“Here, stop a minute till I get the pitchfork; I’ll soon turn him out.”
“No, no,” I cried; “they’re to be treated gently.”
“And as if they were human beings,” said my father’s stern voice, for he had come silently behind us. “Have the goodness to remember that, Morgan. If I am to be a slave-owner, my people shall meet with consideration, and not be treated as if they were the beasts of the field. Do you understand?”
“Oh yes, sir, I understand,” said Morgan, good-humouredly; “you can count on me doing what’s right by them. They can’t help the colour of their skins.”
“I am satisfied,” said my father, quietly, and he left us staring in that heavy, sombre face before us—a face full of despair, but one to which we could not address words of sympathy.
The change that took place in the man day by day was wonderful, as far as health was concerned. In three days he was walking slowly about; in a week he was ready to take the tool in hand which Morgan gave him, and he went on clumsily with the work he was set to do, but displaying strength that was the admiration of us all. But he was moody, shrinking, and suspicious, and the boy was precisely the same. For it always seemed to me that the boy was constantly on the look-out to avoid a blow or some ill-usage on my part, and his companion to be expecting it from my father. The treatment they had been receiving for months had utterly cowed them, but when they began to realise that they had fallen among friends, the change was rapid indeed.
Of course they could not understand us, and when they spoke, which was very seldom, their language was utterly beyond our comprehension; but we got on pretty well by signs, after a few weeks when the change came.
It was one glorious afternoon, when, after worrying Morgan into getting me some bait, I prepared my rough lines for fishing, and while I was disentangling the hooks which had been thrown carelessly together, the boy who was passing nodded and looked on.
“Going fishing,” I said. “Come with me?”
He looked at me without comprehension, and when I took hold of him by the arm, he shrank away.