 | CHAPTER VIII.
The same subject continued. Sheppard Lee |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
The same subject continued.
Another evil that befell me about the same
time, was equally afflicting. A negro-man that
had fled from bondage in a neighbouring state,
being sharply hunted, and about to be captured by
the person that called him his property, I carried
him to my house, and there concealed him for
three days and mights, until his master had departed;
“For,” said I, “of a surety, slavery is a bitter
the ague; and, therefore, why should my brother
Pompey be compelled to swallow it?” My brother
Pompey, having eaten, drunk, and slept at my expense
for the three days mentioned, disappeared
on the morning of the fourth before daylight, carrying
with him twenty-seven pounds of silver, in
spoons, teapots, and other vessels, the three watches
belonging to myself, my nephew, and Abel Snipe,
as well as Jonathan's best coat and trousers. Verily,
I was confounded at the fellow's ingratitude,
and the loss of my valuables, all of which, however,
though broken up, it was my good fortune to
recover, together with the three watches. The thief
himself, being taken, was clapped into jail for a
while, and then surrendered to his master, and carried
back to bondage; and this stirring up the
choler of the free Africans in town, they did naught
but cry out upon me as the author of his misfortune,
surrounding my house with a mob, and proceeding
to the length of even burning it down. At
least, the house taking fire, and manifestly by the
act of an incendiary, it was charged by my friends
upon these raging foolish people, though I was
never able to prove it upon any one in particular.
As my good fortune would have it, Abel Snipe had
taken out a policy of ensurance, so that I recovered
the money from the company; but not without
going to law, the company averring that my humanity
rendered me careless.
I caused another dwelling to be built; and, in
proof, not merely of man's ingratitude, but of
his natural hostility to the charity which benefits
his neighbours. I bought my marble out of the
prison, in order to encourage industry among the
prisoners, and thus lighten the load of taxation on
the community at large. This being known, the
marble-cutters fell into wrath, denounced me as
the friend of villany and the enemy of honest
industry; and being joined by the shoemakers,
who had put me down in their character-book
as a patron to none but prison-workmen, and by
divers other mechanics that had some grudge of
the same kind, they seized upon me, as I stood
surveying my rising mansion, and bedaubed me
from head to foot with thick whitewash, painting in
great black letters, on the broad of my back, the following
words, namely—“The Rogue's Friend;”
which caused me, after I had escaped from their
hands, to be hooted at by boys and men along the
street, and to be bitten by a great cur-dog, that
was amazed at my appearance.
Another misfortune, still more distressing, befell
me one day, as I walked among the western suburbs,
seeking whom I might relieve. I espied a
company of men surrounding a ring, made with
stakes and ropes, in which two wretched creatures
were stripping off their garments, with the intention
to do battle upon one another with their fists. These
were gentlemen of the fancy, as it is called; though
imagination can paint nothing of a more grossly animal
than that very class that calls itself of the fancy.
I was shocked that the poor creatures should, in
their ignorance, agree to maul and beat one another,
for the amusement of a mob; and I was concerned
that a mob, containing so many rational beings,
should be willing to harry on two such silly fellows
to harm each other for their pastime. I stepped
among them, therefore, and addressed them, exhorting
them to peace and harmony; and this producing
but little effect on them, I upbraided them
with breaking the laws, both human and divine, and
assured them I would go hunt up the police, to
prevent the mischief they meditated. Alas! how
ungratefully they used me! There was a man at a
distance who was heating a great pot of tar, to pay
the bottom of a canal-boat; and just a moment
before, a carter had stopped to look on the affray,
leaving on the roadside his cart, on which, among
other articles of domestic furniture, was an old
feather-bed, lying on the top of all. The devil had
surely brought these things upon the ground, that
his sinful children, the gentlemen of the fancy,
might be at no loss how to testify their hatred of
humanity. The very combatants themselves were
the first to seize me, and cry out, “Tar and feather
the old Bother'em! Douse down the bed, and dab
the pot off the fire.” And “Daub him well!” they
cried, all the while that their wretched companions,
drowning the cries I made for assistance,
with savage yells of rage and merriment, covered
tearing the bed to pieces, emptied its contents over
my reeking body. Then, having feathered me all
over, and so transformed me that I looked more
like an ostrich than a human being, they tied me
to a post, where I was forced to remain, looking
upon the fight that immediately ensued between
the champions. A horrid sight it was; but I was
so devoured with shame and indignation, that I
should have cared little had they dashed each
other's brains out. So much I endured for exhorting
men to live together in peace and amity.
The very beasts seemed to conspire to treat me
with ingratitude. My first effort in their cause
was an attempt I made one day, on the tow-path
near the Water-Works, to protect a poor broken-down
barge-horse, which the driver was cruelly
beating. My interference cost me a dip in the
basin, the man, who was both savage and strong,
pitching me in headlong, and (what I deemed still
more provoking) a kick from the horse, who let fly
at me with his heels, merely because mine, as they
were tripped into the air, came in contact with his
hind-quarters; so that I was both lamed and half
drowned for my charity.
In the same way, I was scratched half to death,
and much more savagely than I had been before by
the needle-women, by a cat that I took out of a
dog's mouth,—without counting upon a nip that I
had from the cur also. And, to end this small catalogue
of animal ingratitude, I may say, that, within
by a rat that I strove to liberate from the fangs of
my own gray tabby; for, while Tabby was clawing
at my fingers, the rat took me by the thumb;
and between them I was near perishing with lockjaw,
the weather being uncommonly hot, and the
time midsummer.
There were a thousand other mischances of a
like nature which befell me, but which I have not
leisure to describe, nor even to enumerate. Some
few of them, however, I think proper to record;
but, to save space, I will clap them into a short
list, along with those already mentioned, where
they may be examined at a glance, and where, in
that glance, the reader may perceive what are sometimes
the rewards of philanthropy.
Beaten by a drunkard whom I had taken out
of prison, and bailed to keep the peace.Mulcted out of $100 surety-money, because
my gentleman broke the peace by beating me.Driven, and almost kicked, out of a man's
workshop, because I asked payment of a loan made
without bond or voucher.My nose pulled by a merchant to whom I
had (out of charity to the latter, who was unfortunate)
recommended a customer, who swindled him.Rolled in the mud by the boys of my own
charity-school, whom I had exhorted not to daub
the passers-by.Abused by their parents for not paying them
9925 cents per week for the time I had the boys at
school.Hustled by tailors, slop-shopkeepers, and
others, for taking part with the needle-women in a
strike.Scolded, scratched, and tumbled down
stairs by the needle-women, for advising them to
go into domestic service, and take care of their
morals.Robbed by a fugitive slave whom I had concealed
three days and nights in my house from his
master.House burnt down by the free blacks (or
so it was suspected) for putting the thief as aforesaid
into jail, so that his master got him.Whitewashed and libelled on my own
back by the stonecutters, for buying wrought marble
out of the prison.Tarred and feathered by a gang of the fancy,
whom I exhorted at the ring to peace and
amity.Scalded at my own house (which I had
converted, at a season of suffering, into a gratis
soup-house), and with my own soup, by a beggar,
because there was too little meat and too much
salt in it.Soused in the canal by a boat-driver, for
rebuking his cruelty to an old barge-horse.Kicked by the horse for taking his part.
Scratched by a cat, for taking her out of
a dog's mouth: item, bitten by the dog.100
Bitten by a rat, which I rescued from a
cat: item, scratched by the cat.Gored by a cow for helping her calf out
of the mire: item, the calf splashed me all over
with mud.Beaten about the ears with a half-skinned
eel, by a fishwoman, whom I reproved for skinning
it alive.
Such were some of the unhappy circumstances
that rewarded a seven months' life of philanthropy.
But there were others to follow still more discouraging
and afflicting.
| CHAPTER VIII.
The same subject continued. Sheppard Lee | |