All night there were callers on her, and whom they were no one could
tell; but the jailer's family saw her lips moving and her eyes consult
the air, as if she was faintly trying bravado upon certain
business-speaking ghosts who had come with bills long overdue and
demanded payment, and went out only to come again and again.
Some of these mystic visitors she would jeer at and defy, and stamp her
feet, as if they had no rights in equity against her soul, having been
on vicious errands when they met their ends, and bankrupts in the court
of pity; but suddenly a helpless something would appear, and paralyze
her with its little wail, like a babeless mother or a motherless babe,
and, with her forehead wet with sweat of agony, she would affect to
chuckle, and would whisper, "Nothin' but niggers! nothin' more!"
Day brought her some relief, but also other cares, and of these the
chief was the care of money. She had been a spendthrift all her life,
and robbed mankind of life and liberty to enjoy the selfish dissipation
of spending their blood-money; and what had she bought with it? Nothing,
nothing. To spend it, only, she had wrecked her sex and her soul; to
spend it for such trifles as children want--candy and common ornaments,
a dance and a treat, a gift for some boor or forester or even negro she
was misleading, or to establish a silly reputation for generosity:
generous at the expense of human happiness, and of robbing people of
liberty and life, merely for spending-money!
Now she had none to appease the all-devouring greeds of habit
intensified by real necessity: no money to buy dainties or even liquor;
no money to spend upon the jailer's family and keep the reputation of
kindness alive; no money for decent apparel to appear in court; none to
corrupt the law or to hire witnesses and attorneys.
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