Heavens! here
is the curse confounding the flesh and blood of those in high
places, making slaves of their own kinsmen, crushing out the spirit
of life, rearing up those broken flowers whose heads droop with
shame. And you want your freedom?"
"For my child first," she replied, quickly: "I rest my hopes of her
in the future."
Maxwell hesitated for a moment, as if contemplating some plan for
her escape, ran his fingers through his hair again and again, then
rested his forehead in his hand, as the perspiration stood in heavy
drops upon it. "My child!" There was something inexpressibly
touching in the words of a mother ready to sacrifice her own
happiness for the freedom of her child. And yet an awful
responsibility hung over him; should he attempt to gain their
freedom, and fail in carrying out the project, notwithstanding he
was in a free country, the act might cost him his life. But there
was the mother, her pride beaming forth in every action, a wounded
spirit stung with the knowledge of being a slave, the remorse of her
suffering soul-the vicissitudes of that sin thus forced upon her.
The temptation became irresistible.
"You are English!"-northerners and Englishmen know what liberty is.
Negroes at the South have a very high opinion of Northern cleverness
in devising means of procuring their liberty. The Author here uses
the language employed by a slave girl who frequently implored aid to
devise some plan by which she would be enabled to make her escape.
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