Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/24

 certainly have done so; and although that same regard to propriety, which prevented colonel Moore from ever noticing the relationship, also tied up the tongues of his guests, yet, after I had learned the secret, there immediately occurred to my mind the true explanation of certain sly jests and distant allusions, which had sometimes been dropped towards the end of a dinner, by some of those guests whom deep potations had inspired at once with wit and veracity. These brilliancies, of which I had never been able to understand the meaning, were always ill received by colonel Moore, and by all the soberer part of the company, and were frequently followed by a command to me and the other servants to quit the room; but why or wherefore, till I became possessed of the key above mentioned, 1 was always at a great loss to determine.

The secret which my father did not choose, and which my mother did not dare to communicate, I might easily have obtained from my fellow servants. But at this time, like most of the lighter complexioned slaves, I felt a sort of contempt for my duskier brothers in misfortune. I kept myself as much as possible, at a distance from them, and scorned to associate with men a little darker than myself. So ready are slaves to imbibe all the ridiculous prejudices of their oppressors, and themselves to. add new links to the chain, which deprives them of their liberty!

But let me do my father justice; for I do not believe that he was totally destitute of a father's feelings. Though he never made the slightest acknowledgment of the claims which I had upon him, yet I am sure, in his own heart, he did not totally deny their validity. There was a tone of good natured indulgence whenever he spoke to me, an air of kindness, which though he always had it, seemed toward me, to have in it something peculiar. At any rate, he succeeded in captivating my affections; for though I regarded him only as my master, I loved him very sincerely