One of the men who
was holding her turned away his face, and for this humanity he was
reviled and flogged.
All our pilgrims looked on and commented--on the expert way in
which the whip was handled. They were too much hardened by lifelong
everyday familiarity with slavery to notice that there was anything
else in the exhibition that invited comment. This was what slavery
could do, in the way of ossifying what one may call the superior
lobe of human feeling; for these pilgrims were kind-hearted people,
and they would not have allowed that man to treat a horse like that.
I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves free, but that
would not do. I must not interfere too much and get myself a name
for riding over the country's laws and the citizen's rights
roughshod. If I lived and prospered I would be the death of
slavery, that I was resolved upon; but I would try to fix it so
that when I became its executioner it should be by command of
the nation.
Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; and now arrived a landed
proprietor who had bought this girl a few miles back, deliverable
here where her irons could be taken off. They were removed; then
there was a squabble between the gentleman and the dealer as to
which should pay the blacksmith. The moment the girl was delivered
from her irons, she flung herself, all tears and frantic sobbings,
into the arms of the slave who had turned away his face when she
was whipped.
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