THE MOTHER'S ADVICE. 237 "I haven't any heart to sleep, Em! I can't. It's the last night we may be together!" "O, mother, don't say so!" Perhaps we shall get sold together— who knows?" "If 'twas anybody's else case, I should say so too, Em," said the "but I'm so 'feared of losin' you that I don't see anything but woman; the danger." 66 Why, mother? The man said we were both likely, and would sell well." Susan remembered the man's looks and words. With a deadly sickness at her heart, she remembered how he had looked at Emmeline's hands, and lifted up her curly hair, and pronounced her a first-rate article. Susan had been trained as a Christian, brought up in the daily reading of the Bible, and had the same horror of her child's being sold to a life of shame that any other Christian mother might have; but she had no hope-no protection. "Mother, I think we might do first-rate, if you could get a place as cook, and I as chambermaid, or seamstress, in some family. I dare say we shall. Let's both look as bright and lively, as we can, and tell all we can do, and perhaps we shall," said Emmeline. "I want you to brush your hair all back straight to-morrow," said Susan. "What for, mother? I don't look near so well that way." "Yes; but you'll sell better so." "I don't see why," said the child. "Respectable families would be more apt to buy you if they saw you looked plain and decent, as if you wasn't trying to look handsome. I know their ways better'n you do," said Susan. "Well, mother, then I will." 66 And, Emmeline, if we shouldn't ever see each other again after tomorrow-if I'm sold way up on a plantation somewhere, and you somewhere else always remember how you've been brought up, and all missis has told you. Take your Bible with you, and your hymn-book, and if you're faithful to the Lord, he'll be faithful to you." So speaks the poor soul in sore discouragement; for she knows that to-morrow any man, however vile and brutal, however godless and merciless, if he only has money to pay for her, may become owner of her daughter, body and soul; and then how is the child to be faithful? She thinks of all this as she holds her daughter in her arms, and wishes that she were not so handsome and attractive. It seems almost an aggravation to her to remember how purely and piously, how much above the ordinary lot she has been brought up. But she has no resort but to pray; and many such prayers to God have gone up from those same trim, neatly-arranged, respectable slave-prisons-prayers which God has not forgotten, as coming day shall show; for it is written, "Whoso causeth one of these little ones to offend, it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.' The soft, earnest, quiet moonbeam looks in fixedly, marking the bars of the grated windows on the prostrate, sleeping forms. The mother and daughter are singing together a wild and melancholy dirge, common as a funeral hymn among the slaves 238 RELIGIOUS CONSOLATION. "Oh, where is weeping Mary? 'Rived in the goodly land. These words, sung by voices of a peculiar and melancholy sweetness, in an air which seemed like the sighing of earthly despair after heavenly hope, floated through the dark prison-rooms with a pathetic cadence, as verse after verse was breathed out,— Sing on, poor souls! you for ever! The night is short, and the morning will part But now it is morning, and everything is astir, and the worthy Mr. Skeggs is busy and bright, for a lot of goods is to be fitted out for auction. There is a brisk look-out on the toilet; injunctions passed around to every one to put on their best face and be spry; and now all are arranged in a circle for a last review, before they are marched up to the Bourse. Mr. Skeggs, with his palmetto on, and his cigar in his mouth, walks around to put farewell touches on his wares. "How's this?" he said, stepping in front of Susan and Emmeline. "Where's your curls, gal?" The girl looked timidly at her mother, who, with the smooth adroitness common among her class, answers, "I was telling her last night to put up her hair smooth and neat, and not havin' it flying about in curls-looks more respectable so!" "Bother!" said the man, peremptorily, turning to the girl. "You go right along, and curl yourself real smart!" he added, giving a crack to a rattan he held in his hand; "and be back in quick time, too! You go and help her," he added to the mother. "Them curls may make a hundred dollars' difference in the sale of her." Beneath a splendid dome were men of all nations, moving to and fro over the marble pavé. On every side of the circular were little tribunes, or stations, for the use of speakers and auctioneers. Two of these, on opposite sides of the area, were now occupied by brilliant and talented gentlemen, enthusiastically forcing up, in English and French commingled, the bids of connoisseurs in their various wares. A third one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was surrounded by a group waiting the moment of sale to begin. And here we may recognise the St. Clare servants, Tom, Adolph, and others; and there, too, Susan and Emmeline, awaiting their turn, with anxious and dejected faces. Various spectators, intending to purchase, or not to purchase, as the case might be, gathered around the group, handling, examining, and commenting on their various points and faces, with the same freedom that a set of jockeys discuss the merits of a horse. "Holloa, Alf! what brings you here?" said a young exquisite, slapping the shoulder of a sprucely dressed young man, who was examining Adolph through an eye-glass. "Well, I was wanting a valet, and I heard that St. Clare's lot was going. I thought I'd just look at his" "Catch me ever buying any of St. Clare's people! Spoilt niggers, every one! Impudent as the devil!" said the other. "Never fear that!" said the first. "If I get 'em, I'll soon have their airs out of them; they'll soon find that they've another kind of master to deal with than Monsieur St. Clare. 'Pon my word, I'll buy that fellow. I like the shape of him." "You'll find it'll take all you've got to keep him. He's deucedly extravagant!" "Yes, but my lord will find that he can't be extravagant with me. Just let him be sent to the calaboose a few times, and thoroughly dressed down! I'll tell you if it don't bring him to a sense of his ways! Oh, I'll reform him, up hill and down-you'll see! I buy him, that's flat!" Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude of faces thronging around him for one whom he would wish to call master; and if you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of selecting out of two hundred men one who was to become your absolute owner and disposer, you would perhaps realise, just as Tom did, how few there were that you would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. Tom saw abundance of men; great, burly, gruff men; little, chirping, dried men; long-favoured, lank, hard men; and every variety of stubbedlooking, common-place men, who pick up their fellow-men as one picks up chips, putting them into the fire or a basket with equal unconcern, according to their convenience; but he saw no St. Clare. A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man, in a checked shirt considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like one who is going actively into a business; and, coming up to the group, began to examine them systematically. From the moment that Tom saw him approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror at him, that increased as he came near. He was evidently, though short, of gigantic strength. His round, bullet head; large, light-grey eyes, with their shaggy, sandy eye-brows, and stiff, wiry, sun-burnt hair, were rather unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large, coarse mouth was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time to time, he ejected from him with great decision and explosive force; his hands were immensely large, hairy, sunburnt, freckled, and very dirty, and garnished with long nails, in a very foul condition. This man proceeded to a very free personal examination of the lot. He seized Tom by the jaw; and pulled open his mouth to inspect his teeth; made him strip up his sleeve, to show his muscle; turned him round, made him jump and spring, to show his paces. "Where was you raised?" he added briefly to these investigations. "In Kintuck, mas'r," said Tom, looking about as if for deliverance. "What have you done?" "Had care of mas'r's farm," said Tom. "Likely story!" said the other, shortly, as he passed on. H 240 TOM PUT UP TO AUCTION. paused a moment before Dolph; then spitting a discharge of tobaccojuice on his well-blacked boots, and giving a contemptuous Umph, he walked on. Again he stopped before Susan and Emmeline. He put out his heavy, dirty hand, and drew the girl towards him; passed it over her neck and bust, felt her arms, looked at her teeth, and then pushed her back against her mother, whose patient face showed the suffering she had been going through at every motion of the hideous stranger. The girl was frightened, and began to cry. "Stop that, you minx!" said the salesman; "no whimpering here; the sale is going to begin." And accordingly the sale begun. Adolph was knocked off at a good sum, to the young gentleman who had previously stated his intention of buying him; and the other servants of the St. Clare lot went to various bidders. 66 Now, up with you, boy! d'ye hear?" said the auctioneer to Tom. Tom stepped upon the block, gave a few anxious looks round; all seemed mingled in a common, indistinct noise-the clatter of the salesman crying off his qualifications in French and English; the quick fire of French and English bids; and almost in a moment came the final thump of the hammer, and the clear ring on the last syllable of the word" dollars," as the auctioneer announced his price, and Tom was made over. He had a master! He was pushed from the block; the short, bullet-headed man, seizing him roughly by the shoulder, pushed him to one side, saying, in a harsh voice, "Stand there, you!" Tom hardly realised anything; but still the bidding went onrattling, clattering, now French, now English. Down goes the hammer again, Susan is sold. She goes down from the block, stops, looks wistfully back; her daughter stretches her hands towards her. She looks with agony in the face of the man who has bought her-a respectable middle-aged man, of benevolent countenance. "O mas'r, please do buy my daughter!" "I'd like to, but I'm afraid I can't afford it," said the gentleman, looking with painful interest as the young girl mounted the block, and looked around her with a frightened and timid glance. The blood flushes painfully in her otherwise colourless cheek, her eyes have a feverish fire, and her mother groans to see that she looks more beautiful than she ever saw her before. The auctioneer sees his advantage, and expatiates volubly in mingled French and English, and bids rise in rapid succession. "I'll do anything in reason," said the benevolent-looking gentleman, pressing in, and joining with the bids. In a few moments they have run beyond his purse. He is silent; the auctioneer grows warmer; but bids gradually drop off. It lies now between an aristocratic old citizen and our bullet-headed acquaintance. The citizen bids for a few turns, contemptuously measuring his opponent; but the bullet-head has the advantage over him, both in obstinacy and concealed length of purse, and the controversy lasts but a moment; the hammer falls—he has got the girl, body and soul, unless God help her! Her master is Mr. Legree, who owns a cotton plantation on the Red River. She is pushed along in the same lot with Tom and two other men, and goes off, weeping as she goes. The benevolent gentleman is sorry; but then the thing happens every day! One sees girls and mothers crying at these sales always! It can't be helped, &c.; and he walks off with his acquisition in another direction. Two days after the lawyer of the Christian firm of B. and Co., New York, sent on their money to them. On the reverse of that draft, so obtained, let them write these words of the great Paymaster, to whom they shall make up their account in a future day:-" When he maketh inquisition for blood, he forgetteth not the cry of the humble!" CH. XXXI.-THE MIDDLE PASSAGE. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look upon iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?"-Hab. i. 13. On the lower part of a small mean boat, on the Red River, Tom sat -chains on his wrists, chains on his feet, and a weight heavier than chains lay on his heart. All had faded from his sky-moon and star; all had passed by him, as the trees and banks were now passing, to return no more. Kentucky home, with wife and children, and indulgent owners; St. Clare home, with all its refinements and splendours; the golden head of Eva, with its saint-like eyes; the proud, gay, handsome, seeming careless, yet ever-kind St. Clare; hours of ease and indulgent leisure-all gone! and in place thereof, what remains? It is one of the bitterest apportionments of a lot of slavery, that the negro, sympathetic and assimilative, after acquiring, in a refined family, the tastes and feelings which form the atmosphere of such a place, is not the less liable to become the bond-slave of the coarsest and most brutal-just as a chair or table, which once decorated the superb saloon, comes at last, battered and defaced, to the bar-room of some filthy tavern, or some low haunt of vulgar debauchery. The great difference is, that the table and chair cannot feel, and the man can; for even a legal enactment that he shall be "taken, reputed, adjudged in law, to be a chattel personal," cannot blot out his soul, with its own private little world of memories, hopes, loves, fears, and desires. Mr. Simon Legree, Tom's master, had purchased slaves at one place and another, in New Orleans, to the number of eight, and driven them, handcuffed, in couples of two and two, down to the good steamer Pirate, which lay at the levee, ready for a trip up the Red River. Having got them fairly on board, and the boat being off, he came round, with that air of efficiency which ever characterised him, to take a review of them. Stopping opposite to Tom, who had been attired for sale in his best broadcloth suit, with well-starched linen and shining boots, he briefly expressed himself as follows: Stand up. Tom stood up. "Take off that stock!" and as Tom, encumbered by his fetters, proceeded to do it, he assisted him, by pulling it, with no gentle hand, from his neck, and putting it in his pocket, R |