HAVE NOT MANY OF US, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live?

  The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic. There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest.

  But to live—to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered—this long and wasting martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour—this is the true searching test of what there may be in a man or woman.

  When Tom stood before his persecutor, face to face, and heard his threats and thought in his very soul that his hour had come, his heart swelled bravely in him, and he thought he could bear torture, and fire, bear anything with the vision of Jesus and heaven, but just a step beyond; but, when he was gone, and the present excitement passed off, back came the pain of his bruised and weary limbs—back came the sense of his utterly degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate; and the day passed wearily enough.

  Long before his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that he should be put to the regular field work, and then came day after day of pain and weariness, aggravated by every kind of injustice and indignity. One evening, he was sitting, in utter dejection and prostration, by a few decaying brands, where his coarse supper was baking. He put a few bits of brushwood on the fire, and strove to raise the light, and then drew his worn Bible from his pocket. There were all the marked passages, which had thrilled his soul so often—words of patriarchs and seers, poets and sages, who from early time had spoken courage to man—voices from the great cloud of witnesses who ever surround us in the race of life. Had the word lost its power, or could the failing eye and weary sense no longer answer to the touch of that mighty inspiration? Heavily sighing, he put the Bible in his pocket. A coarse laugh roused him; he looked up—Legree was standing opposite him.

  "Well, old boy," he said, "you find your religion don't work, it seems! I thought I should get that through your wool, at last."

  The cruel taunt was more than hunger and cold and nakedness. Tom was silent.

  "You are a fool," said Legree. "I meant to do well by you, when I bought you. You might have been better off than Sambo or Quimbo, and had an easy time; and, instead of getting cut up and thrashed, everyday or two, ye might have had liberty to lord it round, and cut up the other niggers; and ye might have had, now and then, a good warming of whiskey punch. Come, Tom, don't you think you'd better be reasonable? Heave that ar old pack of trash in the fire, and join my church!"

  "No, mas'r," said Tom, "I'll hold on. The Lord may help me out or not help me; but I'll hold to him, and believe in him to the last."

  "The more fool you are!" said Legree, spitting scornfully at him and spurning him with his foot. "Never mind; I'll chase you down yet, and bring you under—you'll see!" and Legree turned away.

  When a heavy weight presses the soul to the lowest level at which endurance is possible, there is an instant and desperate effort of every physical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and hence the heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage. So it was now with Tom. The taunts of his cruel master sunk his before dejected soul to the lowest ebb; and, though the hand of faith still held to the eternal rock, it was with a numb, despairing grasp. Tom sat, like one stunned, at the fire. Suddenly everything round him seemed to fade, and a vision rose before him of one crowned with thorns, buffeted and bleeding. Tom gazed, in awe and wonder, at the majestic patience of the face, the deep, pathetic eyes thrilled him to his inmost heart; his soul woke, as with floods of emotion, he eagerly stretched out his hands and fell upon his knees—when, gradually, the vision changed; the sharp thorns became rays of glory; and, in splendor inconceivable, he saw the same face bending compassionately toward him, and a voice said: "He that overcometh shall sit down with me on my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father on his throne."

  How long Tom lay there he knew not. When he came to himself, the fire was gone out, his clothes were wet with the chill and drenching dews; but the dread soul-crisis was past, and, in the joy that filled him, he no longer felt hunger, cold, degradation, disappointment, wretchedness.

  From this time, an inviolable sphere of peace encompassed the lowly heart of the oppressed one—an ever-present Savior hallowed it as a temple. Past now the bleeding of earthly regrets; past all its fluctuations of hope, and fear, and desire; the human will, bent and bleeding and struggling long, was now entirely merged in the Divine. So short now seemed the remaining voyage of life—so near, so vivid, seemed eternal blessedness—that life's uttermost woes fell from him unharming.

  Stung to madness and despair by the crushing agonies of a life of cruelty,

  One night, after all in Tom's cabin were sunk in sleep, he was suddenly aroused by seeing her face at the hole between the logs, that served as a window. She made a silent gesture for him to come out.

  "Tom, wouldn't you like your liberty?" said she.

  "I shall have it, Misse, in God's own good time," said Tom.

  "Ah, but you may have it to-night," said Cassy. "Come on."

  Tom hesitated.

  "Come!" said she, in a whisper, fixing her black eyes on him. "Come along! He's asleep—sound. I put enough into his brandy to keep him so. I wish I'd put more—I shouldn't have wanted you. But come, the back door is unlocked; there's an axe there. I put it there—his room door is open; I'll show you the way. I'd a done it myself, only my arms are so weak. Come along!"

  "No," said Tom, firmly; "no! good never comes of wickedness. I'd sooner chop my right hand off."

  "Then I shall do it," said Cassy, firmly.

  "Poor soul!" said Tom, compassionately. "Satan desires to have ye, and sift ye as wheat. I pray the Lord for ye. Oh! Misse Cassy, turn to the Lord Jesus. He came to bind up the broken-hearted."

  Cassy stood silent, while tears dropped from her downcast eyes.

  "Misse Cassy," said Tom, in a hesitating tone, "if ye would only get away from here—if the thing was possible—I'd 'vise ye and Emmeline to do it; that is if ye could go without bloodguiltiness—not otherwise."

  "Father Tom, I'll try it!" she said suddenly.

  "Amen!" said Tom; "the Lord help ye!"

  Cassy's sleeping room was directly under the garret. One day, without consulting Legree she changed her furniture to another room some distance away. When the under servants were busy making this change, Legree happened to come in.

  "Hallo, you Cass!" said he, "what's in the wind now?"

  "Nothing; only I choose to have a different room," said Cassy, doggedly.

  "And what for, pray?"

  "I'd like to get some sleep now and then."

  "Sleep! well, what hinders your sleeping?"

  "Oh! nothing. I suppose it wouldn't disturb you any! Only groans and people scuffling and rolling round the garret floor half the night, from twelve till morning!"

  "People up garret!" said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a laugh; "who are they, Cassy?"

  Cassy looked in Legree's face with an expression that went through his bones, as she said, "To be sure, Simon, who are they? I'd like to have you tell me. You don't know I suppose."

  Legree blustered and swore, but Cassy perceived that her shaft had struck home, and from that hour she never ceased to continue in the course she had begun. In a knot hole in the garret she had inserted the neck of an old bottle, in such a manner that when there was the least wind, most doleful wailing was heard, which in a high wind increased to a perfect shriek, such as to superstitious ears might easily seem to be that of horror and despair.

  This may serve as a specimen of the game that Cassy played with Legree, until he would sooner have put his head into a lion's mouth than to have explored the garret. Meanwhile Cassy slowly and carefully accumulated there a stock of provisions, sufficient to afford subsistence for a long time; and transferred a greater part of her own and Emmeline's wardrobe. All things being arranged, they only waited a favorable opportunity to put their plan into execution. When this moment came, Cassy and Emmeline were in the room of the latter, busy in sorting and arranging two small bundles.

  "The way of the thing is to be just this," said Cassy. "We will steal out of the back door and run down by the quarters. Sambo or Quimbo will be sure to see us. They will give chase, and we will get into the swamp; then they can't follow us any further till they go up and give the alarm, and turn out the dogs, and so on; and, while they are blundering around, you and I will just slip along the edge to the creek that runs back of the house, and wade along in it, till we get opposite the back door. That will put the dogs all at fault, for scent won't lie in the water. Every one will run out of the house to look after us, and then we'll whip in at the back door, and up into the garret, where I've got a nice bed made up in a big box. We must stay in the garret for a good while."

  A moment or two later the two fugitives glided noiselessly from the house, and flitted along by the quarters. As Cassy expected, when quite near the verge of the swamp that encircled the plantation, they heard a voice calling to them to stop. It was not Sambo, however, but Legree who was pursuing them. They succeeded in plunging into a part of the labyrinth of swamp, so deep and dark that it was perfectly hopeless for Legree to think of following them without assistance.

  "Hulloa there, Sambo! Quimbo! All hands!" called Legree, coming to the quarters. "There's two runaways in the swamp. I'll give five dollars to any nigger as catches 'em. Turn out the dogs!"

  The whole band, with the glare of blazing torches, proceeded down to the swamp, followed, at some distance, by every servant in the house. The establishment was, as a consequence, wholly deserted. when Cassy and Emmeline glided into it the back way.

  "There's no occasion for hurry," said Cassy, coolly. "We'll go up stairs by and by. Meanwhile," said she deliberately taking a key from the pocket of a coat that Legree had thrown down in his hurry, "meanwhile, I shall take something to pay our passage." She unlocked the desk, took from it a roll of bills, which she counted rapidly.

  "Oh, don't let's do that!" said Emmeline, "it would be stealing."

  "Stealing?" said Cassy, with a scornful laugh. "They who steal body and soul needn't talk to us. Every one of these bills is stolen—stolen from the poor, starving, sweating creatures, who must go to the devil at last, for his profit. But, come, we may as well go up garret."

  The escape of Cassy and Emmeline irritated the before surly temper of Legree to the last degree; and his fury, as was to be expected, fell upon the defenseless head of poor Tom. When he hurriedly announced the tidings of the runaways among his hands, there was a sudden light in Tom's eye, a sudden upraising of his hands, that did not escape him. The next morning he determined to say nothing to Tom, as yet, but to assemble a party, surround the swamp, and go about the hunt systematically. If it succeeded, well and good; if not, he would summon Tom before him, and—his teeth clenched and his blood boiled—then he would break that fellow down, or—there was a dire inward whisper, to which his soul assented.

  The hunt was unsuccessful; and with grave, ironic exultation, Cassy looked down on Legree, from a knothole in the garret, as, weary and dispirited, he alighted from his horse.

  "Now, Quimbo," said Legree, as he stretched himself down in the sitting-room, "you jest go and walk that Tom up here, right away! The old cuss is at the bottom of this yer whole matter; and I'll have it out of his old black hide, or I'll know the reason why!

  "Well," said Legree, when Quimbo dragged Tom before him, "do you know I have made up my mind to kill you?"

  "It's very likely, mas'r," said Tom, calmly.

  "I have," said Legree, "unless you tell me what you know about these yer gals."

  Tom looked up into his master's face, and said: "Mas'r, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I'd give 'em freely, as the Lord gave his for me. O, mas'r! don't bring this great sin on your soul! Do the worst you can, my troubles 'll soon be over; but, if ye don't repent, yours won't never end !"

  Legree stood aghast and looked at Tom. There was a hesitating pause—one irresolute and relenting thrill—and then the spirit of evil came back, with seven-fold vehemence; and Legree, foaming with rage, smote his victim to the ground.