Now and then we had an adventure.One night we were overtaken by a snow-storm while still a mile from the village we were making for.Almost instantly we were shut up as in a fog,the driving snow was so thick.You couldn't see a thing,and we were soon lost.The slave-driver lashed us desperately,for he saw ruin before him,but his lashings only made matters worse,for they drove us further from the road and from likelihood of succor.So we had to stop at last and slump down in the snow where we were.The storm continued until toward midnight,then ceased.By this time two of our feebler men and three of our women were dead,and others past moving and threatened with death.Our master was nearly beside himself.He stirred up the living,and made us stand,jump,slap ourselves,to restore our circulation,and he helped as well as he could with his whip.
Now came a diversion.We heard shrieks and yells,and soon a woman came running and crying;and seeing our group,she flung herself into our midst and begged for protection.A mob of people came tearing after her,some with torches,and they said she was a witch who had caused several cows to die by a strange disease,and practiced her arts by help of a devil in the form of a black cat.This poor woman had been stoned until she hardly looked human,she was so battered and bloody.The mob wanted to burn her.
Well,now,what do you suppose our master did?When we closed around this poor creature to shelter her,he saw his chance.He said,burn her here,or they shouldn't have her at all.Imagine that!They were willing.
They fastened her to a post;they brought wood and piled it about her;they applied the torch while she shrieked and pleaded and strained her two young daughters to her breast;and our brute,with a heart solely for business,lashed us into position about the stake and warmed us into life and commercial value by the same fire which took away the innocent life of that poor harmless mother.That was the sort of master we had.I took HIS number.That snow-storm cost him nine of his flock;and he was more brutal to us than ever,after that,for many days together,he was so enraged over his loss.
We had adventures all along.One day we ran into a procession.And such a procession!All the riffraff of the kingdom seemed to be comprehended in it;and all drunk at that.In the van was a cart with a coffin in it,and on the coffin sat a comely young girl of about eighteen suckling a baby,which she squeezed to her breast in a passion of love every little while,and every little while wiped from its face the tears which her eyes rained down upon it;and always the foolish little thing smiled up at her,happy and content,kneading her breast with its dimpled fat hand,which she patted and fondled right over her breaking heart.
Men and women,boys and girls,trotted along beside or after the cart,hooting,shouting profane and ribald remarks,singing snatches of foul song,skipping,dancing --a very holiday of hellions,a sickening sight.
We had struck a suburb of London,outside the walls,and this was a sample of one sort of London society.Our master secured a good place for us near the gallows.A priest was in attendance,and he helped the girl climb up,and said comforting words to her,and made the under-sheriff provide a stool for her.Then he stood there by her on the gallows,and for a moment looked down upon the mass of upturned faces at his feet,then out over the solid pavement of heads that stretched away on every side occupying the vacancies far and near,and then began to tell the story of the case.
And there was pity in his voice --how seldom a sound that was in that ignorant and savage land!I remember every detail of what he said,except the words he said it in;and so I change it into my own words:
"Law is intended to mete out justice.Sometimes it fails.This cannot be helped.We can only grieve,and be resigned,and pray for the soul of him who falls unfairly by the arm of the law,and that his fellows may be few.A law sends this poor young thing to death --and it is right.
But another law had placed her where she must commit her crime or starve with her child --and before God that law is responsible for both her crime and her ignominious death!
