“Guess we would! Haw! haw! ho!” said the sooty gnome, laughing obsequiously. “Lord, de fun! To see him stickin’ in de mud,—chasin’ and tarin’ through de bushes, dogs a holdin’ on to him! Lord, I laughed fit to split, dat ar time we cotched Molly. I thought they’d a had her all stripped up afore I could get ’em off. She car’s de marks o’ dat ar spree yet.”
“I reckon she will, to her grave,” said Legree. “But now, Sambo, you look sharp. If the nigger’s got anything of this sort going, trip him up.”
“Mas’r, let me lone for dat,” said Sambo, “I’ll tree de coon. Ho, ho, ho!”
This was spoken as Legree was getting on his horse, to go to the neighboring town. That night, as he was returning, he thought he would turn his horse and ride round the quarters, and see if all was safe.
It was a superb moonlight night, and the shadows of the graceful China trees lay minutely pencilled on the turf below, and there was that transparent stillness in the air which it seems almost unholy to disturb. Legree was a little distance from the quarters, when he heard the voice of some one singing. It was not a usual sound there, and he paused to listen. A musical tenor voice sang,
“When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies,
I’ll bid farewell to every fear,
And wipe my weeping eyes
“Should earth against my soul engage,
And hellish darts be hurled,
Then I can smile at Satan’s rage,
And face a frowning world.
“Let cares like a wild deluge come,
And storms of sorrow fall,
May I but safely reach my home,
My God, my Heaven, my All.”[[2]]
[2] “On My Journey Home,” hymn by Isaac Watts, found in many of the southern country songbooks of the ante bellum period.
“So ho!” said Legree to himself, “he thinks so, does he? How I hate these cursed Methodist hymns! Here, you nigger,” said he, coming suddenly out upon Tom, and raising his riding-whip, “how dare you be gettin’ up this yer row, when you ought to be in bed? Shut yer old black gash, and get along in with you!”
“Yes, Mas’r,” said Tom, with ready cheerfulness, as he rose to go in.
Legree was provoked beyond measure by Tom’s evident happiness; and riding up to him, belabored him over his head and shoulders.