THE history of the African race is God's illuminated clock, set in the
dark steeple of time. The negro has been made the hewer of wood and the
drawer of water for nearly all other nations. The people of the United
States, however, will have an account to settle with God, owing to their
treatment of the negro, which will far surpass the rest of mankind.
Jerome, on reaching Canada, felt for the first time that personal
freedom which God intended that all who bore his image should enjoy.
That same forgetfulness of self which had always characterized him now
caused him to think of others. The thoughts of dear ones in slavery were
continually in his mind, and above all others, Clotelle occupied his
thoughts. Now that he was free, he could better appreciate her condition
as a slave. Although Jerome met, on his arrival in Canada, numbers who
had escaped from the Southern States, he nevertheless shrank from all
society, particularly that of females. The soft, silver-gray tints on
the leaves of the trees, with their snow-spotted trunks, and a biting
air, warned the new-born freeman that he was in another climate. Jerome
sought work, and soon found it; and arranged with his employer that the
latter should go to Natchez in search of Clotelle. The good Scotchman,
for whom the fugitive was laboring, freely offered to go down and
purchase the girl, if she could be bought, and let Jerome pay him in
work. With such a prospect of future happiness in view, this injured
descendent of outraged and bleeding Africa went daily to his toil with
an energy hitherto unknown to him. But oh, how vain are the hopes of
man!