They had taken all the money from every negro on the plantation. Uncle Isaac had buried eighty dollars in gold,—the savings of years. This he was made to unearth. He had lately bought a new silver watch, for which he had paid forty dollars. This was taken from him. Uncle Isaac was not a special favorite with his master, but he had been his playfellow in babyhood and boyhood. Partly for this reason, and partly because he was the master's own age, sixty-three years, and had been for years afflicted with incurable lameness, Thomas Dabney made him a present of a pair of his old carriage horses. Uncle Isaac was a preacher, and the horses were intended to give him ease and comfort in going about and in ploughing his own little patch. These horses he sold to a stage-driver for fifty dollars. His master was disgusted, as he had not wished the horses to do hard work.
When Uncle Isaac was robbed he came to the house to pour out his full heart to us. He went over again his old story of being a child of the same year as master, and of his getting a share of the nourishment that nature had provided for the white baby" in your grandma's arms, an' I called her ma an' your pa brother till I knowed better myself. She never tole me to stop."
It will be remembered that my father was during this period about forty miles from home within our lines. Every morning when he woke up his body-servant, George Page, told him of the number of his servants who had slipped away, back to the plantation, in the darkness of the preceding night. They were homesick, and doubtless suspected that their master was as homesick as they were, and only half-hearted in keeping them in the swamp.
As the numbers of the servants diminished day by day, George Page, like Caleb Osbaldistone, tried to make up in himself for what he looked on as the lack of loyalty on the part of the other servants. They were field negroes; he belonged to the house, and his manner to his master, during these days in the swamp, was touching in its blending of affection with respect.
