Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

"Oh, those bills!--Yes--well, here goes--here--perhaps in this box. No--that's my opera-hat. By the bye, what do you think of that? Isn't that bunch of silver wheat lovely? Stop...

The curtain rises on our next scene, and discovers a tranquil library, illuminated by the slant rays of the afternoon's sun. On one side the room opened by long glass windows on...

The family party, which was now ushered in, consisted of Clayton's father, mother, and sister. Judge Clayton was a tall, dignified, elderly personage, in whom one recognized, at...

A week or two had passed over the head of Nina Gordon since she was first introduced to our readers, and during this time she had become familiar with the details of her home li...

Several miles from the Gordon estate, on an old and somewhat decayed plantation, stood a neat log-cabin, whose external aspect showed both taste and care. It was almost envelope...

In order to understand the occasion which hurried Harry home, we must go back to Canema. Nina, after taking her letters from the hands of Tomtit, as we have related, ran back wi...

"Oh, Harry, I'm so glad to see you back! In such trouble as I've been to-day! Don't you think, this very morning, as I was sitting in Aunt Nesbit's room, Tomtit brought up these...

And the speaker, an emaciated, feeble little woman, turned herself uneasily on the ragged pallet where she was lying, and, twirling her slender fingers nervously, gazed up at th...

Death is always sudden. However gradual may be its approaches, it is, in its effects upon the survivor, always sudden at last. Tiff thought, at first, that his mistress was in a...

The excitement produced by the arrival of Tiff, and the fitting out of Milly to the cottage, had produced a most favorable diversion in Nina's mind from her own especial perplex...

They rode on in silence, till their horses' feet again clattered in the clear, pebbly water of the stream. Here Nina checked her horse; and, pointing round the circle of pine fo...

The golden arrows of the setting sun were shooting hither and thither through the pine woods, glorifying whatever they touched with a life not its own. A chorus of birds were po...

"I say, Nina," said her brother, coming in, a day or two after, from a survey he had been taking round the premises, "you want _me_ here to manage this place. Everything going a...

"Well, honey, ye see dere has been a lawyer here," said Milly, following Nina as she was going up stairs; "and she has been shut up with him all de mornin'; and when he come out...

"Mr. Jekyl is going to make some statements to us, Nina, about our property in Mississippi, which, if they turn out as he expects, will set us up in the world," said Tom.

Nina spent the evening in the drawing-room; and her brother, in the animation of a new pursuit, forgetful of the difference of the morning, exerted himself to be agreeable, and...

About four miles east of Canema lay the plantation of Nina's uncle, whither Harry had been sent on the morning which we have mentioned. The young man went upon his errand in no...

Harry spent the night at the place of Mr. John Gordon, and arose the next morning in a very discontented mood of mind. Nothing is more vexatious to an active and enterprising pe...

We owe our readers now some words of explanation respecting the new personage who has been introduced into our history; therefore we must go back somewhat, and allude to certain...

In the course of a few days the family circle at Canema was enlarged by the arrival of Clayton's sister; and Carson, in excellent spirits, had started for a Northern watering-pl...

The announcement of the expected camp-meeting produced a vast sensation at Canema, in other circles beside the hall. In the servants' department, everybody was full of the matte...

The camp-meeting is one leading feature in the American development of religion, peculiarly suited to the wide extent of country, and to the primitive habits which generally acc...

The place selected for the camp-meeting was in one of the most picturesque portions of the neighborhood. It was a small, partially-cleared spot, in the midst of a dense forest,...

Our readers will perhaps feel an interest to turn back with us, and follow the singular wanderings of the mysterious personage, whose wild denunciations had so disturbed the min...

A glorious morning, washed by the tears of last night's shower, rose like a bride upon Canema. The rain-drops sparkled and winked from leaf to leaf, or fell in showery diamonds...

The visit of Clayton and his sister, like all other pleasant things, had its end. Clayton was called back to his law-office and books, and Anne went to make some summer visits p...

"Well, now," said Frank Russel, to one or two lawyers with whom he was sitting, in a side-room of the court-house at E., "look out for breakers! Clayton has mounted his war-hors...

Judge Clayton was not mistaken in supposing that his son would contemplate the issue of the case he had defended with satisfaction. As we have already intimated, Clayton was som...

About five o'clock in the evening, Nina and Anne amused themselves with setting a fancy tea-table on the veranda. Nina had gathered a quantity of the leaves of the live-oak, whi...

Would the limits of our story admit of it, we should gladly linger many days in the shady precincts of Magnolia Grove, where Clayton and Nina remained some days longer, and wher...

In life organized as it is at the South, there are two currents:--one, the current of the master's fortunes, feelings, and hopes; the other, that of the slave's. It is a melanch...

Nina continued her visits to Tiff's garden on almost every pleasant morning or evening. Tiff had always some little offering, either berries or flowers, to present, or a nice li...

The time for the session of the Supreme Court had now arrived, and Clayton's cause was to be reconsidered. Judge Clayton felt exceedingly chagrined, as the time drew near. Being...

The shadow of that awful cloud which had desolated other places now began to darken the boundaries of the plantation of Canema. No disease has ever more fully filled out the mea...

Clayton was quietly sitting in his law-office, looking over and arranging some papers necessary to closing his business. A colored boy brought in letters from the mail. He looke...

The mails in the State of North Carolina, like the prudential arrangements of the slave states generally, were very little to be depended upon; and therefore a week had elapsed...

Clayton remained at Canema several days after the funeral. He had been much affected by the last charge given him by Nina, that he should care for her people; and the scene of d...

It would be scarcely possible to describe the scene which Harry left in the library. Tom Gordon was for a few moments stunned by the violence of his fall, and Clayton and Mr. Je...

The cholera at length disappeared, and the establishment of our old friend Tiff proceeded as of yore. His chickens and turkeys grew to maturity, and cackled and strutted joyousl...

The once neat and happy cottage, of which Old Tiff was the guardian genius, soon experienced sad reverses. Polly Skinflint's violent and domineering temper made her absence from...

A few days found Clayton in the city of ----, guest of the Rev. Dr. Cushing. He was a man in middle life; of fine personal presence, urbane, courtly, gentlemanly. Dr. Cushing wa...

After the devotional services were over, Dr. Calker proceeded immediately with the business that he had in his mind. "Now, brother Cushing," he said, "there never was any instru...

"MR. CLAYTON: I am now an outcast. I cannot show my face in the world, I cannot go abroad by daylight; for no crime, as I can see, except resisting oppression. Mr. Clayton, if i...

There's no study in human nature more interesting than the aspects of the same subject seen in the points of view of different characters. One might almost imagine that there we...

At twelve o'clock, that night, Harry rose from the side of his sleeping wife, and looked out into the darkness. The belt of forest which surrounded them seemed a girdle of impen...

Clayton was still pursuing the object which he had undertaken. He determined to petition the legislature to grant to the slave the right of seeking legal redress in cases of inj...

Tom Gordon, in the mean while, had commenced ruling his paternal plantation in a manner very different from the former indulgent system. His habits of reckless and boundless ext...

The rays of the afternoon sun were shining through the fringy needles of the pines. The sound of the woodpecker reverberated through the stillness of the forest, answering to th...

"They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength," said father Dickson. "How often I have found it so! We have seen times when I and my wife have both been so ill that we...

The question may occur to our readers, why a retreat which appeared so easily accessible to the negroes of the vicinity in which our story is laid should escape the vigilance of...

Tom Gordon, for the next two or three days after his injury, was about as comfortable to manage as a wounded hyena. He had a thousand varying caprices every hour and moment; and...

When he came to himself, he was conscious at first only of a fanning of summer breezes. He opened his eyes, and looked listlessly up into the blue sky, that appeared through the...

The death of Dred fell like a night of despair on the hearts of the little fugitive circle in the swamps--on the hearts of multitudes in the surrounding plantations, who had reg...

It is true that he knew not the whole depth of the affair; but Harry's letter and his own observations had led him, without explanation, to feel that there was a perilous degree...

Our readers may often have observed how long habits of intimacy may survive between two persons who have embarked in moral courses, which, if pursued, must eventually separate t...

The party of fugitives, which started for the north, was divided into two bands. Harry, Lisette, Tiff, and his two children, assumed the character of a family, of whom Harry too...

He never went without carrying some token of remembrance from the friends in his settlement to Milly, now indeed far advanced in years, while yet, in the expressive words of Scr...