to see, and lord, how plain to read! for it was the
track of tears. One of these young mothers was but a girl, and
it hurt me to the heart to read that writing, and reflect that it
was come up out of the breast of such a child, a breast that ought
not to know trouble yet, but only the gladness of the morning of
life; and no doubt--

She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down came the lash
and flicked a flake of skin from her naked shoulder. It stung me
as if I had been hit instead. The master halted the file and
jumped from his horse. He stormed and swore at this girl, and
said she had made annoyance enough with her laziness, and as this
was the last chance he should have, he would settle the account now.
She dropped on her knees and put up her hands and began to beg,
and cry, and implore, in a passion of terror, but the master gave
no attention. He snatched the child from her, and then made the
men-slaves who were chained before and behind her throw her on
the ground and hold her there and expose her body; and then he
laid on with his lash like a madman till her back was flayed, she
shrieking and struggling the while piteously. One of the men who
was holding her turned away his face, and for this humanity he was
reviled and flogged.

All our pilgrims looked on and commented--on the expert way in
which the whip was handled. They were too much hardened by lifelong
everyday familiarity with slavery to notice that there was anything
else in the exhibition that invited comment. This was what slavery
could do, in the way of ossifying what one may call the superior
lobe of human feeling; for these pilgrims were kind-hearted people,
and they would not have allowed that man to treat a horse like that.

I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves free, but that
would not do. I must not interfere too much and get myself a name
for riding over the country's laws and the citizen's rights
roughshod. If I lived and prospered I would be the death of
slavery, that I was resolved upon; but I would try to fix it so
that when I became its executioner it should be by command of
the nation.

Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; and now arrived a landed
proprietor who had bought this girl a few miles back, deliverable
here where her irons could be taken off. They were removed; then
there was a squabble between the gentleman and the dealer as to
which should pay the blacksmith. The moment the girl was