Clare heard and 
 said nothing ; he saw only that look on the face of the little 
 sleeper. 
 
 " Oh, if she would only wake, and speak once more ! " he 
 said ; and, stooping over her, he spoke in her ear " Eva, 
 darling!" 
 
 The large blue eyes unclosed a smile passed over her 
 face ; she tried to raise her head, and to speak. 
 
 " Do you know me, Eva ? " 
 
 " Dear papa," said the child with a last eifort, throwing 
 her arms about his neck. In a moment they dropped again ; 
 and, as St. Clare raised his head, he saw a spasm of mortal 
 agony pass over the face she struggled for breath, and 
 threw up her little hands. 
 
 " O s Grod, this is dreadful ! " he said, turning away in 
 agony, and wringing Tom's hand, scarce conscious what 
 he was doing. " Tom, my boy, it is killing me ! " 
 
"THIS IS THE LAST OF EARTH." 319 
 
 Tom had his master's hands between his own ; and, with 
 tears streaming down his dark cheeks, looked up for help 
 where he had always been used to look. 
 
 " Pray that this may be cut short ! " said St. Clare ; " this 
 wrings my heart ! " 
 
 " Oh, bless the Lord ! it's over it's over, dear mas'r ! " 
 said Tom ; " look at her." 
 
 The child lay panting on her pillows, as one exhausted 
 the large clear eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said those 
 eyes, that spoke so much of heaven ? Earth was passed, and 
 earthly pain ; but so solemn, so mysterious, was the trium- 
 phant brightness of that face, that it checked even the sobs 
 of sorrow. They pressed around her in breathless stilness. 
 
 " Era ! " said St. Clare, gently. 
 
 She did not hear. 
 
 " 0, Eva, tell us what you see ! What is it ? " said her 
 father. 
 
 A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she 
 said, brokenly " Oh ! love joy peace ! " gave one sigh, 
 and passed from death unto life ! 
 
 "Farewell, beloved child! the bright, eternal doors have 
 closed after thee ; we shall see thy sweet face no more. Oh, 
 woe for them who watched thy entrance into heaven, when 
 they shall wake and find only the cold gray sky of daily life, 
 and thou gone for ever ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 " THIS IS THE LAST OF EARTH." 
 
 THE statuettes and pictures in Eva's room were shrouded 
 in white napkins, and only hushed breathings and muffled 
 footfalls were heard there, and the light stole in solemnly 
 through windows partially darkened by closed blinds. 
 
 The bed was draped in white ; and there, beneath the 
 drooping angel-figure, lay a little sleeping form sleeping 
 never to waken ! 
 
 There she lay, robed in one of the simple white dresses 
 
320 THE CSOWN WITHOUT THE CONFLICT, 
 
 she had been wont to wear when living ; the rose-coloured 
 light through the curtains cast over the icy coldness of death 
 a warm glow. The heavy eyelashes drooped softly on the 
 pure cheek ; the head was turned a little to one side, as if in 
 natural sleep, but there was diffused over every lineament 
 of the face that high celestial expression, that mingling of 
 rapture and repose, which showed it was no earthly or 
 temporary sleep, but the long, sacred rest which " He giveth 
 to his beloved." 
 
 There is no death to such as thou, dear Eva ! neither 
 darkness nor shadow of death ; only such a bright fading 
 as when the morning star fades in the golden dawn. Thine 
 is the victory without the battle the crown without the 
 conflict. 
 
 So did St. Clare think, as, with folded arms, he stood 
 there gazing. Ah ! who shall say what he did think ? for, 
 from the hour that voices had said, in the dying chamber, 
 "She is gone," it had been all a dreary mist, a heavy 
 " dimness of anguish." He had heard voices around him ; 
 he had had questions asked, and answered them ; they had 
 asked him when he would have the funeral, and where they 
 should lay her ; and he had answered impatiently, that he 
 cared not. 
 
 Adolph and Eosa had arranged the chamber; volatile, 
 fickle, and childish as they generally were, they were soft- 
 hearted and full of feeling ; and while Miss Ophelia presided 
 over the general details of order and neatness, it was their 
 hands that added those soft, poetic touches to the arrange- 
 ments, that took from the death-room the grim and ghastly 
 air which too often marks a New-England funeral. 
 
 There were still flowers on the shelves all white, delicate, 
 and fragrant, with graceful, drooping leaves. Eva's little 
 table, covered with white, bore on it her favourite vase, with 
 a single white moss rose-bud in it. The folds of the 
 drapery, the fall of the curtains had been arranged, and 
 re-arranged, by Adolph and Eosa, with that nicety of eye 
 which characterises their race. Even now, while St. Clare 
 stood there thinking, little Eosa tripped softly into the 
 chamber with a basket of white flowers. She stepped back 
 when she saw St. Clare, and stopped respectfully; but, 
 seeing that he did not observe her, she came forward to 
 
FLOWERS ON THE BED OF DEATH. s 321 
 
 place them around the dead. St. Clare saw her as in a 
 dream, while she placed in the small hands a fair cape 
 jessamine, and, with admirable taste, disposed other flowers 
 around the couch. 
 
 The door opened again, and Topsy, her eyes swelled with 
 crying, appeared, holding something under her apron. Bosa 
 made a quick, forbidding gesture ; but she took a step into 
 the room. 
 
 " You must go out," said Bosa, in a sharp positive 
 whisper ; "you haven't any business here ! " 
 
 " Oh, do let me ! I brought a flower such a pretty one !" 
 said Topsy, holding up a half-blown tea rose-bud. " Do let 
 me put just one there." 
 
 " G-et along ! " said Bosa, more decidedly. 
 
 " Let her stay ! " said St. Clare, suddenly stamping his 
 foot. " She shall come." 
 
 Bosa suddenly retreated, and Topsy came forward and 
 laid her offering at the feet of the corpse ; then suddenly, 
 with a wild and bitter cry, she threw herself on the floor 
 alongside the bed, and wept and moaned aloud. 
 
 Miss Ophelia hastened into the room, and tried to raise 
 and silence her ; but in vain. 
 
 " Miss Eva ! Miss Eva ! I wish I's dead, too 
 I do ! " 
 
 There was a piercing wildness in the cry ; the blood 
 flushed into St. Clare's white, marble-like face, and the first 
 tears he had shed since Eva died stood in his eyes. 
 
 " Get up, child," said Miss Ophelia, in a softened voice ; 
 " don't cry so. Miss Eva is gone to heaven ; she is an 
 
 " But I can't see her ! " said Topsy. " I never shall see 
 her ! " and she sobbed again. 
 
 Th^ all stood a moment in silence. 
 
 "She said she loved me," said Topsy "she did! Oh, 
 dear ! oh, dear ! there ain't nobody left now there ain't !" 
 
 "That's true enough," said St. Clare; "but do," he 
 said to Miss Ophelia, " see if you can't comfort the poor 
 creature." 
 
 " I jist wish I hadn't never been born," said Topsy. " I 
 didn't want to be born, no ways ; and I don't see no use 
 on't." 
 
322 THE LAST LONO HOME. 
 
 Miss Ophelia raised her gently but firmly, and took her 
 from the room; but, as she did so, some tears fell from 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Topsy, you poor child," she said, as she led her into her 
 room, " don't give up ! / can love you, though I am not like 
 that dear little child. I hope I've learnt something of the 
 love of Christ from her. I can love you ; I do, and I'll try 
 to help you to grow up a good Christian girl." 
 
 Miss Ophelia's voice was more than her words, and more 
 than that were the honest tears that fell down her face. 
 From that hour she acquired an influence over the mind of 
 the destitute child that she never lost. 
 
 " 0, my Eva, whose little hour on earth did so much of 
 good," thought St. Clare, "what account have I to give for 
 my long years ? " 
 
 There were, for a while, soft whisperings and foot-falls in 
 the chamber, as one after another stole in, to look at the 
 dead ; and then came the little coffin ; and then there was a 
 funeral, and carriages drove to the door, and strangers came 
 and were seated ; and there were white scarfs and ribbons, 
 and crape bands, and mourners dressed in black crape ; and 
 there were words read from the Bible, and prayers offered ; 
 and St. Clare lived, and walked, and moved, as one who has 
 shed every tear. To the last he saw only one thing, that 
 golden head in the coffin ; but then he saw the cloth spread 
 over it, the lid of the coffin closed ; and he walked, when he 
 was put beside the others, down to a little place at the 
 bottom of the garden, and there, by the mossy seat where 
 she and Tom had talked, and sung, and read so often, was 
 the little grave. St. Clare stood beside it looked vacantly 
 down ; he saw them lower the little coffin ; he heard, dimly, 
 the solemn words, " I am the Resurrection and the Life ; he 
 that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;" 
 and as the earth was cast in and filled up the little grave, he 
 could not realise that it was his Eva that they were hiding 
 from his sight. 
 
 Nor was it not Eva, but only the frail seed of that 
 bright, immortal form with which she shall yet come forth, 
 in the day of the Lord Jesus ! 
 
 And then all were gone, and the mourners went back to 
 the place which should know her no more ; and Marie's 
 
TOM'S FEELING FOE HIS MASTEB. 323 
 
 room was darkened, and she lay on the bed, sobbing and 
 moaning in uncontrollable grief, and calling every moment 
 for the attentions of all her servants. Of course, they had, 
 no time to cry why should they ? the grief was her grief, 
 and she was fully convinced that nobody on earth did, could, 
 or would feel it as she did. 
 
 "St. Clare did not shed a tear," she said, "he didn't 
 sympathise with her ; it was perfectly wonderful to think 
 how hard-hearted and unfeeling he was, when he must know 
 how she suffered." 
 
 So much are people the slave of their eye and ear, that 
 many of the servants really thought that missis was the 
 principal sufferer in the case, especially as Marie began to 
 have hysterical spasms, and sent for the doctor, and at last 
 declared herself dying ; and in the running and scampering, 
 and bringing up hot bottles, and heating of flannels, and 
 chafing, and fussing, that ensued, there was quite a 
 diversion. 
 
 Tom, however, had a feeling at his own heart, that drew 
 him to his master. He followed him wherever he walked, 
 wistfully and sadly, and when he saw him sitting, so pale 
 and quiet, in Eva's room, holding before his eyes her little 
 open Bible, though seeing no letter or word of what was in 
 it, there was more sorrow to Tom in that still, fixed, tearless 
 eye, than in all Marie's moans and lamentations. 
 
 In a few days the St. Clare family were back again in the 
 city ; Augustine, with the restlessness of grief, longing for 
 another scene, to change the current of his thoughts. So 
 they left the house and garden, with its little grave, and 
 came back to New Orleans ; and St. Clare walked the streets 
 busily, and strove to fill up the chasm in his heart with 
 hurry and bustle, and change of place ; and people who saw 
 him in the street, or met him at the cafe, knew of his loss 
 only by the weed on his hat ; for there he was, smiling and 
 talking, and reading the newspaper, and speculating on 
 politics, and attending to business matters ; and who could 
 see that all this smiling outside was but a hollow shell over 
 a heart that was a dark and silent sepulchre ? 
 
 " Mr. St. Clare is a singular man," said Marie to Miss 
 Ophelia, in a complaining tone. " I used to think, if there 
 was anything in the world he did love, it was our dear little 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 HATE FEELINGS A!*D SHOW THEM. 
 
 Eva ; but he seems to be forgetting her very easily. I ( 
 ever get him to talk about her. I really did think he 
 
 cannot 
 would 
 show more feeling." 
 
 " Still waters run deepest, they used to tell me," said Miss 
 Ophelia, oracularly. 
 
 " Oh, I don't believe in such things ; it's all talk. If 
 people have feeling, they will show it they can't help it ; 
 but, then, it's a great misfortune to have feeling. I'd rather 
 have been made like St. Clare. My feelings prey upon 
 me so ! " 
 
 " Sure, missis, Mas'r St. Clare is getting thin as a shader. 
 They say he don't never eat nothin'," said Mammy. "I 
 know he don't forget Miss Eva; I know there couldn't 
 nobody dear, little, blessed cretur!" she added, wiping 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Well, at all events, he has no consideration for me," 
 said Marie ; " he hasn't spoken one word of sympathy, and 
 he must know how much more a mother feels than any 
 man can." 
 
 "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," said Miss 
 Ophelia, gravely. 
 
 " That's just what I think. I know just what I feel 
 nobody else seems to. Eva used to, but she's gone! " 
 and Marie lay back on her lounge, and began to sob dis- 
 consolately. 
 
 Marie was one of those unfortunately constituted mortals, 
 in whose eyes whatever is lost and gone assumes a value 
 which it never had in possession. Whatever she had, she 
 seemed to survey only to pick flaws in it ; but, once fairly 
 away, there was no end to her valuation of it. 
 
 While this conversation was taking place in the parlour, 
 another was going on in St. Clare's library. 
 
 Tom, who was always uneasily following his master about, 
 had seen him go to his library, some hours before ; and^ after 
 vainly waiting for him to come out, determined, at last, to 
 make an errand in. He entered softly. St. Clare lay on his 
 lounge at the further end of the room. He was lying on his 
 face, with Eva's Bible open before him, at a little distance. 
 Tom walked up, and stood by the sofa. He hesitated ; and, 
 while he was hesitating, St. Clare suddenly raised himself 
 up. The honest face, so full of grief, and with such an 
 
LOOKING UP AND SEEING NOTHING. 325 
 
 imploring expression of affection and sympathy, struck his 
 master. He laid his hand on Tom's, and bowed down his 
 forehead on it. 
 
 " Tom, my boy, the whole world is as empty as an egg- 
 shell." 
 
 " I know it, mas'r I know it," said Tom. "But, oh, if 
 mas'r could only look up up where our dear Miss Eva is 
 up to the dear Lord Jesus ! " 
 
 " Ah, Tom ! I do look up ; but the trouble is, I don't see 
 anything when I do. I wish I could." 
 
 Tom sighed heavily. 
 
 " It seems to be given to children, and poor honest fellows 
 like you, to see what we can't," said St. Clare. " How 
 comes it ? " 
 
 " Thou hast ' hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed 
 unto babes,' " murmured Tom ; " ' even so, Father, for so it 
 seemed good in thy sight.' " 
 
 " Tom, I don't believe I can't believe ; I've got the 
 habit of doubting," said St. Clare. " I want to believe this 
 Bible, and I can't." 
 
 " Dear mas'r, pray to the good Lord ' Lord, I believe ; 
 help thou my unbelief." 
 
 " Who knows anything about anything ? " said St. Clare, 
 his eyes wandering dreamily, and speaking to himself. 
 " Was all that beautiful love and faith only one of the 
 ever-shifting phases of human feeling, having nothing real to 
 rest on, passing away with the little breath ? And is there 
 no more Eva no heaven no Christ nothing ? " 
 
 "O dear mas'r, there is! I know it; I'm sure of it," 
 said Tom, falling on his knees. " Do, do, dear mas'r, 
 believe it!" 
 
 " How do you know there's any Christ, Tom ? You never 
 saw the Lord." 
 
 " Eelt him in my soul, mas'r feel him now ! O mas'r, 
 when I was sold away from my old woman and the children, 
 I was jest a'most broke up. I felt as if there warn't nothin' 
 left ; and then the good Lord he stood by me, and he says, 
 1 Eear not, Tom ;' and he brings light and joy into a poor 
 feller's soul makes all peace ; and I's so happy, and loves 
 everybody, and feels willin' jest to be the Lord's, and have 
 the Lord's will done, and be put jest where the Lord wants to 
 
326 THE EAISING OF LAZART7S. 
 
 put me. I kQow it couldn't come from me, cause I's a poor, 
 complainin' cretur ; it comes from the Lord ; and I know 
 he's willing to do for mas'r." 
 
 Tom spoke with fast-running tears and choking voice. 
 St. Clare leaned his head on his shoulder, and wrung the hard, 
 faithful, black hand. 
 
 " Tom, you love me," he said. 
 
 " I's willin' to lay down my life, this blessed day, to see 
 mas'r a Christian." 
 
 " Poor, foolish boy," said St. Clare, half raising himself. 
 " I'm not worth the love of one good, honest heart like 
 yours." 
 
 " O mas'r, dere's more than me loves you the blessed 
 Lord Jesus loves you." 
 
 " How do you know that, Tom ? " said St. Clare. 
 
 "Feels it in my soul. O mas'r! 'the love of Christ, that 
 passeth knowledge.' " 
 
 " Singular ! " said St. Clare, turning away, " that the story 
 of a man that lived and died eighteen hundred years ago -can 
 affect people so yet. But he was no man," he added sud- 
 denly. " JS"o man ever had such long and living power! Oh 
 that I could believe what my mother taught me, and pray as 
 I did when Jwas a boy ! " 
 
 "If mas'r pleases," said Tom, "Miss Eva used to read 
 this so beautifully. I wish mas'r 'd be so good as read it. 
 Don't get no readin', hardly, now Miss Eva's gone." 
 
 The chapter was the eleventh of John the touching 
 account of the raising of Lazarus. St. Clare read it aloud, 
 often pausing to wrestle down feelings which were aroused 
 by the pathos of the story. Tom knelt before him, with 
 clasped hands, and with an absorbed expression of love, 
 trust, adoration, on his quiet face. 
 
 " Tom," said his master, " this is all real to you ! " 
 
 " I can jest fairly see it, mas'r," said Tom. 
 
 " I wish I had your eyes, Tom." 
 
 " I wish to the dear Lord mas'r had ! " 
 
 " But, Tom, you know that I have a great deal more know- 
 ledge than you. "What if I should tell you that I don't 
 believe this Bible?" 
 
 "0 mas'r!" said Tom, holding up his hands, with a 
 deprecating gesture. 
 
BE UNION. 327 
 
 "Wouldn't it shake your faith some, Toin ? " 
 
 "Not a grain," said torn. 
 
 " Why, Tom, you must know I know the most." 
 
 " O mas'r, haven't you jest read how He hides from the 
 wise and prudent, and reveals unto babes ? But mas'r 
 wasn't in earnest, for sartin, now ? " said Tom anxiously. 
 
 " No, Tom, I was not. I don't disbelieve, and I think 
 there is reason to believe ; and still I don't. It's a trouble- 
 some bad habit I've got, Tom." 
 
 " If mas'r would only pray ! " 
 
 " How do you know I don't, Tom ? " 
 
 "Does mas'r?" 
 
 " I would, Tom, if there was anybody there when I pray ; 
 but it's all speaking unto nothing, when I do. But come, 
 Tom, you pray, now, and show me how." 
 
 Tom's heart was full; he poured it out in prayer, like 
 waters that have been long suppressed. One thing was plain 
 enough ; Tom thought there was somebody to hear, whether 
 there were or not. In fact, St. Clare felt himself borne, on 
 the tide of his faith and feeling, almost to the gates of that 
 heaven he seemed so vividly to conceive. It seemed to bring* 
 him nearer to Eva. 
 
 " Thank you, my boy," said St. Clare, when Tom rose. 
 " I like to hear you, Tom ; but go, now, and leave me alone : 
 some other time I'll talk more." 
 
 Tom silently left the room. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 REUNION. 
 
 WEEK after week glided away in the. St. Clare mansion, 
 and the waves of life settled back to their usual flow where 
 that little bark had gone down. For how imperiously, how 
 coolly, in disregard of all one's feeling, does the hard, cold, 
 uninteresting course of daily realities move on ! Still must 
 we eat, and drink, and sleep and wake again still bargain, 
 buy, sell, ask and answer questions pursue, in short, a 
 
328 CHANGE OF CHA.RACTEB. 
 
 thousand shadows, though all interest in them be over ; the 
 cold, mechanical habit of living remaining, after all vital 
 interest in it has fled. 
 
 All the interests and hopes of St. Clare's life had uncon- 
 sciously wound themselves around this child. It was for 
 Eva that he had managed his property ; it was for Siva that 
 he had planned the disposal of his time ; and, to do this and 
 that for Eva to buy, improve, alter and arrange, or dispose 
 something for her had been so long his habit, that, now 
 she was gone, there seemed nothing to be thought of, and 
 nothing to be done. 
 
 True, there was another life a life which, once believed 
 in, stands as a solemn, significant figure before the otherwise 
 unmeaning ciphers of time, changing them to orders of 
 mysterious, untold value. St. Clare knew this well, and 
 often, in many a weary hour, he heard that slender, childish 
 voice calling him to the skies, and saw that little hand 
 pointing to him the way of life ; but a heavy lethargy of 
 sorrow lay on him he could not arise. He had one of those 
 natures which could better and more "dearly conceive of 
 religious things from its own perceptions and instincts, than 
 many a matter-of-fact and practical Christian. The gift to 
 appreciate and the sense to feel the finer shades and relations 
 of moral things, often seems an attribute of those whose 
 whole life shows a careless disregard of them. Hence 
 Moore, Byron, Groethe, often speak words more wisely 
 descriptive of the true religious sentiment, than another 
 man whose whole life is governed by it. In such minds, 
 disregard of religion is a more fearful treason a more 
 deadly sin. 
 
 St. Clare had never pretended to govern himself by any 
 religious obligation ; and a certain fineness of nature gave 
 him such an instinctive view of the extent of the require- 
 ments of Christianity, that he shrank, by anticipation, from 
 what he felt would be the exactions of his own conscience, 
 if he once did resolve to assume them. For, so inconsistent 
 is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not to under- 
 take a thing at all seems better than to undertake and 
 come short. 
 
 Still St. Clare was in many respects another man. He 
 read his little Eva's Bible seriously and honestly; he 
 
ST. CLAEE AND UNCLE TOM. 329 
 
 thought more soberly and practically of his relations to his 
 servants enough to make him extremely dissatisfied with 
 both his past and present course ; and one thing he did, 
 soon after his return to New Orleans, and that was to 
 commence the legal steps necessary to Tom's emancipation, 
 which was to be perfected as soon as he could get through 
 the necessary formalities. Meantime, he attached himself 
 to Tom more and more, every day. In all the wide world, 
 there was nothing that seemed to remind him so much 
 of Eva; and he would insist on keeping him constantly 
 about him, and, fastidious and unapproachable as he was 
 with regard to his deeper feelings, he almost thought aloud 
 to Tom. Nor would any one have wondered at it, who had 
 seen the expression of affection and devotion with which 
 Tom continually followed his young master. 
 
 "Well, Tom," said St. Clare, the day after he had com- 
 menced the legal formalities for his enfranchisement, " I'm 
 going to make a free man of you ; so, have your trunk 
 packed, and get ready to set out for Kentuck.'" 
 
 The sudden light of joy that shone in Tom's face as he 
 raised his hands to heaven, his emphatic " Bless the Lord ! " 
 rather discomposed St. Clare ; he did not like it that Tom 
 should be so ready to leave him. 
 
 "You haven't had such very bad times here, that you 
 need be in such a rapture, Tom," he said dryly. 
 
 " No, no, mas'r ! tan't that it's bein' a free man ! 
 That's what I'm joyin' for." 
 
 " Why, Tom, don't you think, for your own part, you've 
 been better off than to be free ? " 
 
 "No, indeed, Mas'r St. Clare," said Tom, with a flash of 
 energy. " No, indeed ! " 
 
 " Why, Tom, you couldn't possibly have earned, by your 
 work, such clothes and such living as I have given you." 
 
 " Knows all that, Mas'r St. Clare ; mas'r's been too 
 good: but, mas'r, I'd rather have poor clothes, poor house, 
 poor everything, and have 'em mine, than have the best, and 
 have 'em any man's else ! I had so, mas'r ; I think it's 
 natur, mas'r ! " 
 
 " I suppose so, Tom ; and you'll be going off and leaving 
 me, in a month or so," he added, rather discontentedly. 
 " Though why you shouldn't, no mortal knows," he said, 
 
330 PEOMTSE Or TBEEDOM. 
 
 in a gayer tone ; and, getting up, lie began to walk the 
 floor. 
 
 " Not while mas'r is in trouble," said Tom. " I'll slay 
 with mas'r as long as he wants me so as I can be any 
 USQ." 
 
 " Not while I'm in trouble, Tom ? " said St. Clare, looking 
 sadly out of the window. ... " And when will my trouble 
 be over ? " 
 
 " When Mas'r St. Clare's a Christian," said Tom. 
 
 "And you really mean to stay by till that day comes ? " 
 said St. Clare, half smiling as he turned from the window, 
 and laid his hand on Tom's shoulder. " Ah, Tom, you soft, 
 silly boy ! I won't keep you till that day. Go home to your 
 wife and children, and give my love to all." 
 
 " I's faith to believe that day will come," said Tom, 
 earnestly, and with tears in his eyes ; " the Lord has a work 
 for mas'r." 
 
 "A work, eh?" said St. Clare; "well, now, Tom, give 
 me your views on what sort of a work it is ; let's hear." 
 
 " Why, even a poor fellow like me has a work from the 
 Lord ; and Mas'r St. Clare, that has larnin', and riches, and 
 friends, how much he might do for the Lord ! " 
 
 " Tom, you seem to think the Lord needs a great deal 
 done for him," said St. Clare, smiling. 
 
 "We does for the Lord when we does for his critturs," 
 said Tom. 
 
 " Grood theology, Tom ; better than Dr. B. preaches, I 
 dare swear," said St. Clare. 
 
 The conversation was here interrupted by the announce- 
 ment of some visitors. 
 
 Marie St. Clare felt the loss of Eva as deeply as she could 
 feel anything ; and as she was a woman that had a great 
 faculty of making everybody unhappy when she was, her im- 
 mediate attendants had still stronger reason to regret the 
 loss of their young mistress, whose winning ways and gentle 
 intercessions had so often been a shield to them from the 
 tyrannical and selfish exactions of her mother. Poor old 
 Mammy, in particular, whose heart, severed from all natural 
 domestic ties, had consoled itself with this one beautiful 
 being, was almost heart-broken. She cried day and night, 
 and was, from excess of sorrow, less skilful and "alert in her 
 
THE LOSS or EVA. 331 
 
 ministrations on her mistress than usual, which drew down 
 a constant storm of invectives on her defenceless head. 
 
 Miss Ophelia felt the loss ; but, in her good and honest 
 heart, it bore fruit unto everlasting life. She was more 
 softened, more gentle ; and though equally assiduous in 
 every duty, it was with a chastened and quiet air, as one 
 who communed with her own heart not in vain. She was 
 more diligent in teaching Topsy taught her mainly from 
 the Bible did not any longer shrink from her touch, or 
 manifest an ill-repressed disgust, because she felt none. She 
 viewed her now through the softened medium that Eva's 
 hand had first held before her eyes, and saw in her only an 
 immortal creature, whom Grod had sent to be led by her to 
 glory and virtue. Topsy did not become at once a saint ; 
 but the life and death of Eva did work a marked change in 
 her. The callous indifference was gone ; there was now 
 sensibility, hope, desire, and the striving for good a 
 strife irregular, interrupted, suspended oft, but yet renewed 
 again. 
 
 One day, when Topsy had been sent for by Miss Ophelia, 
 she came, hastily thrusting something into her bosom. 
 
 " "What are you doing there, you limb ? You've been 
 stealing something, I'll be bound," said the imperious little 
 Rosa, who had been sent to call her, seizing her, at the same 
 time, roughly by the arm. 
 
 "You go 'long, Miss Rosa!" said Topsy, pulling from 
 her; " 'tan't none o' your business ! " 
 
 "None o' your sa'ce!" said Rosa. "I saw you hiding 
 something I know yer tricks ;" and Rosa seized her arm, 
 and tried to force her hand into her bosom, while Topsy, 
 enraged, kicked and fought valiantly for what she considered 
 her rights. The clamour and confusion of the battle drew 
 Miss Ophelia and St. Clare both to the spot. 
 
 " She's been stealing ! " said Rosa. 
 
 "I han't neither I" vociferated Topsy, sobbing with 
 passion. 
 
 " Give me that, whatever it is ! " said Miss Ophelia, 
 firmly. 
 
 Topsy hesitated ; but, on a second order, pulled out of her 
 bosom a little parcel done up in the foot of one of her own 
 old stockings. 
 
332 TOPST'S GKRIEF. 
 
 Miss Oplaelia turned it out. There was a small book, 
 which had been given to Topsy by Eva, containing a 
 single verse of Scripture, arranged for every day in the 
 year, and in a paper the curl of hair that she had given 
 her on that memorable day when she had taken her last 
 farewell. 
 
 St. Clare was a good deal affected at the sight of it ; the 
 little book had been rolled in a long strip of black crape, torn 
 from the funeral weeds. 
 
 " What did you wrap this round the book for ? " said St. 
 Clare, holding up the crape. 
 
 " Cause cause cause 'twas Miss Eva. Oh, don't take 
 'em away, please ! " she said: and sitting flat down on the 
 floor, and putting her apron over her head, she began to sob 
 vehemently. 
 
 It was a curious mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous 
 the little old stocking black crape text-book fair, soft 
 curl and Topsy's utter distress. 
 
 St. Clare smiled ; but there were tears in his eyes, as he 
 said, 
 
 " Come, come don't cry; you shall have them!" and, 
 putting them together, he threw them into her lap, and 
 drew Miss Ophelia with him into the parlour. 
 
 " I really think you can make something of that concern," 
 he said, pointing with his thumb backward over his shoulder. 
 " Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good. 
 You must try and do something with her." 
 
 " The- child has improved greatly," said Miss Ophelia. 
 " I have great hopes of her ; but Augustine," she said, laying 
 her hand on his arm, " one thing I want to ask ; whose is 
 this child to be ? yours or mine ?" 
 
 " Why, I gave her to you" said Augustine. 
 
 " But not legally ; I want her to be mine legally," said 
 Miss Ophelia. 
 
 "Whew! cousin," said Augustine. "What will the 
 Abolition Society think? They'll have a day of fasting 
 appointed for this backsliding, if you become a slave- 
 holder!" 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! I want her mine, that I may have a 
 right to take her to the free States, and give her her liberty, 
 that all I am trying to do be not undone." 
 
NOW IS THE TIME. 333 
 
 " Oh, cousin, what an awful ' doing evil that good may 
 come ! ' I can't encourage it." 
 
 " I don't want you to joke, but to reason," said Miss 
 Ophelia. " There is no use in my trying to make this child 
 a Christian child unless I save her from all the chances and 
 reverses of slavery ; and, if you really are willing I should 
 have her, I want you to give me a deed of gift, or some legal 
 paper." 
 
 " Well, well," said St. Clare, " I will ; " and he sat down, 
 and unfolded a newspaper to read. 
 
 " But I want it done now," said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 "What's your hurry?" 
 
 "Because now is the only time there ever is to do a 
 thing in," said Miss Ophelia. " Come, now, here's a paper, 
 pen, and ink ; just write a paper." 
 
 St. Clare, like most men of his class of mind, cordially 
 hated the present tense of action, generally; and there- 
 fore he was considerably annoyed by Miss Ophelia's 
 downrightness. 
 
 "Why, what's the matter?" said he, " Can't you take 
 my word ? One would think you had taken lessons of 
 the Jews, coming at a fellow so ! " 
 
 " I want to make sure of it," said Miss Ophelia. " You 
 may die, or fail, and then Topsy be hustled off to auction, 
 spite of all I can do." 
 
 " Eeally, you are quite provident. Well, seeing I'm in 
 the hands of a Yankee, there is nothing for it but to 
 concede ; " and St. Clare rapidly wrote off a deed of gift, 
 which, as he was well versed in the forms of law, he could 
 easily do, and signed his name to it in sprawling capitals, 
 concluding by a tremendous nourish. 
 
 " There, isn't that black and white, now, Miss Vermont ?" 
 he said, as he handed it to her. 
 
 " Good boy," said Miss Ophelia, smiling. " But must it 
 not be witnessed ? " 
 
 "Oh, bother! yes. Here," he said, opening the door 
 into Marie's apartment, " Marie, cousin wants your auto- 
 graph ; just put your name down here." 
 
 "What's this ? " said Marie, as she ran over the paper. 
 " Ridiculous ! I thought cousin was too pious for such 
 horrid things," she added, as she carelessly wrote her 
 
334 A FICTION" OF LAW. 
 
 name ; " but if she has a fancy for that article, I'm sure 
 she's welcome." 
 
 " There, now, she's yours, body and soul," said St. Clare, 
 handing the paper. 
 
 "No more mine now than she was before," said Miss 
 Ophelia. " Nobody but God has a right to give her to me ; 
 but I can protect her now." 
 
 " Well, she's yours by a fiction of law, then," said St. 
 Clare, as he turned back into the parlour, and sat down to 
 his paper. 
 
 Miss Ophelia, who seldom sat much in Marie's company, 
 followed him into the parlour, having first carefully laid away 
 the paper. 
 
 " Augustine," she said, suddenly, as she sat knitting, 
 " have you ever made any provision for your servants, in 
 case of your death ? " 
 
 " No," said St. Clare, as he read on. 
 
 " Then all your indulgence to them may prove a great 
 cruelty, by-and-by." 
 
 St. Clare had often thought the same thing himself ; but 
 he answered negligently 
 
 " Well, I mean to make a provision, by-and-by." 
 
 " When ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " Oh, one of these days." 
 
 " What if you should die first ? " 
 
 " Cousin, what's the matter ? " said St. Clare, laying down 
 his paper, and looking at her. " Do you think I show 
 symptoms of yellow fever or cholera, that you are making 
 post-mortem arrangements with such zeal ? " 
 
 " ' In the midst of life we are in death,' " said Miss 
 Ophelia. 
 
 St. Clare rose up, and laying the paper down, carelessly 
 walked to the door that stood open on the verandah, to put 
 an end to a conversation that was not agreeable to him. 
 Mechanically he repeated the last word again "Death! " 
 and, as he leaned against the railings and watched the 
 sparkling water as it rose and fell in the fountain, and, as in 
 a dim and dizzy haze, saw the flowers and trees and vases of 
 the courts, he repeated again the mystic word, so common 
 in every mouth, yet of such fearful power " DEATH ! !1 
 " Strange that there should be such a word," he said, " and 
 
335 
 
 such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be 
 living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires, and wants 
 one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and for ever ! " 
 
 It was a warm, golden evening ; and as he walked to the 
 other end of the verandah, he saw Tom busily intent on his 
 Bible, pointing, as he did so, with his finger to each successive 
 word, and whispering them to himself with an earnest air. 
 
 " "Want me to read to you, Tom ? " said St. Clare, seating 
 himself carelessly by him. 
 
 " If Mas'r pleases," said Tom, gratefully; " mas'r makes 
 it so much plainer." 
 
 St. Clare took the book and glanced at the place, and 
 began reading one of the passages which Tom had designated 
 by the heavy marks around it. It ran as follows ; 
 
 " When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all 
 his holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne 
 of his glory : and before him shall be gathered all nations : 
 and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd 
 divideth his sheep from the goats." St. Clare read on in an 
 animated voice, till he came to the last of the verses. 
 
 " Then shall the King say unto them on his left hand, 
 Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire : for I was 
 an hungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye 
 gave me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me not in : 
 naked, and ye clothed me not : I was sick, and in prison, and 
 ye visited me not. Then shall they answer unto him, Lord, 
 when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or 
 naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee ? 
 Then shall he say unto them, Inasmuch as ye did it not to 
 one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me." 
 
 St. Clare seemed struck with this last passage, for he 
 read it twice the second time slowly, and as if he were 
 revolving the words in his mind. 
 
 "Tom," he said, "these folks that get such hard measure- 
 seem to have been doing just what I have living good, easy, 
 respectable lives ; and not troubling themselves to inquire 
 how many of their brethren were hungry or athirst, or sick, 
 or in prison." 
 
 Tom did not answer. 
 
 St. Clare rose up and walked thoughtfully up and down the 
 verandah, seeming to forget everything in his own thoughts ; 
 
336 "DIES 
 
 so absorbed was he, that Tom had to remind him twice that 
 the tea-bell had rung, before he could get his attention. 
 
 St. Clare was absent and thoughtful all tea-time. After 
 tea, he and Marie and Miss Ophelia took possession of the 
 parlour, almost in silence. 
 
 Marie disposed herself on a lounge, under a silken mos- 
 quito curtain, and was soon sound asleep. Miss Ophelia 
 silently busied herself with her knitting. St. Clare sat 
 down to the piano, and began playing a soft and melancholy 
 movement with the JEolian accompaniment. He seemed in 
 a deep reverie, and to be soliloquising to himself by music. 
 After a little, he opened one of the drawers, took out an old 
 music-book, whose leaves were yellow with age, and began 
 turning it over. 
 
 "There," he said to Miss Ophelia, "this was one of my 
 mother's books, and here is her handwriting come and 
 look at it. She copied and arranged this from Mozart's 
 Kequiem." Miss Ophelia came accordingly. 
 
 " It was something she used to sing often," said St. Clare. 
 " I think I can hear her now." 
 
 He struck a few majestic chords, and began singing that 
 grand old Latin piece, the "Dies Irs3." 
 
 Tom, who was listening in the outer verandah, was drawn 
 by the sound to the very door, where he stood earnestly. 
 He did not understand the words, of course ; but the music 
 and manner of singing appeared to affect him strongly, 
 especially when St. Clare sang the more pathetic parts. 
 Tom would have sympathised more heartily, if he had known 
 the meaning of the beautiful words : 
 
 " Eecordare, Jesu pie, 
 Quod sum causa tuse vise, 
 Ne me perdas ilia die : 
 Quserens me, sedisti lassus, 
 Redemisti crucem passus, 
 Tantus labor non sit cassus." * 
 
 * These lines have been thus rather inadequately translated : 
 " Think, Jesus, for what reason 
 Thou endured'st earth's spite and treason, 
 Nor me lose, in that dread season. 
 Seeking me, thy worn feet hasted, 
 On the cross thy soul death tasted : 
 Let not all these toils be wasted." 
 
THE NOT DOING GOOD. 337 
 
 St. Clare threw a deep and pathetic expression into the 
 words ; for the shadowy veil of years seemed drawn away, 
 and he seemed to hear his mother's voice leading his. 
 Voice and instrument seemed both living, and threw out 
 with vivid sympathy those strains which the ethereal Mozart 
 first conceived as his own dying requiem. 
 
 When St. Clare had done singing, he sat leaning his head 
 upon his hand a few moments, and then began walking up 
 and down the floor. 
 
 " What a sublime conception is that of a last judgment !" 
 said he. " A righting of all the wrongs of ages ! a solving 
 of all moral problems, by an unanswerable wisdom ! It is, 
 indeed, a wonderful image." 
 
 " It is a fearful one to us," said Miss Ophelia;-*" 
 
 " It ought to be to me, I suppose," said St. Clare, stopping 
 thoughtfully. "I was reading to Tom this afternoon that 
 chapter in Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have 
 been quite struck with it. One should have expected some 
 terrible enormities charged to those who are excluded from 
 Heaven, as the reason ; but no they are condemned for not 
 doing positive good, as if that included every possible harm." 
 
 u Jf e'rhaps,' said Miss uphelia, "it is impossible ibr a 
 person who does no good not to do harm." 
 
 "And what," said St. Clare, speaking abstractedly, but 
 with deep feeling, " what shall be said of one whose own 
 heart, whose education, and the wants of society, have called 
 in vain to some noble purpose ; who has floated on a dreamy/ 
 neutral, spectator of the struggles, agonies, and wrongs of 
 man, when he should have been a worker ?" 
 
 " I should say," said Miss Ophelia, " that he ought to 
 repent, and begin now." 
 
 " Always practical and to the point ! " said St. Clare, his 
 face breaking out into a smile. "You never leave me any 
 time for general reflections, cousin ; you always bring me 
 short up against the actual present; you have a kind of 
 eternal now, always in your mind." 
 
 " Now is all the time I have anything to do with," said 
 Miss Ophelia. 
 
 "Dear little Eva poor child ! " said St. Clare, " she had 
 set her simple little soul on a good work for me." 
 
 It was the first time since Eva's death that he had ever 
 
338 BELIGIOUS APATHY. 
 
 said as many words as these of her, and he spoke now 
 evidently repressing very strong feeling. 
 
 "My view of Christianity is such," he added, "that I 
 think no man can consistently profess it without throwing 
 the whole weight of his being against this monstrous system 
 
 (of injustice that lies at the foundation of all our society ; 
 and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle. That is, 
 I mean that I could not be a Christian otherwise, though 
 I have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlight- 
 ened and Christian people who did no such thing ; and I 
 confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject, 
 their want of perception of wrongs that filled me with 
 horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than any 
 other thing." 
 
 "If you knew all this," said Miss Ophelia, "why didn't 
 you do it?" 
 
 " Oh, because I have had only that kind of benevolence 
 which consists in lying on a sofa, and cursing the church 
 and clergy for not being martyrs and confessors. One can 
 see, you know, very easily, how others ought to be martyrs." 
 
 " Well, are you going to do differently now ? " said Miss 
 Ophelia. 
 
 " God only knows the future," said St. Clare. " I am 
 braver than I was, because I have lost all ; and he who has 
 nothing to lose can afford all risks." 
 
 " And what are you going to do ? " 
 
 " My duty, I hope, to the poor and lowly, as fast as I find 
 it out," said St. Clare, " beginning with my own servants, for 
 whom I have yet done nothing ; and perhaps, at some future 
 day, it may appear that I can do something for a whole 
 class, something to save my country from the disgrace of 
 that false position in which she now stands before all 
 civilised nations." 
 
 " Do you suppose it possible that a nation ever, will 
 voluntarily emancipate?" said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " I don't know," said St. Clare. " This is a day of great 
 deeds. Heroism and disinterestedness are rising up, here 
 and there, in the earth. The Hungarian nobles set free 
 millions of serfs, at an immense pecuniary loss ; and, 
 perhaps, among us may be found generous spirits, who do 
 not estimate honour and justice by dollars and cents." 
 
QUESTION OF EMANCIPATION. 389 
 
 " I hardly think so," said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " But suppose we should rise up to-morrow and eman- 
 cipate, who would educate these millions, and teach them 
 how to use their freedom ? They never would rise to do 
 much among us. The fact is, we are too lazy and unprac- 
 tical ourselves ever to give them much of an idea of that 
 industry and energy which is necessary to form them into 
 men. They will have to go north, where labour is the 
 fashion the universal custom ; and tell me, now, is there 
 enough Christian philanthropy among your northern states 
 to bear with the process of their education and elevation ? 
 You send thousands of dollars to foreign missions; but 
 could you endure to have the heathen sent into your towns 
 and villages, and give your time and thoughts, and money, 
 to raise them to the Christian standard ? That's what I 
 want to know. If we emancipate, are you willing to edu- 
 cate ? How many families in your town would take in a 
 negro man and woman, teach them, bear with them, and 
 seek to make them Christians ? How many merchants 
 would take Adolph, if I wanted to make him a clerk ; or 
 mechanics, if I wanted him taught a trade ? If I wanted to 
 put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schools are there 
 in the northern states that would take them in ? how many 
 families that would board them ? and yet they are as white 
 as many a woman, north or south. . You see, cousin, I want 
 justice done us. We are in a bad position. We are the more 
 obvious oppressors of the negro ; but the unchristian pre- i 
 judice of the north is an oppressor almost equally severe." 
 
 "Well, cousin, I know it is so," said Miss Ophelia. " I 
 know it was so with me, till I saw that it was my duty to 
 overcome it ; but I trust I have overcome it, and I know 
 there are many good people at the north who in this matter 
 need only to be taught what their duty is to do it. It would 
 certainly be a greater self-denial to receive heathen among 
 us than to send missionaries to them ; but I think we would 
 do it." 
 
 " You would, I know," said St. Clare. " I'd like* to see 
 anything you wouldn't do, if you thought it your duty ! " 
 
 " Well, I'm not uncommonly good," said Miss Ophelia. 
 " Others would, if they saw things as I do. I intend to take 
 Topsy home, when I go. I suppose our folks will wonder, 
 
 z 2 
 
340 THOUGHTS OF A DEAD MOTHER. 
 
 at first ; but I think they will be brought to see as I do. 
 Besides, I know there are many people at the north who do 
 exactly what you said." 
 
 " Yes, but they are a minority ; and if we should begin to 
 emancipate to any extent, we should soon hear from you." 
 
 Miss Ophelia did not reply. There was a pause of some 
 moments; and St. Clare's countenance was overcast by a 
 sad, dreamy expression. 
 
 " I don't know what makes me think of my mother so 
 much to-night," he said. " I have a strange kind of feeling, 
 as if she were near me. I keep thinking of things she used 
 to say. Strange what brings these past things so vividly 
 back to us, sometimes ! " 
 
 St. Clare walked up and down the room for some minutes 
 more, and then said 
 
 " I believe I'll go down street, a few moments, and hear 
 the news to-night." 
 
 He took his hat, and passed out. 
 
 Tom followed him to the passage, out of the court, and 
 asked if he should attend him. 
 
 " No, my boy," said St. Clare. " I shall be back in an 
 hour." 
 
 Tom sat down in the verandah. It was a beautiful 
 moonlight evening, and he sat watching the rising and 
 falling spray of the fountain, and listening to its murmur. 
 Tom thought of his home, and that he should soon be a free 
 man, and able to return to it at will. He thought how he 
 should work to buy his wife and boys. He felt the muscles 
 of his brawny arms with a sort of joy, as he thought they 
 would soon belong to himself, and how much they could do 
 to work out the freedom of his family. Then he thought of 
 his noble young master, and, ever second to that, came the 
 habitual prayer that he had always offered for him; and 
 then his thoughts passed on to the beautiful Eva, whom he 
 now thought of among the angels ; and he thought till he 
 almost fancied that that bright face and golden hair were 
 looking upon him, out of the spray of the fountain. And, 
 so musing, he fell asleep, and dreamed he saw her coming 
 bounding towards him, just as she used to come, with a 
 wreath of jessamine in her hair, her cheeks bright, and her 
 eyes radiant with delight ; but, as he looked, she seemed to 
 
SUDDEN DEATH. 341 
 
 rise from the ground; her cheeks wore a paler hue her 
 eyes had a deep, divine radiance, a golden halo seemed 
 around her head and she vanished from his sight ; and Tom 
 was awakened by a loud knocking, and the sound of many 
 voices at the gate. 
 
 He hastened to undo it ; and, with smothered voices, and 
 heavy tread, came several men, bringing a body, wrapped in 
 a cloak, and lying on a shutter. The light of the lamp fell 
 full on the face ; and Tom gave a wild cry of amazement 
 and despair, that rang through all the galleries, as the men 
 advanced with their burden to the open parlour door, where 
 Miss Ophelia still sat knitting. 
 
 St. Clare had turned into a cafe, to look over an evening 
 paper. As he was reading, an affray arose between two 
 gentlemen in the room, who were both partially intoxicated. 
 St. Clare and one or two others made an effort to separate 
 them, and St. Clare received a fatal stab in the side with 
 a bowie-knife, which he was attempting to wrest from one 
 of them. 
 
 The house was full of cries and lamentations, shrieks and 
 screams; servants frantically tearing their hair, throwing 
 themselves on the ground, or running distractedly about 
 lamenting. Tom and Miss Ophelia alone seemed to have 
 any presence of mind; for Marie was in strong hysteric 
 convulsions. At Miss Ophelia's direction, one of the 
 lounges in the parlour was hastily prepared, and the 
 bleeding form laid upon it. St. Clare had fainted, through 
 pain and loss of blood; but as Miss Ophelia applied 
 restoratives, he revived, opened his eyes, looked fixedly on 
 them, looked earnestly around the room, his eyes travelling 
 wistfully over every object, and finally they rested on his 
 mother's picture. 
 
 The physician now arrived, and made his examination. 
 It was evident, from the expression of his face, that there 
 was no hope ; but he applied himself to dressing the wound, 
 and he and Miss Ophelia and Tom proceeded composedly 
 with this work, amid the lamentations and sobs and cries of 
 the affrighted servants, who had clustered about the doors 
 and windows of the verandah. 
 
 "Now," said the physician, "we must turn all these 
 creatures out ; all depends on his being kept quiet." 
 
342 TOM PEATS FOB HIS MASTEE. 
 
 St. Clare opened his eyes, and looked fixedly on the dis- 
 tressed beings whom Miss Ophelia and the doctor were 
 trying to urge from the apartment. " Poor creatures ! " he 
 said, and an expression of bitter self-reproach passed over 
 his face. Adolph absolutely refused to go. Terror had 
 deprived him of all presence of mind ; he threw himself 
 along on the floor, and nothing could persuade him to 
 rise. The rest yielded to Miss Ophelia's urgent repre- 
 sentations, that their master's safety depended on their 
 stilness and obedience. 
 
 St. Clare could say but little ; he lay with his eyes shut, 
 but it was evident that he wrestled with bitter thoughts. 
 After a while, he laid his hand on Tom's, who was kneeling 
 beside him, and said, "Tom! poor fellow! " 
 
 " "What, mas'r ? " said Tom, earnestly. 
 
 " I am dying ! " said St. Clare, pressing his hand ; 
 " pray ! " 
 
 " If you would like a clergyman " said the physician. 
 
 St. Clare hastily shook his head, and said again to Tom, 
 more earnestly, " Pray ! " 
 
 And Tom did pray, with all his mind and strength, for 
 the soul that was passing the soul that seemed looking 
 so steadily and mournfully from those large, melancholy 
 blue eyes. It was literally prayer offered with strong crying 
 and tears. 
 
 When Tom ceased to speak, St. Clare reached out and 
 took his hand, looking earnestly at him, but saying nothing. 
 He closed his eyes, but still retained his hold ; for, in the 
 gates of eternity, the black hand and the white hold each 
 other with an equal clasp. He murmured softly to himself, 
 at broken intervals, 
 
 " Recordare, Jesu pie 
 * * * * 
 
 Ne me perdas ilia die 
 Quaerens me sedisti lassus." 
 
 It was evident that the words he had been singing that 
 evening were passing through his mind words of entreaty 
 addressed to Infinite Pity. His lips moved at intervals, as 
 parts of the hymn fell brokenly from them. 
 
 "His mind is wandering," said the doctor. 
 
THE TJNPBOTECTED. 343 
 
 "No! it is coming HOME at last!" said St. Clare, ener- 
 getically ; " at last ! at last ! " 
 
 The effort of speaking exhausted him. The sinking pale- 
 ness of death fell on him ; but with it there fell, as if shed 
 from the wings of some pitying spirit, a beautiful expression 
 of peace, like that of a wearied child who sleeps. 
 
 So he lay for a few moments. They saw that the mighty 
 hand was on him. Just before the spirit parted, he opened 
 his eyes, with a sudden light, as of joy and recognition, and 
 said, " Mother I " and then he was gone ! 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX. 
 
 THE UNPROTECTED. 
 
 hear often of the distress of the negro servants on 
 the loss of a kind master, and with good reason; for no 
 creature on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and 
 desolate than the slave in these circumstances. 
 
 The child who has lost a father has still the protection 
 of friends and of the law; he is something, and can do 
 something has acknowleged rights and position ; the slave 
 has none. The law regards him, in every respect, as devoid 
 of rights, as a bale of merchandise. The only possible 
 acknowledgment of any of the longings and wants of a 
 human and immortal creature which are given to him, comes 
 to him through the sovereign and irresponsible will of his 
 master; and when that master is stricken down, nothing 
 remains. 
 
 The number of those men who know how to use wholly- 
 irresponsible power humanely and generously is small. 
 Everybody knows this and the slave knows it best of all ; 
 so that he feels that there are ten chances of his finding an 
 abusive and tyrannical master, to one of his finding a con- 
 siderate and kind one. Therefore is it that the wail over a 
 kind master is loud and long, as well it may be. 
 
 When St. Clare breathed his last, terror and consternation 
 took hold of all his household. He had been stricken down 
 
344 ST. CLARE'S FTJNEEAL. 
 
 so in a moment, in the flower and strength of his youth ! 
 Every room and gallery of the house resounded with sobs 
 and shrieks of despair. 
 
 Marie, whose nervous system had been enervated by a 
 constant course of self-indulgence, had nothing to support 
 the terror of the shock, and, at the time her husband breathed 
 his last, was passing from one fainting-fit to another ; and he 
 to whom she had been joined in the mysterious tie of 
 marriage passed from her for ever, without the possibility of 
 even a parting word. 
 
 Miss Ophelia, with characteristic strength and self-control, 
 had remained with her kinsman to the last all eye, all ear, 
 all attention, doing everything of the little that could be 
 done, and joining with her whole soul in the tender and 
 impassioned prayers which the poor slave had poured forth 
 for the soul of his dying master. 
 
 When they were arranging him for his last rest, they 
 found upon his bosom a small, plain, miniature case, opening 
 with a spring. It was the miniature of a noble and beautiful 
 female face ; and on the reverse, under a crystal, a lock of 
 dark hair. They laid them back on the lifeless breast dust 
 to dust poor mournful relics of early dreams, which once 
 made that cold heart beat so warmly ! 
 
 Tom's whole soul was filled with thoughts of eternity ; and 
 while he ministered around the lifeless clay, he did not once 
 think that the sudden stroke had left him in hopeless 
 slavery. He felt at peace about his master ; for in that 
 hour when he had poured forth his prayer into the bosom of 
 his Father, he had found an answer of quietness and 
 assurance springing up within himself. In the depths of 
 his own affectionate nature he felt able to perceive something 
 of the fulness of Divine love ; for an old oracle hath thus 
 written ; " He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in Grod, and 
 God in him." Tom hoped and trusted, and was at peace. 
 
 But the funeral passed, with all its pageant of black crape, 
 and prayers, and solemn faces; and back rolled the cool, 
 muddy waves of every-day life ; and up came the everlasting 
 hard inquiry of " What is to be done next ?" 
 
 It rose to the mind of Marie, as, dressed in loose mourning 
 robes, and surrounded by anxious servants, she sat up in 
 a great easy-chair, and inspected samples of crape and 
 
A WHIPPING ESTABLISHMENT. 345 
 
 bombazine. It rose to Miss Ophelia, who began to turn her 
 thoughts towards her northern home. It rose, in silent 
 terrors to the minds of the servants, who well knew the 
 unfeeling, tyrannical character of the mistress in whose 
 hands they were left. All knew very well that the indul- 
 gences which had been accorded to them were not from 
 their mistress, but from their master ; and that, now he was 
 gone, there would be no screen between them and every 
 tyrannous infliction which a temper soured by affliction 
 might devise. 
 
 It was about a fortnight after the funeral, that Miss 
 Ophelia, busied one day in her apartment, heard a gentle tap 
 at the door. She opened it, and there stood Rosa, the pretty 
 young quadroon whom we have before often noticed, her hair 
 in disorder, and her eyes swelled with crying. 
 
 " Miss Feely," she said, falling on her knees, and catch- 
 ing the skirt of her dress, " do, do go to Miss Marie for me ! 
 do plead for me ! She's goin' to send me out to be whipped 
 look there ! " And she handed to Miss Ophelia a paper. 
 
 It was an order, written in Marie's delicate Italian hand, 
 to the master of a whipping establishment, to give the bearer 
 fifteeen lashes. 
 
 " What have you been doing ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " You know, Miss Feely, I've got such a bad temper ; it's 
 very bad of me. I was trying on Miss Marie's dress, and she 
 slapped my face ; and I spoke out before I thought, and was 
 saucy; and she said that she'd bring me down, and have me 
 know, once for all, that I wasn't going to be so topping as 
 I had been ; and she wrote this, and says I shall carry it. 
 I'd rather she'd kill me, right out." 
 
 Miss Ophelia stood considering, with the paper in her 
 hand. 
 
 "You see, Miss Feely," said Eosa, " I don't mind the 
 whipping so much, if Miss Marie or you was to do it ; but, 
 to be sent to a man and such a horrid man ! the shame of 
 it, Miss Feely ! " 
 
 Miss Ophelia well knew that it was the universal custom 
 to send women and young girls to whipping-houses, to 
 the hands of the lowest of men men vile enough to make 
 this their profession there to be subjected to brutal expo- 
 sure and shameful correction. She had known, it before ; but 
 
346 THE SENSE OF DELICACY. 
 
 hitherto she had never realised it, till she saw the slender 
 form of Rosa almost convulsed with distress. All the honest 
 blood of womanhood, the strong New England blood of 
 liberty, flushed to her cheeks, and throbbed bitterly in her 
 indignant heart ; but, with habitual prudence and self-con- 
 trol, she mastered herself, and crushing the paper firmly in 
 her hand, she merely said to Rosa 
 
 " Sit down, child, while I go to your mistress." 
 
 " Shameful ! monstrous ! outrageous !" she said to herself, 
 as she was crossing the parlour. 
 
 She found Marie sitting up in her easy-chair, with Mammy 
 standing by her combing her hair ; Jane sat on the ground 
 before her, busy in chafing her feet. 
 
 "How do you find yourself to-day ? " said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 A deep sigh and a closing of the eyes was the only reply 
 for a moment ; and then Marie answered, " Oh, I don't 
 know, cousin; I suppose I'm as well as I ever shall be ! " 
 And Marie wiped her eyes with a cambric handkerchief, 
 bordered with an inch deep of black. 
 
 " I came," said Miss Ophelia, with a short dry cough, 
 such as commonly introduces a difficult subject, " I came to 
 speak with you about poor Rosa." 
 
 Marie's eyes were open wide enough now, and a flush rose 
 to her sallow cheeks, as she answered sharply, 
 
 " Well ! what about her ? " 
 
 " She is very sorry for her fault." 
 
 " She is, is she ? She'll be sorrier before I've done with 
 her ! I've endured that child's impudence long enough ; 
 and now I'll bring her down I'll make her lie in the 
 dust." 
 
 " But could not you punish her some other way, some way 
 that would he less shameful ? " 
 
 " I mean to shame her ; that's just what I want. She 
 has all her life presumed on her delicacy, and her good looks, 
 and her lady-like airs, till she forgets who she is ; and I'll 
 give her one lesson that will bring her down, I fancy ! " 
 
 " But, cousin, consider that, 5 you destroy delicacy and 
 a sense of shame in a young girl, you deprave her very 
 fast." 
 
 " Delicacy ! " said Marie, with a scornful laugh ; " a fine 
 word for such as she ! I'll teach her, with all her airs, that 
 
A CHANQE IN THE ESTABLISHMENT. 347 
 
 she's no better than the raggedest black wench that walks 
 the streets ! She'll take no more airs with me ! " 
 
 " You will answer to Grod for such cruelty," said Miss 
 Ophelia with energy. 
 
 " Cruelty ! I'd like to know what the cruelty is ? I wrote 
 orders for only fifteen lashes, and told him to put them on 
 lightly. I'm sure there's no cruelty there ! " 
 
 "No cruelty!" said Miss Ophelia. "I'm sure any girl 
 might rather be killed outright ! " 
 
 " It might seem so to anybody with your feelings, but all 
 these creatures get used to it ; it's the only way they can be 
 kept in order. Once let them feel that they are to take any 
 airs about delicacy, and all that, and they'll run all over you, 
 just as my servants always have. I've begun now to bring 
 them under ; and I'll have them all to know that I'll send 
 one out to be whipped as soon as another, if they don't mind 
 themselves !" said Marie, looking around her decidedly. 
 
 Jane hung her head and cowered at this, for she felt as if 
 it was particularly directed to her. Miss Ophelia sat for a 
 moment, as if she had swallowed some explosive mixture, and 
 were ready to burst. Then, recollecting the utter uselessness 
 of contention with such a nature, she shut her lips resolutely, 
 gathered herself up, and walked out of the room. 
 
 It was hard to go back and tell Rosa that she could do 
 nothing for her ; and, shortly after, one of the man-servants 
 came to say that her mistress had ordered him to take Eosa 
 with him to the whipping-house, whither she was hurried, in 
 spite of her tears and entreaties. 
 
 A few days after, Tom was standing musing by the 
 balconies, when he was joined by Adolph, who, since the 
 death of his master, had been entirely crest-fallen and dis- 
 consolate. Adolph knew that he had always been an object 
 of dislike to Marie, but while his master lived he had paid 
 but little attention to it. Now that he was gone, he had 
 moved about in daily dread and trembling, not knowing 
 what might befal him next. Marie had held several consulta- 
 tions with her lawyer. After communicating with St. Clare's 
 brother, it was determined to sell the place and all the 
 servants, except her own personal property, and these she 
 intended to take with her, and go back to her father's 
 plantation. 
 
348 OPHELIA SPEAKS FOB UNCLE TOM. 
 
 " Do ye know, Tom, that we've all got to be sold ? " said 
 Adolph. 
 
 "How did you hear that ? " said Tom. 
 
 " I hid myself behind the curtains when missis was 
 talking with the lawyer. In a few days we shall all be sent 
 off to auction, Tom." 
 
 " The Lord's will be done ! " said Tom, folding his arms 
 and sighing heavily. 
 
 " We'll never get another such a master," said Adolph, 
 apprehensively ; " but I'd rather be sold than take my chance 
 under missis." 
 
 Tom turned away ; his heart was full. The hope of liberty, 
 the thought of distant wife and children, rose up before his 
 patient soul, as to the mariner shipwrecked almost in port 
 rises the vision of the church-spire and loving roofs of his 
 native village, seen over the top of some black wave only for 
 one last farewell. He drew his arms tightly over his bosom, 
 and choked back the bitter tears, and tried to pray. The 
 poor old soul had such a singular, unaccountable prejudice 
 in favour of liberty, that it was a hard wrench for him ; 
 and the more he said " Thy will be done," the worse 
 he felt. 
 
 He sought Miss Ophelia who, ever since Eva's death, had 
 treated him with marked and respectful kindness. 
 
 " Miss Eeely," he said, " Mas'r St. Clare promised me my 
 freedom. He told me that he had begun to take it out for 
 me ; and now, perhaps, if Miss Feely would be good enough 
 to speak about it to missis, she would feel like goin' on with 
 it, as it was Mas'r St. Clare's wish." 
 
 " I'll speak for you, Tom, and do my best," said Miss 
 Ophelia ; " but if it depends on Mrs. St. Clare, I can't hope 
 much for you : nevertheless, I will try." 
 
 This incident occurred a few days after that of Rosa, 
 while Miss Ophelia was busied in preparations to return 
 north. 
 
 Seriously reflecting within herself, she considered that 
 perhaps she had shown too hasty a warmth of language in 
 her former interview with Marie ; and she resolved that she 
 would now endeavour to moderate her zeal, and to be as 
 conciliatory as possible. So the good soul gathered herself 
 up, and, taking her knitting, resolved to go into Marie's 
 
TOM'S DISAPPOINTMENT. 349 
 
 room, be as agreeable as possible, and negotiate Tom's case 
 with all the diplomatic skill of which she was mistress. 
 
 She found Marie reclining at length upon a lounge, 
 supporting herself on one elbow by pillows, while Jane, who 
 had been out shopping, was displajiing before her certain 
 samples of thin black stuffs. 
 
 " That will do," said Marie, selecting one ; " only I'm not 
 sure about its being properly mourning." 
 
 " Laws, missis," said Jane volubly, " Mrs. General 
 Derbennon wore just this very thing after the General died, 
 last summer ; it makes up lovely ! " 
 
 " What do you think ? " said Marie to Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " It's a matter of custom, I suppose," said Miss Ophelia. 
 " You can judge about it better than I." 
 
 " The fact is," said Marie, " that I haven't a dress in the 
 world that I can wear ; and, as I am goin^to break up the 
 establishment and go off next week, I must decide upon 
 something." 
 
 " Are you going so soon ? " 
 
 "Yes. St. Clare's brother has written, and he and the 
 lawyer think that the servants and furniture had better be 
 put up at auction, and the place left with our lawyer." 
 
 " There's one thing I wanted to speak with you about," 
 said Miss Ophelia. " Augustine promised Tom his liberty, 
 and began the legal forms necessary to it. I hope you will 
 use your influence to have it perfected." 
 
 " Indeed, I shall do no such thing ! " said Marie, sharply. 
 " Tom is one of the most valuable servants on the place ; it 
 couldn't be afforded any way. Besides, what does he want 
 of liberty ? He's a great deal better off as he is." 
 
 "But he does desire it very earnestly, and his master 
 promised it," said Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " I dare say he does want it," said Marie ; " they all want 
 it, just because they are a discontented set, always wanting 
 what they haven't got. Now I'm principled against emanci- 
 pating in any case. Keep a negro under the care of a master, 
 and he does well enough and is respectable ; but set them 
 free, and they get lazy and won't work, and take to drinking, 
 and go all down to be mean, worthless fellows. I've seen it 
 tried hundreds of times. It's no favour to set them free." 
 
 " But Tom is so steady, industrious, and pious." 
 
350 MES. ST. CLAEE'S DETEEMINATION. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't tell me ! I've seen a hundred like 
 him. He'll do very well as long as he's takea care of, 
 that's all." 
 
 "But then, consider," said Miss Ophelia, "when you set 
 him up for sale, the chances of his getting a bad master." 
 
 " Oh, that's all humbug ! " said Marie. " It isn't one 
 time in a hundred that a good fellow gets a bad master ; 
 most masters are good, for all the talk that is made. I've 
 lived and grown up here in the South, and I never yet was 
 acquainted with a master that didn't treat his servants well, 
 quite as well as is worth while. I don't feel any fears on 
 that head." 
 
 "Well," said Miss Ophelia, energetically. "I know it 
 was one of the last wishes of your husband, that Tom should 
 have his liberty ; it was one of the promises that he made to 
 dear little Eva gp. her death-bed, and I should not think you 
 would feel at liberty to disregard it." 
 
 Marie had her face covered with her handkerchief at this 
 appeal, and began sobbing and using her smelling-bottle with 
 great vehemence. 
 
 " Everybody goes against me," she said. "Everybody is 
 so inconsiderate ! I shouldn't have expected that you would 
 bring up all these remembrances of my troubles to me ; it's 
 so inconsiderate ! But nobody ever does consider my trials 
 are so peculiar ! It is so hard that, when I had only one 
 daughter, she should have been taken ! and when I had a 
 husband that just exactly suited me and I'm so hard to be 
 suited ! he should be taken ! And you seem to have so 
 little feeling for me, and keep bringing it up to me so care- 
 lessly when you know how it overcomes me ! I suppose 
 you mean well ; but it is very inconsiderate, very ! " And 
 Marie sobbed, and gasped for breath, and called Mammy to 
 open the window, and to bring her the camphor-bottle, and 
 to bathe her head and unhook her dress ; and, in the general 
 confusion that ensued, Miss Ophelia made her escape to her 
 apartment. 
 
 She saw at once that it would do no good to say anything 
 more, for Marie had an indefinite capacity for hysteric fits ; 
 and after this, whenever her husband's or Eva's wishes with 
 regard to the servants were alluded to, she always found it 
 convenient to set one in operation Miss Ophelia therefore 
 
THE SLAVE WABEHOUSE. 351 
 
 did the next best thing she could for Tom; she wrote a 
 letter to Mrs. Shelby for him, stating his troubles, and 
 urging them to send to his relief. 
 
 The next day, Tom and Adolph, and some half-dozen 
 other servants, were marched down to a slave-warehouse to 
 await the convenience of the trader, who was going to make 
 up a lot for auction. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXX. 
 
 THE SLAVE WAREHOUSE. 
 
 A SLAVE warehouse ! Perhaps some of my readers 
 conjure up horrible visions of such a place. They fancy 
 some foul, obscure den, some horrible Tartarus " informis, 
 ingens, cui lumen ademptum" But no, innocent friend! in 
 these days men have learned the art of sinning expertly and 
 genteelly, so as not to shock the eyes and senses of respect- 
 able society. Human property is high in the market ; and 
 is therefore well fed, well cleaned, tended and looked after, 
 that it may come to sale sleek, and strong, and shining. A 
 slave warehouse in New Orleans is a house externally not 
 much unlike many others, kept with neatness ; and where 
 every day you may see arranged, under a sort of shed along 
 the outside, rows of men and women, who stand there as a 
 sign of the property sold within. 
 
 Then you shall be courteously entreated to call and 
 examine, and shall find an abundance of husbands and 
 wives, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, and young children, 
 to be " sold separately or in lots, to suit the convenience of 
 the purchaser ; " and that soul immortal, once bought with 
 blood and anguish by the Son of God, when the earth shook, 
 and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, can be 
 sold, leased, mortgaged, exchanged for groceries or dry 
 goods, to suit the phases of trade or the fancy of the 
 purchaser. 
 
 It was a day or two after the conversation between Marie 
 and Miss Ophelia, that Tom, Adolph, and about half-a-dozen 
 
352 ME. SKEGGS. 
 
 others of the St. Clare estate, were turned over to the loving- 
 kindness of Mr. Skeggs, the keeper of a depot on street, 
 
 to await the auction, next day. 
 
 Tom had with him quite a sizable trunk full of clothing, as 
 had most others of them. They were ushered for the night 
 into a long room, where many other men of all ages, sizes, 
 and shades of complexion, were assembled, and from which 
 roars of laughter and unthinking merriment were pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 "Ah, ah! that's right. Go it, boys! go it!" said Mr. 
 Skeggs, the keeper. " My people are always so merry ; 
 Sambo, I see ! " he said, speaking approvingly to a burly 
 negro who was performing tricks of low buffoonery, which 
 occasioned the snouts which Tom had heard. 
 
 As might be imagined, Tom was in no humour to join 
 these proceedings ; and, therefore, setting his trunk as far as 
 possible from the noisy group, he sat down on it and leaned 
 his face against the wall. 
 
 The dealers in the human article make scrupulous and 
 systematic efforts to promote noisy mirth among them, as a 
 means of drowning reflection and rendering them insensible 
 to their condition. The whole object of the training to which 
 the negro is put, from the time he is sold in the northern 
 market till he arrives south, is systematically directed toward 
 making him callous, unthinking, and brutal. The slave-dealer 
 collects his gang in Virginia or Kentucky, and drives them 
 to some convenient, healthy place often a watering-place 
 to be fattened. Here they are fed full daily ; and, because 
 some are inclined to pine, a fiddle is kept commonly going 
 among them, and they are made to dance daily ; and he who 
 refuses to be merry in whose soul thoughts of wife, or 
 child, or home, are too strong for him to be gay is marked 
 as sullen and dangerous, and subjected to all the evils which 
 the ill-will of an utterly irresponsible and hardened man 
 can inflict upon him. Briskness, alertness, and cheerfulness 
 of appearance, especially before observers, are constantly 
 enforced upon them, both by the hope of thereby getting a 
 good master, and the fear of all that the driver may bring 
 upon them if they prove unsaleable. 
 
 "What dat ar nigger doin here?" said Sambo, coming 
 up to Tom, after Mr. Skeggs had left the room. Sambo was a 
 
PRIDE AND PUNISHMENT. 353 
 
 full black, of great size, very lively, voluble, and full of trick 
 and grimace. 
 
 " What you doin' here ? " said Sambo, coming up to Tom, 
 and poking him facetiously in the side. " Meditatin', eh ? " 
 
 " I am to be sold at the auction to-morrow ! " said Tom, 
 quietly. 
 
 "Sold at auction haw! haw! boys, an't this yer fun? 
 I wish't I was gwine that ar way ! tell ye, wouldn't I 
 make 'em laugh ? But how is it dis yer whole lot gwine 
 to-morrow ? " said Sambo, laying his hand freely on Adolph's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Please to let me alone! " said Adolph fiercely, straight- 
 ening himself up with extreme disgust. 
 
 " Law, now, boys ! dis yer's one o' yer white niggers 
 kind o' cream colour, ye know, scented ! " said he, coming up 
 to Adolph and snuffing. " O Lor ! he'd do for a tobaccer- 
 shop ; they could keep him to scent snuff ! Lor, he'd keep 
 a whole shop agwine he would ! " 
 
 " I say, keep off, can't you ! " said Adolph, enraged. 
 
 " Lor, now, how touchy we is we white niggers ! Look 
 at us, now ! " and Sambo gave a ludicrous imitation of 
 Adolph's manner ; " here's de airs and graces. We's been 
 in a good family, I 'spects." 
 
 " Yes," said Adolph ; " I had a master that could have 
 bought you all for old truck ! " 
 
 " Laws, now, only think," said Sambo, " the gentlemens 
 that we is ! " 
 
 " I belonged to the St. Clare family," said Adolph proudly. 
 
 " Lor, you did ! Be hanged if they ar'n't lucky to get 
 shet of ye. 'Spects they's gwine to trade ye off with a lot 
 o' cracked tea-pots and sich like ! " said Sambo, with a 
 provoking grin. 
 
 Adolph, enraged at this taunt, flew furiously at his 
 adversary, swearing and striking on every side of. him. The 
 rest laughed and shouted, and the uproar brought the keeper 
 to the door. 
 
 " What now, boys ? Order, order ! " he said, coming in 
 and flourishing a large whip. 
 
 All fled in different directions, except Sambo, who, 
 presuming on the favour which the keeper had to him as 
 a licensed wag, stood his ground, ducking his head 
 
354 THE FEMALE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 with a facetious grin whenever the master made a dive 
 at him. 
 
 " Lor, mas'r, 'tan't us we's reg'lar stiddy it's these yer 
 new hands ; they's real aggravatin' kinder pickin' at us, all 
 time ! " 
 
 The keeper at this turned upon Tom and Adolph, and 
 distributed a few kicks and cuffs without much inquiry, and, 
 leaving general orders for all to be good boys and go to 
 sleep, left the apartment. 
 
 While this scene was going on in the men's sleeping- 
 room, the reader may be curious to take a peep at the 
 corresponding apartment allotted to the women. Stretched 
 out in various attitudes over the floor, he may see numberless 
 sleeping forms of every shade of complexion, from the 
 purest ebony to white, and of all years, from childhood to 
 old age, lying now asleep. Here is a fine bright girl, of ten 
 years, whose mother was sold out yesterday, and who to-night 
 cried herself to sleep when nobody was looking at her. 
 Here, a worn old negress, whose thin arms and callous fingers 
 tell of hard toil, waiting to be sold to-morrow, as a cast-off 
 article, for what can be got for her ; and some forty or fifty 
 others, with heads variously enveloped in blankets or articles 
 of clothing, lie stretched around them. But, in a corner, 
 sitting apart from the rest, are two females of a more 
 interesting appearance than common. One of these is a 
 respectably-dressed mulatto woman between forty and fifty, 
 with soft eyes and a gentle and pleasing physiognomy. She 
 has on her head a high-raised turban, made of a gay red 
 Madras handkerchief, of the first quality, and her dress is 
 neatly fitted, and of good material, showing that she has 
 been provided for with a careful hand. By her side, and 
 nestling closely to her, is a young girl of fifteen her 
 daughter. She is a quadroon, as may be seen from her 
 fairer complexion, though her likeness to her mother is quite 
 discernible. She has the same soft dark eye, with longer 
 lashes, and her curling hair is of a luxuriant brown. She 
 also is dressed with great neatness, and her white, delicate 
 hands, betray very little acquaintance with servile toil. 
 These two are to be sold to-morrow, in the same lot with the 
 St. Clare servants ; and the gentleman to whom they belong, 
 and to whom the money for their sale is to be transmitted, 
 
SUSAN" AND EMMELINE. 355 
 
 is a member of a Christian church in New York, who will 
 receive the money, and go thereafter to the sacrament of his 
 Lord and theirs, and think no more of it. 
 
 These two, whom we shall call Susan and Emmeline, had 
 been the personal attendants of an amiable and pious lady 
 of New Orleans, by whom they had been carefully and 
 piously instructed and trained. They had been taught to 
 read and write, diligently instructed in the truths of 
 religion, and their lot had been as happy a one as in their 
 condition it was possible to be. But the only son of their 
 protectress had the management of her property ; and, by 
 carelessness and extravagance, involved it to a large amount, 
 and at last failed. One of the largest creditors was the 
 respectable firm of B. and Co., in New York. B. and Co. 
 wrote to their lawyer in New Orleans, who attached the 
 real estate (these two articles and a lot of plantation hands 
 formed the most valuable part of it), and wrote word to that 
 effect to New York. Brother B. being, as we have said, a 
 Christian man, and a resident in a free State, felt some 
 uneasiness on the subject. He didn't like trading in slaves 
 and souls of men of course he didn't; but then there 
 were thirty thousand dollars in the case, and that was 
 rather too much money to be lost for a principle ; and so, 
 after much considering, and asking advice from those that 
 he knew would advise to suit him, Brother B. wrote to his 
 lawyer to dispose of the business in the way that seemed to 
 him the most suitable, and remit the proceeds. 
 
 The day after the letter arrived in New Orleans, Susan 
 and Emmeline were attached, and sent to the depot to await 
 a general auction on the following morning ; and as they 
 glimmer faintly upon us in the moonlight which steals 
 through the grated window, we may listen to their conversa- 
 tion. Both are weeping, but each quietly, that the other 
 may not hear. 
 
 " Mother, just lay your head on my lap, and see if you 
 can't sleep a tittle," says the girl, trying to appear calm. 
 
 " I haven't any heart to sleep, Em ! I can't. It's the 
 last night we may be together ! " 
 
 " O, mother, don't say so ! Perhaps we shall get sold 
 together who knows ? " 
 
 " If 'twas anybody's else case, I should say so too, Em," 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 THE MOTHERS ADYICE. 
 
 said the woman ; " but I'm so 'feared of losin' you that I 
 don't see anything but the danger." 
 
 " "Why, mother ? The man said we were both likely, and 
 would sell well." 
 
 Susan remembered the man's looks and words. With a 
 deadly sickness at her heart, she remembered how he had 
 looked at Emmeline's hands, and lifted up her curly hair, 
 and pronounced her a first-rate article. Susan had been 
 trained as a Christian, brought up in the daily reading of 
 the Bible, and had the same horror of her child's being 
 sold to a life of shame that any other Christian mother 
 might have ; but she had no hope no protection. 
 
 " Mother, I think we might do first-rate, if you could get 
 a place as cook, and I as chambermaid, or seamstress, in 
 some family. I dare say we shall. Let's both look as bright 
 and lively as we can, and tell all we can do, and perhaps we 
 shall," said Emmeline. 
 
 " I want you to brush your hair all back straight to- 
 morrow," said Susan. 
 
 " What for, mother ? I don't look near so well that 
 way." 
 
 " Yes ; but you'll sell better so." 
 
 " I don't see why," said the child. 
 
 " Respectable families would be more apt to buy you if 
 they saw you looked plain and decent, as if you wasn't trying 
 to look handsome. I know their ways better'n you do," 
 said Susan. 
 
 " Well, mother, then I will." 
 
 " And, Emmeline, if we shouldn't ever see each other 
 again after to-morrow if I'm sold way up on a plantation 
 somewhere, and you somewhere else always remember 
 how you've been brought up, and all missis has told 
 you. Take your Bible with you, and your hymn-book ; 
 and if you're faithful to the Lord, he'll be faithful to 
 you." 
 
 So speaks the poor soul in sore discouragement ; for she 
 knows that to-morrow any man, however vile and brutal, 
 however godless and merciless, if he only has money to pay 
 for her, may become owner of her daughter, body and soul ; 
 and then how is the child to be faithful ? She thinks of all 
 this as she holds her daughter in her arms, and wishes that 
 
RELIGIOUS CONSOLATION. 357 
 
 she were not so handsome and attractive. It seems almost 
 an aggravation to her to remember how purely and piously, 
 how much above the ordinary lot she has been brought 
 up. But she has no resort but to pray ; and many such 
 prayers to Grod have gone up from those same trim, neatly- 
 arranged, respectable slave-prisons prayers which God has 
 not forgotten, as coming day shall show ; for it is written, 
 " "Whoso causeth one of these little ones to offend, it 
 were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about 
 his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of 
 the sea." 
 
 The soft, earnest, quiet moonbeam looks in fixedly, 
 marking the bars of the grated windows on the prostrate, 
 sleeping forms. The mother and daughter are singing 
 together a wild and melancholy dirge, common as a funeral 
 hymn among the slaves, 
 
 " Oh, where is weeping Mary ? 
 Oh, where is weeping Mary 1 
 
 'Rived in the goodly land. 
 She is dead, and gone to heaven ; 
 She is dead, and gone to heaven ; 
 
 'Rived in the goodly land. 
 
 These words, sung by voices of a peculiar and melancholy 
 sweetness, in an air which seemed like the sighing of earthly 
 despair after heavenly hope, floated through the dark prison- 
 rooms with a pathetic cadence, as verse after verse was 
 breathed out, 
 
 " Oh, where are Paul and Silas ? 
 Oh, where are Paul and Silas ? 
 
 Gone to the goodly land. 
 They are dead and gone to heaven ; 
 They are dead and gone to heaven ; 
 
 'Rived in the goodly land." 
 
 Sing on, poor souls ! The night is short, and the morning 
 will part you for ever ! 
 
 But now it is morning, and everything is astir, and the 
 worthy Mr. Skeggs is busy and bright, for a lot of goods is 
 to be fitted out for auction. There is a brisk look-out on 
 the toilet ; injunctions passed around to every one to put on 
 their best face and be spry ; and now all are arranged in a 
 
358 THE SALE. 
 
 circle for a last review, before they are marched up to the 
 Bourse. 
 
 Mr. Skeggs, with his palmetto on, and his cigar in 
 his mouth, walks around to put farewell touches on his 
 wares. 
 
 " How's this ? " he said, stepping in front of Susan and 
 Emmeline. " Where's your curls, gal ?" 
 
 The girl looked timidly at her mother, who, with the 
 smooth adroitness common among her class, answers, 
 
 " I was telling her last night to put up her hair smooth 
 and neat, and not havin' it flying about in curls looks more 
 respectable so!" 
 
 "Bother!" said the man, peremptorily, turning to the 
 girl. " You go right along, and curl yourself real smart!" 
 he added, giving a crack to a rattan he held in his hand ; 
 "and be back in quick time, too! You go and help her," 
 he added to the mother. " Them curls may make a hundred 
 
 dollars' difference in the sale of her." 
 
 ***** 
 
 Beneath a splendid dome were men of all nations, moving 
 to and fro over the marble pave. On every side of the 
 circular were little tribunes, or stations, for the use of 
 speakers and auctioneers. Two of these, on opposite sides 
 of the area, were now occupied by brilliant and talented 
 gentlemen, enthusiastically forcing up, in English and 
 Prench commingled, the bids of connoisseurs in their various 
 wares. A third one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was 
 surrounded by a group waiting the moment of sale to begin. 
 And here we may recognise the St. Clare servants, Tom, 
 Adolph, and others ; and there, too, Susan and Emmeline, 
 awaiting their turn, with anxious and dejected faces. Various 
 spectators, intending to purchase, or not to purchase, as the 
 case might be, gathered around the group, handling, exa- 
 mining, and commenting on their various points and faces, 
 with the same freedom that a set of jockeys discuss the 
 merits of a horse. 
 
 "Holloa, Alf! what brings you here?" said a young 
 exquisite, slapping the shoulder of a sprucely dressed young 
 man, who was examining Adolph through an eye-glass. 
 
 " Well, I was wanting a valet, and I heard that St. Clare's 
 lot was going. I thought I'd just look at his " 
 
CHOICE OP A MASTEB. 359 
 
 " Catch me ever buying any of St. Clare's people ! Spoilt 
 niggers, every one! Impudent as the devil!" said the 
 other. 
 
 "Never fear that!" said the first. "If I get 'em, I'll 
 soon have their airs out of them ; they'll soon find that 
 they've another kind of master to deal with than Monsieur 
 St. Clare. Ton my word, I'll buy that fellow. I like the 
 shape of him." 
 
 " You'll find it'll take all you've got to keep him. He's 
 deucedly extravagant !" 
 
 " Yes, but my lord will find that he can't be extravagant 
 with me. Just let him be sent to the calaboose a few 
 times, and thoroughly dressed down ! I'll tell you if it 
 don't bring him to a sense of his ways ! Oh, I'll reform 
 him, up hill and down you'll see! I buy him, that's 
 flat!" 
 
 Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude 
 of faces thronging around him for one whom he would wish 
 to call master; and if you should ever be under the 
 necessity, sir, of selecting out of two hundred men one who 
 was to become your absolute owner and disposer, you would 
 perhaps realise, just as Tom did, how few there were that 
 you would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. 
 Tom saw abundance of men, great, burly, gruff men ; 
 little, chirping, dried men ; long-favoured, lank, hard men ; 
 and every variety of stubbed-looking, common-place 
 men, who pick up their fellow-men as one picks up chips, 
 putting them into the fire or a basket with equal un- 
 concern, according to their convenience ; but he saw no 
 St. Clare. 
 
 A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, mus- 
 cular man, in a checked shirt considerably open at the bosom, 
 and pantaloons much the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed 
 his way through the crowd, like one who is going actively 
 into a business ; and, coming up to the group, began to exa- 
 mine them systematically. From the moment that Tom saw 
 him. approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror 
 at him, that increased as he came near. He was evidently, 
 though short, of gigantic strength. His round, bullet head, 
 large, light-grey eyes, with their shaggy, sandy eye-brows, 
 and stiff, wiry, sun-burnt air, were rather unprepossessing 
 
360 TOM PUT UP TO AUCTION. 
 
 items, it is to be confessed ; his large, coarse mouth, was 
 distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time 
 to time, he ejected from him with great decision and 
 explosive force ; his hands were immensely large, hairy, sun- 
 burnt, freckled, and very dirty, and garnished with long 
 nails, in a very foul condition. This man proceeded to a 
 very free personal examination of the lot. He seized Tom 
 by the jaw, and pulled open his mouth to inspect his teeth ; 
 made him strip up his sleeve, to show his muscle ; turned 
 him round, made him jump and spring, to show his paces. 
 
 " "Where was you raised ? " he added briefly to these 
 investigations. 
 
 " In Kintuck, mas'r," said Tom, looking about as if for 
 deliverance. 
 
 " What have you done ? " 
 
 " Had care of mas'r' s farm," said Tom. 
 
 " Likely story ! " said the other shortly, as he passed on. 
 He paused a moment before Dolph ; then spitting a discharge 
 of tobacco-juice on his well-blacked boots, and giving a con- 
 temptuous umph, he walked on. Again he stopped before 
 Susan and Emmeline. He put out his heavy, dirty hand, 
 and drew the girl towards him ; passed it over her neck and 
 bust, felt her arms, looked at her teeth, and then pushed 
 her back against her mother, whose patient face showed the 
 suffering she had been going through at every motion of the 
 hideous stranger. 
 
 The girl was frightened, and began to cry. 
 
 " Stop that, you minx ! " said the salesman ; " no whim- 
 pering here, the sale is going to begin." And accordingly 
 the sale begun. 
 
 Adolph was knocked off at a good sum, to the young 
 gentleman who had previously stated his intention of buying 
 him ; and the other servants of the St. Clare lot went to 
 various bidders. 
 
 " Now, up with you, boy ! d'ye hear ? " said the auctioneer 
 to Tom. 
 
 Tom stepped upon the block, gave a few anxious looks 
 round ; all seejned mingled in a common, indistinct noise 
 the clatter of the salesman crying off his qualifications in 
 French and English, the quick fire of .French and English 
 bids j and almost in a moment came the final thump of the 
 
8EPAEATION OF MOTHEE AND DAUGHTEB. 361 
 
 hammer, and the clear ring on the last syllable of the word 
 " dollars" as the auctioneer announced his price, and Tom 
 was made over. He had a master ! 
 
 He was pushed from the block ; the short, bullet-headed 
 man, seizing him roughly by the shoulder, pushed him to 
 one side, saying, in a harsh voice, " Stand there, you ! " 
 
 Tom hardly realised anything ; but still the bidding went 
 on rattling, clattering, now lYench, now English. Down 
 goes the hammer again, Susan is sold. She goes down 
 from the block, stops, looks wistfully back ; her daughter 
 stretches her hands towards her. She looks with agony in 
 the face of the man who has bought her a respectable 
 middle-aged man, of benevolent countenance. 
 
 " mas'r, please do buy my daughter ! " 
 
 "I'd like to, but I'm afraid I can't afford it," said the 
 gentleman, looking with painful interest as the young girl 
 mounted the block, and looked around her with a frightened 
 and timid glance. 
 
 The blood flushes painfully in her otherwise colourless 
 cheek, her eyes have a feverish fire, and her mother groans to 
 see that she looks more beautiful than she ever saw her 
 before. The auctioneer sees his advantage, and expatiates 
 volubly in mingled French and English, and bids rise in 
 rapid succession. 
 
 " I'll do anything in reason," said the benevolent-looking 
 gentleman, pressing in, and joining with the bids. In a few 
 moments they have run beyond his purse. He is silent ; 
 the auctioneer grows warmer ; but bids gradually drop off. 
 It lies now between an aristocratic old citizen and our bullet- 
 headed acquaintance. The citizen bids for a few turns, con- 
 temptuously measuring his opponent ; but the bullet-head 
 has the advantage over him, both in obstinacy and concealed 
 length of purse, and the controversy lasts but a moment ; 
 the hammer falls he has got the girl, body and soul, unless 
 God help her ! 
 
 Her master is Mr. Legree who owns a cotton plantation 
 on the Red River. She is pushed along in the same lot 
 with Tom and two other men, and goes off, weeping as she 
 goes. 
 
 The benevolent gentleman is sorry ; but then the thing 
 happens every day ! One sees girls and mothers crying at 
 
362 THE MIDDLE PASSAGE. 
 
 these sales always ! it can't be helped, &c. ; and he walks 
 off with his acquisition in another direction. 
 
 Two days after the lawyer of the Christian firm of B. and 
 Co., New York, sent on their money to them. On the 
 reverse of that draft, so obtained, let them write these words 
 of the great Paymaster, to whom they shall make up their 
 account in a future day : " When he malceth inquisition for 
 blood, heforgetteth not the cry of the humble ! " 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI. 
 
 THE MIDDLE PASSAGE. 
 
 " Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look 
 upon iniquity : wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacher- 
 ously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that 
 is more righteous than he ?" Hob. i. 13. 
 
 ON the lower part of a small mean boat, on the Red Biver, 
 Tom sat chains on his wrists, chains on his feet, and a 
 weight heavier than chains lay on his heart. All had faded 
 from his sky moon and star; all had passed by him, as 
 the trees and banks were now passing, to return no more. 
 Kentucky home, with wife and children, and indulgent 
 owners ; St. Clare home, with all its refinements and splen- 
 dours ; the golden head of Eva, with its saint-like eyes ; the 
 proud, gay, handsome, seeming careless, yet ever-kind St. 
 Clare ; hours of ease and indulgent leisure all gone ! and 
 in place thereof, what remains ? 
 
 It is one of the bitterest apportionments of a lot of 
 slavery, that the negro, sympathetic and assimilative, after 
 acquiring, in a refined family, the tastes and feelings which 
 form the atmosphere of such a place, is not the less liable to 
 become the bond-slave of the coarsest and most brutal just 
 as a chair or table, which once decorated the superb saloon, 
 comes, at last, battered and defaced, to the bar-room of some 
 filthy tavern, or some low haunt of vulgar debauchery. The 
 great difference is, that the table and chair cannot feel, and 
 the man can ; for even a legal enactment that he shall be 
 
ME. SIMON LEG REE. 363 
 
 " taken, reputed, adjudged in law, to be a chattel personal," 
 cannot blot out his soul, with its own private little world of 
 memories, hopes, loves, fears, and desires. 
 
 Mr. Simon Legree, Tom's master, had purchased slaves at 
 one place and another, in New Orleans, to the number of 
 eight, and driven them, handcuffed, in couples of two and two, 
 down to the good steamer Pirate, which lay at the levee, ready 
 for a trip up the E/ed River. 
 
 Having got them fairly on board, and the boat being off, 
 be came round, with that air of efficiency which ever charac- 
 terised him, to take a review of them. Stopping opposite to 
 Tom, who had been attired for sale in his best broadcloth 
 suit, with well-starched linen and shining boots, he briefly 
 expressed himself as follows : 
 
 " Stand up." 
 
 Tom stood up. 
 
 " Take off that stock ! " and as Tom, encumbered by his 
 fetters, proceeded to do it, he assisted him, by pulling it, with 
 no gentle hand, from his neck, and putting it in his pocket. 
 
 Legree now turned to Tom's trunk, which, previous to 
 this, he had been ransacking, and, taking from it a pair of old 
 pantaloons and a dilapidated coat, which Tom had been wont 
 to put on about his stable-work, he said, liberating Tom's 
 hands from the handcuffs, and pointing to a recess in among 
 the boxes 
 
 : ' You go there, and put these on." 
 
 Tom obeyed, and in a few moments returned. 
 
 " Take off your boots," said Mr. Legree. 
 
 Tom did so. 
 
 " There," said the former, throwing him a pair of coarse, 
 stout shoes, such as were common among the slaves, " put 
 these on." 
 
 In Tom's hurried exchange he had not forgotten to transfer 
 his cherished Bible to his pocket. It was well he did so ; for 
 Mr. Legree, having refitted Tom's handcuffs, proceeded de- 
 liberately to investigate the contents of his pockets. He 
 drew out a silk handkerchief, and put it into his own pocket. 
 Several little trifles, which Tom had treasured, chiefly 
 because they had amused Eva, he looked upon with a con- 
 temptuous grunt, and tossed them over his shoulder into 
 the river. 
 
364 ME. LEGEEE'S CHABACTEB. 
 
 Tom's Methodist hymn-book, which, in his hurry, he had 
 forgotten, he now held up and turned over, 
 
 " Humph ! pious, to be sure. So, what's yer name ? you 
 belong to the Church, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, mas'r," said Tom, firmly. 
 
 " Well, I'll soon have that out of you. I have none o' 
 yer bawling, praying, singing niggers on my place; so 
 remember. Now, mind yourself," he said, with a stamp 
 and a fierce glance of his grey eye, directed at Tom, " Tm 
 your Church now ! Tou understand you've got to be as 
 /say." 
 
 Something within the silent black man answered No I and, 
 as if repeated by an invisible voice, came the words of an old 
 prophetic scroll, as Eva had often read them to him " Fear 
 not ; for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by my 
 name. Thou art MINE ! " 
 
 But Simon Legree heard no voice. That voice is one he 
 never shall hear. He only glared for a moment on the down- 
 cast face of Tom, and walked off. He took Tom's trunk, 
 which contained a very neat and abundant wardrobe, to the 
 forecastle, where it was soon surrounded by various hands of 
 the boat. With much laughing, at the expense of niggers 
 who tried to be gentlemen, the articles very readily were sold 
 to one another, and the empty trunk finally put up at auction. 
 It was a good joke, they all thought, especially to see how Tom 
 looked after his things, as they were going this way and that ; 
 and then the auction of the trunk, that was funnier than all, 
 and occasioned abundant witticisms. 
 
 This little affair being over, Simon sauntered up again to 
 his property. 
 
 " Now, Tom, I've relieved you of any extra baggage, you 
 see. Take mighty good care of them clothes. It'll be long 
 enough before you get more. I go in for making niggers 
 careful ; one suit has to do for one year, on my place." 
 
 Simon next walked up to the place where Emmeline was 
 sitting, chained to another woman. 
 
 " Well, my dear," he said, chucking her under the chin, 
 " keep up your spirits." 
 
 The involuntary look of horror, fright, and aversion with 
 which the girl regarded him, did not escape his eye. He 
 frowned fiercely. 
 
BETJTE FOBCE. 365 
 
 " None o' your shines, gal ! * Ton's got to keep a pleasant 
 face when I speak to ye d'ye hear ? And you, you old 
 yellow poco moonshine ! " he said, giving a shove to the 
 mulatto woman to whom Emmeline was chained, " don't 
 you carry that sort of face ! You's got to look chipper, I 
 tell yer r 
 
 " I say, all on ye," he said, retreating a pace or two back, 
 " look at me look at me look me right in the eye straight, 
 now ! " said he, stamping his foot at every pause. 
 
 As, by a fascination, every eye was now directed to the 
 glaring, greenish-grey eye of Simon. 
 
 "Now," said he, doubling his great, heavy fist into 
 something resembling a blacksmith's hammer, "d'ye see 
 this fist ? Heft it ! " he said, bringing it down on Tom's 
 hand. " Look at these yer bones ! Well, I tell ye this yer 
 fist has got as hard as iron knocking down niggers. I never 
 see the nigger yet I couldn't bring down with one crack," 
 said he, bringing his fist down so near to the face of Tom 
 that he winked and drew back. " I don't keep none o' yer 
 cussed overseers ; I does my own overseering ; and I tell 
 you things is seen to. Tou's every one on ye got to toe 
 the mark, I tell ye ; quick straight the moment I speak. 
 That's the way to keep in with me. You won't find no soft 
 spot in me, nowhere. So, now, mind yourselves ; for I don't 
 snow no mercy ! " 
 
 The women involuntarily drew in their breath, and the 
 whole gang sat with downcast, dejected faces. Meanwhile, 
 Simon turned on his heel, and marched up to the bar of the 
 boat for a dram. 
 
 " That's the way I begin with my niggers," he said to a 
 gentlemanly man who had stood by him during his speech. 
 " It's my system to begin strong just let'm know what to 
 expect." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the stranger, looking upon him with 
 the curiosity of a naturalist studying some out-of-the-way 
 specimen. 
 
 "Yes, indeed. I'm none o' yer gentlemen planters, with 
 lily fingers, to slop round and be cheated by some old cuss 
 of an overseer ! Just feel of my knuckles, now ; look at my 
 fist. Tell ye, sir, the flesh on't has come jest like a stone, 
 practising on niggers feel on it." 
 
366 A HABD HAND AND A HARD HE AST. 
 
 The stranger applied his fingers to the implement in 
 question, and simply said 
 
 " "Pis hard enough ; and I suppose," he added, " practice 
 has made your heart just like it." 
 
 "Why, yes, I may say so," said Simon, with a hearty 
 laugh. " I reckon ther's as little soft in me as in any one 
 going. Tell you, nobody comes it over me ! Niggers never 
 gets round me, neither with squalling nor soft soap that's 
 a fact!" 
 
 " You have a fine lot there." 
 
 " Eeal," said Simon. " There's that Tom, they tell'd me 
 he was suthin' uncommon. I paid a little high for him, 
 tending him for a driver and a managing chap ; only get the 
 notions out that he's larn't by bein' treated as niggers never 
 ought to be, he'll do prime ! The yellow woman I got took 
 in in. I rayther think she's sickly, but I shall put her 
 through for what she's worth. She may last a year or two. 
 I don't go for savin' niggers. Use up and buy more's ray 
 way ; makes you less trouble, and I'm quite sure it comes 
 cheaper in the end; " and Simon sipped his glass. 
 
 "And how long do they generally last?" said the 
 stranger. 
 
 " "Well, donno ; 'cordin' as their constitution is. Stout 
 fellers last six or seven years ; trashy ones gets worked up 
 in two or three. I used to, when I fust begun, have con- 
 siderable trouble fussin' with 'em and 'trying to make 'em 
 hold out doctorin' on 'em up when they's sick, and givin' 
 on 'em clothes and blankets, and what not, tryin' to keep 
 'em all sort o' decent and comfortable. Law, 'twasn't no 
 sort o' use ; I lost money on 'em, and 'twas heaps o' trouble. 
 Now, you see, I just put 'em straight through, sick or well. 
 "When one nigger's dead, I buy another ; and I find it comes 
 cheaper and easier, every way." 
 
 The stranger turned away, and seated himself beside a 
 gentleman who had been listening to the conversation with 
 repressed uneasiness. 
 
 " You must not take that fellow to be any specimen of 
 Southern planters," said he. 
 
 " I should hope not," said the young gentleman, with 
 emphasis. 
 
 " He is a mean, low, brutal fellow," said the other. 
 
EMMELINE AND THE MULATTO WOMAN. 367 
 
 " And yet your laws allow him to hold any number of 
 human beings subject to his absolute will, without even a 
 shadow of protection; and, low as he is, you cannot say 
 there are not many such." 
 
 " Well," said the other, " there are also many considerate 
 and humane men among planters." 
 
 " Granted," said the young man ; " but, in my opinion it 
 is you considerate, humane men, that are responsible for 
 all the brutality and outrage wrought by these wretches; 
 because if it were not for your sanction and influence, the 
 whole system could not keep foot-hold for an hour. If 
 there were no planters except such as that one," said he, 
 pointing with his finger to Legree, who stood with his back 
 to them, " the whole thing would go down like a millstone. 
 It is your respectability and humanity that licenses and pro- 
 tects his brutality." 
 
 " You certainly have a high opinion of my good nature," 
 said the planter, smiling ; " but I advise you not to talk 
 quite so loud, as there are people on board the boat who 
 might not be quite so tolerant to opinion as I am. You had 
 better wait till I get up to my plantation, and there you 
 may abuse us all, quite at your leisure." 
 
 The young gentleman coloured and smiled, and the 
 two were soon busy in a game of backgammon. Mean- 
 while, another conversation was going on in the lower 
 part of the boat, between Emmeline and the mulatto 
 woman with whom she was confined. As was natural, 
 they were exchanging with each other some particulars of 
 their history. 
 
 " Who did you belong to ? " said Emineline. 
 
 " Well, my mas'r was Mr. Ellis lived on Levee-street. 
 P'raps you've seen the house ?" 
 
 " Was he good to youj" said Emmeline. 
 
 " Mostly, till he tuk sick. He's lain sick, off and on, 
 more than six months, and been orful oneasy. 'Pears like 
 he warnt williii' to have nobody rest, day nor night ; and 
 got so curous, there couldn't nobody suit him. 'Pears like 
 he just grew crosser every day; kept me up nights till I 
 got fairly beat out, and couldn't keep awake no longer ; 
 and cause I got to sleep one night, Lors, he talk so orful to 
 me, and he tell me he'd sell me to just the hardest master 
 
RELIGIOUS TBTTST. 
 
 he could find ; and he'd promised me my freedom, too, when 
 he died." 
 
 " Had you any friends ? " said Emmeline. 
 
 "Yes, my husband; he's a blacksmith. Mas'r gen'ly 
 hired him out. They took me off" so quick, I didn't even 
 have time to see him ; and I's got four children. Oh, dear 
 me ! " said the woman, covering her face with her hands* 
 
 It is a natural impulse in every one when they hear 
 a tale of distress, to think of something to say by way of 
 consolation. Emmeline wanted to say something, but she 
 could not think of anything to say. What was there to be 
 said ? As by a common consent, they both avoided, with 
 fear and dread, all mention of the horrible man who was 
 now their master. 
 
 True, there is religious trust for even the darkest hour. 
 The mulatto woman was a member of the Methodist church, 
 and had an unenlightened but very sincere spirit of piety. 
 Emmeline had been educated much more intelligently 
 taught to read and write, and diligently instructed in the 
 Bible, by the care of a faithful and pious mistress ; yet, 
 would it not try the faith of the firmest Christian, to find 
 themseves abandoned apparently of God, in the grasp of 
 ruthless violence ? How much more must it shake the 
 faith of Christ's poor little ones, weak in knowledge and 
 tender in years ! 
 
 The boat moved on freighted with its weight of sorrow 
 up the red, muddy, turbid current, through the abrupt, 
 tortuous windings of the Eed Eiver ; and sad eyes gazed 
 wearily on the steep red-clay banks, as they glided by in 
 dreary sameness. At last the boat stopped at a small town, 
 and Legree with his party disembarked. 
 
DAEK PLACES. 369 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXII. 
 
 DARK PLACES. 
 " The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." 
 
 wearily behind a rude waggon, and over a ruder 
 road, Tom and his associates faced onward. 
 
 In the waggon was seated Simon Legree; and the two 
 women, still fettered together, were stowed away with some 
 baggage in the back part of it, and the whole company were 
 seeking Legree' s plantation, which lay a good distance off. 
 
 It was a wild, forsaken road, now winding through dreary 
 pine barrens, where the wind whispered mournfully, and 
 now over long causeways, through long cypress swamps, the 
 doleful trees rising out of the slimy, spongy ground, hung 
 with long wreaths of funereal black moss, while ever and 
 anon the loathsome form of the moccasin snake might be 
 seen sliding among broken stumps and shattered branches 
 that lay here and there, rotting in the water. 
 
 It is disconsolate enough, this riding, to the stranger, who, 
 with well-filled pocket and well-appointed horse, threads the 
 lonely way on some errand of business ; but wilder, drearier, 
 to the man enthralled, whom every weary step bears further 
 from all that man loves and prays for. 
 
 So one should have thought that witnessed the sunken 
 and dejected expression on those dark faces; the wistful, 
 patient weariness, with which those sad eyes rested on object 
 after object that passed them in their sad journey. 
 
 Simon rode on, however, apparently w r ell pleased, occa- 
 sionally pulling away at a flask of spirit, which he kept in 
 his pocket. 
 
 "I say yow/" he said, as he turned back and caught a 
 glance at the dispirited faces behind him; " strike up a song, 
 boys come!" 
 
 The men looked at each other, and the "come" was 
 
 B B 
 
370 MUSIC THE LANGUAGE OF DESPAIE. 
 
 repeated, with a smart crack of the whip which the driver 
 carried in his hands. Tom began a Methodist hymn 
 
 " Jerusalem, my happy home, 
 
 Name ever dear to me ! 
 When shall my sorrows have an end ? 
 Thy joys, when shall" 
 
 "Shut up, you black cuss!" roared Legree; "did ye 
 think I wanted any o' yer infernal old Methodism ? I say, 
 tune up, now, something real rowdy quick !" 
 
 One of the other men struck up one of those unmeaning 
 songs common among the slaves 
 
 " Mas'r seed me cotch a coon, 
 
 High, boys, high ! 
 
 He laugh'd to split d'ye see the moon ? 
 Ho ! ho ! ho ! boys, ho ! 
 Ho ! yo ! hi e ! oh ! " 
 
 The singer appeared to make up the song to his own 
 pleasure, generally hitting on rhyme, without much attempt 
 at reason ; and all the party took up the chorus at intervals 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! ho ! boys, ho ! 
 High e oh ! high e oh ! " 
 
 It was sung very boisterously, and with a forced attempt 
 at merriment ; but no wail of despair, no words of im- 
 passioned prayer, could have had such a depth of woe in 
 them as the wild notes of the chorus. As if the poor, dumb 
 heart, threatened prisoned took refuge in that inarticulate 
 sanctuary of music, and found there a language in which to 
 breathe its prayer to Glod ! There was a prayer in it which 
 Simon could not hear. He only heard the boys singing 
 noisily, and was well pleased ; he was making them " keep 
 up their spirits." 
 
 " Well, my little dear," said he, turning to Emmeline, and 
 laying his hand on her shoulder, "we're almost home !" 
 
 When Legree scolded and stormed, Emmeline was terri- 
 fied ; but when he laid his hand on her, and spoke as he 
 now did, she felt as if she had rather he would strike her. 
 The expression of his eyes made her soul sick, and her flesh 
 
LEGREE'S EESIDENCE. 871 
 
 creep. Involuntarily she clung closer to the mulatto woman 
 by her side, as if she were her mother. 
 
 " You didn't ever wear ear-rings," he said, taking hold of 
 her small ear with his coarse fingers. 
 
 " No, mas'r ! " said Emmeline, trembling and looking 
 down. 
 
 " Well, I'll give you a pair when we get home, if you're a 
 good girl. You needn't be so frightened ; I don't mean to 
 make you work very hard. You'll have fine times with me, 
 and live like a lady only be a good girl." 
 
 Legree had been drinking to that degree that he was in- 
 clining to be very gracious ; and it was about this time that 
 the inclosures of the plantation rose to view. The estate had 
 formerly belonged to a gentleman of opulence and taste, who 
 had bestowed some considerable attention to the adornment 
 oF his grounds. Having died insolvent,it had been purchased, 
 at a bargain, by Legree, who used it, as he did everything 
 else, merely as an implement for money-making. The place 
 had that ragged, forlorn appearance, which is always produced 
 by the evidence that the care of the former owner has been 
 left to go to utter decay. 
 
 What was once a smooth-shaven lawn before the house, 
 dotted here and there with ornamental shrubs, was now 
 covered with frowsy tangled grass, with horse-posts set up 
 here and there in it where the turf was stamped away, and 
 the ground littered with broken pails, cobs of corn, and other 
 slovenly remains. Here and there a mildewed jessamine or 
 honeysuckle hung raggedly from some ornamental support, 
 which had been pushed to one side by being used as a horse- 
 post. What once was a large garden was now all grown 
 over with weeds, through which, here and there, some soli- 
 tary exotic reared its forsaken head. What had been a con- 
 servatory had now no window-sashes, and on the mouldering 
 shelves stood some dry, forsaken flower-pots, with sticks in 
 them, whose dried leaves showed they had once been plants. 
 The waggon rolled up a weedy gravel- walk, under a noble 
 avenue of China trees, whose graceful forms and ever-spring- 
 ing foliage seemed to be the only things there that neglect 
 could not daunt or alter like noble spirits, so deeply rooted 
 in goodness as to flourish and grow stronger amid discou- 
 ragement and decay. 
 
372 THE SLAVE IS ALWAYS A TYEANT. 
 
 The house had been large and handsome. It was built in 
 a manner common at the South ; a wide verandah of two 
 stories running round every part of the house, into which 
 every outer door opened, the lower tier being supported by 
 brick pillars. 
 
 But the place looked desolate and uncomfortable ; some 
 windows stopped up with boards, some with shattered panes, 
 and shutters hanging by a single hinge all telling of coarse 
 neglect and discomfort. 
 
 Bits of board, straw, old decayed barrels and boxes, gar- 
 nished the ground in all directions ; and three or four fero- 
 cious looking dogs, roused by the sound of the waggon- 
 wheels, came tearing out, and were with difficulty restrained 
 from laying hold of Tom and his companions, by the efforts 
 of the ragged servants who came after them. 
 
 " Ye see what ye'd get ! " said Legree, caressing the dogs 
 with grim satisfaction, and turning to Tom and his com- 
 panions ; " Ye see what ye'd get if ye try to run off. These 
 yer dogs has been raised to track niggers ; and they'd jest as 
 soon chaw one on ye up as eat their supper. So, mind yer- 
 self ! How now, Sambo ! " he said to a ragged fellow, 
 without any brim to his hat, who was officious in his atten- 
 tions. " How have things been going ? " 
 
 " Fust rate, mas'r." 
 
 " Quimbo," said Legree to another, who was making 
 zealous demonstrations to attract his attention, " ye minded 
 what I telled ye ? " 
 
 " Guess I did, didn't I ? " 
 
 These two coloured men were the two principal hands on 
 the plantation. Legree had trained them in savageness and 
 brutality as systematically as he had his bull-dogs ; and, by 
 long practice in hardness and cruelty, brought their whole 
 nature to about the same range of capacities. It is a com- 
 mon remark, and one that is thought to militate strongly 
 against the character of the race, that the negro overseer is 
 always more tyrannical and cruel than the white one. This 
 is simply saying that the negro mind has been more crushed 
 and debased than the white. It is no more true of this race 
 than of every oppressed race, the world over. The slave is 
 always a tyrant, if he can get a chance to be one. 
 
 Legree, like some potentates we read of in history, 
 
SAMBO AND QUIMBO. 373 
 
 governed his plantation by a sort of resolution of forces. 
 Sambo and Quimbo cordially hated each other ; the planta- 
 tion hands, one and all, cordially hated them ; and by play- 
 ing off one against another he was pretty sure, through ono 
 or the other of the three parties, to get informed of whatever 
 was on foot in the place. 
 
 Nobody can live entirely without social intercourse ; and 
 Legree encouraged his two black satellites to a kind of 
 coarse familiarity with him a familiarity, however, at any 
 moment liable to get one or the other of them into trouble ; 
 for, on the slightest provocation, one of them always stood 
 ready at a nod to be a minister of his vengeance on the 
 other. 
 
 As they stood there now by Legree, they seemed an apt 
 illustration of the fact that brutal men are lower even than 
 animals. Their coarse, dark, heavy features; their great 
 eyes, rolling enviously on each other; their barbarous, 
 guttural, half-brute intonation; their dilapidated garments 
 fluttering in the wind were all in admirable keeping with 
 the vile and unwholesome character of everything about the 
 place. 
 
 " Here, you Sambo," said Legree, " take these yer boys 
 down to the quarters; and here's a gal I've got foryow," said 
 he, as he separated the mulatto woman from Emmeline and 
 pushed her towards him. " I promised to bring you one, 
 you know." 
 
 The woman gave a sudden start, and, drawing back, said 
 suddenly 
 
 " O mas'r ! I left my old man in New Orleans." 
 
 " What of that, you ! won't you want one here ? 
 
 None o' your words go 'long ! " said Legree, raising his 
 whip. 
 
 " Come, mistress," he said to Emmeline, " you go in here 
 with me." 
 
 A dark, wild face was seen, for a moment, to glance at the 
 window of the house ; and, as Legree opened the door, a 
 female voice said something in a quick imperative tone. 
 Tom, who was looking with anxious interest after Emmeline, 
 as she went in, noticed this, and heard Legree answer 
 angrily, " You may hold your tongue ! I'll do as I please, 
 for all you ! " 
 
374 DBOP BY DEOP. 
 
 Tom heard no more ; for lie was soon following Sambo to 
 the quarters. The quarters was a little sort of street of rude 
 shanties, in a row, in a part of the plantation far off from 
 the house. They had a forlorn, brutal, forsaken air. Tom's 
 heart sank when he saw them. He had been comforting 
 himself with the thought of a cottage, rude, indeed, but one 
 which he might make neat and quiet, and where he might 
 have a shelf for his Bible, and a place to be alone out of his 
 labouring hours. He looked into several ; they were mere 
 rude shells, destitute of any species of furniture, except a 
 heap of straw foul with dirt, spread confusedly over the 
 floor, which was merely the bare ground, trodden hard by the 
 tramping of innumerable feet. 
 
 "Which of these will be mine?" said he to Sambo, 
 submissively. 
 
 " Dunno ; ken turn in here, I s'pose," said Sambo; " 'spect 
 thar's room for another thar; thar's a pretty smart heap o' 
 niggers to each on 'em now; sure I dunno what I's to do 
 with more." 
 
 ****** 
 
 It was late in the evening when the weary occupants of 
 the shanties came flocking home men and women, in soiled 
 and tattered garments, surly and uncomfortable, and in no 
 mood to look pleasantly on new-comers. The small village 
 was alive with no inviting sounds ; hoarse, guttural voices 
 contending at the hand-mills where their morsel of hard corn 
 was yet to be ground into meal, to fit it for the cake that was 
 to constitute their only supper. From the earliest dawn of 
 the day they had been in the fields, pressed to work under 
 the driving lash of the overseers ; for it was now in the very 
 heat and hurry of the season, and no means were left untried 
 to press every one up to the top of their capabilities. 
 "True," says the negligent lounger, "picking cotton isn't 
 hard work." Isn't it ? And it isn't much inconvenience, 
 either, to have one drop of water fall on your head ; yet the 
 worst torture of the Inquisition is produced by drop after 
 drop, drop after drop, falling moment after moment, with 
 monotonous succession, on the same spot ; and work in itself 
 not hard becomes so by being pressed, hour after hour, with 
 unvarying, unrelenting sameness, with not even the con- 
 sciousness of free-will to take from its tediousness. Tom 
 
KINDNESS BEGETS KINDNESS. 375 
 
 looked in vain among the gang, as they poured along, for 
 companionable faces. He saw only sullen, scowling, em- 
 bruted men, and feeble, discouraged women, or women that 
 were not women the strong pushing away the weak the 
 gross, unrestricted animal selfishness of human beings, of 
 whom nothing good was expected and desired ; and who, 
 treated in every way like brutes, had sunk as nearly to 
 their level as it was possible for human beings to do. To a 
 late hour in the night the sound of the grinding was pro- 
 tracted ; for the mills were few in number compared with the 
 grinders, and the weary and feeble ones were driven back 
 by the strong, and came on last in their turn. 
 
 " Ho yo ! " said Sambo, coming to the mulatto woman, 
 and throwing down a bag of corn before her, " what a cuss 
 yo name ? " 
 
 " Lucy," said the woman. 
 
 " Wai, Lucy, yo my woman now. To grind dis yer corn, 
 and get my supper baked, ye har P " 
 
 " I an't your woman, and I won't be ! " said the woman, 
 with the sharp sudden courage of despair ; " you go 'long !" 
 
 " I'll kick yo, then ! " said Sambo, raising his foot 
 threateningly. 
 
 " Te may kill me, if ye choose the sooner the better 
 "Wish't I was dead ! " said she. 
 
 " I say, Sambo, you go to spilin' the hands, I'll tell mas'r 
 o' you," said Quimbo, who was busy at the mill, from which 
 he had viciously driven two or three tired women, who were 
 waiting to grind their corn. 
 
 " And I'll tell him ye won't let the women come to the 
 mills, yo old nigger ! " said Sambo. " Yo jes keep to yo own 
 row." 
 
 Tom was hungry with his day's journey, and almost faint 
 for want of food. 
 
 " Thar, yo ! " said Quimbo, throwing down a coarse bag, 
 which contained a peck of corn ; " thar, nigger, grab take 
 car on't, yo won't get no more dis yer week." 
 
 Tom waited till a late hour to get a place at the mills ; 
 and then, moved by the utter weariness of two women, 
 whom he saw trying to grind their corn there, he ground 
 for them, put together the decaying brands of the fire, 
 where many had baked cakes before them, and then went 
 
376 WHEBE IS THE LOED ? 
 
 about getting his own supper. It was a new kind of work 
 there a deed of charity, small as it was ; but it woke an 
 answering touch in their hearts an expression of womanly 
 kindness came over their hard faces. They mixed his cake 
 for him, and tended its baking ; and Tom sat down by the 
 light of the fire, and drew out his Bible for he had need of 
 comfort. 
 
 " What's that ? " said one of the women. 
 
 "A Bible," said Tom. 
 
 " Good Lord ! han't seen un since I was in Kentuck." 
 
 " Was you raised in Kentuck ? " said Tom, with 
 interest. 
 
 " Yes, and well raised, too ; never 'spected to come to dis 
 yer! " said the woman, sighing. 
 
 " What's dat ar book, any way ? " said the other woman. 
 
 "Why, the Bible." 
 
 " Laws a me, what's dat ? " said the woman. 
 
 " Do tell ! you never heam on't ? " said the other woman. 
 " I used to har missis a readin' on't, sometimes, in Kentuck; 
 but, laws o' me ! we don't har nothin' here but crackin' and 
 swarin'." 
 
 " Read apiece, anyways!" said the first woman, curiously, 
 seeing Tom attentively poring over it. 
 
 Tom read, " Come unto ME, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 "Them's good words enough," said the woman; "who 
 says 'em?" 
 
 The Lord," said Tom. 
 
 "I jest wish I know'd whar to find Him," said the 
 woman ; " I would go. 'Pears like I never should get 
 rested agin. My flesh is fairly sore, and I tremble all over, 
 every day, and Sambo's allers a jawin' at me, 'cause I doesn't 
 pick faster ; and nights it's most midnight 'fore I can get 
 my supper ; and then 'pears like I don't turn over and shut 
 my eyes 'fore I hear de horn blow to get up, and at it agin 
 in de mornin'. If I knew whar de Lord was, I'd tell him." 
 
 " He's here, he's everywhere," said Tom. 
 
 " Lor ! you an't gwine to make me believe dat ar ! I 
 know de Lord an't here," said the woman ; " 'tan't no use 
 talking, though. I's jest gwine to camp down, and sleep 
 while I ken." 
 
TOM DREAMS OP LITTLE ETA. 377 
 
 The women went off to their cabins, and Tom sat alone 
 by the smouldering fire, that nickered up redly in his face. 
 
 The silver, fair-browed moon rose in the purple sky, and 
 looked down, calm and silent, as God looks on the scene of 
 misery and oppression looked calmly on the lone black 
 man, as he sat with his arms folded, and his Bible on his 
 knee. 
 
 " Is God here ?" Ah! how is it possible for the untaught 
 heart to keep its faith, unswerving, in the face of dire mis- 
 rule, and palpable, unrebuked injustice ? In that simple 
 heart waged a fierce conflict : the crushing sense of wrong, 
 the foreshadowding of a whole life of future misery, the wreck 
 of all past hopes, mournfully tossing in the soul's sight, like 
 dead corpses of wife, and child, and friend, rising from the 
 dark wave, and surging in the face of the half-drowned 
 mariner ! Ah, was it easy here to believe and hold fast the 
 great pass-word of Christian faith, that " God is, and is the 
 EE WARDER of them that diligently seek Him ? " 
 
 Tom rose, disconsolate, and stumbled into the cabin that 
 had been allotted to him. The floor was already strewn 
 with weary sleepers, and the foul air of the place almost 
 repelled him ; but the heavy night dews were chill and hia 
 limbs weary, and wrapping about him a tattered blanket, 
 which formed his only bed-clothing, he stretched himself in 
 the straw, and fell asleep. 
 
 In dreams, a gentle voice came over his ear ; he waa 
 sitting on the mossy seat in the garden by Lake Pontchar- 
 train, and Eva, with her serious eyes bent downward, was 
 reading to him from the Bible ; and he heard her read : 
 
 " When thou passest through the waters, I will be with 
 thee ; and the rivers, they shall not overflow thee ; when 
 thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, 
 neither shall the flame kindle upon thee : for I am the Lord 
 thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." 
 
 Gradually the words seemed to melt and fade, as in a 
 divine music ; the child raised her deep eyes, and fixed them 
 lovingly on him, and rays of warmth and comfort seemed to 
 go from them to his heart ; and, as if wafted on the music, 
 she seemed to rise on shining wings, from which flakes and 
 spangles of gold fell off like stars, and she was gone. 
 
 Tom woke. Was it a dream ? Let it pass for one. But 
 
378 CASSY. 
 
 who shall say that that sweet young spirit, which in life so 
 yearned to comfort and console the distressed, was forbidden 
 of Grod to assume this ministry after death ? 
 
 " It is a beautiful belief, 
 
 That ever round our head 
 
 Are hovering, on angel wings, 
 
 The spirits of the dead." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIII. 
 
 CASSY. 
 
 "And behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no 
 comforter ; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but 
 they had no comforter." Ecd. iv. 1. 
 
 IT took but a short time to familiarise Tom with all that 
 was to be hoped or feared in his new way of life. He was 
 an expert and efficient workman in whatever he undertook ; 
 and was, both from habit and principle, prompt and faithful. 
 Quiet and peaceable in his disposition, he hoped, by unremit- 
 ting diligence, to avert from himself at least a portion of the 
 evils of his condition. He saw enough of abuse and misery 
 to make him sick and weary ; but he determined to toil on 
 with religious patience, committing himself to Him that 
 judgeth righteously, not without hope that some way of 
 escape might yet be opened to him. 
 
 Legree took silent note of Tom's availability. He rated 
 him as a first-class hand ; and yet he felt a secret dislike to 
 him the native antipathy of bad to good. He saw plainly 
 that when, as was often the case, his violence and brutality 
 fell on the helpless, Tom took notice of it ; for, so subtle is 
 the atmosphere of opinion, that it will make itself felt with- 
 out words, and the opinion even of a slave may annoy a 
 master. Tom in various ways manifested a tenderness of 
 feeling, a commiseration for his fellow- sufferers, strange and 
 new to them, which was watched with a jealous eye by 
 Legree. He had purchased Tom with a view of eventually 
 making him a sort of overseer, with whom he might at timea 
 
FIGGEB JEALOUSIES. 379 
 
 intrust his affairs in short absences ; and, in his view, the 
 first, second, and third requisite for that place was hardness. 
 Legree made up his mind that, as Tom was not hard to his 
 hand, he would harden him forthwith ; and some few weeks 
 after Tom had been on the place he determined to commence 
 the process. 
 
 One morning, when the hands were mustered for the 
 field, Tom noticed with surprise a new-comer among them, 
 whose appearance excited his attention. It was a woman, 
 tall and slenderly formed, with remarkably delicate hands 
 and feet, and dressed in neat and respectable garments. 
 By the appearance of her face, she might have been between 
 thirty-five and forty ; and it was a face that, once seen, 
 could never be forgotten one of those that at a glance 
 seem to convey to us an idea of a wild, painful, and romantic 
 history. Her forehead was high, and her eyebrows marked 
 with beautiful clearness. Her straight, well-formed nose, 
 her finely-cut mouth, and the graceful contour of her head 
 and neck, showed that she must once have been beautiful ; 
 but her face was deeply wrinkled with lines of pain, and of 
 proud and bitter endurance. Her complexion was sallow 
 and unhealthy, her cheeks thin, her features sharp, and hep 
 whole form emaciated. But her eye was the most remark- 
 able feature so large, so heavily black, overshadowed by 
 long lashes of equal darkness, and so wildly, mournfully 
 despairing. There was a fierce pride and defiance in every 
 line of her face, in every curve of the flexible lip, in every 
 motion of her body ; but in her eye was a deep, settled 
 night of anguish an expression so hopeless and unchanging 
 as to contrast fearfully with the scorn and pride expressed 
 by her whole demeanour. 
 
 Where she came from, or who she was, Tom did not know. 
 The first he did know, she was walking by his side, erect and 
 proud, in the dim grey of the dawn. To the gang, however, 
 she was known : for there was much looking and turning of 
 heads, and a smothered yet apparent exultation among the 
 miserable, ragged, half-starved creatures by whom she was 
 surrounded. 
 
 " Grot to come to it at last grad of it ! " said one. 
 
 " He ! he ! he ! " said another ; " you will know how good 
 it is, misse!" 
 
380 WORKING IN THE FIELD. 
 
 "We'll see her work!" 
 
 " "Wonder if she'll get a cutting up, at night, like the rest 
 of us!" 
 
 " I'd be glad to see her down for a flogging, I'll bound ! " 
 said another. 
 
 The woman took no notice of these taunts, but walked on 
 with the same expression of angry scorn, as if she heard 
 nothing. Tom had always lived among refined and culti- 
 vated people, and he felt intuitively, from her air and 
 bearing, that she belonged to that class ; but how or why 
 she could be fallen to those degrading circumstances he 
 could not tell. The woman neither looked at him nor spoke 
 to him, though, all the way to the field, she kept close at 
 his side. 
 
 Tom was soon busy at his work ; but, as the woman was 
 at no great distance from him, he often glanced an eye to 
 her, at her work. He saw at a glance that her native 
 adroitness and handiness made the task to her an easier one 
 than it proved to many. She picked very fast and very 
 clean, and with an air of scorn, as if she despised both the 
 work and the disgrace and humiliation of the circumstances 
 in which she was placed. 
 
 In the course of the day, Tom was working near the 
 mulatto woman who had been bought in the same lot with 
 himself. She was evidently in a condition of great suffering, 
 and 'Tom often heard her praying, as she wavered and 
 trembled, and seemed about to fall down. Tom silently, as 
 he came near to her, transferred several handfuls of cotton 
 from his own sack to hers, 
 
 "Oh, don't, don't!" said the woman, looking surprised; 
 " it'll get you into trouble." 
 
 Just then Sambo came up. He seemed to have a special 
 spite against this woman ; and, flourishing his whip, said, in 
 brutal, guttural tones, " What dis yer, Luce foolin' a' ? " 
 and, with the word, kicking the woman with his heavy 
 cow-hide shoe, he struck Tom across the face with his 
 whip. 
 
 Tom silently resumed his task ; but the woman, before 
 at the last point of exhaustion, fainted. 
 
 " I'll bring her to ! " said the driver, with a brutal grin. 
 " I'll give her something better than camphire ! " and, 
 
"THE LOBD NEVER YISITS THESE PARTS." 381 
 
 taking a pin from his coat-sleeve, lie buried it to the head 
 in her flesh. The woman groaned, and half rose. " G-et 
 up, you beast, and work, will yer, or I'll show yer a trick 
 more!" 
 
 The woman seemed stimulated, for a few moments, to an 
 unnatural strength, and worked with desperate eagerness. 
 
 " See that you keep to dat ar," said the man, "or yer'll 
 wish yer's dead to-night, I reckin ! " 
 
 " That I do now ! " Tom heard her say ; and again he 
 heard her say, " O Lord, how long ? O Lord, why don't 
 you help us ? " 
 
 At the risk of all that he might suffer, Tom came 
 forward again, and put all the cotton in his sack into the 
 woman's. 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't! you donno what they'll do to ye!" 
 said the woman. 
 
 " I can bar it," said Tom, " better'n you ; " and he was at 
 his place again. It passed in a moment. 
 
 Suddenly the stranger woman whom we have described, 
 and who had, in the course of her work, come near enough 
 to hear Tom's last words, raised her heavy black eyes, arid 
 fixed them for a second on him ; then, taking a quantity of 
 cotton from her basket, she placed it in his. 
 
 " You know nothing about this place," she said, " or you 
 wouldn't have done that. "When you've been here a month, 
 you'll be done helping anybody ; you'll find it hard enough 
 to take care of your own skin." 
 
 " The Lord forbid, missis ! " said Tom, using instinctively 
 to his field companion the respectful form proper to the 
 high-bred with whom he had lived. 
 
 "The Lord never visits these parts," said the woman, 
 bitterly, as she went nimbly forward with her work ; and 
 again the scornful smile curled her lips. 
 
 But the action of the woman had been seen by the driver 
 across the field ; and, flourishing his whip he came up to 
 her. 
 
 " What ! what ! " he said to the woman with an air of 
 triumph, " YOU a foolin' ? Go along ! yer under me now 
 mind yourself, or yer'll cotch it ! " 
 
 A glance like sheet-lightning suddenly flashed from those 
 black eyes ; and, facing about, with quivering lip and dilated 
 
382 "BEEAK HIM IN." 
 
 nostrils, she drew herself up, and fixed a glance, blazing 
 with rage and scorn, on the driver. 
 
 " Dog ! " she said, " touch me, if you dare 1 I've power 
 enough yet to have you torn by the dogs, burnt alive, cut to 
 inches ! I've only to say the word ! " 
 
 " What de devil you here for, den ? " said the man, 
 evidently cowed, and sullenly retreating a step or two. 
 "Didn't mean no harm, Misse Cassy ! " 
 
 " Keep your distance, then ! " said the woman. And, 
 in truth, the man seemed greatly inclined to attend to some- 
 thing at the other end of the field, and started off in quick 
 time. 
 
 The woman suddenly turned to her work, and laboured 
 with a despatch that was perfectly astonishing to Tom. She 
 seemed to work by magic. Before the day was through, her 
 basket was filled, crowded down, and piled, and she had 
 several times put largely into Tom's. Long after dusk, the 
 whole weary train, with their baskets on their heads, defiled 
 up to the building appropriated to the storing and weighing 
 the cotton. Legree was there, busily conversing with the 
 two drivers. 
 
 "Dat ar Tom's gwine to make a powerful deal o' trouble; 
 kept a puttin' into Lucy's basket. One o' these yer dat 
 will get all der niggers to feelin' 'bused, if mas'r don't watch 
 him ! " said Sambo. 
 
 "Hey-dey! The black cuss !" said Legree. " He'll have 
 to get a breakin' in won't he, boys ? " 
 
 Both negroes grinned a horrid grin at this intimation. 
 
 " Ay, ay ! let Mas'r Legree alone for breakin' in ! De 
 debil heself couldn't beat mas'r at dat ! " said Quirnbo. 
 
 " "Wai, boys, the best way is to give him the flogging to 
 do till he gets over his notions. Break him in ! " 
 
 " Lord, mas'r '11 have hard work to get dat out o' him ! " 
 
 " It'll have to come out of him though ! " said Legree, as 
 he rolled his tobacco in his mouth. 
 
 " Now, dars Lucy de aggravatinest, ugliest wench on de 
 place ! " pursued Sambo. 
 
 " Take care, Sam ; I shall begin to think what's the reason 
 for your spite agin Lucy." 
 
 " Well, mas'r knows she sot herself up agin mas'r, and 
 wouldn't have me when he telTd her to." 
 
TD.E WEiaillNG-EOOM. 383 
 
 " I'd a flogged her into't," said Legree, spitting ; " only- 
 there' s such a press o' work, it don't seem wuth a while to 
 upset her jist now. She's slender; but these yer slender 
 gals will bear half killin' to get their own way ! " 
 
 " Wai, Lucy was real aggravatin' and lazy, sulkin' round; 
 wouldn't do nothin' and Torn he tuck up for her." 
 
 " He did, eh ? Wai, then, Tom shall have the pleasure 
 of flogging her. It'll be a good practice for him, and he 
 won't put it on to the gal like you devils, neither." 
 
 " Ho, ho ! haw ! haw ! haw ! " laughed both the sooty 
 wretches ; and the diabolical sounds seemed, in truth, a not 
 unapt expression of the fiendish character which Legree 
 gave them. 
 
 " Wai, but, mas'r, Tom and Misse Gassy, and dey among 
 'em, filled Lucy's basket. I ruther guess der weight's in it, 
 mas'r." 
 
 " I do the weighing ! ' ' said Legree, emphatically. 
 
 Both the drivers again laughed their diabolical laugh. 
 
 " So ! " he added, " Misse Gassy did her day's work." 
 
 " She picks like de debil and all his angels ! " 
 
 '* She's got 'em all in her, I believe ! " said Legree ; and 
 growling a brutal oath, he proceeded to the weighing- 
 room. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Slowly the weary, dispirited creatures wound their way 
 into the room, and, with crouching reluctance, presented 
 their baskets to be weiglaed. 
 
 Legree noted on a slate, on the side of which was pasted 
 a list of names, the amount. 
 
 Tom's basket was weighed and approved ; and he looked 
 with an anxious glance for the success of the woman he had 
 befriended. 
 
 Tottering with weakness, she came forward, and delivered 
 her basket. It was of full weight, as Legree well perceived ; 
 but, affecting anger, he said : 
 
 " What, you lazy beast ! short again ! Stand aside, you'll 
 catch it, pretty soon ! " 
 
 The woman gave a groan of utter despair, and sat down 
 on a board. 
 
 The person who had been called Misse Gassy now came 
 forward, and, with a haughty, negligent air, delivered her 
 
884 TOM'S HEROISM. 
 
 basket. As she delivered it, Legree looked in her eyes with 
 a sneering yet inquiring glance. 
 
 She fixed her black eyes steadily on him, her lips moved 
 slightly, and she said something in French. "What it was, 
 no one knew ; but Legree' s face became perfectly demoniacal 
 in its expression as she spoke ; he half raised his hand, as if 
 to strike a gesture which she regarded with fierce disdain, 
 as she turned and walked away. 
 
 "And now," said Legree, "come here, you Tom. You 
 see, I telled ye I didn't buy ye jest for the common work. 
 I mean to promote ye, and make a driver of ye : and 
 to-night ye may jest as well begin to get yer hand in. Now, 
 ye jest take this yer gal and flog her ; ye've seen enough 
 on't to know how." 
 
 "Ibegmas'r's pardon," said Tom; "hope's mas'r won't 
 set me at that. It's what I an't used to never did and 
 can't do, no way possible." 
 
 " Ye'H lam a pretty smart chance of things ye never did 
 know, before I've done with ye ! " said Legree, taking up a 
 cow-hide, and striking Tom a heavy blow across the cheek, 
 and following up the infliction by a shower of blows. 
 
 " There ; " he said, as he stopped to rest ; " now will ye 
 tell me ye can't do it ? " 
 
 " Yes, mas'r," said Tom putting up his hand, to wipe the 
 blood that trickled down his face. " I'm willin' to work, 
 night and day, and work while there's life and breath in me ; 
 but this yer thing I can't feel it right to do ; and, mas'r, I 
 never shall do it never ! " 
 
 Tom had a remarkably smooth, soft voice, and an habitu- 
 ally respectful manner, that had given Legree an idea that 
 he would be cowardly, and easily subdued. When he spoke 
 these last words, a thrill of amazement went through every 
 one ; the poor woman clasped her hands, and said, " O 
 Lord!" and every one involuntarily looked at each other 
 and drew in their breath, as if to prepare for the storm that 
 was about to burst. 
 
 Legree looked stupefied and confounded; but at last 
 burst forth, 
 
 " What ! ye blasted black beast ! tell me ye don't think it 
 right to do what I tell ye ! What have any of you cussed 
 cattle to do with thinking what's right ? I'll put a stop to it ! 
 
A SAINT AMONG SINNEBS. 385 
 
 Why, what do ye think ye are ? Maybe ye think ye'r a gen- 
 tleman, master Tom, to be telling your master what's right, 
 and what an't ! So you pretend it's wrong to flog the gal ? " 
 
 " I think so, mas'r," said Tom. " The poor crittur's sick 
 and feeble ; 'twould be downright cruel, and it's what I 
 never will do, nor begin to. Mas'r, if you mean to kill me, 
 kill me ; but, as to my raising my hand agin any one here, I 
 never shall I'll die first ! " 
 
 Tom spoke in a mild voice, but with a decision that could 
 not be mistaken. Legree shook with anger ; his greenish 
 eyes glared fiercely, and his very whiskers seemed to curl 
 with passion ; but like some ferocious beast, that plays with 
 its victim before he devours it, he kept back his strong 
 impulse to proceed to immediate violence, and broke out 
 into bitter raillery. 
 
 " Well, here's a pious dog, at last let down among us 
 sinners ! a saint, a gentleman, and no less, to talk to us 
 sinners about our sins ; Powerful holy critter he must be ! 
 Here, you rascal, you make believe to be so pious didn't 
 you never hear, out of yer Bible, ' Servants, obey your 
 masters ? ' An't I your master ? Didn't I pay down twelve 
 hundred dollars, cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed 
 black shell ? An't yer mine, now, body and soul ? " he said, 
 giving Tom a violent kick with his heavy boot ! " tell me ! " 
 
 In the very depth of physical suffering, bowed by brutal 
 oppression, this question shot a gleam of joy and triumph 
 through Tom's soul. He suddenly stretched himself up, and 
 looking earnestly to heaven, while the tears and blood that 
 flowed down his face mingled, he exclaimed, 
 
 " No, no, no ! my soul an't yours, mas'r ! You haven't 
 bought it ye can't buy it ! It has been bought and paid 
 for by One that's able to keep it. No matter, no matter, 
 you can't harm me ! " 
 
 " I can't ! " said Legree, with a sneer ; " we'll see we'll ' 
 see ! Here, Sambo ! Quimbo ! give this dog such a breakin' 
 in as he won't get over this month! " 
 
 The two gigantic negroes that now laid hold of Tom, with 
 fiendish exultation in their faces, might have formed no 
 unapt personification of powers of darkness. The poor woman 
 screamed with apprehension, and all rose, as by a general 
 impulse, while they dragged him unresisting from the place. 
 
 o o 
 
THE QUADEOON'S STOEY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIV. 
 
 " And behold the tears of such as were oppressed ; and on the side 
 of their oppressors there was power. Wherefore I praised the dead 
 that are already dead more than the living which are yet alive." 
 Ecd. iv. 1, 2. 
 
 IT was late at night, and Tom lay groaning and bleeding 
 alone, in an old forsaken room of the gin-house, among 
 pieces of broken machinery, piles of damaged cotton, and 
 other rubbish which had there accumulated. 
 
 The night was damp and close, and the thick air swarmed 
 with myriads of mosquitos, which increased the restless 
 torture of his wounds ; whilst a burning thirst a torture 
 beyond all others filled up the uttermost measure of 
 physical anguish. 
 
 " good Lord ! Do look down give me the victory ! 
 give me the victory over all!" prayed poor Tom, in his 
 anguish. 
 
 A footstep entered the room behind him, and the light of 
 a lantern flashed on his eyes. 
 
 " Who's there ? Oh, for the Lord's massy, please give 
 me some water ! " 
 
 The woman Gassy for it was she set down her lantern, 
 and, pouring water from a bottle, raised his head, and gave 
 him drink. Another and another cup were drained, with 
 feverish eagerness. 
 
 " Drink all ye want," she said ; " I knew how it would be. 
 It isn't the first time I've been out in the night, carrying 
 water to such as you." 
 
 "Thank you, Missis," said Tom, when he had done 
 drinking. 
 
 " Don't call me missis ! I'm a miserable slave like your- 
 self a lower one than you can ever be ! " said she bitterly. 
 " But now," said she, going to the door ? and dragging in'a 
 
MISSE GASSY' s CHAEITT. 387 
 
 small palliasse, over which she had spread linen cloths wet 
 with cold water, " try, my poor fellow, to roll yourself on to 
 this." 
 
 Stiff with wounds and bruises, Tom was a long time in 
 accomplishing this movement; but when done, he felt a 
 sensible relief from the cooling application to his wounds. 
 
 The woman, whom long practice with the victims of bru- 
 tality had made familiar with many healing arts, went on to 
 make many applications to Tom's wounds, by means of 
 which he was soon somewhat relieved. 
 
 " Now," said the woman, when she had raised his head on 
 a roll of damaged cotton, which served for a pillow, " there's 
 the best I can do for you." 
 
 Tom thanked her ; and the woman, sitting down on the 
 floor, drew up her knees, and embracing them with her arms, 
 looked fixedly before her, with a bitter and painful expres- 
 sion of countenance. Her bonnet fell back, and long wavy 
 streams of black hair fell around her singular and melancholy 
 face. 
 
 " It's no use, my poor fellow," she broke out, at last, "it's 
 of no use, this you've been trying to do. You were a brave 
 fellow you had the right on your side ; but it's all in vain, 
 and out of the question, for you to struggle. You are in the 
 devil's hands ; he is the strongest, and you must give up." 
 
 Give up ! and had not human weakness and physical 
 agony whispered that before ? Tom started ; for the bitter 
 woman, with her wild eyes and melancholv voice, seemed to 
 him an embodiment of the temptation with which he had 
 been wrestling. 
 
 " O Lord ! O Lord ! " he groaned, " how can I give up ? " 
 
 "There's no use calling on the Lord he never hears," 
 said the woman, steadily. " There isn't any God, I believe ; 
 or, if there is, he's taken sides against us. All goes against 
 us, heaven and earth. Everything is pushing us into hell. 
 "Why shouldn't we go?" 
 
 Tom closed his eyes, and shuddered at the dark, atheistic 
 words. 
 
 " You see," said the woman, " you don't know anything 
 about it I do. I've been on this place five years, body and 
 soul, under this man's foot, and I hate him as I do the devil ! 
 Here you are, on a lone plantation, ten miles from any other, 
 
 co 2 
 
888 WRONG WITHOUT EEMEDY. 
 
 in the swamps ; not a white person here who could testify if 
 you were burned alive if you were scalded, cut into inch- 
 pieces, set up for the dogs to tear, or hung up and wm'pped 
 to death. There's no law here, of God or man, that can do 
 you or any one of us the least good ; and this man ! there's 
 no earthly thing that he's too good to do. I could make 
 any one's hair rise, and their teeth chatter, if I should only 
 tell what I've seen and been knowing to here, and it's no 
 use resisting ! Did I want to live with him ? Wasn't I a 
 woman delicately bred ? and he God in heaven ! what was 
 he, and is he ? And yet I've lived with him these five years, 
 and cursed every moment of my life night and day ! And 
 now he's got a new one a young thing, only fifteen ; and 
 she brought up, she says, piously. Her good mistress 
 taught her to read the Bible, and she's brought her Bible 
 here to hell with her ! " And the woman laughed a wild 
 and doleful laugh, that rang with a strange supernatural 
 sound through the old ruined shed. 
 
 Tom folded his hands ; all was darkness and horror. 
 
 " O Jesus ! Lord Jesus ! have you quite forgot us poor 
 critturs ? " burst forth, at last. " Help, Lord, I perish ! " 
 
 The woman sternly continued : 
 
 " And what are these miserable low dogs you work with, 
 that you should suifer on their account ? Every one of 
 them would turn against you the first time they got a chance. 
 They are all of 'em as low and cruel to each other as they 
 can be ; and there's no use in your suffering to keep from 
 hurting them." 
 
 "Poor critturs!" said Tom, "what made 'em cruel? 
 And if I give out, I shall get used to't, and grow, little by 
 little, just like 'em ! No, no, missis ! I've lost everything 
 wife, and children, and home, and a kind mas'r and he 
 would have set me free, if he'd only lived a week longer. 
 I've lost everything in this world, and it's clean gone for 
 ever and now I can't lose heaven, too j no, I can't get to 
 be wicked, besides all ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Tom ; "but that won't keep us from growing 
 wicked. If I get to be as hard-hearted as that ar Sambo, 
 
CASSY BEADS A PASSAGE I2T THE BIBLE. 389 
 
 and as wicked, it won't make much odds to me how I come 
 .so ; it's the bein? so that ar's what I'm a dreadin'." 
 
 The woman fixed a wild and startled look on Tom, as if 
 a new thought had struck her ; and then, heavily groaning, 
 said 
 
 " God a' mercy ! you speak the truth ! Oh oh oh ! " 
 And, with groans, she fell on the floor, like one crushed and 
 writhing under the extremity of mental anguish. 
 
 There was a silence awhile, in which the breathing of both 
 parties could be heard, when Tom faintly said, " Oh, please, 
 missis!" 
 
 The woman suddenly rose up, with her face composed to 
 its usual stern, melancholy expression. 
 
 "Please, missis, I saw 'em throw my coat in that ar' 
 corner, and in my coat-pocket is my Bible if missis would 
 please get it for me." 
 
 Cassy went and got it. Tom opened at once to a heavily- 
 marked passage, much worn, of the last scenes in the life of 
 Him by whose stripes we are healed. 
 
 " If missis would only be so good as read that ar' it's 
 better than water." 
 
 Cassy took the book, with a dry, proud air, and looked 
 over the passage. She then read aloud, in a soft voice, and 
 with a beauty of intonation that'^as peculiar, that touching 
 account of anguish and of glory.. . Often, as she read, her 
 voice faltered, and sometimes failed her altogether, when 
 she would stop, with an air of friglcTSom^esure, till she had 
 mastered herself. "When she came to the touching words, 
 " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," 
 she threw down the book, and, burying her face in the heavy 
 masses of her hair, she sobbed aloud, with a convulsive 
 violence. 
 
 Tom was weeping also, and occasionally uttering a 
 smothered ejaculation. 
 
 " If we only could keep up to that ar' ! " said Tom " it 
 seemed to come so natural to him, and we have to fight so 
 hard for't ! Lord, help us ! blessed Lord Jesus, do 
 help us!" 
 
 " Missis," said Tom, after a while, " I can see that some- 
 how you're quite 'bove me in everything ; but there's one 
 thing missis might learn even from poor Tom. Ye said the 
 
390 
 
 Lord took sides against us, because he lets us be 'bused and 
 knocked round ; but ye see what come on his own Son the 
 blessed Lord of Grlory. "Wa'n't he al'ays poor ? and have we, 
 any on us, yet come so low as he come ? The Lord han't 
 forgot us I'm sartin, o' that ar'. If we suffer with Him, we 
 shall also reign, Scripture says ; but if we deny Him, He also 
 will deny us. Didn't they all suffer the Lord and all His ? 
 It tells how they were stoned and sawn asunder, and 
 wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, and was desti- 
 tute, afflicted, tormented. Sufferin' an't no reason to make 
 us think the Lord's turned agin us ; but jest the contrary, 
 if we only hold on to him, and doesn't give up to sin." 
 
 " But why does He put us where we can't help but sin ? " 
 said the woman. 
 
 " I think we can help it," said Tom. 
 
 " You'll see," said Gassy. " What'll you do ? To-morrow 
 they'll be at you again. I know 'em, I have seen all their 
 doings ; I can't bear to think of all they'll bring you to 
 and they'll make you give out at last ! " 
 
 " Lord Jesus ! " said Tom, " you will take care of my soul ! 
 O Lord, do ! don't let me give out ! " 
 
 " Oh, dear," said Gassy, " I've heard all this crying and 
 praying before; and yet they've been broken down and 
 brought under. There's Emmeline, she's trying to hold on, 
 and you're trying but what use ? You must give up, or 
 be killed by inches." 
 
 " Well, then, I will die ! " said Tom. " Spin it out as long 
 as they can, they can't help my dying some time ! and after 
 that, they can't do no more. I'm clar ! I'm set ! I know 
 the Lord'll help me, and bring me through." 
 
 The woman did not answer ; she sat with her black eyes 
 intently fixed on the floor. 
 
 " Maybe it's the way," she murmured to herself; "but 
 those that have given up, there's no hope for them none ! 
 "We live in filth and grow loathsome, till we loathe our- 
 selves ! And we long to die, and we don't dare to kill 
 ourselves. No hope ! no hope ! no hope ! this girl now 
 just as old as I was. You see me now," she said, speaking to 
 Tom very rapidly, " see what I am ! Well, I was brought up 
 in luxury. The first I remember is playing about, when I was 
 a child, in splendid parlours when I was kept dressed up 
 
A TALE OF WOE. 391 
 
 like a doll, and company and visitors used to praise me. 
 There was a garden opening from the saloon windows ; and 
 there I used to play hide-and-go-seek, under the orange- 
 trees, with my brothers and sisters. I went to a convent, 
 and there I learned music, French, and embroidery, and what 
 not ; and when I was fourteen, I came out to my father's 
 funeral. He died very suddenly, and when the property 
 came to be settled, they found that there was scarcely 
 enough to cover the debts ; and when the creditors took an 
 inventory of the property, I was set down in it. My mother 
 was a slave woman, and my father had always meant to set 
 me free, but he had not done it, and so I was set down in 
 the list. I'd always known who I was, but never thought 
 much about it. Nobody ever expects that a strong healthy 
 man is agoing to die. My father was a well man only four 
 hours before he died it was one of the first cholera cases in 
 New Orleans. The day after the funeral my father's wife 
 took her children, and went up to her father's plantation. 
 I thought they treated me strangely, but didn't know. 
 There was a young lawyer whom they left to settle the 
 business ; and he came every day, and was about the house, 
 and spoke very politely to me. He brought with him one 
 day a young man, whom I thought the handsomest I had 
 ever seen. I shall never forget that evening ; I walked with 
 him in the garden. I was lonesome and fall of sorrow, and 
 he was so kind and gentle to me ; and he told me, that he 
 had seen me before I went to the convent, and that he had 
 loved me a great while, and that he would be my friend and 
 protector. In short, though he didn't tell me, he had paid 
 two thousand dollars for me, and I was his property. I 
 became his willingly, for I loved him. Loved ! " said the 
 woman, stopping, " Oh, how I did love that man ! How I 
 love him now, and always shall while I breathe ! He was 
 so beautiful, so high, so noble ! He put me into a beautiful 
 house, with servants, horses, and carriages, and furniture, 
 and dresses. Everything that money could buy he gave me ; 
 but I didn't set any value on all that, I only cared for him. 
 I loved him better than my God and my own soul ; and, if I 
 tried, I couldn't do any other way from what he wanted me to. 
 " I wanted only one thing I did want him to marry me. 
 I thought, if he loved me as he said he did, and if I was what 
 
392 THE LOTE-DEEAM .BROKEN. 
 
 he seemed to think I was, he would be willing to marry me 
 and set me free. But he convinced me that it would be im- 
 possible ; and he told me that if we were only faithful to each 
 other, it was marriage before Grod. If that is true, wasn't I 
 that man's wife ? Wasn't I faithful ? For seven years 
 didn't I study every look and motion, and only live and 
 breathe to please him. He had the yellow fever, and for 
 twenty days and nights I watched with him I alone, and 
 gave him all his medicine, and did everything for him ; and 
 then he called me his good angel, and said I'd saved his life. 
 "We had two beautiful children. The first was a boy, and we 
 called him Henry; he was the image of his father he had 
 such beautiful eyes, such a forehead, and his hair hung all 
 in curls around it and he had all his father's spirit, and his 
 talent too. Little Elise, he said, looked like me. He used 
 to tell me that I was the most beautiful woman in Louisiana, 
 he was so proud of me and the children. He used to love to 
 have me dress them up, and take them and me about in an 
 open carriage, and hear the remarks that people would make 
 on us ; and he used to fill my ears constantly with the fine 
 things that were said in praise of me and the children. Oh, 
 those were happy days ! I thought I was as happy as any 
 one could be ; but then there came evil times. He had a 
 cousin come to New Orleans who was his particular friend 
 he thought all the world of him ; but, from the first time 
 I saw him, I couldn't tell why, I dreaded him, for I felt sure 
 he was going to bring misery on us. He got Henry to 
 going out with him, and often he would not come home 
 nights till two or three o'clock. I did not dare say a word ; 
 for Henry was so high-spirited, I was afraid to. He got 
 him to the gaming-houses ; and he was one of the sort that 
 when he once got agoing there, there was no holding back. 
 And then he introduced him to another lady, and I saw 
 soon that his heart was gone from me. He never told me, 
 but I saw it I knew it day after day. I felt my heart 
 breaking, but I could not say a word. At this the 'wretch 
 offered to buy me and the children of Henry, to clear off 
 his gambling debts, which stood in the way of his marrying as 
 he wished and Tie sold us. He told me one day that he 
 had business in the country, and should be gone two or 
 three weeks. He spoke kinder than usual, and said he 
 
A LIFE OF MISEET. 393 
 
 should come back ; but it didu't deceive me ; I knew that 
 the time had come ; I was just like one turned into stone ; I 
 couldn't speak nor shed a tear. He kissed me and kissed 
 the children a good many times, and went out. I saw him 
 get on his horse, and I watched him till he was quite out of 
 sight ; and then I fell down and fainted. 
 
 " Then Tie came, the cursed wretch ! he came to take 
 possession. He told me that he had bought me and my 
 children, and showed me the papers. I cursed him before 
 God, and told him I'd die sooner than live with him. 
 
 " ' Just as you please,' said he ; ' but if you don't behave 
 reasonably I'll sell both the children, where you shall never 
 see them again.' He told me that he always had meant to 
 have me, from the first time he saw me ; and that he had 
 drawn Henry on, and got him in debt, on purpose to make 
 him willing to sell me. That he got him in love with 
 another woman ; and that I might know, after all that, that 
 he should not give up for a few airs and tears, and things of 
 that sort. 
 
 " I gave up, for my hands were tied. He had my children; 
 whenever I resisted his will anywhere, he would talk about 
 selling them, and he made me as submissive as he desired. 
 Oh, what a life it was ! to live with my heart breaking, every 
 day to keep on, on, on, loving, when it was only misery ; 
 and to be bound, body and soul, to one I hated. I used to 
 love to read to Henry, to play to him, to waltz with him, 
 and sing to him ; but everything I did for this one was a 
 perfect drag yet I was afraid to refuse anything. He 
 was very imperious and harsh to the children. Elise was, 
 a timid little thing ; but Henry was bold and high-spirited, 
 like his father, and he had never been brought under in the 
 least by any one. He was always finding fault, and quarrel- 
 ling with him ; and I used to live in daily fear and dread. I 
 tried to make the child respectful I tried to keep them 
 apart, for I held on to those children like death; but it 
 did no good. He sold loth those children. He took me to 
 ride one day, and when I came home they were nowhere to 
 be found ! He told me he had sold them ; he showed me the 
 money, the price of their blood. Then it seemed as if all 
 good forsook me. I raved and cursed cursed Grod and man ; 
 and, for a while, I believe, he really was afraid of me. But 
 
394 A CATASTBOPHE. 
 
 he didn't give up so. He told me that my children were sold, 
 but whether I ever saw their faces again depended on him ; 
 and that if I wasn't quiet, they should smart for it. "Well, 
 you can do anything with a woman when you've got her 
 children. He made me submit ; he made me be peaceable ; he 
 flattered me with hopes that perhaps he would buy them 
 back ; and so things went on a week or two. One day I 
 was out walking, and passed by the calaboose; I saw a 
 crowd about the gate, and heard a child's voice and 
 suddenly my Henry broke away from two or three men 
 who were holding him, and ran, screaming, and caught my 
 dress. They came up to him, swearing dreadfully ; and one 
 man, whose face I shall never forget, told him that he 
 wouldn't get away so ; that he was going with him into the 
 calaboose, and he'd get a lesson there he'd never forget. 
 I tried to beg and plead they only laughed ; the poor boy 
 screamed and looked into my face, and held on to me, until, 
 in tearing him off, they tore the skirt of my dress half 
 away; and they carried him in screaming 'Mother! mother! 
 mother ! ' There was one man stood there seemed to pity 
 me. I offered him all the money I had if he'd only 
 interfere. He shook his head, and said that the man said 
 the boy had been impudent and disobedient, ever since he 
 bought him ; that he was going to break him in, once for 
 all. I turned and ran ; and every step of the way I thought 
 that I heard him scream. I got into the house, ran all out 
 of breath to the parlour, where I found Butler. I told him, 
 and begged him to go and interfere. He only laughed, 
 and told me the boy had got his deserts. He'd got to 
 be broken in the sooner the better ; ' what did I expect ? ' 
 he asked. 
 
 " It seemed to me something in my head snapped at that 
 moment. I felt dizzy and furious. I remember seeing a 
 great sharp bowie-knife on the table; I remember some- 
 thing about catching it, and flying upon him ! and then 
 all grew dark, and I didn't know any more not for days 
 and days. 
 
 " When I came to myself, I was in a nice room ; but not 
 mine. An old black woman tended me ; and a doctor came 
 to see me, and there was a great deal of care taken of me. 
 After a while I found that he had gone away, and left me at 
 
CHILD-MURDER. 395 
 
 this house to be sold ; and that's why they took such pains 
 with me. 
 
 " 1 didn't mean to get well, and hoped I shouldn't ; but, 
 in spite of me, the fever went off, and I grew healthy, and 
 finally got up. Then they made me dress up every day ; and 
 gentlemen used to come 'in and stand and smoke their cigars, 
 and look at me, and ask questions, and debate my price. I 
 was so gloomy and silent that none of them wanted me. They 
 threatened to whip me if I wasn't gayer, and didn't take some 
 pains to make myself agreeable. At length, one day, came 
 a gentleman named Stuart. He seemed to have some 
 feeling for me ; he saw that something dreadful was on my 
 heart, and he came to see me alone a great many times, and 
 finally persuaded me to tell him. He bought me at last, and 
 promised to do all he could to find and buy back my children. 
 He went to the hotel where my Henry was ; they told him he 
 had been sold to a planter up on Pearl Biver ; that was the 
 last that I ever heard. Then he found where my daughter 
 was; an old woman was keeping her. He offered an 
 immense sum for her, but they would not sell her. Butler 
 found out that it was for me he wanted her ; and he sent 
 me word that I should never have her. Captain Stuart was 
 very kind to me ; he had a splendid plantation, and took me 
 to it. In the course of a year I had a son born. Oh ! that 
 child ! 'how I loved it ! How just like my poor Henry the 
 little thing looked ! But I had made up my mind yes, I 
 had, I would never again let a child live to grow up ! I took 
 the little fellow in my arms, when he was two weeks old, 
 and kissed him and cried over him ; and then I gave him 
 laudanum, and held him close to my bosom while he slept 
 to death. How I mourned and cried over it-! and who ever 
 dreamed that it was anything but a mistake that had made 
 me give it the laudanum ? but it's one of the few things 
 that I'm glad of now. I am not sorry to this day ; he, at 
 least, is out of pain. "What better than death could I give 
 him, poor child? After a while the cholera came, and 
 Captain Stuart died ; everybody died that wanted to live : 
 and I I, though I went down to death's door Hived! 
 Then I was sold, and passed from hand to hand, till I grew 
 faded and wrinkled, and I had a fever ; and then this wretch 
 bought me, and brought me here and here T am ! " 
 
396 " WON'T THEEE BE VENGEANCE THEN ? ' 
 
 The woman stopped. She had hurried on through her 
 story with a wild, passionate utterance ; sometimes seeming 
 to address it to Tom, and sometimes speaking as in a 
 soliloquy. So vehement and overpowering was the force 
 with which she spoke, that, for a season, Tom was beguiled 
 even from the pain of his wounds ; and, raising himself on 
 one elbow, watched her, as she paced restlessly up and 
 down, her long black hair swaying heavily about her as she 
 moved. 
 
 " You tell me," she said, after a pause, " that there is a 
 God a God that looks down and sees all these things. 
 Maybe it's so. The sisters in the convent used to tell me 
 of a day of judgment, when everything is coming to light ; 
 won't there be vengeance then ! * 
 
 " They think it's nothing what we suffer nothing what 
 our children suffer ! It's all a small matter ; yet I've walked 
 the streets when it seemed as if I had misery enough in my 
 one heart to sink the city. I've wished the houses would 
 fall on me, or the stones sink under me. Yes ! and in the 
 judgment day I will stand up before God, a witness 
 against those that have ruined me and my> children, body 
 and soul ! 
 
 " When I was a girl I thought I was religious ; I used to 
 love God and prayer. Now I'm a lost soul, pursued by 
 devils that torment me day and night ; they keep pushing 
 me on and on and I'll do it, too, some of these days!" 
 she said, clenching her hand, while an insane light glanced 
 in her heavy black eyes. " I'll send him where he belongs 
 a short way, too one of these nights, if they burn me 
 alive for it ! " A wild, long laugh rang through the 
 deserted room, and ended in an hysteric sob ; she 
 threw herself on the floor in convulsive sobbings and 
 struggles. 
 
 In a few moments the frenzy fit seemed to pass off ; she 
 rose slowly, and seemed to collect herself. 
 
 " Can I do anything more for you, my poor fellow ? " she 
 said, approaching where Tom lay ; " shall I give you some 
 more water?" 
 
 There was a graceful and compassionate sweetness in her 
 voice and manner, as she said this, that formed a strange 
 contrast with the former wildness. 
 
THE TOKENS. 397 
 
 Tom drank the water, and looked earnestly and pitifully 
 into her face. 
 
 " missis, I wish you'd go to Him that can give you 
 living waters !" 
 
 "G-o to him! Where is he? Who is he?" said 
 Gassy. 
 
 " Him that you read of to me the Lord." 
 
 " I used to see the picture of him over the altar, when I 
 was a girl," said Gassy, her dark eyes fixing themselves in 
 an expression of mournful reverie ; " but he isn't here. 
 There's nothing here but sin, and long, long, long despair ! 
 Oh !" She laid her hand on her breast, and drew in her 
 breath, as if to lift a heavy weight. 
 
 Tom looked as if he would speak again, but she cut him 
 short with a decided gesture. 
 
 " Don't talk, my poor fellow. Try to sleep if you 
 can." And, placing w r ater in his reach, and making what- 
 ever little arrangements for his comfort she could, Gassy left 
 the shed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXY. 
 
 THE TOKENS. 
 
 " And slight withal may be the things that bring 
 Back on the heart the weight which it would fling 
 Aside for ever ; it may be a sound, 
 A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall wound 
 Striking the electric chain wherewith we're darkly bound." 
 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage^ Canto iv. 
 
 THE sitting-room of Legree's establishment was a large, 
 long room, with a wide, ample fire-place. It had once been 
 hung with a showy and expensive paper, which now hung 
 mouldering, torn, and discoloured, from the damp walls. 
 The place had that peculiar sickening, unwholesome smell, 
 compounded of mingled damp, dirt, and decay, which one 
 often notices in close old houses. The wall-paper was 
 defaced, in spots, by slops of beer and wine ; or garnished 
 with chalk memorandums; and long sums footed up, as if some- 
 body had been practising arithmetic there. In the fire-place 
 
398 CASST WARNS LEGBEE. 
 
 stood a brazier full of burning charcoal ; for, though the 
 weather was not cold, the evenings always seemed damp and 
 chilly in that great room ; and Legree, moreover, wanted a 
 place to light his cigars, and heat his water for punch. The 
 ruddy glare of the charcoal displayed the confused and 
 unpromising aspect of the room saddles, bridles, several 
 sorts of harness, riding- whips, over-coats, and various articles 
 of clothing, scattered up and down the room in confused 
 variety ; and the dogs, of which we have before spoken, had 
 encamped themselves among them, to suit their own taste 
 and convenience. 
 
 Legree was just mixing himself a tumbler of punch, 
 pouring his hot water from a cracked and broken-nosed 
 pitcher, grumbling, as he did so 
 
 " Plague on that Sambo, to kick up this yer row 
 between me and the new hands ! The fellow won't be 
 fit to work for a week now right in the press of the 
 season ! " 
 
 " Yes, just like you," said a voice behind his chair. It 
 was the woman Gassy, who had stolen upon his soliloquy. 
 
 " Ha ! you she-devil ! you've come back, have you ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have," she said coolly ; " come to have my own 
 way, too!" 
 
 " You lie, you jade ! I'll be up to my word. Either 
 behave yourself, or stay down to the quarters, and fare and 
 work with the rest." 
 
 " I'd rather ten thousand times," said the woman, "live in 
 the dirtiest hole at the quarters than be under your hoof!" 
 
 " But you are under my hoof, for all that," said he, turning 
 upon her with a savage grin ; " that's one comfort. So, sit 
 down here on my knee, my dear, and hear to reason," said 
 he, laying hold on her wrist. 
 
 "Simon Legree, take care!" said the woman, with a 
 sharp flash of her eye a glance so wild and insane in its 
 light as to be almost appalling. " You're afraid of me, 
 Simon," she said deliberately, " and you've reason to be ! 
 But be careful, for I've got the devil in me ! " 
 
 The last words she whispered in a hissing tone, close to 
 his ear. 
 
 " Get out ! I believe, to my soul, you have ! " said Legree, 
 pushing her from him, and looking uncomfortably at her ; 
 
A WOMAN'S FEELINGS. 399 
 
 " After all, Gassy," lie said, "why can't you be Mends with 
 me as you used to ?" 
 
 "Used to!" said she bitterly. She stopped short a 
 world of choking feelings, rising in her heart, kept her silent. 
 
 Gassy had always kept over Legree the kind of influence 
 that a strong, impassioned woman can ever keep over the 
 most brutal man ; but of late she had grown more and more 
 irritable and restless under the hideous yoke of her servi- 
 tude, and her irritability at times broke out into raving 
 insanity; and this liability made her a sort of object of 
 dread to Legree, who had that superstitious horror of insane 
 persons which is common to coarse and uninstructed minds. 
 When Legree brought Emmeline to the house, all the 
 smouldering embers of womanly feeling flashed up in the 
 worn heart of Gassy, and she took part with the girl ; and a 
 fierce quarrel ensued between her and Legree. Legree, in a 
 fury, swore she should be put to field-service if she would 
 not be peaceable. Gassy, with proud scorn, declared she 
 would go to the field. And she worked there one day, as we 
 have described, to show how perfectly she scorned the threat. 
 
 Legree was secretly uneasy all day, for Gassy had an 
 influence over him from which he could not free himself. 
 When she presented her basket at the scales, he had hoped 
 for some concession, and addressed her in a sort of half con- 
 ciliatory, half scornful tone ; and she had answered with the 
 bitterest contempt. 
 
 The outrageous treatment of poor Tom had roused her 
 still more ; and she had followed Legree to the house with 
 no particular intention but to upbraid him for his brutality. 
 
 "I wish, Gassy," said Legree, "you'd behave yourself 
 decently." 
 
 " You talk about behaving decently ! And what have you 
 been doing ? You, who haven't even sense enough to keep 
 from spoiling one of your best, hands, right in the most 
 pressing season, just for your devilish temper !" 
 
 " I was a fool, it's a fact, to let any such brangle come 
 up," said Legree ; " but when the boy set up his will, he 
 had to be broke in." 
 
 " I reckon you won't break him in ! " 
 
 " Won't I ?" said Legree, rising passionately. " I'd like 
 to know if I won't! He'll be the first nigger that ever 
 
400 NIGGERS' WITCH-CHAEM. 
 
 came ifc round me ! I'll break every bone in his body but 
 he shall give up!" 
 
 Just then the door opened and Sambo entered. He came 
 forward bowing, and holding out something in a paper. 
 
 ""What's that, you dog?" said Legree. 
 
 " It's a witch thing, mas'r !" 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 " Something that niggers gets from witches. Keeps 'em 
 from feelin' when they's flogged. He had tied it round his 
 neck with a black string." 
 
 Legree, like most godless and cruel men, was superstitious. 
 He took the paper, and opened it uneasily. 
 
 There dropped out of it a silver dollar, and a long, shining 
 curl of fair hair hair which, like a living thing, twined 
 itself round Legree' s fingers. 
 
 " Damnation !" he screamed, in sudden passion, stamping 
 on the floor, and pulling furiously at the hair, as if it burned 
 him. "Where did this come from ? Take it off"! burn it 
 up ! burn it up !" he screamed, tearing it off and throwing 
 it into the charcoal. " What did you bring it to me for ?" 
 
 Sambo stood with his heavy mouth wide open, and aghast 
 with wonder ; and Gassy, who was preparing to leave 
 the apartment, stopped, and looked at him in perfect 
 amazement. 
 
 "Don't you bring me any more of your devilish things !" 
 said he, shaking his fist at Sambo, who retreated hastily 
 towards the door ; and, picking up the silver dollar, he 
 sent it smashing through the window-pane out into the 
 darkness. 
 
 Sambo was glad to make his escape. When he was gone, 
 Legree seemed a little ashamed of his fit of alarm. He sat 
 doggedly down in his chair, and began sullenly sipping his 
 tumbler of punch. 
 
 Gassy prepared herself for going out, unobserved by him ; 
 and slipped away to minister to poor Tom, as we have 
 already related. 
 
 And what was the matter with Legree? and what was 
 there in a simple curl of fair hair to appal that brutal man, 
 familiar with every form of cruelty ? To answer this, we 
 must carry the reader backward in his history. Hard and 
 reprobate as the godless man seemed now, there had been a 
 
THE YOUTH OF A KEPBOBATE. 401 
 
 time when lie had been rocked on the bosom of a mother 
 cradled with prayers and pious hymns his now seared brow 
 bedewed with the waters of holy baptism. In early childhood 
 a fair-haired woman had led him, at the sound of Sabbath 
 bell, to worship and to pray. Far in New England that 
 mother had trained her only son with long, unwearied love, 
 and patient prayers. Born of a hard-tempered sire, on whom 
 that gentle woman had wasted a world of unvalued love, 
 Legree had followed in the steps of his father. Boisterous, 
 unruly, and tyrannical, he despised all her counsel, and 
 would none of her reproof; and, at an early age, broke from 
 her to seek his fortunes at sea. He never came home 
 but once after ; and then his mother, with the yearning of 
 a heart that must love something, and has nothing else 
 to love, clung to him, and sought, with passionate prayers 
 and entreaties, to win him from a life of sin to his soul's 
 eternal good. 
 
 That was Legree's day of grace. Then good angels called 
 him ; then he was almost persuaded, and Mercy held him by 
 the hand. His heart inly relented there was a conflict 
 but sin got the victory, and he set all the force of his rough 
 nature against the conviction of his conscience. He drank 
 and swore, was wilder and more brutal than ever. And one 
 night, when his mother, in the last agony of her despair, 
 knelt at his feet, he spurned her from him, threw her 
 senseless on the floor, and, with brutal curses, fled to his 
 ship. The next Legree heard of his mother was when one 
 night, as he was carousing among drunken companions, a 
 letter was put into his hand. He opened it, and a lock of 
 long, curling hair fell from it, and twined about his fingers. 
 The letter told him his mother was dead, and that, dying, 
 she blessed and forgave him. 
 
 There is a dread, unhallowed necromancy of evil, that 
 turns things sweetest and holiest to phantoms of horror and 
 affright. That pale, loving mother her dying prayers, her 
 forgiving love wrought in that demoniac heart of sin only 
 as a damning sentence, bringing with it a fearful looking 
 for of judgment and fiery indignation. Legree burned the 
 hair, and burned the letter ; and when he saw them hissing 
 and crackling in the flame, inly shuddered as he thought of 
 everlasting fires. He tried to drink, and revel, and swear 
 
 D D 
 
402 T1IE SUPERSTITION OF SIN. 
 
 away the memory; but often, in the deep night, whose 
 solemn stillness arraigns the bad soul in forced communion 
 with herself, he had seen that pale mother rising by his 
 bedside, and felt the soft twining of that hair around his 
 fingers till the cold sweat would roll down his face, and he 
 would spring from his bed in horror. Te who have won- 
 dered to hear, in the same evangel, that " God is love," and 
 that " God is a consuming fire," see ye not how, to the soul 
 resolved in evil, perfect love is the most fearful torture, the 
 seal and sentence of the direst despair ? 
 
 " Blast it ! " said Legree to himself, as he sipped his 
 liquor, " where did he get that ? If it didn't look just 
 like whoo ! I thought I'd forgot that. Curse me if I 
 think there's any such thing as forgetting anything, any 
 how hang it ! I'm lonesome ! I mean to call Em. She 
 hates me the monkey! JL_jdmi!i _ care I'll make her 
 come!" 
 
 Legree stepped out into a large entry, which went up 
 stairs, by what had formerly been a superb winding-staircase ; 
 but the passage-way was dirty and dreary, encumbered with 
 boxes and unsightly litter. The stairs, uncarpeted, seemed 
 winding up, in the gloom, to nobody knew where. The 
 pale moonlight streamed through a shattered fanlight over 
 the door, the air was unwholesome and chilly, like that of a 
 vault. 
 
 Legree stopped at the foot of the stairs, and heard a voice 
 singing. It seemed strange and ghost-like in that dreary 
 old house, perhaps because of the already tremulous state of 
 his nerves. Hark ! what is it ? 
 
 A wild, patheffic voice, chants a hymn common among the 
 slaves : 
 
 " Oh there'll be mourning, mourning, mourning, 
 Oh there'll be mourning, at the judgment-seat of Christ ! " 
 
 "Blast the girl!" said Legree. "I'll choke her. Em! 
 Em ! " he called harshly : but only a mocking echo from the 
 walls answered him. The sweet voice still sung on : 
 
 " Parents and children there shall part 
 Parents and children there shall part 
 Shall part to meet no more ! " 
 

 THE DRUNKEN BEVEL. 403 
 
 And clear and loud swelled through, the empty halls the 
 refrain 
 
 " Oh there'll be mourning, mourning, mourning, 
 Oh there'll be mourning, at the judgment-seat of Christ ! " 
 
 Legree stopped. He would have been ashamed to tell of 
 it, but large drops of sweat stood on his forehead, his heart 
 beat heavy and thick with fear; he even thought he saw 
 something white rising and glimmering in the gloom before 
 him, and shuddered to think what if the form of his dead 
 mother should suddenly appear to him. 
 
 " I know one thing," he said to himself, as he stumbled 
 back in the sitting-room, and sat down ; " I'll let that fellow 
 alone after this ! What did I want of his cussed paper ? I 
 b'lieve I am bewitched, sure enough! I've been shivering 
 and sweating ever since ! Where did he get that hair ? It 
 couldn't have been that I I burnt that up, I know I did ! 
 It would be a joke if hair could rise from the dead ! " 
 
 Ah, Legree ! that golden tress was charmed ; each hair 
 had in it a spell of terror and remorse for thee, and was used 
 by a mightier power to bind thy cruel hands from inflicting 
 uttermost evil 011 the helpless ! 
 
 " I say," said Legree, stamping and whistling to the dogs, 
 " wake up, some of you, and keep me company ! " but the 
 dogs only opened one eye at him sleepily, and closed it 
 again. 
 
 " I'll have Sambo and Quimbo up here to sing, and dance 
 one of their hell dances, and keep off these horrid notions," 
 said Legree; and, putting on his hat, he went on to the 
 verandah and blew a horn, with which he commonly sum- 
 moned his two sable drivers. 
 
 Legree was often wont, when in a gracious humour, to get 
 these two worthies into his sitting-room, and, after warming 
 them up with whisky, amuse himself by setting them to 
 singing, dancing, or fighting, as the humour took him. 
 
 It was between one and two o'clock at night, as Gassy 
 was returning from her ministrations to poor Tom, that she 
 heard the sound of wild shrieking, whooping, hallooing, and 
 singing from the sitting-room, mingled with the barking of 
 dogs, and other symptoms of general uproar. 
 
 She came up on the verandah steps, and looked in. 
 
 DD 2 
 
404 EMMELINE AND CASSY. 
 
 Legree and both the drivers, in a state of furious intoxi- 
 cation, were singing, whooping, upsetting chairs, and 
 making all manner of ludicrous and horrid grimaces at 
 each other. 
 
 She rested her small, slender hand on the window-blind, 
 and looked fixedly at them. There was a world of anguish, 
 scorn, and fierce bitterness in her black eyes as she did so. 
 " Would it be a sin to rid the world of such a wretch ? " she 
 said to herself. 
 
 She turned hurriedly away, and, passing round to a back 
 door, glided up stairs, and tapped at Emmeline's door. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVI. 
 
 EMMELINE AND CASSY. 
 
 CASSY entered the room, and found Emmeline sitting, 
 pale with fear, in the furthest corner of it. As she came 
 in, the girl started up nervously ; but, on seeing who it was., 
 rushed forward, and, catching her arm, said, " O Gassy, is it 
 
 you ? I'm so glad you've come ! I was afraid it was , 
 
 Oh, you don't know what a horrid noise there has been 
 downstairs all this evening ! " 
 
 "I ought to know," said Cassy, dryly. "I've heard it 
 often enough ! " 
 
 " O Cassy, do tell me ; couldn't we get away from this 
 place? I don't care where into the swamp among the 
 snakes anywhere ! Couldn't we get somewhere away from 
 here?" 
 
 " Nowhere but into our graves," said Cassy. 
 
 " Did you ever try ? " 
 
 " I've seen enough of trying, and what comes of it ?" said 
 Cassy. 
 
 " I'd be willing to live in the swamps, and gnaw the bark 
 from trees. I an't afraid of snakes ! I'd rather have one 
 near me than him," said Emmeline, eagerly. 
 
 "There have been a good many here of your opinion," 
 said Cassy. "But you could not stay in the swamps 
 
MISEET AXD DESPAIE. 405 
 
 you'd be tracked by the dogs, and brought back, and then 
 then" 
 
 " What would he do ? " said the girl, looking with breath- 
 less interest into her face. 
 
 ""What wouldn't he do, you'd better ask," said Gassy. 
 " He's learned his trade well among the pirates in the West 
 Indies. You wouldn't sleep much if I should tell you 
 things I've seen things that he tells of, sometimes, for 
 good jokes. I've heard screams here that I haven't been 
 able to get out of my head for weeks and weeks. There's 
 a place way out down by the quarters, where you can see a 
 black, blasted tree, and the ground all covered with black 
 ashes. Ask any one what was done there, and see if they 
 will dare to tell you." 
 
 " Oh, what do you mean ? " 
 
 " I won't tell you. I hate to think of it. And I tell you, 
 the Lord only knows what we may see to-morrow, if that 
 poor fellow holds out as he's begun." 
 
 " Horrid ! " said Emmeline, every drop of blood receding 
 from her cheeks. " O Cassy, do tell me what I shall do ! " 
 
 " What I've done. Do the best you can ; do what you 
 must, and make it up in hating and cursing." 
 
 "He wanted to make me drink some of his hateful 
 brandy," said Emmeline ; " and I hate it so " 
 
 " You'd better drink," said Cassy. " I hated it, too ; and 
 now I can't live without it. One must have something; 
 things don't look so dreadful when you take that." 
 
 " Mother used to tell me never to touch any such thing," 
 said Emmeline. 
 
 "Mother told you !" said Cassy, with a thrilling and bitter 
 emphasis on the word mother. " What use is it for mothers 
 to say anything ? You are all to be bought and paid for, and 
 your souls belong to whoever gets you. That's the way it 
 goes. I say, drink brandy : drink all you can, and it'll make 
 things come easier." 
 
 "O Cassy! do pity me!" 
 
 "Pity you! don't I? Haven't I a daughter ? Lord 
 knows where she is, and whose she is now! Going the 
 way her mother went before her, I suppose, and that her 
 children must go after her ! There's no end to the curse 
 for ever ! " 
 
406 LEGEEES DEEAH. 
 
 "I wish I'd never been born ! " said Emmeline, wringing 
 her hands. 
 
 "That's an old wish with me," said Gassy. "I've got 
 used to wishing that. I'd die, if I dared to," she said, look- 
 ing out into the darkness with that still, fixed despair, which 
 was the habitual expression of her face when at rest. 
 
 " It would be wicked to kill one's self," said Emmeline. 
 
 " I don't know why ; no wickeder than things we live and 
 do day after day. But the sisters told me things when I was 
 in the convent that make me afraid to die. If it would only 
 be the end of us, why then " 
 
 Emmeline turned away and hid her face in her hands. 
 
 While this conversation was passing in the chamber, 
 Legree, overcome with his carouse, had sank to sleep in the 
 room below. Legree was not an habitual drunkard. His 
 coarse, strong nature, craved and could endure a continual 
 stimulation, that would have utterly wrecked and crazed a 
 finer one. But a deep underlying spirit of cautiousness 
 prevented his often yielding to appetite in such measure as 
 to lose control of himself. 
 
 This night, however, in his feverish efforts to banish from 
 his mind those fearful elements of woe and remorse which 
 woke within him, he had indulged more than common ; so 
 that, when he had discharged his sable attendants, he fell 
 heavily on a settle in the room, and was sound asleep. 
 
 Oh, how dares the bad soul to enter the shadowy world of 
 sleep ? that land whose dim outlines lie so fearfully near to 
 the mystic scene of retribution ! Legree dreamed. In his 
 heavy and feverish sleep a veiled form stood beside him, and 
 laid a cold, soft hand upon him. He thought he knew who 
 it was ; and shuddered, with creeping horror, though the face 
 was veiled. Then he thought he felt that liair twining round 
 his fingers ; and then, that it slid smoothly round his neck, 
 and tightened, and tightened, and he could not draw his 
 breath ; and then he thought voices whispered to him : 
 whispers that chilled him with horror. Then it seemed to 
 him he was on the edge of a frightful abyss, holding on and 
 struggling in mortal fear, while dark hands stretched up, 
 and were pulling him over ; and Cassy came behind him, 
 laughing, and pushed him. And then rose up that solemn 
 veiled figure, and drew aside the veil.' It was his mother; 
 
THE WABSIBTG- VOICE. 407 
 
 and she turned away from him, and he fell down, down, down, 
 amid a confused noise of shrieks, and groans, and shouts of 
 demon laughter : and Legree awoke. 
 
 Calmly the rosy hue of dawn was stealing into the room. 
 The morning star stood, with its solemn, holy eye of light, 
 looking down on the man of sin, from out the brightening 
 sky. Oh, with what freshness, what solemnity and beauty, 
 is each new day born ; as if to say to insensate men, "Behold ! 
 thou hast one more chance ! Strive for immortal glory!" 
 There is no speech nor language where this voice is not 
 heard ; but the bold, bad man, heard it not. He woke with 
 an oath and a curse. What to him was the gold and purple, 
 the daily miracle of morning ! What to him the sanctity of 
 that star which the Son of God has hallowed as his own 
 emblem ? Brute-like, he saw without perceiving ; and, 
 stumbling forward, poured out a tumbler of brandy, and 
 drank half of it. 
 
 " I've had a h 1 of a night ! " he said to Gassy, who just 
 then entered from an opposite door. 
 
 "You'll get plenty of the same sort by and by," said she, 
 dryly. 
 
 " What do you mean, you minx ? " 
 
 " You'll find out, one of these days," returned Gassy in 
 the same tone. " Now, Simon, I've one piece of advice to 
 give you." 
 
 " The devil you have !" 
 
 "My advice is," said Gassy steadily, as she began adjust- 
 ing some things about the room, " that you let Tom alone." 
 
 " What business is't of yours ? " 
 
 " What ? To be sure, I don't know what it should be. 
 If you want to pay twelve hundred for a fellow, and use him 
 right up in the press of the season, just to serve your own 
 spite, it's no business of mine. I've done what I could for 
 him." 
 
 " You have ? What business have you meddling in my 
 matters? " 
 
 " None, to be sure. I've saved you some thousands of 
 dollars, at different times, by taking care of your hands 
 that's all the thanks I get. If your crop comes shorter into 
 market than any of theirs, you won't lose your bet, I suppose? 
 Tomkins won't lord it over you, I suppose ; and you'll pay 
 
408 THE PIANTEE'S AMBITION. 
 
 down your money like a lady, won't you ? I think I see you 
 doing it ! " 
 
 Legree, like many other planters, had but one form of 
 ambition to have in the heaviest crop of the season ; and he 
 had several bets on this very present season pending in the 
 next town. Gassy, therefore, with woman's tact, touched the 
 only string that could be made to vibrate. 
 
 " Well, 111 let him off at what he's got," said Legree ; 
 " but he shall beg my pardon, and promise better fashions." 
 
 " That he won't do," said Gassy. 
 
 "Won't, eh?" 
 
 " No, he won't," said Gassy. 
 
 "I'd like to know loliy, mistress," said Legree, in the 
 extreme of scorn. 
 
 " Because he's done right, and he knows it, and won't say 
 he's done wrong." 
 
 " Who a cuss cares what he knows ? The nigger shall 
 say what I please, or " 
 
 " Or you'll lose your bet on the cotton crop, by keeping 
 him out of the field just at this very press." 
 
 " But he will give up, course he will ; don't I know what 
 niggers is ? He'll beg like a dog this morning." 
 
 " He won't, Simon ; you don't know this kind. You may 
 kill him by inches, you won't get the first word of confession 
 out of him." 
 
 " We'll see. Where is he ? " said Legree, going out. 
 
 "In the waste-room of the gin-house," said Gassy. 
 
 Legree, though he talked so stoutly to Gassy, still sallied 
 forth from the house with a degree of misgiving which was 
 not common with him. His dreams of the past night, 
 mingled with Gassy' s prudential suggestions, considerably 
 affected his mind. He resolved that nobody should be 
 witness of his encounter with Tom, and determined, if he 
 could not subdue him by bullying, to defer his vengeance to 
 be wreaked in a more convenient season. 
 
 The solemn light of dawn, the angelic glory of the morning- 
 star, had looked in through the rude window of the shed 
 where Tom was lying, and, as if descending on that star- 
 beam, came the solemn words, " I am the root and offspring 
 of David, and the bright and morning-star." The mysterious 
 warnings and intimations of Gassy, so far from discouraging 
 
LEGEEE'S YISIT TO UNCLE TOM. 409 
 
 his soul, in the end had roused it as with a heavenly call. He 
 did not know but that the day of his death was dawning in 
 the sky ; and his heart throbbed with solemn throes of joy 
 and desire, as he thought that the wondrous all on which 
 he had often pondered, the great white throne, with its ever 
 radiant rainbow ; the white-robed multitude, with voices as 
 many waters ; the crowns, the palms, the harps might all 
 break upon his vision before that sun should set again ; and 
 therefore, without shuddering or trembling, he heard the 
 voice of his persecutor as he drew near. 
 
 "Well, my boy," said Legree, with a contemptuous kick, 
 " how do you find yourself? Didn't I tell yer I could larn 
 yer a thing or two ? How do you like it, eh ? How did yer 
 whaling agree with yer, Tom ? An't quite so crank as ye 
 was last night ? Ye couldn't treat a poor sinner now to a 
 bit of a sermon, could yer, eh ? " 
 
 Tom answered nothing. 
 
 " Get up, you beast ! " said Legree, kicking him again. 
 
 This was a difficult matter for one so bruised and faint, 
 and, as Tom made efforts to do so, Legree laughed 
 brutally. 
 
 " What makes ye so spry this morning, Tom ? Cotched 
 cold, maybe, last night." 
 
 Tom by this time had gained his feet, and was confronting 
 his master with a steady, unmoved front. 
 
 " The devil you can ! " said Legree, looking him over. " I 
 believe you haven't got enough yet. Now, Tom, get right 
 down on yer knees and beg my pardon for yer shines last 
 night." 
 
 Tom did not move. 
 
 " Down, you dog ! " said Legree, striking him with his 
 riding- whip. 
 
 " Mas'r Legree," said Tom, " I can't do it. I did only 
 what I thought was right. I shall do just so again, if ever 
 the time comes. I never will do a cruel thing, come what 
 may." 
 
 " Yes ; but ye don't know what may come, Master Tom. 
 Ye think what you've got is something. I tell you 'tant 
 anything nothing 'tall. How would ye like to be tied to 
 a tree, and have a slow fire lit up around ye ? Wouldn't 
 that be pleasant eh, Tom ? " 
 
 JS 
 
410 THE HELPER Or THE OPPRESSED. 
 
 " Mas'r," said Tom, " I know ye can do dreadful things ; 
 but" he stretched himself upward and clasped his hands 
 " but after ye've killed the body, there an't no more ye can 
 do. And oh, there's all ETERNITY to come after that ! " 
 
 ETERNITY ! , The word thrilled through the black man's 
 soul with light and power as he spoke it thrilled through 
 the sinner's soul, too, like the bite of a scorpion. Legree 
 gnashed on him with his teeth, but rage kept him silent ; 
 and Tom, like a man disenthralled, spoke in a clear and 
 cheerful voice. 
 
 "'Mas'r Legree, as ye bought me, I'll be a true and 
 faithful servant to ye. I'll give ye all the work of my hands, 
 all my time, all my strength ; but my soul I won't give up to 
 mortal man. I will hold on to the Lord, and put his com- 
 mands before all, die or live r you may be sure on't. Mas'r 
 Legree, I an't a grain afeared to die. I'd as soon die as not. 
 Ye may whip me, starve me, burn me it'll only send me 
 sooner where I want to go." 
 
 "I'll make ye give out, though, 'fore I've done!" said 
 Legree, in a rage. 
 
 " I shall have kelp," said Tom. " You'll never do it." 
 
 " Who the devil's going to help you ? " said Legree, scorn- 
 fully. 
 
 "The Lord Almighty ! " said Tom. 
 
 " D n you ! " said Legree, as with one blow of his fist he 
 felled Tom to the earth. 
 
 A cold soft hand fell on Legree's at this moment. He 
 turned it was Cassy's ; but the cold soft touch recalled his 
 dream of the night before, and, flashing through the chambers 
 of his brain, came all the fearful images of the night-watches, 
 with a portion of the horror that accompanied them. 
 
 " Will you be a fool ? " said Cassy in French. " Let him 
 go ! Let me alone to get him fit to be in the field again. 
 Isn't it just as I told you ? " 
 
 They say the alligator and the rhinoceros, though inclosed 
 in bullet-proof mail, have each a spot where they are 
 vulnerable ; and fierce, reckless, unbelieving reprobates, 
 have commonly this point in superstitious dread. 
 
 Legree turned away, determined to let the point go for 
 the time. 
 
 " Well, have it your own way," he said doggedly to Cassy. 
 
LIBEKI 1*. 411 
 
 " Hark ye ! " lie said to Tom, " I won't deal with ye now, 
 because the business is pressing, and I want all my hands ; 
 out I never forget. I'll score it against ye, and some time 
 I'll have my pay out o' yer old black hide mind ye ! " 
 
 Legree turned, and went out. 
 
 "There you go," said Gassy, looking darkly after him; 
 "your reckoning's to come yet! My poor fellow, how are 
 you?" 
 
 " The Lord Grod hath sent his angel, and shut the lion's 
 mouth for this time," said Tom. 
 
 " For this time to be sure," said Gassy ; " but now you've 
 got his ill-will upon you, to follow you, day in, day out, 
 hanging like a dog on your throat! sucking your blood, 
 bleeding away your life, drop by drop ! I know the man ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 & ' 
 
 " No matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon 
 the altar of slavery, the moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, 
 the altar and the god sink together in the dust, and he stands re- 
 deemed, regenerated and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of 
 universal emancipation." CURBAN. 
 
 A WHILE we must leave Tom in the hands of his per- 
 secutors, while we turn to pursue the fortunes of George and 
 his wife, whom we left in friendly hands in a farm-house on 
 the road-side. 
 
 Tom Loker we left groaning and touzling in a most 
 immaculately clean Quaker bed, under the motherly super- 
 .vision of Aunt Dorcas, who found him to the full as tractable 
 a patient as a sick bison. 
 
 Imagine a tall, dignified, spiritual woman, whose clear 
 muslin cap shades waves of silvery hair, parted on a broad, 
 clear forehead, which overarches thoughtful grey eyes ; a 
 snowy handkerchief of lisse crape is folded neatly across her 
 bosom ; her glossy brown silk dress rustles peacefully as she 
 glides up and down the chamber. 
 
412 AUNT DORCAS AND TOM LOKEE. 
 
 "The devil!" says Tom Loker, giving a great throw to 
 the bed-clothes. 
 
 " I must request thee, Thomas, not to use such language," 
 says Aunt Dorcas, as she quietly re-arranged the bed. 
 
 "Well, I won't, granny, if I can help it," says Tom; 
 " but it is enough to make a fellow swear, so cursedly hot ! " 
 
 Dorcas removed a comforter from the bed, straightened 
 the clothes again, and tucked them in till Tom looked 
 something like a chrysalis, remarking, as she did so 
 
 " I wish, friend, thee would leave off cursing and swearing, 
 and think upon thy ways." 
 
 " What the devil," said Tom, " should I think of them for ? 
 Last thing ever /want to think of hang it all ! " And Tom 
 flounced over, untucking and disarranging everything in a 
 manner frightful to behold. 
 
 " That fellow and gal are here, I s'pose ? " said he 
 sullenly, after a pause. 
 
 "They are so," said Dorcas. 
 
 " They'd better be off up to the lake," said Tom ; " the 
 quicker the better." 
 
 " Probably they will do so," said Aunt Dorcas, knitting 
 peacefully. 
 
 " And hark ye," said Tom ; " we've got correspondents in 
 Sandusky that watch the boats for us. I don't care if I tell 
 now. I hope they mil get away, just to spite Marks the 
 cursed puppy ! a n him !" 
 
 " Thomas ! " said Dorcas. 
 
 " I tell you, granny, if you bottle a fellow up too tight, I 
 shall split," said Tom. " But about the gal tell 'em to 
 dress her up some way so's to alter her. Her description's 
 out in Sandusky." 
 
 "We will attend to that matter," said Dorcas, with 
 characteristic composure. 
 
 As we at this place take leave of Tom Loker, we may as 
 well say that, having lain three weeks at the Quaker dwelling, 
 sick with a rheumatic fever, which set in in company with 
 his other afflictions! Tom arose from his bed a somewhat 
 sadder and wiser ma^i ; and, in place of slave-catching, betook 
 himself to life in one of the new settlements, where his 
 talents developed themselves more happily in trapping bears, 
 wolves, and other inhabitants of the forest, in which he made 
 
ELIZA'S PREPARATIONS FOR ESCAPE. 413 
 
 himself quite a name in the land. Tom always spoke 
 reverently of the Quakers. " Nice people," he would say; 
 "wanted"to convert me, but couldn't come it exactly. But 
 tell ye what, stranger, they do fix up a sick fellow first-rate, 
 no mistake ! Make jist the tallest kind o' broth and 
 knicknacks." 
 
 As Tom had informed them that their party would be 
 looked for in Sandusky, it was thought prudent to divide : 
 them. Jim, with his old mother, was forwarded separately ; i 
 and, a night or two after, George and Eliza, with their child, 
 were driven privately into Sandusky, and lodged beneath a 
 hospitable roof, preparatory to taking their last passage on 
 the lake. 
 
 Their night was now far spent, and the morning star of 
 liberty rose fair before them. Liberty ; electric word ! "What 
 is it ? Is there anything more in it than a name, a rhetorical 
 flourish? Why, men and women of America, does your 
 hearts' blood thrill at that word, for which your fathers bled 
 and your braver mothers were willing that their noblest 
 and best should die ? \ 
 
 Is there anything in it glorious and dear for a nation, that 
 is not also glorious and dear for a man ? What is freedom 
 to a nation, but freedom to the individuals in it ? What is 
 freedom to that young man who sits there with his arms 
 folded over his broad chest, the tint of African blood in his 
 cheek, its dark fires in his eye what is freedom to George 
 Harris ? To your fathers, freedom was the right of a nation 
 to be a nation*. To him, it is the right of a man to be a man 
 and not a brute ; the right to call the wife of his bosom his 
 wife, and to protect her from lawless violence ; the right to 
 protect and educate his child ; the right to have a home of 
 his own, a religion of his own, a character of his own, 
 unsubject to the will of another. All these thoughts were 
 rolling and seething in George's breast, as he was pensively 
 leaning his head on his hand, watching his wife, as she was 
 adapting to her slender and pretty form the articles of man's 
 attire, in which it was deemed safest she should make her 
 escape. 
 
 "JSTow for it," said she, as she stood before the glass, 
 and shook down her silky abundance of black curly hair. 
 "I say, George, it's almost a pity, isn't it?" she said, 
 
414 TEANSFOEMATIONS. 
 
 as she held tip some of it playfully. " Pity it's all got to 
 come off?" 
 
 George smiled sadly, and made no answer. 
 
 Eliza turned to the glass, and the scissors glittered as one 
 long lock after another was detached from her head. 
 
 " There now, that'll do," she said, taking up a hair-brush ; 
 " now for a few fancy touches." 
 
 " There, an't I a pretty young fellow ? " she said, turning 
 round to her husband, laughing and blushing at the same 
 time. 
 
 "You always will be pretty, do what you will," said 
 George. 
 
 " What does make you so sober ? " said Eliza, kneeling on 
 one knee and laying her hand on his. " We are only within 
 twenty-four hours of Canada, they say. Only a day and a 
 night on the lake, and then oh, then ! " 
 
 "Oh, Eliza!" said George, drawing her towards him; 
 " that is it ! Now my fate is all narrowing down to a point. 
 To come so near, to be almost in sight, and then lose all ! I 
 should never live under it, Eliza." 
 
 " Don't fear," said his wife hopefully. "The good Lord 
 would not have brought us so far if he didn't mean to carry 
 us through. I seem to feel him with us, George." 
 
 " You are a blessed woman, Eliza ! " said George, clasping 
 her with a convulsive grasp. But oh, tell me ! can this 
 great mercy be for us ? Will these years and years of misery 
 come to an end ? shall we be free ? " 
 
 "I am sure of it, George," said Eliza, looking upward, 
 while tears of hope and enthusiasm shone on her long, dark 
 lashes. " I feel it in me, that God is going to bring us out 
 of bondage, this very day." 
 
 " I will believe you, Eliza," said George, rising suddenly 
 up. "I will believe; come, let's be off. Well, indeed," 
 said he, holding her off at arm's length, and looking admi- 
 ringly at her, " you are a pretty little fellow. That crop of 
 little, short curls is quite becoming. Put on your cap. So 
 a little to one side. I never saw you look quite so 
 pretty. But it's almost time for the carriage ; I wonder if 
 Mrs. Smyth has got Harry rigged ? " 
 
 The door opened, and a respectable middle-aged woman 
 entered, leading little Harry, dressed in girl's clothes. 
 
TOM LOKEE'S ADYICE. 415 
 
 " What a pretty girl he makes," said Eliza, turning him 
 round. "We call him Harriet, you see; don't the name 
 come nicely?" 
 
 The child stood gravely regarding his mother in her new 
 and strange attire, observing a profound silence, and occa-/ 
 sionally drawing deep sighs, and peeping at her from under 
 his dark curls. 
 
 " Does Harry know mamma ? " said Eliza, stretching her 
 hands towards him. 
 
 The child clung shyly to 'the woman. 
 
 " Come, Eliza, why do you try to coax him, when you 
 know that he has got to be kept away from you ? " 
 
 "I know it's foolish," said Eliza, "yet I can't bear to 
 have him turn away from me. But come where' s my 
 cloak ? Here how is it men put on cloaks, George ? " 
 
 " You must wear it so," said her husband, throwing it 
 over his shoulders. 
 
 " So then," said Eliza, imitating the motion ; " and I must 
 stamp, and take long steps, and try to look saucy." 
 
 " Don't exert yourself," said George. " There is, now and 
 then, a modest young man ; and I think it would be easier 
 for you to act that character." 
 
 " And these gloves ! mercy upon us ! " said Eliza, " why, 
 my hands are lost in them." 
 
 "I advise you to keep them on pretty strictly," said 
 George. " Your little slender paw might bring us all out. 
 Now, Mrs. Smyth, you are to go under our charge, and be 
 our aunty you mind." 
 
 "I've heard," said Mrs. Smyth, "that there have been 
 men down, warning all the packet-captains against a man 
 and woman, with a little boy." 
 
 " They have ! " said George. " Well, if we see any such 
 people we can tell them." 
 
 A hack now drove to the door, and the friendly family 
 who had received the fugitives crowded around them with 
 farewell greetings. 
 
 The disguises the party had assumed were in accordance 
 with the hints of Tom. Loker. Mrs. Smyth, a respectable 
 woman from the settlement in Canada, whither they were 
 fleeing, being fortunately about crossing the lake to return 
 thither, had consented ta appear as the aunt of little Harry ; 
 
416 FBEEDOM. 
 
 and, in order to attach him to her, he had been allowed to 
 remain, the two last days, under her sole charge ; and an 
 extra amount of petting, joined to an indefinite amount of 
 seed-cakes and candy, had cemented a very close attachment 
 on the part of the young gentleman. 
 
 The hack drove to the wharf. The two young men, as 
 they appeared, walked up the plank into the boat, Eliza 
 gallantly giving her arm to Mrs. Smyth, and George attending 
 to their baggage. 
 
 George was standing at the captain's office, settling for 
 his party, when he overheard two men talking by his side. 
 
 " I've watched every one that came on board," said one; 
 " and I know they're not on this boat." 
 
 The voice was that of the clerk of the boat. The speaker 
 whom he addressed was our sometime friend Marks, who, 
 with that valuable perseverance which characterise^ him, 
 had come on to Sandusky, seeking whom he might devour. 
 
 " You would scarcely know the woman from a white one," 
 said Marks. " The man is a very light mulatto. He has a 
 brand in one of his hands." 
 
 The hand with which George was taking the tickets and 
 change trembled a little ; but he turned coolly round, fixed 
 an unconcerned glance on the face of the speaker, and 
 walked leisurely toward another part of the boat, where Eliza 
 stood waiting for him. 
 
 Mrs. Smyth, with little Harry, sought the seclusion of 
 the ladies' cabin, where the dark beauty of the supposed 
 little girl drew many flattering comments from the 
 passengers. 
 
 George had the satisfaction, as the bell rang out its fare- 
 well peal, to see Marks walk down the plank to the shore ; 
 and drew a long sigh of relief when the boat had put a 
 returnless distance between them. 
 
 It was a superb day. The blue waves of Lake Erie danced 
 rippling and sparkling in the sunlight. A fresh breeze blew 
 from the shore, and the lordly boat ploughed her way right 
 gallantly onward. 
 
 Oh, what an untold world there is in one human heart ! 
 Who thought, as George walked calmly up and down the 
 deck of the steamer, with his shy companion at his side, of 
 all that was burning in his bosom ? The mighty good that 
 
SENSATIONS OF FKEEDOM. 417 
 
 seemed approaching seemed too good, too fair, even to be a 
 reality ; and he felt a jealous dread every moment of the 
 day that something would rise to snatch it from him. 
 
 But the boat swept on hours fleeted, and, at last, clear 
 and full rose the blessed English shor,e shores charmed by 
 a mighty spell with one touch to dissolve every incantation 
 of slavery, no matter in what language pronounced, or by 
 what national power confirmed. 
 
 Gleorge and his wife stood arm in arm as the boat neared 
 the small town of Amherstberg, in Canada. His breath 
 grew thick and short ; a mist gathered before his eyes ; he 
 silently pressed the little hand that lay trembling on his 
 arm. The bell rang the boat stopped. Scarcely seeing 
 what he did, he looked out his baggage, and gathered his 
 little party. The little company were landed on the shore. 
 They .stood still till the boat had cleared; and then, with 
 tears and embracings, the husband and wife, with their 
 wondering child in their arms, knelt down and lifted up 
 their hearts to Grod ! 
 
 " 'T was something like the burst from death to life ; 
 
 From the grave's cerements to the robes of heaven ; 
 From sin's dominion, and from passion's strife, 
 
 To the pure freedom of a soul forgiven ; 
 
 Where all the bonds of death and hell are riven, 
 And mortal puts on immortality, 
 When Mercy's hand hath turned the golden key, 
 And Mercy's voice hath said, Eejoice, thy soul is free ! ' " 
 
 The little party were soon guided by Mrs. Smyth to the 
 hospitable abode of a good missionary, whom Christian 
 charity has placed here as a shepherd to the outcast and 
 wandering, who are constantly finding an asylum on this 
 shore. 
 
 "Who can speak the blessedness of that first day of free- 
 dom ? Is not the sense of liberty a higher and a finer one 
 than any of the five ? To move, speak, and breathe, go out 
 and come in, unwatched and free from danger ! Who can 
 speak the blessings of that rest which conies down on the 
 free man's pillow, under laws which ensure to him the rights 
 that God has given to man ? How fair and precious to that 
 mother was that sleeping child's face, endeared by the 
 
 E E 
 
418 THE YICTOBY. 
 
 memory of a thousand dangers ! How impossible was it to 
 sleep in the exuberant possession of such blessedness ! And 
 yet these two had not one acre of ground, not a roof that 
 they could call their own ; they had spent their all, to the 
 last dollar. They had nothing more than the birds of the 
 air, or the flowers of the field yet they could not sleep for 
 joy. " ye who take freedom from man, with what words 
 shall ye answer it to Grod ? " 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVIII. 
 
 THE VICTORY. 
 
 " Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory." 
 
 HATE not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in 
 some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live ? 
 
 The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish 
 and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong 
 stimulant and tonic. There is a vivid excitement, a thrill 
 and fervour, which may carry through any crisis of suffering 
 that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest. 
 
 But to live, to wear on day after day of mean, bitter, low, 
 harassing servitude, every nerve damped and depressed, 
 every power of feeling gradually smothered this long and 
 wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of 
 the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour this is the 
 true searching test of what there may be in man or woman. 
 
 When Tom stood face to face with his persecutor, and 
 heard his threats, and thought in his very soul that his hour 
 was come, his heart swelled bravely in him, and he thought 
 he could bear torture and fire, bear anything, with the vision 
 of Jesus and heaven but just a step beyond ; but when he was 
 gone, and the present excitement passed off, came back the 
 pain of his bruised and weary limbs, came back the sense of 
 his utterly degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate : and the day 
 passed wearily enough. 
 
 Long befor>-his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that 
 he should be put to the regular field-work ; and then came 
 
419 
 
 day after day of pain and weariness, aggravated by every 
 kind of injustice and indignity that the ill-will of a mean 
 and malicious mind could devise. Whoever, in our circum- 
 stances, has made trial of pain, even with all the alleviations 
 which for us usually attend it, must know the irritation 
 that comes with it. Tom no longer wondered at the 
 habitual surliness of his associates ; nay, he found the 
 placid, sunny temper which had been the habitude of his 
 life broken in on and sorely strained by the inroads of the 
 same thing. He had nattered himself on leisure to read his 
 Bible, but there was no such thing as leisure there. In the 
 height of the season, Legree did not hesitate to press all 
 his hands through Sundays and week-days alike. "Why 
 shouldn't he? He made more cotton by it, and gained 
 his wager ; and if it wore out a few more hands, he could 
 buy better ones. At first Tom used to read a verse or 
 two of his Bible, by the nicker of the fire, after he had 
 returned from his daily toil ; but, after the cruel treatment 
 he received, he used to come home so exhausted that his 
 head swam and his eyes failed when he tried to read, and he 
 was fain to stretch himself down with the others in utter 
 exhaustion. 
 
 Is it strange that the religious peace and trust which had 
 upborne him hitherto should give way to tossings of soul 
 and despondent darkness. The gloomiest problem of this 
 mysterious life was constantly before his eyes : souls crushed 
 and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent. It was weeks 
 and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness 
 and sorrow. He thought of Miss Ophelia's letter to his 
 Kentucky friends and would pray earnestly that God would 
 send him deliverance ; and then he would watch, day after 
 day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody sent to redeem 
 him ; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his 
 soul bitter thoughts that it was vain to serve God, that 
 God had forgotten him. He sometimes saw Gassy; and 
 sometimes, when summoned to the house, caught a glimpse 
 of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held very little com- 
 munion with either ; in fact, there was no time for him to 
 commune with anybody. 
 
 One evening he was sitting in utter dejection and pros- 
 tration by a few decayed brands, where his coarse supper 
 
 KB 2 
 
420 DAWN IN THE DAEKFESS. 
 
 was baking. He put a few bits of brushwood on the fire, 
 and strove to raise the light, and then drew his worn Bible 
 from his pocket. There were all the marked passages which 
 had thrilled his soul so often words of patriarchs and seers, 
 poets and sages, who from early time had spoken courage to 
 man voices from the great cloud of witnesses who ever 
 surround us in the race of life. Had the word lost its 
 power, or could the failing eye and weary sense no longer 
 answer to the touch of that mighty inspiration ? Heavily 
 sighing, he put it in his pocket. A coarse laugh roused 
 him ; he looked up Legree was standing opposite to him. 
 
 "Well, old boy," he said, "you find your religion don't 
 work, it seems ! I thought I should get that through your 
 wool at last ! " 
 
 The cruel taunt was more than hunger, and cold, and 
 nakedness. Tom was silent. 
 
 " Tou were a fool," said Legree ; " for I meant to do well 
 by you when I bought you. You might have been better 
 off than Sambo, or Quimbo either, and had easy times ; and, 
 instead of getting cut up and thrashed every day or two, ye 
 might have had liberty to lord it round, and cut up the 
 other niggers ; and ye might have had, now and then, a good 
 warming of whiskey-punch. Come, Tom, don't you think 
 you'd better be reasonable ? Heave that ar' old pack of 
 trash in the fire and join my church ! " 
 
 " The Lord forbid'! " said Tom, fervently. 
 
 " Tou see the Lord an't going to help you ; if he had 
 been, he wouldn't have let me get you ! This yer religion is 
 all a mess of lying trumpery, Tom. I know all about it. 
 Te'd better hold to me ; I'm somebody, and can do 
 something ! " 
 
 " No, mas'r," said Tom, " I'll hold on. The Lord may 
 help me, or not help ; but I'll hold to Him, and believe Him 
 to the last ! " 
 
 " The more fool you ! " said Legree, spitting scornfully at 
 him, and spurning him with his foot. " Never mind, I'll 
 chase you down yet, and bring you under, you'll see ! " and 
 Legree turned away. 
 
 "When a heavy weight presses the soul to the lowest level 
 at which endurance is possible, there is an instant and des- 
 perate effort of every physical and moral nerve to throw off 
 
EELIGIOT7S IMPRESSION'S OF THE BLACKS. 421 
 
 the weight ; and hence the heaviest anguish often precedes 
 'a return tide of joy and courage. So was it now with Tom. 
 The atheistic taunts of his cruel master sunk his before de- 
 jected soul to the lowest ebb ; and though the hand of faith 
 still held to the eternal Rock, it was with a numb, despairing 
 grasp. Tom sat like one stunned at the fire. Suddenly 
 everything around him seemed to fade, and a vision rose 
 before him of One crowned with thorns, buffeted and 
 bleeding. Tom gazed in awe and wonder at the majestic 
 patience of the face ; the deep pathetic eyes thrilled him to 
 his inmost heart ; his soul woke, as, with floods of emotion, 
 he stretched out his hands and fell upon his knees ; when 
 gradually the vision changed, the sharp thorns became rays 
 of glory, and in splendour inconceivable he saw that same 
 face bending compassionately towards him, and a voice said, 
 " He that overcometh shall sit down with me on my throne, 
 even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father 
 on his throne." 
 
 How long Tom lay there he knew not. "When he came 
 to himself, the fire was gone out, his clothes were wet with 
 the chill and drenching dews ; but the dread soul-crisis was 
 past, and, in the joy that filled him, he no longer felt hunger, 
 cold, degradation, disappointment, wretchedness. From his 
 deepest soul, he that hour loosed and parted from every hope 
 in the life that now is, and offered his own will an unques- 
 tioning sacrifice to the Infinite. Tom looked up to the 
 silent, ever-living stars, types of the angelic hosts who ever 
 look down on man ; and the solitude of the night rung with 
 the triumphant words of a hymn, which he had sung often 
 in happier days, but never with such feeling as now : 
 
 " The earth shall be dissolved like snow, 
 
 The sun shall cease to shine ; 
 But God, who called me here below, 
 Shall be for ever mine. 
 
 " And when this mortal life shall fail, 
 
 And flesh and sense shall cease, 
 I shall possess within the veil 
 A life of joy and peace. 
 
 " When we've been there ten thousand years 
 
 Bright shining like the sun, 
 We've no less days to sing God's praise 
 Than when we first begun." 
 
422 
 
 Those who have been familiar with the religious histories 
 of the slave-population, know that relations like what we 
 have narrated are very common among them. We have 
 heard some from their own lips of a very touching and 
 affecting character. The psychologist tells us of a state in 
 which the affections and images of the mind become so 
 dominant and overpowering, that they press into their 
 service the outward senses, and make them give tangible 
 shape to the inward imagining. Who shall measure what 
 an all-pervading Spirit may do with these capabilities of our 
 mortality, or the ways in which He may encourage the 
 desponding souls of the desolate ? If the poor forgotten 
 slave believes that Jesus hath appeared and spoken to him, 
 who shall contradict him ? Did He not say that His mission 
 in all ages was to bind up the broken-hearted, and set at 
 liberty them that are bruised ? 
 
 When the dim grey of dawn woke the slumberers to go 
 forth to the field, there was among those tattered and shiver- 
 ing wretches one who walked with an exultant tread ; for 
 firmer than the ground he trod on was his strong faith in 
 almighty, eternal Love. Ah, Legree! try all your forces 
 now ! Utmost agony, woe, degradation, want, and loss of 
 all things, shall only hasten on the process by which he shall 
 be made a king and a priest unto God ! 
 
 From this time, an inviolable sphere of peace encompassed 
 the lowly heart of the oppressed one an ever-present 
 Saviour hallowed it as a temple. Past now the bleeding of 
 earthly regrets past its fluctuations of hope, and fear, and 
 desire the human will, bent and bleeding, and struggling 
 long, was now entirely merged in the divine. So short now 
 seemed the remaining voyage of life so near, so vivid, 
 seemed eternal blessedness that life's uttermost woes fell 
 from him unharming. 
 
 All noticed the change in his appearance. Cheerfulness 
 and alertness seemed to return to him, and a quietness 
 which no insult or injury could ruffle seemed to possess 
 him. 
 
 " What the devil's got into Tom ?" Legree said to Sambo. 
 " A while ago he was all down in the mouth, and now he's 
 peart as a cricket." 
 
 " Dunno, mas'r ! gwine to run off, mebbe." 
 
LEGREE' s HATRED OF KELIGION. 423 
 
 " Like to see him try that," said Legree, with a savage 
 grin ; " wouldn't we, Sambo ?" 
 
 " Gruess we would ! haw ! haw ! ho !" said the sooty gnome, 
 laughing obsequiously. " Lord, de fun ! To see him stickin' 
 in the mud, chasin' and tearin' through de bushes, dogs 
 a-holdin' on to him ! Lord, I laughed fit to split, dat ar' 
 time we cotched Molly. I thought they'd had her all stripped 
 up afore I could get 'em off. She car's de marks o' dat ar' 
 spree yet." 
 
 "I reckon she will to her grave," said Legree. "But 
 now, Sambo, you look sharp ! If the nigger's got anything 
 of this sort going, trip him up." 
 
 " Mas'r, let me 'lone for dat !" said Sambo. " I'll tree de 
 coon! Ho! ho! ho!" 
 
 This was spoken as Legree was getting on to his horse to go 
 to the neighbouring town. That night, as he was returning, 
 he thought he would turn his horse and ride round the 
 quarters, and see if all was safe. 
 
 It was a superb moonlight night, and the shadows of the 
 graceful china-trees lay minutely pencilled on the turf below, 
 and there was that transparent stilness in the air which it 
 seems almost unholy to disturb. Legree was at a little dis- 
 tance from the quarters when he heard the voice of some one 
 singing. It was not an usual sound there, and he paused to 
 listen. A musical tenor voice sung 
 
 " When I can read my title clear 
 
 To mansions in the skies, 
 I bid farewell to every fear, 
 And wipe my weeping eyes. 
 
 " Should earth against my soul engage, 
 
 And hellish darts be hurled, 
 
 Then I can smile at Satan's rage, 
 
 And face a frowning world. 
 
 " Let cares like a wild deluge come. 
 
 And storms of sorrow fall, 
 May I but safely reach my home, 
 My God, my heaven, my all ! " 
 
 "So ho!" said Legree to himself, "he thinks so, does 
 he ? How I hate these cursed Methodist hymns ! Here, 
 you nigger !" said he, coming suddenly out upon Tom, and 
 
TOM'S POWER OVEB HIS COMPANIONS. 
 
 raising his riding- whip, " how dare you be gettin' up this yer 
 row, when you ought to be in bed ? Shut yer old black 
 gash, and get along in with you." 
 
 "Yes, mas'r," said Tom, with ready cheerfulness, as he 
 rose to go in. 
 
 Legree was provoked beyond measure by Tom's evident 
 happiness ; and, riding up to him, belaboured him over his 
 head and shoulders. 
 
 " There, you dog," he said, " see if you feel so comfortable 
 after that!" 
 
 But the blows fell now only on the outer man, and not, as 
 before on the heart. Tom stood perfectly submissive ; and 
 yet Legree could not hide from himself that his power over 
 his bond-thrall was somehow gone. And as Tom disap- 
 peared in his cabin, and he wheeled his horse suddenly 
 round, there passed through his mind one of those vivid 
 flashes that often send the lightning of conscience across 
 the dark and wicked soul. He understood full well that it 
 was O-od who was standing between him and his victim, and 
 he blasphemed Him. That submissive and silent man, 
 whom taunts, nor threats, nor stripes, nor cruelties could 
 disturb, roused a voice within him, such as of old his 
 Master roused in the demoniac soul, saying, " What have 
 we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? Art thou 
 come to torment us before the time ?" 
 
 Tom's whole soul overflowed with compassion and sym- 
 pathy for the poor wretches by whom he was surrounded. 
 To him it seemed as if his life-sorrows were now over, and 
 as if, out of that strange treasury of peace and joy with 
 which he had been endowed from above, he longed to pour 
 out something for the relief of their woes. It is true, 
 opportunities were scanty ; but- on the way to the fields and 
 back again, and during the hours of labour, chances fell in 
 his way of extending a helping hand to the weary, the 
 disheartened and discouraged. The poor, worn-down, bruta- 
 lised creatures, at first could scarcely comprehend this ; but 
 when it was continued week after week, and month after 
 month, it began to awaken long- silent chords in their 
 benumbed hearts. Gradually and imperceptibly the strange, 
 silent, patient man, who was ready to bear every one's 
 burden, and sought help from none who stood aside for all, 
 
THE GOSPEL. 425 
 
 and came last, and took least, yet was foremost to share his 
 little all with any who needed the man who, in cold nights, 
 would give up his tattered blanket to add to the comfort of 
 some woman who shivered with sickness, and who filled the 
 baskets of the weaker ones in the field, at the terrible risk 
 of coming short in his own measure and who, though 
 pursued with unrelenting cruelty by their common tyrant, 
 never joined in uttering a word of reviling or cursing this 
 man at last began to have a strange power over them ; and 
 when the more pressing season was past, and they were 
 allowed again their Sundays for their own use, many would 
 gather together to hear from him of Jesus. They would 
 gladly have met to hear, and pray, and sing, in some place 
 together ; but Legree would not permit it, and more than 
 once broke up such attempts with oaths and brutal execra- 
 tions, so that the blessed news had to circulate from 
 individual to individual. Tet who can speak the simple joy 
 with which some of those poor outcasts, to whom life was a 
 joyless journey to a dark unknown, heard of a compassionate 
 Redeemer and a heavenly home? It is the statement of 
 missionaries that, of all races of the earth, none have 
 received the G-ospel with such eager docility as the African. 
 The principle of reliance and unquestioning faith which is 
 its foundation is more a native element in this race than 
 any other ; and it has often been found among them, that 
 a stray seed of truth, borne on some breeze of accident 
 into hearts the most ignorant, has sprung up into fruit, 
 whose abundance has shamed that of higher and more skilful 
 culture. 
 
 The poor mulatto woman, whose simple faith had been 
 well nigh crushed and overwhelmed by the avalanche of 
 cruelty and wrong which had fallen upon her, felt her soul 
 raised up by the hymns and passages of Holy Writ 
 which this lowly missionary breathed into her ear in 
 intervals, as they were going to and returning from work ; 
 and even the half-crazed and wandering mind of Gassy 
 was soothed and calmed bv his simple and unobtrusive 
 influences. 
 
 Stung to madness and despair by the crushing agonies 
 of a life, Gassy had often resolved in her soul an hour -of 
 retribution, when her hand should avenge on her oppressor 
 
426 DESPERATE EESOLUTION OF CASST. 
 
 all the injustice and cruelty to which she had been witness, 
 or which she had in her own person suffered. 
 
 One night, after all in Tom's cabin were sunk in sleep, he 
 was suddenly aroused by seeing her face at the hole between 
 the logs that served for a window. She made a silent gesture 
 for him to come out. 
 
 Tom came out the door. It was between one and two 
 o'clock at night broad, calm, still moonlight. Tom re- 
 marked, as the light of the moon fell upon Gassy 's large, 
 black eyes, that there was a wild and peculiar glare in them, 
 unlike their wonted fixed despair. 
 
 " Come here, Father Tom," she said, laying her small 
 hand on his wrist, and drawing him forward with a force as 
 if the hand were of steel ; " come here I've news for you." 
 
 " What, Misse Gassy ? " said Tom, anxiously. 
 
 " Tom, wouldn't you like your liberty ? " 
 
 "I shall have it, misse, in Grod's time," said Tom. 
 
 "Ay, but you may have it to-night," said Gassy, with a 
 flash of sudden energy. " Come on." 
 
 Tom hesitated. 
 
 ^ " Come ! " said she in a whisper, fixing her black eyes on 
 him. " Come along ! He's asleep sound. I put enough 
 into his brandy to keep him so. I wish I'd had more, I 
 shouldn't have wanted you. But come, the back door is 
 unlocked ; there is an axe there, I put it there his room 
 door is open ; I'll show you the way. I'd a done it myself, 
 only my arms are so weak. Come along ! " 
 
 " Not for ten thousand worlds, misse ! " said Tom firmly, 
 stopping and holding her back, as she was pressing forward. 
 
 "But think of all these poor creatures," said Gassy. 
 ""We might set them all free, and go somewhere in the 
 swamps and find an island and live by ourselves ; I've heard 
 of its being done. Any life is better than this." 
 
 "No !" said Tom firmly. "No! good ne^er comes of 
 wickedness. I'd sooner chop my right hand off! " 
 
 "Then /shall do it," said Gassy, turning. 
 
 " Misse Gassy ! " said Tom, throwing himself before 
 her, " for the dear Lord's sake that died for ye, don't sell 
 your precious soul to the devil that way ! Nothing but evil 
 will come of it. The Lord hasn't called us to wrath. "We 
 must suffer, and wait His time." 
 
CASST DETERMINES TO ESCAPE. 427 
 
 " Wait ! " said Gassy. " Haven't I waited ? waited till 
 my head is dizzy and my heart sick ? "What has he made 
 me suffer ? What has he made hundreds of poor creatures 
 suffer ? Isn't he wringing the life-blood out of you ! I'm 
 called on ! they call me ! His time's come, and I'll have his 
 heart's blood! " 
 
 " No, no, no ! " said Tom, holding her small hands, which 
 were clenched with spasmodic violence. " No, ye poor, lost 
 soul, that ye must'nt do ! The dear, blessed Lord, never 
 shed no blood but his own, and that he poured out for us 
 when we was enemies. Lord, help us to follow his steps and 
 love our enemies ! " 
 
 " Love ! " said Gassy, with a fierce glare, " love such 
 enemies ! It isn't in flesh and blood." 
 
 " No, misse, it isn't," said Tom, looking up ; " but He 
 gives it to us, and that's the victory. When we can love and 
 pray over all and through all, the battle's past and the victory's 
 come glory be to Grod!" And, with streaming eyes and 
 choking voice, the black man looked up to heaven. 
 
 And this, Africa ! latest called of nations, called to the 
 crown of thorns, the scourge, the bloody sweat, the cross of 
 agony this is to be thy victory ; by this shalt thou reign 
 with Christ when his kingdom shall come on earth. 
 
 The deep fervour of Tom's feelings, the softness of his 
 voice, his tears, fell like dew on the wild, unsettled spirit of 
 the poor woman. A softness gathered over the lurid fires of 
 her eye ; she looked down, and Tom could feel the relaxing 
 muscles of her hands as she said 
 
 " Didn't I tell you that evil spirits followed me ? 
 Father Tom, I can't pray ! I wish I could. I never have 
 prayed since my children were sold ! What you say must be 
 right I know it must ; but when I try to pray, I can only 
 hate and curse. I can't pray ! " 
 
 "Poor soul," said Tom, compassionately. "Satan desires 
 to have ye, and sift ye as wheat. I pray the Lord for ye. 
 O Misse Gassy, turn to the dear Lord Jesus. He came to 
 bind up the broken-hearted, and comfort all that mourn ! " 
 
 Gassy stood silent, while large, heavy tears dropped from 
 her down-cast eyes. 
 
 " Misse Gassy," said Tom, in a hesitating tone, after sur- 
 veying her a moment in silence, " if ye only could get away 
 
428 TOM IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 
 
 from here if the thing was possible I'd 'vise ye and 
 Emmeline to do it ; that is, if ye could go without blood- 
 guiltiness not otherwise." 
 
 " Would you try it with us, Father Tom ? " 
 
 " No," said Tom ; " time was when I would ; but the 
 Lord's given me a work among these yer poor souls, and I'll 
 stay with 'em and bear my cross with 'em till the end. It's 
 different with you; it's a snare to you its more'n you can 
 stand ; and you'd better go, if you can." 
 
 "I know no way but through the grave," said Gassy. 
 " There's no beast or bird but can find a home somewhere, 
 even the snakes and the alligators have their places to lie 
 down and be quiet ; but there's no place for us. Down in 
 the darkest swamps the dogs will hunt us out, and find us. 
 Everybody and everything is against us, even the very beasts 
 side against us ; and where shall we go ? " 
 
 Tom stood silent ; at length he said 
 
 " Him that saved Daniel in the den of lions that saved 
 the children in the fiery furnace Him that walked on the 
 sea and bade the winds be still He's alive yet ; and I've 
 faith to believe He can deliver you. Try it, and I'll pray 
 with all my might for you." 
 
 By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long over- 
 looked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly 
 sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond ? 
 
 Gassy had often revolved, for hours, all possible or probable 
 schemes of escape, and dismissed them all as hopeless and 
 impracticable ; but at this moment there flashed through 
 her mind a plan, so simple and feasible in all its details, as 
 to awaken an instant hope. 
 
 " Father Tom, I'll try it ! " she said, suddenly. 
 
 "Amen ! " said Tom. " The Lord help ye ! " 
 
THE STRATAGEM. 429 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIX. 
 
 THE STEATAGEM. 
 
 " The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they 
 stumble." 
 
 THE garret of the house that Legree occupied, like most 
 other garrets, was a great desolate space, dusty, hung with 
 cobwebs, and littered with cast-off lumber. The opulent 
 family that had inhabited the house in the days of its splen- 
 dour had imported a great deal of splendid furniture, some 
 of which they had taken away with them, while some remained 
 standing desolate in mouldering, unoccupied rooms, or stored 
 away in this place. One or two immense packing-boxes, in 
 which this furniture was brought, stood against the sides of 
 the garret. There was a small window there, which let in 
 through its dingy, dusty panes, a scanty, uncertain light on 
 the tall, high-backed chairs and dusty tables, that had once 
 seen better days. Altogether, it was a weird and ghostly 
 place ; but, ghostly as it was, it wanted not in legends among 
 the superstitious negroes to increase its terrors. Some few 
 years before, a negro woman who had incurred Legree' s dis- 
 pleasure was confined there for several weeks. "What passed 
 there we do not say ; the negroes used to whisper darkly to 
 each other ; but it was known that the body of the unfor- 
 tunate creature was one day taken down from there, and 
 buried ; and after that it was said that oaths and cursings, 
 and the sound of violent blows, used to ring through that 
 old garret, and mingled with wailmgs and groans of despair. 
 Once, when Legree chanced to overhear something of this 
 kind, he flew into a violent passion, and swore that the next 
 one that told stories about that garret should have an oppor- 
 tunity of knowing what was there, for he would chain him 
 up there for a week. This hint was enough to repress talking, . 
 though, of course, it did not disturb the credit of the story 
 in the least. 
 
430 OASST WORKS OF LEGREE*S SUPERSTITION. 
 
 Gradually the staircase that led to the garret, and even 
 the passage-way to the staircase, were avoided by every one 
 in the house, from every one fearing to speak of it, and the 
 legend was gradually falling into desuetude. It had suddenly 
 occurred to Gassy to make use of the superstitious excitability 
 which was so great in Legree for the purpose of her liberation, 
 and that of her fellow-sufferer. 
 
 The sleeping-room of Gassy was directly under the garret. 
 One day, without consulting Legree, she suddenly took it 
 upon her, with some considerable ostentation, to change all 
 the furniture and appurtenances of the room to one at some 
 considerable distance. The under-servants, who were called 
 on to effect this movement, were running and bustling about 
 with great zeal and confusion, when Legree returned from a 
 ride. 
 
 " Halloa ! you Cass ! " said Legree ; " what's in the wind 
 now ? " 
 
 "Nothing; only I choose to have another room," said 
 Gassy, doggedly. 
 
 " And what for, pray ? " said Legree. 
 
 " I choose to," said Gassy. 
 
 " The devil you do ! And what for?" 
 
 "I'd like to get some sleep, now and then." 
 
 " Sleep ! well, what hinders your sleeping ? ' ' 
 
 " I could tell, I suppose, if you want to hear," said Gassy, 
 drily. 
 
 " Speak out, you minx ! " said Legree. 
 
 " Oh ! nothing. I suppose it wouldn't disturb you ! 
 Only groans, and people scuffling, and rolling round on the 
 garret-floor half the night, from twelve to morning." 
 
 " People up garret ! " said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a 
 laugh ; " who are they, Gassy ? " 
 
 Gassy raised her sharp black eyes, and looked in the face 
 of Legree with an expression that went through his bones 
 as she said, " To be sure, Simon, who are they ? I'd like to 
 have you tell me. You don't know, I suppose ! " 
 
 "With an oath, Legree struck at her with his riding- whip ; 
 but she glided to one side, and passed through the door, and 
 looking back, said, " If you'll sleep in that room, you'll know 
 all about it. Perhaps you'd better try it ! " and then 
 immediately she shut and locked the door. 
 
THE MOEAL FOBCE OF EYIL. 431 
 
 Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down 
 the door ; but apparently thought better of it, and walked 
 uneasily into the sitting-room. Gassy perceived that her 
 shaft had struck home ; and from that hour with the most 
 exquisite address, she never ceased to continue the train of 
 influences she had begun. 
 
 In a knot-hole in the garret she had inserted the neck of 
 an old bottle, in such a manner that when there was the 
 least wind, most doleful and lugubrious wailing sounds 
 proceeded from it, which, in a high wind, increased to a 
 perfect shriek, such as to credulous and superstitious ears 
 might easily seem to be that of horror and despair. 
 
 These sounds were from time to time heard by the 
 servants, and revived in full force the memory of the old 
 ghost legend. A superstitious creeping horror seemed to 
 fill the house ; and though no one dared to breathe it to 
 Legree, he found himself encompassed by it as by an 
 atmosphere. 
 
 No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. 
 The Christian is composed by the belief of a wise, all-ruling 
 "Father, whose presence fills the void unknown with light 
 and order; but to the man who has dethroned God the 
 spirit-land is, indeed, in the words of the Hebrew poet, 
 "a land of darkness and the shadow of death," without any 
 order, where the light is as darkness. Life and death to 
 him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague 
 and shadowy dread. 
 
 Legree had had the slumbering moral element in him 
 roused by his encounters with Tom roused, only to be 
 resisted by the determinate force of evil ; but still there was 
 a thrill and commotion of the dark, inner world, produced by 
 every world, or prayer, or hymn, that reacted in superstitious 
 dread. 
 
 The influence of Gassy over him was of a strange and sin- 
 
 fular kind. He was her owner, her tyrant, and tormentor, 
 he was, as he knew, wholly, and without any possibility of 
 help or redress, in his hands ; and yet so it is, that the most 
 brutal man cannot live in constant association with a strong 
 female influence, and not be greatly controlled by it. "When 
 he first bought her, she was, as she had said, a woman 
 delicately bred ; and then he crushed her, without scruple, 
 
432 A CONVEESATIOIT ABOUT GHOSTS. 
 
 beneath the foot of his brutality. But as time, and debasing 
 influences and despair, hardened womanhood within her and 
 waked the fires of fiercer passions, she had become, in a 
 measure, his mistress, and he alternately tyrannised over 
 and dreaded her. 
 
 This influence had become more harassing and decided, 
 since partial insanity had given a strange, weird, unsettled 
 cast to all her words and language. 
 
 A night or two after this, Legree was sitting in the old 
 sitting-room, by the side of a flickering wood fire, that threw 
 uncertain glances round the room. It was a stormy, windy 
 night, such as raises whole squadrons of nondescript noises 
 in rickety old houses. Windows were rattling, shutters 
 flapping, the wind carousing, rumbling, and tumbling down 
 the chimney, and every once in a while puffing out smoke 
 and ashes, as if a legion of spirits were coming after them. 
 Legree had been casting up accounts and reading news- 
 papers for some hours, while Gassy sat in the corner, sullenly 
 looking into the fire. Legree laid down his paper, and 
 seeing an old book lying on the table, which he had noticed 
 Gassy reading the first part of the evening, took it up and 
 began to turn it over. It was one of those collections of 
 stories of bloody murders, ghostly legends, and supernatural 
 visitations, which, coarsely got up and illustrated, have a 
 strange fascination for one who once begins to read 
 them. 
 
 Legree poohed and pished, but read, turning page after 
 page, till, finally, after reading some way, he threw down the 
 book with an oath. 
 
 "You don't believe in ghosts, do you, Cass?" said he, 
 taking the tongs and settling the fire. " I thought you'd 
 more sense than to let noises scare you." 
 
 " No matter what I believe," said Gassy, sullenly. 
 
 " Fellows used to try to frighten me with their yarns at 
 sea," said Legree. " Never come it round me that way. I'm 
 too tough for any such trash, tell ye." 
 
 Gassy sat looking intensely at him in the shadow of the 
 corner. There was that strange light in her eyes that always 
 impressed Legree with uneasiness. 
 
 " Them noises was nothing but rats and the wind," said 
 Legree. " Eats will make a devil of a noise. I used to hear 
 
GASSY WOBKS UPON LEGEEB. 433 
 
 'em sometimes down in the hold of the ship ; and wind 
 Lord's sake ! ye can make anything out o' wind." 
 
 Cassy knew Legree was uneasy under her eyes, and there- 
 fore she made no answer, but sat fixing them on him with 
 that strange, unearthly expression as before. 
 
 "Come, speak out, woman don't you think so?" said 
 Legree. 
 
 " Can rats walk down stairs, and come walking through 
 the entry, and open a door when you've locked it and set a 
 chair against it?" said Cassy; "and come walk, walk, 
 walking right up to your bed, and put out their hand, 
 so?" 
 
 Cassy kept her guttering eyes fixed on Legree as she 
 spoke, and he stared at her like a man in the nightmare, till, 
 when she finished by laying her hand, icy cold, on his, he 
 sprang back with an oath. 
 
 ^ " Woman ! What do you mean ? Nobody did ! " 
 ^ " Oh, no of course not did I say they did ? " said 
 Cassy, with a smile of chilling derision. 
 
 " But did have you really seen ? Come, Cass, what is 
 it now speak out ! " 
 
 " You may sleep there yourself," said Cassy, " if you want 
 to know." 
 
 " Did it come from the garret, Cassy ?" 
 
 jfcwhat ? " said Cassy. 
 
 " Why, what you told of." 
 
 " I didn't tell you anything," said Cassy, with dogged 
 sullenness. 
 
 Legree walked up and down the room uneasily. 
 
 " I'll have this yer thing examined. I'll look into it this 
 very night. I'll take my pistols " 
 
 " Do," said Cassy ; " sleep in that room. I'd like to see 
 you doing it. Fire your pistols do ! " 
 
 Legree stamped his foot, and swore violently. 
 
 " Don't swear," said Cassy; " nobody knows who may be 
 hearing you. Hark ! What was that ? " 
 
 " What ? " said Legree, starting. 
 
 A heavy old Dutch clock, that stood in the corner of the 
 room, began, and slowly struck twelve. 
 
 For some reason or other Legree neither spoke noi 
 moved; a vague horror fell on him ; while Cassy, with a keen, 
 
 F F 
 
434 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GAEEET. 
 
 sneering glitter in her .eyes, stood looking at him, counting 
 the strokes. 
 
 " Twelve o'clock ; well, now we'll see," said she, turning 
 and opening the door into the passage-way, and standing as 
 if listening. 
 
 " Hark ! "What's that ? " said she, raising her finger. 
 
 " It's only the wind," said Legree. " Don't you hear how 
 cursedly it blows ? " 
 
 " Simon, come here ! " said Gassy in a whisper, laying her 
 hand on his, and leading him to the foot of the stairs ; " do 
 you know what that is ? Hark ! " 
 
 A wild shriek came pealing down the stairway. It came 
 from the garret. Legree' s knees knocked together ; his face 
 grew white with fear. 
 
 " Hadn't you better get your pistols ? " said Gassy, with a 
 sneer that froze Legree's blood. "It's time this thing was 
 looked into, you know. I'd like to have you go up now ; 
 they're at it" 
 
 " I won't go ! " said Legree, with an oath. 
 
 " "Why not ? There an't any such thing as ghosts, you 
 know ! Come ! " and Gassy flitted up the winding stairway, 
 laughing, and looking back after him. " Come on." 
 
 " I believe you are the devil ! " said Legree, " Come back, 
 you hag ! come back, Cass ! You shan't go ! " 
 
 But Gassy laughed wildly, and fled on. He heard her 
 open the entry doors that led to the garret. A wild gust of 
 wind swept down extinguishing the candle he held in his 
 hand, and with it the fearful, unearthly screams ; they 
 seemed to be shrieked in his very ear. 
 
 Legree fled frantically into the parlour, whither, in a few 
 moments, he was followed by Gassy, pale, calm, cold as an 
 avenging spirit, and with that same fearful light in her eye. 
 
 " I hope you are satisfied," said she. 
 
 " Blast you, Cass ! " said Legree. 
 
 " What for ? " said Gassy. " I only went up and shut 
 the doors. What's the matter with that garret, Simon, do 
 you suppose ? " said she. 
 
 " None of your business ! " said Legree. 
 
 " Oh, it an't ? Well," said Gassy, " at any rate, I'm glad 
 / don't sleep under it." 
 
 Anticipating the rising of the wind that very evening, 
 
CASST'S PLANS. 435 
 
 Gassy had been up and opened the garret-window. Of 
 course, the moment the doors were opened, the wind had 
 drafted down, and extinguished the light. 
 
 This may serve as a specimen of the game that Gassy 
 played with Legree, until he would sooner have put his head 
 into a lion's mouth than to have explored that garret. Mean- 
 while, in the night, when everybody else was asleep, Gassy 
 slowly and carefully accumulated there a stock of provisions 
 sufficient to afford subsistence for some time ; she trans- 
 ferred, article by article, a greater part of her own and 
 Emmeline's wardrobe. All things being arranged, they only 
 waited a fitting opportunity to put their plan in execution. 
 
 By cajoling Legree, and taking advantage of a good- 
 natured interval, Gassy had got him to take her with him to 
 the neighbouring town, which was situated directly on the 
 Eed Eiver. With a memory sharpened to almost preter- 
 natural clearness, she remarked every turn in the road, and 
 formed a mental estimate of the time to be occupied in 
 traversing it. 
 
 At the time when all was matured for action, our readers 
 may, perhaps, like to look behind the scenes, and see the 
 final coup d'etat. 
 
 It was now near evening. Legree had been absent, on a 
 ride to a neighbouring farm. For many days Gassy had 
 been unusually gracious and accommodating in her humours; 
 and Legree and she had been, apparently, on the best of 
 terms. At present, we may behold her and Emmeline, in 
 the room of the latter, busy in sorting and arranging two 
 small bundles. 
 
 " There, these will be large enough," said Gassy. " Now, 
 put on your bonnet, and let's start : it's just about the right 
 time." 
 
 "Why, they can see us yet," said Emmeline. 
 
 "I mean they shall," said Gassy, coolly. '''Don't you 
 know that they must have their chase after us, at any rate. 
 The way of the thing is to be just this. We will steal out of 
 the back door, and run down by the quarters. Sambo or 
 Quimbo will be sure to see us. They will give chase, and 
 we will get into the swamp ; then, they can't follow us any 
 further till they go up and give the alarm, and turn out the 
 dogs, and so on ; and while they are blundering round, and 
 
 B-F 2 
 
436 THE PLAN ATTEMPTED. 
 
 tumbling over eaeh other, as they always do, you and I will 
 just slip along to the creek that runs back of the house, and 
 wade along in it till we get opposite the back door. That 
 will put the dogs all at fault ; for scent won't lie in the water. 
 Everyone will run out of the house to look after us, and then 
 we'll whip in at the back door, and up into the garret, where 
 I have got a nice bed made up in one of the great boxes. 
 "We must stay in that garret a good while ; for, I tell you, 
 he will raise heaven and earth after us. He'll muster some 
 of those old overseers on the other plantations, and have a 
 great hunt ; and they'll go over every inch of ground in that 
 swamp. He makes it his boast that nobody ever got away 
 from him. So let him hunt at his leisure." 
 
 " Gassy, how well you have planned it ! " said Emmeline. 
 " Who ever would have thought of it but you ?" 
 
 There was neither pleasure nor exultation in Gassy 's eyes 
 only a despairing firmness. 
 
 " Come," she said, reaching her hand to Emmeline. 
 
 The two fugitives glided noiselessly from the house, and 
 flitted, through the gathering shadows of evening, along by 
 the quarters. The crescent moon, set like a silver signet in 
 the western sky, delayed a little the approach of night. As 
 Gassy expected, when quite near the verge of the swamps 
 that encircled the plantation, they heard a voice calling to 
 them to stop. It was not Sambo, however, but Legree, 
 who was pursuing them with violent execrations. At the 
 sound, the feebler spirit of Emmeline gave way ; and, 
 laying hold of Cassy's arm, she said, " Gassy, I'm going 
 to faint!" 
 
 " If you do, I'll kill you ! " said Gassy, drawing a small, 
 glittering stiletto, and flashing it before the eyes of the 
 girl. 
 
 The diversion accomplished the purpose. Emmeline did 
 not faint, and succeeded in plunging with Gassy into a part 
 of the labyrinth of swamp, so deep and dark that it was 
 perfectly hopeless for Legree to think of following them 
 without assistance. 
 
 " Well," said he, chuckling brutally, " at any rate, they've 
 got themselves into a trap now the baggages ! They're safe 
 enough. They shall sweat for it ! " 
 
 "Hulloa, there! Sambo! Quimbo! All hands!" called 
 
THE PURSUIT. 437 
 
 Legree, coining to the quarters when the men and women 
 were just returning from work. " There's two runaways in 
 the swamps. I'll give five dollars to any nigger as catches 
 'em. Turn out the dogs ! Turn out Tiger, and Fury, and 
 the rest ! " 
 
 The sensation produced by this news was immediate. 
 Many of the men sprang forward officiously to offer their 
 services, either from the hope of the reward, or from that 
 cringing subserviency which is one of the most baleful effects 
 of slavery. Some ran one way, and some another. Some 
 were for getting flambeaux of pine-knots. Some were un- 
 coupling the dogs, whose hoarse, savage bay, added not a 
 little to the animation of the scene. 
 
 " Mas'r, shall we shoot 'em if we can't cotch 'em ? " said 
 Sambo, to whom his master brought out a rifle. 
 
 " Tou may fire on Cass, if you like ; it's time she was 
 gone to the devil, where she belongs ; but the gal, not," said 
 Legree. " And now, boys, be spry and smart.' Five dollars 
 for him that gets 'em ; and a glass of spirits to every one of 
 you, anyhow." 
 
 The whole band, with the glare of blazing torches, and 
 whoop, and shout, and savage yell, of man and beast, pro- 
 ceeded down to the swamp, followed at some distance by 
 every servant in the house. The establishment was, of a con- 
 sequence, wholly deserted when Gassy and Emmeline glided 
 into it the back way. The whooping and shouts of their 
 pursuers were still filling the air ; and, looking from the 
 sitting-room windows, Gassy and Emmeline could see the 
 troop, with their flambeaux, just dispersing themselves along 
 the edge of the swamp. 
 
 "See there!" said Emmeline, pointing to Gassy; "the 
 hunt is begun ! Look how those lights dance about ! Hark ! 
 the dogs ! Don't you hear ? If we were only there, our 
 chance wouldn't be worth a picayune. Oh, for pity's sake, 
 do let's hide ourselves. Quick ! " 
 
 "There's no occasion for hurry," said Gassy, coolly; 
 " they are all out after the hunt that's the amusement of 
 the evening ! "We'll go up stairs by and by. Meanwhile," 
 said she, deliberately taking a key from the pocket of a coat 
 that Legree had thrown down in his hurry, " meanwhile I 
 shall take something to pay our passage." 
 
438 CASST AND EMMELINE IN THE QAKKET. 
 
 She unlocked the desk, took from it a roll of bills, which 
 she counted over rapidly. 
 
 " Oh, don't let us do that ! " said Emmeline. 
 
 "Don't!" said Gassy, "why not? Would you have us 
 starve in the swamps, or have that that will pay our way to 
 the free States ? Money will do anything, girl." And as 
 she spoke she put the money in her bosom. 
 
 "It would be stealing," said Emmeline, in a distressed 
 whisper. 
 
 " Stealing ! " said Gassy, with a scornful laugh. " They 
 who steal body and soul needn't talk to us. Every one of 
 these bills is stolen stolen from poor, starving, sweating 
 creatures, who must go to the devil at last for his profit. Let 
 him talk about stealing ! But come, we may as well go up 
 garret ; I've got a stock of candles there, and some books 
 to pass away the time. You may be pretty sure they won't 
 come there to inquire after us. If they do, I'll play ghost 
 for them." 
 
 When Emmeline reached the garret, she found an im- 
 mense box, in which some heavy pieces of furniture had 
 once been brought, turned on its side, so that the opening 
 faced the wall, or rather the eaves. Gassy lit a small lamp, 
 and, creeping round under the eaves, they established them- 
 selves in it. It was spread with a couple of small mattresses 
 and some pillows ; a box near by was plentifully stored with 
 candles, provisions, and all the clothing necessary to their 
 journey, which Gassy had arranged into bundfes of an 
 astonishingly small compass. 
 
 "There," said Gassy, as she fixed the lamp into a small 
 hook, which she had driven into the side of the box for that 
 purpose ; " this is to be our home for the present. How do 
 you like it?" 
 
 " Are you sure they won't come and search the garret ? " 
 
 " I'd like to see Simon Legree doing that," said Gassy. 
 " No, indeed, he will be too glad to keep away. As to the 
 servants, they would any of them stand and be shot sooner 
 than show their faces here." 
 
 Somewhat reassured, Emmeline settled herself back on 
 her pillow. 
 
 " What did you mean, Gassy, by saying you would kill 
 me ? " she said simply. 
 
THE DISAPPOINTMENT. 439 
 
 " I meant to stop your fainting," said Gassy, " and I did 
 do it. And now I tell you, Emmeline, you must make up 
 your mind not to faint, let what will come ; there's no sort 
 of need of it. If I had not stopped you, that wretch might 
 have had his hands on you now." 
 
 Emmeline shuddered. 
 
 The two remained some time in silence. Gassy busied 
 herself with a French book ; Emmeline, overcome with the 
 exhaustion, fell into a doze, and slept some time. She was 
 awakened by loud shouts and outcries, the tramp of horses' 
 feet, and the baying of dogs. She started up with a faint 
 shriek. 
 
 " Only the hunt coming back," said Gassy, coolly ; 
 " never fear. Look out of this knot-hole. Don't you see 'em 
 all down there ? Simon has to give it up for this night. 
 Look, how muddy his horse is, flouncing about in the swamp ; 
 the dogs, too, look rather crest-fallen. Ah, my good, sir ! 
 you'll have to try the race again and again the game isnt 
 there." 
 
 "Oh, don't speak a word!" said Emmeline; "what if 
 they should hear you ? " 
 
 " If they do hear anything, it will make them very par- 
 ticular to keep away," said Gassy. " No danger ; we may 
 make any noise we please, and it will only add to the 
 effect." 
 
 At length the stillness of midnight settled down over 
 the house. Legree, cursing his ill luck, and vowing dire 
 vengeance on the morrow, went to bed. 
 
440 THE MAETYE. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 THE MAKTYR. 
 
 " Deem not the just by Heaven forgot ! 
 
 Though life its common gifts deny 
 Though, with a crush'd and bleeding heart, 
 
 And spurn'd of man, he goes to die ! 
 For God hath mark'd each sorrowing day, 
 
 And number'd every bitter tear ; 
 And heaven's long years of bliss shall pay 
 
 For all his children suffer here." BRYANT. 
 
 THE longest way must have its close the gloomiest night 
 will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of 
 moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal 
 night, and the night of the just to an eternal day. "We have 
 walked with our humble friend thus far in the valley of 
 slavery ; first, through flowery fields of ease and indulgence, 
 then through heart-breaking separations from all that man 
 holds dear. Again, we have waited with him in a sunny 
 island, where generous hands concealed his chains with 
 flowers ; and, lastly, we have followed him when the last ray 
 of earthly hope went out in night, and seen how, in the black- 
 ness of earthly darkness, the firmament of the unseen has 
 blazed with stars of new and significant lustre. 
 
 The morning-star now stands over the tops of the moun- 
 tains, and gales and breezes, not of earth, show that the gates 
 of day are unclosing. 
 
 The escape of Gassy and Emmeline irritated the before 
 surly temper of Legree to the last degree ; and his fury, as 
 was to be expected, fell upon the defenceless head of Tom. 
 "When he hurriedly announced the tidings among his hands, 
 there was a sudden light in Tom's eye, a sudden upraising of 
 his hands, that did not escape him. He saw that he did not 
 join the muster of the pursuers. He thought of forcing him 
 to do it ; but having had, of old, experience of his inflexibility 
 when commanded to take part in any deed of inhumanity, 
 
BENEWAL OF THE HUKT. 441 
 
 he would not, in his hurry, stop to enter into any conflict 
 with him. 
 
 Tom, therefore, remained behind, with a few who had 
 learned of him to pray, and oflered up prayers for the escape 
 of the fugitives. 
 
 When Legree returned, baffled and disappointed, all the 
 long- working hatred of his soul towards his slave began to 
 gather in a deadly and desperate form. Had not this man 
 braved him steadily, powerfully, resistlessly ever since he 
 bought him ? Was there not a spirit in him which, silent as 
 it was, burned on him like the fires of perdition ? 
 
 " I hate him ! " said Legree, that night, as he sat up in his 
 bed ; " I hate him ! And isn't he MINE ? Can't I do what 
 I like with him ? Who's to hinder, I wonder ? " And 
 Legree clenched his fist and shook it as if he had something 
 in his hands that he could rend in pieces. 
 
 But then Tom was a faithful, valuable servant ; and 
 although Legree hated him the more for that, yet the con- 
 sideration was still somewhat of a restraint to him. 
 
 The next morning he determined to say nothing, as yet ; 
 to assemble a party from some neighbouring plantations, with 
 dogs ; and guns ; to surround the swamp, and go about the 
 hunt systematically. If it succeeded, well and good ; if not, 
 he would summon Tom before him, and his teeth clenched 
 and his blood boiled then he would break that fellow down, 
 or there was a dire inward whisper, to which his soul 
 assented. 
 
 Ye say that the interest of the master is a sufficient safe- 
 guard for the slave. In the fury of man's mad will, he will 
 wittingly, and with open eye, sell his own soul to the devil to 
 - his ends ; and will he be more careful of his neighbour's 
 
 " Well," said Gassy, the next day, from the garret, as she 
 reconnoitred through the knot-hole, "the hunt's going to 
 begin again to-day ! " 
 
 Three or four mounted horsemen were curvetting about, 
 on the space front of the house ; and one or two leashes 
 of strange dogs were struggling with the negroes who held 
 them, baying and barking at each other. 
 
 The men are, two of them, overseers of plantations in the 
 vicinity ; and others were some of Legree' s associates at the 
 
442 EMMELINE COMFORTS CASST. 
 
 tavern-bar of a neighbouring city, who had come for the inte- 
 rest of the sport. A more hard-favoured set, perhaps, could 
 not be imagined. Legree was serving brandy profusely 
 round among them, as also among the negroes who had been 
 detailed from the various plantations for this service ; for it 
 was an object to make every service of this kind among 
 the negroes as much of a holiday as possible. 
 
 Gassy placed her ear at the knot-hole; and, as the 
 morning air blew directly towards the house, she could 
 overhear a good deal of the conversation. A grave sneer 
 overcast the dark, severe gravity of her face, as she listened, 
 and heard them divide out the ground, discuss the rival 
 merits of the dogs, give orders about firing, and the treatment 
 of each in case of capture. 
 
 Gassy drew back ; and, clasping her hands, looked upward, 
 and said, " great Almighty God ! we are all sinners ; but 
 what have we done, more than all the rest of the world, that 
 we should be treated so ? " 
 
 There was a terrible earnestness in her face and voice as 
 she spoke. 
 
 " If it wasn't for you, child," she said, looking at Emme- 
 line, " I'd go out to them ; and I'd thank any one of them 
 that would shoot me down ; for what use will freedom be to 
 me ? Can it give me back my children, or make me what I 
 used to be ? " 
 
 Emmeline, in her child-like simplicity, was half afraid of 
 the dark moods of Gassy. She looked perplexed, but made 
 no answer. She only took her hand, with a gentle, caressing 
 movement. 
 
 " Don't ! " said Gassy, trying to draw it away ; " you'll 
 get me to loving you ; and I never mean to love anything 
 again ! ' ' 
 
 "Poor Gassy!" said Emmeline, "don't feel so! If the 
 Lord gives us liberty, perhaps He'll give you back your 
 daughter. At any rate, I'll be like a daughter to you. I 
 know I'll never see my poor old mother again ! I shall love 
 you, Gassy, whether you love me or not ! " 
 
 The gentle, child-like spirit, conquered. Gassy sat down 
 by her, put her arm round her neck, stroked her soft brown 
 hair ; and Emmeline then wondered at the beauty of her 
 magnificent eyes, now soft with tears. 
 
FTJBTHEB DISAPPOINTMENT. 443 
 
 " Em ! " said Gassy, " I've hungered for my children, 
 and thirsted for them, and my eyes fail with longing for 
 them. Here ! here ! " she said, striking her breast, "it's all 
 desolate, all empty ! If God would give me back my children, 
 then I could pray." 
 
 " You must trust Him, Gassy," said Emmeline ; " He is 
 our Father!" 
 
 " His wrath is upon us," said Gassy ; " He has turned 
 away in anger." 
 
 " No, Gassy ! He will be good to us. Let us hope in 
 
 Him," said Emmeline. " I always have had hope." 
 * * * * * * 
 
 The hunt was long, animated, and thorough, but unsuc- 
 cessful; and, with grave, ironic exultation, Gassy looked 
 down on Legree as, weary and dispirited, he alighted from 
 his horse. 
 
 " Now, Quimbo," said Legree, as he stretched himself 
 down in the sitting-room, " you just go and walk that Tom 
 up here, right away ! The old cuss is at the bottom of this 
 yer whole matter ; and I'll have it out of his old black hide, 
 or I'll know the reason why ! " 
 
 Sambo and Quimbo both, though hating each other, were 
 joined in one mind by a no less cordial hatred of Tom. 
 Legree had told them at first that he had bought him for a 
 general overseer in his absence; and this had begun an 
 ill-will on their part, which had increased in their debased 
 and servile natures, as they saw him becoming obnoxious to 
 their master's displeasure. Quimbo, therefore, departed 
 with a will to execute his orders. 
 
 Tom heard the message with a forewarning heart ; for he 
 knew all the plan of the fugitives' escape, and the place of 
 their present concealment. He knew the deadly character 
 of the man he had to deal with, and his despotic power. But 
 he felt strong in God to meet death, rather than betray the 
 helpless. 
 
 He set his basket down by the row, and, looking up, said, 
 " Into Thy hands I commend my spirit ! Thou hast re- 
 deemed me, O Lord God of truth ! " and then quietly yielded 
 himself to the rough, brutal grasp with which Quimbo seized 
 him. 
 
 " Ay, ay ! " said the giant, as he dragged him along, " ye'll 
 
444 TOM DRAGGED BEFORE LEGREE. 
 
 cotch it, now ! Ill boun' mas'r's back's up high ! No 
 sneaking out, now ! Tell ye ye'll get it, and no mistake ! 
 See how ye'll look now, helpin' mas'r's niggers to run 
 away ! See what ye'll get ! " 
 
 The savage words, none of them reached that ear a 
 higher voice there was saying, " Fear not them that kill the 
 body, and after that have no more that they can do." Nerve 
 and bone of that poor man's body vibrated to those words, as 
 if touched by the finger of Grod ; and he felt the strength of 
 a thousand souls in one. As he passed along, the trees and 
 bushes, the huts of his servitude, the whole scene of his 
 degradation, seemed to whirl by him, as the landscape by the 
 rushing car. His soul throbbed his home was in sight 
 and the hour of release seemed at hand. 
 
 "Well, Tom," said Legree, walking up and seizing him 
 grimly by the collar of his coat, and speaking through his 
 teeth, in a paroxysm of determined rage, " do you know I've 
 made up my mind to KILL you ? " 
 
 " It's very likely, mas'r," said Tom, calmly. 
 
 " I have" said Legree, with grim, terrible calmness, "done 
 just that thing, Tom, unless you tell me what you 
 know about these yer gals ! " 
 
 Tom stood silent. 
 
 "D'ye hear?" said Legree, stamping, with a roar like 
 that of an incensed lion. " Speak ! " 
 
 " I hctnt got nothing to tell, mas'r" said Tom, with a slow, 
 firm, deliberate utterance. 
 
 " Do you dare to tell me, ye old black Christian, ye don't 
 know ? " said Legree. 
 
 Tom was silent. 
 
 " Speak ! " thundered Legree, striking him furiously. 
 " Do you know anything ? " 
 
 " I know, mas'r ; but I can't tell anything. I can die ! " 
 
 Legree drew in a long breath ; and, suppressing his rage, 
 took Tom by the arm, and, approaching his face almost to 
 his, said, in a terrible voice, " Hark'e, Tom ye think 'cause 
 I've let you off before, I don't mean what I say ; but this 
 time I've made up my mind, and counted the cost. You've 
 always stood it out agin' me now I'll conquer ye or kill 
 ye ! one or t'other. I'll count every drop of blood there 
 is in you, and take 'em, one by one, till ye give up ! " 
 
445 
 
 Tom looked up to his master, and answered, " Mas'r, if 
 you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, 
 I'd give ye my heart's blood ; and if taking every drop of 
 blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, 
 I'd give 'em freely, as the Lord gave His for me. O mas'r, 
 don't bring this great sin on your soul ! It will hurt you 
 more than 'twill me ! Do the worst you can, my troubles '11 
 be over soon; but if ye don't repent, yours won't never 
 end!" 
 
 Like a strange snatch of heavenly music, heard in the lull 
 of a tempest, this burst of feeling made a moment's blank 
 pause. Legree stood aghast, and looked at Tom ; and there 
 was such a silence that the tick of the old clock could be 
 heard, measuring, with silent touch, the last moments of 
 mercy and probation to that hardened heart. 
 
 It was but a moment. There was one hesitating pause, 
 one irresolute, relenting thrill, and the spirit of evi] came 
 back, with sevenfold vehemence ; and Legree, foaming with 
 rage, smote his victim to the ground. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and 
 heart. What man has nerve to do, man nas not nerve to 
 hear. "What brother-man and brother- Christian must suffer 
 cannot be told us, even in our secret chamber, it so harrows 
 up the soul. And yet, O my country ! these things are 
 done under the shadow of thy laws ! Christ ! thy Church 
 sees them, almost in silence ! 
 
 But of old there was One whose suffering changed an 
 instrument of torture, degradation, and shame, into a symbol 
 of glory, honour, and immortal life ; and where His Spirit is, 
 neither degrading stripes, nor blood, nor insults, can make 
 the Christian's last struggle less than glorious. 
 
 Was he alone that long night, whose brave, loving spirit 
 was bearing up, in that old shed, against buffeting and brutal 
 stripes ? 
 
 Nay ! There stood by him ONE, seen by him alone, 
 " like unto the Son of God." 
 
 The tempter stood by him, too, blinded by furious, 
 despotic will, every moment pressing him to shun that agony 
 by the betrayal of the innocent. But the brave, true heart 
 was firm on the Eternal Kock. Like his Master, he knew 
 
446 MAETYEDOM OE UNCLE TOM. 
 
 that, if he saved others, himself he could not save ; nor could 
 utmost extremity wring from him words, save of prayer and 
 holy trust. 
 
 " He's most gone, mas'r," said Sambo, touched, in spite of 
 himself, by the patience of his victim. 
 
 " Pay away till he gives up ! Give it to him ! give it to 
 him ! ""shouted Legree. " I'll take every drop of blood he 
 has, unless he confesses." 
 
 Tom opened his eyes, and looked upon his master. " Te 
 poor, miserable critter !" he said, "there an't no more ye 
 can do ! I forgive ye, with all my soul ! " and he fainted 
 entirely away. 
 
 "Ib'lieve my soul he's done for, finally," said Legree, 
 stepping forward to look at him. " Yes, he is ! Well, his 
 mouth's shut up at last, that's one comfort ! " 
 
 Tes, Legree ; but who shall shut up that voice in thy 
 soul that soul, past repentance, past prayer, past hope, 
 in whom the fire that never shall be quenched is already 
 burning ? , . 
 
 Yet Tom was not quite gone. His wondrous words and 
 pious prayers had struck upon the hearts of the imbruted 
 blacks who had been the instruments of cruelty upon him ; 
 and the instant Legree withdrew they took him down, and, 
 in their ignorance, sought to call him back to life as if that 
 were any favour to him. 
 
 "Sartin, we's been doin' a drefful wicked thing!" said 
 Sambo; "hopes mas'r '11 have to 'count for it, and not 
 we." 
 
 They washed his wounds they provided a rude bed of 
 some refuse cotton for him to lie down on ; and one of them, 
 stealing up to the house, begged a drink of brandy of Legree, 
 pretending that he was tired, and wanted it for himself. He 
 brought it back, and poured it down Tom's throat. 
 
 " O Tom ! " said Qiiimbo, " we's been awful wicked 
 to ye!" 
 
 " I forgive ye, with all my heart ! " said Tom, faintly. 
 
 " O Tom ! do tell us who is Jesus, anyhow ! " said Sambo, 
 " Jesus, that's been a standin' by you so, all this night. 
 Who is he?" 
 
 The word roused the failing, fainting spirit. He poured 
 forth a few energetic sentences of that wondrous One 
 
THE YOUNG MASTEE. 447 
 
 His life, His death, His everlasting presence, and power 
 to save. 
 
 They wept both the savage men. 
 
 "Why~3idn*t I never heaf this before?" said Sambo; 
 " but I do believe ! I can't help it ! Lord Jesus, have 
 mercy on us! " 
 
 " Poor critters ! " said Tom, " I'd be willing to bar' all I 
 have, if it'll only bring ye to Christ! Lord! give me 
 these two more souls, I pray." 
 
 That prayer was answered ! 
 
 CHAPTEE XLI. 
 
 THE YOUNG MASTER. 
 
 Two days after, a young man drove a light waggon up 
 through the avenue of China trees, and throwing the reins 
 hastily on the horses' necks, sprang out and inquired for the 
 owner of the place. 
 
 It was George Shelby ; and to show how he came to be 
 there, we must go back in our story. 
 
 The letter of Miss Ophelia to Mrs. Shelby had, by some 
 unfortunate accident, been detained for a month or two at 
 some remote post-office, before it reached its destination; 
 and, of course, before it was received, Tom was already lost 
 to view among the distant swamps of the Bed River. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby read the intelligence with the deepest con- 
 cern ; but any immediate action upon it was an impossibility. 
 She was then in attendance on the sick-bed of her husband, 
 who lay delirious in the crisis of a fever. Master G-eorge 
 Shelby, who, in the interval, had changed from a boy to a 
 tall young man, was her constant and faithful assistant, and 
 her only reliance in superintending his father's affairs. Miss 
 Ophelia had taken the precaution to send them the name of 
 the lawyer who did business for the St. Clares ; and the most 
 that in the emergency could be done was, to address a letter 
 of inquiry to him. The sudden death of Mr. Shelby a few 
 days after, brought, of course, an absorbing pressure of other 
 interests for a season. 
 
448 GEOBGE SHELBY'S VISIT TO LEGEEE. 
 
 Mr. Shelby showed his confidence in his wife's ability, by 
 appointing her sole executrix upon his estates; and thus 
 immediately a large and complicated amount of business was 
 brought upon her hands. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby, with characteristic energy, applied herself 
 to the work of straightening the entangled web of affairs, 
 and she and George were for some time occupied with col- 
 lecting and examining accounts, selling property and settling 
 debts ; for Mrs. Shelby was determined that everything 
 should be brought into tangible and recognisable shape, let 
 the consequences to her prove what they might. In the 
 meantime, they received a letter from the lawyer, to whom 
 Miss Ophelia had referred them, saying that he knew 
 nothing of the matter; that the man was sold at a public 
 auction, and that, beyond receiving the money, he knew 
 nothing of the affair. 
 
 Neither George nor Mrs. Shelby could be easy at this 
 result ; and, accordingly, some six months after, the latter, 
 having business for his mother down the river, resolved to 
 visit New Orleans in person, and push his inquiries, in hopes 
 of discovering Tom's whereabouts and restoring him. 
 
 After some months of unsuccessful search, by the merest 
 accident, George fell in with a man in New Orleans who 
 happened to be possessed of the desired information ; and 
 with his money in his pocket, our hero took steamboat for 
 Bed River, resolving to find out and repurchase his old 
 friend. 
 
 He was soon introduced into the house, where he found 
 Legree in the sitting-room. 
 
 Legree received the stranger with a kind of surly hos- 
 pitality. 
 
 "I understand," said the young man, "that you bought, 
 in New Orleans, a boy named Tom. He used to be on my 
 father's place, and I came to see if I couldn't buy him 
 back." 
 
 Legree' s brow grew dark, and he broke out passionately : 
 " Tes, I did buy such a fellow, and a h 1 of a bargain I had 
 of it, too ! The most rebellious, saucy, impudent dog ! Set 
 up my niggers to run away, got off two gals worth eight 
 hundred or a thousand dollars a-piece. He owned to that, 
 and when I bid him tell me where they was, he up and 
 
GEOBGE'S INTEBYIEW WITH TOM. 449 
 
 said lie knew, but lie wouldn't tell ; and stood to it, though 
 I gave him the cussedest flogging I ever gave nigger yet. 
 I b'lieve he is trying to die ; but I don't know as he'll make 
 it out." 
 
 "Where is he?" said George, impetuously. "Let me 
 see him." The cheeks of the young man were crimson, 
 and his eyes flashed fire ; but he prudently said nothing 
 as yet. 
 
 "He's in dat ar shed," said a little fellow, who stood 
 holding George's horse. 
 
 Legree kicked the boy, and swore at him ; but George, 
 without saying another word, turned and strode to the spot. 
 
 Tom had been lying two days since the fatal night ; not 
 suffering, for every nerve of suffering was blunted and 
 destroyed. He lay, for the most part, in a quiet stupor ; 
 for the laws of a powerful and well-knit frame would not at 
 once release the imprisoned spirit. By stealth, there had 
 been there, in the darkness of the night, poor desolate 
 creatures, who stole from their scanty hours' rest, that they 
 might repay to him some of those ministrations of love in 
 which he had always been so abundant. Truly, those poor 
 disciples had little to give only the cup of cold water ; but 
 it was given with full hearts. 
 
 Tears had fallen on that honest^ insensible face tears of 
 late repentance in the poor, ignorant heathen, whom his 
 dying love and patience had awakened to repentance, and 
 bitter prayers breathed over him to a late-found Saviour, of 
 whom they scarce knew more than the name, but whom the 
 yearning ignorant heart of man never implores in vain. 
 
 Gassy, who had glided out of her place of concealment, 
 and, by over-hearing, learned the sacrifice that had been 
 made for her and Emmeline, had been there the night 
 before, defying the danger of detection ; and, moved by the 
 few last words which the affectionate soul had yet strength 
 to breathe, the long winter of despair, the ice of years, had 
 given way, and the dark, despairing woman, had wept and 
 prayed. 
 
 When George entered the shed, he felt his head giddy 
 and his heart sick. 
 
 "Is it possible ? is it possible ?" said he, kneeling down 
 by him. " Uncle Tom ! my poor poor old friend ! " 
 
 GG 
 
450 FINAL STRUGGLES. 
 
 Something in the voice penetrated to the ear of the dying. 
 He moved his head gently, smiled, and said, 
 
 " Jesus can make a dying bed 
 
 Feel soft as downy pillows are." 
 
 Tears which did honour to his manly heart fell from the 
 young man's eyes as he bent over his poor friend. 
 
 " O dear TJncle Tom ! do wake do speak once more ! 
 Look up ! Here's Mas'r George your own little Mas'r 
 George. Don't you know me ? " 
 
 " Mas'r George ! " said Tom, opening his eyes, and 
 speaking in a feeble voice, "Mas'r George!" He looked 
 bewildered. 
 
 Slowly the idea seemed to fill his soul ; and the vacant 
 eye became fixed and brightened, the whole face lighted up, 
 the hard hands clasped, and tears ran down the cheeks. 
 
 " Bless the Lord ! it is it is it's all I wanted ! They 
 haven't forgot me. It warms my soul ; it does my old heart 
 good ! Now I shall die content ! Bless the Lord, O my 
 soul!" 
 
 " You shan't die ! you mustrit die, nor think of it ! I've 
 come to buy you, and take you home," said George, with 
 impetuous vehemence. 
 
 " Mas'r George, you're too late. The Lord's bought me, 
 and is going to take me home and I long to go. Heaven 
 is better than Kintuck." 
 
 " Oh, don't die ! It'll kill me ! it'll break my heart to 
 think what you've suffered and lying in this old shed, here ! 
 Poor, poor iellow ! " 
 
 "Don't call me poor fellow!" said Tom, solemnly. "I 
 have been poor fellow, but that's all past and gone now. 
 I'm right in the door, going into glory ; O Mas'r George ! 
 Heaven has come ! I've got the victory ! the Lord Jesus 
 has given it to me ! Glory be to His name ! " 
 
 George was awe-struck at the force, the vehemence, the 
 power with which these broken sentences were uttered. He 
 sat gazing in silence. 
 
 Tom grasped his hand, and continued "Ye mustn't, now, 
 tell Chloe,poor soul ! how ye found me ; 'twould be so drefful 
 to her. Only tell her ye found me going into glory ; and 
 that I couldn't stay for no one. And tell her the Lord stood 
 
THE DEATH-BED VICTORY. 451 
 
 by me everywhere and al'ays, and made everything light 
 and easy. And oh, the poor chil'en, and the baby my old 
 heart's been most broke for 'em, time and agin. Tell 'em 
 all to follow me follow me ! Give my love to mas'r, and 
 dear good missis and everybody in the place! Ye don't 
 know. 'Pears like I loves 'em all ! I loves every creatur', 
 every whar ! it's nothing but love ! Mas'r George ! what 
 a thing 'tis to be a Christian ! " 
 
 At this moment Legree sauntered up to the door of the 
 shed, looked in with a dogged air of affected carelessness, and 
 turned away. 
 
 " The old Satan !" said George, in his indignation. " It's 
 a comfort to think the devil will pay Mm for this some of 
 these days! " 
 
 " Oh, don't ! oh, ye mustn't ! " said Tom, grasping his 
 hand ; " he's a poor mis'able critter. It's awful to think on't ! 
 Oh if he only could repent, the Lord would forgive him now ; 
 but I'm feared he never will." 
 
 " I hope he won't ! " said George. " I never want to see 
 "him in heaven." 
 
 " Hush, Mas'r George ! it worries me. Don't feel so. 
 He an't done me no real harm only opened the gate of the 
 kingdom for me ; that's all!" 
 
 At this moment the sudden flush of strength which the 
 joy of meeting his young master had infused into the dying 
 man gave way. A sudden sinking fell upon him ; he closed 
 his eyes ; and that mysterious and sublime change passed over 
 his face that told the approach of other worlds. 
 
 He began to draw his breath with long, deep inspirations ; 
 and his broad chest rose and fell heavily. The expression of 
 his face was that of a conqueror. 
 
 "Who who who shall separate us from the love of 
 Christ?" he said, in a voice that contended with mortal 
 weakness ; and with a smile he fell asleep. 
 
 George sat fixed with solemn awe. It seemed to him 
 that the place was holy ; and as he closed the lifeless eyes, 
 and rose up from the dead, only one thought possessed him 
 that expressed by his simple old friend, " What a thing it is 
 to be a Christian! " 
 
 He turned. Legree was standing sullenly behind him. 
 
 Something in that dying scene had checked the natural 
 
 GG 2 
 
452 THE BAEGAIN FOE THE BODY. 
 
 fierceness of youthful passion. The presence of the man was 
 simply loathsome to George ; and he felt only an impulse to 
 get away from him, with as few words as possible. 
 
 Fixing his keen, dark eyes on Legree, he simply said, 
 pointing to the dead, " You have got all you ever can of him. 
 What shall I pay you for the body ? I will take it away, and 
 bury it decently." 
 
 " I don't sell dead niggers," said Legree, doggedly. " You 
 are welcome to bury him where and when you like." 
 
 "Boys," said George, in an authoritative tone to two 
 or three negroes who were looking at the body, " help me 
 lift him up, and carry him to my wagon; and get me a 
 spade." 
 
 One of them ran for a spade ; the other two assisted 
 George to carry the body to the wagon. 
 
 George neither spoke to nor looked at Legree, who did 
 not countermand his orders, but stood whistling with an air 
 of forced unconcern. He sulkily followed them to where the 
 wagon stood at the door. 
 
 George spread his cloak in the wagon, -and had the body 
 carefully disposed of in it, moving the seat so as to give it 
 room. Then he turned, fixed his eyes on Legree, and said, 
 with forced composure 
 
 " I have not as yet said to you what I think of this most 
 atrocious affair; this is not the time and place. But, sir, 
 this innocent blood shall have justice. I will proclaim 
 this murder. I will go to the very first magistrate, and 
 expose you." 
 
 " Do ! " said Legree, snapping his fingers scornfully. "I'd 
 like to see you doing it. Where you going to get witnesses ? 
 how you going to prove it ? Come, now ! " 
 
 George saw at once the force of this defiance. There was 
 not a white person on the place ; and, in all Southern courts, 
 the testimony of coloured blood is nothing. He felt at that 
 moment as if he could have rent the heavens with his heart's 
 indignant cry for justice ; but in vain. 
 
 " After all, what a fuss for a dead nigger ! " said Legree. 
 
 The word was as a spark to a powder-magazine. Prudence 
 was never a cardinal virtue of the Kentucky boy. George 
 turned, and, with one indignant blow, knocked Legree flat 
 upon his face; and, as he stood over him, blazing with wrath 
 
GEOEGE'S VENGEANCE ON LEGEEE. 453 
 
 and defiance, he would have formed no bad personification, of 
 his great namesake triumphing over the dragon. 
 
 Some men, however, are decidedly bettered by being 
 knocked down. If a man lays them fairly flat in the dust, 
 they seem immediately to conceive a respect for him ; and 
 Legree was one of this sort. As he rose, therefore, and 
 brushed the dust from his clothes, he eyed the slowly- 
 retreating wagon with some evident consideration ; nor did 
 he open his mouth till it was out of sight. 
 
 Beyond the boundaries of the plantation George had 
 noticed a dry, sandy knoll, shaded by a few trees ; there they 
 made the grave. 
 
 " Shall we take off the cloak, mas'r?" said the negroes, 
 when the grave was ready. 
 
 " No, no ; bury it with him. It's all I can give you now, 
 poor Tom, and you shall have it." 
 
 They laid him in ; and the men shovelled away silently. 
 They banked it up, and laid green turf over it. 
 
 " You may go, boys," said George, slipping a quarter into 
 the hand of each. They lingered about, however. 
 
 " If young mas'r would please buy us " said one. 
 
 " We'd serve him so faithful! " said the other. 
 
 "Hard times here, mas'r!" said the first. "Do, mas'r, 
 buy us, please ! " 
 
 " I can't ! I can't," said George, with difficulty, motion- 
 ing them off; "it's impossible ! " 
 
 The poor fellows looked dejected, and walked off" in silence. 
 
 "Witness, eternal God," said George, kneeling on the 
 grave of his poor friend, " oh, witness that, from this hour, 
 I will do what one man can to drive out this curse of slavery 
 from my land ! " 
 
 There is no monument to mark the last resting-place of 
 our friend. He needs none. His Lord knows where he lies, 
 and will raise him up immortal, to appear with him when 
 he shall appear in his glory. 
 
 Pity him not ! Such a life and death is not for pity. 
 Not in the riches of omnipotence is the chief glory of God, 
 but in self-denying, suffering love. And blessed are the 
 men whom he calls to fellowship with him, bearing their 
 cross after him with patience. Of such it is written, 
 "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." 
 
454 AN AUTHENTIC (JHOST STOUT. 
 
 CHAPTER XLH. 
 
 AN AUTHENTIC GHOST STORY. 
 
 FOB some remarkable reason, ghostly legends were un- 
 commonly rife, about this time, among the servants on 
 Legree's place. 
 
 It was whisperingly asserted that footsteps, in the dead of 
 night, had been heard descending the garret-stairs, and 
 patrolling the house. In vain the doors of the upper entry 
 had been locked ; the ghost either carried a duplicate key in 
 its pocket, or availed itself of a ghost's immemorial privilege 
 of coming through the keyhole, and promenaded as before, 
 with a freedom that was alarming. 
 
 Authorities were somewhat divided as to the outward form 
 of the spirit, owing to a custom quite prevalent among 
 negroes and, for aught we know, among whites too of 
 invariably shutting the eyes, and covering up heads under 
 blankets, petticoats, or whatever else might come in use 
 for a shelter, on these occasions. Of course, as everybody 
 knows, when the bodily eyes are thus out of the lists, the 
 spiritual eyes are uncommonly vivacious and perspicacious ; 
 and therefore there were abundance of full-length portraits 
 of the ghost, abundantly sworn and testified to, which, as is 
 often the case with portraits, agreed with each other in 
 no particular, except the common family peculiarity of the 
 ghost tribe the wearing of a white sheet. The poor souls 
 were not versed in ancient history, and did not know that 
 Shakspeare had authenticated this costume, by telling how 
 
 " the sheeted dead 
 Did squeak and gibber in the streets of Rome ;" 
 
 and therefore their all hitting upon this is a striking fact 
 in pneumatology, which we recommend to the attention of 
 spiritual media generally. 
 
LEGEEE'S EEMOESE. 455 
 
 Be it as it may, we have private reasons for knowing that 
 a tall figure in a white sheet did walk, at the most approved 
 ghostly hours, around the Legree premises pass out the 
 doors, glide about the house disappear at intervals, and, 
 reappearing, pass up the silent stair-way, into that fatal 
 garret ; and that, in the morning, the entry doors were all 
 found shut and locked as firm as ever. 
 
 Legree could not help overhearing this whispering ; and 
 it was all the more exciting to him from the pains th^t were 
 taken to conceal it from him. He drank more brandy than 
 usual ; held up his head briskly, and swore louder than ever 
 in the day-time ; but he had bad dreams, and the visions of 
 his head on his bed were anything but agreeable. The night 
 after Tom's body had been carried away he rode to the 
 next town for a carouse, and had a high one. Got home 
 late and tired ; locked his door, took out the key, and went 
 to bed. 
 
 After all, let a man take what pains he may to hush it 
 down, a human soul is an awful, ghostly, unquiet possession 
 for a bad man to have. Who knows the metes and bounds 
 of it? Who knows all its awful perhapses those shudderings 
 and tremblings, which it can no more live down than it can 
 outlive its own eternity ! What a fool is he who locks his 
 door to keep out spirits, who has in his own bosom a spirit 
 he dares not meet alone whose voice, smothered far down, 
 and piled over with mountains of earthliness, is yet like the 
 forewarning trumpet of doom ! 
 
 But Legree locked his door and set a chair against it ; he 
 set a night-lamp at the head of his bed ; and he put his 
 pistols there. He examined the catches and fastenings of 
 the windows, and then swore "he didn't care for the 
 devil and his angels," and went to sleep. 
 
 Well, he slept, for he was tired slept soundly. But, 
 finally, there came over his sleep a shadow a horror an 
 apprehension of something dreadful hanging over him. It 
 was his mother's shroud, he thought; but Gassy had it, 
 holding it up, and showing it to him. He heard a confused 
 noise of screams and groanings ; and with it all, he knew he 
 was asleep, and he struggled to wake himself. He was half 
 awake. He was sure something was coming into his room. 
 He knew the door was opening, but he could not stir hand 
 
456 ESCAPE OF CASSY AND EMMELINE. 
 
 or foot. At last he turned, with a start ; the door was open, 
 and he saw a hand putting out his light. 
 
 It was a cloudy, misty, moonlight, and there he saw it ! 
 something white, gliding in ! He heard the still rustle of its 
 ghostly garments. It stood still by his bed : a cold hand 
 touched his; a voice said three times, in a low, fearful 
 whisper, " Come ! come ! come !" And while he lay sweating 
 with terror, he knew not when or how, the thing was gone. 
 He sprang out of bed, and pulled at the door. It was shut 
 and locked, and the man fell down in a swoon. 
 
 After this, Legree became a harder drinker than ever 
 before. He no longer drank cautiously, prudently, but 
 imprudently and recklessly. 
 
 There were reports around the country, soon after, that he 
 was sick and dying. Excess had brought on that frightful 
 disease that seems to throw the lurid shadows of a coming 
 retribution back into the present life. None could bear the 
 horrors of that sick room, when he raved and screamed, and 
 spoke of sights which almost stopped the blood of those who 
 heard him ; and, at his dying bed, stood a stern, white, in- 
 exorable figure, saying, " Come ! come ! come ! " 
 
 By a singular coincidence, on the very night that this 
 vision appeared to Legree, the house-door was found open in 
 the morning, and some of the negroes had seen two white 
 figures gliding down the avenue towards the highroad. 
 
 It was near sun-rise when Gassy and Emmeline paused, 
 for a moment, in a little knot of trees near the town. 
 
 Cassy was dressed after the manner of the Creole Spanish 
 ladies wholly in black. A small black bonnet on her head, 
 covered by a veil thick with embroidery, concealed her face. 
 It had been agreed that, in their escape, she was to personate 
 the character of a Creole lady, and Emmeline that of her 
 servant. 
 
 Brought up, from early life, in connexion with the highest 
 society, the language, movements, and air of Cassy, were all 
 in agreement with this idea; and she had still enough 
 remaining with her of a once splendid wardrobe, and sets 
 of jewels, to enable her to personate the thing to 
 advantage. 
 
 She stopped in the outskirts of the town, where she had 
 noticed trunks for sale, and purchased a handsome one* 
 
GEOEGrE SHELBY HELPS CAS ST. 457 
 
 This she requested the man to send along with her. And, 
 accordingly, thus escorted by a boy wheeling her trunk, and 
 Emmeline behind her, carrying her carpet-bag and sundry 
 bundles, she made her appearance at the small tavern, like a 
 lady of consideration. 
 
 The first person that struck her, after her arrival, was 
 George Shelby, who was staying there, awaiting the next 
 boat. 
 
 Cassy had remarked the young man from her loophole in 
 the garret, and seen him bear away the body of Tom, and 
 observed, with secret exultation, his rencontre with Legree. 
 Subsequently, she had gathered, from the conversations she 
 had overheard among the negroes, as she glided about in her 
 ghostly disguise after night-fall, who he was, and in what 
 relation he stood to Tom. She, therefore, felt an immediate 
 accession of confidence when she found that he was, like 
 herself, awaiting the next boat. 
 
 Cassy's air and manner, address, and evident command of 
 money, prevented any rising disposition to suspicion in 
 the hotel. People never inquire too closely into those who 
 are fair on the main point of paying well a thing which 
 Cassy had foreseen when she provided herself with money. 
 
 In the edge of the evening, a boat was heard coming 
 along, and George Shelby handed Cassy aboard, with the 
 politeness which comes naturally to every Kentuckian, and 
 exerted himself to provide her with a good state-room. 
 
 Cassy kept her room and bed, on pretext of illness, during 
 the whole time they were on Red Biver ; and was waited on 
 with obsequious devotion by her attendant. 
 
 When they arrived at the Mississippi Biver, George, 
 having learned that the course of the strange lady was 
 upward, like his own, proposed to take a state-room for her 
 on the same boat with himself good-naturedly compas- 
 sionating her feeble health, and desirous to do what he could 
 to assist her. 
 
 Behold, therefore, the whole party safely transferred to 
 the good steamer Cincinnati, and sweeping up the river 
 under a powerful head of steam. 
 
 Cassy's health was much better. She sat upon the guards, 
 came to the table, and was remarked upon in the boat as a 
 lady that must have been very handsome. 
 
458 MADAME DE THOUX. 
 
 From the moment that George got the first glimpse of 
 her face, he was troubled with one of those fleeting and 
 indefinite likenesses which almost everybody can remember, 
 and has been, at times, perplexed with. He could not keep 
 himself from looking at her, and watching her perpetually. 
 At table, or sitting at her state-room door, still she would 
 encounter the young man's eye fixed on her, and politely 
 withdrawn, when she showed, by her countenance, that she 
 was sensible of the observation. 
 
 Gassy became uneasy. She began to think that he sus- 
 pected something ; and finally resolved to throw herself 
 entirely on his generosity, and intrusted him with her whole 
 history. 
 
 George was heartily disposed to sympathise with any one 
 who had escaped from Legree's plantation a place that he 
 could not remember or speak of with patience ; and, with 
 the courageous disregard of consequences which is character- 
 istic of his age and state, he assured her that he would do all 
 in his power to protect and bring them through. 
 
 The next state-room to Gassy 's was occupied by a French 
 lady, named De Thoux, who was accompanied by a fine little 
 daughter, a child of some twelve summers. 
 
 This lady, having gathered from George's conversation 
 that he was from Kentucky, seemed evidently disposed to 
 cultivate his acquaintance ; in which design she was seconded 
 by the graces of her little girl, who was about as pretty a 
 plaything as ever diverted the weariness of a fortnight's trip 
 on a steamboat. 
 
 George's chair was often placed at her state-room door ; 
 and Gassy, as she sat upon the guards, could hear their 
 conversation. 
 
 Madame de Thoux was very minute in her inquiries as to 
 Kentucky, where she said she had resided in a former period 
 of her life. George discovered, to his surprise, that her 
 former residence must have been in his own vicinity ; and 
 her inquiries showed a knowledge of people and things in 
 his region that was perfectly surprising to him. 
 
 " Do you know," said Madame Thoux to him one day, 
 "of any man in your neighbourhood of the name of 
 Harris ? " 
 
 " There is an old fellow of that name lives not far from 
 
INQTJIEIES CONCEENING GEOEGE HAEEIS. 459 
 
 my father's place," said George. " We never have had much 
 intercourse with him, though." 
 
 " He is a large slave-owner, I believe ? " said Madame de 
 Thoux, with a manner which seemed to betray more interest 
 than she was exactly willing to show. 
 
 " He is," said George, looking rather surprised at her 
 manner. 
 
 "Did you ever know of his having perhaps you may 
 have heard of his having a mulatto boy, named Greorge ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly Greorge Harris I know him well ; he 
 married a servant of my mother's, but has escaped now to 
 Canada." 
 
 " He has ? " said Madame de Thoux, quickly. " Thank 
 God!" 
 
 George looked a surprised inquiry, but said nothing. 
 
 Madame de Thoux leaned her head on her hand, and burst 
 into tears. " He is my brother ! " she said. 
 
 "Madame!" said George, with a strong accent of surprise. 
 
 " Yes," said Madame de Thoux, lifting her head proudly, 
 and wiping her tears ; " Mr. Shelby, George Harris is my 
 brother ! " 
 
 " I am perfectly astonished," said George, pushing back 
 his chair a pace or two, and looking at Madame de Thoux. 
 
 " I was sold to the South when he was a boy," said she. 
 " I was bought by a good and generous man. He took me 
 with him to the West Indies, set me free, and married me. 
 It is but lately that he died, and I was coming up to 
 Kentucky to see if I could find and redeem my brother." 
 
 " I have heard him speak of a sister Emily, that was sold 
 South," said George. 
 
 " Tes, indeed ! I am the one," said Madame de Thoux. 
 " Tell me what sort of a " 
 
 " A very fine young man," said George, " notwithstanding 
 the curse of slavery that lay on him. He sustained a 
 first-rate character, both for intelligence and principle. 
 I know, you see," he said, " because he married in our 
 family." 
 
 " What sort of a girl ? " said Madame de Thoux, eagerly. 
 
 "A treasure!" said George. "A beautiful, intelligent, 
 amiable girl. Very pious. My mother had brought her up, 
 and trained her as carefully, almost, as a daughter. She 
 
460 GASSY DISCOVERS HER DATTGHTER. 
 
 could read and write, embroider and sew beautifully, and was 
 a beautiful singer." 
 
 " Was she born in your house ? " said Madame de Thoux. 
 
 " No. Father bought her once, in one of his trips to 
 New Orleans, and brought her up as a present to mother. 
 She was about eight or nine years old, then. Father would 
 never tell mother what he gave for her; but, the other 
 day, on looking over his old papers, we came across the bill 
 of sale. He paid an extravagant sum for her, to be sure I 
 suppose, on account of her extraordinary beauty." 
 
 George sat with his back to Cassy, and did not see the 
 absorbed expression of her countenance as he was giving 
 these details. 
 
 At this point in the story she touched his arm, and, with 
 a face perfectly white with interest, said, " Do you know the 
 names of the people he bought her of ? " 
 
 " A man of the name of Simmons, I think, was the prin- 
 cipal in the transaction at least, I think that was the name 
 on the bill of sale." 
 
 " O my God ! " said Cassy, and fell insensible on the floor 
 of the cabin. 
 
 George ^as wide-awake now, and so was Madame de 
 Thoux. Though neither of them could conjecture what was 
 the cause of Cassy's fainting still they made all the tumult 
 which is proper in such cases George upsetting a wash- 
 pitcher, and breaking two tumblers, in the warmth of his 
 humanity ; and various ladies in the cabin, hearing that 
 somebody had fainted, crowded the state-room door, and 
 kept out all the air they possibly could ; so that, on the 
 whole, everything was done that could be expected ! . 
 
 Poor Cassy, when she recovered, turned her face to the 
 wall, and wept and sobbed like a child perhaps, mother, 
 you can tell what she was thinking of ! Perhaps you cannot ; 
 but she felt as sure, in that hour, that God had had mercy 
 on her, and that she should see her daughter as she did 
 months afterwards when but we anticipate. 
 
BESULTS. 461 
 
 CHAPTEE XLIII. 
 
 RESULTS. 
 
 THE rest of our story is soon told. George Shelby, inter- 
 ested, as any other young man might be, by the romance of 
 the incident, no less than by feelings of humanity, was at 
 the pains to send to Gassy the bill of sale of Eliza, whose 
 date and name all corresponded with her own knowledge of 
 facts, and left no doubt upon her mind as to the identity 
 of her child. It remained now only for her to trace out 
 the path of the fugitives. 
 
 Madame de Thoux and she, thus drawn together by the 
 singular coincidence of their fortunes, proceeded immediately 
 to Canada, and began a tour of inquiry among the stations, 
 where the numerous fugitives from slavery are located. At 
 Amherstberg they found the missionary with whom George 
 and Eliza had taken shelter on their first arrival in Canada, 
 and through him were enabled to trace the family to 
 Montreal. 
 
 Greorge and Eliza had now been five years free. George 
 had found constant occupation in the shop of a worthy 
 machinist, where he had been earning a competent support 
 for his family, which, in the mean time, had been increased 
 by the addition of another daughter. 
 
 Little Harry, a fine bright boy, had been put to a good 
 school, and was making rapid proficiency in knowledge. 
 
 The worthy pastor of the station in Amherstberg, where 
 George had first landed, was so much interested in the 
 statements of Madame de Thoux and Cassy, that he yielded 
 to the solicitations of the former to accompany them to 
 Montreal in their search she bearing all the expense of the 
 expedition. 
 
 The scene now changes to a small, neat tenement, in the 
 outskirts of Montreal; the time, evening. A cheerful fire 
 blazes on the hearth; a tea-table, covered with a snowy 
 
4-62 GEOEGE AND ELIZA AT HOME. 
 
 cloth, stands prepared for the evening meal. In one corner 
 of the room was a table covered with a green cloth, where 
 was an open writing-desk, pens, paper, and over it a shelf of 
 well-selected books. 
 
 This was George's study. The same zeal for self-improve- 
 ment which led him to steal the much -coveted arts of 
 reading and writing, amid all the toils and discouragements 
 of his early life, still led him to devote all his leisure time to 
 self-cultivation. 
 
 At this present time he is seated at the table, making 
 notes from a volume of the family library he has been 
 reading. 
 
 " Come, George," says Eliza, " you've been gone all day. 
 Do put down that book, and let's talk, while I'm getting 
 tea do." 
 
 And little Eliza seconds the effort by toddling up to her 
 father, and trying to pull the book out of his hand, and 
 instal herself on his knee as a substitute. 
 
 " Oh, you little witch ! " says George, yielding as, in such 
 circumstances, man always must. 
 
 "That's right," says Eliza, as she begins to cut a loaf of 
 bread. A little older she looks ; her form a little fuller ; her 
 hair more matronly than of yore ; but evidently contented 
 and happy as woman need be. 
 
 " Harry, my boy, how did you come on in that sum to- 
 day?" says George, as he laid his hand on his son's head. 
 
 Harry has lost his long curls ; but he can never lose those 
 eyes and eyelashes, and that fine, bold brow, that flushes 
 with triumph, as he answers, " I did it, every bit of it, my self , 
 father, and nobody helped me." 
 
 "That's right," says his father; " depend on yourself, my 
 son. You have a better chance than ever your poor lather 
 had." 
 
 At this moment there is a rap at the door, and Eliza goes 
 and opens it. The delighted, " Why this you ? " calls up 
 her husband, and the good pastor of Amherstberg is wel- 
 comed. There are two women with him, and Eliza asks 
 them to sit down. 
 
 Now, if the truth must be told, the honest pastor had 
 arranged a little programme, according to which this affair 
 was to develop itself; and, on the way up, all had very 
 
THE EE-TJKITED FAMILY. 463 
 
 cautiously and prudently exhorted each other not to let 
 things out, except according to previous arrangement. 
 
 What was the good man's consternation, therefore, just as 
 he had motioned to the ladies to be seated, and was taking 
 out his pocket-handkerchief to wipe his mouth, so as to pro- 
 ceed to his introductory speech in good order, when 
 Madame de Thoux upset the whole plan by throwing her 
 arms around George's neck, and letting all out at once, by 
 saying, " O George ! don't you know me ? I am your 
 sister Emily ! " 
 
 Gassy had seated herself more composedly, and would have 
 carried on her part very well, had not little Eliza suddenly 
 appeared before her in exact shape and form, every outline 
 and curl, just as her daughter was when she saw her last. 
 The little thing peered up in her face, and Gassy caught 
 her up in her arms, pressed her to her bosom, saying, 
 what at the moment she really believed, " Darling, I'm your 
 mother!" 
 
 In fact, it was a troublesome matter to do up exactly in 
 proper order ; but the good pastor at last succeeded in getting 
 everybody quiet, and delivering the speech with which he 
 had intended to open the exercises, and in which, at last, he 
 succeeded so wen, that his whole audience were sobbing 
 about him in a manner that ought to satisfy any orator, 
 ancient or modern. 
 
 They knelt together, and the good man prayed for there 
 are some feelings so agitated and tumultuous, that they can 
 find rest only by being poured into the bosom of almighty 
 Love and then, rising up, the new-found family embraced 
 each other, with a holy trust in Him who, from such peril 
 and dangers, and by such unknown ways, had brought them 
 together.. 
 
 The note-book of a missionary among the Canadian fugi- 
 tives contains truth stranger than fiction. How can it be 
 otherwise, when a system prevails which whirls families and 
 scatters their members, as the wind whirls and scatters the 
 leaves of autumn ? These shores of refuge, like the eternal 
 shore, often unite again, in glad communion, hearts that for 
 long years have mourned each other as lost. And affecting 
 beyond expression is the earnestness with which every new 
 arrival among them is met, if perchance it may bring tidings 
 
464 CHANGE n? CASSY' s CHAEACTEE. 
 
 of mother, sister, child, or wife, still lost to view in the 
 shadows of slavery. 
 
 Deeds of heroism are wrought here more than those of 
 romance, when, defying torture and braving death itself, the 
 fugitive voluntarily threads his way back to the terrors and 
 perils of that dark land, that he may bring out his sister, or 
 mother, or wife. 
 
 One young man, of whom a missionary has told us, twice 
 re-captured, and suffering shameful stripes for his heroism, 
 had escaped again ; and in a letter which we heard read, tells 
 his friends that he is going back a third time, that he may, at 
 last, bring away his sister. My good sir, is this man a hero 
 or a criminal ? Would not you do as much for your sister ? 
 And can you blame him ? 
 
 But to return to our friends, whom we left wiping their 
 eyes and recovering themselves from too great and sudden a 
 joy. They are now seated around the social board, and are 
 getting decidedly companionable ; only that Cassy who keeps 
 little Eliza on her lap, occasionally squeezes the little thing 
 in a manner that rather astonishes her, and obstinately re- 
 fuses to have her mouth stuffed with cake to the extent the 
 little one desires, alleging, what the child rather wonders 
 at, that she has got something better than cake, and doesn't 
 want it. 
 
 And, indeed, in two or three days such a change has 
 passed over Cassy that our readers would scarcely know her. 
 The despairing, haggard expression of her face had given 
 way to one of gentle trust. She seemed to sink at once into 
 the bosom of the family, and take the little ones into her 
 heart, as something for which it long had waited. Indeed, 
 her love seemed to flow more naturally to the little Eliza than 
 to her own daughter, for she was the exact image and body 
 of the child whom she had lost. The little one was a flowery 
 bond between mother and daughter, through whom grew up 
 acquaintanceship and affection. Eliza's steady, consistent 
 piety, regulated by the constant reading of the sacred word, 
 made her a proper guide for the shattered and wearied mind 
 of her mother. Cassy yielded at once, and with her whole 
 soul, to every good influence, and became a devout and 
 tender Christian. 
 
 After a day or two, Madame de Thoux told her brother 
 
GEOBGE'S PLANS. 465 
 
 more particularly of her affairs. The death of her husband 
 had left her an ample fortune, which she generously offered 
 to share with the family. When she asked George what way 
 she could best apply it for him, he answered, " Give me an 
 education, Emily ; that has always been my heart's desire. 
 Then I can do all the rest." 
 
 On mature deliberation, it was decided that the whole 
 family should go, for some years, to France, whither they 
 sailed, carrying Emmeline with them. 
 
 The good looks of the latter won the affection of the first 
 mate of the vessel, and shortly after entering the port, she 
 became his wife. 
 
 George remained four years at a French university, and 
 applying himself with an unintermitted zeal, obtained a very 
 thorough education. 
 
 Political troubles in France at last led the family again to 
 seek an asylum in this country. 
 
 George's feelings and views, as an educated man, may be 
 best expressed in a letter to one of his friends : 
 
 " I feel somewhat at a loss as to my future course. True, 
 as you have said to me, I might mingle in the circles of the 
 whites in this country, my shade of colour is so slight, and 
 that of my wife and family scarce perceptible. Well, 
 perhaps on sufferance, I might. But, to tell you the truth, 
 1 have no wish to. 
 
 " My sympathies are not for my father's race, but for my 
 mother's. To him I was no more than a fine dog or horse ; 
 to my poor heart-broken mother I was a child ; and, though 
 I never saw her after the cruel sale that separated us till she 
 died, yet I know she always loved me dearly. I know it by 
 my own heart. When I think of all she suffered, of my own 
 early sufferings, of the distresses and struggles of my heroic 
 wife, of my sister, sold in the New Orleans slave-market 
 though I hope to have no unchristian sentiments, yet I 
 may be excused for saying, I have no wish to pass for an 
 American, or to identify myself with them. 
 
 " It is with the oppressed, enslaved African race that I 
 cast in my lot ; and if I wished anything, I would wish 
 myself two shades darker, rather than one lighter. 
 
 " The desire and yearning of my soul is for an African 
 nationality. I want a people that shall have a tangible, 
 
466 THE COLONY OF LIBERIA. 
 
 separate existence of its own ; and where am I to look for 
 it ? Not in Hayti ; for in Hayti they had nothing to start 
 with. A stream cannot rise above its fountain. The race 
 that formed the character of the Haytiens was a worn-out, 
 effeminate one, and, of course, the subject race will be 
 centuries in rising to anything. 
 
 " Where, then, shall I look ? On the shores of Africa I 
 see a republic a republic formed of picked men, who, by 
 energy and self-educating force, have, in many cases, indi- 
 vidually, raised themselves above a condition of slavery. 
 Having gone through a preparatory stage of feebleness, this 
 republic has at last become an acknowledged nation on the 
 face of the earth acknowledged by both France and 
 England. There it is my wish to go, and find myself a 
 people. 
 
 "I am aware now, that I shall have you all against 
 me ; but, before you strike, hear me. During my stay in 
 Erance, I have followed up, with intense interest, the history 
 of my people in America. I have noted the struggle 
 between Abolitionist and Colonisationist, and have received 
 some impressions, as a distant spectator, which could never 
 have occurred to me as a participator. 
 
 " I grant that this Liberia may have subserved all sorts of 
 purposes, by being played off in the hands of our oppressors, 
 against us. Doubtless the scheme may have been used, in 
 unjustifiable ways, as a means of retarding our emancipation. 
 But the question to me is, Is there not a Crod above all 
 man's schemes ? May He not have overruled all their 
 designs, and founded for us a nation by them ? 
 
 " In these days a nation is born in a day. A nation starts 
 now with all the great problems of republican life and civili- 
 sation wrought out to its hand ; it has not to discover, but 
 only to apply. Let us, then, all take hold together with all 
 our might, and see what we can do with this new enterprise, 
 and the whole splendid continent of Africa opens before us 
 and our children. Our nation shall roll the tide of civilisa- 
 tion and Christianity along its shores, and plant there 
 mighty republics, that, growing with the rapidity of tropical 
 vegetation, shall be for all coming ages. 
 
 " Do you say that I am deserting my enslaved brethren ? 
 T think not. If I forget them one hour, one moment of my 
 
THE ANGLO-SAXON EACE. 467 
 
 life, so may God forget me ? But what can I do for them 
 here ? Can I break their chains ? No, not as an individual ; 
 but let me go and form part of a nation, which shall have a 
 voice in the councils of nations, and then we can speak. A 
 nation has a right to argue, remonstrate, implore, and 
 present the cause of its race, which an individual has not. 
 
 <c If Europe ever becomes a grand council of free nations 
 as I trust in God it will if there serfdom, and all unjust 
 and oppressive social inequalities, are done away ; and if they, 
 as France and England have done, acknowledge our position 
 then, in the great congress of nations, we will make our 
 appeal, and present the cause of our enslaved and suifering 
 race ; and it cannot be that free, enlightened America, will 
 not then desire to wipe from her escutcheon that bar sinister 
 which disgraces her among nations, and is as truly a curse to 
 her as to the enslaved. 
 
 " But, you will tell me, our race have equal rights to mingle 
 in the American republic as the Irishman, the German, the 
 Swede. Granted, they have. "We ought to be free to meet 
 and mingle to rise by our individual worth, without any 
 consideration of caste or colour ; and they who deny us this 
 right are false to their own professed principles of human 
 equality. "We ought, in particular, to be allowed here.^ "We 
 have more than the rights of common men we have the 
 claim of an injured race for reparation. But, then, I do not 
 want it; I want a country, a nation, of my own. I think 
 that the African race has peculiarities yet to be unfolded in 
 the light of civilisation and Christianity, which, if not the 
 same with those of the Anglo-Saxon, may prove to be, 
 morally, of even a higher type. 
 
 " To the Anglo-Saxon race have been intrusted the desti- 
 nies of the world, during its pioneer period of struggle and 
 conflict. To that mission its stern, inflexible, energetic 
 elements were well adapted ; but, as a Christian, I look for 
 another era to arise. On its borders I trust we stand ; and 
 the throes that now convulse the nations are, to my hope, 
 but the birth-pangs of an hour of universal peace and 
 brotherhood. 
 
 " I trust that the development of Africa is to be essen- 
 tially a Christian one. If not a dominant and commanding 
 race, they are, at least, an aifectionate, magnanimous, and 
 
 HH 2 
 
468 OPHELIA AND TOPST. 
 
 forgiving one. Having been called in the furnace of injustice 
 and oppression, they have need to bind closer to their hearts 
 that sublime doctrine of love and forgiveness, through which 
 alone-jthey are to conquer, which it is to be their mission to 
 spread over the continent of Africa. 
 
 " In myself, I confess I am feeble for this full half the 
 blood in my veins is the hot and hasty Saxon ; but I have an 
 eloquent preacher of the Gospel ever by my side, in the 
 person of my beautiful wife. When I wander, her gentler 
 spirit ever restores me, and keeps before my eyes the Christian 
 calling and mission of our race. As a Christian patriot, as a 
 teacher of Christianity, I go to my country my chosen, my 
 glorious Africa-! and to her, in my heart, I sometimes 
 apply those splendid words of prophecy, ' Whereas thou hast 
 been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through 
 thee ; /will make thee an eternal excellence, a joy of many 
 generations ! ' 
 
 " You will call me an enthusiast : you will tell me that I 
 have not well considered what I am undertaking. But I have 
 considered, and counted the cost. I go to Liberia, not as to 
 an Elysium of romance, but as to a field of work. I expect 
 to work with both hands to work hard; to work against all 
 sorts of difficulties and discouragements ; and to work till I 
 die. This is what I go for ; and in this I am quite sure 
 I shall not be disappointed. 
 
 " Whatever you may think of my determination, do not 
 divorce me from your confidence; and think that, in whatever 
 I do, I act with a heart wholly given to my people. 
 
 " GrEOBGE 
 
 Greorge, with his wife, children, sister, and mother, em- 
 barked for Africa some few weeks after. If we are not 
 mistaken, the world will yet hear from him there. 
 
 Of our other characters we have nothing very particular 
 to write, except a word relating to Miss Ophelia and Topsy, 
 and a farewell chapter, which we shall dedicate to Greorge 
 Shelby. 
 
 Miss Ophelia took Topsy home to Vermont with her, 
 much to the surprise of that grave deliberative body whom 
 a, New Englander recognises under the term " Our folks" 
 " Our folks," at first, thought it an odd and unnecessary 
 
469 
 
 addition to their well-trained domestic establishment ; but, 
 so thoroughly efficient was Miss Ophelia in her conscientious 
 endeavour to do her duty by her eleve, that the child rapidly 
 grew in grace and in favour with the family and neighbour- 
 hood. At the age of womanhood she was, by her own request, 
 baptised, and became a member of the Christian Church in 
 the place ; and showed so much intelligence, activity, and 
 zeal, and desire to do good in the world, that she was at last 
 recommended and approved as a missionary to one of the 
 stations in Africa ; and we have heard that the same activity 
 and ingenuity which, when a child, made her so multiform 
 and restless in her developments, is now employed, in a safer 
 and wholesomer manner^tQ-teaxjhiQg the children of her own 
 jcpuntry. 
 
 P.S. It will be a satisfaction to some mother also to 
 state, that some inquiries which were set on foot by Madame 
 de Thoux have resulted recently in the discovery of Cassy's 
 son. Being a young man of energy, he had escaped some 
 years before his mother, and been received and educated by 
 friends of the oppressed in the north. He will soon follow 
 Iris family to Africa. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLIV. 
 
 THE LIBERATOR. 
 
 GEORGE SHELBY had written to his mother merely a line, 
 stating the day that she might expect him home. Of the 
 death-scene of his old friend he had not the heart to write. 
 He had tried several times, and only succeeded in half-choking 
 himself; and invariably finished by tearing up the paper, 
 wiping his eyes, and rushing somewhere to get quiet. 
 
 There was a pleased bustle all through the Shelby 
 mansion that day in expectation of the arrival of young 
 Mas'r George. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby was seated in her comfortable parlour, where 
 a cheerful hickory fire was dispelling the chill of the late 
 autumn evening. A supper-table, glittering with plate and 
 
470 UNCLE TOM EXPECTED. 
 
 cut glass, was set out, on whose arrangements our former 
 friend, old Chloe, was presiding. 
 
 Arrayed in a new calico dress, with clean, white apron, 
 and high, well-starched turban, her black polished face 
 glowing with satisfaction, she lingered, with needless punc- 
 tiliousness, around the arrangements of the table, merely as 
 an excuse for talking a little to her mistress. 
 
 "Laws, now! won't it look natural to him?" she said. 
 " Thar I set his plate just whar he likes it round by the 
 fire. Mas'r George allers wants de warm seat. Oh, go 
 way. Why didn't Sally get out de best teapot de little 
 new one Mas'r George got for missis, Christmas ? I'll have 
 it out ! And missis has heard from Mas'r George ? " she 
 said, inquiringly. 
 
 " Yes, Chloe ; but only a line, just to say he would be 
 home to-night, if he could that's all." 
 
 " Didn't say nothin' 'bout my old man, s'pose ? " said 
 Chloe, still fidgeting with the teacups. 
 
 " No, he didn't. He did not speak of anything, Chloe. 
 He said he would tell all when he got home." 
 
 " Jes like Mas'r George ; he's allers so ferce for tellin' 
 everything hisself. I allers minded dat ar in Mas'r George. 
 Don't see, for my part, how white people gen'lly can bar to 
 hev to write things much as they do writin' 's such slow, 
 oneasy kind o' work." 
 
 Mrs. Shelby smiled. 
 
 " I'm a thinkin' my old man won't know de boys and de 
 baby. Lor' ! she's the biggest gal, now ; good she is, too, 
 and peart, Polly is. She's out to the house, now, watchin' 
 de hoe-cake. 1's got jist de very pattern my old man liked 
 so much a-bakin'. Jist sich as I gin him the mornin' he 
 was took off. Lord bless us ! how I felt dat ar morning ! " 
 
 Mrs. Shelby sighed, and felt a heavy weight on her heart, 
 at this allusion. She had felt uneasy ever since she received 
 her son's letter, lest something should prove to be hidden 
 behind the veil of silence which he had drawn. 
 
 " Missis had got dem bills ? " said Chloe, anxiously. 
 
 "Yes, Chloe." 
 
 " Cause I wants to show my old man dem very bills de 
 perfectioner gave me. ' And,' says he, ' Chloe, I wish you'd 
 stay longer.' ' Thank you, mas'r,' says I, ' I would, only my 
 
AUNT CHLOE' s SORROW. 471 
 
 old man's coming home, and missis, she can't do without me 
 no longer.' There's jist what I telled him. Berry nice man, 
 dat Mas'r Jones was." 
 
 Chloe had pertinaciously insisted that the very bills in 
 which her wages had been paid should be preserved to 
 show to her husband, in memorial of her capability ; and 
 Mrs. Shelby had readily consented to humour her in the 
 request. 
 
 " He won't know Polly my old man won't. Laws, it's 
 five year since they tuk him ! She was a baby den couldn't 
 but jist stand. Remember how tickled he used to be, 'cause 
 she would keep a fallin' over, when she sot out to walk. 
 Laws a me ! " 
 
 The rattling of wheels now was heard. 
 
 "Mas'r George!" said Aunt Chloe, starting to the 
 window. 
 
 Mrs. Shelby ran to the entry door, and was folded in the 
 arms of her son. Aunt Chloe stood anxiously straining her 
 eyes out into the darkness. 
 
 " O poor Aunt Chloe ! " said George, stopping compas- 
 sionately, and taking her hard black hand between both his. 
 " I'd have given all my fortune to have brought him with 
 me, but he's gone to a better country." 
 
 There was a passionate exclamation from Mrs. Shelby, but 
 Aunt Chloe said nothing. 
 
 The party entered the supper- room. The money of which 
 Chloe was so proud was still lying on the table. 
 
 " Thar," said she, gathering it up, and holding it with a 
 trembling hand to her mistress, " don't never want to see nor 
 hear on't again. Jist as I knew 'twould be sold and 
 murdered on dem ar' old plantations ! " 
 
 Chloe turned, and was walking proudly out of the room. 
 Mrs. Shelby followed her softly, and took one of her hands, 
 drew her down into a chair, and sat down by her. 
 
 " My poor, good Chloe ! " said she. 
 
 Chloe leaned her head on her mistress's shoulder, and 
 sobbed out, " O missis ! 'scuse me, my heart's broke 
 dat'sall!" 
 
 "I know it is," said Mrs. Shelby, as her tears fell fast; 
 " and I cannot heal it, but Jesus can. He healeth the 
 broken-hearted, and bindeth up their wounds." 
 
472 GEOEGKE SHELBY FBEES HIS SLATES. 
 
 There was a silence for some time, and all wept to- 
 gether. At last, George, sitting down beside the mourner, 
 took her hand, and, with simple pathos, repeated the 
 triumphant scene of her husband's death, and his last 
 messages of love. 
 
 About a month after this, one morning, all the servants of 
 the Shelby estate were convened together in the great hall 
 that ran through the house, to hear a few words from their 
 young master. 
 
 To the surprise of all, he appeared among them with a 
 bundle of papers in his hand, containing a certificate of 
 freedom to every one on the place, which he read suc- 
 cessively, and presented, amid the sobs and tears and shouts 
 of all present. 
 
 Many, however, pressed around him, earnestly begging 
 him not to send them away ; and, with anxious faces, 
 tendering back their free papers. 
 
 "We don't wan't to be no freer than we are. We's 
 allers had all we wanted. We don't want to leave the ole 
 place, and mas'r and missis, and de rest ! " 
 
 "My good friends," said George, as soon as he could get 
 a silence, "there'll be no need for you to leave me. The 
 place wants as many hands to work it as it did before. We 
 need the same about the house that we did before. But you 
 are now free men and free women. I shall pay you wages 
 for your work such as we shall agree on. The advantage, 
 is, that in case of my getting in debt or dying things that 
 might happen you cannot now be taken up and sold. 
 I expect to carry on the estate, and to teach you what, 
 perhaps, it will take you some time to learn how to use 
 the rights I give you as free men and women. I expect 
 you to be good, and willing to learn ; and I trust in God 
 that I shall be faithful, and willing to teach. And now, 
 my friends, look up, and thank God for the blessing of 
 freedom." 
 
 An aged, patriarchal negro, who had grown grey and blind 
 on the estate, now rose, and lifting his trembling hand, said, 
 " Let us give thanks unto the Lord ! " As all kneeled by 
 one consent, a more touching and hearty Te Deum never 
 ascended to heaven, though borne on the peal of organ, bell, 
 and cannon, than came from that honest old heart. 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 473 
 
 On rising, another struck up a Methodist hymn, of whici 
 the burden was : 
 
 " The year of Jubilee is come 
 Return, ye ransomed sinners, home." 
 
 " One thing more," said George, as he stopped the con- 
 gratulations of the throng. " You all remember our good 
 old Uncle Tom ? " 
 
 George here gave a short narration of the scene of his 
 death, and of his loving farewell to all on the place, and 
 added, 
 
 " It was on his grave, my friends, that I resolved, before 
 God, that I would never own another slave while it was 
 possible to free him : that nobody, through me, should ever 
 run the risk of being parted from home and friends, and dying 
 on a lonely plantation, as he died. So, when you rejoice in 
 your freedom, think that you owe it to that good old soul, 
 and pay it back in kindness to his wife and children. Think 
 of your freedom, every time you see UNCLE TOM'S CABIN ; 
 and let it be a memorial to put you all in mind to follow in 
 his steps, and be as honest, and faithful, and Christian as 
 he was." 
 
 CHAPTEE XLY. 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 THE writer has often been inquired of, by correspondents 
 from different parts of the country, whether this narrative 
 is a true one ; and to these inquiries she will give one general 
 answer. 
 
 The separate incidents that compose the narrative are 
 to a very great extent authentic, occurring, many of them, 
 either under her own .observation, or that of her personal 
 friends. She or her friends have observed characters the 
 counterpart of almost all that are here introduced; and 
 many of the sayings are word for word as heard herself *0r 
 reported to her. 
 
474 CONCLUDING EEMAKKS. 
 
 The personal appearance of Eliza, the character ascribed 
 to her, are sketches drawn from life. The incorruptible 
 fidelity, piety, and honesty of Uncle Tom, had more than 
 one development to her personal knowledge. Some of the 
 most deeply tragic and romantic, some of the most terrible 
 incidents, have also their parallel in reality. The incident 
 of the mother's crossing the Ohio Biver on the ice is a well- 
 known fact. The story of " old Prue," (Chapter XIX.) was 
 an incident that fell under the personal observation of a 
 brother of the writer, then collecting-clerk to a large mer- 
 cantile house in New Orleans. From the same source was 
 derived the character of the planter, Legree. Of him her 
 brother thus wrote, speaking of visiting his plantation on a 
 collecting tour : " He actually made me feel of his fist, which 
 was like a blacksmith's hammer or a nodule of iron, telling 
 me that it was ' calloused with knocking down niggers. 1 
 When I left the plantation I drew a long breath, and felt as 
 if I had escaped from an ogre's den." 
 
 That the tragical fate of Tom, also, has too many times 
 had it parallel, there are living witnesses all over our land to 
 testify. Let it be remembered that in all Southern states it 
 is a principle of jurisprudence that no person of coloured 
 lineage can testify in a suit against a white, and it will be 
 easy to see that such a case may occur wherever there is a 
 man whose passions outweigh his interests, and a slave who 
 has manhood or principle enough to resist his will. There is 
 actually nothing to protect the slave's life but the character 
 of the master. Facts too shocking to be contemplated occa- 
 sionally force their way to the public ear, and the comment 
 that one often hears made on them is more shocking than the 
 thing itself. It is said, " Very likely such cases may now 
 and then occur, but they are no sample of general practice." 
 If the laws of New England were so arranged that a master 
 could now and then torture an apprentice to death without a 
 possibility of being brought to justice, would it be received 
 with equal composure ? Would it be said, " These cases 
 are rare, and no samples of general practice ? " This 
 injustice is an inherent one in the slave system, it cannot 
 exist without it. 
 
 The public and shameless sale of beautiful mulatto and 
 quadroon girls has acquired a notoriety from the incidents 
 
CONCLUDING EEMA.RKS. 475 
 
 following the capture of the Pearl. "We extract the following 
 from the speech of the Hon. Horace Mann, one of the legal 
 counsel for the defendants in that case. He says : " In that 
 company of seventy-six persons, who attempted, in 1848, to 
 escape from the District of Columbia in the schooner Pearl, 
 and whose officers I assisted in defending, there were several 
 young and healthy girls, who had those peculiar attractions 
 of form and feature which connoisseurs prize so highly. 
 Elizabeth Russell was one of them. She immediately fell 
 into the slave-trader's fangs, and was doomed for the New 
 Orleans market. The hearts of those that saw her were 
 touched with pity for her fate. They offered eighteen, 
 hundred dollars to redeem her ; and some there were who 
 offered to give that would not have much left after the gift ; 
 but the fiend of a slave-trader was inexorable. She was 
 despatched to New Orleans: but, when about half way 
 there, God had mercy on her, and smote her with death. 
 There were two girls named Edmundson in the same company. 
 When about to be sent to the same market, an older sister went 
 to the shambles to plead with the wretch who owned them, 
 for the love of God to spare his victims. He bantered her, 
 telling what fine dresses and fine furniture they would have. 
 ' Yes,' she said, ' that may do very well in this life, but what 
 will become of them in the next ? ' They, too, were sent 
 to New Orleans \ but were afterwards redeemed at an 
 enormous ransom and brought back." Is it not plain from 
 this, that the histories of Emmeline and Gassy may have 
 many counterparts ? 
 
 Justice, too, obliges the author to state that the fairness 
 of mind and generosity attributed to St. Clare are not without 
 a parallel, as the following anecdote will show. A few years 
 since, a young Southern gentleman was in Cincinnati, with 
 a favourite servant, who had been his personal attendant 
 from a boy. The young man took advantage of this 
 opportunity to secure his own freedom, and fled to the 
 protection of a Quaker, who was quite noted in affairs of 
 this kind. The owner was exceedingly indignant. He had 
 always treated the slave with such indulgence, and his 
 confidence in his affection was such, that he believed he 
 must have been practised upon to induce him to revolt from 
 him. He visited the Quaker, in high anger j but being 
 
476 CONCLUDING REMABKS. 
 
 possessed of uncommon candour and fairness, was soon 
 quieted by his arguments and representations. It was a 
 side of the subject which he never had heard never had 
 thought on; and he immediately told the Quaker that, if 
 his slave would to his own face, say, that it was his desire 
 to be free, he would liberate him. An interview was 
 forthwith procured, and Nathan was asked by his young 
 master whether he had ever had any reason to complain of 
 his treatment, in any respect. 
 
 " No, mas'r," said Nathan ; " you've always been good to 
 me." 
 
 " "Well, then, why do you want to leave me ? " 
 " Mas'r may die, and then who get me ? I'd rather be a 
 free man." 
 
 After some deliberation, the young master replied, 
 " Nathan, in your place I think I should feel very much so 
 myself. You are free." 
 
 He immediately made him out free papers ; deposited a 
 sum of money in the hands of the Quaker, to be judiciously 
 used in assisting him to start in life, and left a very sensible 
 and kind letter of advice to the young man. That letter 
 was for some time in the writer's hands. 
 
 The author hopes she has done justice to that nobility, 
 generosity, and humanity, which in many cases characterise 
 individuals at the South. Such instances save us from utter 
 despair of our kind. But she asks any person, who knows 
 the world, are such characters common anywhere ? 
 
 For many years of her life, the author avoided all reading 
 upon or allusion to the subject of slavery, considering it as 
 too painful to be inquired into, and one which advancing 
 light and civilisation would certainly live down. But, since 
 the legislative Act of 1850, when she heard, with perfect 
 surprise and consternation, Christian and humane people 
 actually recommending the remanding escaped fugitives into 
 slavery, as a duty binding on good citizens when she heard 
 on all hands, from kind, compassionate, and estimable people, 
 in the free states of the North, deliberations and discussions 
 as to what Christian duty could be on this head she could 
 only think, these men and Christians cannot know what 
 slavery is ; if they did, such a question could never be open 
 for discussion. And from this arose a desire to exhibit it in 
 
CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 477 
 
 a living dramatic reality. She lias endeavoured to show it 
 fairly, in its best and its worst phases. In its lest aspect, she 
 has, perhaps, been successful ; but, oh, who shall say what 
 yet remains untold in that valley and shadow of death that 
 lies the other side ? 
 
 To you, generous, noble-minded men and women of the 
 South you, whose virtue and magnanimity, and purity of 
 character, are the greater for the severer trial it has encoun- 
 tered to you is her appeal. Have you not, in your own 
 secret souls, in your own private conversings, felt that there 
 are woes and evils in this accursed system far beyond what 
 are here shadowed, or can be shadowed ? Can it be other- 
 wise? Is man ever a creature to be trusted with wholly 
 irresponsible power ? And does not the slave system, by 
 denying the slave all legal right of testimony, make every 
 individual owner an irresponsible despot ? Can anybody 
 fail to make the inference what the practical result will be ? 
 If there is, as we admit, a public sentiment among you, men 
 of honour, justice, and humanity, is there not also another 
 kind of public sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal, and 
 debased ? And cannot the ruffian, the brutal, the debased, 
 by slave law, own just as many slaves as the best and 
 purest ? Are the honourable, the just, the high-minded, and 
 compassionate, the majority anywhere in this world ? 
 
 The slave-trade is now, by American law, considered as 
 piracy. But a slave-trade as systematic as ever was carried 
 on on the coast of Africa is an inevitable attendant and 
 result of American slavery. And its heart-break and its 
 horrors, can they be told ? 
 
 The writer has given only a faint shadow, a dim picture, 
 of the anguish and despair that are at this very moment 
 riving thousands of hearts, shattering thousands of families, 
 and driving a helpless and sensitive race to frenzy and 
 despair. There are those living who know the mothers 
 whom this accursed traffic has driven to the murder of their 
 children, and themselves seeking in death a shelter from 
 woes more dreaded than death. Nothing of tragedy can be 
 written, can be spoken, can be conceived, that equals the 
 frightful reality of scenes daily and hourly acting on our 
 shores, beneath the shadow of American law, and the shadow 
 of the cross of Christ. 
 
478 CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 
 
 And now, men and women of America, s this a thing to 
 be trifled with, apologised for, and passed over in silence ? 
 Farmers of Massachusetts, of New Hampshire, of Vermont, 
 of Connecticut, who read this book by the blaze of your 
 winter-evening fire strong-hearted, generous sailors and 
 ship-owners of Maine- is this a thing for you to countenance 
 and encourage ? Brave and generous men of New York, 
 farmers of rich and joyous Ohio, and ye of the wide prairie 
 States, answer, is this a thing for you to protect and coun- 
 tenance ? And you, mothers of America you, who have 
 learned, by the cradles of your own children, to love and feel 
 for all mankind, by the sacred love you bear your child ; by 
 your joy in his beautiful, spotless infancy; by the motherly 
 pity and tenderness with which you guide his growing 
 years ; by the anxieties of his education ; by the prayers 
 you breathe for his soul's eternal good I beseech you, pity 
 the mother who has all your affections, and not one legal 
 right to protect, guide, or educate the child of her bosom ! 
 By the sick hour of your child ; by those dying eyes, which 
 you can never forget ; by those last cries that wrung your 
 heart when you could neither help nor save ; by the desola- 
 tion of that empty cradle, that silent nursery, I beseech you, 
 pity those mothers that are constantly made childless by the 
 American slave-trade ! And say, mothers of America, 
 is this a thing to be defended, sympathised with, passed over 
 in silence ? 
 
 Do you say that the people of the free states have nothing 
 to do with it, and can do nothing ? "Would to Grod this were 
 true ! But it is not true. The people of the free states 
 have defended, encouraged, and participated ; and are more 
 guilty for it, before God, than the South, in that they have 
 not the apology of education or custom. 
 
 If the mothers of the free states had all felt as they should 
 in times past, the sons of the free states would not have 
 been the holders, and proverbially the hardest masters, of 
 slaves ; the sons of the free states would not have connived 
 at the extension of slavery in our national body ; the sons 
 of the free states would not, as they do, trade the souls and 
 bodies of men as an equivalent to money in their mercantile 
 dealings. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily 
 owned and sold again, by merchants in Northern cities; 
 
CONCLUDING REMAKES. 479 
 
 and shall the whole guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on 
 the South ? 
 
 Northern men, Northern mothers, Northern Christians, 
 have something more to do than denounce their brethren at 
 the South ; they have to look to the evil among themselves. 
 
 But what can any individual do ? Of that every individual 
 can judge. There is one thing that every individual can do, 
 they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of 
 sympathetic influence encircles every human being ; and the 
 man or woman who feels strongly, healthily, and justly, on 
 the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to 
 the human race. See, then, to your sympathies in this 
 matter! Are they in harmony with the sympathies of 
 Christ ? or are they swayed and perverted by the sophistries 
 of worldly policy ? 
 
 Christian men and women of the North ; still further, you 
 have another power : you can pray ! Do you believe in 
 prayer ? or has it become an indistinct apostolic tradition ? 
 You pray for the heathen abroad, pray also for the heathen 
 at home. And pray for those distressed Christians whose 
 whole chance of religious improvement is an accident of 
 trade and sale from whom any adherence to the morals of 
 Christianity is, in many cases, an impossibility, unless they 
 have given them from above the courage and grace of 
 martyrdom. 
 
 But still more. On the shores of our free states are 
 emerging the poor, shattered, broken remnants of families, 
 men and women escaped, by miraculous providences, from the 
 surges of slavery, feeble in knowledge, and, in many cases, 
 infirm in moral constitution, from a system which confounds 
 and confuses every principle of Christianity and morality. 
 They come to seek a refuge among you ; they come to seek 
 education, knowledge, Christianity. 
 
 What do you owe to these poor unfortunates, Christians? 
 Does not every American Christian owe to the African race 
 some effort at reparation for the wrongs that the American 
 nation has brought upon them ? Shall the doors of churches 
 and school-houses be shut upon them ? Shall States arise 
 and shake them out ? Shall the Church of Christ hear in 
 silence the taunt that is thrown at them, and shrink away 
 from the helpless hand that they stretch out, and by her 
 
480 CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 
 
 silence, encourage the cruelty that would chase them from 
 our borders ? If it must be so, it will be a mournful spec- 
 tacle. If it must be so, the country will have reason to 
 tremble, when it remembers that the fate of nations is in the 
 hands of One who is very pitiful, and of tender compassion. 
 Do you say, " We don't want them here ; let them go to 
 Africa? " 
 
 That the providence of God has provided a refuge in 
 Africa, is, indeed, a great and noticeable fact ; but that is no 
 reason why the Church of Christ should throw off that 
 responsibility to this outcast race which her profession 
 demands of her. 
 
 / To fill up Liberia with an ignorant, inexperienced, half- 
 
 / barbarised race, just escaped from the chains of slavery, 
 
 i would be only to prolong for ages the period of struggle and 
 
 V conflict which attends the inception of new enterprises. 
 
 |Let the Church of the North receive these poor sufferers in 
 
 fhe spirit of Christ ; receive them to the educating advan- 
 
 / tages of Christian republican society and schools, until they 
 
 I have attained to somewhat of a moral and intellectual 
 
 maturity, and then assist them in their passage to those 
 
 ^ shores where they may put in practice the lessons they have 
 
 \ learned in America. 
 
 There is a body of men in the North, comparatively small, 
 who have been doing this ; and, as the result, this country 
 has already seen examples of men, formerly slaves, who have 
 rapidly acquired property, reputation, and education. Talent 
 has been developed, which, considering the circumstances, is 
 certainly remarkable ; and, for moral traits of honesty, 
 kindness, tenderness of feeling, for heroic efforts and self- 
 denials, endured for the ransom of brethren and friends yet 
 in slavery, they have been remarkable to a degree that, 
 considering the influence under which they were born is 
 surprising. 
 
 The writer has lived, for many years, on the frontier-line 
 of slave states, and has had great opportunities of observation 
 among those who formerly were slaves. They have been in 
 her family as servants ; and, in default of any other school to 
 receive them, she has, in many cases, had them instructed in 
 a family school, with her own children. She has also the 
 testimony of missionaries among the fugitives in Canada in 
 
CONCLUmJG BEMAEKS. 481 
 
 coincidence with her own experience ; and her deductions, I 
 with regard to the capabilities of the^rjtg&jaje. .encouraging 
 in jthe highest degree; 
 
 The first desire of the emancipated slave, generally, is for 
 education. There is nothing that they are not willing to 
 give or do to have their children instructed; and, so far 
 as the writer has observed herself, or taken the testimony of 
 teachers among them, they are remarkably intelligent and 
 quick to learn. The results of schools founded for them \ 
 by benevolent individuals in Cincinnati fully establish j 
 this. 
 
 The author gives the following statement of facts, on the 
 authority of Professor C. E. Stowe, then of Lane Seminary, 
 Ohio, with regard to emancipated slaves, now resident in 
 Cincinnati : given to show the capability of the race, even 
 without any very particular assistance or encouragement. 
 
 The initial letters alone are given. They are all residents 
 of Cincinnati. 
 
 " .& . Furniture-maker ; twenty years in this city ; 
 
 worth ten thousand dollars, all his own earnings ; a Baptist. 
 
 " C. Full black ; stolen from Africa ; sold in New 
 
 Orleans ; been free fifteen years ; paid for himself six hun- 
 dred dollars ; a farmer ; owns several farms in Indiana ; 
 Presbyterian ; probably worth fifteen or twenty thousand 
 dollars, all earned by himself. 
 
 " K . Full black ; dealer in real estate ; worth thirty 
 
 thousand dollars ; about forty years old ; free six years ; 
 paid eighteen hundred dollars for his family ; member of the 
 Baptist Church ; received a legacy from his master, which 
 he has taken good care of and increased. 
 
 " Gr . Full black ; coal-dealer ; about thirty years old; 
 
 worth eighteen thousand dollars ; paid for himself twice, 
 being once defrauded to the amount of sixteen hundred 
 dollars ; made all his money by his own efforts much of it 
 while a slave, hiring his time of his master, and doing 
 business for himself ; a fine, gentlemanly fellow. 
 
 "VV" . Three-fourths black ; barber and waiter ; from 
 
 Kentucky ; nineteen years free ; paid for self and family 
 over three thousand dollars ; worth twenty thousand dollars, 
 all his own earnings ; deacon in the Baptist Church. 
 
 " Gr. D . Three-fourths black ; white-washer ; from 
 
 i i 
 
482 CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 
 
 Kentucky ; nine years free ; paid fifteen hundred dollars for 
 self and family ; recently died, aged sixty ; worth six thousand 
 dollars." 
 
 Professor Stowe says, " With all these, except G- , I 
 
 have been, for some years, personally acquainted, and make 
 my statements from my own knowledge." 
 
 The writer well remembers an aged coloured woman, who 
 was employed as a washerwoman in her father's family. The 
 daughter of this woman married a slave. She was a remark- 
 ably active and capable young woman, and by her industry 
 and thrift, and the most persevering self-denial, raised nine 
 hundred dollars for her husband's freedom, which she paid, as 
 she raised it, into the hands of his master. She yet wanted 
 a hundred dollars of the price when he died. She never 
 recovered any of the money. 
 
 These are but few facts among multitudes which might 
 
 be adduced to show the self-denial, energy, patience, and 
 
 honesty which the slave has exhibited in a state of freedom. 
 
 And let it be remembered that these individuals have thus 
 
 bravely succeeded in conquering for themselves comparative 
 
 wealth and social position in the face of every disadvantage 
 
 ( and discouragement. The coloured man, by the law of Ohio, 
 
 j cannot be a voter, and, till within a few years, was even 
 
 || denied the right of testimony in legal suits with the white. 
 
 v Nor are these instances confined to the State of Ohio. In 
 
 all states of the Union we see men, but yesterday burst from 
 
 the shackles of slavery, who, by a self-educating force, which 
 
 cannot be too much admired, have risen to highly respectable 
 
 stations in society. Pennington among clergymen, Douglas 
 
 and Ward among editors, are well-known instances. 
 
 If this persecuted race, with every discouragement and 
 disadvantage, have done thus much, how much more they 
 might do, if the Christian Church would act towards them 
 in the spirit of her Lord ! 
 
 This is an age of the world when nations are trembling 
 and convulsed. A mighty influence is abroad, surging and 
 heaving the world, as with an earthquake. And is America 
 safe ? Every nation that carries in its bosom great and 
 unredressed injustice has in it the elements of this last 
 convulsion. 
 
 For what is this mighty influence thus rousing in all 
 
CONCLUDING EBMAEKS. 483 
 
 nations and languages those groanings that cannot be 
 uttered for man's freedom and equality ? 
 
 O Church of Christ, read the signs of the times ! Is not 
 this power the Spirit of HIM whose kingdom is yet to come, 
 and whose will to be done on earth as it is in heaven ? 
 
 But who may abide the day of his appearing ? " Por that 
 day shall burn as an oven : and he shall appear as a swift 
 witness against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, 
 the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the 
 stranger in his right : and he shall break in pieces the 
 oppressor." 
 
 Are not these dread words for a nation bearing in her 
 bosom so mighty an injustice ? Christians ! every time that 
 you pray that the kingdom of Christ may come, can you 
 forget that prophecy associates, in dread fellowship, the day 
 of vengeance with the year of his redeemed ? 
 
 A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and 
 South have been guilty before God ; and the Christian Ghwrcli 
 has a heavy account to answer. Not by combining together 
 to protect injustice and cruelty, and making a common 
 capital of sin, is this "Union to be saved but by repentance, 
 justice, and mercy ; for not surer is the eternal law by which 
 the millstone sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law by 
 which injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath 
 of Almighty G-od ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LOKDOK : 
 BRADBUBY AHD EVAHS, PBTNTEBS, WHITEFBIARS. 
 
 F 
 
132 n 2 2 
 
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