University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
A NEGRO MOTHER.

Lucy's cottage was remote from the rest of the cabins,
and seemed to sleep in the shade of a wood
upon the skirts of which it was situated. In full view
from it was a narrow creek, or navigable inlet from
the river, which was seen glittering in the sunshine
through the screen of cedars and shrubbery that
grew upon its banks. A garden occupied the little
space in front of the habitation; and here, with some
evidence of a taste for embellishment which I had
not seen elsewhere in this negro hamlet, flowers were
planted in order along the line of the enclosure, and
shot up with a gay luxuriance. A draw-well was
placed in the middle of this garden, and some few fruit
trees were clustered about it. These improvements
had their origin in past years, and owed their present
preservation to the thrifty care of the daughter of the
aged inhabitant, a spruce, decent and orderly woman
who had been nurtured among the family servants
at Swallow Barn, and now resided in the cabin,
the sole attendant upon her mother.

When we arrived at this little dwelling, Lucy was
alone, her daughter having, a little while before, left
her to make a visit to the family mansion. The old

woman's form showed the double havock of age and
disease. She was bent forward, and sat near her
hearth, with her elbows resting on her knees; and her
hands (in which she grasped a faded and tattered
handkerchief,) supported her chin. She was smoking
a short and dingy pipe; and, in the weak and
childish musing of age, was beating one foot upon the
floor with a regular and rapid stroke, such as is common
to nurses when lulling a child to sleep. Her
gray hairs were covered with a cap; and her attire
generally exhibited an attention to cleanliness, which
showed the concern of her daughter for her personal
comfort.

The lowly furniture of the room corresponded
with the appearance of its inmate. It was tidy and
convenient, and there were even some manifestations
of the ambitious vanity of a female in the fragments
of looking-glass, and the small framed prints
that hung against the walls. A pensive partner in
the quiet comfort of this little apartment, was a large
cat, that sat perched upon the sill of the open window,
and looked demurely out upon the garden,—as
if soberly rebuking the tawdry and garish bevy of sunflowers
that erected their tall, spinster-like figures so
near that they almost thrust their heads into the
room.

For the first few moments after our arrival, the
old woman seemed to be unconscious of our presence.
Meriwether spoke to her without receiving
an answer; and, at last, after repeating his salutation
two or three times, she raised her feeble eyes towards
him, and made only a slight recognition by a

bow. Whether it was that his voice became more
familiar to her ear, or that her memory was suddenly
resuscitated, after her master had addressed some
questions to her, she all at once brightened up into a
lively conviction of the person of her visiter; and, as
a smile played across her features, she exclaimed,—

“God bless the young master! I did'nt know him.
He has come to see poor old mammy Lucy!”

“And how is the old woman?” asked Meriwether,
stooping to speak, almost in her ear.

“She has'nt got far to go,” replied Lucy. “They
are a-coming for her:—they tell me every night that
they are a-coming to take her away.”

“Who are coming?” inquired Frank.

“They that told the old woman,” she returned,
looking up wildly and speaking in a louder voice,
“that they buried his body in the sands of the sea.—”

Saying these words, she began to open out the ragged
handkerchief which, until now, she had held in
her clenched hand.—“They brought me this in the
night,” she continued,—“and then, I knew it was
true.”

In the pause that followed, the old negro remained
in profound silence, during which the tears ran
down her cheeks. After some minutes she seemed
suddenly to check her feelings and said, with energy,—

“I told them it was a lie: and so it was!—The old
woman knew better than them all. Master Frank
did'nt know it, and Miss Lucretia didn't know it,
but mammy Lucy, if she is old, knew it well!—Five
years last February!—How many years, honey, do
you think a ship may keep going steady on without
stopping?—It is a right long time,—isn't it, honey?”

This exhibition of drivelling dotage was attended
with many other incoherent expressions that I have
not thought it worth while to notice; and I would
not have troubled my reader with these seemingly
unmeaning effusions of a mind in the last stages of
senility, if they had not some reference to the circumstances
I am about to relate. The scene grew
painful to us as we prolonged our visit; and therefore,
after some kind words to the old woman, we
took our departure. As we returned to Swallow
Barn, Frank Meriwether gave me the particulars of
old Lucy's pathetic history, which I have woven, with
as much fidelity as my memory allows, into the following
simple and somewhat melancholy narrative.

ABE.

During the latter years of the war of the revolution
my uncle Walter Hazard, as I have before informed
my reader, commanded a troop of volunteer
cavalry, consisting principally of the yeomanry in
the neighbourhood of Swallow Barn; and, at the
time of the southern invasion by Lord Cornwallis,
this little band was brought into active service, and
shared, as freely as any other corps of the army, the
perils of that desultory warfare which was waged
upon the borders of North Carolina and Virginia.
The gentlemen of the country, at that time, marshalled
their neighbours into companies; and, seldom
acting in line, were encouraged to harass the enemy
wherever opportunity offered. The credit as well
as the responsibility of these partisan operations fell
to the individual leaders who had respectively signalized
themselves by their zeal in the cause.

This kind of irregular army gave great occasion
for the display of personal prowess; and there were
many gentlemen whose bold adventures, during the
period alluded to, furnished the subject of popular
anecdotes of highly attractive interest. Such exploits,
of course, were attended with their usual
marvels; and there was scarcely any leader of note
who could not recount some passages in his adventures,
where he was indebted for his safety to the

attachment and bravery of his followers,—often to
that of his personal servants.

Captain Hazard was a good deal distinguished in
this war, and took great pleasure in acknowledging
his indebtedness, on one occasion, for his escape from
imminent peril, to the address and gallantry of an
humble retainer,—a faithful negro, by the name of
Luke,—whom he had selected from the number of
his slaves to attend him as a body-servant through
the adventures of the war.

It furnishes the best answer that can be made to
all the exaggerated opinions of the misery of the domestic
slavery of this region, that, in the stormiest
period of the history of the United States, and when
the whole disposable force of the country was engrossed
in the conduct of a fearful conflict, the slaves of
Virginia were not only passive to the pressure of a
yoke which the philosophy of this age affects to consider
as the most intolerable of burthens, but they also,
in a multitude of instances, were found in the ranks,
by the side of their masters, sharing with them the
most formidable dangers, and manifesting their attachment
by heroic gallantry.

After the close of the war Captain Hazard was
not unmindful of his trusty servant. Luke had
grown into a familiar but respectful intimacy with
his master, and occupied a station about his person
of the most confidential nature. My uncle scarcely
ever rode out without him, and was in the habit of
consulting him upon many lesser matters relating to
the estate, with a seriousness that showed the value

he set upon Luke's judgment. He offered Luke his
freedom; but the domestic desired no greater liberty
than he then enjoyed, and would not entertain the
idea of any possible separation from the family. Instead,
therefore, of an unavailing, formal grant of
manumission, my uncle gave Luke a few acres of
ground, in the neighbourhood of the Quarter, and
provided him a comfortable cabin. Before the war
had terminated, Luke had married Lucy, a slave
who had been reared in the family, as a lady's maid,
and, occasionally, as a nurse to the children at Swallow
Barn. Things went on very smoothly with
them, for many years. But, at length, Luke waxed
old, and began to grow rheumatic; and, by degrees,
retired from his customary duties, which were rendered
lighter as his infirmities increased. Lucy,
from the spry and saucy-eyed waiting-woman, was
fast changing into a short, fat and plethoric old
dame. Her locks accumulated the frost of each
successive winter; and she, too, fell back upon the
reserve of comfort laid up for their old age by their
master,—who himself, by a like process, had faded
away, from the buxom, swashing madcap of the revolutionary
day, into a thin, leather-cheeked old campaigner,
that, sometimes, told hugely long stories, and
sent for Luke to put his name on the back of them.
In short, five and thirty years, had wrought their ordinary
miracles; and first, the veteran Luke disappeared
from this mortal stage; and then his master:
and old Lucy was left a hale and querulous widow,
with eight or nine children, and her full dower interest
in the cabin and its curtilage.

The youngest, but one, of her children was named
Abraham—universally called Abe. All before Abe
had arrived at manhood, and had been successively
dismissed from Lucy's cabin, as they reached the age
fit to render them serviceable, with that satisfied unconcern
that belongs to a negro mother who trusts
to the kindness of her master. This family was remarkable
for its intelligence; and those who had
already left the maternal nest had, with perhaps
one or two exceptions, been selected for the mechanical
employments upon the estate:—they were shoemakers,
weavers, or carpenters; and were held in
esteem for their industry and good character. Abe,
however, was an exception to the general respectability
of Luke's descendants. He was, at the period
to which my story refers, an athletic and singularly
active lad, rapidly approaching to manhood; with
a frame not remarkable for size, but well knit, and
of uncommonly symmetrical proportions for the race
to which he belonged. He had nothing of the flat
nose and broad lip of his tribe,—but his face was
rather moulded with the prevailing characteristics of
the negroes of the West Indies. There was an expression
of courage in his eye that answered to the
complexion of his mind: he was noted for his spirit,
and his occasional bursts of passion which, even
in his boyhood, rendered him an object of fear to his
older associates. This disposition was coupled with
singular shrewdness of intellect, and an aptitude for
almost every species of handicraft. He had been
trained to the work of a blacksmith, and was, when
he chose to be so, a useful auxiliary at the anvil.

But a habit of associating with the most profligate
menials belonging to the extensive community of
Swallow Barn, and the neighbouring estates, had
corrupted his character, and, at the time of life which
he had now reached, had rendered him offensive to
the whole plantation.

Walter Hazard could never bear the idea of disposing
of any of his negroes; and when Meriwether
came to the estate, he was even more strongly imbued
with the same repugnance. Abe was, therefore,
for a long time, permitted to take his own way,—
the attachment of the family for his mother procuring
for him an amnesty for many transgressions. Lucy,
as is usual in almost all such cases, entertained an
affection for this outcast, surpassing that which she
felt for all the rest of her offspring. There was never
a more exemplary domestic than the mother: nor
was she without a painful sense of the failings of her
son; but this only mortified her pride without abating
her fondness—a common effect of strong animal
impulses, not merely in ignorant minds. Abe had
always lived in her cabin, and the instinct of long
association predominated over her weak reason; so
that although she was continually tormented with
his misdeeds, and did not fail to reprove him even
with habitual harshness, still her heart yearned
secretly towards him. Time fled by, confirming this
motherly attachment, and, in the same degree, hardening
Abe into the most irreclaimable of culprits.
He molested the peace of the neighbourhood by continual
broils; was frequently detected in acts of depredation
upon the adjoining farms; and had once

brought himself into extreme jeopardy by joining a
band of out-lying negroes, who had secured themselves,
for some weeks, in the fastnesses of the low-country
swamps, from whence they annoyed the
vicinity by nocturnal incursions of the most lawless
character. Nothing but the interference of Meriwether,
at the earnest implorings of Lucy, saved
Abe, on this occasion, from public justice. Abe was
obliged in consequence to be removed altogether
from the estate, and consigned to another sphere of
action.

Meriwether revolved this matter with great deliberation;
and, at length, determined to put his refractory
bondsman in the charge of one of the pilots
of the Chesapeake, to whom, it was supposed, he
might become a valuable acquisition;—his active,
intelligent and intrepid character being well suited
to the perilous nature of that service. The arrangements
for this purpose were speedily made, and the
day of his removal drew nigh.

It was a curious speculation, on the part of the
family, and an unpleasant one, to see how Lucy
would bear this separation. The negroes, like all
other dependants, are marked by an abundant spirit
of assentation. They generally agree to whatever is
proposed to their minds, by their superiors, with an
acquiescence that has the show of conviction. But,
it is very hard to convince the mind of a mother, of
the justice of the sentence that deprives her of her
child,—especially a poor, unlearned, negro mother.
Lucy heard all the arguments to justify the necessity
of sending Abe abroad; assented to all; bowed her

head, as if entirely convinced;—and thought it—very
hard. She was told that it was the only expedient
to save him from prison; she admitted it; but still said
—that it was a very cruel thing to sever mother and
son. It was a source of unutterable anguish to her,
that no kindness on the part of the family could mitigate.
Forgetting Abe's growth to manhood, his delinquencies,
the torments he had incessantly inflicted
upon her peace, and unmindful of the numerous children
that, with their descendants, were still around
her, she seemed to be engrossed by her affection for
this worthless scion of her stock;—showing how entirely
the unreasoning instincts of the animal sway
the human mind, in its uneducated condition. All
the considerations that proved Abe's banishment a
necessary and even, for himself, a judicious measure,
seemed only to afford additional reinforcements to the
unquenchable dotings of the mother.

From the time of the discovery of the transgression
which brought down upon Abe the sentence
that was to remove him from Swallow Barn, until
the completion of the preliminary arrangements for
his departure, he was left in a state of anxious uncertainty
as to his fate. He was afraid to be seen at
large, as some risk was hinted to him of seizure by
the public authorities; and he, therefore, confined
himself, with a sullen and dejected silence, in Lucy's
cabin,—seldom venturing beyond the threshold; and,
when he did so, it was with the stealthy and suspicious
motion which is observable in that class of animals
that pursue their prey by night, when induced
to stir abroad in daytime.

It is a trait in the disposition of the negroes on the
old plantations, to cling with more than a freeman's
interest to the spot of their nativity. They have a
strong attachment to the places connected with their
earlier associations,—what in phrenology is called inhabitiveness;—and
the pride of remaining in one family
of masters, and of being transmitted to its posterity
with all their own generations, is one of the
most remarkable features in these negro clans. Being
a people of simple combinations and limited faculty
for speculative pleasures, they are a contented race,
—not much disturbed by the desire of novelty. Abe
was not yet informed whether he was to be sold to a
distant owner, given over to public punishment, or
condemned to some domestic disgrace. Apparently,
he did not much care which:—his natural resoluteness
had made him dogged.

It was painful, during this period, to see his mother.
In all respects unlike himself, she suffered intensely;
and, though hoary with sixty winters, hovered
about him, with that busy assiduity which is one of the
simplest forms in which anxiety and grief are apt to
show themselves. She abandoned her usual employments,
and passed almost all her time within her cabin,
in a fretful subserviency to his wants; and, what
might seem to be incompatible with this strong emotion
of attachment,—though, in fact, it was one of the
evidences of its existence,—her tone of addressing him
was that of reprimand, seldom substituted by the language
of pity or tenderness. I mention this, because
it illustrates one point of the negro character. She
provided for him, as for a sickly child, what little delicacies

her affluence afforded; and, with a furtive
industry, plied her needle through the livelong night,
in making up, from the scanty materials at her command,
such articles of dress as might be found or fancied
to be useful to him, in the uncertain changes
that awaited him. In these preparations there was
even seen a curious attention to matters that might
serve only to gratify his vanity; some fantastical and
tawdry personal ornaments were to be found amongst
the stock of necessaries that her foresight was thus
providing.

I hope I shall not be thought tedious in thus minutely
remarking the trifles that were observable in
the conduct of the old domestic on this occasion.
My purpose is to bring to the view of my reader an
exhibition of the natural forms in which the passions
are displayed in those lowest and humblest of the
departments of human society, and to represent truly
a class of people to whom justice has seldom been
done, and who possess many points of character well
calculated to win them a kind and amiable judgment
from the world. They are a neglected race,
who seem to have been excluded from the pale of
human sympathy, from mistaken opinions of their
quality, no less than from the unpretending lowliness
of their position. To me, they have always appeared
as a people of agreeable peculiarities, and not
without much of the picturesque in the developement
of their habits and feelings.

When it was, at last, announced that Abe was to
be disposed of in the manner I have mentioned, the
tidings were received by the mother and son variously,

according to their respective tempers. Lucy knew
no difference between a separation by a hundred or
a thousand miles: she counted none of the probabilities
of future intercourse; and the traditionary belief
in the dangers of the seas, with their unknown
monsters, and all the frightful stories of maritime disaster,
rose upon her imagination with a terrifying
presage of ill to her boy. Abe, on the other hand,
received the intelligence with the most callous unconcern.
He was not of a frame to blench at
peril, or fear misfortune; and his behaviour rather indicated
resentment at the authority that was exercised
over him, than anxiety for the issue. For a
time, he mused over this feeling in sullen silence:
but, as the expected change of his condition became
the subject of constant allusion among his associates,
and as the little community in which he had always
lived gathered around him, with some signs of unusual
interest, to talk over the nature of his employments,
a great deal reached his ears from the older
negroes, that opened upon his mind a train of perceptions
that were highly congenial to the latent properties
of his character. His imagination was awakened
by the attractions of this field of adventure; by the
free roving of the sailor; and by the tumultuous and
spirit-stirring roar of the ocean, as they were pictured
to him in story. His person grew erect, his limbs
expanded to their natural motion, and he once
more walked with the light step and buoyant feelings
of his young and wayward nature.

The time of departure arrived. A sloop that had
been lying at anchor in the creek, opposite to Lucy's

cabin, was just preparing to sail. The main-sail
was slowly opening its folds, as it rose along the
mast: a boat with two negroes had put off for the
beach, and the boatmen landed with a summons to
Abe, informing him that he was all they now staid
for. Abe was seated on his chest in front of the
dwelling; and Lucy sat on a stool beside him, with
both of his hands clasped in hers. Not a word
passed between them; and the heavings of the old
woman's bosom might have been heard by the
standers-by. A bevy of negroes stood around them:
the young ones, in ignorant and wondering silence;
and the elders conversing with each other in smothered
tones, with an occasional cheering word addressed
to mammy Lucy—as they called her. Old
uncle Jeff was conspicuous in this scene. He stood
in the group, with his corncob pipe, puffing the smoke
from his bolster-lips, with lugubriously lengthened
visage.

The two boatmen pressed into the crowd to speak
to Lucy, but were arrested by the solemn Jeff, who,
thrusting out his broad, horny hand and planting it
upon the breast of the foremost, whispered, in a half
audible voice,—“The old woman's taking on!—wait
a bit—she'll speak presently!”

With these words, the whole company fell into
silence and continued to gaze at the mother. Abe
looked up, from the place where he sat, through his
eye-lashes, at the little circle, with an awkwardly
counterfeited smile playing through the tears that
filled his eyes.

“It a'most goes to kill her,” whispered one of the
women to her neighbour.

“I've seen women,” said Jeff, “this here way,
afore in my time: they can bear a monstrous sight.
But, when they can once speak, then it's done,—you
see.”

Lucy was now approached by two or three of the
old women, who began to urge some feeble topics
of consolation in her ear, in that simple phrase which
nature supplies, and which had more of encouragement
in its tones than in the words: but the only
response extracted was a mute shake of the head,
and a sorrowful uplifting of the eye, accompanied
by a closer grasp of the hands of Abe.

“Its no use,” said Jeff, as he poured a volume of
smoke from his mouth, and spoke in a deep voice,
in the dialect of his people,—“its no use till nature
takes its own way. When the tide over yonder
(pointing to the river) comes up, speeches arn't going
to send it back: when an old woman's heart is
full it's just like the tide.”

“The wind is taking hold of the sail,” said one of
the boatmen, who until now had not interfered in
the scene, “and the captain has no time to stay.”

Lucy looked up and directed her eye to the sloop,
whose canvass was alternately filling and shaking in
the wind, as the boat vacillated in her position.
The last moment had come. The mother arose
from her seat, at the same instant with her son,
and flung herself upon his neck, where she wept
aloud.

“Didn't I tell you so!” whispered Jeff to some
old crones; “when it can get out of the bosom by
the eyes, it carries a monstrous load with it.”

“To be sure!” exclaimed the beldams, which is
a form of interjection amongst the negroes, to express
both assent and wonder.

This burst of feeling had its expected effect upon
Lucy. She seemed to be suddenly relieved, and
was able to address a few short words of parting to
Abe: then taking from the plaits of her bosom, a
small leather purse containing a scant stock of silver,—the
hoard of past years—she put it into the
unresisting hand of Abe. The boy looked at the
faded bag for a moment, and gathering up something
like a smile upon his face, he forced the money back
upon his mother, himself replacing it in the bosom of
her dress. “You don't think I am going to take
your money with me!” said he, “I never cared about
the best silver my master ever had: no, nor for freedom
neither. I thought I was always going to stay
here on the plantation. I would rather have the
handkerchief you wear around your neck, than all
the silver you ever owned.”

Lucy took the handkerchief from her shoulders,
and put it in his hand. Abe drew it into a loose
knot about his throat, then turned briskly round,
shook hands with the by-standers, and, shouldering
his chest, moved with the boatmen, at a rapid pace,
towards the beach.

In a few moments afterwards, he was seen standing
up in the boat, as it shot out from beneath the
bank, and waving his hand to the dusky group he
had just left. He then took his seat, and was watched
by his melancholy tribe until the sloop, falling away
before the wind, disappeared behind the remotest
promontory.

Lucy, with a heavy heart, retired within her cabin,
and threw herself upon a bed; and the comforting
gossips who had collected before her door, after lingering
about her for a little while, gradually withdrew,
leaving her to the assiduities of her children.

Some years elapsed; during which interval frequent
reports had reached Swallow Barn, relating to
the conduct and condition of Abe; and he himself
had, once or twice, revisited the family. Great
changes had been wrought upon him: he had grown
into a sturdy manhood, invigorated by the hardy discipline
of his calling. The fearless qualities of his
mind, no less than the activity and strength of his
body, had been greatly developed to the advantage
of his character; and, what does not unfrequently
happen, the peculiar adaptation of his new pursuits
to the temper and cast of his constitution, had operated
favourably upon his morals. His errant propensities
had been gratified; and the alternations between
the idleness of the calm and the strenuous and
exciting bustle of the storm, were pleasing to his unsteady
and fitful nature. He had found, in other
habits, a vent for inclinations which, when constrained
by his former monotonous avocations, had so often
broken out into mischievous adventures. In short,
Abe was looked upon by his employers as a valuable
seaman; and the report of this estimation of him
had worked wonders in his favour at Swallow Barn.

From the period of his departure up to this time,
poor old Lucy nursed the same extravagant feelings
towards him; and these were even kindled into a
warmer flame by his increasing good repute. Her

passion, it may be called, was a subject of constant
notice in the family. It would have been deemed
remarkable in an individual of the most delicate
nurture; but, in the aged and faithful domestic, it
was a subject of commiseration on account of its influence
upon her happiness, and had almost induced
Meriwether to recall Abe to his former occupation;
although he was sensible that, by doing so, he might
expose him to the risk of relapsing into his earlier
errors. But, besides this, Abe had become so well
content with his present station that it was extremely
likely he would, of his own accord, have sought to
return to it. The vagrant, sunshiny, and billowy
life of a sailor has a spell in it that works marvellously
upon the heedless and irresponsible temperament
of a negro. Abe was, therefore, still permitted,
like a buoy, to dance upon the waves, and to woo
his various destiny between the lowest trough of
the sea, and the highest white-cap of the billow.

At the time to which my story has now advanced,
an event took place that excited great interest within
the little circle of Swallow Barn. It was about
the breaking up of the winter—towards the latter
end of February—some four years ago, that in the
afternoon of a cheerless day, news arrived at Norfolk
that an inward-bound brig had struck upon the
shoal of the middle ground, (a shallow bar that
stretches seaward beyond the mouth of the Chesapeake,
between the two capes,) and, from the threatening
aspect of the weather, the crew were supposed
to be in great danger. It was a cold, blustering day,
such as winter sometimes puts on when he is about

to retreat:—as a squadron, vexed with watching
a politic enemy, finding itself obliged, at last, to
raise the blockade, is apt to break ground with an
unusual show of bravado.—The wind blew in gusts
from the north-west; a heavy rack of dun and chilly
clouds was driven churlishly before the blast, and
spitted out some rare flakes of snow. These moving
masses were forming a huge, black volume upon the
eastern horizon, towards the ocean, as if there encountering
the resistance of an adverse gale. From
the west the sun occasionally shot forth a lurid ray,
that, for the instant, flung upon this dark pile a sombre,
purple hue, and lighted up the foam that gathered
at the top of the waves, far seaward; thus opening
short glimpses of that dreary ocean over which darkness
was brooding. The sea-birds soared against
the murky vault above them; and, now and then,
caught upon their white wings the passing beam, that
gave them almost a golden radiance; whilst, at the
same time, they screamed their harsh and frequent
cries of fear or joy. The surface of the Chesapeake
was lashed up into a fretful sea, and the waves
were repressed by the weight of the wind; billow pursuing
billow with an angry and rapid flight, and barking,
with the snappish sullenness of the wolf. Across
the wide expanse of Hampton Road might have
been seen some few bay-craft, apparently not much
larger than the wild-fowl that sailed above them,
beating, with a fearful anxiety, against the gale, for
such harbours as were nearest at hand; or scudding
before it under close-reefed sails, with ungovernable
speed, towards the anchorages to leeward. Every
moment the wind increased in violence; the clouds
swept nearer to the waters; the gloom thickened;
the birds sought safety on the land; the little barks
were quickly vanishing from view; and, before the
hour of sunset, earth, air, and, sea were blended into
one mass, in which the eye might vainly endeavour to
define the boundaries of each: whilst the fierce howling
of the wind, and the deafening uproar of the ocean
gave a desolation to the scene, that made those, who
looked upon it from the shore, devoutly thankful that
no ill luck had tempted them upon the flood.

It was at this time that a pilot boat was seen moored
to a post at the end of a wooden wharf that formed
the principal landing place at the little seaport of
Hampton. The waves were dashing, with hollow
reverberations, between the timbers of the wharf, and
the boat was rocking with a violence that showed
the extreme agitation of the element upon which it
floated. Three or four sailors—all negroes—clad in
rough pea-jackets, with blue and red woollen caps,
were standing upon the wharf or upon the deck of
the boat, apparently making some arrangements for
venturing out of the harbour. The principal personage
among them, whose commands were given with
a bold and earnest voice, and promptly obeyed, was
our stout friend Abe, now grown into the full perfection
of manhood, with a frame of unsurpassed strength
and agility. At the nearer extremity of this wharf,
land-ward, were a few other mariners, white men,
of a weather-beaten exterior, who had seemingly
just walked from the village to the landing-place,
and were engaged in a grave consultation upon some

question of interest. This group approached the former
while they were yet busy with the tackling of
the boat. Abe had stepped a-board with his companions,
and they were about letting all loose for
their departure.

“What do you think of it now, Abe?” asked one
of the older seamen, as he turned his eyes towards
the heavens, with a look of concern. “Are you still
so crazy as to think of venturing out in this gale?”

“The storm is like a young wolf,” replied Abe.
“It gets one hour older and two worse. But this
is'nt the hardest blow I ever saw, Master Crocket.”

“It will be so dark to-night,” said the other, “that
you will not be able to see your jib; and, by the time
the wind gets round to north-east, you will have a
drift of snow that will shut your eyes. It will be a
dreadful night outside of the capes: I see no good
that is to come of your foolhardiness.”

“Snow-storm or hail-storm, it's all one to me,”
answered Abe. “The little Flying-Fish has ridden,
summer and winter, over as heavy seas as ever rolled
in the Chesapeake. I knows what she can do,
you see!”

“Why, you could'nt find the brig if you were within
a cable's length of her, such a night as this,” said
another speaker; “and if you were to see her I don't
know how you are to get along side.”

“You wouldn't say so, master Wilson,” returned
Abe, “if you were one of the crew of the brig yourself.
We can try, you know; and if no good comes
on it, let them that saunt me judge of that. I always
obeys orders!”

“Well,” replied the other, “a negro that is born to
be hanged—you know the rest, Abe:—the devil may
help you, as he sometimes does.”

“There is as good help for a negro as there is for
a white man, master Wilson—whether on land or
water. And no man is going to die till his time
comes. I don't set up for more spirit than other people;
but I never was afeard of the sea.”

During this short dialogue, Abe and his comrades
were busily reefing the sail, and they had now completed
all their preparations. The day had come
very near to the hour of sunset. Abe mustered his
crew, spoke to them with a brave, encouraging tone,
and ordered them to cast off from the wharf. In a
moment, all hands were at the halyards; and the
buoyant little Flying Fish sprang off from her moorings,
under a single sail double-reefed, and bounded
along before the wind, like an exulting doe, loosened
from thraldom, on her native wastes.

“That's a daring fellow!” said one of the party
that stood upon the wharf, as they watched the gallant
boat heaving playfully through the foam—“and
would'nt mind going to sea astride a shark, if any
one would challenge him to it.”

“If any man along the Chesapeake,” said another,
“can handle a pilot boat in such weather—Abe can.
But it's no use for a man to be tempting providence
in this way. It looks wicked!”

“He is on a good errand,” interrupted the first
speaker. “And God send him a successful venture!
That negro has a great deal of good and bad both in
him—but I think the good has the upper hand.”

The Flying Fish was soon far from the speakers,
and now showed her little sail, as she bent it down
almost to kiss the water, a spotless vision upon the
dark and lowering horizon in the east. At length
she was observed close hauled upon the wind, and
rapidly skimming behind the headlands of Old Point
Comfort; whence, after some interval, she again
emerged, lessened to the size of a water fowl by distance,
and holding her course, with a steady and resolute
speed, into the palpable obscure of the perspective.

When the last trace of this winged messenger of
comfort was lost in the terrific desert of ocean, with
its incumbent night, the watchful and anxious spectators
on the wharf turned about and directed their
steps, with thoughtful forebodings, to the public house
at some distance in the village.

From what I have related, the reader will be at no
loss to understand the purpose of this perilous adventure.
The fact was, that as soon as the intelligence
reached Norfolk that the brig had got into the dangerous
situation which I have described, some of the
good people of that borough took measures to communicate
with the crew, and to furnish them such
means of relief as the suddenness of the emergency
enabled them to command. The most obvious suggestion
was adopted of despatching, forthwith, a
small vessel to bring away those on board, if it should
be ascertained that there was no hope of saving the
brig itself. This scheme, however, was not so easy
of accomplishment as it, at first, seemed. Application
was made to the most experienced mariners in

port to undertake this voyage; but, they either evaded
the duty, by suggesting doubts of its utility, or cast
their eyes towards the heavens and significantly
shook their heads, as they affirmed there would be
more certainty of loss to the deliverers than to the
people of the stranded vessel. The rising tempest
and the unruly season boded disaster to whomsoever
should be so rash as to encounter the hazard. Rewards
were offered; but these, too, failed of effect,
and the good intentions of the citizens of Norfolk
were well nigh disappointed, when chance brought
the subject to the knowledge of our old acquaintance
Abe. This stout-hearted black happened to be in
the borough at the time; and was one of a knot of
seamen who were discussing the proposition of the
chances of affording relief. He heard, attentively,
all that was said in disparagement of the projected
enterprise; and it was with some emotion of secret
pleasure that he learned that several seamen of
established reputation had declined to undertake the
venture. The predominant pride of his nature was
aroused; and he hastened to say, that whatever
terrors this voyage had for others, it had none for
him. In order, therefore, that he might vouch the
sincerity of his assertion by acts, he went immediately
to those who had interested themselves in
concerting the measure of relief, and tendered his
services for the proposed exploit. As may be supposed,
they were eagerly accepted. Abe's conditions
were, that he should have the choice of his
boat, and the selection of his crew. These terms
were readily granted; and he set off, with a busy
alacrity, to make his preparations. The Flying Fish
was the pilot-boat in which Abe had often sailed,
and was considered one of the best of her class in
the Chesapeake. This little bark was, accordingly,
demanded for the service, and as promptly put at
Abe's command. She was, at that time, lying at the
pier at Hampton, as I have already described her.
The crew, from some such motive of pride as first
induced Abe to volunteer in this cause, was selected
entirely from the number of negro seamen then in
Norfolk: They amounted to four or five of the most
daring and robust of Abe's associates, who, lured by
the hope of reward, as well as impelled by that spirit
of rivalry that belongs to even the lowest classes of
human beings, and which is particularly excitable
in the breasts of men that are trained to dangerous
achievements, readily enlisted in the expedition, and
placed themselves under the orders of their gallant
and venturous captain.

This tender of service and its acceptance, produced
an almost universal reprobation of its rashness,
from the sea-faring men of the port. And while
all acknowledged that the enterprise could not have
been committed to a more able or skilful mariner
than Abe, yet it was declared to be the endeavour
of a fool-hardy madman who was rushing on his fate.
The expression of such distrust only operated as an
additional stimulant to Abe's resolution, and served
to hurry him, the more urgently forward, to the execution
of his purpose. He, therefore, with such despatch
as the nature of his preparations allowed, mustered
his intrepid crew in the harbour of Norfolk, and

repaired with them to the opposite shore of the
James River, to the little sea-port, where my reader
has already seen him embarking upon his brave voyage,
amidst the disheartening auguries of wise and
disciplined veterans of the sea.

I might stop to compare this act of an humble and
unknown negro, upon the Chesapeake, with the many
similar passages in the lives of heroes whose
names have been preserved fresh in the verdure of
history, and who have won their immortality upon
less noble feats than this; but History is a stepmother,
that gives the bauble fame to her own children,
with such favouritism as she lists, overlooking
many a goodly portion of the family of her husband
Time. Still, it was a gallant thing, and worthy of
a better chronicler than I, to see this leader and
his little band—the children of a despised stock—
swayed by a noble emulation to relieve the distressed;
and (what the fashion of the world will deem a
higher glory) impelled by that love of daring which
the romancers call chivalry—throwing themselves
upon the unruly waves of winter, and flying, on
the wing of the storm, into the profound, dark abyss
of ocean, when all his terrors were gathering in their
most hideous forms; when the spirit of ill shrieked in
the blast, and thick night, dreary with unusual horrors,
was falling close around them; when old mariners
grew pale with the thought of the danger, and
the wisest counselled the adventurers against the certain
doom that hung upon their path:—I say, it was
a gallant sight to see such heroism shining out in an
humble and unlettered slave of the Old Dominion!

They say the night that followed was a night
of the wildest horrors. Not a star twinkled in the
black heavens: the winds rushed forth, like some
pent-up flood suddenly overbearing its barriers, and
swept through the air with palpable density: men,
who chanced to wander at that time, found it difficult
to keep their footing on the land: the steeples
of Norfolk groaned with the unwonted pressure;
chimneys were blown from their seats; houses were
unroofed, and the howling elements terrified those
who were gathered around their own hearths, and
made them silent with fear: the pious fell upon their
knees: nurses could not hush their children to sleep:
bold-hearted revellers were dismayed, and broke up
their meetings: the crash of trees, fences, out-buildings
mingled with the ravings of the tempest: the
icicles were swept from the eaves, and from every
penthouse, till they fell in the streets like hail: ships
were stranded at the wharves, or were lifted, by an
unnatural tide, into the streets: the ocean roared
with more terrific bass than the mighty wind, and
threw its spray into the near heaven, with which it
seemed in contact: and, as anxious seamen looked
out at intervals during the night, towards the Atlantic,
the light-house, that usually shot its ray over
the deep, was invisible to their gaze, or seen only by
glimpses, like a little star immeasurably remote,
wading through foam and darkness.

What became of our argonauts?—The next morning
told the tale. One seaman alone of the brig survived
to relate the fate of his companions. In the
darkest hour of the night their vessel went to pieces,

and every soul on board perished, except this man.
He had bound himself to a spar, and, by that miraculous
fortune which the frequent history of shipwreck
recounts, he was thrown upon the beach near
Cape Henry. Bruised, chafed and almost dead, he
was discovered in the morning and carried to a
neighbouring house, where care and nursing restored
him to his strength. All that this mariner could tell
was, that early in the night,—perhaps about eight
o'clock,—and before the storm had risen to its
height, (although, at that hour, it raged with fearful
vehemence,) a light was seen gliding, with the swiftness
of a meteor, past the wreck; a hailing cry was
heard as from a trumpet, but the wind smothered
its tones and rendered them inarticulate; and, in
the next moment, the spectre of a sail (for no one of
the sufferers believed it real) flitted by them, as with
a rush of wings, so close that some affirmed they
could have touched it with their hands: that, about
an hour afterwards, the same hideous phantom, with
the same awful salutation, was seen and heard by
many on board, a second time: that the crew, terrified
by this warning, made all preparations to meet
their fate; and when at last, in the highest exasperation
of the storm, the same apparition made its
third visit, the timbers of the brig parted at every
joint, and all, except the relater himself, were supposed
to have been engulphed in the wave, and given
to instant death.

Such, was the sum of this man's story. What
was subsequently known, proved its most horrible
conjecture to be fatally true.

Various speculation was indulged, during the first
week after this disaster, as to the destiny of Abe and
his companions. No tidings having arrived, some
affirmed that nothing more would ever be heard of
them. Others said that they might have luffed up
close in the wind and ridden out the night, as the
Flying Fish was staunch and true: others, again,
held that there was even a chance that they had
scudded before the gale, and, having good sea-room,
had escaped into the middle of the Atlantic. No vessels
appeared upon the coast for several days, and
the hope of receiving news of Abe, was not abandoned.

The next week came and went. There were arrivals,
but no word of the Flying Fish. Anxiety
began to give way to the conviction that all were
lost. But, when the third week passed over, and
commerce grew frequent, as the spring advanced, all
doubts were abandoned, and the loss of the Flying
Fish and her crew, ceased any longer to furnish
topics of discussion.

My reader must now get back to Swallow Barn.
The story of Abe's adventure had reached the plantation,
greatly exaggerated in all the details; none of
which were concealed from Lucy. On the contrary,
the wonder-loving women of the Quarter daily reported
to her additional particulars, filled with extravagant
marvels, in which, so far from manifesting a
desire to soothe the feelings of the mother and reconcile
her to the doom of Abe, all manner of appalling
circumstances were added, as if for the pleasure of
giving a higher gust to the tale.

It may appear unaccountable, but it was the fact,
that Lucy, instead of giving herself up to such grief
as might have been expected from her attachment to
her son, received the intelligence even with composure.
She shed no tears, and scarcely deserted her
customary occupations. She was remarked only to
have become more solitary in her habits, and to
evince an urgent and eager solicitude to hear whatever
came from Norfolk, or from the Chesapeake.
Scarcely a stranger visited Swallow Barn, for some
months after the event I have recounted, that the old
woman did not take an occasion to hold some conversation
with him; in which all her inquiries tended
to the tidings which might have existed of the missing
seamen.

As time rolled on, Lucy's anxiety seemed rather to
increase; and it wrought severely upon her health.
She was observed to be falling fast into the weakness
and decrepitude of age: her temper grew fretful, and
her pursuits still more lonesome. Frequently, she
shut herself up in her cabin for a week or a fortnight,
during which periods she refused to be seen by any
one. And now, tears began to visit her withered
cheeks. Meriwether made frequent efforts to reason
her out of this painful melancholy: her reply to all
his arguments was uniformly the same;—it was simple
and affecting—“I cannot give him up, master
Frank!”

In this way a year elapsed; but, with its passage,
came no confirmation to Lucy's mind of the fate of
her son; and so far was time from bringing an assuagement
of her grief, that it only cast a more permanent

dejection over her mind. She spoke continually
upon the subject of Abe's return, whenever she
conversed with any one; and her fancy was filled
with notions of preternatural warnings, which she had
received in dreams, and in her solitary communings
with herself. The females of the family at Swallow
Barn exercised the most tender assiduities towards
the old servant, and directed all their persuasions to
impress upon her the positive certainty of the loss of
Abe; they endeavoured to lift up her perception to
the consolations of religion,—but the insuperable difficulty
which they found in the way of all attempts
to comfort her, was the impossibility of convincing
her that the case was, even yet, hopeless. That dreadful
suspense of the mind, when it trembles in the balance
between a mother's instinctive love for her offspring,
on the one side, and the thought of its perdition
on the other, was more than the philosophy or
resignation of an ignorant old negro woman could
overcome. It was to her the sickness of the heart
that belongs to hope deferred,—and the more poignant,
because the subject of it was incapable of even
that moderate and common share of reason that
would have intelligently weighed the facts of the
case.

Months were now added to the year of unavailing
regrets that had been spent. No one ever heard
Lucy say wherefore, but all knew that she still
reckoned Abe's return amongst expected events. It
was now, in the vain thought that the old woman's
mind would yield to the certainty implied by the
lapse of time and the absence of tidings, that my

cousin Lucretia prepared a suit of mourning for her,
and sent it, with an exhortation that she would wear
it in commemoration of the death of her son.
Meriwether laid some stress upon this device; for,
he said, grief was a selfish emotion, and had some
strange alliance with vanity.—It was a metaphysical
conceit of his, which was founded in deep observation;
and he looked to see it illustrated in
the effect of the mourning present upon Lucy. She
took the dress—it was of some fine bombazet,—
gazed at it, with a curious and melancholy eye, and
then shook her head and said,—it was a mistake:—
“I will never put on that dress,” she observed, “because
it would be bad luck to Abe. What would
Abe say if he was to catch mammy Lucy wearing
black clothes for him?”

They left the dress with her, and she was seen to
put it carefully away. Some say that she was observed
in her cabin, one morning soon after this,
through the window, dressed out in this suit; but
she was never known to wear it at any other time.
About this period, she began to give manifest indications
of a decay of reason. This was first exhibited
in unusual wanderings, by night, into the neighbouring
wood; and then, by a growing habit of
speaking and singing to herself. With the loss of
her mind her frame still wasted away, and she gradually
began to lose her erect position.

Amongst the eccentric and painful developements
of her increasing aberration of mind, was one that
presented the predominating illusion that beset her
in an unusually vivid point of view.

One dark and blustering night of winter, the third
anniversary of that on which Abe had sailed upon
his desperate voyage,—for Lucy had noted the date,
although others had not,—near midnight, the inhabitants
of the Quarter were roused from their respective
cabins by loud knockings in succession at their
doors; and when each was opened, there stood the
decrepit figure of old Lucy, who was thus making
a circuit to invite her neighbours, as she said, to her
house.

“He has come back!” said Lucy to each one, as
they loosed their bolts; “he has come back! I
always told you he would come back upon this very
night! Come and see him! Come and see him! Abe
is waiting to see his friends to-night.”

Either awed by the superstitious feeling that a
maniac inspires in the breasts of the ignorant, or incited
by curiosity, most of the old negroes followed
Lucy to her cabin. As they approached it, the windows
gleamed with a broad light, and it was with
some strange sensations of terror that they assembled
at her threshold, where she stood upon the step, with
her hand upon the latch. Before she opened the
door to admit her wondering guests, she applied her
mouth to the keyhole, and said in an audible whisper,
“Abe, the people are all ready to see you, honey!
Don't be frightened,—there's nobody will do
you harm!”

Then, turning towards her companions, she said,
bowing her head,—

“Come in, good folks! There's plenty for you all.
Come in and see how he is grown!”

She now threw open the door, and, followed by
the rest, entered the room. There was a small table
set out, covered with a sheet; and upon it three or
four candles were placed in bottles for candlesticks.
All the chairs she had were ranged around this table,
and a bright fire blazed in the hearth.

“Speak to them, Abe!” said the old woman, with
a broad laugh. “This is uncle Jeff, and here is Dinah,
and here is Ben,”—and in this manner she ran over
the names of all present; then continued,—

“Sit down, you negroes! Have you no manners?
Sit down and eat as much as you choose; there is
plenty in the house. Mammy Lucy knew Abe was
coming: and see what a fine feast she has made for
him!”

She now seated herself, and addressing an empty
chair beside her, as if some one occupied it, lavished
upon the imaginary Abe a thousand expressions of
solicitude and kindness. At length she said,—

“The poor boy is tired, for he has not slept these
many long nights. You must leave him now:—he
will go to bed. Get you gone! get you gone! you
have all eaten enough!”

Dismayed and wrought upon by the unnatural
aspect of the scene, the party of visiters quitted the
cabin almost immediately upon the command; and
the crazed old menial was left alone to indulge her
sad communion with the vision of her fancy.

From that time until the period at which I saw
her, she continued occasionally to exhibit the same
evidences of insanity. There were intervals, however,
in which she appeared almost restored to her

reason. During one of these, some of the negroes
hoping to remove the illusion that Abe was still alive,
brought her a handkerchief resembling that which
she had given to him on his first departure; and, in
delivering it to her, reported a fabricated tale, that it
had been taken from around the neck of Abe, by a
sailor who had seen the body washed up by the tide
upon the beach of the sea, and had sent this relic to
Lucy as a token of her son's death. She seemed, at
last, to believe the tale; and took the handkerchief
and put it away in her bosom. This event only gave
a more sober tone to her madness. She now keeps
more closely over her hearth, where she generally
passes the livelong day, in the posture in which we
found her. Sometimes she is heard muttering to herself,—“They
buried his body in the sands of the sea,”
which she will repeat a hundred times. At others,
she falls into a sad but whimsical speculation, the
drift of which is implied in the question that she put
to Meriwether whilst we remained in her cottage;
—“How many years may a ship sail at sea without
stopping?”