CHAPTER XXXIX.
VIRGIE'S FLIGHT (_continued_).
"Can you walk, Hudson?" asked Virgie, when her horror would permit.
"Yes, child, I can walk, I reckon; but both my eyes is burned out. Oh,my pore old wife: she could nurse me so well. I have lost her."
The girl comforted the sightless man, and led him on, indifferent todanger. He waded the deep places, where the water soothed his wounds andfilled his blistered sockets with cool mud.
"Blessed is the pure in heart," he murmured, as they reached some sandyground and sank down. "You, Virgie, can see God; I never can."
The great Cypress Swamp of Delaware--counterpart of the Dismal Swamp inVirginia--the northern border of which they had now reached, hadprobably been once a great inlet or shallow bay in the encroachingsand-bar of the peninsula, and was filled with oysters and fish, whichin time were imprisoned and became the manure of a cypress forest thatsoon started up when springs of water flowed under the sand andmoistened the seed; and for ages these forests had been growing, and hadbeen prostrated, and had dropped their leaves and branches in the greatinlet's bed, until a deep ligneous mass of combustible stuff raisedhigher and higher the level of the swamp, and, dried with ages more oftime than dried the mummies of the Pharaohs, it often opened tunnels toburrowing fire, which at some point of its course belched forth andlighted the hollow trees, and raged for weeks. Such a fire they had comethrough.
Virgie, in the early daylight, came upon a small, swarthy boy, driving alittle cart and ox.
"Are you a colored boy?" Virgie asked.
"No," answered the boy, proudly. "I'm Indian-river Indian; reckon I'm a_little_ nigger."
"Take this poor man in and I will pay you. Where are you going?"
"To Dagsborough landing, for salt."
"Leave me at Dagsborough, at the old Clayton house," spoke up the blindman; "it's empty. I can die thar or git a doctor."
Before the people were up they entered a little hamlet, on that stageroad from which they had made the night's detour, and saw a few smallhouses and a little shingle-boarded church near by among the woods, andone large house of a deserted appearance was at the town's extremity.The man said, "This is John M. Clayton's birthplace: my wife used towork yer."
"Virgie!" exclaimed a familiar voice.
The girl turned, her ears still ringing with the echoes of the swamp,and saw a face she knew, and ran to the breast beneath it, crying,
"Samson Hat! Oh, friend, love me like my mother. I am very ill."
"Pore, darlin' child," Samson said; "no love will I ever bodder you widagin but a father's. Why air you so fur from home?"
"I'm sold, Samson: I'm trying to get free. The kidnappers is after me.Oh, save me!"
"I've jist got away from 'em, Virgie. The ole woman, Patty Cannon, setme free. I promised her I would kidnap somebody younger dan ole Samson.Bless de Lord! I come dis way!"
He led her into the oak-trees of the old church grove, where Englishworship had been celebrated just a hundred years; and she gave him moneyto buy medicine and get a doctor for the blind man, and to purchase hera shawl at the store. Then Virgie sank into a fevered sleep under theold oak-trees, and, when she knew more, was gliding in a boat thatSamson was sailing down a broad piece of water, and her head was in hislap.
"You air pure as an angel yit, my little creatur," Samson said; "and nowI'm a-takin' you down the Indian River into Rehoboth Bay; and arter darkI'll git you up the beach to Cape Hinlopen, and maybe I kin buy you apassage on some of dem stone boats dat's buildin' de new breakwater dar,and dat goes back to de Norf."
"Oh, Samson, if I could love any man it would be you," Virgie said; "butI cannot love any now except my dear white father. Who is he?"
"De Lord, I reckon, has got yo' pedigree, Virgie."
"Am I dying, Samson?" asked the girl, wistfully, with her brilliant eyesfull of fever. "Oh, friend, let me die so good that Miss Vesty and myfather can come and kiss me!"
"Tell me about Princess Anne an' my dear old Marster Meshach Milburn,dat I'se leff so long, Virgie!" the old pugilist said, wiping his eyesof tears.
She began to try to remember, but faces and events ran into each other,and she felt aware that her mind was wandering, but could not bring itback; and so the boat, sailing in sight of the ocean and the statelyships there, grounded after noon almost within sound of the surf.
Sheltered in a piece of woods for some hours, Virgie found herself, atdark, carried in old Samson's arms up a beach of the sea where the sandwas yielding and seldom firm, except at the very edge of the surf, whichrolled ominously and at times became a roar, and often swept to the low,sedgy bank. Lightning played across the black sea, lifting it up, as itseemed, and showing vessels making either out or in, and finally thunderburst upon the gathering confusion, and Samson said:
"Dar's a gun in dat thunder!"
The next flash of lightning showed a vessel close to the shore, comingrapidly in on the southeaster, and her gun was fired again, and feeblehailing was heard; but the storm now broke all at once, and a wave threwSamson to the ground and nearly carried Virgie back with it to theboiling sea; but the faithful old man fought for her, and she ran at hisside, uttering no complaint, till once, as they stopped to get breath,and the heavenly fire drew into sight every foot, as it seemed, of thatvast ocean, cannonading it also with majestic artillery, the girlsighed,
"Freedom is beautiful!"
"Oh, Virgie," Samson answered, covering her with his own coat, "if Icould buy you free, pore chile, I'd a-mos' go into slavery to save youfrom dis night."
"I can die in there," Virgie said, pointing to the waves; "they must notcatch me."
A wail came out of the storm, so close before that it hushed them both,and the lightning lifted upon their eyes a stranding vessel, so close,it seemed, that they could touch it, and she was full of people,hallooing, but not in any intelligible tongue.
As the black night fell upon this magic-lantern sketch they heard acrash of wave and wood, and falling spars and awful shrieks, and, whenthe next vivid flash of lightning came, nothing was visible but floatingsubstance, and spluttering cries came out of the bosom of the sea, and ablack man, flung, as if out of a cannon, upon a wave that drenched thesewanderers, struck the ground at their feet, and looked into Samson'seyes as the convulsion of death seized his chest and feet.
Before they could speak to each other, the beach was full of similarcorpses, a moment before alive as themselves, and every one was nakedand black.
"It's a slave-ship, foundered yer," cried Samson.
He caught at a yawl-boat driving past him, in the many things thatdrifted around their feet, and Virgie saw painted upon its bow the word"_Ida_."
"Samson," she said, feeling all the influences of Princess Anne again,and forgetting her own misery, "it's Mrs. Dennis's husband come home andshipwrecked."
* * * * *
When Virgie next remembered, she was on a vast hill of sand, near alighthouse that was built upon it, and flashed its lenses sleepily upona sullen break of day, the mutual lights showing the tops of treesrising out of the sand, where a forest had been buried alive, likelittle twigs in amber.
Almost naked with fighting the storm, Samson Hat slept at her side,peaceful as hale age and virtue could enjoy the balm of oblivion inlife.
"Happy are the black," thought the sick girl, "that take no thought onthings this white blood in me makes so big: on freedom and my father.Father, do love me before I die!"
She knelt on the great sand hillock by Cape Henlopen and prayed tillshe, too, lost her knowledge of self, and was sleeping again at Samson'sside. She dreamed of innumerable angels flying all around her, and yettheir voices were so harsh they awoke her at last, and still theseseraphs were flying in the day. She saw their wings, and moved the oldman at her side to say,
"Samson, why cannot these angels sing?"
The old man looked up and faintly smiled:
"Poor Virgie, dey is wild-fowls
, all bewildered by dat storm: geese andswans. Dey can't sing like angels."
"Yes," said the girl; "something sings, I know. What is it?"
"Jesus, maybe," the negro answered, looking at her, his eyes full oftears.
* * * * *
The great Breakwater, which required forty years and nearly a milliontons of stone to build it, was then just commencing, and where it was tobe, within the shallow bight of Henlopen, they saw the wrecks of manyvessels, some sunken, some shattered in collision, some stranded in themarsh, proving the needs of commerce for such a work, and also the furyof the storm that had so innocently vanished, like a sleeping tigerafter his bloody meal.
In the gentle sunshine floated the American flag upon several vesselsthere--the flag that first kissed the breeze upon that spot in the year1776, when Esek Hopkins raised over the _Alfred_ the dyes of the peachand cream in the centre of his little squadron. And there, along the lowbluff of the Kill, still lay the shingle-boarded town of Lewes, in thetorpor of nearly two hundred years, or since the Dutch De Vries hadsettled it in 1631. Lord Delaware, Argall, and the Swede, Penn,Blackbeard, Paul Jones, Lord Rodney, a thousand heroes, had known itwell; the pilots, like sea-gulls, had their nests there; the Marylandershad invaded it, the Tories had seized it, pirates had been suckledthere; and now the courts and lawyers had forsaken it, to go inland toGeorgetown.
"Virgie," said Samson, "I'll try to buy some of de stone-boat captainsto carry you to Phildelfy."
He waded the Kill, carrying her, and left her in an old Presbyterianchurch at the skirt of Lewes, and procured medicine for her, and thenlabored in vain nearly all day to get her passage to a free state. Thereply was invariable: "Can't take the risk of the whippin'-post andpillory for no nigger. Can't lose a long job like bringin' stone to theBreakwater to save one nigger."
At the hotel a colored man beckoned Samson aside--a fine-looking man, ofa gingerbread color--and they went into the little old disusedcourt-house, in the middle of a street, where there was a fire.
"Brother," said the stranger, "I see by your actions that you're tryingto git a passage North. Is it fur yourself?"
"No," Samson said, taking an inventory of the other's fine chest andstrength, and mentally wishing to have a chance at him; "I'm a free man,and kin go anywhere; but I have a friend."
"Why, old man," spoke the other, frankly, "I'm the agent of our societyat this pint."
"What is it?" asked Samson, warily.
"The Protection Society. They educated me right yer. I went to schoolwith white boys. Now, where is your friend?"
"What kin you do fur her?" asked Samson.
"It's a gal, is it? Why, I can just put her in my buggy, made andprovided for the purpose, and drive her to the Quaker settlement."
"Where's that?"
"Camden--only thirty miles off. I've got free passes all made out. Giveyourself, brother, no more concern."
Samson looked at the handsome person long and well. The man stood thegaze modestly.
"Oh, if I had some knowledge!" spoke Samson; "I might as well be a slaveif I know nothin'. I can't read. I wish I could read your heart!"
"I wish you could," said the man; "then you would trust me."
"What is your name?"
"Samuel Ogg."
"I want you to hold up your hand and swear, Sam Ogg, that you will neverharm the pore chile I bring you. Say, 'Lord, let my body rot alive, an'no man pity me, if I don't act right by her.'"
"It's a severe oath," said the stranger, "but I see your kind interestin the lady. Indeed, I'm only doing my duty."
He repeated the words, however, and Samson added, "God deal with you,Sam Ogg, as you keep dat oath. Now come with me!"
The girl was found asleep, but delirious, her large eyes, in which theblue and brown tints met in a kind of lake color, being wide open, andalmost lost in their long lashes, while flood and fire, sun and frost,had beaten upon the slender encasement of her gentle life, that stillkept time like some Parian clock saved from a conflagration, in whosecrystal pane the golden pendulum still moves, though the hands pointastray in the mutilated face.
Her teeth were shown through the loving lips she parted in her stormydreams, like waves tossing the alabaster sails of the nautilus, or likesome ear of Indian corn exposed in the gale that blows across thetasselled field.
Her raiment, partly torn from her, showed her supple figure and neck,and, beneath her mass of silky hair, her white arm, like an ivoryserpent, sustained her head, her handsome feet being fine and high-bred,like the soul that bounded in her maiden ambition.
There had been days when such as she called Antony away from his wife,and Caesar from his classical selfishness; when on many an Eastern thronesuch beauty as this stirred to murmurous glory armies beyond compute,and clashed the cymbals of prodigious conquests. She lay upon thealtar-cushions of the church, like young Isaac upon his father's altar,and where the mourners knelt to pray for God's reconcilement, thecruelty of their law flashed over her like Abraham's superstitiousknife.
Priceless was this young creature, in noble hands, as wife or daughter,human food or fair divinity, and all the precious mysteries of womanawake in her to love and conjugality, like song and seed in the springbird; yet a hard, steely prejudice had shut her out from everyinstitution and equality, let every crime be perpetrated upon her, madethe scent of freedom in her nostrils worse than the incentive of thethief, and has outlasted her half a century, and is self-righteous andinflexible yet.
In that old churchyard that enclosed her slept revolutionary officers,who helped to gain freedom: they might be willing to rise with her, notto be buried in the same enclosure.
How small is religion, how false democracy, how far off are thejudgments of heaven! There stood over the pulpit an inscription, itselfpresumptuous with aristocracy, saying, "The dead in Christ shall risefirst;" as if those truly dead in the humility of Christ would notprefer to rise last!
Samson watched his new friend narrowly, whose countenance was profoundlypiteous, and his teeth and lip made a "Tut-tut!" Satisfied with the man,Samson knelt by Virgie and kissed her once.
"Pore rose of slavery," said Samson, "forgive me dat I courted you likea gal, instead of like an angel. I am old, and ashamed of myself. Dear,draggled flower, we may never meet agin. May the Lord, if dis is hisholy temple, save you pure and find you a home, Virgie. Good-bye!"
"Come," said the man, as Samson sat bowed and weeping, "the buggy isready; I'll wrap you warm, Miss."
"Freedom!" spoke the girl, awakening; "oh, I must find it."
* * * * *
The next that Virgie knew, she was in a cabin loft, and voices wereheard speaking in a room below.
"See me!" said one; "we sell you, dat's sho'! See me now! You make debest of it. Sam Ogg yer, we sold twenty-two times. Sam will be sold widyou and teach yo' de Murrell game."
"Politely, gentlemen," said a feminine voice; "I don't know that I havethe nerve for it. My occupation has been marrying them. It is true thatthe hue-and-cry has made that branch dull, but I had great talent forit."
"Kidnapping," said a third voice, "is running low. It surrounds thewhole slave belt from Illinois to Delaware. The laws of Illinois weremade in our interests till Governor Harrison, whose free man waskidnapped, raised an excitement out there six years ago. Newt Wright,Joe O'Neal, and Abe Thomas were the smartest kidnappers along theKentucky line. But Joe Johnson, who is getting ready to go south, willbe the last man of enterprise in the business. John A. Murrell's idea isto divide fair with black men, sell and steal them back, and I think itis sagacious. It's safer, any way, than Patty Cannon's other plan."
"What is that, Mr. Ogg?" said the feminine-voiced negro.
"Making away with the negro-traders, they say."
"See me! see me!" exclaimed the first voice. "Dey'll hang her some dayfur dat."
"Now," resumed Mr. Ogg, "a man of intelligence like you and me, Mr.Ransom--pardon, sir, does your s
hackle incommode you? I'll stuff it withsome wool--"
"Politely, Mr. Ogg; I'm ironed rather too tight."
"I say, Mr. Ransom, you and I can always play the average slaveholderfor a fool. Why, I hardly get into any family before I make love to somemember of it, and if I don't vamose with a black wench, it's with hermistress."
"Ah, Mr. Ogg, they are perfectly fiendish in resenting _that!_"
"Of course, but there's a grand tit-for-tat going through all nature.Why, sir, the pleasures of the far South, to a man of art and enterpriselike you, far exceed this poor, plain region. Take the roof off slaveryand the blacks have rather the best of it; the whites would think so ifthey could see what is going on."
"Politely, Mr. Ogg; will not the entire institution some day blow itselfout, like one of their Western steamboats?"
"No doubt of it, Mr. Ransom. When we have disposed of you, and you cansee the country for yourself, observe how sensitive slaveholding is! Athousand anxieties lie in it. They believe in insurrections, rapes, andincendiaries. A perfect sleep they hardly know, but go prowling aroundnight and day, driven by their suspicions. It makes them warlike, yetunhappy, and the slaves eat the ground poor. Besides, they have terribleenemies in the negro-traders, whom they look down on socially, andreally drive them into sympathy with the negroes. Mr. Murrell, forinstance, has a grand plan for a slave insurrection. He says whitesociety is all against him, and he'll get even with it."
"See me, see me!" hoarsely chimed in another voice. "Slavery is badscared, sho'! Joe Leonard Smith, Catholic, over on de western sho', hasjess set twelve niggers free. Governor Charley Ridgely has set twohundred and fifty free. John Randolph, dey say, is gwyn to set more danthree hundred free. Dar's fifty abolition societies in Nawf Carolina,eleven in Maryland, eight in ole Virginny, two in Delaware. Ho, ho! deyset' em free and we'll steal' em back! Ole Derrick Molleston will neverbe out of pork an' money!"
"Politely, gentlemen," said the individual with the shackle. "Have youheard of the incendiary proclamation issued in Boston by David Walker,telling all slaves that it is their religious duty to rise?"
"Yes, and rise they will, but to what end? It will be a big scare, butno war. The next thing they will stop reading among all slaves, preventemancipation by law, and watch the colored meeting-houses. The fire willbe buried under the amount of the fuel, yet all be there."[6]
"Mr. Ogg, your experience is remarkable. And you have been sold and runaway in nearly every slave state? Politely, sir, are they not kidnappingwhite men, too? Who is this Morgan that was stolen last year in theState of New York?"
"Oh, that's a renegade Free Mason, Mr. Ransom. As much fuss is made overhim as if we did not steal a hundred free people every day. It onlyshows that kidnapping of all sorts is getting to be unpopular. If a newpolitical party can be made on stealing one white Morgan, don't youthink another party will some day rise on stealing several millions ofblack Morgans?"
"See me! see me!" exclaimed the hoarse voice, suddenly.
"Escaping, are you?" cried the second voice.
"Politely, gentlemen, politely!" was heard from the third voice, somedistance off in the dark, and then chasing footsteps followed, andVirgie arose and peeped below.
A fire was burning in a clay chimney beside a table, on which were meatand liquor. The girl swung herself out of the loft to the ground-floor,and, seizing the meat and bread, rushed noiselessly into the night.
She hardly knew what she was doing until she had crossed a bridge andcome to the edge of a small town, around which she took a road to theright that led into another country road, and this she followed a mileor more, till she saw a small brick house, by a stile and pole-well, inthe edge of woods.
The light from a little dormer-window in the garret beamed so brightlythat it charmed Virgie's soul with the fascination of warmth and home,and, without thinking, she crossed the stile, bathed her hot temples atthe well, and walked into the kitchen before the fire.
"Freedom!" said Virgie, wanderingly; "have I come to it?" She fell uponthe rag carpet before the fire, saying, "Father, dear father," and didnot move.
"Well," spoke a man of large paunch and black snake's eyes, sittingthere, "it's not often people in search of freedom walk into Devil JimClark's!"
"She is white," exclaimed a woman, looking compassionately upon thestranger, "and she is dying."
"No," retorted the man, "she is too pretty to be white. This is thebright wench Sam Ogg was seen with. She belongs to Allan McLane, andthere's a reward of five hundred dollars for her, but she'll bring twothousand in New Orleans for a mistress."
"Hush!" said the woman; "you may bring a judgment upon your daughters."
"Joe Johnson is about to sail," remarked Devil Jim Clark; "he shall takeher with him."
The girl had heard _that_ name through the thick chambers of oblivion.She rose and shrieked, and rushed into the woman's arms:
"Save me, mother, save me from that man!"
The woman's heart was pierced by the cry, and she folded Virgie to herbreast and kissed her, saying:
"She shall sleep in our daughter's bed and rest her poor feet thisnight--our daughter, James, that we buried."
The man's mouth puckered a little; he looked uneasy, and drew hishandkerchief to his eyes.
"You're all agin me! you're all agin me!" he bellowed, and rushed fromthe room.
* * * * *
The wife of Devil Jim Clark was a pious Methodist, and, with herrich-eyed daughter, spent the next day at Virgie's bedside, hearing herbroken mutterings for fatherly love and Vesta's cherished remembrance.
"Your father is out for mischief," Mrs. Clark said. "Jump on yoursaddle-horse, my daughter, and ride to the Widow Brinkley's, just overthe Camden line. Tell her to send for this girl."
"Mamma, they say she's an abolitionist."
"That's what I send you for. It's a race between you and your father. Bewith me or with him!"
The girl tied on her hood, took her riding-whip, and departed.
In an hour she returned with a tidy black woman, whom Mrs. Clark tookinto Virgie's chamber.
"My heart bleeds for this poor girl," the hostess said. "They say yourson spirits negroes North. Mr. Clark says so. I do not ask you if it istrue, but, as one mother to another, I give you this girl. She is toowhite to be sold. She looks like a dead child of mine."
"Bill is not due home till sunset. If she is alive by that time, he hasjust time to drive her to Mr. Zeke Hunn's vessel at the mouth of thecreek, which lies there every trip one hour--"
"To let runaways come aboard?"
"I have never been accused of helping them, Mrs. Clark."
The trader's wife slipped a bank-bill into the colored woman's hand.
"Lend to the Lord!" she said. "I depend upon you to save us the sin ofselling this girl."
* * * * *
There came to the little black house that lurked by the woods tworiding-horses, and stopped at the stile.
"Wait here!" said the voice of Devil Jim Clark. "Will you take her ifshe is still delirious?"
"Bingavast! Why not? I'm delirious myself, Jim, fur it's mywedding-night. I'll rest her at Punch Hall."
The herculean ruffian coolly proceeded to prepare some saddle-ropes totie his victim before him on his horse. He was interrupted by a woman:
"Come and see your work, Joe Johnson!"
Following up the short cupboard stairs, the kidnapper was pointed to anobject on the bed, with peaked face and sharpened feet, as it lay whiteas lime, with eyelashes folded and the arms drawn to its sides.
"Take her to Patty Cannon now," said Mrs. Clark, "who is only fit fordead company."
"The dell dead and undocked?" the ruffian exclaimed, slightly shrinkingfrom the body; "maybe she's counterfeited the cranke. I'll search hercly. But, hark!"
A wagon and hoofs were heard.
"Joe," whispered the woman's husband, "you're only four mile from Dover.Maybe it's warrants for b
oth of us?"
"Hike, then!" hissed the pallid murderer; "the world's agin me," and heslipped away with his companion.
* * * * *
"Now, Bill Brinkley," the wife of Devil Jim whispered, as a tall,ingenuous-looking colored boy came in the room, "you are just in time.She has had laudanum enough to keep her still; my daughter powdered her;let me kiss her once before she goes."
As the woman departed, the black boy, looking around him, muttered:
"Whar is dat loft? I've hearn about it."
Some movements overhead in the low dwelling directed his attention to asmall trap-door, and, standing on a stool, he unbolted it and pushed itupwards, whispering,
"Any passengers for Philadelfy? De gangplank's bein' pulled in!"
First a woolly head, then another, and next two pairs of legs appearedabove.
"Take hold yer and carry de sick woman to de dearborn," the boy said,not a particle disturbed, as two frightened blacks dropped from theloft, with handcuffs upon them.
* * * * *
In the clear evening a wagon sped along towards the east, through thesaffron marshes, tramping down the stickweed and ironweed and thegolden rod, and, while the people in it cowered close, the negro driversang, as carelessly as if he was the lord of the country:
"De people of Tuckyhoe Dey is so lazy an' loose, Dey sows no buttons upon deir clothes, And goes widout deir use; So nature she gib dem buttons, To grow right outen deir hides, Dat dey may take life easy, And buy no buttons besides.
"But de people of Tuckyhoe Refuse to button deir warts, Unless dey's paid a salary For practisin' of sech arts; Like de militia sogers, Dat runs to buttons an' pay, De folks is truly shifless, On Tuckyhoe side of de bay."
A sail was seen in the starlight, rising out of the marshes at an oldlanding in the last elbow of Jones's Creek, and hardly had the fugitivesbeen put on board when the anchor was weighed and the packet stood outfor the broad Delaware, her captain a negro, her owner a Quaker.
The girl was awakened by the cold air of the bay striking her face.
"Freedom!" she murmured; "it must be this. Oh, I am faint for father'sarms to take me."
* * * * *
Was this Teackle Hall that Virgie looked upon--a square, bright room,and her bed beside a window, and below her stretching streets ofcobblestone and brick, and roofs of houses, to green marshes filled withcows, and a river that seemed blue as heaven, which sipped it from abovelike a boy drinking head downward in a spring? How beautiful! It must befreedom, Virgie thought, but why was she so cold? Her eyes, lookingaround the room, fell upon a lady in a cap, reading a tract to a large,shaven, square-jawed man, and this woman was of a silver kind of beauty,as if her mind had overflowed into her heart, and, not affecting it, hadmade her face of argent and lily, milk and sheen.
"What sayeth Brother Elias, Lucretia?"
"He sayeth, Thomas: 'This noble testimony, of refusing to partake of thespoils of oppression, lies with the dearly beloved young people of thisday. We can look for but little from the aged, who have been accustomedto these things, like second nature. Without justice there can be novirtue. Oh, justice, justice, how art thou abused everywhere! Men makejustice, like a nose of wax, to satisfy their desires. If the soul ispossessed of love, there is quietness.'"
"Yes," said the girl, from the bed, thinking aloud; "love is quietness.Will father come!"
She dreamed and heard and looked forth again upon the hill descending tothe river, the stately sails, the farther shore, so like her nativeregion, and asked with her eyes what land they might be in.
"Wilmington," said the beautiful woman. "This is the house of ThomasGarrett, the friend of slaves. When you can be moved, it shall be to thegreen hills of the Brandywine, where all are free."
"Hills? What are they?" mused Virgie, looking at her wasted hand. "MustI climb any more? Must I wade the swamps again? I know I have a fathersomewhere."
She dreamed and wept unconsciously, and told of many things at TeackleHall, being, indeed, a little child again, playing with her littlemistress, Vesta. The stars stood in the sky right over her pillow, andshe talked to them, and some she seemed to know, as little Vince, orlittle Roxy, or Master Willy Tilghman, all playmates of her childhood;but ever and anon these vanished, and the young Quaker woman was readingagain from the sermons of Elias Hicks, and the words were: "Love isquietness;" "Light only can qualify the soul;" "If I go not away, theComforter will not come unto you."
"What Comforter?" sighed Virgie, and there seemed a great blank, andthen she heard a scream--was it she that screamed so?--and she wastrying with all her might to get somewhere, and was fainting in thelabor, but trying again and again, and then a calmness that was likegentle awe, strange because so painless, spread into her nature, and sheonly listened.
"My daughter," said a voice, "my own child! Call me 'father,' and say Iam forgiven."
"Father! forgiven!" she murmured, and felt a warm face, that yet couldnot warm her own, shedding tears and kissing her, and close to it herarms were thrown tight, as if she never could let go, and everything wasmusic, but wonderful.
She feared she must fall if she did not hold to him. Who was it thatcalled her "daughter"? Why came those cold stars so close, as if to spyupon him?
Oh, holy purity, that held so fast and did not know, but trustednature's quivering embrace! She wrestled with something, like a rock ofice, to move her eyes and see, or ere she was dashed down forever, theeyes that gushed for her. They were her master's.
"Master," she said, "whose am I?"
"Mine before God. Pure to my heart as your white sister, Vesta! White asyoung love, in fondness and trust forever!"
"And mother?" gurgled the girl's low notes; "where is she?"
"Yonder," said the Judge, "in Heaven, that will judge me, whither shewinged in bearing thee to me!"
A happy light came over Virgie's face. She kissed her father twice, asif the second kiss was meant for her happier sister, and, raising herarms towards the sky he pointed to, whispered, "Freedom!" and died uponhis breast.