After several attempts, it is found impossible to sell the minister
and his family in one lot. Hence, by the force of necessity, his
agonising beseechings pouring forth, he is put up like other single
bales of merchandise, and sold to Mr. M'Fadden, of A--district. The
minister brought eleven hundred dollars, ready money down! The
purchaser is a well-known planter; he has worked his way up in the
world, is a rigid disciplinarian, measuring the square inches of
labour in his property, and adapting the best process of bringing it
all out.
"He's all I want," says M'Fadden, making a move outward, and edging
his way through the crowd.
"A moment with my poor old woman, master, if you please?" says
Harry, turning round to his wife.
"None of your black humbugging; there's wives enough on my place,
and a parson can have his choice out of fifty," returns M'Fadden,
dragging him along by the arm. The scene that here ensues is
harrowing in the extreme. The cries and sobs of children,--the
solicitude and affection of his poor wife, as she throws her arms
about her husband's neck,--his falling tears of sorrow, as one by one
he snatches up his children and kisses them,--are painfully touching.
It is the purest, simplest, holiest of love, gushing forth from
nature's fountain. It were well if we could but cherish its heavenly
worth. That woman, the degraded of a despised race, her arms round a
fond husband's neck, struggling with death-like grasp, and imploring
them not to take him from her.
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