The stranger was Jerome. As soon as he revived, he shrunk from
every eye, as if he feared they would take from him the freedom
which he had gone through so much to obtain.
The next day, the fugitive took a vessel, and the following morning
found himself standing on the free soil of Canada. As his foot
pressed the shore, he threw himself upon his face, kissed the
earth, and exclaimed, "O God! I thank thee that I am a free man."
CHAPTER XXVII
TRUE FREEDOM.
THE history of the African race is God's illuminated clock, set in
the dark steeple of time. The negro has been made the hewer of
wood and the drawer of water for nearly all other nations. The
people of the United States, however, will have an account to
settle with God, owing to their treatment of the negro, which will
far surpass the rest of mankind.
Jerome, on reaching Canada, felt for the first time that personal
freedom which God intended that all who bore his image should
enjoy. That same forgetfulness of self which had always
characterized him now caused him to think of others. The thoughts
of dear ones in slavery were continually in his mind, and above
all others, Clotelle occupied his thoughts. Now that he was free,
he could better appreciate her condition as a slave. Although
Jerome met, on his arrival in Canada, numbers who had escaped from
the Southern States, he nevertheless shrank from all society,
particularly that of females. The soft, silver-gray tints on the
leaves of the trees, with their snow-spotted trunks, and a biting
air, warned the new-born freeman that he was in another climate.
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