Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/42

 The present began to grow intolerable; — and what hope for the Sits has the slave? I wished for death; nor do I know to what desperate counsels I might have been driven, when one of those changes, to which a slave is ever exposed, but over which he can exercise no control, afforded me some temporary relief from my distresses.

Colonel Moore, by the sudden death of a relation, became heir to a large property in South Carolina. But the person deceased had left a will, about which there was some dispute, which had every appearance of ending in a lawsuit, The matter required colonel Moore's personal attention; and he had lately set out for Charleston, and had taken with him several of the servants. One or two also had recently died; and Mrs Moore, soon after her husband's departure, sent for me to assist in filling up the gap which had been made in her domestic establishment.

I was truly happy at the change. I knew Mrs Moore to be a lady, who would never insult or trample on a servant, even though he were a slave — unless she happened to be very much out of humor, an unfortunate occurrence, which in her case, did not happen oftener than once or twice a week — except indeed in the very warm weather, when the fit sometimes lasted the whole week through.

Besides, I hoped that the recollection of my fond and faithful attachment to her younger son, who had always been her favorite, would secure me some kindness at her hands. Nor was I mistaken. The contrast of my new situation, with the tyranny of Mr Stubbs, gave it almost the color of happiness. I regained my cheerfulness, and my buoyant spirits. I was too wise, or rather this new influx of cheerfulness made me too thoughtless, to trouble myself about the future; and satisfied with the temporary relief I experienced, I ceased to brood over the miseries of my condition.

About this time, Miss Caroline, colonel Moore's eldest daughter, returned from Baltimore, where she had been living for several years with an aunt, who superintended her education. She was but an ordinary girl, without much grace or beauty; but her maid Cassy, who had formerly