Have you ever loved in humble life? some fair young girl, whose lot was
among the lowly, but whose brilliant beauty in your eyes annihilated all
social inequalities? Love levels all distinctions, is an adage old as
the hills. It brings down the proud heart, and teaches condescension to
the haughty spirit; but its tendency is to elevate, to ennoble. It does
not make a peasant of the prince, but a prince of the peasant.
Behold the object of your adoration engaged in her ordinary duties! She
fetches a jar of water from the well. Barefoot she treads the
well-known path. Those nude pellucid feet are fairer in their nakedness
than the most delicate _chaussure_ of silk and satin. The wreaths and
pearl circlets, the pins of gold and drupes of coral, the costliest
_coiffures_ of the dress circle,--all seem plain and poor compared with
the glossy _neglige_ of those bright tresses. The earthen jar sits upon
her head with the grace of a golden coronet--every attitude is the
_pose_ of a statue, a study for a sculptor; and the coarse garment that
drapes that form is in your eyes more becoming than a robe of richest
velvet. You care not for that. You are not thinking of the casket, but
of the pearl it conceals.
She disappears within the cottage--her humble home. Humble? In your
eyes no longer humble; that little kitchen, with its wooden chairs, and
scoured dresser, its deal shelf, with mugs, cups, and willow-pattern
plates, its lime-washed walls and cheap prints of the red soldier and
the blue sailor--that little museum of the _penates_ of the poor, is now
filled with a light that renders it more brilliant than the gilded
saloons of wealth and fashion. That cottage with its low roof, and
woodbine trellis, has become a palace. The light of love has
transformed it! A paradise you are forbidden to enter. Yes, with all
your wealth and power, your fine looks and your titles of distinction,
your superfine cloth and bright lacquered boots, mayhap you dare not
enter there.
And oh! how you envy those who dare!--how you envy the spruce
apprentice, and the lout in the smock who cracks his whip, and whistles
with as much _nonchalance_ as if he was between the handles of his
plough! as though the awe of that fair presence should not freeze his
lips to stone! _Gauche_ that he is, how you envy him his
_opportunities_! how you could slaughter him for those sweet smiles that
appear to be lavished upon him!
There maybe no meaning in those smiles. They may be the expressions of
good-nature of simple friendship, perhaps of a little coquetry. For all
that, you cannot behold them without envy--without _suspicion_ If there
be a meaning--if they be the smiles of love--if the heart of that simple
girl has made its lodgement either upon the young apprentice or him of
the smock--then are you fated to the bitterest pang that human breast
can know. It is not jealousy of the ordinary kind. It is far more
painful. Wounded vanity adds a poison to the sting. Oh! it is hard to
bear!
A pang of this nature I suffered, as I paced that high platform.
Fortunately they had left me alone. The feelings that worked within me
could not be concealed. My looks and wild gestures must have betrayed
them. I should have been a subject for satire and laughter. But I was
alone. The pilot in his glass-box did not notice me. His back was
towards me, and his keen eye, bent steadily upon the water, was too busy
with logs and sand-bars, and snags and sawyers, to take note of my
delirium.
It _was_ Aurore! Of that I had no doubt whatever. Her face was not to
be mistaken for any other. There was none like it--none so lovely--
alas! too fatally fair.
Who could _he_ be? Some young spark of the town? Some clerk in one of
the stores? a young planter? who? Maybe--and with this thought came
that bitter pang--one of her own proscribed race--a young man of
"colour"--a mulatto--a quadroon--a slave! Ha! to be rivalled by a
slave!--worse than rivalled.--Infamous coquette! Why had I yielded to
her fascinations? Why had I mistaken her craft for _naivete_?--her
falsehood for truth?
Who could _he_ be? I should search the boat till I found him.
Unfortunately I had taken no marks, either of his face or his dress. My
eyes had remained fixed upon her after their parting. In the shadow I
had seen him only indistinctly; and as he passed under the lights I saw
him not. How preposterous then to think of looking for him! I could
not recognise him in such a crowd.
I went below, and wandered through the cabins, under the front awning,
and along the guard-ways. I scanned every face with an eagerness that
to some must have appeared impertinence. Wherever one was young and
handsome, he was an object of my scrutiny and jealousy. There were
several such among the male passengers; and I endeavoured to distinguish
those who had come aboard at Bringiers. There were some young men who
appeared as if they had lately shipped, themselves, but I had no clue to
guide me, and I failed to find my rival.
In the chagrin of disappointment I returned once more to the roof; but I
had hardly reached it, when a new thought came into my mind. I
remembered that the slaves of the plantation were to be sent down to the
city by the first boat. Were they not travelling by that very one? I
had seen a crowd of blacks--men, women, and children--hastily driven
aboard. I had paid but little heed to such a common spectacle--one that
may be witnessed daily, hourly. I had not thought of it, that those
might be the slaves of the plantation Besancon!
If they were, then indeed there might still be hope; Aurore had not gone
with them--but what of that? Though, like them, only a slave, it was
not probable she would have been forced to herd with them upon the deck.
But she had not come aboard! The staging had been already taken in, as
I recognised her on the wharf-boat. On the supposition that the slaves
of Besancon were aboard, my heart felt relieved. I was filled with a
hope that all might yet be well.
Why? you may ask. I answer--simply because the thought occurred to me,
that the youth, who so tenderly parted from Aurore, _might be a brother,
or some near relative_. I had not heard of such relationship. It might
be so, however; and my heart, reacting from its hour of keen anguish,
was eager to relieve itself by any hypothesis.
I could not endure doubt longer; and turning on my heel, I hastened
below. Down the kleets of the wheel-house, along the guard-way, then
down the main stairs to the boiler-deck. Threading my way among bags of
maize and hogsheads of sugar, now stooping under the great axle, now
climbing over huge cotton-bales, I reached the after-part of the lower
deck, usually appropriated to the "deck passengers"--the poor immigrants
of Ireland and Germany, who here huddle miscellaneously with the swarthy
bondsmen of the South.
As I had hoped, there were they,--those black but friendly faces,--every
one of them. Old Zip, and Aunt Chloe, and the little Chloe; Hannibal,
the new coachman, and Caesar and Pompey, and all,--all on their way to
the dreaded mart.
I had halted a second or two before approaching them. The light was in
my favour, and I saw them before discovering my presence. There were no
signs of mirth in that sable group. I heard no laughter, no light
revelry, as was their wont to indulge in in days gone by, among their
little cabins in the quarter. A deep melancholy had taken possession of
the features of all. Gloom was in every glance. Even the children,
usually reckless of the unknown future, seemed impressed with the same
sentiment. They rolled not about, tumbling over each other. They
played not at all. They sat without stirring, and silent. Even they,
poor infant helots, knew enough to fear for their dark future,--to
shudder at the prospect of the slave-market.
All were downcast. No wonder. They had been used to kind treatment.
They might pass to a hard taskmaster. Not one of them knew where in
another day should be his home--what sort of tyrant should be his lord.
But that was not all. Still worse. Friends, they were going to be
parted; relatives, they would be torn asunder--perhaps never to meet
more. Husband looked upon wife, brother upon sister, father upon child,
mother upon infant, with dread in the heart and agony in the eye.
It was painful to gaze upon this sorrowing group, to contemplate the
suffering, the mental anguish that spoke plainly in every face; to think
of the wrongs which one man can legally put upon another--the deep
sinful wrongs, the outrage of every human principle. Oh, it was
terribly painful to look on that picture!
It was some relief to me to know that my presence threw at least a
momentary light over its shade. Smiles chased away the sombre shadows
as I appeared, and joyous exclamations hailed me. Had I been their
saviour, I could not have met a more eager welcome.
Amidst their fervid ejaculations I could distinguish earnest appeals
that I would buy them--that I would become their master--mingled with
zealous protestations of service and devotion. Alas! they knew not how
heavily at that moment the price of one of their number lay upon my
heart.
I strove to be gay, to cheer them with words of consolation. I rather
needed to be myself consoled.
During this while my eyes were busy. I scanned the faces of all. There
was light enough glimmering from two oil-lamps to enable me to do so.
Several were young mulattoes. Upon these my glance rested, one after
the other. How my heart throbbed in this examination! It triumphed at
length. Surely there was no face there that _she_ could love? Were
they all present? Yes, all--so Scipio said; all but Aurore.
"And Aurore?" I asked; "have you heard any more of her?"
"No, mass'; 'blieve 'Rore gone to de city. She go by de road in a
carriage--not by de boat, some ob de folks say daat, I b'lieve."