Part 7 (1/2)

CHAPTER XIII. A HARD-HEARTED WOMAN

WITH no one but her dear little Clotelle, Isabella pa.s.sed her weary hours without partaking of either food or drink, hoping that Henry would soon return, and that the strange meeting with the old woman would be cleared up.

While seated in her neat little bedroom with her fevered face buried in her handkerchief, the child ran in and told its mother that a carriage had stopped in front of the house. With a palpitating heart she arose from her seat and went to the door, hoping that it was Henry; but, to her great consternation, the old lady who had paid her such an unceremonious visit on the evening that she had last seen Henry, stepped out of the carriage, accompanied by the slave-trader, Jennings.

Isabella had seen the trader when he purchased her mother and sister, and immediately recognized him. What could these persons want there?

thought she. Without any parleying or word of explanation, the two entered the house, leaving the carriage in charge of a servant.

Clotelle ran to her mother, and clung to her dress as if frightened by the strangers.

”She's a fine-looking wench,” said the speculator, as he seated himself, unasked, in the rocking-chair; ”yet I don't think she is worth the money you ask for her.”

”What do you want here?” inquired Isabella, with a quivering voice.

”None of your insolence to me,” bawled out the old woman, at the top of her voice; ”if you do, I will give you what you deserve so much, my lady,--a good whipping.”

In an agony of grief, pale, trembling, and ready to sink to the floor, Isabella was only sustained by the hope that she would be able to save her child. At last, regaining her self-possession, she ordered them both to leave the house. Feeling herself insulted, the old woman seized the tongs that stood by the fire-place, and raised them to strike the quadroon down; but the slave-trader immediately jumped between the women, exclaiming,--

”I won't buy her, Mrs. Miller, if you injure her.”

Poor little Clotelle screamed as she saw the strange woman raise the tongs at her mother. With the exception of old Aunt Nancy, a free colored woman, whom Isabella sometimes employed to work for her, the child had never before seen a strange face in her mother's dwelling.

Fearing that Isabella would offer some resistance, Mrs. Miller had ordered the overseer of her own farm to follow her; and, just as Jennings had stepped between the two women, Mull, the negro-driver, walked into the room.

”Seize that impudent hussy,” said Mrs. Miller to the overseer, ”and tie her up this minute, that I may teach her a lesson she won't forget in a hurry.”

As she spoke, the old woman's eyes rolled, her lips quivered, and she looked like a very fury.

”I will have nothing to do with her, if you whip her, Mrs. Miller,” said the slave-trader. ”n.i.g.g.e.rs ain't worth half so much in the market with their backs newly scarred,” continued he, as the overseer commenced his preparations for executing Mrs. Miller's orders.

Clotelle here took her father's walking-stick, which was lying on the back of the sofa where he had left it, and, raising it, said,--

”If you bad people touch my mother, I will strike you.”

They looked at the child with astonishment; and her extreme you, wonderful beauty, and uncommon courage, seemed for a moment to shake their purpose. The manner and language of this child were alike beyond her years, and under other circ.u.mstances would have gained for her the approbation of those present.

”Oh, Henry, Henry!” exclaimed Isabella, wringing her hands.

”You need not call on him, hussy; you will never see him again,” said Mrs. Miller.

”What! is he dead?” inquired the heart-stricken woman.

It was then that she forgot her own situation, thinking only of the man she loved. Never having been called to endure any kind of abusive treatment, Isabella was not fitted to sustain herself against the brutality of Mrs. Miller, much less the combined ferociousness of the old woman and the overseer too. Suffice it to say, that instead of whipping Isabella, Mrs. Miller transferred her to the negro-speculator, who took her immediately to his slave-pen. The unfeeling old woman would not permit Isabella to take more than a single change of her clothing, remarking to Jennings,--

”I sold you the wench, you know,--not her clothes.”

The injured, friendless, and unprotected Isabella fainted as she saw her child struggling to release herself from the arms of old Mrs. Miller, and as the wretch boxed the poor child's ears.

After leaving directions as to how Isabella's furniture and other effects should be disposed of, Mrs. Miller took Clotelle into her carriage and drove home. There was not even color enough about the child to make it appear that a single drop of African blood flowed through its blue veins.

Considerable sensation was created in the kitchen among the servants when the carriage drove up, and Clotelle entered the house.