On learning, in the morning, that Clotelle was in jail dressed in male attire, Miss Wilson immediately sent clothes to her to make a change in her attire. News of the heroic and daring act of the slave-girl spread through the city with electric speed.
“I will sell every nigger on the place,” said the parson, at the breakfast-table,—“I will sell them all, and get a new lot, and whip them every day.”
Poor Georgiana wept for the safety of Clotelle, while she felt glad that Jerome had escaped. In vain did they try to extort from the girl the whereabouts of the man whose escape she had effected. She was not aware that he had fled on a steamer, and when questioned, she replied,—
“I don't know; and if I did I would not tell you. I care not what you do with me, if Jerome but escapes.”
The smile with which she uttered these words finely illustrated the poet's meaning, when he says,—
“A fearful gift upon they heart is laid,
Woman—the power to suffer and to love.”
Her sweet simplicity seemed to dare them to lay their rough hands amid her trembling curls.
Three days did the heroic young woman remain in prison, to be gazed at by an unfeeling crowd, drawn there out of curiosity. The intelligence came to her at last that the court had decided to spare her life, on condition that she should be whipped, sold, and sent out of the State within twenty-four hours.
This order of the court she would have cared but little for, had she not been sincerely attached to her young mistress.
“Do try and sell her to some one who will use her well,” said Georgiana to her father, as he was about taking his hat to leave the house.