Yet, strange as it may seem, so inured were his feelings to those
arbitrary customs which slave-owners are educated to view as
privileges guaranteed in the rights of a peculiar institution-the
rights of property in the being slave-that, although conscious of
his duty toward the children, no sooner had the mother of Nicholas
been attacked with cholera, than he sold her to the Elder Pemberton
Praiseworthy, in whose infirmary we have just left her. The Elder,
since his discharge from parochial life,--from ministering the
gospel, has transferred his mission to that of being the partner in
a firm, the ostensible business of which is purchasing the sick, the
living, and the dying.
Do not blush, reader; you know not how elastic dealing in human kind
makes man's feelings. Gold is the beacon-light of avarice; for it
man will climb over a catacomb of the dead. In this instance the
very man-Marston-who, touched by misfortune, began to cherish a
father's natural feelings, could see nothing but property in the
mother, though he knew that mother to be born free. Perhaps it was
not without some compunction of feelings-perhaps it was done to
soften the separation at that moment so necessary to the
preservation of the children. But we must leave this phase of the
picture, and turn to another.
Graspum had diligently watched Marston's affairs, and through the
cunning and perseverance of Romescos, carefully noted every movement
on the plantation. Each death from cholera was reported,--the change
in Marston's feelings observed and provided against,--every stage of
the crop carefully watched.
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