Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself. Vol. II (of 2)

"Well! I guess, if there's no offence, there's no mistake. I rather estimate that you're Mr. Zachariah Longstraw?"

"Well, friend! and what is that thy business?" said I, in no amiable tone.

"Well, not above more than's partickilar," said the stranger; "but I've heern tell much on your goodness, and I'm in rather a bit of the darnedest pickle jist now, with a sick wife and nine small children, the oldest only six years old, that ever you heerd tell on. And so, I rather estimated – "

"Thee may estimate theeself to the devil," said I. "How can the oldest child of nine be only six years old?"

"Oh, darn it," said the fellow, "there was three on 'em twins. But if you'll jest step round to my wife, she'll tell you all about it. Always heern you was a great andyfist, or what-d'-ye-call-it."

"Then thee has heard a great lie," said I, "and so thee may go about thee business, for I'll give thee nothing."

"Well now, do tell!" said the man, with a tone of surprise that conveyed a part of the emotion to myself, particularly when, by way of pointing his discourse with the broadest note of admiration, he suddenly clapped a foot to my heels, and laid me sprawling on the broad of my back.

My astonishment and wrath may well be imagined; but they were nothing to the terror that beset me, when, recovering a little from the stunning effects of the fall, I opened my mouth to cry aloud, and found it instantly stuffed full of handkerchiefs, or some such soft material, which the pretended beggar took that opportunity to gag me with. The next moment I felt myself whipped up from the ground and borne aloft, like a corpse, on the shoulders of two men, who trudged along at a rapid pace, and apparently with the greatest unconcern possible; for some of the people in the street hearing my groans, which were the only sounds I could make, and demanding what was the matter, were answered by my cool captors, "Oh, nothing more than's partickilar – only a poor mad gentleman that broke hospital; guess he won't do it again. Raving mad, and hollers a gag out. I say, Sam, hold fast to his legs, and don't let him jump; for I rather estimate, if he gets loose, he'll kill some on these here people."

The villain! I had begun to hope my moans and struggles, which I made for the purpose as loud and furious as I could, having no other way of calling for help, would cause some of the persons collected to arrest the rogues, and inquire into the matter a little more closely; but no sooner had the villain expressed his fears of the mischief I might do, than all inquiries ceased, and a horrible scraping and rattling of feet told me that assistance and curiosity had scampered off together.

In three minutes more I found myself clapped into a little covered, or rather boxed wagon, such as is used by travelling tinmen, and held fast by one of the rogues, while the other seized upon the reins, and whipping up a little nag that was geared to it, we began to roll through the streets at a round gait, and with such a rattle of wheels and patty-pans, that there was little hope of making myself heard, had I possessed the voice even of an oyster-man. My companion took this opportunity to secure my wrists in a pair of wooden handcuffs, and to lock my feet in a sort of stocks, secured against the side of the wagon. Then, overhauling the handkerchiefs, and arranging them more to his liking, though not a whit more to mine, he opened his mouth and spoke, saying,

"Now, uncle Longlegs, I estimate we'll be comfortable. So keep easy; or, if you will grunt, just grunt in tune, and see what sort of a bass you'll make to Old Hundred."

With that the rascal, after pitching his voice so as to accommodate mine as much as possible, began to sing a song; of which all that I recollect is, that it related the joys of a travelling tinman – tricks, rogueries, and all; – that it began somewhat in the following fashion; —

"When I was a driving along Down East,I met old Deacon Dobbs on his beast;The beast was fat, and the man was thin —'I'll cheat Deacon Dobbs,' says I, 'to the skin, – '"

that it was as long and soporific as a state constitution, or a governor's message – that it was actually sung to a psalm-tune, or something like it – and that, during the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and half of the fourteenth stanza, the little wagon rolled leisurely over a long and hollow-sounding bridge, which I had no doubt was one of the wooden Rialtos of the Schuylkill – having passed which, the driver whipped up, and away we went at a speed of at least six miles an hour.

CHAPTER XVI.

IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE TAKES A JOURNEY, AND DISCOVERS THE SECRET OBJECT OF HIS CAPTORS

Verily, reader, the thing was to me as an amazement and a marvel, and the wonder thereof filled my spirit with anguish and perturbation. But if I was dismayed at my seizure and abduction, at my involuntary journey, prolonged through the space of a whole night, how much greater was my alarm to find it continued for five days and nights longer, during which I was never allowed to speak or breathe the fresh air, except when my captors halted to rest and eat, which they did at irregular intervals, and always in solitary places among woods and thickets. It was in vain that I demanded by what authority they treated me with such violence, what purpose they had in view, and whither they were conducting me. The rogues assured me they were very honest fellows, who made their living according to law, and had no design to harm me; and as to what they designed doing with me, that, they said, I should know all in good time; recommending me, in the meanwhile, to take things patiently. I studied their appearance well. They were common-looking personages, with a vulgar shrewdness of visage, and would have been readily taken for Yankee pedlers of the nutmeg and side-saddle order – that is, of the inferior branch of that adventurous class – as indeed they were. There was nothing of the cut-throat about them whatever, and I soon ceased to feel any apprehension of their doing me a personal injury. But what did the villains mean? what was their object in carrying me off? what did they design doing with me? To these questions, which I asked myself and them in vain, I had, on the sixth day of my captivity, an answer; and verily it was one that filled me with horror and astonishment. Oh! the wickedness of man! the covetousness, the depravity, the audacity! the enterprise and originality thereof!

During the first three days of my captivity, my roguish captors had taken great pains to conceal me from, and to prevent any noises I might make from being heard by, any persons they met on the road. On the fourth day they relaxed somewhat from their severity; on the fifth they unbound my arms; and on the sixth they even removed the gag from my mouth, assuring me, however, that it should be replaced if I attempted any outcries, and giving me, moreover, to understand, that I was now in a land where outcries would be of no service to me whatever; and, indeed, I had soon the most mournful proof that, in this particular, they spoke nothing but the truth.

The evening before, I heard, while passing by a farmhouse, a great sawing of fiddles and strumming of banjoes, with a shuffling of feet, as of people engaged in a dance, while a voice, which I knew, by its undoubted Congo tang, could be none but a negro's, sang, in concert with the fiddles, —

"Ole Vaginnee! nebber ti – ah!Kick'm up, Juba, a leetle high – ah, – "

or something to that effect. And, while I was marvelling what could make a negro in Pennsylvania chant the praises of Virginia, having rolled a little further on, I heard, far in the distance, while our little nag stopped to drink from a brook, the sound of many voices, which I knew also were those of negroes. They were labourers husking corn in the light of the moon, and singing as they laboured; and, verily, there was something uncommonly agreeable in the tones, now swelling, now dying in the distance, as many or fewer voices joined in the song. There was a pleasing wildness in the music; but it was to me still more enchanting, as showing the light-heartedness of the singers. "Verily," said I, forgetting my woes in a sudden impulse of philanthropy, "the negro that is free is a happy being" – not doubting that I was still in Pennsylvania.

But oh, how grievously this conceit was dispersed on the following morning! I was roused out of sleep by the sound of voices and clanking of chains, and looking from the door of my prison, which my conductors had left open to give me air, I spied, just at the tail of the cart, a long train of negroes, men, women, and children, of whom some of the males were chained together, the children riding for the most part in covered wagons, while two white men on horseback, armed with great whips and pistols, rode before and behind, keeping the whole procession in order.

"What!" said I, filled with virtuous indignation, and thrusting my head from the cart so as to address the foremost rider, "what does thee mean, friend? Are these people slaves or freemen? and why dost thou conduct them thus in chains through the free state of Pennsylvania?"

"Pennsylvanee!" cried the man, with a stare; "I reckon we're fifty miles south of Mason's and Dixon's, and fast enough in old Virginnee."

"Virginia!" said I, seized with dismay. Before I could add any thing farther, one of my captors, jumping from the front of the cart, where he had been riding with the other, clapped to the door of the box, swearing at me for an old fool, who could not keep myself out of mischief.

"Hillo, stranger!" I heard the horseman cry to my jailer, "what white man's that you've got locked up thaw?"

"Oh, darn it," was the answer, "it's an old fellow of the north, jist as mad as the dickens."

"Friend!" cried I from my prison, seized with a sudden hope of escape, "the man tells thee a fib. If thee is an honest man and a lover of the law, I charge thee to give me help; for these men are villains, who have dragged me from my home contrary to law, and now have me fastened up by the legs."

"I say, strange-aw! by hooky!" cried the horseman, in very emphatic tones, addressing himself to my captor, as I saw through a crack, while his companion rode up to his assistance, "what's the meaning of all this he-aw? What aw you doing, toting a white man off in this style, like a wild baw?"

What a "wild baw" was I could not conveniently comprehend; but I saw that I had lighted on a friend, who had the power to deliver me from thraldom.

"My name," said I, "is Zachariah Longstraw, and I can reward thee for thy trouble."

"You hear him!" said my jailer, with all imaginable coolness. "Well now, darn it, if I must tell, it is Zachariah Longstraw, the famous Zachariah Longstraw. You understand!" And here he nodded and winked at the questioner with great significancy; but, as it appeared, all in vain.

"Never heard of the man in my life," said my friend, "and I've followed niggur-driving ever since I could hold a two-year-old bo' pig."

"What!" cried my jailer, "never heard of Zachariah Longstraw, the famous abolitionist?"

"Abolitionist!" cried the two horsemen together, and they cried it with a yell that made my hair stand on end. "Can't say ever heard the name, but reckon he's one of them 'aw New-Yorkers and Yankees what sends 'cendiary things down he-aw! I say, strange-aw! is it a true, right up-and-down, no-mistake abolitionist?"

"Darn it, I think you'd say so, if you had ever read the papers."

"Jist open the box then, and if I don't take the scalp off him, call me a black man!"

"You won't do no sitch thing, meaning no offence," said my jailer. "Didn't go to the expense to fetch him so far for nothing; and don't mean him for the Virginnee market. Bound down to Louisianee, stranger; that's the best market for abolitionists; seen a public advertisement offering fifty thousand dollars for fellers not half so bad. I rather estimate we'll get full price for our venture."

With that my jailers whipped up, and succeeded in putting a proper distance betwixt them and that ferocious person who had such a desire to rob me of my scalp.

CHAPTER XVII.

CONTAINING OTHER SECRETS, BUT NOT SO IMPORTANT

Reader, if thou art an abolitionist (and, verily, I hope thou art not), thou wilt conceive the mingled wo and astonishment with which I listened to these words of the chief kidnapper – whose Christian name, by-the-way, was Joshua, though as for his surname, I must confess I never heard it – and appreciate, even to the cold creeping of the flesh, the terrible situation in which I was placed. I was an abolitionist – or, at least, my captors chose so to consider me, and they were now carrying me down south, to sell me on speculation. For this they had kidnapped me! for this they had fastened me up by the legs like a "wild baw!" for this – but it is vain to accumulate phrases expressive of their villany and my distresses. What mattered it to my captors if, after all, I was no abolitionist? (for, of a verity, though opposed in principle to the whole institution of slavery, my mind had been so fully occupied with other philanthropic considerations that I had had no time to play the liberator) – it was all one to my captors. The genius which could convert a hemlock-knot into a shoulder of bacon, a bundle of elder twigs into good Havana cigars, and bags of carpet-rags into Bologna sausages, could be at no fault when the demand was only to transform a peaceable follower of George Fox into a roaring lion of abolition. I felt that they had got me into a quandary more dreadful than any that had ever before afflicted my spirit. I knew we were already far south of Mason's and Dixon's.

The moment my vile kidnappers slackened their speed a little, having ridden hard to escape the negro-drivers, I called a parley, in the course of which two circumstances were brought to light, which greatly increased the afflictions of my spirit. I began by remonstrating with the villains upon the wickedness, cruelty, and injustice of their proceedings; to which Joshua made answer, that "times was hard – that a poor man was put to a hard shift to get a living – that, for his part, he was an honest man who turned his hand to any honest matter – that he knew what was lawful, and what was not – that he was agin all abolition, which was anti-constitutional, and clear for keeping the peace betwixt the North and South" – and twenty other things of a like nature, of which the most important was, a declaration that the good people of some parish or other in Louisiana had offered a reward of fifty thousand dollars for either of two individuals whose names I have forgotten, though they were very famous abolitionists, and although Joshua, to settle the matter at once, showed me their names in the advertisement, which he had cut from a newspaper.

"Friend," said I, "I don't see that these foolish people have offered any reward for me."

"Well, darn it, I know it," said Joshua; "but I rather estimate they'll give half price for you; and that will pay us right smart for the venture. For, you see, what they want is an abolitionist, and I rather estimate they're not over and above partickilar as to who he may be. Now I have heern tell of a heap of incendiary papers you sent down south to free the niggurs – "

"I never did any such thing!"

"Oh, well," said Joshua, "it's all one; them there sugar-growing fellers will think so; and so it's all right. And there's them runaway niggurs you Phil'delphy Quakers are always hiding away from their masters. I rather estimate we'll make a good venture out of you."

"What!" said I, "will you sell my life for money?"

"No," said the vile Joshua, "it's a mere trade in flesh and blood – wouldn't take a man's life on no consideration."

"Friend, thee shall have money if thee will permit me to escape."

"Well," said Joshua, with an indifferent drawl, "I estimate not. Abel Snipe told me you was cleaned out as clear as a gourd-shell."

"Abel Snipe!" said I; "is thee a friend of that villain, Abel Snipe?"

"A sorter," said Joshua; "or rather Sam is. Him and Abel was friends together at Sing – "

"Oh, blast your jaw," said Sam, speaking for almost the first time on the whole journey, for he had been, until then, uncommonly glum and taciturn; "where's the difference where it was? Says Abel Snipe to me, says he, 'If you want's an abolitionist, there's my old friend Zachariah; he's your true go.' And so, d'ye see, that's what made us snap you; for we was thinking of snapping another."

"Oh, the wretch! the base, ungrateful, hypocritical wretch!"

"Come, blast it," said Sam, "don't abuse a man's friends."

"Fellow," said I, "hast thou no human feeling in that breast of thine? Wilt thou sell me to violent men and madmen, who will wrongfully take my life?

"Think what thou doest! Hast thou no conscience? Thou art selling a fellow-being! Hast thou no fear of death and judgment? of the devil and the world of torment?"

"Oh, hold your gab," said the ruffian. "As for selling fellow-critters, why, that was once a reggelar business of mine; for, d'ye see, I was a body-snatcher. And I reckon I was more skeared once snapping up a dead body, than ever I shall be lifting a live one. You must know, I was snatching for the doctors, over there in Jarsey; for, d'ye see, I'm a Jarseyman myself: I reckon it was some fourteen months ago: it was summer. What the devil-be-cursed the doctor wanted with a body in summer, I don't know; but it was none on my business. So we, went, me and Tim Stokes, and the doctor, to an old burying-ground where they had just earthed a youngster that the doctor said would suit him. Well, d'ye see, when we came to the grave, up jumps a blasted devil, as big as a cow, or it might ha' been a ghost, and set up a cry. So we takes to our heels. But the doctor said 'twas a man's cry, and no ghost's. And so, d'ye see, blast it, we was for going back again, after having a confab; when what should we do but find a poor devil of a feller lying dead by a hole under a beech-tree. The doctor said he would do better nor the other; and so, blast it, d'ye see, we nabbed him."

"Of a surety," said I, eagerly, "it was the beech-tree at the Owl-roost! and that was the body of poor Sheppard Lee!"

"Well, they did call him summat of that like; and they made a great fuss about him in the papers. But I'm hanged if I wasn't skeared after that out of all body-snatching."

"Friend," said I, "can thee tell me what the doctor did with that body?"

"Why, cut him up, blast him, and made a raw-head-and-bloody-bones of him. The doctor was so cussed partickilar, he wouldn't let us even knock the teeth out; though that was no great loss, for Jarseymen hasn't no great shakes in the tooth way."

Alas! what an ending for poor Sheppard Lee! His body subjected to the knife of an anatomist, his bones scraped, boiled, bleached, hung together on wires, and set up in a museum, while his spirit was wandering about from body to body, enduring more afflictions in each than it had ever mourned even in that unlucky original dwelling it was so glad to leave! I am not of a sentimental turn, and I cannot say that, as Zachariah Longstraw, I felt any peculiar sorrow for the woes of Sheppard Lee. Nevertheless, I did not hear this account of the brutal way in which his body had been stolen and anatomized, without some touch of indignation and grief; which, perhaps, I should have expressed, had not there arisen, before the brutal Samuel had quite finished his remarks on Jerseymen's teeth, an occasion to exercise those feelings on my own immediate behalf.

This was produced by the vile Joshua, who had then the reins, telling a brace of horsemen whom we met that he had "the great abolitionist, the celebrated Zachariah Longstraw, in his cart," and was carrying him to be Lynched in Louisiana; a confession that threw the strangers into transports of satisfaction, one of them swearing he would accompany my captors to the Mississippi, or to the end of the earth, for the mere purpose of seeing me get my deservings.

CHAPTER XVIII.

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR APPROACHES A CLIMAX IN HIS ADVENTURES

And now arose a train of incidents, by which I was taught three things, namely – first, the manner in which my merchants designed giving a value to their merchandise not inherent and intrinsic to it (for, of a truth, my abolition principles, as I said before, had never been carried to the point of notoriety, or even notice); secondly, the love with which a southron regards those pious philanthropists who will have him good and virtuous against his own will; and, thirdly, the religious respect for law and order which is so prominent a feature in the American character.

To make me valuable, it was necessary I should be made famous; and this was easily accomplished in a land where men make up their opinions for themselves, according as they are instructed. It was only necessary to assure some half dozen or more independent sovereigns that I was famous, to ensure their making me so. And this my kidnappers did. They told everybody they met that they had secured Zachariah Longstraw, the famous abolitionist, the very life and soul of northern incendiarism, whom they were carrying to Louisiana, to be Lynched according to law; and as the circumstance would, of course, get into every patriotic newspaper along the way, it was certain I should be made famous enough before I got there, and they thus enjoy the advantage of advertising their commodity without paying a cent to the printer.

It was astonishing (and to none more than myself) to witness the suddenness with which I was exalted from obscurity to distinction, and the readiness with which every living soul, upon being told my name, character, and reputation, remembered all about me and my misdeeds. "Yes," cried one worthy personage, shaking at me a fist minus two fingers and a half, "I have heerd of him often enough: he lives in New-York, and he sells sendary pictures, packed up between the soles of niggur shoes." – "Yes!" cried another, who had but one eye, "I have read all about him: he lives in Boston, keeps a niggur school, and prints sendary papers, a hundred thousand at a time, to set niggurs insurrecting." In short, they remembered not only all that the unworthy Joshua told them to my disparagement, but a thousand things that the imagination of one suggested to the credulity of another. It was in vain that I endeavoured to say any thing in denial or defence; ridicule and revilement, threats and execrations, were my only answers. It was clear, that by the time we reached the Mississippi, I should be the most important personage in America; and that, if my value as an article of merchandise was to be determined by the distinction I won on the road, my friends, Joshua and Samuel, would make their fortunes by the speculation. But it was not my fate to travel beyond the bounds of the Ancient Dominion.

It happened, that on this day an election was held in the district through which we were travelling, to return a representative to Congress, in lieu of one who had fought his way into the shoes of a chargé. All the world – that is, all the district – was therefore in arms; and men and boys, Americans and Irishmen, were making their way to the polls as fast and comfortably as two-mile-an-hour hard-trotting horses could carry them; and thither also, as it appeared, or in that direction, we were ourselves bending our course. As we advanced, therefore, we found ourselves gliding into a current of human bodies – honest republicans, moving onward to the polls, all of whom were ready to add their approval to my claims, or those the kidnappers made for me, to the honour of Lynchdom. The word was passed from one to another, that the Yankee cart contained the famous abolitionist, Zachariah Longstraw; they pressed around to look at and revile me, to discourse with the kidnappers on my demerits, and to express their delight that such a renowned member of the incendiary gang, as they called that class of conscientious people, should at last be on the road to justice.

And thus I was rolled along, attended by sundry groups, which grew fast into crowds, consisting of persons who rejoiced over my capture, and painted to my ears, in words uncommonly rough and ferocious, the fate that awaited me when arrived at my place of destination.

That place, as it chanced, was nearer than I either expected or desired. As the crowd thickened, the sounds of wrath and triumph increased, becoming more terrible to my auditories. A new idea came into the minds of the sovereigns. A villain, seven feet and a half high, mounted on a horse just half that altitude, who had a great knife-scar across his nose and cheek, and a dozen similar seams on his hands, rode up to the cart, and giving me a diabolical look, cried out "Whaw! what aw the use of carrying the crittur so faw? I say, Vawginnee is the place for Lynching, atter all. I say, gentlemen and Vawginians! I go for Lynching right off-hand. Old Vawginnee for evvaw!"