"
Little money was raised in that crowd, since there was little to give,
and, addressing the two distinguished strangers, Sorden, the crier,
exclaimed:
"What, gentlemen, will you let the Hunn brothers and Tommy Garrett and
the Motts give three hundred dollars for a woman they never saw, and we,
who see her always doing good, give nothing?"
"Pity! pity!" sobbed the blind man. "I'm burned so bad nobody will buy
_me_, but I stole her pass to help a slave off that I fell in love
with."
Judge Custis left Clayton's side, and waited till the hour in the
pillory was done, and, after a fierce contest, saw Sorden come off
victorious at the sale, though it took every dollar the Judge could
raise in Georgetown on his private credit.
"What is the name of the girl you gave her pass to?" asked the Judge of
the blind mulatto.
"Virgie, marster."
"My heart told me so," exclaimed the Judge. "Your crime has been
punished enough. I will send you to your wife."[15]
* * * * *
John Randel, Jr., observed, that evening:
"Devil Jim Clark has taken example from Patty Cannon, and squared the
circle."
"Not dead?" asked Clayton.
"Yes, dead and buried. He was cleaning up his contract on the canal, and
mistook the white Irish laborers there for kidnapped niggers. They set
on him, and beat him and scared him together, so that he never
recovered. They say he was 'converted' on his death-bed; or, as the
saying is, 'he died triumphantly;' but the darkeys report that the devil
came straight down with a chariot and drove him off.
Pages:
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635