The Secret Shot; Or, The Rivals Of Misty Mount — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE: QUADROON’S REVENGE. bore ill-usage patiently although her fierce nature prompted her many a time to retali- ation which would have ended in tragedy. Her heart was set upon vengeance; to at- tain her wish she could bear all things—ill- usage, slander, suffering of body and spirit. Vengeance against the house which had de- stroyed her happiness, her faith in Heaven, her hopes of future life! Poor girl. She did not know that her purchaser read her vows in her very eyes—that he had pene- trated the disguise in Which she had clothed her secret purpose. He knew her well, and he had purchased her to let her work out that purpose since it harmonized well with the designs which long had been forming in his own brain toward the Gwin family and property. All the years of her girlhood were spent in the slave’s estate, and yet the fortunate moment for inflicting humiliation, for bring- ing sorrow into the Gwin household, did not arrive. Mulattoes at that time were not frequent- ly met with, at least in the colonies of North America. The institution of African. sla- very was then too young to haye produced, in any considerable numbers those living evidences of one of its principal and in- trinsic evils. But, as now, the mulatto wo- men were sometimes of rare beauty; and, owing to the paucity of the class, they were the more noticeable. Her chattelhood was comparatively easy. Stricken with remorse, her father and mas- ter hardly treated her as a servant. fe sgi- lently endured the reproach of her existence. She was brought up with his children, ate with them, lived with them, was educated with them. But these children, Rupert and Godfrey, shrunk from their little slave-sister as a disgrace to their dead mother’s memory, although there was some pity in Godfrey’s heart. As for the unfortunate girl, her springing form unfolded with all the beauty of her mother. Passionate, fierce, vindic- tive, terrible, yet full of self-control, patient, vigilant, subtle-brained, this being, as she developed into the first blush of glorious womanhood, resembled, in a moral sense, a beautiful leopard: her footstep was as fiow- ing, as velvety ; her customary mien was as glossy and as sleek; her heart was as loving and as treacherous—one to be tamed, per- haps, but never trusted. ‘Within the bosom of such a being how must have rankled the dark story of her mother’s misery and her own wrongs! It could not be concealed € 11 from her. She gathered the narrative while yet a child; and a carefully-nursed yen- geance expanded in her bosom in pace with its budding charms. At the age of eighteen, the slave-girl was a wonderful creature. Fer charms were brilliant but not tender; they were rather the dark, voluptuous belongings of the fallen angel. She was well read, well educated. The guitar was a tuneful slave to her passionate hand; she could sweep the harp like a sibyl of old; and her voice was the mistress of song. About this time her master and father died—suddenly and unprepared. Immediately there was a change in her estate. From the willful mis- tress of the household, by the force of law, she fell to the condition of the slave. The brothers would brook her at their side no longer. And the oldest, Rupert, persecuted her as his father had persecuted her mo- ther. But in this case the fall was not that of the stricken deer, but the wounded tiger. A week later and her persecutor was sent to another world through the me- dium of poison. Godfrey also fell ill, but was restored in time. Horror possessed the unhappy household. The body of the old man was unearthed; and it was found that he also had perished by poison. The slave-girl was suspected and arrested; but nothing could be proved, and the law re- linquished its hesitating grasp. And about this time a gloomy man became spell-bound by the beauty of Judith, during a journey from his Virginia home. She easily induced him to buy her—Godfrey being only too glad to be rid of her presence. Something of the latter’s subsequent history we already know, as the acquisitor and present poss¢es- sor of Misty Mount. The new owner of Judith was Jacob Gleason. He was wealthy, and hated the race of Gwin with a secret and serpent-like malignity; and this was enough for Judith, who might use him for the tool of her yengeance. But he was first to be made a perfect tool; and he had a fumily—a wife and two young sons, and a maiden sister. The wicked Gleason had long grown cold to the former, who was wealthy in her own right, as was the sister also. And these women were not long in crossing the path of Judith. The wife of Gleason was a proud English dame, who conceived an instant hatred for the new slave, whose miraculous beauty inflamed her jealousy to a white heat. | ae Gleason had no peace for the recrimina- tion which followed, and Judith was (C(O) AMICel OVeYe) EO) in