The certificate he gave me allowed me to pass and repass between Kentucky and Maryland as servant of Amos Riley. Furnished with this, and with a letter of recommendation from my Methodist friend to a brother preacher in Cincinnati, I started about the middle of September, 1828, for the east.
A new era in my history now opened upon me. A letter I carried with me to a kind-hearted man in Cincinnati procured me a number of invaluable friends, who entered heart and soul into my plans. They procured me an opportunity to preach in two or three of the pulpits of the city, and I made my appeal with that eloquence which spontaneously breaks forth from a breast all alive and fanned into a glow by an inspiring project. Contact with those who were free themselves, and a proud sense of exultation in taking my destiny into my own hands, gave me the sacred "gift of tongues." I was pleading an issue of life and death, of heaven and hell, and such as heard me felt this in their hearts. In three or four days I left the city with no less a sum than one hundred and sixty dollars in my pockets, and with a soul jubilant with thanksgiving, and high in hope, directed my steps towards Chillicothe, to attend the session of the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. My kind friend accompanied me, and by his influence and exertions still further success attended me.
By his advice I then purchased a decent suit of clothes and an excellent horse, and travelled from town to town preaching as I went. Everywhere I met with kindness. The contrast between the respect with which I was treated and the ordinary abuse, or at best insolent familiarity, of plantation life, gratified me in the extreme, as it must any one who has within him one spark of personal dignity as a man. The sweet enjoyment of sympathy, moreover, and the hearty "God speed you, brother!" which accompanied every dollar I received, were to my long starved heart a celestial repast, and angels' food. Liberty was a glorious hope in my mind; not as an escape from toil, for I rejoiced in toil when my heart was in it, but as the avenue to a sense of self-respect, to ennobling occupation, and to association with superior minds. Still, dear as was the thought of liberty, I still clung to my determination to gain it in one way only—by purchase. The cup of my affliction was not yet full enough to lead me to disregard all terms with my master.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
RETURN TO MARYLAND.
RECEPTION FROM MY OLD MASTER.—A SLAVE AGAIN.—APPEAL TO AN OLD FRIEND.—BUY MY FREEDOM.—CHEATED AND BETRAYED.—BACK TO KENTUCKY, AND A SLAVE AGAIN.
Before I left Ohio and set my face towards Montgomery County, I was master of two hundred and seventy-five dollars, besides my horse and clothes. Proud of my success, I enjoyed the thought of showing myself once more in the place where I had been known simply as "Riley's head nigger;" and it was with no little satisfaction that about Christmas I rode up to the old house.
My master gave me a boisterous reception, and expressed great delight at seeing me. "Why, what in the devil have you been doing, Sie? you've turned into a regular black gentleman." My horse and dress sorely puzzled him, and I soon saw it began to irritate him. The clothes I wore were certainly better than his. And already the workings of that tyrannical hate with which the coarse and brutal, who have no inherent superiority, ever regard the least sign of equality in their dependents, were visible in his manner. His face seemed to say, "I'll take the gentleman out of you pretty soon." I gave him such an account of my preaching as, while it was consistent with the truth, and explained my appearance, did not betray to him my principal purpose. He soon asked to see my pass, and when he found it authorized me to return to Kentucky, handed it to his wife, and desired her to put it into his desk. The manœuvre was cool and startling. I heard the old prison gate clang, and the bolt shoot into the socket once more. But I said nothing, and resolved to manœuvre also.
After putting my horse in the stable I retired to the kitchen, where my master told me I was to sleep for the night. O, how different from my accommodations in the free States, for the last three months, was the crowded room, with its dirt floor, and filth, and stench! I looked around me with a sensation of disgust. The negroes present were strangers to me, being slaves that Mrs. Riley had brought to her husband. "Fool that I was to come back!" I found my mother had died during my absence, and every tie which had ever connected me with the place was broken. The idea of lying down with my nice clothes in this nasty sty was insufferable. Full of gloomy reflections at my loneliness, and the poverty-stricken aspect of the whole farm, I sat down; and while my companions were snoring in unconsciousness, I kept awake, thinking how I should escape from the accursed spot. I knew of but one friend to whom I could appeal—"Master Frank," the brother of Riley's wife, before mentioned, who was now of age, and had established himself in business in Washington. I knew he would take an interest in me, for I had done much to lighten his sorrows when he was an abused and harshly-treated boy in the house. To him I resolved to go, and as soon as I thought it time to start, I saddled my horse and rode up to the house. It was early in the morning, and my master had already gone to the tavern on his usual business, when Mrs. Riley came out to look at my horse and equipments. "Where are you going, 'Siah?" was the natural question. I replied, "I am going to Washington, mistress, to see Mr. Frank, and I must take my pass with me, if you please." "O, everybody knows you here; you won't need your pass." "But I can't go to Washington without it. I may be met by some surly stranger, who will stop me and plague me, if he can't do anything worse." "Well, I'll get it for you," she answered; and glad was I to see her return with it in her hand, and to have her give it to me, while she little imagined its importance to my plan.