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Uncle Tom's Cabin
Or, Life Among the Lowly

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Part 4

Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4

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CHAPTER XXXIV

The Quadroon's Story


And behold the tears of such as are oppressed; and on the side of
their oppressors there was power. Wherefore I praised the dead that are
already dead more than the living that are yet alive.--ECCL. 4:1.

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.

"O, 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? O, for the Lord's massy, please give me some water!"

The woman Cassy--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 yourself,--a lower
one than you can ever be!" said she, bitterly; "but now," said she,
going to the door, and dragging in a small pallaise, 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 brutality 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 expression 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
melancholy 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, 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
whipped 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 rung, 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
suffer 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; 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,
forever,--and now I ‘can't’ lose Heaven, too; no, I can't get to be
wicked, besides all!"

"But it can't be that the Lord will lay sin to our account," said the
woman; "he won't charge it to us, when we're forced to it; he'll charge
it to them that drove us to it."

"Yes," said Tom; "but that won't keep us from growing wicked. If I get
to be as hard-hearted as that ar' Sambo, 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,

"O God a' mercy! you speak the truth! O--O--O!"--and, with groans, she
fell on the floor, like one crushed and writhing under the extremity of
mental anguish.

There was a silence, a while, in which the breathing of both parties
could be heard, when Tom faintly said, "O, 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 was 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 frigid composure, 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! O Lord, help us! O
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 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 Glory,--wan't he allays 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 was stoned and
sawn asunder, and wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, and was
destitute, afflicted, tormented. Sufferin' an't no reason to make us
think the Lord's turned agin us; but jest the contrary, if only we 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 Cassy; "what'll you do? Tomorrow they'll be at you
again. I know 'em; I've 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!"

"O dear!" said Cassy; "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.

"May be 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 ourselves! 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 parlors,--when I was kept dressed
up 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 going 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 who 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
full 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. "O, 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 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 impossible; and he told me that, if we were only
faithful to each other, it was marriage before God. 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. O, 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 a going 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 ‘he 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 should come back; but it didn'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 ‘he’ 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. O, 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 quarrelling 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 both 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 God and man; and, for a while, I believe, he really was
afraid of me. But 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 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 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 parlor,
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 something 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 this house to be sold; and that's why they took
such pains with me.

"I 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 river; 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. O, 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,--’I lived!’ 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 I am!"

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. May be 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 a hysteric sob; she
threw herself on the floor, in convulsive sobbing 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.

Tom drank the water, and looked earnestly and pitifully into her face.

"O, Missis, I wish you'd go to him that can give you living waters!"

"Go to him! Where is he? Who is he?" said Cassy.

"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 Cassy, 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! O!" She laid her land 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
water in his reach, and making whatever little arrangements for his
comforts she could, Cassy left the shed.



CHAPTER XXXV

The Tokens

"And slight, withal, may be the things that bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside forever; 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, CAN. 4.

The sitting-room of Legree's establishment was a large, long room,
with a wide, ample fireplace. It had once been hung with a showy and
expensive paper, which now hung mouldering, torn and discolored, 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 somebody had been practising arithmetic there. In
the fireplace 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, overcoats, and various articles
of clothing, scattered up and down the room in confused variety; and the
dogs, of whom 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
Cassy, who had stolen upon his soliloquy.

"Hah! 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. "After all, Cassy," he said,
"why can't you be friends with me, as you used to?"

"Used to!" said she, bitterly. She stopped short,--a word of choking
feelings, rising in her heart, kept her silent.

Cassy 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 servitude, 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 Cassy, 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. Cassy,
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 Cassy 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 conciliatory, 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, Cassy," 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 came it 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 it tied 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
Cassy, 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.

Cassy 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 appall 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 time when he 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 blest 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 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. Ye who have wondered 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! I don't 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 ghostlike in that dreary old house, perhaps because
of the already tremulous state of his nerves. Hark! what is it?

A wild, pathetic voice, chants a hymn common among the slaves:

"O there'll be mourning, mourning, mourning,
O 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!"

And clear and loud swelled through the empty halls the refrain,

"O there'll be mourning, mourning, mourning,
O 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 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 on 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 summoned his two sable drivers.

Legree was often wont, when in a gracious humor, to get these two
worthies into his sitting-room, and, after warming them up with whiskey,
amuse himself by setting them to singing, dancing or fighting, as the
humor took him.

It was between one and two o'clock at night, as Cassy was returning
from her ministrations to poor Tom, that she heard the sound of wild
shrieking, whooping, halloing, 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. Legree and both the
drivers, in a state of furious intoxication, 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.



CHAPTER 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 Cassy, is it you? I'm so glad you've come! I was afraid
it was--. O, you don't know what a horrid noise there has been, down
stairs, 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
couldn't stay in the swamps,--you'd be tracked by the dogs, and brought
back, and then--then--"

"What would he do?" said the girl, looking, with breathless interest,
into her face.

"What ‘wouldn't’ he do, you'd better ask," said Cassy. "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 anyone what was done there, and
see if they will dare to tell you."

"O! 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 tomorrow, 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--forever!"

"I wish I'd never been born!" said Emmeline, wringing her hands.

"That's an old wish with me," said Cassy. "I've got used to wishing
that. I'd die, if I dared to," she said, looking 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 sunk 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.

O! 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 hair’ 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; 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. O, with what freshness, what
solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate
man, "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 the 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--l of a night!" he said to Cassy, 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 Cassy, in the same tone.
"Now Simon, I've one piece of advice to give you."

"The devil, you have!"

"My advice is," said Cassy, steadily, as she began adjusting 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? Tompkins won't lord it over you, I
suppose,--and you'll pay 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. Cassy, therefore, with
woman's tact, touched the only string that could be made to vibrate.

"Well, I'll 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 Cassy.

"Won't,--eh?"

"No, he won't," said Cassy.

"I'd like to know ‘why’, 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 Cassy.

Legree, though he talked so stoutly to Cassy, 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 Cassy'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 Cassy, so far from discouraging
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’, of 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 yer
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 sermon, could ye,--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, may be, 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 'tan't anything,--nothing 't all. 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?"

"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 O, 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 commands before all,--die or live; you may be sure on 't.
Mas'r Legree, I ain't a grain afeard 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 ‘help’," said Tom; "you'll never do it."

"Who the devil's going to help you?" said Legree, scornfully.

"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, the rhinoceros, though enclosed 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.

"Hark, ye!" he said to Tom; "I won't deal with ye now, because the
business is pressing, and I want all my hands; but I ‘never’ forget.
I'll score it against ye, and sometime I'll have my pay out o' yer old
black hide,--mind ye!"

Legree turned, and went out.

"There you go," said Cassy, looking darkly after him; "your reckoning's
to come, yet!--My poor fellow, how are you?"

"The Lord God hath sent his angel, and shut the lion's mouth, for this
time," said Tom.

"For this time, to be sure," said Cassy; "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 redeemed,
regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of universal
emancipation." CURRAN.*

* John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), Irish orator and judge
who worked for Catholic emancipation.

A while we must leave Tom in the hands of his persecutors, while we turn
to pursue the fortunes of George and his wife, whom we left in friendly
hands, in a farmhouse on the road-side.

Tom Loker we left groaning and touzling in a most immaculately clean
Quaker bed, under the motherly supervision 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 gray 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.

"The devil!" says Tom Loker, giving a great throw to the bedclothes.

"I must request thee, Thomas, not to use such language," says Aunt
Dorcas, as she quietly rearranged 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 ‘I’ 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 'spose," 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 ‘will’
get away, just to spite Marks,--the cursed puppy!--d--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 man; 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 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; and a night or two after, George and
Eliza, with their child, were driven privately into Sandusky, and lodged
beneath a hospital 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!--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 heart's 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 eyes,--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 is 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.

"Now 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, as she held up 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 around 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!--"

"O, 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 admiringly 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.

"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 occasionally drawing deep
sighs, and peeping at her from under his dark curls.

"Does Harry know mamma?" said Eliza, stretching her hands toward 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
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 to appear as the aunt of little
Harry; 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, jointed 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 characterized 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 around, 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 farewell 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 sun-light. A fresh breeze blew from the shore, and the
lordly boat ploughed her way right gallantly onward.

O, 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 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 shores; 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.

George 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 God!

"'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, ‘Rejoice, 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 freedom? 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 comes down on the
free man's pillow, under laws which insure 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 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. "O, ye who take freedom
from man, with what words shall ye answer it to God?"



CHAPTER XXXVIII

The Victory


"Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory."*

* I Cor. 15:57.

Have 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 fervor, 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 dampened 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 before his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that he should be
put to the regular field-work; and then came 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’
circumstances, 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 flattered 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 flicker 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 Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to the house,
caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held very little
communion with either; in fact, there was no time for him to commune
with anybody.

One evening, he was sitting, in utter dejection and prostration, by a
few decaying brands, where his coarse supper 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.

"You 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.

"You 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. Ye'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 desperate effort of every
physical and moral nerve to throw off 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
dejected soul to the lowest ebb; and, though the hand of faith still
held to the eternal rock, it was 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 splendor 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 overcome,
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
life that now is, and offered his own will an unquestioning 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 forever 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."

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 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 gray of dawn woke the slumberers to go forth to the field,
there was among those tattered and shivering 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."

"Like to see him try that," said Legree, with a savage grin, "wouldn't
we, Sambo?"

"Guess we would! Haw! haw! ho!" said the sooty gnome, laughing
obsequiously. "Lord, de fun! To see him stickin' in de mud,--chasin' and
tarin' 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 a 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 his horse, to go to the
neighboring 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 stillness in the air which it seems almost unholy to
disturb. Legree was a little distance from the quarters, when he heard
the voice of some one singing. It was not a usual sound there, and he
paused to listen. A musical tenor voice sang,

"When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies,
I'll 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."*


* "On My Journey Home," hymn by Isaac Watts, found in many
of the southern country songbooks of the ante bellum period.

"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 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, belabored him over his head and shoulders.

"There, you dog," he said, "see if you'll 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 disappeared 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 GOD 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 sympathy 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 labor, chances fell in his way of
extending a helping-hand to the weary, the disheartened and discouraged.
The poor, worn-down, brutalized creatures, at first, could scarce
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, 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 execrations,--so that the
blessed news had to circulate from individual to individual. Yet 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 Gospel 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 Cassy was soothed and calmed by his simple and
unobtrusive influences.

Stung to madness and despair by the crushing agonies of a life, Cassy
had often resolved in her soul an hour of retribution, when her hand
should avenge on her oppressor 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 remarked, as the light of
the moon fell upon Cassy'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 Cassy?" said Tom, anxiously.

"Tom, wouldn't you like your liberty?"

"I shall have it, Misse, in God's time," said Tom. "Ay, but you may have
it tonight," said Cassy, 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's 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 Cassy. "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 never comes of wickedness. I'd sooner
chop my right hand off!"

"Then ‘I’ shall do it," said Cassy, turning.

"O, Misse Cassy!" 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."

"Wait!" said Cassy. "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 mustn't 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 Cassy, 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 God!"
And, with streaming eyes and choking voice, the black man looked up to
heaven.

And this, oh 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 fervor 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? O! 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 Cassy, turn to the
dear Lord Jesus. He came to bind up the broken-hearted, and comfort all
that mourn."

Cassy stood silent, while large, heavy tears dropped from her downcast
eyes.

"Misse Cassy," said Tom, in a hesitating tone, after surveying her
in silence, "if ye only could get away 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,--it's more'n you can stand,--and you'd better go, if you can."

"I know no way but through the grave," said Cassy. "There's no beast or
bird but can find a home some where; 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, their 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 saves 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 overlooked, and
trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new
light, as a discovered diamond?

Cassy 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!"



CHAPTER XXXIX

The Stratagem

"The way of the wicked is as darkness; he knoweth not at what he
stumbleth."*

* Prov. 4:19.

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 splendor 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 it terrors. Some few years before, a negro woman,
who had incurred Legree's displeasure, 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 unfortunate
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 wailings 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 opportunity of
knowing what was there, for he would chain them 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.

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 Cassy 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 Cassy 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.

"Hallo! you Cass!" said Legree, "what's in the wind now?"

"Nothing; only I choose to have another room," said Cassy, doggedly.

"And what for, pray?" said Legree.

"I choose to," said Cassy.

"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 Cassy, dryly.

"Speak out, you minx!" said Legree.

"O! nothing. I suppose it wouldn't disturb ‘you!’ Only groans, and
people scuffing, and rolling round on the barre, floor, half the night,
from twelve to morning!"

"People up garret!" said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a laugh; "who are
they, Cassy?"

Cassy 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.

Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down the door;
but apparently thought better of it, and walked uneasily into the
sitting-room. Cassy 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 of the garret, that had opened, 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 elements 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 word, or prayer, or hymn, that reacted in
superstitious dread.

The influence of Cassy over him was of a strange and singular kind. He
was her owner, her tyrant and tormentor. She 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 said, a woman delicately bred; and
then he crushed her, without scruple, 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 tyrannized 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, and 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 newspapers for some hours, while Cassy
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
Cassy 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 Cassy, 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."

Cassy 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. "Rats will
make a devil of a noise. I used to hear '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, therefore, 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 glittering 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 sprung back, with an oath.

"Woman! what do you mean? Nobody did?"

"O, 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?"

"‘It’,--what?" 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 nor moved; a vague horror
fell on him; while Cassy, with a keen, 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 Cassy, 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 Cassy, 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
Cassy 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 Cassy 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 parlor, whither, in a few moments, he
was followed by Cassy, 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 Cassy. "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.

"O, it an't? Well," said Cassy, "at any rate, I'm glad ‘I’ don't sleep
under it."

Anticipating the rising of the wind, that very evening, Cassy 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 Cassy played with Legree,
until he would sooner have put his head into a lion's mouth than to have
explored that garret. Meanwhile, in the night, when everybody else
was asleep, Cassy slowly and carefully accumulated there a stock
of provisions sufficient to afford subsistence for some time; she
transferred, 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,
Cassy had got him to take her with him to the neighboring town, which
was situated directly on the Red river. With a memory sharpened to
almost preternatural 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
neighboring farm. For many days Cassy had been unusually gracious and
accommodating in her humors; 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 Cassy. "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 Cassy, 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 tumbling over each other, as
they always do, you and I will 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.
Every one 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've 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."

"Cassy, how well you have planned it!" said Emmeline. "Who ever would
have thought of it, but you?"

There was neither pleasure nor exultation in Cassy'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 Cassy 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, "O,
Cassy, I'm going to faint!"

"If you do, I'll kill you!" said Cassy, 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 Cassy, 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 baggage! They're safe enough. They shall
sweat for it!"

"Hulloa, there! Sambo! Quimbo! All hands!" called Legree, coming 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 uncoupling the
dogs, whose hoarse, savage bay added not a little to the animation of
the scene.

"Mas'r, shall we shoot 'em, if can't cotch 'em?" said Sambo, to whom his
master brought out a rifle.

"You 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, proceeded down to the
swamp, followed, at some distance, by every servant in the house. The
establishment was, of a consequence, wholly deserted, when Cassy 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, Cassy and Emmeline could see the troop, with their flambeaux,
just dispersing themselves along the edge of the swamp.

"See there!" said Emmeline, pointing to Cassy; "the hunt is begun! Look
how those lights dance about! Hark! the dogs! Don't you hear? If we were
only ‘there’, our chances wouldn't be worth a picayune. O, for pity's
sake, do let's hide ourselves. Quick!"

"There's no occasion for hurry," said Cassy, 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."

She unlocked the desk, took from it a roll of bills, which she counted
over rapidly.

"O, don't let's do that!" said Emmeline.

"Don't!" said Cassy; "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 Cassy, 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 immense 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. Cassy
lit a small lamp, and creeping round under the eaves, they established
themselves 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 Cassy
had arranged into bundles of an astonishingly small compass.

"There," said Cassy, 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 Cassy. "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, Cassy, by saying you would kill me?" she said,
simply.

"I meant to stop your fainting," said Cassy, "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. Cassy 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 Cassy, coolly; "never fear. Look out
of this knot-hole. Don't you see 'em all down there? Simon has to give
up, for this night. Look, how muddy his horse is, flouncing about in the
swamp; the dogs, too, look rather crestfallen. Ah, my good sir, you'll
have to try the race again and again,--the game isn't there."

"O, don't speak a word!" said Emmeline; "what if they should hear you?"

"If they do hear anything, it will make them very particular to keep
away," said Cassy. "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.



CHAPTER XL

The Martyr

"Deem not the just by Heaven forgot!
Though life its common gifts deny,--
Though, with a crushed and bleeding heart,
And spurned of man, he goes to die!
For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every bitter tear,
And heaven's long years of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here."
BRYANT.*


* This poem does not appear in the collected works of
William Cullen Bryant, nor in the collected poems of his
brother, John Howard Bryant. It was probably copied from a
newspaper or magazine.

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 blackness 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 mountains, and gales
and breezes, not of earth, show that the gates of day are unclosing.

The escape of Cassy 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, 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 offered 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 consideration was still somewhat of
a restraint to him.

The next morning, he determined to say nothing, as yet; to assemble
a party, from some neighboring 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
the 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 safeguard 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 gain his ends; and will he
be more careful of his neighbor's body?

"Well," said Cassy, the next day, from the garret, as she reconnoitred
through the knot-hole, "the hunt's going to begin again, today!"

Three or four mounted horsemen were curvetting about, on the space
in 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 tavern-bar of a
neighboring city, who had come for the interest of the sport. A more
hard-favored 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.

Cassy 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.

Cassy drew back; and, clasping her hands, looked upward, and said, "O,
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 Emmeline, "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 Cassy. She looked perplexed, but made no answer. She only took
her hand, with a gentle, caressing movement.

"Don't!" said Cassy, trying to draw it away; "you'll get me to loving
you; and I never mean to love anything, again!"

"Poor Cassy!" 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, Cassy, whether you love me or not!"

The gentle, child-like spirit conquered. Cassy 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.

"O, Em!" said Cassy, "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, Cassy," said Emmeline; "he is our Father!"

"His wrath is upon us," said Cassy; "he has turned away in anger."

"No, Cassy! 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 unsuccessful; and, with
grave, ironic exultation, Cassy 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 jest 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 sat his basket down by the row, and, looking up, said, "Into thy
hands I commend my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, oh 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 cotch it, now!
I'll 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 God; 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 ear. 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 a grim, terrible calmness,
"‘done--just--that--thing’, Tom, unless you'll 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 han't 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 again' 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!"

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 't will me! Do the worst you can, my troubles'll 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 evil came back, with seven-fold
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 has not nerve to hear. What brother-man and
brother-Christian must suffer, cannot be told us, even in our secret
chamber, it so harrows the soul! And yet, oh my country! these things
are done under the shadow of thy laws! O, 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, honor, 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 Rock.
Like his Master, he knew that, if he saved others, himself he could not
save; nor could utmost extremity wring from him words, save of prayers
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. "Ye poor miserable
critter!" he said, "there ain't no more ye can do! I forgive ye, with
all my soul!" and he fainted entirely away.

"I b'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!"

Yes, 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 favor to him.

"Sartin, we 's been doin' a drefful wicked thing!" said Sambo; "hopes
Mas'r'll 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 Quimbo, "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,--his life, his death, his
everlasting presence, and power to save.

They wept,--both the two savage men.

"Why didn't I never hear 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! O, Lord! give me these two more souls, I pray!"

That prayer was answered!



CHAPTER XLI

The Young Master


Two days after, a young man drove a light wagon up through the avenue of
China trees, and, throwing the reins hastily on the horse's neck, 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
Red river.

Mrs. Shelby read the intelligence with the deepest concern; 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 George 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.

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 collecting and examining accounts, selling
property and settling debts; for Mrs. Shelby was determined that
everything should be brought into tangible and recognizable shape, let
the consequences to her prove what they might. In the mean time, 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 Red river, resolving to find out and re-purchase 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 hospitality,

"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: "Yes, I did
buy such a fellow,--and a h--l 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 apiece. He owned to that,
and, when I bid him tell me where they was, he up and said he knew,
but he wouldn't tell; and stood to it, though I gave him the cussedest
flogging I ever gave nigger yet. I b'lieve he's 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 desolated 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.

Cassy, who had glided out of her place of concealment, and, by
overhearing, 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 last few 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!"

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 down pillows are."

Tears which did honor to his manly heart fell from the young man's eyes,
as he bent over his poor friend.

"O, dear Uncle 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 heart good! Now I shall die content!
Bless the Lord, on my soul!"

"You shan't die! you ‘mustn't’ die, nor think of it! I've come to buy
you, and take you home," said George, with impetuous vehemence.

"O, Mas'r George, ye'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."

"O, 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 fellow!"

"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;--'t would 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's stood 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 creature everywhar!--it's nothing ‘but’ love! O, Mas'r
George! what a thing 't is 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 ‘him’ for this, some of these days!"

"O, 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 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
colored 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 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, motioning 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."



CHAPTER XLII

An Authentic Ghost Story


For some remarkable reason, ghostly legends were uncommonly 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 perspicuous; and, therefore, there were
abundance of full-length portraits of the ghost, abundantly sworn and
testified to, which, as if 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."*


* ‘Hamlet’, Act I, scene 1, lines 115-116

And, therefore, their all hitting upon this is a striking fact in
pneumatology, which we recommend to the attention of spiritual media
generally.

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
stairway, 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 that 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 daytime; 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 put his pistols there. He
examined the catches and fastenings of the windows, and then swore he
"didn't care for the devil and all 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
Cassy 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 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, inexorable
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
high-road.

It was near sunrise when Cassy 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 connection 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. 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 nightfall, 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 river; and was waited on, with obsequious
devotion, by her attendant.

When they arrived at the Mississippi river, 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
compassionating 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.

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 every body can remember, and has been, at times, perplexed
with. He could not keep himself from looking at her, and watchin her
perpetually. At table, or sitting at her state-room door, still
she would encounter the young man's eyes fixed on her, and politely
withdrawn, when she showed, by her countenance, that she was sensible to
the observation.

Cassy became uneasy. She began to think that he suspected something;
and finally resolved to throw herself entirely on his generosity, and
intrusted him with her whole history.

George was heartily disposed to sympathize 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 characteristic 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 Cassy'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 Cassy, 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 vicinity, that was perfectly surprising to him.

"Do you know," said Madame de Thoux to him, one day, "of any man, in
your neighborhood, of the name of Harris?"

"There is an old fellow, of that name, lives not far from 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 George?"

"O, certainly,--George 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 going up
to Kentucky, to see if I could find and redeem my brother."

"I heard him speak of a sister Emily, that was sold South," said George.

"Yes, 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 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, in 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 principal 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 was 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.



CHAPTER XLIII

Results


The rest of our story is soon told. George Shelby, interested, 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 Cassy the bill
of sale of Eliza; whose date and name all corresponded with her own
knowledge of facts, and felt 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.

George 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 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-improvement, which led
him to steal the much coveted arts of reading and writing, amid all the
toil 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 install herself on his knee
as a substitute.

"O, 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 air 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, today?" says George, as
he laid his land 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, ‘myself’, 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 father 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 welcomed. There are two more 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 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 proceed 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'm your sister Emily."

Cassy 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 Cassy
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 well, 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 fugitives, 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 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 refuses 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 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 color is so slight, and that of my wife and family
scarce perceptible. Well, perhaps, on sufferance, I might. But, to tell
you the truth, I 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, 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, individually, 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 France, I have followed up, with
intense interest, the history of my people in America. I have noted the
struggle between abolitionist and colonizationist, 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
God above all man's schemes? May He not have over-ruled 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 civilization 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
civilization 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? I think not. If I
forget them one hour, one moment of my 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.

"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
suffering 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 color; 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 civilization 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 has been intrusted the destinies 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 essentially a Christian
one. If not a dominant and commanding race, they are, at least, an
affectionate, magnanimous, and 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 they 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; ‘I’ 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 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.

"GEORGE HARRIS."


George, with his wife, children, sister and mother, embarked 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 George Shelby.

Miss Ophelia took Topsy home to Vermont with her, much to the surprise
of the grave deliberative body whom a New Englander recognizes under
the term "‘Our folks’." "Our folks," at first, thought it an odd and
unnecessary addition to their well-trained domestic establishment; but,
so thoroughly efficient was Miss Ophelia in her conscientious endeavor
to do her duty by her ‘eleve’, that the child rapidly grew in grace and
in favor with the family and neighborhood. At the age of womanhood, she
was, by her own request, baptized, 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, in teaching the children of her own
country.

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
his family to Africa.



CHAPTER 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 though the Shelby mansion, that day, in
expectation of the arrival of young Mas'r George.

Mrs. Shelby was seated in her comfortable parlor, where a cheerful
hickory fire was dispelling the chill of the late autumn evening. A
supper-table, glittering with plate and 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 punctiliousness, 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. O, go way!--why didn't Sally get out de ‘best’
tea-pot,--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 tonight, if
he could,--that's all."

"Didn't say nothin' 'bout my old man, s'pose?" said Chloe, still
fidgeting with the tea-cups.

"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
de biggest gal, now,--good she is, too, and peart, Polly is. She's out
to the house, now, watchin' de hoe-cake. I '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 has got dem bills?" said Chloe, anxiously.

"Yes, Chloe."

"'Cause I wants to show my old man dem very bills de ‘perfectioner’
gave me. 'And,' say he, 'Chloe, I wish you'd stay longer.' 'Thank
you, Mas'r,' says I, 'I would, only my 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 her husband, in memorial of
her capability. And Mrs. Shelby had readily consented to humor her in
the request.

"He won't know Polly,--my old man won't. Laws, it's five year since they
tuck 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 compassionately, 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 't would 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' shoulder, and sobbed out, "O
Missis! 'scuse me, my heart's broke,--dat's all!"

"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."

There was a silence for some time, and all wept together. 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 successively, 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 want to be no freer than we are. We's allers had all we
wanted. We don't want to leave de 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, partriarchal negro, who had grown gray 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.

On rising, another struck up a Methodist hymn, of which the burden was,

"The year of Jubilee is come,--
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home."

"One thing more," said George, as he stopped the congratulations 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 honest and
faithful and Christian as he was."



CHAPTER XLV

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,
or reported to her.

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 parallels in reality. The incident of the
mother's crossing the Ohio river on the ice is a well-known fact. The
story of "old Prue," in the second volume, was an incident that
fell under the personal observation of a brother of the writer, then
collecting-clerk to a large mercantile 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.' 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 its
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 colored 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 occasionally 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, 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 following the capture of
the Pearl. We extract the following from the speech of 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 Russel 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 Cassy 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 favorite 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; but, being possessed of
uncommon candor 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 characterize 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 civilization 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 a
‘living dramatic reality’. She has endeavored to show it fairly, in its
best and its worst phases. In its ‘best’ 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 encountered,--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 otherwise? 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 fall to
make the inference what the practical result will be? If there is, as we
admit, a public sentiment among you, men of honor, 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
honorable, 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.

And now, men and women of America, is this a thing to be trifled with,
apologized 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 countenance? 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 desolation 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, sympathized with, passed over in
silence?

Do you say that the people of the free state have nothing to do with it,
and can do nothing? Would to God 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; 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, oh 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 silence, encourage the
cruelty that would chase them from our borders? If it must be so, it
will be a mournful spectacle. 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-barbarized
race, just escaped from the chains of slavery, would be only to
prolong, for ages, the period of struggle and conflict which attends the
inception of new enterprises. Let the church of the north receive these
poor sufferers in the spirit of Christ; receive them to the educating
advantages of Christian republican society and schools, until they 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 at 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
coincidence with her own experience; and her deductions, with regard to
the capabilities of the race, are encouraging in the 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 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.

"B----. Furniture maker; twenty years in the 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 hundred 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.

"G----. 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.

"W----. Three-fourths black; barber and waiter; from Kentucky; nineteen
years free; paid for self and family over three thousand dollars; deacon
in the Baptist church.

"G. D----. Three-fourths black; white-washer; from 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 colored woman, who was employed as a
washerwoman in her father's family. The daughter of this woman married a
slave. She was a remarkably 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
colored man, by the law of Ohio, cannot be a voter, and, till within a
few years, was even denied the right of testimony in legal suits with
the white. 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 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? "for 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 church’ 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 God!

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