Uncle Tom's Cabin
whom he might devour.
“You would scarcely know the woman from a white one,” said Marks. “The
man is a very light mulatto; he has a brand in one of his hands.”
The hand with which George was taking the tickets and change trembled a
little; but he turned coolly around, fixed an unconcerned glance on the
face of the speaker, and walked leisurely toward another part of the
boat, where Eliza stood waiting for him.
Mrs. Smyth, with little Harry, sought the seclusion of the ladies’
cabin, where the dark beauty of the supposed little girl drew many
flattering comments from the passengers.
George had the satisfaction, as the bell rang out its farewell peal, to
see Marks walk down the plank to the shore; and drew a long sigh of
relief, when the boat had put a returnless distance between them.
It was a superb day. The blue waves of Lake Erie danced, rippling and
sparkling, in the sun-light. A fresh breeze blew from the shore, and
the lordly boat ploughed her way right gallantly onward.
O, what an untold world there is in one human heart! Who thought, as
George walked calmly up and down the deck of the steamer, with his shy
companion at his side, of all that was burning in his bosom? The mighty
good that seemed approaching seemed too good, too fair, even to be a
reality; and he felt a jealous dread, every moment of the day, that
something would rise to snatch it from him.
But the boat swept on. Hours fleeted, and, at last, clear and full rose
the blessed English shores; shores charmed by a mighty spell,—with one
touch to dissolve every incantation of slavery, no matter in what
language pronounced, or by what national power confirmed.
George and his wife stood arm in arm, as the boat neared the small town
of Amherstberg, in Canada. His breath grew thick and short; a mist
gathered before his eyes; he silently pressed the little hand that lay
trembling on his arm. The bell rang; the boat stopped. Scarcely seeing
what he did, he looked out his baggage, and gathered his little party.
The little company were landed on the shore. They stood still till the
boat had cleared; and then, with tears and embracings, the husband and
wife, with their wondering child in their arms, knelt down and lifted
up their hearts to God!
“’T was something like the burst from death to life;
From the grave’s cerements to the robes of heaven;
From sin’s dominion, and from passion’s strife,
To the pure freedom of a soul forgiven;
Where all the bonds of death and hell are riven,
And mortal puts on immortality,
When Mercy’s hand hath turned the golden key,
And Mercy’s voice hath said, _Rejoice, thy soul is free.”_
The little party were soon guided, by Mrs. Smyth, to the hospitable
abode of a good missionary, whom Christian charity has placed here as a
shepherd to the outcast and wandering, who are constantly finding an
asylum on this shore.
Who can speak the blessedness of that first day of freedom? Is not the
_sense_ of liberty a higher and a finer one than any of the five? To
move, speak and breathe,—go out and come in unwatched, and free from
danger! Who can speak the blessings of that rest which comes down on
the free man’s pillow, under laws which insure to him the rights that
God has given to man? How fair and precious to that mother was that
sleeping child’s face, endeared by the memory of a thousand dangers!
How impossible was it to sleep, in the exuberant possession of such
blessedness! And yet, these two had not one acre of ground,—not a roof
that they could call their own,—they had spent their all, to the last
dollar. They had nothing more than the birds of the air, or the flowers
of the field,—yet they could not sleep for joy. “O, ye who take freedom
from man, with what words shall ye answer it to God?”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Victory
“Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory.”[1]
[1] I Cor. 15:57.
Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how
far easier it were to die than to live?
The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror,
finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic.
There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry
through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory
and rest.
But to live,—to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing
servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling
gradually smothered,—this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow,
daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after
hour,—this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or
woman.
When Tom stood face to face with his persecutor, and heard his threats,
and thought in his very soul that his hour was come, his heart swelled
bravely in him, and he thought he could bear torture and fire, bear
anything, with the vision of Jesus and heaven but just a step beyond;
but, when he was gone, and the present excitement passed off, came back
the pain of his bruised and weary limbs,—came back the sense of his
utterly degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate; and the day passed wearily
enough.
Long before his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that he should be
put to the regular field-work; and then came day after day of pain and
weariness, aggravated by every kind of injustice and indignity that the
ill-will of a mean and malicious mind could devise. Whoever, in _our_
circumstances, has made trial of pain, even with all the alleviations
which, for us, usually attend it, must know the irritation that comes
with it. Tom no longer wondered at the habitual surliness of his
associates; nay, he found the placid, sunny temper, which had been the
habitude of his life, broken in on, and sorely strained, by the inroads
of the same thing. He had flattered himself on leisure to read his
Bible; but there was no such thing as leisure there. In the height of
the season, Legree did not hesitate to press all his hands through,
Sundays and week-days alike. Why shouldn’t he?—he made more cotton by
it, and gained his wager; and if it wore out a few more hands, he could
buy better ones. At first, Tom used to read a verse or two of his
Bible, by the flicker of the fire, after he had returned from his daily
toil; but, after the cruel treatment he received, he used to come home
so exhausted, that his head swam and his eyes failed when he tried to
read; and he was fain to stretch himself down, with the others, in
utter exhaustion.
Is it strange that the religious peace and trust, which had upborne him
hitherto, should give way to tossings of soul and despondent darkness?
The gloomiest problem of this mysterious life was constantly before his
eyes,—souls crushed and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent. It was
weeks and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness and
sorrow. He thought of Miss Ophelia’s letter to his Kentucky friends,
and would pray earnestly that God would send him deliverance. And then
he would watch, day after day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody
sent to redeem him; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his
soul bitter thoughts,—that it was vain to serve God, that God had
forgotten him. He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to
the house, caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held
very little communion with either; in fact, there was no time for him
to commune with anybody.
One evening, he was sitting, in utter dejection and prostration, by a
few decaying brands, where his coarse supper was baking. He put a few
bits of brushwood on the fire, and strove to raise the light, and then
drew his worn Bible from his pocket. There were all the marked
passages, which had thrilled his soul so often,—words of patriarchs and
seers, poets and sages, who from early time had spoken courage to
man,—voices from the great cloud of witnesses who ever surround us in
the race of life. Had the word lost its power, or could the failing eye
and weary sense no longer answer to the touch of that mighty
inspiration? Heavily sighing, he put it in his pocket. A coarse laugh
roused him; he looked up,—Legree was standing opposite to him.
“Well, old boy,” he said, “you find your religion don’t work, it seems!
I thought I should get that through your wool, at last!”
The cruel taunt was more than hunger and cold and nakedness. Tom was
silent.
“You were a fool,” said Legree; “for I meant to do well by you, when I
bought you. You might have been better off than Sambo, or Quimbo
either, and had easy times; and, instead of getting cut up and
thrashed, every day or two, ye might have had liberty to lord it round,
and cut up the other niggers; and ye might have had, now and then, a
good warming of whiskey punch. Come, Tom, don’t you think you’d better
be reasonable?—heave that ar old pack of trash in the fire, and join my
church!”
“The Lord forbid!” said Tom, fervently.
“You see the Lord an’t going to help you; if he had been, he wouldn’t
have let _me_ get you! This yer religion is all a mess of lying
trumpery, Tom. I know all about it. Ye’d better hold to me; I’m
somebody, and can do something!”
“No, Mas’r,” said Tom; “I’ll hold on. The Lord may help me, or not
help; but I’ll hold to him, and believe him to the last!”
“The more fool you!” said Legree, spitting scornfully at him, and
spurning him with his foot. “Never mind; I’ll chase you down, yet, and
bring you under,—you’ll see!” and Legree turned away.
When a heavy weight presses the soul to the lowest level at which
endurance is possible, there is an instant and desperate effort of
every physical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and hence the
heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage. So
was it now with Tom. The atheistic taunts of his cruel master sunk his
before dejected soul to the lowest ebb; and, though the hand of faith
still held to the eternal rock, it was a numb, despairing grasp. Tom
sat, like one stunned, at the fire. Suddenly everything around him
seemed to fade, and a vision rose before him of one crowned with
thorns, buffeted and bleeding. Tom gazed, in awe and wonder, at the
majestic patience of the face; the deep, pathetic eyes thrilled him to
his inmost heart; his soul woke, as, with floods of emotion, he
stretched out his hands and fell upon his knees,—when, gradually, the
vision changed: the sharp thorns became rays of glory; and, in splendor
inconceivable, he saw that same face bending compassionately towards
him, and a voice said, “He that overcometh shall sit down with me on my
throne, even as I also overcome, and am set down with my Father on his
throne.”
How long Tom lay there, he knew not. When he came to himself, the fire
was gone out, his clothes were wet with the chill and drenching dews;
but the dread soul-crisis was past, and, in the joy that filled him, he
no longer felt hunger, cold, degradation, disappointment, wretchedness.
From his deepest soul, he that hour loosed and parted from every hope
in life that now is, and offered his own will an unquestioning
sacrifice to the Infinite. Tom looked up to the silent, ever-living
stars,—types of the angelic hosts who ever look down on man; and the
solitude of the night rung with the triumphant words of a hymn, which
he had sung often in happier days, but never with such feeling as now:
“The earth shall be dissolved like snow,
The sun shall cease to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Shall be forever mine.
“And when this mortal life shall fail,
And flesh and sense shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil
A life of joy and peace.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining like the sun,