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I was happy when I thought of this home, in which, with my new-found, fresh strength, my confidence in myself, my knack of turning my hand to any sort of common work, my ability to defend her against everything and everybody against all the Ruckers in the world my skill in so many things that would make her old age easy and happy, I would repay her for all this long miserable time, the cruelty of Rucker when she took me out of the factory while he was absent, the whippings she had seen him give me, the sacrifices she had made to give me the little schooling I had had, the nights she had sewed to make my life a little easier, the tears she dropped on my bed when she came and tucked me in when I was asleep, the pangs of motherhood, and the pains worse than those of motherhood which she had endured because she was poor, and married to a beast.
We always got more whippings when mother was away. Your grandfather was a good man, too honest for this world, and he loved every one of his seven children; but he brought us up to fear him and the Lord. We feared him the most, because the Lord couldn't whip us!
I have read in a biographical sketch that I was threatened with whippings to make me play. That is absolutely false; but it was necessary to tell me that there was a lady in the audience who was an excellent musician and had fastidious tastes. I would not play for those who did not know.
When in the Barbadoes, I was told that on one plantation, in the space of five years, a score of slaves had hanged themselves." "Mr. Atkinson's Indian," said Captain Sewall, "whom he bought of a Virginia ship-owner, did, straightway on coming to his house, refuse meat; and although persuasions and whippings were tried to make him eat, he would not so much as take a sip of drink.
Even the servants who accompanied the girls quarreled among themselves, assuming the odium and prejudices of their masters. In the boys' school also the Chuetas were dismissed first to escape the stonings and whippings of those who had longer been Christians.
Everywhere, while the mania lasted, they were warmly welcomed, the inhabitants of towns and cities ringing the bells and flocking in crowds to hear the preaching and witness the whippings. The proceedings of the Flagellants in all countries were very similar.
W. Andrews has collected a vast store of curious anecdotes on the subject of whippings, recorded in his Bygone Punishments, to which the interested reader is referred. The story he tells of the brutality of Judge Jeffreys may be repeated. This infamous and inhuman judge sentenced a woman to be whipped, and said, "Hangman, I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady.
Her mother's whippings had always been very terrible, vindictively thorough. The indignity of them lashed her soul even more cruelly than the unsparing thong her body. Because of them she went in daily trepidation, submissive almost to the point of abjectness, lest this hateful and demoralizing form of punishment should be inflicted upon her.
She recollected her grandfather, and standing, when six years old, between his knees at a State Council, she heard secrets which neither bribes nor whippings could extract from her. Her grandfather she held to be a saint in heaven, and only second to the Twelve Apostles.
He changed his attitude abruptly, put his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him, so that he could see her face. "What was it you asked me?" "Does she fancy the wood is haunted?" "No, why?" "I believe she does." "Rubbish. Why should she?" "They used to say it was. Granny used to say so. She gave me some dreadful whippings for coming here. Poor Granny was just like Mrs.
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