University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
THE HUSBAND AND FATHER.

Mrs. Shelby had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in the
verandah, rather dejectedly looking after the retreating carriage,
when a hand was laid on her shoulder. She turned,
and a bright smile lighted up her fine eyes.

“George, is it you? How you frightened me! Well; I
am so glad you 's come! Missis is gone to spend the afternoon;
so come into my little room, and we 'll have the time
all to ourselves.”

Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment
opening on the verandah, where she generally sat at her
sewing, within call of her mistress.

“How glad I am! — why don't you smile? — and look at
Harry — how he grows.” The boy stood shyly regarding
his father through his curls, holding close to the skirts of his
mother's dress. “Is n't he beautiful?” said Eliza, lifting
his long curls and kissing him.

“I wish he 'd never been born!” said George, bitterly.
“I wish I 'd never been born myself!”

Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, leaned her head
on her husband's shoulder, and burst into tears.

“There now, Eliza, it 's too bad for me to make you feel
so, poor girl!” said he, fondly; “it 's too bad. O, how I
wish you never had seen me — you might have been happy!”

“George! George! how can you talk so? What dreadful
thing has happened, or is going to happen? I 'm sure we 've
been very happy, till lately.”

“So we have, dear,” said George. Then drawing his child
on his knee, he gazed intently on his glorious dark eyes, and
passed his hands through his long curls.

“Just like you, Eliza; and you are the handsomest woman
I ever saw, and the best one I ever wish to see; but, oh, I
wish I 'd never seen you, nor you me!”

“O, George, how can you!”

“Yes, Eliza, it 's all misery, misery, misery! My life is
bitter as wormwood; the very life is burning out of me. I 'm
a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you
down with me, that 's all. What 's the use of our trying to
do anything, trying to know anything, trying to be anything?
What 's the use of living? I wish I was dead!”

“O, now, dear George, that is really wicked! I know
how you feel about losing your place in the factory, and you
have a hard master; but pray be patient, and perhaps something
—”

“Patient!” said, he interrupting her; “have n't I been
patient? Did I say a word when he came and took me away,
for no earthly reason, from the place where everybody was
kind to me? I 'd paid him truly every cent of my earnings,
— and they all say I worked well.”

“Well, it is dreadful,” said Eliza; “but, after all, he is
your master, you know.”

“My master! and who made him my master? That 's
what I think of — what right has he to me? I 'm a man as
much as he is. I 'm a better man than he is. I know more
about business than he does; I am a better manager than
he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better
hand, — and I 've learned it all myself, and no thanks to him,
— I 've learned it in spite of him; and now what right has
he to make a dray-horse of me? — to take me from things I
can do, and do better than he can, and put me to work that
any horse can do? He tries to do it; he says he 'll bring
me down and humble me, and he puts me to just the hardest,
meanest and dirtiest work, on purpose!”

“O, George! George! you frighten me! Why, I never
heard you talk so; I 'm afraid you 'll do something dreadful.
I don't wonder at your feelings, at all; but oh, do be careful
— do, do — for my sake — for Harry's!”

“I have been careful, and I have been patient, but it 's
growing worse and worse; flesh and blood can't bear it any
longer; — every chance he can get to insult and torment me,
he takes. I thought I could do my work well, and keep on
quiet, and have some time to read and learn out of work
hours; but the more he sees I can do, the more he loads on.
He says that though I don't say anything, he sees I 've got
the devil in me, and he means to bring it out; and one of

these days it will come out in a way that he won't like, or
I 'm mistaken!”

“O dear! what shall we do?” said Eliza, mournfully.

“It was only yesterday,” said George, “as I was busy
loading stones into a cart, that young Mas'r Tom stood there,
slashing his whip so near the horse that the creature was
frightened. I asked him to stop, as pleasant as I could, — he
just kept right on. I begged him again, and then he turned
on me, and began striking me. I held his hand, and then he
screamed and kicked and ran to his father, and told him that
I was fighting him. He came in a rage, and said he 'd teach
me who was my master; and he tied me to a tree, and cut
switches for young master, and told him that he might whip
me till he was tired; — and he did do it! If I don't make
him remember it, some time!” and the brow of the young
man grew dark, and his eyes burned with an expression that
made his young wife tremble. “Who made this man my
master? That 's what I want to know!” he said.

“Well,” said Eliza, mournfully, “I always thought that
I must obey my master and mistress, or I could n't be a
Christian.”

“There is some sense in it, in your case; they have brought
you up like a child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and
taught you, so that you have a good education; that is some
reason why they should claim you. But I have been kicked
and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and
what do I owe? I 've paid for all my keeping a hundred
times over. I won't bear it. No, I won't!” he said,
clenching his hand with a fierce frown.

Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her
husband in this mood before; and her gentle system of ethics
seemed to bend like a reed in the surges of such passions.

“You know poor little Carlo, that you gave me,” added
George; “the creature has been about all the comfort that
I 've had. He has slept with me nights, and followed me
around days, and kind o' looked at me as if he understood
how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding him with
a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen door, and Mas'r
came along, and said I was feeding him up at his expense, and
that he could n't afford to have every nigger keeping his dog,
and ordered me to tie a stone to his neck and throw him in
the pond.”

“O, George, you did n't do it!”

“Do it? not I! — but he did. Mas'r and Tom pelted the
poor drowning creature with stones. Poor thing! he looked
at me so mournful, as if he wondered why I did n't save him.
I had to take a flogging because I would n't do it myself. I
don't care. Mas'r will find out that I 'm one that whipping
won't tame. My day will come yet, if he don't look out.”

“What are you going to do? O, George, don't do anything
wicked; if you only trust in God, and try to do right,
he 'll deliver you.”

“I an't a Christian like you, Eliza; my heart 's full of
bitterness; I can't trust in God. Why does he let things be
so?”

“O, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that
when all things go wrong to us, we must believe that God is
doing the very best.”

“That 's easy to say for people that are sitting on their
sofas and riding in their carriages; but let 'em be where I
am, I guess it would come some harder. I wish I could be
good; but my heart burns, and can't be reconciled, anyhow.
You could n't, in my place, — you can't now, if I tell you
all I 've got to say. You don't know the whole yet.”

“What can be coming now?”

“Well, lately Mas'r has been saying that he was a fool to
let me marry off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all
his tribe, because they are proud, and hold their heads up
above him, and that I 've got proud notions from you; and
he says he won't let me come here any more, and that I
shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he
only scolded and grumbled these things; but yesterday he
told me that I should take Mina for a wife, and settle down in
a cabin with her, or he would sell me down river.”

“Why — but you were married to me, by the minister, as
much as if you 'd been a white man!” said Eliza, simply.

“Don't you know a slave can't be married? There is no
law in this country for that; I can't hold you for my wife, if
he chooses to part us. That 's why I wish I 'd never seen
you,— why I wish I 'd never been born; it would have been
better for us both,— it would have been better for this poor
child if he had never been born. All this may happen to him
yet!”

“O, but master is so kind!”

“Yes, but who knows? — he may die — and then he may
be sold to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is
handsome, and smart, and bright? I tell you, Eliza, that a
sword will pierce through your soul for every good and pleasant
thing your child is or has; it will make him worth too
much for you to keep!”

The words smote heavily on Eliza's heart; the vision of the
trader came before her eyes, and, as if some one had struck
her a deadly blow, she turned pale and gasped for breath.
She looked nervously out on the verandah, where the boy,
tired of the grave conversation, had retired, and where he was
riding triumphantly up and down on Mr. Shelby's walking-stick.

She would have spoken to tell her husband her fears,
but checked herself.

“No, no, — he has enough to bear, poor fellow!” she
thought. “No, I won't tell him; besides, it an't true;
Missis never deceives us.”

“So, Eliza, my girl,” said the husband, mournfully, “bear
up, now; and good-by, for I 'm going.”

“Going, George! Going where?”

“To Canada,” said he, straightening himself up; “and
when I 'm there, I 'll buy you; that 's all the hope that 's left
us. You have a kind master, that won't refuse to sell you.
I 'll buy you and the boy; — God helping me, I will!”

“O, dreadful! if you should be taken?”

“I won't be taken, Eliza; I 'll die first! I 'll be free, or
I 'll die!”

“You won't kill yourself!”

“No need of that. They will kill me, fast enough; they
never will get me down the river alive!”

“O, George, for my sake, do be careful! Don't do anything
wicked; don't lay hands on yourself, or anybody else!
You are tempted too much — too much; but don't — go you
must — but go carefully, prudently; pray God to help you.”

“Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mas'r took it into his
head to send me right by here, with a note to Mr. Symmes,
that lives a mile past. I believe he expected I should come
here to tell you what I have. It would please him, if he
thought it would aggravate `Shelby's folks,' as he calls 'em.
I 'm going home quite resigned, you understand, as if all was
over. I 've got some preparations made, — and there are
those that will help me; and, in the course of a week or so,
I shall be among the missing, some day. Pray for me, Eliza;
perhaps the good Lord will hear you.”

“O, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in him; then
you won't do anything wicked.”

“Well, now, good-by,” said George, holding Eliza's
hands, and gazing into her eyes, without moving. They
stood silent; then there were last words, and sobs, and bitter
weeping, — such parting as those may make whose hope to
meet again is as the spider's web, — and the husband and
wife were parted.