ae OLE OLS Te

 

NEGRO LIFE IN AMERICA. 323

CHAPTER XXXVII.

LIBERTY.

“No matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar
of slavery, the moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the
god sink together in the dust, and he stands redeemed, regenerated and dis-
enthralled, by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation.” —CUBBAN,

A wHILE we must leave Tom in the hands of his persecutors, +
while we turn to pursue the fortunes of George and his wife, —
whom we left in friendly hands in a farm-house on the roadside.

Tom Loker we left groaning and touzling in a most immacu-
lately clean Quaker bed, under the motherly supervision of Aunt
Dorcas, who found him to the full as tractable a patient as a sick
bison.

Imagine a tall, dignified, spiritual woman, whose clear, muslin
cap shades waves of silvery hair, parted on a broad, clear forehead,
which overarches thoughtful grey eyes; a snowy handkerchief of
lisse crape is folded neatly across her bosom ; her glossy brown
silk dress rustles peacefully as she glides up and down the
chamber.

“The devil!” says Tom Loker, giving a great throw to the
bed-clothes.

“<I must request thee, Thomas, not to use such language,” said
Aunt Dorcas, as she quietly re-arranged the bed.

“ Well, I won't, granny, if I can help it,” says Tom; ‘but it
is enough to make a fellow swear, so cursedly hot !”

Dorcas removed a comforter from the’ bed, straightened the
clothes again, and tucked them in till Tom looked something like
a chrysalis, remarking, as she did so—

‘‘T wish, friend, thee would leave off cursing and swearing, and
think upon thy ways.”

‘What the devil,” said Tom, ‘should I think of them for?
Last thing ever I want to think of—hang it all!” And Tom
flounced over, untucking and disarranging everything in a manner
frightful to behold. wen

«That fellow and gal are here, I s'pose®’ said he sullenly,
after a pause.

«They are so,” said Dorcas.

“They'd better be off up the lake,” said Tom; “ the quicker
the better.”

“ Probably they will do so,” said Aunt Dorcas, knitting peace-
fully.

o And hark ye,” said Tom; “we've got correspondents in