The sun was just sinking among the western pines, when we turned into a broad avenue, lined with stately old trees, and rode up to the doorway of the rice-planter. It was a large, square, dingy old house, seated on a gentle knoll, a short half-mile from the river, along whose banks stretched the rice-fields. We entered, and were soon welcomed by its proprietor.
He received my friend warmly, and gave me a courteous greeting, remarking, when I mentioned that I was homeward bound, that it was wise to go. 'Things are very unsettled; there's no telling what a day may bring forth; feeling is running very high, and a Northern man, whatever his principles, is not safe here. By the way,' he added, 'did you not meet with some little obstruction at Conwayboro, on your way up?'
'Yes, I did; a person there ordered me back, but when things began to look serious, Scipio, the negro whom you saw with me, got me out of the hobble.'
'Didn't he tell the gentleman that you were a particular friend of mine, and had met me by appointment at Captain B's?' he asked, smiling.
'I believe he did, sir; but I assure you, I said nothing of the kind, and I think the black should not be blamed, under the circumstances.'
'Oh! no; I don't blame him. I think he did a smart thing. He might have said you were my grandmother, if it would have served you, for that low fellow is as fractious as the devil, and dead sure on the trigger.'
'You are very good, sir,' I replied; 'how did you hear of it?'
'A day or two afterward, B passed here on his way to Georgetown. I had been riding out, and happened to be at the head of my avenue when he was going by. He stopped, and asked if I knew you. Not knowing then the circumstances, I said that I had met you casually at Bucksville, but had no particular acquaintance with you. He rode on, saying nothing further. The next morning I had occasion to go to Georgetown, and at Mr. Fraser's office accidentally heard that Scipwho is well known and universally liked therewas to have a public whipping that evening. Something prompted me to inquire into it, and I was told that he had been charged by B with shielding a well-known abolitionist at Conwayboroa man who was going through the up-country distributing such damnable publications as the New-York Independent and Tribune. I knew, of course, it referred to you, and that it wasn't true. I went to Scip and got the facts, and by stretching the truth a little, finally got him off. There was a slight discrepancy between my two accounts of you,' (and here he laughed heartily,) 'and B, when we were before the Justice, remarked on it, and came dd near calling me a liar. It was lucky he didn't, for if he had he'd gone to hl before the place was hot enough for him.'
'I can not tell you, my dear sir, how grateful I am to you for this. It would have pained me more than I can express, if Scip had suffered for doing a disinterested kindness to me.'
Early in the morning we were again on our way, and twelve o'clock found us seated at a dinner of bacon, corn-bread, and waffles, in the 'first hotel' of Georgetown. The Charleston boat was to leave at three o'clock; and, as soon as dinner was over, I sallied out to find Scip. After a half-hour's search I found him on 'Shackelford's wharf,' engaged in loading a schooner bound for New-York with a cargo of cotton and turpentine.
He was delighted to see me, and after I told him I was going home, and might never see him again, I took his hand warmly in mine, and said:
'Scip, I have heard of the disgrace that was near being put upon you on my account, and I feel deeply the disinterested service you did to me; now, I can not go away without doing something for youshowing you in some way that I appreciate and like you.'
'I likes you, massa,' he replied, the tears coming to his eyes; 'I tuk ter you de bery fuss day I seed you, 'case, I s'pose'and he wrung my hand till it ached'you pitied de pore brack man. But you karnt do nuffin fur me, massa; I doan't want nuffin; I doan't want ter leab har, 'case de Lord dat put me har arn't willin' I shud gwo. But you kin do suffin, massa, fur de pore brack man, an' dat'll be doin' it fur me, 'case my heart am all in dat. You kin tell dem folks up dar, whar you lib, massa, dat we'm not like de brutes, as dey tink we is. Dat we's got souls, an' 'telligence, an' feelin's, an' am men like demselfs. You kin tell 'em, too, massa'case you's edication, and kin talkhow de pore wite man am kep' down har; how he'm ragged, an' starvin', an' ob no account, 'case de brack man am a slave. How der chil'ren can't get no schulein', how eben de grow'd-up ones doan't know nuffinnot eben so much as de pore brack slave, 'case de 'stockracy want dar votes, an cudn't get 'em ef dey 'low'd 'em larnin'. Ef your folks know'd all de trufef dey know'd how boff de brack an' de pore w'ite man, am on de groun', an' can't git up, ob demselfsdey'd do suffindey'd break de Constertutiondey'd do suffin ter help us. I doan't want no one hurted, I doan't want no one wronged; but jess tink ob it, massa, four million ob bracks, an' nigh so many pore w'ites, wid de bressed Gospil shinin' down on 'em, an' dey not knowin' on it. All demebry one ob 'emmade in de image ob de great God, an' dey driven roun' an' 'bused wuss dan de brutes. You's seed dis, massa, wid your own eyes, an' you kin tell 'em on it; an' you will tell 'em on it, massa;' and again he took my hand while the tears rolled down his cheeks; 'an' Scip will bress you fur it, massawid his bery lass breaf he'll bress you; an' de good Lord will bress you, too, massa; he will foreber bress you, for he'm on de side ob de pore an' de 'flicted; his own book say dat, an' it am true, I knows it, fur I feels it har;' and he laid his hand on his heart, and was silent.
I could not speak for a moment. When I mastered my feelings, I said: 'I will do it Scip; as God gives me strength, I will.'
Reader, I am keeping my word.
This is not a work of fiction. It is a record of facts, and therefore the reader will not expect me to dispose of its various characters on artistic principlesthat is, lay them away in one of those final receptacles for the creations of the romancerthe grave and matrimony. Death has been among them, but nearly all are yet doing their work in this breathing, busy world.
The characters I have introduced are real. They are not drawn with the pencil of fancy, nor, I trust, colored with the tints of prejudice. The scenes I have described are true. I have taken some liberties with the names of persons and places, and, in a few instances, altered dates; but the events themselves occurred under my own observation. No one acquainted with the section of country I have described, or familiar with the characters I have delineated, will question this statement. Lest some one who has not seen the slave and the poor white man of the South, as he actually is, should deem my picture overdrawn, I will say that 'the half has not been told!' If the whole were relatedif the Southern system, in all its naked ugliness, were fully exposedthe truth would read like fiction, and the baldest relation of fact like the wildest dream of romance.
The overseer was never taken. A letter which I received from Colonel J, shortly prior to the stoppage of the mails, informed me that Moye had succeeded in crossing the mountains into Tennessee, where, in an interior town, he disposed of the horse, and then made his way by an inland route to the free States. The horse the Colonel had recovered, but the overseer he never expected to see. Moye is now, no doubt, somewhere in the North, and is probably at this present writing a zealous Union man, of somewhat the same 'stripe' as the conductors of the New-York Herald and the Boston Courier.