But there was no friend or helper in that terrible hour, and poor Tidy, weeping and almost heart-broken, was carried back to Baltimore, and thrown into the SLAVE-JAIL.
CHAPTER XIII. A LONG JOURNEY.
IF I pronounce this disastrous event in Tidy's life another link in the chain of loving-kindness by which God was leading her to himself, perhaps you will wonder. But, my dear children, adversities are designed for this very purpose, and are all directed in infinite love and wisdom for our good. Tidy had prayed that she might be free, and the Lord heard, and meant to answer her prayer. He meant not only to give her the liberty she sought, but, more than that, to make her soul free in Christ Jesus; but there were some things she needed to learn first. She was not prepared yet to use her personal liberty rightly, nor did she at all appreciate or desire that other and better freedom. Therefore the Lord disappointed her at this time, and turned the course of her life, as it were, upside down, that by painful experiences and narrow straits she might learn what an all-sufficient Friend he could be to her; that she might learn too the sinfulness of her own heart, and his free grace and mercy for her pardon and salvation.
God "leads the blind in the way they know not." Tidy knew nothing of the method by which he was guiding her, and when she found her hopes crushed, and herself crouching, forlorn and friendless, weary and half-famished, in a prison, she gave up all for lost. She felt indeed cast off and forsaken. For hours she sat and cried despairingly, the pretty dress crumpled and stained with tears, and the hat which had been so much admired trampled under foot. Shame, grief, and fear of what was to come drove her almost to distraction.
At the end of three days, Mr. Lee, acting as her master, who had been apprised of her arrest, arrived at the prison. But what a wretched object had he come to see! He could scarcely believe that the miserable, dejected being before him was the once bright, beautiful Tidy,—such a change had her disappointment and sorrow wrought. He really pitied her, if a slaveholder ever can pity a slave, and yet he reproached her severely. He told her she was a fool to run away; that niggers never knew when they were well off; that if she had had a thimble-full of sense she might have known she couldn't make her escape. He said they had just been offered a thousand dollars for her,—which was then considered an enormous price,—by a gentleman in Virginia, and they had been on the point of selling her.
"I's Miss Matilda's," fiercely cried the poor girl at this, "and SHE wouldn't a sold me; she said she never would."
"Yes, she would, Miss," replied Mr. Lee; "we don't let her throw away such a valuable piece of property for nothing, I can tell you. A thousand dollars in the bank isn't a small thing. It wouldn't find feet to walk off with very soon, that we know."
"Miss Matilda TOLD me to take my liberty," said Tidy, disconsolately.
"Miss Matilda is a fool, like you. But we shall look out she don't cheat herself in such a fashion. Now you can have your choice, little one; you can go home with me, and take a good flogging for an example to the rest, and stay with us till another buyer comes up,—for Mr. Nicholson won't take such an uncertain piece of goods as you have showed yourself to be,—or you can go South. There's a trader here ready to take you right off. I'll give you till tomorrow morning to make up your mind."