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Show 180 UXCLE TOM'S CADIN : OR, a manner common at the South; o. wide verandah of two ~tm·ics running round every part of tl1c house, into which every outer door opened, the lower tier being supported by brick pillars. But the place looked desolate and nncomforta1lc; some windows stopped up with boards, some with shattered panes, and shutters hanging by a. single hinge,- all telling of coarse neglect and discomfort. . Bits of board, straw, old decayed barrels and boxes, garnished the ground in all directions; and three or four ferocious- looking dogs, roused by the sound of the wagon-wheels, came tc::tring out, and wore with difficulty restrained from hying hold of Tom and his companions, by the cflort of the rugged servants who came after them. ''Yo sec what yo 'd get!'' said Legree, caressing the dogs with grim satisfaction, and turning to Tom and his companions. n Ye sec what yo 'd get, if yo try to run off. These ycr dogs has been raised to track niggcrs; and they'd jest as soon chaw one on yo up as cat their supper. So, mind yerself! !low now, Samba!" he said, to a. ragged fellow, without any brim t~ his ha.t, w~10 w~: officious in his attentions. "How hove thmgs been gomg? !' Fust rate, ))fas'r." "Quimbo," said Legree to another, who was making zealous demonstrations to attract his attention, "yo minded what I tolled yc?" "Guess I did, didn't I?" ~eltesc two colored men were the two principal hands on the pl<tnt'ltion. Legree had trained them in sarageness and brutality as systematically as he had his bull-dogs; nnd, by long practice in ha.rdncss and cruelty, brought their whole nature to about the same range of capacities. It is a com- LIFE AMOXG TilE LOWLY. 181 mon remark, and one that is thought to militate strongly against the character of the race, that the negro overseer is always more tyrannical and cruel tlmn the white one. TLis is simply sa.ying that the negro mind has been more crushed and debased than the white. It is no more true of tl1iS race than of every oppressed race, the woriU over. The slave is always a tyrant, if he can get a clJancc to be one. Legree, like some potentates we read of in history, governed his plantation by a. sort of resolution of forces. Samba and Quimbo cordially hated each other; the plantation hands, ono and all, cordially bated them; and, by playing of!' one against another, he was pretty sure, through one or the other of the three parties, to get informed of whatever was on foot in tho place. Nobody can live entirely without social intercourse; and Legree encouraged his two black satellites to a kind of coarse familiarity with him,- a. familiarity, however, at any moment liable to get one or the other of them into trouble; for, on the slightest provocation, one of them always stood ready, at a nod, to be a. minister of his vengeance on the other. As they stood there now by Legree, they seemed an apt illustration of the fitCt that brutal men are lower even than anima.ls. Their coarse, dark, heavy features; their great eyes, rolling enviously on each other; their barbarous, guttural, ha.lf-bruto intonation; their dilapidutcd garments fluttering in the wind,-wcrc all in admirable keeping with the vile and unwholesome character of everything about the place. "IIerc, you Samba," Mid Legree, "take these ycr boys down to the quarters; and here's a. gal I've got for you," said he, as he separated the mulatto woman from Emmeline, and pushed her towards him ; -"I promised to bring you one, you know.:: VOL. IJ. 16 |