“For this time, to be sure,” said Cassy; “but now... “For this time, to be sure,” said Cassy; “but now you’ve got his ill will upon you, to follow you day in, day out, hanging like a dog on your throat,—sucking your blood, bleeding away your life, drop by drop
Chapter 37
Liberty
“No matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery, the moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the God sink together in the dust, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation
A while we must leave Tom in the hands of his persecutors, while we turn to pursue the fortunes of George and his wife, whom we left in friendly hands, in a farmhouse on the road-side
Tom Loker we left groaning and touzling in a most immaculately clean Quaker bed, under the motherly supervision of Aunt Dorcas, who found him to the full as tractable a patient as a sick bison
Imagine a tall, dignified, spiritual woman, whose clear muslin cap shades waves of silvery hair, parted on a broad, clear forehead, which overarches thoughtful gray eyesA snowy handkerchief of lisse crape is folded neatly across her bosom; her glossy brown silk dress rustles peacefully, as she glides up and down the chamber
“The devil!” says Tom Loker, giving a great throw to the bedclothes
“I must request thee, Thomas, not to use such language,” says Aunt Dorcas, as she quietly rearranged the bed
“Well, I won’t, granny, if I can help it,” says Tom; “but it is enough to make a fellow swear,—so cursedly hot!”
Dorcas removed a comforter from the bed, straightened the clothes again, and tucked them in till Tom looked something like a chrysalis; remarking, as she did so,
“I wish, friend, thee would leave off cursing and swearing, and think upon thy ways
“What the devil,” said Tom, “should I think of them for? thing ever I want to think of—hang it all!” And Tom flounced over, untucking and disarranging everything, in a manner frightful to behold
“That fellow and gal are here, I ’spose,” said he, sullenly, after a pause
“They are so,” said Dorcas
“They’d better be off up to the lake,” said Tom; “the quicker the better
“Probably they will do so,” said Aunt Dorcas, knitting peacefully
“And hark ye,” said Tom; “we’ve got correspondents in Sandusky, that watch the boats for usI don’t care if I tell, nowI hope they will get away, just to spite Marks,—the cursed puppy!—d—n him!”
“Thomas!” said Dorcas
“I tell you, granny, if you bottle a fellow up too tight, I shall split,” said Tom“But about the gal,—tell ’em to dress her up some way, so’s to alter herHer description’s out in Sandusky
“We will attend to that matter,” said Dorcas, with characteristic composure
As we at this place take leave of Tom Loker, we may as well say, that, having lain three weeks at the Quaker dwelling, sick with a rheumatic fever, which set in, in company with his other afflictions, Tom arose from his bed a somewhat sadder and wiser man; and, in place of slave-catching, betook himself to life in one of the new settlements, where his talents developed themselves more happily in trapping bears, wolves, and other inhabitants of the forest, in which he made himself quite a name in the landTom always spoke reverently of the Quakers“Nice people,” he would say; “wanted to convert me, but couldn’t come it, exactlyBut, tell ye what, stranger, they do fix up a sick fellow first rate,—no mistakeMake jist the tallest kind o’ broth and knicknacks
As Tom had informed them that their party would be looked for in Sandusky, it was thought prudent to divide themJim, with his old mother, was forwarded separately; and a night or two after, George and Eliza, with their child, were driven privately into Sandusky, and lodged beneath a hospital roof, preparatory to taking their last passage on the lake
Their night was now far spent, and the morning star of liberty rose fair before them!—electric word! What is it? Is there anything more in it than a name—a rhetorical flourish? Why, men and women of America, does your heart’s blood thrill at that word, for which your fathers bled, and your braver mothers were willing that their noblest and best should die?
Is there anything in it glorious and dear for a nation, that is not also glorious and dear for a man? What is freedom to a nation, but freedom to the individuals in it? What is freedom to that young man, who sits there, with his arms folded over his broad chest, the tint of African blood in his cheek, its dark fires in his eyes,—what is freedom to George Harris? To your fathers, freedom was the right of a nation to be a nationTo him, it is the right of a man to be a man, and not a brute; the right to call the wife of his bosom is wife, and to protect her from lawless violence; the right to protect and educate his child; the right to have a home of his own, a religion of his own, a character of his own, unsubject to the will of anotherAll these thoughts were rolling and seething in George’s breast, as he was pensively leaning his head on his hand, watching his wife, as she was adapting to her slender and pretty form the articles of man’s attire, in which it was deemed safest she should make her escape
“Now for it,” said she, as she stood before the glass, and shook down her silky abundance of black curly hair“I say, George, it’s almost a pity, isn’t it,” she said, as she held up some of it, playfully,—“pity it’s all got to come off?”
George smiled sadly, and made no answer
Eliza turned to the glass, and the scissors glittered as one long lock after another was detached from her head
“There, now, that’ll do,” she said, taking up a hair-brush; “now for a few fancy touches
“There, an’t I a pretty young fellow?” she said, turning around to her husband, laughing and blushing at the same time
“You always will be pretty, do what you will,” said George
“What does make you so sober?” said Eliza, kneeling on one knee, and laying her hand on his“We are only within twenty-four hours of Canada, they sayOnly a day and a night on the lake, and then—oh, then!—”
“O, Eliza!” said George, drawing her towards him; “that is it! Now my fate is all narrowing down to a
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