“And now, George, how long are you going to travel in this way?—not long or far, I hope. It’s well carried on, but too bold. And this black fellow,—who is he?”
“A true fellow, who went to Canada more than a year ago. He heard, after he got there, that his master was so angry at him for going off that he had whipped his poor old mother; and he has come all the way back to comfort her, and get a chance to get her away.”
“Has he got her?”
“Not yet; he has been hanging about the place, and found no chance yet. Meanwhile, he is going with me as far as Ohio, to put me among friends that helped him, and then he will come back after her.
“Dangerous, very dangerous!” said the old man.
George drew himself up, and smiled disdainfully.
The old gentleman eyed him from head to foot, with a sort of innocent wonder.
“George, something has brought you out wonderfully. You hold up your head, and speak and move like another man,” said Mr. Wilson.
“Because I’m a freeman!” said George, proudly. “Yes, sir; I’ve said Mas’r for the last time to any man. I’m free!”
“Take care! You are not sure,—you may be taken.”
“All men are free and equal in the grave, if it comes to that, Mr. Wilson,” said George.
“I’m perfectly dumb-founded with your boldness!” said Mr. Wilson,—“to come right here to the nearest tavern!”
“Mr. Wilson, it is so bold, and this tavern is so near, that they will never think of it; they will look for me on ahead, and you yourself wouldn’t know me. Jim’s master don’t live in this county; he isn’t known in these parts. Besides, he is given up; nobody is looking after him, and nobody will take me up from the advertisement, I think.”
“But the mark in your hand?”
George drew off his glove, and showed a newly-healed scar in his hand.
“That is a parting proof of Mr. Harris’ regard,” he said, scornfully. “A fortnight ago, he took it into his head to give it to me, because he said he believed I should try to get away one of these days. Looks interesting, doesn’t it?” he said, drawing his glove on again.
“I declare, my very blood runs cold when I think of it,—your condition and your risks!” said Mr. Wilson.
“Mine has run cold a good many years, Mr. Wilson; at present, it’s about up to the boiling point,” said George.
“Well, my good sir,” continued George, after a few moments’ silence, “I saw you knew me; I thought I’d just have this talk with you, lest your surprised looks should bring me out. I leave early tomorrow morning, before daylight; by tomorrow night I hope to sleep safe in Ohio. I shall travel by daylight, stop at the best hotels, go to the dinner-tables with the lords of the land. So, good-by, sir; if you hear that I’m taken, you may know that I’m dead!”
George stood up like a rock, and put out his hand with the air of a prince. The friendly little old man shook it heartily, and after a little shower of caution, he took his umbrella, and fumbled his way out of the room.
George stood thoughtfully looking at the door, as the old man closed it. A thought seemed to flash across his mind. He hastily stepped to it, and opening it, said,
“Mr. Wilson, one word more.”
The old gentleman entered again, and George, as before, locked the door, and then stood for a few moments looking on the floor, irresolutely. At last, raising his head with a sudden effort—“Mr. Wilson, you have shown yourself a Christian in your treatment of me,—I want to ask one last deed of Christian kindness of you.”
“Well, George.”
“Well, sir,—what you said was true. I am running a dreadful risk. There isn’t, on earth, a living soul to care if I die,” he added, drawing his breath hard, and speaking with a great effort,—“I shall be kicked out and buried like a dog, and nobody’ll think of it a day after,—only my poor wife! Poor soul! she’ll mourn and grieve; and if you’d only contrive, Mr. Wilson, to send this little pin to her. She gave it to me for a Christmas present, poor child! Give it to her, and tell her I loved her to the last. Will you? Will you?” he added, earnestly.
“Yes, certainly—poor fellow!” said the old gentleman, taking the pin, with watery eyes, and a melancholy quiver in his voice.
“Tell her one thing,” said George; “it’s my last wish, if she can get to Canada, to go there. No matter how kind her mistress is,—no matter how much she loves her home; beg her not to go back,—for slavery always ends in misery. Tell her to bring up our boy a free man, and then he won’t suffer as I have. Tell her this, Mr. Wilson, will you?”
“Yes, George. I’ll tell her; but I trust you won’t die; take heart,—you’re a brave fellow. Trust in the Lord, George. I wish in my heart you were safe through, though,—that’s what I do.”
“Is there a God to trust in?” said George, in such a tone of bitter despair as arrested the old gentleman’s words. “O, I’ve seen things all my life that have made me feel that there can’t be a God. You Christians don’t know how these things look to us. There’s a God for you, but is there any for us?”
“O, now, don’t—don’t, my boy!” said the old man, almost sobbing as he spoke; “don’t feel so! There is—there is; clouds and darkness are around about him, but righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. There’s a God, George,—believe it; trust in Him, and I’m sure He’ll help you. Everything will be set right,—if not in this life, in another.”
The real piety and benevolence of the simple old man invested him with a temporary dignity and authority, as he spoke. George stopped his distracted walk up and down the room, stood thoughtfully a moment, and then said, quietly,
“Thank you for saying that, my good friend; I’ll think of that.”
1 Gen. 16. The angel bade the pregnant Hagar return to her mistress Sarai, even though Sarai had dealt harshly with her.
2 Phil. 1:10. Onesimus went back to his master to become no longer a servant but a “brother beloved.”
Chapter 12
Select Incident of Lawful Trade
“In Ramah there was a voice heard,—weeping, and lamentation, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted.”1
Mr. Haley and Tom jogged onward in their wagon, each, for a time, absorbed in his own reflections. Now, the reflections of two men sitting side by side are a curious thing,—seated on the same seat, having the same eyes, ears, hands and organs of all sorts, and having pass before their eyes the same objects,—it is wonderful what a variety we shall find in these same reflections!
As, for example, Mr. Haley: he thought first of Tom’s length, and breadth, and height, and what he would sell for, if he was kept fat and in good case till he got him into market. He thought of how he should make out his gang; he thought of the respective market value of certain supposititious men and women and children who were to compose it, and other kindred topics of the business; then he thought of himself, and how humane he was, that whereas other men chained their “niggers” hand and foot both, he only put fetters on the feet, and left Tom the use of his hands, as long as he behaved well; and he sighed to think how ungrateful human nature was, so that there was even room to doubt whether Tom appreciated his mercies. He had been taken in so by “niggers” whom he had favored; but still he was astonished to consider how good-natured he yet remained!
As to Tom, he was thinking over some words of an unfashionable old book, which kept running through his head, again and again, as follows: “We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come; wherefore God himself is not ashamed to be called our God; for he hath prepared for us a city.” These words of an ancient volume, got up principally by “ignorant and unlearned men,” have, through all time, kept up, somehow, a strange sort of power over the minds of poor, simple fellows, like Tom. They stir up the soul from its depths, and rouse, as with trumpet call, courage, energy, and enthusiasm, where before was only the blackness of despair.
Mr. Haley pulled out of his pocket sundry newspapers, and began looking over their advertisements, with absorbed interest. He was not a remarkably fluent reader, and was in the habit of reading in a sort of recitative half-aloud, by way of calling in his ears to verify the deductions of his eyes. In this tone he slowly recited the following paragraph:
“Executor’s Sale,—Negroes!—Agreeably to order of court, will be sold, on Tuesday, February 20, before the Court-house door, in the town of Washington, Kentucky, the following negroes: Hagar, aged 60; John, aged 30; Ben, aged 21; Saul, aged 25; Albert, aged 14. Sold for the benefit of the creditors and heirs of the estate of Jesse Blutchford,
Samuel Morris, Thomas Flint, Executors.”
“This yer I must look at,” said he to Tom, for want of somebody else to talk to.
“Ye see, I’m going to get up a prime gang to take down with ye, Tom; it’ll make it sociable and pleasant like,—good company will, ye know. We must drive right to Washington first and foremost, and then I’ll clap you into jail, while I does the business.”
Tom received this agreeable intelligence quite meekly; simply wondering, in his own heart, how many of these doomed men had wives and children, and whether they would feel as he did about leaving them. It is to be confessed, too, that the naive, off-hand information that he was to be thrown into jail by no means produced an agreeable impression on a poor fellow who had always prided himself on a strictly honest and upright course of life. Yes, Tom, we must confess it, was rather proud of his honesty, poor fellow,—not having very much else to be proud of;—if he had belonged to some of the higher walks of society, he, perhaps, would never have been reduced to such straits. However, the day wore on, and the evening saw Haley and Tom comfortably accommodated in Washington,—the one in a tavern, and the other in a jail.
About eleven o’clock the next day, a mixed throng was gathered around the court-house steps,—smoking, chewing, spitting, swearing, and conversing, according to their respective tastes and turns,—waiting for the auction to commence. The men and women to be sold sat in a group apart, talking in a low tone to each other. The woman who had been advertised by the name of Hagar was a regular African in feature and figure. She might have been sixty, but was older than that by hard work and disease, was partially blind, and somewhat crippled with rheumatism. By her side stood her only remaining son, Albert, a bright-looking little fellow of fourteen years. The boy was the only survivor of a large family, who had been successively sold away from her to a southern market. The mother held on to him with both her shaking hands, and eyed with intense trepidation every one who walked up to examine him.
“Don’t be feard, Aunt Hagar,” said the oldest of the men, “I spoke to Mas’r Thomas ’bout it, and he thought he might manage to sell you in a lot both together.”
“Dey needn’t call me worn out yet,” said she, lifting her shaking hands. “I can cook yet, and scrub, and scour,—I’m wuth a buying, if I do come cheap;—tell em dat ar,—you tell em,” she added, earnestly.
Haley here forced his way into the group, walked up to the old man, pulled his mouth open and looked in, felt of his teeth, made him stand and straighten himself, bend his back, and perform various evolutions to show his muscles; and then passed on to the next, and put him through the same trial. Walking up last to the boy, he felt of his arms, straightened his hands, and looked at his fingers, and made him jump, to show his agility.
“He an’t gwine to be sold widout me!” said the old woman, with passionate eagerness; “he and I goes in a lot together; I ’s rail strong yet, Mas’r and can do heaps o’ work,—heaps on it, Mas’r.”
“On plantation?” said Haley, with a contemptuous glance. “Likely story!” and, as if satisfied with his examination, he walked out and looked, and stood with his hands in his pocket, his cigar in his mouth, and his hat cocked on one side, ready for action.
“What think of ’em?” said a man who had been following Haley’s examination, as if to make up his own mind from it.
“Wal,” said Haley, spitting, “I shall put in, I think, for the youngerly ones and the boy.”
“They want to sell the boy and the old woman together,” said the man.
“Find it a tight pull;—why, she’s an old rack o’ bones,—not worth her salt.”
“You wouldn’t then?” said the man.
“Anybody ’d be a fool ’t would. She’s half blind, crooked with rheumatis, and foolish to boot.”
“Some buys up these yer old critturs, and ses there’s a sight more wear in ’em than a body ’d think,” said the man, reflectively.
“No go, ’t all,” said Haley; “wouldn’t take her for a present,—fact,—I’ve seen, now.”
“Wal, ’t is kinder pity, now, not to buy her with her son,—her heart seems so sot on him,—s’pose they fling her in cheap.”
“Them that’s got money to spend that ar way, it’s all well enough. I shall bid off on that ar boy for a plantation-hand;—wouldn’t be bothered with her, no way, notif they’d give her to me,” said Haley.
“She’ll take on desp’t,” said the man.
“Nat’lly, she will,” said the trader, coolly.
The conversation was here interrupted by a busy hum in the audience; and the auctioneer, a short, bustling, important fellow, elbowed his way into the crowd. The old woman drew in her breath, and caught instinctively at her son.
“Keep close to yer mammy, Albert,—close,—dey’ll put us up togedder,” she said.
“O, mammy, I’m feard they won’t,” said the boy.
“Dey must, child; I can’t live, no ways, if they don’t” said the old creature, vehemently.
The stentorian tones of the auctioneer, calling out to clear the way, now announced that the sale was about to commence. A place was cleared, and the bidding began. The different men on the list were soon knocked off at prices which showed a pretty brisk demand in the market; two of them fell to Haley.
“Come, now, young un,” said the auctioneer, giving the boy a touch with his hammer, “be up and show your springs, now.”
“Put us two up togedder, togedder,—do please, Mas’r,” said the old woman, holding fast to her boy.
“Be off,” said the man, gruffly, pushing her hands away; “you come last. Now, darkey, spring;” and, with the word, he pushed the boy toward the block, while a deep, heavy groan rose behind him. The boy paused, and looked back; but there was no time to stay, and, dashing the tears from his large, bright eyes, he was up in a moment.
His fine figure, alert limbs, and bright face, raised an instant competition, and half a dozen bids simultaneously met the ear of the auctioneer. Anxious, half-frightened, he looked from side to side, as he heard the clatter of contending bids,—now here, now there,—till the hammer fell. Haley had got him. He was pushed from the block toward his new master, but stopped one moment, and looked back, when his poor old mother, trembling in every limb, held out her shaking hands toward him.
“Buy me too, Mas’r, for de dear Lord’s sake!—buy me,—I shall die if you don’t!”
