UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

was
Em
the
-
Durn it up!" he screamed, tearing
it off,and
throwing i1-into the charcoal "
What did you
bringit to ine for?"
Sambo "stood with his heavymouth wide open,
love," wrought in that demoniac heart of sin
onlyas a damning sentence,bringing with it a Ah, Legree ! that golden tress was charmed ,
fearfullookingfor of judgment and fieryindigna-each hah- had in it a spellof terror and remorse
LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY. 139
tion.
Legree burned the hair,and burned the
letter ; and when he saw them hissingand crack
of everlasting
who was
and deep night, whose solemn stillness arraignsthe
amazement.
bad soul in forced communion with herself,he
ilish
ling in the flame,inlyshuddered as he thought
fires. He tried to drink, and revel,
and aghast with wonder ; and Cassy, and swear
away the memory ; but often,in the
preparing to leave the apartment ștopped,
looked at him in perfect
"
Don't you bring me any more of your dev-
had seen that palemother risingby his bedside,
things !" said he, shakinghis fistat Sambo, and felt the soft twiningof that hair around his
who retreated hastilytowards the door; and, fingers, till the cold sweat would roll down his
pickingup the silverdollar, he sent it smashingface,and he would spring from his bed in horror.
through the window-pane, out into the darkness. Ye who have wondered to hear, in the same evangel,
Sambo was glad to make his escape. When
that God is love,"and that God is a consuming
he was gone, Legree seemed a littleashamed of
see ye
bis fit of alarm. He sat doggedly down in his perfect love is the most fearful torture,the seal
chair,and begansullenlysipping his timiblerof
punch.
Gassyprepared herself for goingout, unob-
'byhim ; and slippedaway to minister to
poor Tom, as we have alreadyrelated.
And what was the matter with Legree ? and
what was there in a Bimplecurl of fair hair to
served
appall that brutal man, familiar Avith every form
of cruelty ? To answer this,we must carry the
reade) backwardin his history Ḥard and reprobate
as the godless man seemed now, there had
with the waters of holybaptism. In early child-
a fair-hairedwoman had led him, at the
sound of Sabbath bell țo worship and to pray. fanlight over the door ; the air was unwholesome
Far in New Englandthat mother had trained her and chilly, like that of a vault.
onlyson, with long,unwearied love,and patient Legreestopped at the foot of the stairs, and
prayers. Burn of a hard-tempered sire,on whom heard a voice singing Ịt seemed strange and
that gentle woman had wasted a world of unvalued
ghostlike in that drearyold house,perhaps because
love,Legree had followed in the stepsof his of the already tremulous state of his nerves.
father. Boisterous,unruly and tyrannical, he Hark ! what is it ?
despised all her counsel,and would none of her A wild,pathetic voice chants a hymn common
reproof;and, at an early age,
broke from her,to among the slaves :
seek his fortunesat sea. He never came home
"
0 there '11bo mourning,mourning,mourning,
but once, after;and then,his mother, with the
0 there '11be mourning,
yearning of a heart that must love something,
at the judgment-seatof Christ !"
"
been a time when he had been rocked on the
bosom of a mother, cradled with prayers and
pioushymns, -his now seared brow bedewed
hood,
and has nothing else to love,clung to him, and
"Blast the girl!" said Legree. "I'll choke
sought, with
"
passionate prayers
and
her ! ! Em !" he called,harshly: but
entreaties,
only
a mockingecho from the walls answered him.
to win him from a lifeof sin țo his soul's eternal
good.
That was Legree'sday of grace ; then good
angels called him ; then he was almost persuaded,
more brutal than ever. And, one night, when
his mother, in the last agony of her despair, Legreestopped
knelt at his feet,he spumed her from him, " to tell of it,but largedrops
threw her senseless on the floor,and, with brutal
curses, fled to his ship. The next Legree heard
of his mother was, when, one night, as he was
carousingamong drunken companions, a letter
and sentence of the direst despair?
"Blast it!" said Legree to himself,as he
sipped his liquor;"where did he getthat7 If
it did n't "
look justlike whoo ! I thought I 'd
forgo that. Curse me, if I think there 's any
such thing as -
forgetting anything,anyhow,
hang it ! I 'm lonesome ! I mean to call Em
"
She hates me monkey! I don't caxe,"
I '11make her come!"
Legree stepped out into a largeentry, which
went up stairs,by what had formerly been a
superbwinding staircase ; but the passage-way
was dirty and dreary,encumbered with boxes and
unsightly litter. The stairs,uncarpetedșeemed
windingup, in the gloom, to nobodyknew where !
The palemoonlight streamed through a shattered
The sweet voice still sang on :
"
Parents and children there shall partI
Parents and children there shall part ?
Shall part to meet no more !"
And clear and loud swelled through the empty
halls the refrain,
"0 there '11be mourning,mourning,mourning.
0 there '11be mourning, at the judgment-seatol Christ !"
Ḥe would have been ashamed
of sweat stood on his
forehead, his heart beat heavy and thick with fear ;
he even thought he saw something white rising
and glimmering in the gloom before him, and
shuddered to think what if the form of his dead
to him.
rise from
the dead!"
I b'lieve I am bewitched,
"
"
"
and mercy held him by the hand. His heart
inlyrelented, there was a conflict, but sin
got the victory, and he set all the force of his
rough nature against the convictionof his con-
He drank and swore, wilder and
science.
was put into his hand. He openedit, and a lock mother should suddenlyappear
of long,curling hair fell from it, "
and twined I know one thing," he said to himself,as he
about his fingers.The lettertold him his mother stumbled back in the sitting-room, and sat down ;
was dead, and "
that,dying,she blest and forgave I '11let that fellowalone,after this ! What did
him.
I want of bis cussed paper?
There is a dread,unhallowed necromancy of
sure enough! I 've been shivering and
evil țhat turns thing sweetest and holiest to sweating, ever since ! Where did he getthat hair ?
phantomsof horror and affright. That pale,loving
It could n't have been that ! I burnt that up, I
her mother," dyingprayers, her forgivingknow I did ! It would be a joke, if hair could