fits of drunkenness, at which times neither life nor limb on the estate
were secure from his caprice or violence.

In the spring of 1835, the overseer brought me a letter from my wife,
written for her by her young mistress, Mr. Gateweed's daughter. He read
it to me: it stated that herself and children were well--spoke of her
sad and heavy disappointment in consequence of my not returning with my
master; and of her having been told by him that I should come back the
next fall.

Hope for a moment lightened my heart; and I indulged the idea of once
more returning to the bosom of my family. But I recollected that my
master had already cruelly deceived me; and despair again took hold
on me.

Among our hands was one whom we used to call Big Harry. He was a stout,
athletic man--very intelligent, and an excellent workman; but he was of
a high and proud spirit, which the weary and crushing weight of a life
of slavery had not been able to subdue. On almost every plantation at
the South you may find one or more individuals, whose look and air show
that they have preserved their self-respect as _men_;--that with them
the power of the tyrant ends with the coercion of the body--that the
soul is free, and the inner man retaining the original uprightness of
the image of God. You may know them by the stern sobriety of their
countenances, and the contempt with which they regard the jests and
pastimes of their miserable and degraded companions, who, like Samson,
make sport for the keepers of their prison-house. These men are always
feared as well as hated by their task-masters. Harry had never been
whipped, and had always said that he would die rather than submit to it.
He made no secret of his detestation of the overseer. While most of the