"Mr.
Clerk" (directing himself to that functionary) "you must enter
him-nobody's nigger, without home or master." And as such he is
entered upon that high record of a sovereign state-the guard-house
calendar. If this record were carried before the just tribunal of
heaven, how foul of crime, injustice, and wrong, would its pages be
found! The faithful old man has laboured under an assumed ownership.
His badge, procured for him through the intercession of Franconia,
shows him as the property of Mr. Henry Frazer. That gentleman is
many hundred miles away: the old man, ignorant of the barbarous
intricacy of the law, feels it to his sorrow. The production of the
badge, and the statement, though asserting that Miss Franconia is
his friend, show a discrepancy. His statement has no truth for
guardsmen; his poor frame is yet worth something, but his oath has
no value in law: hence he must march into a cold cell, and there
remain till morning.
Before that high functionary, the mayor-whose judgments the Russian
Czar might blush to acknowledge or affirm,--he is arraigned at ten
o'clock on the following morning. He has plenty of accusers,--no one
to plead the justice of his case. A plain story he would tell, did
the law and his honour grant the boon. The fatal badge shows him the
property of Mr. Henry Frazer: Mr. Henry Frazer is nowhere to be
found, and the statement that master was in prison tends to increase
the suspicions against him. Against this increasing force of proof,
the old man begs his honour will send to the prison, where master
will be found,--dead! In his love of clemency that functionary yields
to the request.
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