So goes one day, and so comes and goes another.

But, let us now leave the rough usage of the field, where vulgar
coarseness and brutal cruelty spread themselves and flourish, rank as
weeds in the tropics; where a vile wretch, in the shape of a man,
rides, walks, or struts about, dealing blows, and leaving gashes on
broken-spirited men and helpless women, for thirty dollars per month--a
business so horrible, hardening and disgraceful, that, rather, than
engage in it, a decent man would blow his own brains out--and let the
reader view with me the equally wicked, but less repulsive aspects of
slave life; where pride and pomp roll luxuriously at ease; where the
toil of a thousand men supports a single family in easy idleness and
sin. This is the great house; it is the home of the LLOYDS! Some idea of
its splendor has already been given--and, it is here that we shall find
that height of luxury which is the opposite of that depth of poverty
and physical wretchedness that we have just now been contemplating. But,
there is this difference in the two extremes;{82} viz: that in the
case of the slave, the miseries and hardships of his lot are imposed
by others, and, in the master's case, they are imposed by himself. The
slave is a subject, subjected by others; the slaveholder is a subject,
but he is the author of his own subjection. There is more truth in the
saying, that slavery is a greater evil to the master than to the slave,
than many, who utter it, suppose. The self-executing laws of eternal
justice follow close on the heels of the evil-doer here, as well as
elsewhere; making escape from all its penalties impossible. But, let
others philosophize; it is my province here to relate and describe; only
allowing myself a word or two, occasionally, to assist the reader in the
proper understanding of the facts narrated.

CHAPTER VII. _Life in the Great House_

COMFORTS AND LUXURIES--ELABORATE EXPENDITURE--HOUSE SERVANTS--MEN
SERVANTS AND MAID SERVANTS--APPEARANCES--SLAVE ARISTOCRACY--STABLE AND
CARRIAGE HOUSE--BOUNDLESS HOSPITALITY--FRAGRANCE OF RICH DISHES--THE
DECEPTIVE CHARACTER OF SLAVERY--SLAVES SEEM HAPPY--SLAVES
AND SLAVEHOLDERS ALIKE WRETCHED--FRETFUL DISCONTENT
OF SLAVEHOLDERS--FAULT-FINDING--OLD BARNEY--HIS
PROFESSION--WHIPPING--HUMILIATING SPECTACLE--CASE EXCEPTIONAL--WILLIAM
WILKS--SUPPOSED SON OF COL. LLOYD--CURIOUS INCIDENT--SLAVES PREFER RICH
MASTERS TO POOR ONES.

The close-fisted stinginess that fed the