 | CHAPTER XVIII.
In which the Author approaches a climax in his adventures. Sheppard Lee |  |
18. CHAPTER XVIII.
In which the Author approaches a climax in his adventures.
And now arose a train of incidents, by which I
was taught three things, namely—first, the manner
in which my merchants designed giving a value to
their merchandise not inherent and intrinsic to it
(for, of a truth, my abolition principles, as I said
before, had never been carried to the point of notoriety,
or even notice); secondly, the love with
which a southron regards those pious philanthropists
who will have him good and virtuous against
his own will; and, thirdly, the religious respect for
law and order which is so prominent a feature in
the American character.
To make me valuable, it was necessary I should
be made famous; and this was easily accomplished
themselves, according as they are instructed. It
was only necessary to assure some half dozen or
more independent sovereigns that I was famous, to
ensure their making me so. And this my kidnappers
did. They told everybody they met that they
had secured Zachariah Longstraw, the famous abolitionist,
the very life and soul of northern incendiarism,
whom they were carrying to Louisiana, to
be Lynched according to law; and as the circumstance
would, of course, get into every patriotic
newspaper along the way, it was certain I should
be made famous enough before I got there, and
they thus enjoy the advantage of advertising their
commodity without paying a cent to the printer.
It was astonishing (and to none more than myself)
to witness the suddenness with which I was
exalted from obscurity to distinction, and the readiness
with which every living soul, upon being told
my name, character, and reputation, remembered
all about me and my misdeeds. “Yes,” cried
one worthy personage, shaking at me a fist minus
two fingers and a half, “I have heerd of him often
enough: he lives in New-York, and he sells sendary
pictures, packed up between the soles of niggur
shoes.”—“Yes!” cried another, who had but one
eye, “I have read all about him: he lives in Boston,
keeps a niggur school, and prints sendary
papers, a hundred thousand at a time, to set niggurs
insurrecting.” In short, they remembered not
only all that the unworthy Joshua told them to my
imagination of one suggested to the credulity of
another. It was in vain that I endeavoured to say
any thing in denial or defence; ridicule and revilement,
threats and execrations, were my only answers.
It was clear, that by the time we reached
the Mississippi, I should be the most important
personage in America; and that, if my value as an
article of merchandise was to be determined by
the distinction I won on the road, my friends,
Joshua and Samuel, would make their fortunes by
the speculation. But it was not my fate to travel
beyond the bounds of the Ancient Dominion.
It happened, that on this day an election was
held in the district through which we were travelling,
to return a representative to Congress, in lieu
of one who had fought his way into the shoes of a
chargé. All the world—that is, all the district—was
therefore in arms; and men and boys, Americans
and Irishmen, were making their way to the polls
as fast and comfortably as two-mile-an-hour hard-trotting
horses could carry them; and thither also,
as it appeared, or in that direction, we were ourselves
bending our course. As we advanced, therefore,
we found ourselves gliding into a current of
human bodies—honest republicans, moving onward
to the polls, all of whom were ready to add their
approval to my claims, or those the kidnappers
made for me, to the honour of Lynchdom. The
word was passed from one to another, that the
Yankee cart contained the famous abolitionist,
at and revile me, to discourse with the kidnappers
on my demerits, and to express their delight that
such a renowned member of the incendiary gang,
as they called that class of conscientious people,
should at last be on the road to justice.
And thus I was rolled along, attended by sundry
groups, which grew fast into crowds, consisting of
persons who rejoiced over my capture, and painted
to my ears, in words uncommonly rough and ferocious,
the fate that awaited me when arrived at my
place of destination.
That place, as it chanced, was nearer than I
either expected or desired. As the crowd thickened,
the sounds of wrath and triumph increased, becoming
more terrible to my auditories. A new
idea came into the minds of the sovereigns. A villain,
seven feet and a half high, mounted on a horse
just half that altitude, who had a great knife-scar
across his nose and cheek, and a dozen similar
seams on his hands, rode up to the cart, and giving
me a diabolical look, cried out “Whaw! what aw
the use of carrying the crittur so faw? I say, Vawginnee
is the place for Lynching, atter all. I say,
gentlemen and Vawginians! I go for Lynching
right off-hand. Old Vawginnee for evvaw!”
Loud and terrible was the roar of voices with
which the throng testified their approbation of the
barbarian's proposal. It was agreed I ought to be,
and should be, Lynched on the spot. The kidnappers
appealed to the justice of “Virginians,” requesting
private property,”—“they could not think of giving
up their prisoner for nothing; they meant him
solely for the Louisiana market.” But things were
coming to a crisis, and that my conductors perceived.
They whipped up to escape the throng; but
in vain. The further they went, the more they
became involved in the crowd, having now arrived
at the village where the favourite candidate was
stumping among his constituents, and promising
them worlds of reform, retrenchment, and public
virtue, provided they would send him to Congress.
I could hear from my box (my friend Joshua having
taken care to lock me up at the first sign of danger),
as we entered the village, the distant cries of
“Hampden Jones for ever!” mingled with those
nearer ones of my persecutors, “Lynch the abolitionist!”
and the loudly-expressed remonstrances
of my friends against invasion of their rights, coupled
with threats to have the law of any one who
robbed them of their property.
But threats and appeals were alike wasted on the
independent freemen of that district. Joined by
the voters and others already assembled at the polls,
who, at the cry of “Lynch the abolitionist!” had
deserted their orator, to join in the nobler sport of
Lynching, they increased in wrath and enthusiasm;
and, stopping the cart and breaking open my prison-house,
they dragged me into the light of day,
one man calling for a pistol, another a knife, a third
a rope, and a fourth a cord of good dry wood and
horrible clamour never before afflicted my ears or
soul. I saw that, abolitionist or not, it was all over
with me; and so saw honest Joshua and Samuel,
whose only solace for this unlucky interruption to
their speculation, was a call some one generously
made to take up a subscription for their benefit,
seeing that it was “beneath the dignity of the chivalry
of Virginia to cheat even a Yankee of what
was justly his due.”
| CHAPTER XVIII.
In which the Author approaches a climax in his adventures. Sheppard Lee | |