Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in this mood before; and her gentle system of ethics seemed to bend like a reed in the surges of such passions.
"You know poor little Carlo, that you gave me," added George;
"the creature has been about all the comfort that I've had.
He has slept with me nights, and followed me around days, and kind o' looked at me as if he understood how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding him with a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen door, and Mas'r came along, and said I was feeding him up at his expense, and that he couldn't afford to have every nigger keeping his dog, and ordered me to tie a stone to his neck and throw him in the pond."
"O, George, you didn't do it!"
"Do it? not I!--but he did. Mas'r and Tom pelted the poor drowning creature with stones. Poor thing! he looked at me so mournful, as if he wondered why I didn't save him. I had to take a flogging because I wouldn't do it myself. I don't care. Mas'r will find out that I'm one that whipping won't tame. My day will come yet, if he don't look out."
"What are you going to do? O, George, don't do anything wicked; if you only trust in God, and try to do right, he'll deliver you."
"I an't a Christian like you, Eliza; my heart's full of bitterness; I can't trust in God. Why does he let things be so?"
"O, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go wrong to us, we must believe that God is doing the very best."
"That's easy to say for people that are sitting on their sofas and riding in their carriages; but let 'em be where I am, I guess it would come some harder. I wish I could be good; but my heart burns, and can't be reconciled, anyhow. You couldn't in my place,--you can't now, if I tell you all I've got to say. You don't know the whole yet."
"What can be coming now?"
"Well, lately Mas'r has been saying that he was a fool to let me marry off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they are proud, and hold their heads up above him, and that I've got proud notions from you; and he says he won't let me come here any more, and that I shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he only scolded and grumbled these things; but yesterday he told me that I should take Mina for a wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he would sell me down river."
"Why--but you were married to _me_, by the minister, as much as if you'd been a white man!" said Eliza, simply.
"Don't you know a slave can't be married? There is no law in this country for that; I can't hold you for my wife, if he chooses to part us. That's why I wish I'd never seen you,--why I wish I'd never been born; it would have been better for us both,--it would have been better for this poor child if he had never been born.
All this may happen to him yet!"
"O, but master is so kind!"
"Yes, but who knows?--he may die--and then he may be sold to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome, and smart, and bright? I tell you, Eliza, that a sword will pierce through your soul for every good and pleasant thing your child is or has; it will make him worth too much for you to keep."
The words smote heavily on Eliza's heart; the vision of the trader came before her eyes, and, as if some one had struck her a deadly blow, she turned pale and gasped for breath. She looked nervously out on the verandah, where the boy, tired of the grave conversation, had retired, and where he was riding triumphantly up and down on Mr. Shelby's walking-stick. She would have spoken to tell her husband her fears, but checked herself.
"No, no,--he has enough to bear, poor fellow!" she thought.
"No, I won't tell him; besides, it an't true; Missis never deceives us."
"So, Eliza, my girl," said the husband, mournfully, "bear up, now; and good-by, for I'm going."
"Going, George! Going where?"
"To Canada," said he, straightening himself up; and when I'm there, I'll buy you; that's all the hope that's left us. You have a kind master, that won't refuse to sell you. I'll buy you and the boy;--God helping me, I will!"
"O, dreadful! if you should be taken?"
"I won't be taken, Eliza; I'll _die_ first! I'll be free, or I'll die!"
"You won't kill yourself!"
"No need of that. They will kill me, fast enough; they never will get me down the river alive!"
"O, George, for my sake, do be careful! Don't do anything wicked; don't lay hands on yourself, or anybody else! You are tempted too much--too much; but don't--go you must--but go carefully, prudently; pray God to help you."
"Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mas'r took it into his head to send me right by here, with a note to Mr. Symmes, that lives a mile past. I believe he expected I should come here to tell you what I have. It would please him, if he thought it would aggravate `Shelby's folks,' as he calls 'em. I'm going home quite resigned, you understand, as if all was over. I've got some preparations made,--and there are those that will help me; and, in the course of a week or so, I shall be among the missing, some day.
Pray for me, Eliza; perhaps the good Lord will hear _you_."
"O, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in him; then you won't do anything wicked."
"Well, now, _good-by_," said George, holding Eliza's hands, and gazing into her eyes, without moving. They stood silent; then there were last words, and sobs, and bitter weeping,--such parting as those may make whose hope to meet again is as the spider's web,--and the husband and wife were parted.