The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
The family of colonel Moore knew well how truly I had loved, and how faithfully I had served my young master. They respected the profound depth of my grief, and for a week or two, I was suffered to weep on unmolested. My feelings were no longer of that acute and piercing kind which I have described in the preceding chapter. The temperament of the mind is forever changing. That~state of preternatural sensibility, of which I have attempted to give an idea, had disappeared when my attention became wholly occupied in the care of my dying master. It was succeeded by a dull and stupid sorrow. Apparently I now had increased cause for agitation and alarm. That which I then dreaded, had happened. My young master, upon whom all my hopes were suspended, lived no longer, and I knew not what was to become of me. But the fit of fear and anxious anticipation was over; and I now waited my fate with a sort of stupid and careless indifference.
Though not called upon to do it, I continued as usual to wait upon my master's table. For several days, I took my place instinctively near where master James's chair ought to have stood; till the sight of the vacant place drove me in tears to the opposite corner. In the mean time, nobody called upon me to do anything, or seemed to notice that I was present. Even master William made an effort to repress his habitual insolence.
But this could not last long. Indeed it was a stretch of indulgence, which no 6ne but a favorite servant could have expected; since slaves, in general, are thought to have no business to be sorry — if it makes them unable to work.
One morning after breakfast, master William having discussed his toast and coffee, began by telling his father, that in his opinion, the servants at Spring-Meadow, were a great deal too indulgently treated. He was by this time, a smart, dashing, elegant young man, having returned upwards of a year before, from college, and quite lately, from Charleston, in South Carolina, whither he had been to spend a winter, and as his father expressed it, to wear off the rusticity of the school-room. It was there perhaps, that he had learned the new precepts of humanity, which he was now preaching. He declared that any tenderness towards a servant only tended to make him insolent and discontented, and was quite thrown away on the ungrateful rascals. Then, looking about, as if in search of some victim upon whom to practise a doctrine so consonant to his own disposition, his eye lighted upon me. "There's that boy Archy — I'll bet a hundred to one I could make him one of the best servants in the world. He's a bright fellow naturally, and nothing has spoil'd him, but poor James's over indulgence. Come father, just be good enough to give him to me, I want another servant most devilishly."
Without stopping for an answer, he hastened out of the room, having, as he said, two jockey races to attend that morning; and what was more, a cock-fight into the bargain. There was nobody else at table. Colonel Moore turned towards me. He began with commending very highly, my faithful attachment to his poor son James. As he men-. tioned his son's name the tears stood in his eyes, and for a moment or two he was unable to speak. He recovered himself presently, and added — "I hope now you will transfer all this same zeal and affection to master William."
These words roused me in a moment. I knew master William to be a tyrant from whose soul custom had long since obliterated what little humanity nature had bestowed upon him; and to judge from what he had let drop that morning, he had of late improved upon his natural inclination for cruelty, and had proceeded to the final length of reducing tyranny into a system and a science. I knew too that from childhood, he had entertained a particular spite against me; and I dreaded, lest he was already devising the means of inflicting upon me with interest, all those insults and injuries from which the protection of his younger brother had hitherto shielded me.
It was with horror and alarm, that I found myself in danger of falling into such hands. I threw myself at my master's feet and besought him, with all the eloquence of grief and fear, not to give me to master William. The terms in which I spoke of his son, though I chose the mildest I could think of, and the horror I expressed at the thoughts of becoming his servant, though I endeavored as much as possible, to save the father's feelings, seemed to make him angry. 'The smile left his lip, and his brow grew dark and contracted. I began to despair of escaping the wretched fate that awaited me; and my despair drove me to a very rash and foolish action.. For emboldened by the danger of becoming the slave of master William, I dared to hint — though distantly and obscurely — at the information which my mother had communicated on her death bed; and I even ventured something like a half appeal to colonel Moore's paternal tenderness. At first he did not seem to understand me; but the moment he began to comprehend my meaning, his face grew black as a thunder cloud, then became pale, and immediately was suffused with a burning blush, in which shame and rage were equally commingled. I now gave myself up for lost, and expected an instant out-break of fury; — but after a momentary struggle, colonel Moore seemed to regain his composure; even the habitual smile returned to his lips; and without taking any notice of my last appeal, or giving any further signs of having understood it, he merely remarked, that he did not know how to refuse master William's request, nor could he comprehend the meaning of my reluctance. It was mighty foolish; still he was willing to indulge me so far, as to allow me the choice of entering into master William's service, or going into the field. This alternative was proposed with an air and a manner, which was intended to stop my mouth, and allow me nothing but the bare liberty of choosing. It was indeed, no very agreeable alternative. But any thing, even the hard labor, scanty fare, and harsh treatment, to which I knew the field hands were subjected, seemed preferable to becoming the sport of master William's tyranny. I was piqued too, at the cavalier manner in which my request had been treated, — and I did not hesitate. I thanked colonel Moore for his great goodness, and at once, made choice of the field. He seemed rather surprised at my selection, and with a smile which bordered close upon a sneer, bade me report myself — to Mr Stubbs.
An overseer, is regarded in all those parts of slave-holding America, with which I ever became acquainted, very — much in the same light in which people, in countries uncursed — with slavery, look upon a hangman; and as this latter employment, however useful and necessary, has never succeeded in becoming respectable, so the business of an overseer is likely from its nature, always to continue contemptible and degraded. 'The young lady who dines heartily on lamb, has a sentimental horror of the butcher who killed it; and the slave owner who lives luxuriously on the forced labor of his slaves, has a like sentimental abhorrence of the man who holds the whip and compels the labor. He is like a receiver of stolen goods, who cannot bear the thoughts of stealing himself, but who has no objection to live upon the proceeds of stolen property. A thief is but a thief; an overseer but an overseer. The slave owner prides himself upon the honorable appellation of a planter; and the receiver of stolen goods assumes the _ character of a respectable shop-keeper. By such contemptible juggle do men deceive not themselves only, but oft-times the world also.
Mr Thomas Stubbs was overseer at Spring-Meadow, a person with whose name, appearance and character I was perfectly familiar, though hitherto I had been so fortunate as to have had very little communication with him.
He was a thick set, clumsy man, about fifty, with a little bullet head, covered with short tangled hair, and stuck close upon his shoulders. His face was curiously mottled and spotted, for what with sunshine, what with whiskey, and what with ague and fever, brown, red and sallow seemed to have put in a joint claim to the possession of it, without having yet been able to arrive at an amicable partition. He was generally to be seen on horseback, leaning forward over his saddle, and brandishing a long thick whip of twisted cow-hide, which from time to time, he applied over the head and shoulders of some unfortunate slave. If you were within hearing, his conversation, or rather his commands and observations, would have appeared a string of oaths, from the midst of which it was not very easy to disentangle his meaning. Some such exclamations were pretty sure to begin every sentence, and others to end it. It was however, only when Mr Stubbs had sole possession of the field, that he sprinkled his orders with this strong spice of brutality; — for when colonel Moore or any other gentleman happened to be riding by, he could assume quite an air of gentleness and moderation, and what appears very surprising, was actually able to express himself, with not more than one oath to every other sentence.
Mr Stubbs, in his management of the plantation did not confine himself to hard words. He used his whip as freely as his tongue. Colonel Moore had received a European education; and like every man educated any where — except on a slave estate — he had a great dislike to all unnecessary cruelty. He was usually made very angry, about once a week, by some brutal act on the part of his overseer. But having satisfied his outraged feelings by declaring himself very much offended, and Mr Stubbs's proceedings to be quite intolerable, he ended with suffering things to go on just as before. The truth was, Mr Stubbs understood making crops; and such a man was too valuable to be given up, for the mere sentimental satisfaction of protecting the slaves from his tyranny.
It was a great change to me, after having been accustomed to the elegance and propriety of colonel Moore's house, and the gentle rule and light service of master James, to pass under the despotic control of a vulgar, ignorant and brutal blackguard. Besides, I had never been accustomed to severe and regular labor; and it was trying indeed to submit at once to the hard work of the field. However, I resolved to make the best of it. I was strong; and use would soon make my tasks more tolerable. I knew well enough, that Mr Stubbs was totally destitute of all humane feelings, but I had no reason to suppose that he entertained towards me any of that malignity which I had so much dreaded in master William. From what I had known of him, I did not judge him to be a very bad tempered man; and I took it for granted that he cursed and whipped, not so much out of spite and ill feeling, but as a mere matter of business. He seemed to imagine, like every other overseer, that it was impossible to manage a plantation in any other way. My diligence, I hoped might enable me to escape the lash; and Mr Stubbs's vulgar abuse, however provoking the other servants might esteem it, I thought I might easily despise.
Mr Stubbs listened to my account of myself very graciously, all the time, rolling his tobacco from one cheek to the other, and squinting at me with one of his little twinkling grey eyes. Having cursed me to his satisfaction for "a blunder-head," he bade me follow him to the field. A large clumsy hoe, with a handle six feet long, was put into my hands, and I was kept hard at work all day.
At dark, I was suffered to quit the field, and the overseer pointed out to me a miserable little hovel, about ten feet square, and half as many high, with a leaky roof, and without either floor or window. This was to be my house, or rather I was to share it with Billy, a young slave about my own age.
To this wretched hut, I removed a chest, containing my clothes and a few other things, such as a slave is permitted to possess. By way of bed and bedding, I received a single blanket, about as big as a large pocket handkerchief; and a basket of corn and a pound or two of damaged bacon, were given me as my week's allowance of provisions.. But as I was totally destitute of pot, kettle, knife, plate, or dish of any kind, — for these are conveniences which slaves must procure as they can, — I was in some danger of being obliged to make my supper on raw bacon. Billy saw my distress and took pity on me. He helped me beat my corn into hominy, and lent me his own little kettle to cook it in; so that about midnight I was able to break a fast of some sixteen or twenty hours. My chest being both broad and long, served tolerably well for bed, chair and table. I sold a part of my clothes, which were indeed much too fine for a field hand; and having bought myself a knife, a spoon and a kettle, I was able to put my house-keeping into tolerable order.
My accommodations were as good as a field hand had a right to expect; but they were not such as to make me particularly happy; especially as I had been used to something better. My hands were blistered with the hoe, and coming in at night completely exhausted by a sort of labor to which I was not accustomed, it was no very agreeable recreation to be obliged to beat hominy, and to be up till after midnight preparing food for the next day, with the recollection too, that I was obliged to turn into the field with the first dawn of the morning. But this labor, severe as it was, had been in a manner, my own choice. In choosing it, I had escaped a worse tyranny and a more bitter servitude, I had avoided falling into the hands of master William.
As I shall not have occasion to mention that amiable youth again, I may as well finish his history here. Some six or eight months after the death of his younger brother, he became involved in a drunken quarrel, at a cock-fight. This quarrel ended in a duel, and master William fell dead at the first fire. His death was a great stroke to colonel Moore, who seemed for a long time, almost inconsolable. I did not lament him, either for his own sake or his father's. l knew well, that in his death, I had escaped a cruel and vindictive master; and I felt a stern and bitter pleasure in seeing the bereavements of a man who had dared to trample upon the sacred ties of nature.