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Show 200 U~CJ.g 'l'Oi\eS Ct\ HlN: 0 It, ----- Give up ! and, had not human weakness and plty:;ical agony whispered that, before 1 ~rom started; for the bitter woman, with her wild eyes and melancholy voice, seemed to him an embodiment of the temptation with which he had been wrestling. " 0 Lord ! 0 Lord! " he groaned, "how can I give up1" "'l,hcrc 's no usc calling on the Lord,- he never hears," &lid the woman, steadily; " there isn't nny God, I believe; or, if there is, he's taken sides against us. All goes against us, heaven and earth. Everything is pushing us into hell. Why sl10uld n't we go?" 'l'orn closed his eyes, and shuddered at the dark, atheistic words. "You sec," said the woman, "you don't know n.nything about it;- I do. I've been on this place five years, body and soul, under this man's foot; and I hate him os I do the devil ! Here you are, on a lone plantation, ten miles from any other, in the swamps; not a. white person here, who could testify, if you were burned ali\·e,- if you were scalded, cut into inch-pieces, set up for the dogs to tear, or hung up and whipped to death. ~1 hcrc 's no law here, of God or man, tlmt can do you, or any one of us, the least good; and, this man! there 's no earthly thing that he 's too good to do. I could make any one's hair rise, and their teeth chatter, if I should only tell what I ' vc seen and been knowing to, here,- and it 's no use resisting! Did I 'Want to live with him? "\Vas n't I a woman delicately bred; and he- God in heaven ! what was he, and is he? And yet, I 've lived with him, these five years, n.nd cursed every moment of rny life,- night and day! Aml now, he's got a new one,- a. young thing, only fifteen , and she brought up, she says, piously. 1Ie1· good LIFE AMONG Tim LOWLY. 201 mistress taught her to read the Bible; and she's brougl1t her Bible here- to hell with her ! " -and the woman laughed a wild and doleful laugh, that rung, with a strange, supenmtural sound, through the old ruined shed. ~l'om folded his hands; all was darkness and horror. "0 J esus! Lord Jesus! hn,vc you quite forgot us poor critturs? ' ' burst forth, at last;-'' help, Lord, I perish!'' Tho woman sternly continued: "And what arc these miserable low dogs you work with, tlmt you should suffer on their account? Every one of them would turn against you, the first time they got a. clmnce. ~rhcy arc all of 'em as low and cruel to each other ns they can be; there 's no usc in your suffering to keep from hurting them." " Poor critturs!" said 'Tom,-" what made 'em crucl?and, if I gi1·e out, I shall get used to't, and grow, little by little, just like 'em! No, no, 1\fissis! I 'vc lost everything,- wife, anll children, and home, and a kind 1\fas'r,- and he would have set me free, if he 'd only lived a. week longer; I 'vc lost everything in this world, and it 's clean gone, forever,- and now I can't lose Heaven, too; no, I can't get to be wicked, besides all ! '' . 'lllut it can't be that the Lord ·will by sin to our account," satd tho ·woman; ' ' he won't charge it to us, when we 'rc forced to it; he '11 charge it to them that drove us to it." . "Y cs," said 'l'om; "but that won' t keep us from growing w1ckcd. If I get to be as hard-hearted as that ar' Sambo, nnd as wicked, it won't ma.kc much odds to me how I como so; it's the bein' so,-that ar 's what I'm a. drea.din'." 'l1hc woman fixed a wild and stn,rtled look on Tom as if a new thought had struck her; and then, heavily gr;aning, said, |
