第14章

"WELL, you are an extraordinary boy, Vincent," Mrs.Wingfield said as her son told her the story, while his sisters burst into fits of laughter at the idea of Vincent owning a female slave with a baby.

"Why did you not tell me that you wanted the money instead of going to Mr.Renfrew? I shall tell him I am very angry with him for letting you have it for such a purpose.""I was not sure whether you would let me have it, mother; and if you had refused, and I had got it afterward from Mr.Renfrew, Ishould not have liked to bring her home here.""That would have been fun," Annie said."Fancy Vincent's troubles with a female slave on his hands and nowhere to put her.

What would you have done, Vincent?"

"I suppose I could have got a home for her somewhere," Vincent said quietly."I don't think there would have been any difficulty about that.Still I am glad I didn't have to do so, and one slave more or less can make no difference here.""Not at all," Mrs.Wingfleld said; "I dare say Chloe will find something for her to do in the way of washing, and such other light work that she is fit for about the house.It is not that, but it is years since a slave was brought into the Orangery; never since I can remember.We raise more than we want ourselves; and when I see all those children about, I wonder sometimes what on earth we are to find for them all to do.Still, it was a scandalous thing of that man Jackson selling the girl to punish her husband; and as you say it was your foolish interference in the matter that brought it about, so I do not know that I can blame you for doing what you can to set the matter straight.Still, except that the knowledge that she is here and will be well treated will be a comfort to the man, I do not see that he will be much the better off, unless indeed the Jacksons should try to sell him also, in which case I suppose you would want to buy him.""I am afraid they won't' do that, mother.Still, some-how or other, in time they may come together again.

"I don't see how they can, Vincent.However we need not think of that now.At any rate I hope there will he no further opportunity for your mixing yourself up in this business.You have made two bitter enemies now, and although I do not see that such people as these can do you any harm, it is always well not to make enemies, especially in times like these when no one can foresee exactly what may occur."And so Dinah Moore became an inmate of the Orangery; and though the girls had laughed at their brother, they were very kind to her when she arrived with Dan, and made much of her and of her baby.The same night Dan went over to the Cedars, and managed to have an inter view with Tony, and to tell him that his wife had been bought by Vincent.The joy of the negro was extreme.The previous message had raised his hopes that Vincent would succeed in getting her bought by some one who would be kind to her, hut he knew well that she might nevertheless fall to the lot of some higher bidder and be taken hundreds of miles away, and that he might never again get news of her whereabouts.He had then suffered terrible anxiety all day, and the relief of learning that Vincent himself had bought her, and that she was now installed as a house servant at the Orangery, but a few miles away, was quite overpowering, and for some minutes he could only gasp out his joy and thankfulness.He could hope now that when better times came he might be able to steal away some night and meet her, and that some day er other, though how he could not see, they might be reunited.The Jacksons remained in ignorance that their former slave was located so near to them.

It was for this reason that Mr.Renfrew had instructed his agent to buy her in his own name instead of that of Vincent; and the Jacksons, having no idea of the transfer that had subsequently taken place, took no further interest in the matter, believing that they had achieved their object of torturing Tony, and avenging upon him the humiliation that Andrew had suffered at Vincent's hands.Had they questioned their slaves, and had these answered them truly, they would have discovered the facts.For although Tony himself said no word to any one of what he had learned from Dan, the fact that Dinah was at the Orangery was speedily known among the slaves; for the doings at one plantation were soon conveyed to the negroes on the others by the occasional visits which they paid at night to each other's quarters, or to some common rendezvous far removed from interruption.

Occasionally Tony and Dinah met.Dan would come up late in the evening to the house, and a nod to Dinah would be sufficient to send her flying down the garden to a clump of shrubs, where he would be waiting for her.At these stolen meetings they were perfectly happy; for Tony said no word to her of the misery of his life-how he was always put to the hardest work and beaten on the smallest pretext, how in fact his life was made so unendurable that the idea of running away and taking to the swamps was constantly present to him.

As to making his way north, it did not enter his mind as possible.

Slates did indeed at times succeed in traveling through the Northern States and making their way to Canada, but this was only possible by means of the organization known as the underground railway, an association consisting of a number of good people who devoted them-selves to the purpose, giving shelter to fugitive slaves during the day, and then passing them on to the next refuge during the night.For in the Northern States as well as the Southern any negro unprovided with papers showing that be was a free man was liable to be arrested and sent back to the South a prisoner, large rewards being given to these who arrested them.