Isabella and Peter were permitted to see the remains of their mother
laid in their last narrow dwelling, and to make their bereaved father a
little visit, ere they returned to their servitude. And most piteous
were the lamentations of the poor old man, when, at last, they also
were obliged to bid him "Farewell!" Juan Fernandes, on his desolate
island, was not so pitiable an object as this poor lame man. Blind and
crippled, he was too superannuated to think for a moment of taking care
of himself, and he greatly feared no persons would interest themselves
in his behalf. 'Oh,' he would exclaim, 'I had thought God would take me
first,-Mau-mau was so much smarter than I, and could get about and take
care of herself;-and I am so old, and so helpless. What is to become
of me? I can't do anything any more-my children are all gone, and here
I am left helpless and alone.' 'And then, as I was taking leave of
him,' said his daughter, in relating it, 'he raised his voice, and
cried aloud like a child-Oh, how he DID cry! I HEAR it now -and
remember it as well as if it were but yesterday-poor old man!!! He
thought God had done it all-and my heart bled within me at the sight of
his misery. He begged me to get permission to come and see him
sometimes, which I readily and heartily promised him.' But when all
had left him, the Ardinburghs, having some feeling left for their
faithful and favorite slave, 'took turns about' in keeping him-
permitting him to stay a few weeks at one house, and then a while at
another, and so around. If, when he made a removal, the place where he
was going was not too far off, he took up his line of march, staff in
hand, and asked for no assistance. If it was twelve or twenty miles,
they gave him a ride. While he was living in this way, Isabella was
twice permitted to visit him. Another time she walked twelve miles,
and carried her infant in her arms to see him, but when she reached
the place where she hoped to find him, he had just left for a place
some twenty miles distant, and she never saw him more. The last time
she did see him, she found him seated on a rock, by the road side,
alone, and far from any house. He was then migrating from the house of
one Ardinburgh to that of another, several miles distant. His hair was
white like wool-he was almost blind-and his gait was more a creep than
a walk-but the weather was warm and pleasant, and he did not dislike
the journey. When Isabella addressed him, he recognized her voice, and
was exceeding glad to see her. He was assisted to mount the wagon, was
carried back to the famous cellar of which we have spoken, and there
they held their last earthly conversation. He again, as usual,
bewailed his loneliness,-spoke in tones of anguish of his many
children, saying, "They are all taken away from me! I have now not
one to give me a cup of cold water-why should I live and not die?"
Isabella, whose heart yearned over her father, and who would have made
any sacrifice to have been able to be with, and take care of him, tried
to comfort, by telling him that 'she had heard the white folks say,
that all the slaves in the State would be freed in ten years, and that
then she would come and take care of him.' 'I would take just as good
care of you as Mau-mau would, if she was here'-continued Isabel. 'Oh,
my child,' replied he, 'I cannot live that long.' 'Oh, do, daddy, do
live, and I will take such good care of you,' was her rejoinder. She
now says, 'Why, I thought then, in my ignorance, that he could live, if
he would. I just as much thought so, as I ever thought any thing in my
life-and I insisted on his living: but he shook his head, and insisted
he could not.'
But before Bomefree's good constitution would yield either to age,
exposure, or a strong desire to die, the Ardinburghs again tired of
him, and offered freedom to two old slaves-Caesar, brother of Mau-mau
Bett, and his wife Betsy-on condition that they should take care of
James. (I was about to say, 'their brother-in-law'-but as slaves are
neither husbands nor wives in law, the idea of their being
brothers-in-law is truly ludicrous.) And although they were too old
and infirm to take care of themselves, (Caesar having been afflicted
for a long time with fever-sores, and his wife with the jaundice), they
eagerly accepted the boon of freedom, which had been the life-long
desire of their souls-though at a time when emancipation was to them
little more than destitution, and was a freedom more to be desired by
the master than the slave. Sojourner declares of the slaves in their
ignorance, that 'their thoughts are no longer than her finger.'