الفصل الفصل 37 · Liberty

. 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.”—_Curran_.[1]

[1] John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), Irish orator and judge who worked

for Catholic 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 eyes. A 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? Last 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 s’pose,” 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 us. I don’t care if I tell, now. I 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 her. Her 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 land. Tom always spoke reverently of the Quakers.

“Nice people,” he would say; “wanted to convert me, but couldn’t come

it, exactly. But, tell ye what, stranger, they do fix up a sick fellow

first rate,—no mistake. Make 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 them. Jim, 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 nation. To 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 his 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 another. All 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 say. Only 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 point. To come so near, to be almost in

sight, and then lose all. I should never live under it, Eliza.”

“Don’t fear,” said his wife, hopefully. “The good Lord would not have

brought us so far, if he didn’t mean to carry us through. I seem to

feel him with us, George.”

“You are a blessed woman, Eliza!” said George, clasping her with a

convulsive grasp. “But,—oh, tell me! can this great mercy be for us?

Will these years and years of misery come to an end?—shall we be free?

“I am sure of it, George,” said Eliza, looking upward, while tears of

hope and enthusiasm shone on her long, dark lashes. “I feel it in me,

that God is going to bring us out of bondage, this very day.”

“I will believe you, Eliza,” said George, rising suddenly up, “I will

believe,—come let’s be off. Well, indeed,” said he, holding her off at

arm’s length, and looking admiringly at her, “you _are_ a pretty little

fellow. That crop of little, short curls, is quite becoming. Put on

your cap. So—a little to one side. I never saw you look quite so

pretty. But, it’s almost time for the carriage;—I wonder if Mrs. Smyth

has got Harry rigged?”

The door opened, and a respectable, middle-aged woman entered, leading

little Harry, dressed in girl’s clothes.

“What a pretty girl he makes,” said Eliza, turning him round. “We call

him Harriet, you see;—don’t the name come nicely?”

The child stood gravely regarding his mother in her new and strange

attire, observing a profound silence, and occasionally drawing deep

sighs, and peeping at her from under his dark curls.

“Does Harry know mamma?” said Eliza, stretching her hands toward him.

The child clung shyly to the woman.

“Come Eliza, why do you try to coax him, when you know that he has got

to be kept away from you?”

“I know it’s foolish,” said Eliza; “yet, I can’t bear to have him turn

away from me. But come,—where’s my cloak? Here,—how is it men put on

cloaks, George?”

“You must wear it so,” said her husband, throwing it over his

shoulders.

“So, then,” said Eliza, imitating the motion,—“and I must stamp, and

take long steps, and try to look saucy.”

“Don’t exert yourself,” said George. “There is, now and then, a modest

young man; and I think it would be easier for you to act that

character.”

“And these gloves! mercy upon us!” said Eliza; “why, my hands are lost

in them.”

“I advise you to keep them on pretty strictly,” said George. “Your

slender paw might bring us all out. Now, Mrs. Smyth, you are to go

under our charge, and be our aunty,—you mind.”

“I’ve heard,” said Mrs. Smyth, “that there have been men down, warning

all the packet captains against a man and woman, with a little boy.”

“They have!” said George. “Well, if we see any such people, we can tell

them.”

A hack now drove to the door, and the friendly family who had received

the fugitives crowded around them with farewell greetings.

The disguises the party had assumed were in accordance with the hints

of Tom Loker. Mrs. Smyth, a respectable woman from the settlement in

Canada, whither they were fleeing, being fortunately about crossing the

lake to return thither, had consented to appear as the aunt of little

Harry; and, in order to attach him to her, he had been allowed to

remain, the two last days, under her sole charge; and an extra amount

of petting, jointed to an indefinite amount of seed-cakes and candy,

had cemented a very close attachment on the part of the young

gentleman.

The hack drove to the wharf. The two young men, as they appeared,

walked up the plank into the boat, Eliza gallantly giving her arm to

Mrs. Smyth, and George attending to their baggage.

George was standing at the captain’s office, settling for his party,

when he overheard two men talking by his side.

“I’ve watched every one that came on board,” said one, “and I know

they’re not on this boat.”

The voice was that of the clerk of the boat. The speaker whom he

addressed was our sometime friend Marks, who, with that valuable

perseverance which characterized him, had come on to Sandusky, seeking

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.

[Illustration: THE FUGITIVES ARE SAVE IN A FREE LAND.]

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?”