and union, now and forever, one and inseparable," and pointed to an
article headed

     "COVERT ABOLITIONISM! CITIZENS, BEWARE!

     "We were present, a few evenings ago, at the closing speech
     delivered before the Washington Agricultural Society, in the course
     of which the speaker, Mr. Edward Clayton, gratuitously wandered
     away from his subject to make inflammatory and seditious comments
     on the state of the laws which regulate our negro population. It is
     time for the friends of our institutions to be awake. Such remarks
     dropped in the ear of a restless and ignorant population will be a
     fruitful source of sedition and insurrection. This young man is
     supposed to be infected with the virus of northern abolitionists.
     We cannot too narrowly watch the course of such individuals; for
     the only price at which we can maintain liberty is eternal
     vigilance. Mr. Clayton belongs to one of our oldest and most
     respected families, which makes his conduct the more inexcusable."

Clayton perused this with a quiet smile, which was usual with him.

"The hand of Joab is in that thing," said Frank Russel.

"I'm sure I said very little," said Clayton. "I was only showing the
advantage to our agriculture of a higher tone of moral feeling among our
laborers, which, of course, led me to speak of the state of the law
regulating them. I said nothing but what everybody knows."

"But, don't you know, Clayton," said Russel, "that if a fellow has an
enemy--anybody bearing him the least ill-will--that he puts a tremendous
power in his hands by making such remarks? Why, our common people are so
ignorant that they are in the hands of anybody who wants to use them.
They are just like a swarm of bees; you can manage them by beating on a
tin pan. And Tom Gordon has got the tin pan now, I fancy. Tom intends to
be a swell. He is a born bully, and he'll lead a rabble. And so you must
take care. Your family is considerable for you; but, after all, it
won't stand you in stead for everything. Who have you got to back you?
Who have you talked with?"

"Well," said Clayton, "I have talked with some of the ministry"--

"And, of course," said Frank, "you found that the leadings of Providence
didn't indicate that _they_ are to be martyrs! You have their prayers
_in secret_, I presume; and if you ever get the cause on the upper
hill-side, they'll come out and preach a sermon for you. Now, Clayton,
I'll tell you what I'll do. If Tom Gordon attacks you, I'll pick a
quarrel with him, and shoot him right off the reel. My stomach isn't
nice about those matters, and that sort of thing won't compromise me
with my party."

"Thank you," said Clayton, "I shall not trouble you."

"My dear fellow," said Russel, "you philosophers are very much mistaken
about the use of carnal weapons. As long as you wrestle with flesh and
blood, you had better use fleshly means. At any rate, a gentlemanly
brace of pistols won't hurt you; and, in fact, Clayton, I am serious.
You _must_ wear pistols,--there are no two ways about it. Because, if
these fellows know that a man wears pistols and will use them, it keeps
them off. They have an objection to being shot, as this is all the world
they are likely to have. And I think, Clayton, you can fire off a pistol
in as edifying and dignified a manner, as you can say a grace on proper
occasions. The fact is, before long, there will be a row kicked up. I'm
pretty sure of it. Tom Gordon is a deeper fellow than you'd think, and
he has booked himself for Congress; and he means to go in on the
thunder-and-blazes principle, which will give him the vote of all the
rabble. He'll go into Congress to do the fighting and slashing. There
always must be a bully or two there, you know, to knock down fellows
that you can't settle any other way. And nothing would suit him better,
to get his name up, than heading a crusade against an abolitionist."

"Well," said Clayton, "if it's come to that, that we can't speak and
discuss freely in our own state, where are we?"

"Where are we, my dear fellow? Why, I know where we are; and if you
don't, it's time you did. Discuss freely? Certainly we can, on _one_
side of the question; or on both sides of any other question than this.
But this you can't discuss freely, and they can't afford to let you, as
long as they mean to keep their power. Do you suppose they are going to
let these poor devils, whites, get their bandages off their eyes, that
make them so easy to lead now? There would be a pretty bill to pay, if
they did! Just now, these fellows are in as safe and comfortable a
condition for use as a party could desire; because they have got votes,
and we have the guiding of them. And they rage, and swear, and tear, for
our institutions, because they are fools, and don't know what hurts
them. Then, there's the niggers. Those fellows are deep. They have as
long ears as little pitchers, and they are such a sort of fussy set,
that whatever is going on in the community is always in their mouths,
and so comes up that old fear of insurrection. That's the awful word,
Clayton! _That_ lies at the bottom of a good many things in our state,
more than we choose to let on. These negroes are a black well; you never
know what's at the bottom."

"Well," said Clayton, "the only way, the only safeguard to prevent this
is reform. They are a patient set, and will bear a great while; and if
they only see that anything is being done, it will be an effectual
prevention. If you want insurrection, the only way is to shut down the
escape-valve; for, will ye nill ye, the steam must rise. You see, in
this day, minds _will grow_. They _are_ growing. There's no help for it,
and there's no force like the force of growth. I have seen a rock split
in two by the growing of an elm-tree that wanted light and air, and
would make its way up through it. Look at all the aristocracies of
Europe. They have gone down under this force. Only one has stood--that
of England. And how came that to stand? Because it knew when to _yield_;
because it never confined discussion: because it gave way gracefully
before the growing force of the people. That's the reason it stands
to-day, while the aristocracy of France has been blown to atoms."

"My dear fellow," said Russel, "this is all very true and convincing, no
doubt; but you won't make _our_ aristocracy believe it. They have
mounted the lightning, and they are going to ride it whip and spur. They
are going to annex Cuba and the Sandwich Islands, and the Lord knows
what, and have a great and splendid slave-holding empire. And the north
is going to be what Greece was to Rome. We shall govern it, and it will
attend to the arts of life for us. The south understands governing. We
are trained to rule from the cradle. We have leisure to rule. We have
nothing else to do. The free states have their factories, and their
warehouses, and their schools, and their internal improvements, to take
up their minds; and, if we are careful, and don't tell them too plain
where we are taking them, they'll never know it till they get there."

"Well," said Clayton, "there's one element of force that you've left out
in your calculation."

"And what's that?" said Russel.

"God," said Clayton.

"I don't know anything about him," said Russel.

"You may have occasion to learn, one of these days," said Clayton. "I
believe he is alive yet."

CHAPTER XLVII.

TOM GORDON'S PLANS.

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 extravagance, and utter
heedlessness, caused his cravings for money to be absolutely insatiable;
and, within legal limits, he had as little care how it was come by as a
highway robber. It is to be remarked that Tom Gordon was a worse
slave-holder and master from the very facts of certain desirable
qualities in his mental constitution; for, as good wine makes the
strongest vinegar, so fine natures perverted make the worse vice. Tom
had naturally a perfectly clear, perceptive mind, and an energetic,
prompt temperament. It was impossible for him, as many do, to
sophisticate and delude himself with false views. He marched up to evil
boldly, and with his eyes open. He had very little regard for public
opinion, particularly the opinion of conscientious and scrupulous
people. So he carried his purposes, it was very little matter to him
what any one thought of them or him; they might complain till they were
tired.

After Clayton had left the place, he often pondered the dying words of
Nina, "that he should care for her people; that he should tell Tom to be
kind to them." There was such an impassable gulf between the two
characters, that it seemed impossible that any peaceable communication
should pass between them. Clayton thought within himself that it was
utterly hopeless to expect any good arising from the sending of Nina's
last message. But the subject haunted him. Had he any right to withhold
it? Was it not his duty to try every measure, however apparently
hopeless?

Under the impulse of this feeling, he one day sat down and wrote to Tom
Gordon an account, worded with the utmost simplicity, of the last hours
of his sister's life, hoping that he might read it, and thus, if nothing
more, his own conscience be absolved.

Death and the grave, it is true, have sacred prerogatives, and it is
often in their power to awaken a love which did not appear in life.
There are few so hard as not to be touched by the record of the last
hours of those with whom they have stood in intimate relations. A great
moralist says, "There are few things not purely evil of which we can
say, without emotion, this is the last."

The letter was brought to Tom Gordon one evening when, for a wonder, he
was by himself; his associates being off on an excursion, while he was
detained at home by a temporary illness. He read it over, therefore,
with some attention. He was of too positive a character, however, too
keenly percipient, not to feel immediate pain in view of it. A man of
another nature might have melted in tears over it, indulged in the
luxury of sentimental grief, and derived some comfort, from the
exercise, to go on in ways of sin. Not so with Tom Gordon. He could not
afford to indulge in anything that roused his moral nature. He was doing
wrong of set purpose, with defiant energy; and his only way of keeping
his conscience quiet was to maintain about him such a constant tumult of
excitement as should drown reflection. He could not afford a
_tête-à-tête_ conversation with his conscience;--having resolved, once
for all, to go on in his own wicked way, serving the flesh and the
devil, he had to watch against anything that might occasion
uncomfortable conflict in his mind. He knew very well, lost man as he
was, that there was something sweet and pure, high and noble, against
which he was contending; and the letter was only like a torch, which a
fair angel might hold up, shining into the filthy lair of a demon. He
could not bear the light; and he had no sooner read the note than he
cast it into the fire, and rang violently for a hot brandy-toddy, and a
fresh case of cigars. The devil's last, best artifice to rivet the
fetters of his captives is the opportunity which these stimulants give
them to command insanity at will.

Tom Gordon was taken to bed drunk; and, if a sorrowful guardian spirit
hovered over him as he read the letter, he did not hear the dejected
rustle of its retreating wings. The next day nothing was left, only a
more decided antipathy to Clayton, for having occasioned him so
disagreeable a sensation.

Tom Gordon, on the whole, was not unpopular in his vicinity. He
determined to rule them all, and he did. All that uncertain,
uninstructed, vagrant population, which abound in slave states, were at
his nod and beck. They were his tools--prompt to aid him in any of his
purposes, and convenient to execute vengeance on his adversaries. Tom
was a determined slave-holder. He had ability enough to see the whole
bearings of that subject, from the beginning to the end; and he was
determined that, while he lived, the first stone should never be pulled
from the edifice in his state. He was a formidable adversary, because
what he wanted in cultivation he made up in unscrupulous energy; and,
where he might have failed in argument, he could conquer by the cudgel
and the bludgeon. He was, as Frank Russel had supposed, the author of
the paragraph which had appeared in the _Trumpet of Freedom_, which had
already had its effect in awakening public suspicion.

But what stung him to frenzy, when he thought of it, was, that every
effort which he had hitherto made to recover possession of Harry had
failed. In vain he had sent out hunters and dogs. The swamp had been
tracked in vain. He boiled and burned with fierce tides of passion, as
he thought of him in his security defying his power.

Some vague rumors had fallen upon his ear of the existence, in the
swamp, of a negro conspirator, of great energy and power, whose lair had
never yet been discovered; and he determined that he would raise heaven
and earth to find him. He began to suspect that there was, somehow,
understanding and communication between Harry and those who were left on
the plantation, and he determined to detect it. This led to the scene of
cruelty and tyranny to which we made allusion in a former chapter. The
mangled body was buried, and Tom felt neither remorse nor shame. Why
should he, protected by the express words of legal decision? He had only
met with an accident in the exercise of his lawful power on a slave in
the act of rebellion.

"The fact is, Kite," he said, to his boon-companion, Theophilus Kite, as
they were one day sitting together, "I'm bound to have that fellow. I'm
going to publish a proclamation of outlawry, and offer a reward for his
head. That will bring it in, I'm thinking. I'll put it up to a handsome
figure, for that will be better than nothing."

"Pity you couldn't catch him alive," said Kite, "and make an example of
him!"

"I know it," said Tom. "I'd take him the long way round, that I would!
That fellow has been an eye-sore to me ever since I was a boy. I believe
all the devils that are in me are up about him."

"Tom," said Kite, "you've got the devil in you--no mistake!"

"To be sure I have," said Tom. "I only want a chance to express him. I
wish I could get hold of the fellow's wife! I could make him wince
there, I guess. I'll get her, too, one of these days! But, now, Kite,
I'll tell you, the fact is, somebody round here is in league with him.
They know about him, I know they do. There's that squeaky, leathery,
long-nosed Skinflint, trades with the niggers in the swamp--I know he
does! But he is a double and twisted liar, and you can't get anything
out of him. One of these days I'll burn up that old den of his, and
shoot him, if he don't look out! Jim Stokes told me that he slept down
there, one night, when he was tracking, and that he heard Skinflint
talking with somebody between twelve and one o'clock; and he looked out,
and saw him selling powder to a nigger."

"Oh, that couldn't be Harry," said Kite.

"No, but it's one of the gang that he is in with. And, then, there's
that Hark. Jim says that he saw him talking,--giving a letter, that he
got out of the post-office, to a man that rode off towards the woods. I
thought we'd have the truth out of his old hide! But he didn't hold out
as I thought he would."

"Hokum don't understand his business," said Kite. "He shouldn't have
used him up so fast."

"Hokum is a bother," said Tom, "like all the rest of those fellows! Hark
was a desperately-resolute fellow, and it's well enough he is dead,
because he was getting sullen, and making the others rebellious. Hokum,
you see, had taken a fancy to his wife, and Hark was jealous."

"Quite a romance!" said Kite, laughing.

"And now I'll tell you another thing," said Tom, "that I'm bound to
reform. There's a canting, sneaking, dribbling, whining old priest,
that's ravaging these parts and getting up a muss among people about the
abuses of the slaves; and I'm not going to have it. I'm going to shut up
his mouth. I shall inform him, pretty succinctly, that, if he does much
more in this region, he'll be illustrated with a coat of
tar-and-feathers."

"Good for you!" said Kite.

"Now," said Tom, "I understand that to-night he is going to have a
general snivelling season in the old log church, out on the cross run,
and they are going to form a church on anti-slavery principles.
Contemptible whelps! Not a copper to bless themselves with! Dirty,
sweaty, greasy mechanics, with their spawn of children! Think of the
impudence of their getting together and passing anti-slavery
resolutions, and resolving they won't admit slave-holders to the
communion! I have a great mind to let them try the dodge, once! By
George, if I wouldn't walk up and take their bread and wine, and pitch
it to thunder!"

"Are they really going to form such a church?"

"That's the talk," said Tom. "But they'll find they have reckoned
without their host, I fancy! You see, I just tipped Jim Stokes the wink.
Says I, 'Jim, don't you think they'll want you to help the music there,
to-night?' Jim took at once; and he said he would be on the ground with
a dog or two, and some old tin pans. Oh, we shall get them up an
orchestra, I promise you! And some of our set are going over to see the
fun. There's Bill Akers, and Bob Story, and Sim Dexter, will be over
here to dinner, and towards evening we'll ride over."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

LYNCH LAW.

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 thousand woodland notes. Suddenly,
along the distant path, a voice is heard singing, and the sound comes
strangely on the ear through the dreamy stillness:--

     "Jesus Christ has lived and died--
     What is all the world beside?
     This to know is all I need,
     This to know is life indeed.
     Other wisdom seek I none--
     Teach me this, and this alone:
     Christ for me has lived and died,
     Christ for me was crucified."

And, as the last lines fall upon the ear, a figure, riding slowly on
horseback, comes round the bend of the forest path. It is father
Dickson. It was the habit of this good man, much of whose life was spent
in solitary journeyings, to use the forest arches for that purpose for
which they seemed so well designed, as a great cathedral of prayer and
praise. He was riding with the reins loose over the horse's neck, and a
pocket-Bible in his hand. Occasionally he broke out into snatches of
song, like the one which we heard him singing a few moments ago. As he
rides along now, he seems absorbed in mental prayer. Father Dickson, in
truth, had cause to pray. The plainness of speech which he felt bound to
use had drawn down upon him opposition and opprobrium, and alienated
some of his best friends. The support which many had been willing to
contribute to his poverty was entirely withdrawn. His wife, in feeble
health, was toiling daily beyond her strength; and hunger had looked in
at the door, but each day prayer had driven it away. The petition,
"Give us THIS DAY our daily bread," had not yet failed to bring an
answer, but there was no bread for to-morrow. Many friendly advisers had
told him that, if he would relinquish a futile and useless undertaking,
he should have enough and to spare. He had been conferred with by the
elders in a vacant church, in the town of E., who said to him, "We enjoy
your preaching when you let alone controverted topics; and if you'll
agree to confine yourself solely to the Gospel, and say nothing on any
of the delicate and exciting subjects of the day, we shall rejoice in
your ministrations." They pleaded with him his poverty, and the poor
health of his wife, and the necessities of his children; but he
answered, "'Man shall not live by bread alone.' God is able to feed me,
and he will do it." They went away, saying that he was a fool, that he
was crazy. He was not the first whose brethren had said, "He is beside
himself."

As he rode along through the forest paths, he talked of his wants to his
Master. "Thou knowest," he said, "how I suffer. Thou knowest how feeble
my poor wife is, and how it distresses us both to have our children grow
up without education. We cast ourselves on thee. Let us not deny thee;
let us not betray thee. Thou hadst not where to lay thy head; let us not
murmur. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his
lord." And then he sang:--

     "Jesus, I my cross have taken,
       All to leave and follow thee;
     Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,
       Thou my all henceforth shalt be!
     Let the world despise and leave me--
       They have left my Saviour too;
     Human looks and words deceive me--
       Thou art not, like them, untrue!
     And, while thou shalt smile upon me,
       God of wisdom, power, and might,
     Foes may hate and friends disown me,
       Show thy face and all is bright!"

And, as he sang and prayed, that strange joy arose within him which,
like the sweetness of night flowers, is born of darkness and
tribulation. The soul hath in it somewhat of the divine, in that it can
have joy in endurance beyond the joy of indulgence.

They mistake who suppose that the highest happiness lies in wishes
accomplished--in prosperity, wealth, favor, and success. There has been
a joy in dungeons and on racks passing the joy of harvest. A joy strange
and solemn, mysterious even to its possessor. A white stone dropped from
that signet-ring, peace, which a dying Saviour took from his own bosom,
and bequeathed to those who endure the cross, despising the shame.

As father Dickson rode on, he lifted his voice, in solemn exultation:--

     "Soul, then know thy full salvation;
       Rise o'er fear, doubt, and care;
     Joy to find, in every station,
       Something still to do or bear.
     Think what spirit dwells within thee;
       Think what Father's smiles are thine;
     Think that Jesus died to win thee;
       Child of heaven, wilt thou repine?"

At this moment Dr. Cushing in the abundant comforts of his home, might
have envied father Dickson in his desertion and poverty. For that peace
seldom visited him. He struggled wearily along the ways of duty, never
fulfilling his highest ideal; wearied by confusing accusations of
conscience, and deeming himself happy only because, having never lived
in any other state, he knew not what happiness was like. He alternately
condemned his brother's rashness, and sighed as he thought of his
uncompromising spirituality; and once or twice he had written him a
friendly letter of caution, inclosing him a five-dollar bill, wishing
that he might succeed, begging that he would be careful, and ending with
the pious wish that we might all be guided aright; which supplication,
in many cases, answers the purpose, in a man's inner legislation, of
laying troublesome propositions on the table. Meanwhile the shades of
evening drew on, and father Dickson approached the rude church which
stood deep in the shadow of the woods. In external appearance it had not
the pretensions even of a New England barn, but still it had echoed
prayers and praises from humble, sincere worshippers. As father Dickson
rode up to the door, he was surprised to find quite a throng of men,
armed with bludgeons and pistols, waiting before it. One of these now
stepped forward and, handing him a letter, said,--

"Here, I have a letter for you to read!"

Father Dickson put it calmly in his pocket. "I will read it after
service," said he.

The man then laid hold of his bridle. "Come out here!" he said; "I want
to talk to you."

"Thank you, friend, I will talk with you after meeting," said he. "It's
time for me to begin service."

"The fact is," said a surly, wolfish-looking fellow who came behind the
first speaker, "the fact is, we an't going to have any of your d----d
abolition meetings here! If he can't get it out, I can!"

"Friends," said father Dickson, mildly, "by what right do you presume to
stop me?"

"We think," said the first man, "that you are doing harm, violating the
laws"--

"Have you any warrant from the civil authorities to stop me?"

"No, sir," said the first speaker; but the second one, ejecting a large
quid of tobacco from his mouth, took up the explanation in a style and
taste peculiarly his own.

"Now, old cock, you may as well know fust as last, that we don't care a
cuss for the civil authorities, as you call them, 'cause we's going to
do what we darn please; and we don't please have you yowping
abolishionism round here, and putting deviltry in the heads of our
niggers! Now, that ar's plain talk!"

This speech was chorused by a group of men on the steps, who now began
to gather round and shout,--

"Give it to him! That's into him! Make the wool fly!"

Father Dickson, who was perfectly calm, now remarked in the shadow of
the wood, at no great distance, three or four young men mounted on
horses, who laughed brutally and called out to the speaker,--

"Give him some more!"

"My friends," said father Dickson, "I came here to perform a duty, at
the call of my heavenly Master, and you have no right to stop me."

"Well, how will you help yourself, old bird? Supposing we haven't?"

"Remember, my friends, that we shall all stand side by side at the
judgment seat to give an account for this night's transactions. How will
you answer for it to God?"

A loud, sneering laugh came from the group under the trees, and a
voice, which we recognize as Tom Gordon's, calls out,

"He is coming the solemn dodge on you, boys! Get on your long faces!"

"Come," said the roughest of the speakers, "this here don't go down with
us! We don't know nothing about no judgments; and as to God, we an't
none of us seen him, lately. We 'spect he don't travel round these
parts."

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the
good," said father Dickson.

Here one of the mob mewed like a cat, another barked like a dog, and the
spectators under the tree laughed more loudly than ever.

"I say," said the first speaker, "you shan't go to getting up rat-traps
and calling 'em meetings! This yer preaching o' yourn is a cussed sell,
and we won't stand it no longer! We shall have an insurrection among our
niggers. Pretty business, getting up churches where you won't have
slave-holders commune! I's got niggers myself, and I know I's bigger
slave than they be, and I wished I was shet of them! But I an't going to
have no d----d old parson dictating to me about my affairs! And we
won't, none of the rest of us, will we? 'Cause them that an't got any
niggers now means to have. Don't we, boys?"

"Ay, ay, that we do! Give it to him!" was shouted from the party.

"It's our right to have niggers, and we will have them, if we can get
them," continued the speaker.

"Who gave you the right?" said father Dickson.

"Who gave it? Why, the Constitution of the United States, to be sure,
man! Who did you suppose? An't we got the freest government in the
world? Is we going to be shut out of communion, 'cause we holds niggers?
Don't care a cuss for your old communion, but it's the _principle_ I's
going for! Now, I tell you what, old fellow, we've got you; and you have
got to promise, right off the reel, that you won't say another word on
this yer subject."

"Friend, I shall make no such promise," said father Dickson, in a tone
so mild and steadfast that there was a momentary pause.

"You'd better," said a man in the crowd, "if you know what 's good for
you!"

A voice now spoke from the circle of the young men,--

"Never cave in, boys!"

"No fear of us!" responded the man who had taken the most prominent part
in the dialogue hitherto. "We'll serve it out to him! Now, ye see, old
feller, ye're treed, and may as well come down, as the coon said to
Davy. You can't help yourself, 'cause we are ten to one; and if you
don't promise peaceable, we'll make you!"

"My friends," said father Dickson, "I want you to think what you are
doing. Your good sense must teach you the impropriety of your course.
You know that you are doing wrong. You know that it isn't right to
trample on all law, both human and divine, out of professed love to it.
You must see that your course will lead to perfect anarchy and
confusion. The time may come when your opinions will be as unpopular as
mine."

"Well, what then?"

"Why, if your course prevails, you must be lynched, stoned, tarred, and
feathered. This is a two-edged sword you are using, and some day you may
find the edge turned towards you. You may be seized, just as you are
seizing me. You know the men that threw Daniel into the den got thrown
in themselves."

"Daniel who?" shouted one of the company; and the young men under the
tree laughed insultingly.

"Why are you afraid to let me preach, this evening?" said father
Dickson. "Why can't you hear me, and, if I say anything false, why can't
you show me the falsehood of it? It seems to me it's a weak cause that
can only get along by stopping men's mouths."

"No, no--we an't going to have it!" said the man who had taken the most
active part. "And now you've got to sign a solemn promise, this night,
that you won't ever open your mouth again about this yer subject, or
we'll make it worse for you!"

"I shall never make such a promise. You need not think to terrify me
into it, for I am not afraid. You must kill me before you can stop me."

"D--n you, then, old man," said one of the young men, riding up by the
side of him, "I'll tell you what you shall do! You shall sign a pledge
to leave North Carolina in three days, and never come back again, and
take your whole spawn and litter with you, or you shall be chastised for
your impudence! Now, look out, sir, for you are speaking to your
betters! Your insolence is intolerable! What business have you passing
strictures reflecting on the conduct of gentlemen of family? Think
yourself happy that we let you go out of the state without the
punishment that your impudence deserves!"

"Mr. Gordon, I am sorry to hear you speaking in that way," said Father
Dickson, composedly. "By right of your family, you certainly ought to
know how to speak as a gentleman. You are holding language to me that
you have no right to hold, and uttering threats that you have no means
of enforcing."

"You'll see if I haven't!" replied the other, with an oath. "Here,
boys!"

He beckoned one or two of the leaders to his side, and spoke with them
in a low voice. One of them seemed inclined to remonstrate.

"No, no--it's too bad!" he said.

But the others said,--

"Yes, it serves him right! We'll do it! Hurra, boys! We'll help on the
parson home, and help him kindle his fire!"

There was a general shout, as the whole party, striking up a ribald
song, seized father Dickson's horse, turned him round, and began
marching in the direction of his cabin in the woods.

Tom Gordon and his companions, who rode foremost, filled the air with
blasphemous and obscene songs, which entirely drowned the voice of
father Dickson whenever he attempted to make himself heard. Before they
started, Tom Gordon had distributed freely of whiskey among them, so
that what little manliness there might have been within seemed to be
"set on fire of hell." It was one of those moments that try men's souls.

Father Dickson, as he was hurried along, thought of that other _one_,
who was led by an infuriate mob through the streets of Jerusalem, and he
lifted his heart in prayer to the Apostle and High Priest of his
profession, the God in Jesus. When they arrived before his little cabin,
he made one more effort to arrest their attention.

"My brethren," he said.

"None of your brethren! Stop that cant!" said Tom Gordon.

"Hear me one word," said father Dickson. "My wife is quite feeble. I'm
sure you wouldn't wish to hurt a sick woman, who never did harm to any
mortal creature."

"Well, then," said Tom Gordon, facing round to him, "if you care so very
much about your wife, you can very easily save her any further trouble.
Just give us the promise we want, and we'll go away peaceably, and leave
you. But, if you won't, as true as there is a God in heaven, we'll pull
down every stick of timber in your old kennel! I'll tell you what, old
man, you've got a master to deal with, now!"

"I cannot promise not to preach upon this subject."

"Well, then, you must promise to take yourself out of the state. You can
go among your northern brethren, and howl and mawl round there; but we
are not going to have you here. I have as much respect for respectable
ministers of the Gospel as any one, when they confine themselves to the
duties of their calling; but, when they come down to be intriguing in
our worldly affairs, they must expect to be treated as we treat other
folks that do that. Their black coats shan't protect them! We are not
going to be priest-ridden, are we, boys?"

A loud whoop of inflamed and drunken merriment chorused this question.
Just at this moment the door of the cottage was opened, and a pale,
sickly-looking woman came gliding out to the gate.

"My dear," she said, and her voice was perfectly calm, "don't yield a
hair's breadth, on my account. I can bear as well as you. I am not
afraid. I am ready to die for conscience' sake. Gentlemen," she said,
"there is not much in this house of any value, except two sick children.
If it is agreeable to you to pull it down, you can do it. Our goods are
hardly worth spoiling, but you can spoil them. My husband, be firm;
don't yield an inch!"

It is one of the worst curses of slavery that it effaces from the breast
all manly feeling with regard to woman. Every one remembers the story
how the frail and delicate wife of Lovejoy placed her weakness as a
shield before the chamber door where her husband was secreted, and was
fought with brutal oaths and abuse by the drunken gang, who were
determined to pass over her body, if necessary, to his heart! They who
are trained to whip women in a servile position, of course can have none
of the respect which a free man feels for woman as woman. They respect
the sex when they see it enshrined by fashion, wealth, and power; but
they tread it in the dust when, in poverty and helplessness, it stands
in the path of their purposes.

"Woman," said Tom Gordon, "you are a fool! You needn't think to come it
round us with any of that talk! You needn't think we are going to stop
on your account, for we shan't. We know what we are about."

"So does God!" said the woman, fixing her eye on him with one of those
sudden looks of power with which a noble sentiment sometimes lights up
for a moment the weakest form.

There was a momentary pause, and then Tom broke out into oaths and
curses.

"I'll tell you what, boys," he said, "we had better bring matters to a
point! Here, tie him up to this tree, and give him six-and-thirty! He is
so dreadful fond of the niggers, let him fare with them! We know how to
get a promise out of him!"

The tiger was now fully awake in the crowd. Wild oaths and cries of
"Give it to him! Give it to him, G--d d--n him!" arose.

Father Dickson stood calm; and, beholding him, they saw his face as if
it had been that of an angel, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
A few moments more, and he was divested of his outer garments, and bound
to a tree.

"Now will you promise?" said Tom Gordon, taking out his watch. "I give
you five minutes."

The children, now aroused, were looking out, crying, from the door. His
wife walked out and took her place before him.

"Stand out of the way, old woman!" said Tom Gordon.

"I will not stand out of the way!" she said, throwing her arms round her
husband. "You shall not get to him but over my body!"

"Ben Hyatt, take her away!" said Tom Gordon. "Treat her decently, as
long as she behaves herself."

A man forced her away. She fell fainting on his shoulder.

"Lay her down," said Tom Gordon. "Now, sir, your five minutes are up.
What have you got to say?"

"I have to say that I shall not comply with your demands."

"Very well," said Tom, "it's best to be explicit."

He drew his horse a little back, and said to a man who was holding a
slave-whip behind,--

"Give it to him!"

The blows descended. He uttered no sound. The mob, meanwhile, tauntingly
insulted him.

"How do you like it? What do you think of it? Preach us a sermon, now,
can't you? Come, where's your text?"

"He is getting stars and stripes, now!" said one.

"I reckon he'll see stars!" said another.

"Stop," said Tom Gordon. "Well, my friend," he said, "you see we are in
earnest, and we shall carry this through to the bitter end, you may rely
on it. You won't get any sympathy; you won't get any support. There an't
a minister in the state that will stand by you. They all have sense
enough to let our affairs alone. They'd any of them hold a candle here,
as the good elder did when they thrashed Dresser, down at Nashville.
Come, now, will you cave in?"

But at this moment the conversation was interrupted by the riding up of
four or five gentlemen on horseback, the headmost of whom was Clayton.

"What's this?" he exclaimed, hurriedly. "What, Mr. Gordon--father
Dickson! What--what am I to understand by this?"

"Who the devil cares what you understand? It's no business of yours,"
said Tom Gordon; "so stand out of my way!"

"I shall make it some of my business," said Clayton, turning round to
one of his companions. "Mr. Brown, you are a magistrate?"

Mr. Brown, a florid, puffy-looking old gentleman, now rode forward.

"Bless my soul, but this is shocking! Mr. Gordon, don't! how can you? My
boys, you ought to consider!"

Clayton, meanwhile, had thrown himself off his horse, and cut the cords
which bound Father Dickson to the tree. The sudden reaction of feeling
overcame him. He fell, fainting.

"Are you not ashamed of yourselves?" said Clayton, indignantly glancing
round. "Isn't this pretty business for great, strong men like you,
abusing ministers that you know won't fight, and women and children that
you know can't!"

"Do you mean to apply that language to me?" said Tom Gordon.

"Yes, sir, I do mean just that!" said Clayton, looking at him, while he
stretched his tall figure to its utmost height.

"Sir, that remark demands satisfaction."

"You are welcome to all the satisfaction you can get," said Clayton,
coolly.

"You shall meet me," said Tom Gordon, "where you shall answer for that
remark!"

"I am not a fighting man," said Clayton; "but, if I were, I should never
consent to meet any one but my equals. When a man stoops to do the work
of a rowdy and a bully, he falls out of the sphere of gentlemen. As for
you," said Clayton, turning to the rest of the company, "there's more
apology for you. You have not been brought up to know better. Take my
advice; disperse yourselves now, or I shall take means to have this
outrage brought to justice."

There is often a magnetic force in the appearance, amid an excited mob,
of a man of commanding presence, who seems perfectly calm and decided.
The mob stood irresolute.

"Come, Tom," said Kite, pulling him by the sleeve, "we've given him
enough, at any rate."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Brown, "Mr. Gordon, I advise you to go home. We
must all keep the peace, you know. Come, boys, you've done enough for
one night, I should hope! Go home, now, and let the old man be; and
there's something to buy you a treat, down at Skinflint's. Come, do the
handsome, now!"

Tom Gordon sullenly rode away, with his two associates each side; but,
before he went, he said to Clayton,--

"You shall hear of me again, one of these days!"

"As you please," said Clayton.

The party now set themselves about recovering and comforting the
frightened family. The wife was carried in and laid down on the bed.
Father Dickson was soon restored so as to be able to sit up, and, being
generally known and respected by the company, received many expressions
of sympathy and condolence. One of the men was an elder in the church
which had desired his ministerial services. He thought this a good
opportunity of enforcing some of his formerly expressed opinions.

"Now, father Dickson," he said, "this just shows you the truth of what I
was telling you. This course of yours won't do; you see it won't, now.
Now, if you'd agree not to say anything of these troublesome matters,
and just confine yourself to the preaching of the Gospel, you see you
wouldn't get into any more trouble; and, after all, it's the Gospel
that's the root of the matter. The Gospel will gradually correct all
these evils, if you don't say anything about them. You see, the state of
the community is peculiar. They won't bear it. We feel the evils of
slavery just as much as you do. Our souls are burdened under it," he
said, complacently wiping his face with his handkerchief. "But
Providence doesn't appear to open any door here for us to do anything. I
think we ought to abide on the patient waiting on the Lord, who, in his
own good time, will bring light out of darkness, and order out of
confusion."

This last phrase being a part of a stereotyped exhortation with which
the good elder was wont to indulge his brethren in church
prayer-meetings, he delivered it in the sleepy drawl which he reserved
for such occasions.

"Well," said father Dickson, "I must say that I don't see that the
preaching of the Gospel, in the way we have preached it hitherto, has
done anything to rectify the evil. It's a bad sign if our preaching
doesn't make a conflict. When the apostles came to a place, they said,
'These men that turn the world upside down are come hither.'"

"But," said Mr. Brown, "you must consider our institutions are peculiar;
our negroes are ignorant and inflammable, easily wrought upon, and the
most frightful consequences may result. That's the reason why there is
so much sensation when any discussion is begun which relates to them.
Now, I was in Nashville when that Dresser affair took place. He hadn't
said a word--he hadn't opened his mouth, even--but he was known to be an
abolitionist; and so they searched his trunks and papers, and there they
found documents expressing abolition sentiments, sure enough. Well,
everybody, ministers and elders, joined in that affair, and stood by to
see him whipped. I thought, myself, they went too far. But there is
just where it is. People are not reasonable, and they won't be
reasonable, in such cases. It's too much to ask of them; and so
everybody ought to be cautious. Now, I wish, for my part, that ministers
would confine themselves to their appropriate duties. 'Christ's kingdom
is not of this world.' And, then, you don't know Tom Gordon. He is a
terrible fellow! I never want to come in conflict with him. I thought
I'd put the best face on it, and persuade him away. I didn't want to
make Tom Gordon my enemy. And I think Mr. Dickson, if you must preach
these doctrines I think it would be best for you to leave the state. Of
course, we don't want to restrict any man's conscience; but when any
kind of preaching excites brawls and confusion, and inflames the public
mind, it seems to be a duty to give it up."

"Yes," said Mr. Cornet, the elder, "we ought to follow the things which
make for peace--such things whereby one may edify another."

"Don't you see, gentlemen," said Mr. Clayton, "that such a course is
surrendering our liberty of free speech into the hands of a mob? If Tom
Gordon may dictate what is to be said on one subject, he may on another;
and the rod which has been held over our friend's head to-night may be
held over ours. Independent of the right or wrong of father Dickson's
principles, he ought to maintain his position, for the sake of
maintaining the right of free opinion in the state."

"Why," said Mr. Cornet, "the Scripture saith, 'If they persecute you in
this city, flee ye into another.'"

"That was said," said Clayton, "to a people that lived under despotism,
and had no rights of liberty given them to maintain. But, if we give way
before mob law, we make ourselves slaves of the worst despotism on
earth."

But Clayton spoke to men whose ears were stopped by the cotton of
slothfulness and love of ease. They rose up, and said,

"It was time for them to be going."

Clayton expressed his intention of remaining over the night, to afford
encouragement and assistance to his friends, in case of any further
emergency.

CHAPTER XLIX.

MORE VIOLENCE.

Clayton rose the next morning, and found his friends much better than he
had expected after the agitation and abuse of the night before. They
seemed composed and cheerful.

"I am surprised," he said, "to see that your wife is able to be up this
morning."

"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 scarcely thought we had strength to
help ourselves; and a child has been taken ill, or some other emergency
has occurred that called for immediate exertion, and we have been to the
Lord and found strength. Our way has been hedged up many a time--the sea
before us and the Egyptians behind us; but the sea has always opened
when we have stretched our hands to the Lord. I have never sought the
Lord in vain. He has allowed great troubles to come upon us; but he
always delivers us."

Clayton recalled the sneering, faithless, brilliant Frank Russel, and
compared him, in his own mind, with the simple, honest man before him.

"No," he said to himself, "human nature is not a humbug, after all.
There are some real men--some who will not acquiesce in what is
successful, if it be wrong."

Clayton was in need of such living examples; for, in regard to religion,
he was in that position which is occupied by too many young men of high
moral sentiment in this country. What he had seen of the worldly policy
and time-serving spirit of most of the organized bodies professing to
represent the Christian faith and life, had deepened the shadow of doubt
and distrust which persons of strong individuality and discriminating
minds are apt to feel in certain stages of their spiritual development.
Great afflictions--those which tear up the roots of the soul--are often
succeeded, in the course of the man's history, by a period of
scepticism. The fact is, such afflictions are disenchanting powers; they
give to the soul an earnestness and a power of discrimination which no
illusion can withstand. They teach us what we need, what we must have to
rest upon; and, in consequence, thousands of little formalities, and
empty shows, and dry religious conventionalities, are scattered by it
like chaff. The soul rejects them, in her indignant anguish; and,
finding so much that is insincere, and untrue, and unreliable, she has
sometimes hours of doubting all things.

Clayton saw again in the minister what he had seen in Nina--a soul
swayed by an attachment to an invisible person, whose power over it was
the power of a personal attachment, and who swayed it, not by dogmas or
commands, merely, but by the force of a sympathetic emotion. Beholding,
as in a glass, the divine image of his heavenly friend, insensibly to
himself the minister was changing into the same image. The good and the
beautiful to him was an embodied person,--even Jesus his Lord.

"What may be your future course?" said Clayton, with anxiety. "Will you
discontinue your labors is this state?"

"I may do so, if I find positively that there is no gaining a hearing,"
said father Dickson. "I think we owe it to our state not to give up the
point without a trial. There are those who are willing to hear
me--willing to make a beginning with me. It is true they are poor and
unfashionable; but still it is my duty not to desert them till I have
tried, at least, whether the laws can't protect me in the exercise of my
duty. The hearts of all men are in the hands of the Lord. He turneth
them as the rivers of water are turned. This evil is a great and a
trying one. It is gradually lowering the standard of morals in our
churches, till men know not what spirit they are of. I held it my duty
not to yield to the violence of the tyrant, and bind myself to a promise
to leave, till I had considered what the will of my Master would be."

"I should be sorry," said Clayton, "to think that North Carolina
couldn't protect you. I am sure, when the particulars of this are known,
there will be a general reprobation from all parts of the country. You
might remove to some other part of the state, not cursed by the
residence of a man like Tom Gordon. I will confer with my uncle, your
friend Dr. Cushing, and see if some more eligible situation cannot be
found, where you can prosecute your labors. He is at this very time
visiting his wife's father, in E., and I will ride over and talk with
him to-day. Meanwhile," said Clayton, as he rose to depart, "allow me to
leave with you a little contribution to help the cause of religious
freedom in which you are engaged."

And Clayton, as he shook hands with his friend and his wife, left an
amount of money with them such as had not crossed their palms for many a
day. Bidding them adieu, a ride of a few hours carried him to E., where
he communicated to Dr. Cushing the incidents of the night before.

"Why, it's perfectly shocking--abominable!" said Dr. Cushing. "Why, what
are we coming to? My dear young friend, this shows the necessity of
prayer. 'When the enemy cometh in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord
must lift up a standard against him.'"

"My dear uncle," said Clayton, rather impatiently, "it seems to me the
Lord has lifted up a standard in the person of this very man, and people
are too cowardly to rally around it."

"Well, my dear nephew, it strikes me you are rather excited," said Dr.
Cushing, good-naturedly.

"Excited?" said Clayton. "I ought to be excited! You ought to be
excited, too! Here's a good man beginning what you think a necessary
reform, and who does it in a way perfectly peaceable and lawful, who is
cloven down under the hoof of a mob, and all you can think of doing is
to pray to _the Lord_ to raise up a standard! What would you think, if a
man's house were on fire, and he should sit praying the Lord that in his
mysterious providence he would put it out?"

"Oh, the cases are not parallel," said Dr. Cushing.

"I think they are," said Clayton. "Our house is the state, and our house
is on fire by mob law; and, instead of praying the Lord to put it out,
you ought to go to work and put it out yourself. If all your ministers
would make a stand against this, uncle, and do all you can to influence
those to whom you are preaching, it wouldn't be done again."

"I am sure I should be glad to do something. Poor father Dickson! such
a good man as he is! But, then, I think, Clayton, he was rather
imprudent. It don't do, this unadvised way of proceeding. We ought to
watch against rashness, I think. We are too apt to be precipitate, and
not await the leadings of Providence. Poor Dickson! I tried to caution
him, the last time I wrote to him. To be sure, it's no excuse for them;
but, then, I'll write to brother Barker on the subject, and we'll see if
we can't get an article in the _Christian Witness_. I don't think it
would be best to allude to these particular circumstances, or to mention
any names; but there might be a general article on the importance of
maintaining the right of free speech, and of course people can apply it
for themselves."

"You remind me," said Clayton, "of a man who proposed commencing an
attack on a shark by throwing a sponge at him. But, now, really, uncle,
I am concerned for the safety of this good man. Isn't there any church
near you to which he can be called? I heard him at the camp-meeting, and
I think he is an excellent preacher."

"There are a good many churches," said Dr. Cushing, "which would be glad
of him, if it were not for the course he pursues on that subject; and I
really can't feel that he does right to throw away his influence so. He
might be the means of converting souls, if he would only be quiet about
this."

"Be quiet about fashionable sins," said Clayton, "in order to get a
chance to convert souls! What sort of converts are those who are not
willing to hear the truth on every subject? I should doubt conversions
that can only be accomplished by silence on great practical
immoralities."

"But," said Dr. Cushing, "Christ and the apostles didn't preach on the
abuses of slavery, and they alluded to it as an existing institution."

"Nor did they preach on the gladiatorial shows," said Clayton; "and Paul
draws many illustrations from them. Will you take the principle that
everything is to be let alone now about which the apostles didn't preach
directly?"

"I don't want to enter into that discussion now," said Dr. Cushing. "I
believe I'll ride over and see brother Dickson. After all, he is a dear,
good man, and I love him. I'd like to do something for him, if I were
not afraid it might be misunderstood."

Toward evening, however, Clayton, becoming uneasy at the lonely
situation of his clerical friend, resolved to ride over and pass the
night with him, for the sake of protecting him; and, arming himself with
a brace of pistols, he proceeded on his ride. As the day had been warm,
he put off his purpose rather late, and darkness overtook him before he
had quite accomplished his journey.

Riding deliberately through the woodland path in the vicinity of the
swamp, he was startled by hearing the tramp of horses' hoofs behind him.
Three men, mounted on horseback, were coming up, the headmost of whom,
riding up quickly behind, struck him so heavy a blow with a gutta percha
cane, as to fell him to the earth. In an instant, however, he was on his
feet again, and had seized the bridle of his horse.

"Who are you?" said he; for, by the dim light that remained of the
twilight, he could perceive that they all wore masks.

"We are men," said one of them, whose voice Clayton did not recognize,
"that know how to deal with fellows who insult gentlemen, and then
refuse to give them honorable satisfaction."

"And," said the second speaker, "we know how to deal with renegade
abolitionists, who are covertly undermining our institutions."

"And," said Clayton, coolly, "you understand how to be cowards; for none
but cowards would come three to one, and strike a man from behind! Shame
on you! Well, gentlemen, act your pleasure. Your first blow has disabled
my right arm. If you wish my watch and my purse, you may help
yourselves, as cut-throats generally do!"

The stinging contempt which was expressed in these last words seemed to
enrage the third man, who had not spoken. With a brutal oath, he raised
his cane again, and struck at him.

"Strike a wounded man, who cannot help himself--do!" said Clayton. "Show
yourself the coward you are! You are brave in attacking defenceless
women and children, and ministers of the Gospel!"

This time the blow felled Clayton to the earth, and Tom Gordon,
precipitating himself from the saddle, proved his eligibility for
Congress by beating his defenceless acquaintance on the head, after the
fashion of the chivalry of South Carolina. But, at this moment, a
violent blow from an unseen hand struck his right arm, and it fell,
broken, at his side. Mad with pain, he poured forth volumes of oaths,
such as our readers have never heard, and the paper refuses to receive.
And a deep voice said from the woods,--

"Woe to the bloody and deceitful man!"

"Look for the fellow! where is he?" said Tom Gordon.

The crack of a rifle, and a bullet which passed right over his head,
answered from the swamp, and the voice, which he knew was Harry's,
called from within the thicket,--

"Tom Gordon, beware! Remember Hark!" At the same time another rifle-shot
came over their heads.

"Come, come," said the other two, "there's a gang of them. We had better
be off. You can't do anything with that broken arm, there." And, helping
Tom into the saddle, the three rode away precipitately.

As soon as they were gone, Harry and Dred emerged from the thicket. The
latter was reported among his people to have some medical or surgical
skill. He raised Clayton up, and examined him carefully.

"He is not dead," he said.

"What shall we do for him?" Said Harry. "Shall we take him along to the
minister's cabin?"

"No, no," said Dred; "that would only bring the Philistines upon him!"

"It's full three miles to E.," said Harry. "It wouldn't do to risk going
there."

"No, indeed," said Dred. "We must take him to our stronghold of Engedi,
even as Samson bore the gates of Gaza. Our women shall attend him, and
when he is recovered we will set him on his journey."

CHAPTER L.

ENGEDI.

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 hunters.

In all despotic countries, however, it will be found that the oppressed
party become expert in the means of secrecy. It is also a fact that the
portion of the community who are trained to labor enjoy all that
advantage over the more indolent portion of it which can be given by a
vigorous physical system, and great capabilities of endurance. Without a
doubt, the balance of the physical strength of the south now lies in the
subject race. Usage familiarizes the dwellers of the swamp with the
peculiarities of their location, and gives them the advantage in it that
a mountaineer has in his own mountains. Besides, they who take their
life in their hand exercise their faculties with more vigor and
clearness than they who have only money at stake; and this advantage the
negroes had over the hunters.

Dred's "stronghold of Engedi," as we have said, was isolated from the
rest of the swamp by some twenty yards of deep morass, in which it was
necessary to wade almost to the waist. The shore presented to the eye
only the appearance of an impervious jungle of cat-brier and grapevine
rising out of the water. There was but one spot on which there was a
clear space to set foot on, and that was the place where Dred crept up
on the night when we first introduced the locality to our readers'
attention.

The hunters generally satisfied themselves with exploring more
apparently accessible portions; and, unless betrayed by those to whom
Dred had communicated the clue, there was very little chance that any
accident would ever disclose the retreat.

Dred himself appeared to be gifted with that peculiar faculty of
discernment of spirits which belonged to his father Denmark Vesey,
sharpened into a preternatural intensity by the habits of his wild and
dangerous life. The men he selected for trust were men as impenetrable
as himself, the most vigorous in mind and body on all the plantations.

The perfectness of his own religious enthusiasm, his absolute certainty
that he was inspired of God, as a leader and deliverer, gave him an
ascendency over the minds of those who followed him, which nothing but
religious enthusiasm ever can give. And this was further confirmed by
the rigid austerity of his life. For all animal comforts he appeared to
entertain a profound contempt. He never tasted strong liquors in any
form, and was extremely sparing in his eating; often fasting for days in
succession, particularly when he had any movement of importance in
contemplation.

It is difficult to fathom the dark recesses of a mind so powerful and
active as his, placed under a pressure of ignorance and social
disability so tremendous. In those desolate regions which he made his
habitation, it is said that trees often, from the singularly unnatural
and wildly stimulating properties of the slimy depths from which they
spring, assume a goblin growth, entirely different from their normal
habit. All sorts of vegetable monsters stretch their weird, fantastic
forms among its shadows. There is no principle so awful through all
nature as the principle of _growth_. It is a mysterious and dread
condition of existence, which, place it under what impediment or
disadvantage you will, is constantly forcing on; and when unnatural
pressure hinders it, develops in forms portentous and astonishing. The
wild, dreary belt of swamp-land which girds in those states scathed by
the fires of despotism is an apt emblem, in its rampant and we might say
delirious exuberance of vegetation, of that darkly struggling, wildly
vegetating swamp of human souls, cut off, like it, from the usages and
improvements of cultivated life.

Beneath that fearful pressure, souls whose energy, well-directed, might
have blessed mankind, start out in preternatural and fearful
developments, whose strength is only a portent of dread.

The night after the meeting which we have described was one, to this
singular being, of agonizing conflict. His psychological condition, as
near as we can define it, seemed to be that of a human being who had
been seized and possessed, after the manner related in ancient fables,
by the wrath of an avenging God. That part of the moral constitution,
which exists in some degree in us all, which leads us to feel pain at
the sight of injustice, and to desire retribution for cruelty and crime,
seemed in him to have become an absorbing sentiment, as if he had been
chosen by some higher power as the instrument of doom. At some moments
the idea of the crimes and oppressions which had overwhelmed his race
rolled in upon him with a burning pain, which caused him to cry out,
like the fated and enslaved Cassandra, at the threshold of the dark
house of tyranny and blood.

This sentiment of justice, this agony in view of cruelty and crime, is
in men a strong attribute of the highest natures; for he who is
destitute of the element of moral indignation is effeminate and tame.
But there is in nature and in the human heart a pleading, interceding
element, which comes in constantly to temper and soften this spirit and
this element in the divine mind, which the Scriptures represent by the
sublime image of an eternally interceding high priest, who, having
experienced every temptation of humanity, constantly urges all that can
be thought in mitigation of justice. As a spotless and high-toned mother
bears in her bosom the anguish of the impurity and vileness of her
child, so the eternally suffering, eternally interceding love of Christ
bears the sins of our race. But the Scriptures tell us that the
mysterious _person_, who thus stands before all worlds as the image and
impersonation of divine tenderness, has yet in reserve this awful energy
of wrath. The oppressors, in the last dread day, are represented as
calling to the mountains and rocks to fall on them, and hide them from
the wrath of the LAMB. This idea had dimly loomed up before the mind of
Dred, as he read and pondered the mysteries of the sacred oracles; and
was expressed by him in the form of language so frequent in his mouth,
that "the Lamb was bearing the yoke of the sins of men." He had been
deeply affected by the presentation which Milly had made in their night
meeting of the eternal principle of intercession and atonement. The
sense of it was blindly struggling with the habitual and overmastering
sense of oppression and wrong.

When his associates had all dispersed to their dwellings, he threw
himself on his face, and prayed: "O Lamb of God, that bearest the yoke,
why hast thou filled me with wrath? Behold these graves! Behold the
graves of my brothers, slain without mercy, and, Lord, they do not
repent! Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look
on iniquity. Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously,
and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more
righteous than he? They make men as fishes in the sea, as creeping
things that have no ruler over them. They take them up with the angle.
They catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag. Therefore
they rejoice and are glad. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and
burn incense unto their drag, because by them their portion is fat, and
their meat plenteous. Shall they, therefore, empty their net, and not
spare continually to slay the nations? Did not he that made them in the
womb make us? Did not the same God fashion us in the womb? Doubtless
thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel
acknowledgeth us not. Thou, O God, art our Father, our Redeemer.
Wherefore forgettest thou us for ever, and forsakest us so long a time?
Wilt thou not judge between us and our enemies? Behold, there is none
among them that stirreth himself up to call upon thee, and he that
departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. They lie in wait, they set
traps, they catch men, they are waxen fat, they shine, they overpass the
deeds of the wicked, they judge not the cause of the fatherless; yet
they prosper, and the right of the needy do they not judge. Wilt thou
not visit for these things, O Lord? Shall not thy soul be avenged on
such a nation as this? How long wilt thou endure? Behold under the altar
the souls of those they have slain! They cry unto thee continually. How
long, O Lord, dost thou not judge and avenge? Is there any that stirreth
himself up for justice? Is there any that regardeth our blood? We are
sold for silver; the price of our blood is in thy treasury; the price of
our blood is on thine altars! Behold, they build their churches with the
price of our hire! Behold, the stone doth cry out of the wall, and the
timber doth answer it. Because they build their towns with blood, and
establish their cities by iniquity. They have all gone one way. There is
none that careth for the spoilings of the poor. Art thou a just God?
When wilt thou arise to shake terribly the earth, that the desire of all
nations may come? Overturn, overturn, and overturn, till _he_ whose
right it is shall come!"

Such were the words, not uttered continuously, but poured forth at
intervals, with sobbings, groanings, and moanings, from the recesses of
that wild fortress. It was but a part of that incessant prayer with
which oppressed humanity has besieged the throne of justice in all ages.
We who live in ceiled houses would do well to give heed to that sound,
lest it be to us that inarticulate moaning which goes before the
earthquake. If we would estimate the force of almighty justice, let us
ask ourselves what a mother might feel for the abuse of her helpless
child, and multiply that by infinity.

But the night wore on, and the stars looked down serene and solemn, as
if no prayer had gone through the calm, eternal gloom; and the morning
broke in the east resplendent.

Harry, too, had passed a sleepless night. The death of Hark weighed like
a mountain upon his heart. He had known him for a whole-souled,
true-hearted fellow. He had been his counsellor and friend for many
years, and he had died in silent torture for him. How stinging is it at
such a moment to view the whole respectability of civilized society
upholding and glorifying the murderer; calling his sin by soft names,
and using for his defence every artifice of legal injustice! Some in our
own nation have had bitter occasion to know this, for we have begun to
drink the cup of trembling which for so many ages has been drank alone
by the slave. Let the associates of Brown ask themselves if they cannot
understand the midnight anguish of Harry!

His own impulses would have urged to an immediate insurrection, in which
he was careless about his own life, so the fearful craving of his soul
for justice was assuaged. To him the morning seemed to break red with
the blood of his friend. He would have urged to immediate and
precipitate action. But Dred, true to the enthusiastic impulses which
guided him, persisted in waiting for that sign from Heaven which was to
indicate when the day of grace was closed, and the day of judgment to
begin. This expectation he founded on his own version of certain
passages in the prophets, such as these:--

"I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath;
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke! The sun shall be turned into
darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of
the Lord shall come!"

Meanwhile, his associates were to be preparing the minds of the people,
and he was traversing the swamps in different directions, holding
nightly meetings, in which he read and expounded the prophecies to
excited ears. The laborious arguments, by which northern and southern
doctors of divinity have deduced from the Old Testament the divine
institution of slavery, were too subtle and fine-spun to reach his ear
amid the denunciations of prophecies, all turning on the sin of
oppression. His instinctive understanding of the spirit of the Bible
justified the sagacity which makes the supporter of slavery, to this
day, careful not to allow the slave the power of judging it for himself;
and we leave it to any modern pro-slavery divine whether, in Dred's
circumstances, his own judgment might not have been the same.

After daylight, Harry saw Dred standing, with a dejected countenance,
outside of his hut.

"I have wrestled," he said, "for thee; but the time is not yet! Let us
abide certain days, for the thing is secret unto me; and I cannot do
less nor more till the Lord giveth commandment. When the Lord delivereth
them into our hands, one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten
thousand to flight!"

"After all," said Harry, "our case is utterly hopeless! A few poor,
outcast wretches, without a place to lay our heads, and they all
revelling in their splendor and their power! Who is there in this great
nation that is not pledged against us? Who would not cry _Amen_, if we
were dragged out and hung like dogs? The north is as bad as the south!
They kill us, and the north consents and justifies! And all their
wealth, power, and religion, are used against us. We are the ones that
all sides are willing to give up. Any party in church or of state will
throw in our blood and bones as a make-weight, and think nothing of it.
And, when I see them riding out in their splendid equipages, their
houses full of everything that is elegant, they so cultivated and
refined, and our people so miserable, poor, and down-trodden, I haven't
any faith that there is a God!"

"Stop!" said Dred, laying his hand on his arm. "Hear what the prophet
saith. 'Their land, also, is full of silver and gold; neither is there
any end of their treasures. Their land, also, is full of horses; neither
is there any end of their chariots. Their land also is full of idols.
They worship the work of their own hands. Enter into the rock, and hide
thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his
majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of
man shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that
day. For the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be on every one that is
proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be
brought low! And upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted
up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and upon all the high mountains,
and upon all the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower,
and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon
all pleasant pictures! And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, the
haughtiness of man shall be made low! And they shall go in the holes of
the rocks, and in the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for
his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth!'"

The tall pines, and whispering oaks, as they stood waving in purple
freshness at the dawn, seemed like broad-winged attesting angels,
bearing witness, in their serene and solemn majesty, to the sublime
words, "Heaven and earth shall not pass away till these words have been
fulfilled!"

After a few moments a troubled expression came over the face of Dred.

"Harry," he said, "verily, he is a God that hideth himself! He giveth
none account to any of these matters. It may be that I shall not lead
the tribes over this Jordan; but that I shall lay my bones in the
wilderness! But the day shall surely come, and the sign of the Son of
Man shall appear in the air, and all tribes of the earth shall wail,
because of him! Behold, I saw white spirits and black spirits, that
contended in the air; and the thunder rolled, and the blood flowed, and
the voice said, 'Come rough, come smooth! Such is the decree. Ye must
surely bear it!' But, as yet, the prayers of the saints have power; for
there be angels, having golden censers, which be the prayers of saints.
And the Lord, by reason thereof, delayeth. Behold I have borne the
burden of the Lord even for many years. He hath covered me with a cloud
in the day of his anger, and filled me with his wrath; and his word has
been like a consuming fire shut in my bones! He hath held mine eyes
waking, and my bones have waxed old with my roarings all the day long!
Then I have said, 'Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in the dust! That thou
wouldst keep me secret till thy wrath be past!'"

At this moment, soaring upward through the blue sky, rose the fair form
of a wood-pigeon, wheeling and curving in the morning sunlight, cutting
the ether with airy flight, so smooth, even, and clear, as if it had
learnt motion from the music of angels.

Dred's eye, faded and haggard with his long night-watchings, followed it
for a moment with an air of softened pleasure, in which was blent
somewhat of weariness and longing.

"Oh, that I had wings like a dove!" he said. "Then would I flee away and
be at rest! I would hasten from the windy storm and tempest! Lo, then I
would wander far off, and remain in the wilderness!"

There was something peculiar in the power and energy which this man's
nature had of drawing others into the tide of its own sympathies, as a
strong ship, walking through the water, draws all the smaller craft into
its current.

Harry, melancholy and disheartened as he was, felt himself borne out
with him in that impassioned prayer.

"I know," said Dred, "that the new heavens and the new earth shall come,
and the redeemed of the Lord shall walk in it. But, as for me, I am a
man of unclean lips, and the Lord hath laid on me the oppressions of the
people! But, though the violent man prevail against me, it shall surely
come to pass!"

Harry turned away, and walked slowly to the other side of the clearing,
where Old Tiff, with Fanny, Teddy, and Lisette, having kindled a fire on
the ground, was busy in preparing their breakfast. Dred, instead of
going into his house, disappeared in the thicket. Milly had gone home
with the man who came from Canema. The next day, as Harry and Dred made
a hunting excursion through the swamp, returning home in the edge of the
evening, they happened to be passing near the scene of lawless violence
which we have already described.

CHAPTER LI.

THE SLAVE HUNT.

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 now one and now another prevailed.
The miserable girls who were held by him as his particular attendants
were tormented by every species of annoyance which a restless and
passionate man, in his impatience, could devise.

The recent death of Milly's mistress by the cholera had reduced her
under Tom's authority; and she was summoned now from her work every hour
to give directions and advice, which, the minute they were given, were
repudiated with curses.

"I declare," said Aunt Katy, the housekeeper, "if Mas'r Tom isn't 'nough
to use a body off o' der feet. It's jist four times I's got gruel ready
for him dis last two hours--doing all I could to suit him; and he swars
at it, and flings it round real undecent. Why, he's got fever, and does
he spect to make things taste good to him, when he's got fever! Why,
course I can't, and no need of him calling me a devil, and all that!
That ar's very unnecessary, I think. I don't believe in no such! The
Gordons allers used to have some sense to 'em, even if they was cross;
but he an't got a grain. I should think he was 'sessed wid Old Sam, for
my part. Bringing 'sgrace on us all, the way he cuts up! We really don'
know how to hold up our head, none of us. The Gordons have allers been
sich a genteel family! Laws, we didn't know what privileges we had when
we had Miss Nina! Them new girls, dressed up in all their flounces and
ferbuloes! Guess they has to take it!"

In time, however, even in spite of his chafing, and fretfulness, and
contempt of physicians' prescriptions, Tom seemed to recover, by the
same kind of fatality which makes ill-weeds thrive apace. Meanwhile he
employed his leisure hours in laying plans of revenge, to be executed as
soon as he should be able to take to his horse again. Among other
things, he vowed deep vengeance on Abijah Skinflint, who, he said, he
knew _must_ have sold the powder and ammunition to the negroes in the
swamp. This may have been true, or may not; but, in cases of lynch law,
such questions are indifferent matter. A man is accused, condemned, and
judged, at the will of his more powerful neighbor. It was sufficient to
Tom that _he thought so_; and, being sick and cross, thought so just now
with more particular intensity.

Jim Stokes, he knew, cherished an animosity of long standing towards
Abijah, which he could make use of in enlisting him in the cause. One of
the first uses, therefore, which Tom made of his recovered liberty,
after he was able to ride out, was to head a raid on Abijah's shop. The
shop was without ceremony dismantled and plundered; and the mob, having
helped themselves to his whiskey, next amused themselves by tarring and
feathering him; and, having insulted and abused him to their
satisfaction, and exacted a promise from him to leave the state within
three days, they returned home glorious in their own eyes. And the next
week a brilliant account of the affair appeared in the _Trumpet of
Liberty_, headed,--

     "SUMMARY JUSTICE."

     Nobody pitied Abijah, of course; and, as he would probably have
     been quite willing to join in the same sort of treatment for any
     one else, we know not that we are particularly concerned for his
     doom. The respectable people in the neighborhood first remarked
     that they didn't approve of mobs in general, and then dilated, with
     visible satisfaction, on this in particular, after a fashion of
     that stupid class that are called respectable people, generally.
     The foolish mob gloried and exulted, not considering that any day
     the same weapons might be turned against them. The mob being now
     somewhat drilled and animated, Tom proposed, while their spirit was
     up, to get up a hunting in the swamp, which should more fully
     satisfy his own private vengeance. There is a sleeping tiger in the
     human breast that delights in violence and blood; and this tiger
     Tom resolved to unchain.

The act of outlawry had already publicly set up Harry as a mark for
whatever cruelty drunken ingenuity might choose to perpetrate. As our
readers may have a curiosity in this kind of literature, we will indulge
them with a copy of this:--

     "_State of North Carolina, Chowan County._

     "Whereas, complaint upon oath hath this day been made to us, two of
     the Justices of the Peace for the said county and state aforesaid,
     by Thomas Gordon, that a certain male slave belonging to him, named
     Harry, a carpenter by trade, about thirty-five years old, five feet
     four inches high or thereabouts; dark complexion, stout built, blue
     eyes, deep sunk in his head, forehead very square, tolerable loud
     voice; hath absented himself from his master's service, and is
     supposed to be lurking about in the swamp, committing acts of
     felony or other misdeeds. These are, therefore, in the name of the
     state aforesaid, to command said slave forthwith to surrender
     himself, and return home to his said master. And we do hereby, by
     virtue of the act of assembly, in such case made and provided,
     intimate and declare that if the said slave Harry doth not
     surrender himself, and return home immediately after the
     publication of these presents, that any person or persons may kill
     and destroy the said slave by such means as he or they may think
     fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime or offence for
     so doing, and without incurring any penalty or forfeiture thereby.

     "Given under our hands and seal,

     "JAMES T. MULLER,    { SEAL. }
     "T. BUTTERCOURT."[3] { SEAL. }

One can scarcely contemplate without pity the condition of a population
which grows up under the influence of such laws and customs as these.
That the lowest brutality and the most fiendish cruelty should be
remorselessly practised by those whose ferocity thus receives the
sanction of the law, cannot be wondered at. Tom Gordon convened at his
house an assemblage of those whom he used as the tools and ministers of
his vengeance. Harry had been secretly hated by them all in his
prosperous days, because, though a slave, he was better dressed, better
educated, and, on the whole, treated with more consideration by the
Gordon family and their guests, than they were; and, at times, he had
had occasion to rebuke some of them for receiving from the slaves goods
taken from the plantation. To be sure, while he was prosperous they were
outwardly subservient to him, as the great man of a great family; but
now he was _down_, as the amiable fashion of the world generally is,
they resolved to make up for their former subservience by redoubled
insolence.

Jim Stokes, in particular, bore Harry a grudge, for having once
expressed himself with indignation concerning the meanness and brutality
of his calling; and he was therefore the more willing to be made use of
on the present occasion. Accordingly, on the morning we speak of, there
was gathered before the door of the mansion at Canema a confused
_mélange_ of men, of that general style of appearance which, in our
times, we call "Border Ruffians,"--half drunken, profane, obscene as the
harpies which descended on the feast of Æneas. Tom Gordon had only this
advantage among them, that superior education and position had given him
the power, when he chose, of assuming the appearance and using the
language of a gentleman. But he had enough of grossness within, to
enable him at will to become as one of them. Tom's arm was still worn in
a sling, but, as lack of energy never was one of his faults, he was
about to take the saddle with his troop. At present they were drawn up
before the door, laughing, swearing, and drinking whiskey, which flowed
in abundance. The dogs--the better-mannered brutes of the two, by all
odds--were struggling in their leashes with impatience and excitement.
Tom Gordon stood forth on the veranda, after the fashion of great
generals of old, who harangued their troops on the eve of battle. Any
one who has read the speeches of the leaders who presided over the
sacking of Lawrence will get an idea of some features in this style of
eloquence, which our pen cannot represent.

"Now, boys," said Tom, "you are getting your names up. You've done some
good work already. You've given that old, snivelling priest a taste of
true orthodox doctrine, that will enlighten him for the future. You've
given that long-nosed Skinflint light enough to see the error of _his_
ways."

A general laugh here arose, and voices repeated,--

"Ah, ah, that we did! Didn't we, though?"

"I reckon you did!" said Tom Gordon. "I reckon he didn't need candles to
see his sins by, that night! Didn't we make a candle of his old
dog-kennel? Didn't he have light to see his way out of the state by? and
didn't we give him a suit to keep him warm on the road? Ah, boys, that
was a warm suit--no mistake! It was a suit that will stick to him, too!
He won't trade that off for rum, in a hurry, I'm thinking! Will he,
boys?"

Bursts of crazy, half-drunken applause here interrupted the orator.

"Pity we hadn't put a match to it!" shouted one.

"Ah, well, boys, you did enough for that time! Wait till you catch these
sneaking varmins in the swamp; you shall do what you like with them.
Nobody shall hinder you, that's law and order. These foxes have troubled
us long enough, stealing at our hen-roosts while we were asleep. We
shall make it hot for them, if we catch them; and we are going to catch
them. There are no two ways about it. This old swamp is like Davy's
coon--it's got _to come down_! And it will come down, boys, when it sees
_us_ coming. No mistake about that! Now, boys, mind, catch him alive, if
you can; but shoot him, if you can't. Remember, I'll give a hundred and
fifty dollars for his head!"

A loud shout chorused this last announcement, and Tom descended in glory
to take his place in his saddle.

Once, we suppose, this history would not have been believed, had it been
told; but of late our own sons and brothers have been hounded and hunted
by just such men, with such means.

The fire which began in the dry tree has spread to the green!

Long live the _great Christianizing Institution_!!!

FOOTNOTE:

[3] The original document from which this is taken can be seen in the
Appendix. It appeared in the _Wilmington Journal_, December 18, 1850.

CHAPTER LII.

"ALL OVER."

Clayton, at the time of the violent assault which we have described,
received an injury upon the head which rendered him insensible.

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 thousand leafy hollows of waving
boughs. Voices of birds warbling and calling, like answering echoes, to
each other, fell dreamily on his ear. Some gentle hand was placing
bandages around his head; and figures of women, he did not recognize,
moved whisperingly around him, tending and watching.

He dropped asleep again, and thus for many hours lay in a kind of heavy
trance.

Harry and Lisette had vacated, for his use, their hut; but, as it was
now the splendid weather of October, when earth and sky become a temple
of beauty and serenity, they tended him during the hours of the day in
the open air, and it would seem as if there were no art of healing like
to this. As air and heat and water all have a benevolent tendency to
enter and fill up a vacuum, so we might fancy the failing vitality of
the human system to receive accessions of vigor by being placed in the
vicinity of the healthful growths of nature. All the trees which John
saw around the river of life and heaven bore healing leaves; and there
may be a sense in which the trees of our world bear leaves that are
healing both to body and soul. He who hath gone out of the city, sick,
disgusted, and wearied, and lain himself down in the forest, under the
fatherly shadow of an oak, may have heard this whispered to him in the
leafy rustlings of a thousand tongues.

    *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

"See," said Dred to Harry, as they were watching over the yet
insensible form of Clayton, "how the word of the Lord is fulfilled on
this people. He shall deliver them, every man into the hand of his
neighbor; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey!"

"Yes," said Harry; "but this is a good man; he stands up for our rights.
If he had his way, we should soon have justice done us."

"Yes," said Dred, "but it is even as it was of old; 'behold I send unto
you prophets and wise men, and some of them shall ye slay. For this
people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears have they closed.
Therefore, the Lord shall bring upon this generation the blood of all
the slain, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias,
the son of Barachias, whom they slew between the temple and the altar.'"

    *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

After a day or two spent in a kind of listless dreaming, Clayton was so
far recovered as to be able to sit up and look about him. The serene
tranquillity of the lovely October skies seemed to fall like a spell
upon his soul.

Amidst the wild and desolate swamp, here was an island of security,
where nature took men to her sheltering bosom. A thousand birds,
speaking with thousand airy voices, were calling from breezy tree-tops,
and from swinging cradles of vine-leaves; white clouds sailed, in
changing and varying islands, over the heavy green battlements of the
woods. The wavering, slumberous sound of thousand leaves, through which
the autumn air walked to and fro, consoled him. Life began to look to
him like a troubled dream, forever past. His own sufferings, the hours
of agony and death which he had never dared to remember, seemed now to
wear a new and glorified form. Such is the divine power in which God
still reveals himself through the lovely and incorruptible forms of
nature.

Clayton became interested in Dred, as a psychological study. At first he
was silent and reserved, but attended to the wants of his guest with
evident respect and kindness. Gradually, however, the love of
expression, which lies hidden in almost every soul, began to unfold
itself in him, and he seemed to find pleasure in a sympathetic listener.
His wild jargon of hebraistic phrases, names, and allusions, had for
Clayton, in his enfeebled state, a quaint and poetic interest. He
compared him, in his own mind, to one of those old rude Gothic doorways,
so frequent in European cathedrals, where scriptural images, carved in
rough granite, mingle themselves with a thousand wayward, fantastic
freaks of architecture; and sometimes he thought, with a sigh, how much
might have been accomplished by a soul so ardent and a frame so
energetic, had they been enlightened and guided.

Dred would sometimes come, in the shady part of the afternoon, and lie
on the grass beside him, and talk for hours in a quaint, rambling,
dreamy style, through which there were occasional flashes of practical
ability and shrewdness.

He had been a great traveller--a traveller through regions generally
held inaccessible to human foot and eye. He had explored not only the
vast swamp-girdle of the Atlantic, but the everglades of Florida, with
all their strange and tropical luxuriance of growth; he had wandered
along the dreary and perilous belt of sand which skirts the southern
Atlantic shores, full of quicksands and of dangers, and there he had
mused of the eternal secret of the tides, with whose restless,
never-ceasing rise and fall the soul of man has a mysterious sympathy.
Destitute of the light of philosophy and science, he had revolved in the
twilight of his ardent and struggling thoughts the causes of natural
phenomena, and settled these questions for himself by theories of his
own. Sometimes his residence for weeks had been a stranded hulk, cast on
one of these inhospitable shores, where he fasted and prayed, and
fancied that answering voices came to him in the moaning of the wind and
the sullen swell of the sea.

Our readers behold him now, stretched on the grass beside the hut of
Harry and Lisette, in one of his calmest and most communicative moods.

The children, with Lisette and the women, were searching for grapes in a
distant part of the inclosure; and Harry, with the other fugitive man,
had gone to bring in certain provisions which were to have been
deposited for them in a distant part of the swamp by some of their
confederates on one of the plantations. Old Tiff was hoeing potatoes
diligently in a spot not very far distant, and evidently listening to
the conversation with an ear of shrewd attention.

"Yes," said Dred, with that misty light in his eye which one may often
have remarked in the eye of enthusiasts, "the glory holds off, but it is
coming! Now is the groaning time! _That_ was revealed to me when I was
down at Okerecoke, when I slept three weeks in the hulk of a ship out of
which all souls had perished."

"Rather a dismal abode, my friend," said Clayton, by way of drawing him
on to conversation.

"The Spirit drove me there," said Dred, "for I had besought the Lord to
show unto me the knowledge of things to come; and the Lord bade me to go
from the habitations of men, and to seek out the desolate places of the
sea, and dwell in the wreck of a ship that was forsaken, for a sign of
desolation unto this people. So I went and dwelt there. And the Lord
called me Amraphal, because hidden things of judgment were made known
unto me. And the Lord showed unto me that even as a ship which is
forsaken of the waters, wherein all flesh have died, so shall it be with
the nation of the oppressor."

"How did the Lord show you this?" said Clayton, bent upon pursuing his
inquiry.

"Mine ear received it in the night season," said Dred, "and I heard how
the whole creation groaneth and travaileth, waiting for the adoption;
and because of this he hath appointed the tide."

"I don't see the connection," said Clayton. "Why because of this?"

"Because," said Dred, "every day is full of labor, but the labor goeth
back again into the seas. So that travail of all generations hath gone
back, till the desire of all nations shall come, and He shall come with
burning and with judgment, and with great shakings; but in the end
thereof shall be peace. Wherefore, it is written that in the new heavens
and the new earth there shall be no more sea."

These words were uttered with an air of solemn, assured confidence, that
impressed Clayton strangely. Something in his inner nature seemed to
recognize in them a shadow of things hoped for. He was in that mood into
which the mind of him who strives with the evils of this world must
often fall--a mood of weariness and longing; and heard within him the
cry of the human soul, tempest-tossed and not comforted, for rest and
assurance of the state where there shall be no more sea.

"So, then," he said unto Dred, "so, then, you believe that these heavens
and earth shall be made new."

"Assuredly," said Dred. "And the King shall reign in righteousness. He
shall deliver the needy when he crieth,--the poor and him that hath no
helper. He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence. He shall
sit upon a white cloud, and the rainbow shall be round about his head.
And the elect of the Lord shall be kings and priests on the earth."

"And do you think you shall be one of them?" said Clayton.

Dred gave a kind of inward groan.

"Not every one that prophesieth in his name shall be found worthy!" he
said. "I have prayed the Lord, but He hath not granted me the assurance.
I am the rod of his wrath, to execute vengeance on his enemies. Shall
the axe magnify itself against him that lifteth it?"

The conversation was here interrupted by Harry, who, suddenly springing
from the tree, came up, in a hurried and agitated manner.

"The devil is broke loose!" he said. "Tom Gordon is out, with his whole
crew at his heels, beating the swamp! A more drunken, swearing,
ferocious set I never saw! They have got on to the trail of poor Jim,
and are tracking him without mercy!"

A dark light flashed from Dred's eye, as he sprang upon his feet.

"The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; yea, the wilderness of
Kadesh. I will go forth and deliver him!"

He seized his rifle and shot-bag, and in a few moments was gone. It was
Harry's instinct to have followed him; but Lisette threw herself,
weeping, on his neck.

"Don't go--don't!" she said. "What shall we all do without you? Stay
with us! You'll certainly be killed, and you can do no good!"

"Consider," said Clayton, "that you have not the familiarity with these
swamps, nor the wonderful physical power of this man. It would only be
throwing away your life."

The hours of that day passed gloomily. Sometimes the brutal sound of
the hunt seemed to sweep near them,--the crack of rifles, the baying of
dogs, the sound of oaths,--and then again all went off into silence, and
nothing was heard but the innocent patter of leaf upon leaf, and the
warbling of the birds, singing cheerily, ignorant of the abyss of
cruelty and crime over which they sang.

Towards sunset a rustling was heard in the branches of the oak, and Dred
dropped down into the inclosure, wet, and soiled, and wearied. All
gathered round him, in a moment.

"Where is Jim?" asked Harry.

"Slain!" said Dred. "The archers pressed him sore and he hath fallen in
the wilderness!"

There was a general exclamation of horror. Dred made a movement to sit
down on the earth. He lost his balance, and fell; and they all saw now,
what at first they had not noticed, a wound in his breast, from which
the blood was welling. His wife fell by his side, with wild moans of
sorrow. He lifted his hand, and motioned her from him.

"Peace," he said, "peace! It is enough! Behold, I go unto the witnesses
who cry day and night!"

The circle stood around him in mute horror and surprise. Clayton was the
first who had presence of mind to kneel and stanch the blood. Dred
looked at him; his calm, large eyes filled with supernatural light.

"All over!" he said.

He put his hand calmly to his side, and felt the gushing blood. He took
some in his hand and threw it upward, crying out, with wild energy, in
the words of an ancient prophet,--

"Oh, earth, earth, earth! Cover thou not my blood!"

Behind the dark barrier of the woods the sun was setting gloriously.
Piles of loose, floating clouds, which all day long had been moving
through the sky in white and silvery stillness, now one after another
took up the rosy flush, and became each one a light-bearer, filled with
ethereal radiance. And the birds sang on as they ever sing, unterrified
by the great wail of human sorrow.

It was evident to the little circle that He who is mightier than the
kings of the earth was there, and that that splendid frame, which had
so long rejoiced in the exuberance of health and strength, was now to be
resolved again into the eternal elements.

"Harry," he said, "lay me beneath the heap of witness. Let the God of
their fathers judge between us!"

CHAPTER LIII.

THE BURIAL.

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 regarded him as a prophet and a
deliverer. He in whom they trusted was dead! The splendid, athletic
form, so full of wild vitality, the powerful arm, the trained and
keen-seeing eye, all struck down at once! The grand and solemn voice
hushed, and all the splendid poetry of olden time, the inspiring symbols
and prophetic dreams, which had so wrought upon his own soul, and with
which he had wrought upon the souls of others, seemed to pass away with
him, and to recede into the distance and become unsubstantial, like the
remembered sounds of mighty winds, or solemn visions of evening clouds,
in times long departed.

On that night, when the woods had ceased to reverberate the brutal
sounds of baying dogs, and the more brutal profanity of drunken men;
when the leaves stood still on the trees, and the forest lay piled up in
the darkness like black clouds, and the morning star was standing like a
calm angelic presence above them, there might have been heard in the
little clearing a muffled sound of footsteps, treading heavily, and
voices of those that wept with a repressed and quiet weeping, as they
bore the wild chieftain to his grave beneath the blasted tree. Of the
undaunted circle who had met there at the same hour many evenings
before, some had dared to be present to-night; for, hearing the report
of the hunt, they had left their huts on the plantations by stealth when
all were asleep, and, eluding the vigilance of the patrols, the night
watch which commonly guards plantations, had come to the forest to learn
the fate of their friends; and bitter was the dismay and anguish which
filled their souls when they learned the result. It is melancholy to
reflect, that among the children of one Father an event which excites
in one class bitterness and lamentation should in another be cause of
exultation and triumph. But the world has been thousands of years and
not yet learned the first two words of the Lord's Prayer; and not until
all tribes and nations have learned these will his kingdom come, and his
will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.

Among those who stood around the grave, none seemed more bowed down and
despairing than one whom we have before introduced to the reader, under
the name of Hannibal. He was a tall and splendidly formed negro, whose
large head, high forehead, and marked features, indicated resolution and
intellectual ability. He had been all his life held as the property of
an uneducated man, of very mean and parsimonious character, who was
singularly divided in his treatment of him, by a desire to make the most
of his energies and capabilities as a slave, and a fear lest they should
develop so fast as to render him unfit for the condition of slavery.

Hannibal had taught himself to read and write, but the secret of the
acquisition was guarded in his own bosom, as vigilantly as the traveller
among thieves would conceal in his breast an inestimable diamond; for he
well knew that, were these acquisitions discovered, his master's fears
would be so excited as to lead him to realize at once a present sum upon
him, by selling him to the more hopeless prison-house of the far south,
thus separating him from his wife and family.

Hannibal was generally employed as the keeper of a ferryboat by his
master, and during the hours when he was waiting for passengers found
many opportunities for gratifying, in an imperfect manner, his thirst
for knowledge.

Those who have always had books about them more than they could or would
read know nothing of the passionate eagerness with which a repressed and
starved intellect devours in secret its stolen food.

In a little chink between the logs of his ferry-house there was secreted
a Bible, a copy of Robinson Crusoe, and an odd number of a northern
newspaper which had been dropped from the pocket of a passenger; and
when the door was shut and barred at night, and his bit of pine knot
lighted, he would take these out and read them hour by hour. There he
yearned after the wild freedom of the desolate island. He placed his
wife and children, in imagination, in the little barricaded abode of
Robinson. He hunted and made coats of skin, and gathered strange fruits
from trees with unknown names, and felt himself a free man.

Over a soul so strong and so repressed it is not to be wondered at that
Dred should have acquired a peculiar power. The study of the Bible had
awakened in his mind that vague tumult of aspirations and hopes which it
ever excites in the human breast; and he was prompt to believe that the
Lord who visited Israel in Egypt had listened to the sighings of their
captivity, and sent a prophet and a deliverer to his people.

Like a torch carried in a stormy night, this hope had blazed up within
him; but the cold blast of death had whistled by, and it was
extinguished forever.

Among the small band that stood around the dead, on the edge of the
grave, he stood, looking fixedly on the face of the departed. In the
quaint and shaggy mound to which Dred had attached that strange, rugged,
oriental appellation, _Jegar Sahadutha_, or the "heap of witness," there
was wildly flaring a huge pine-knot torch, whose light fell with a red,
distinct glare on the prostrate form that lay there like a kingly cedar
uprooted, no more to wave its branches in air, yet mighty in its fall,
with all the shaggy majesty of its branches around. Whatever might have
been the strife and struggle of the soul once imprisoned in that form,
there was stamped upon the sombre face an expression of majestic and
mournful tranquillity, as if that long-suffering and gracious God, to
whose judgment he had made his last appeal, had rendered that judgment
in mercy. When the statesmen and mighty men of _our_ race die, though
they had the weaknesses and sins of humanity, they want not orators in
the church to draw the veil gently, to speak softly of their errors and
loudly of their good, and to predict for them, if not an abundant
entrance, yet at least a safe asylum among the blessed; and something
not to be rebuked in our common nature inclines to join in a hopeful
amen. It is not easy for us to believe that a great and powerful soul
can be lost to God and itself forever.

But he who lies here so still and mournfully in this flickering
torch-light had struggling within him the energies which make the
patriot and the prophet. Crushed beneath a mountain of ignorance, they
rose blind and distorted; yet had knowledge enlightened and success
crowned them, his name might have been, with that of Toussaint,
celebrated in mournful sonnet by the deepest thinking poet of the age:--

                               "Thou hast left behind
     Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;
     There's not a breathing of the common wind
     That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
     Thy friends are exaltations, agonies,
     And love, and man's unconquerable mind."

The weight of so great an affliction seemed to have repressed the usual
vivacity with which the negro is wont to indulge the expression of
grief. When the body was laid down by the side of the grave, there was
for a time a silence so deep that the rustling of the leaves, and the
wild, doleful clamor of the frogs and turtles in the swamps, and the
surge of the winds in the pine-tree tops, were all that met the ear.
Even the wife of the dead stood with her shawl wrapped tightly about
her, rocking to and fro, as if in the extremity of grief.

An old man in the company, who had officiated sometimes as preacher
among the negroes, began to sing a well-known hymn very commonly used at
negro funerals, possibly because its wild and gloomy imagery has
something exciting to their quick imaginations. The words rose on the
night air:--

     "Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound,
       My ears attend the cry;
     Ye living men, come view the ground
       Where you must shortly lie."

During the singing of this verse Hannibal stood silent, with his arms
gloomily folded, his eyes fixed on the lifeless face. Gradually the
sentiment seemed to inspire his soul with a kind of serene triumph; he
lifted his head, and joined his deep bass voice in the singing of the
second verse:--

     "Princes, this clay must be your bed,
        In spite of all your towers;
     The tall, the wise, the reverend head,
        Must lie as low as ours."

"Yes," he said, "brethren, that will be the way of it. They triumph and
lord it over us now, but their pomp will be brought down to the grave,
and the noise of their viols. The worm shall be spread under them, and
the worm shall cover them; and when we come to stand together at the
judgment seat, our testimony will be took there if it never was afore;
and the Lord will judge atween us and our oppressors,--that's one
comfort. Now, brethren, let's jest lay him in the grave, and he that's a
better man, or would have done better in his place, let him judge him if
he dares."

They lifted him up and laid him into the grave; and in a few moments all
the mortal signs by which that soul had been known on earth had
vanished, to appear no more till the great day of judgment and decision.

CHAPTER LIV.

THE ESCAPE.

Clayton had not been an unsympathizing or inattentive witness of these
scenes.

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 of excitement in some of the
actors in the scene before him, which, unless some escape-valve were
opened, might lead to most fatal results.

The day after the funeral, he talked with Harry, wisely and kindly,
assuming nothing to himself on the ground either of birth or position;
showing to him the undesirableness and hopelessness, under present
circumstances, of any attempt to right by force the wrongs under which
his class were suffering, and opening to him and his associates a
prospect of a safer way by flight to the Free States.

One can scarcely appreciate the moral resolution and force of character
which could make a person in Clayton's position in society--himself
sustaining, in the eye of the law, the legal relation of a
slave-holder--give advice of this kind. No crime is visited with more
unsparing rigor by the _régime_ of southern society than the aiding or
abetting the escape of a slave. He who does it is tried as a
negro-stealer; and in some states death, in others a long and
disgraceful imprisonment in the penitentiary, is the award.

For granting the slightest assistance and succor, in cases like
these,--for harboring the fugitive for even a night,--for giving him the
meanest shelter and food,--persons have been stripped of their whole
property, and turned out destitute upon the world. Others for no other
crime, have languished years in unhealthy dungeons, and coming out at
last with broken health and wasted energies; nor has the most saintly
patience and purity of character in the victim been able to lessen or
mitigate the penalty.

It was therefore only by the discerning power of a mind sufficiently
clear and strong to see its way through the mists of educational
association, that Clayton could feel himself to be doing right in thus
violating the laws and customs of the social state under which he was
born. But, in addition to his belief in the inalienable right of every
man to liberty, he had at this time a firm conviction that nothing but
the removal of some of these minds from the oppressions which were
goading them could prevent a development of bloody insurrection.

It is probable that nothing has awakened more bitterly the animosity of
the slave-holding community than the existence in the Northern States of
an indefinite yet very energetic institution, known as _the underground
railroad_; and yet, would they but reflect wisely on the things that
belong to their peace, they would know that this has removed many a
danger from their dwellings. One has only to become well acquainted with
some of those fearless and energetic men who have found their way to
freedom by its means, to feel certain that such minds and hearts would
have proved, in time, an incendiary magazine under the scorching reign
of slavery. But by means of this, men of that class who cannot be kept
in slavery have found a road to liberty which endangered the shedding of
no blood but their own; and the record of the strange and perilous means
by which these escapes have been accomplished sufficiently shows the
resolute nature of the men by whom they were undertaken.

It was soon agreed that a large party of fugitives should in concert
effect their escape. Harry, being so white as easily to escape detection
out of the immediate vicinity where he was known, assumed the task of
making arrangements, for which he was amply supplied with money by
Clayton.

It is well known that there are, during the greater part of the year,
lumberers engaged in the cutting and making of shingles, who have
extensive camps in the swamp, and live there for months at a time. These
camps are made by laying foundations of logs on the spongy soil, thus
forming platforms on which rude cabins are erected. In the same manner
roads are constructed into distant parts of the swamp, by means of
which transportation is carried on. There is also a canal cut through
the middle of the swamp, on which small sailing craft pass backwards and
forwards with shingles and produce.

In the employ of these lumberers are multitudes of slaves hired from
surrounding proprietors. They live here in a situation of comparative
freedom, being obliged to make a certain number of staves or shingles
within a stipulated time, and being furnished with very comfortable
provision. Living thus somewhat in the condition of freemen, they are
said to be more intelligent, energetic, and self-respecting, than the
generality of slaves. The camp of the fugitives had not been without
intercourse with the camp of lumberers, some five miles distant. In
cases of straits they had received secret supplies from them, and one or
two of the more daring and intelligent of the slave lumberers had
attended some of Dred's midnight meetings. It was determined, therefore,
to negotiate with one of the slaves who commanded a lighter, or small
vessel, in which lumber was conveyed to Norfolk, to assist their escape.

On some consultation, however, it was found that the numbers wanting to
escape were so large as not to be able, without exciting suspicion, to
travel together, and it was therefore decided to make two detachments.
Milly had determined to cast in her lot with the fugitives, out of
regard to her grandchild, poor little Tomtit, whose utter and merry
thoughtlessness formed a touching contrast to the gravity and
earnestness of her affections and desires for him. He was to her the
only remaining memorial of a large family, which had been torn from her
by the ordinary reverses and chances of slavery; and she clung to him,
therefore, with the undivided energy of her great heart. As far as her
own rights were concerned, she would have made a willing surrender of
them, remaining patiently in the condition wherein she was called, and
bearing injustice and oppression as a means of spiritual improvement,
and seeking to do what good lay in her power.

Every individual has an undoubted right, if he chooses, thus to resign
the rights and privileges of his earthly birthright; but the question is
a very different one when it involves the improvement and the immortal
interests of those for whom the ties of blood oblige him to have care.

Milly, who viewed everything with the eye of a Christian, was far less
impressed by the rigor and severity of Tom Gordon's administration than
by the dreadful demoralization of character which he brought upon the
plantation.

Tomtit being a bright, handsome child, his master had taken a particular
fancy to him. He would have him always about his person, and treated him
with the same mixture of indulgence and caprice which one would bestow
upon a spaniel. He took particular pleasure in teaching him to drink and
to swear, apparently for nothing else than the idle amusement it
afforded him to witness the exhibition of such accomplishments in so
young a child.

In vain Milly, who dared use more freedom with him than any other
servant, expostulated. He laughed or swore at her, according to the
state in which he happened to be. Milly, therefore, determined at once
to join the flying party, and take her darling with her. Perhaps she
would not have been able to accomplish this, had not what she considered
a rather fortunate reverse, about this time, brought Tomtit into
disgrace with his master. Owing to some piece of careless mischief which
he had committed, he had been beaten with a severity as thoughtless as
the indulgence he at other times received, and, while bruised and
trembling from this infliction, he was fully ready to fly anywhere.

Quite unexpectedly to all parties, it was discovered that Tom Gordon's
confidential servant and valet, Jim, was one of the most forward to
escape. This man, from that peculiar mixture of boldness, adroitness,
cunning, and drollery, which often exists among negroes, had stood for
years as prime and undisputed favorite with his master; he had never
wanted for money, or for anything that money could purchase; and he had
had an almost unreproved liberty of saying, in an odd fashion, what he
pleased, with the licensed audacity of a court buffoon.

One of the slaves expressed astonishment that he, in his favored
position, should think of such a thing. Jim gave a knowing inclination
of his head to one side, and said:--

"Fac' is, bredren, dis chile is jest tired of dese yer partnership
concerns. I and mas'r, we has all tings in common, sure 'nough; but den
I'd rather have less of 'em, and have something dat's _mine_; 'sides
which, I never's going to have a wife till I can get one dat'll belong
to myself; dat ar's a ting I's 'ticular 'bout."

The conspirators were wont to hold their meetings nightly in the woods,
near the swamp, for purposes of concert and arrangement.

Jim had been trusted so much to come and go at his own pleasure, that he
felt little fear of detection, always having some plausible excuse on
hand, if inquiries were made.

It is to be confessed that he had been a very profane and irreverent
fellow, often attending prayer-meetings, and other religious exercises
of the negroes, for no other apparent purpose than to be able to give
burlesque imitations of all the proceedings for the amusement of his
master and his master's vile associates. Whenever, therefore, he was
missed, he would, upon inquiry, assert, with a knowing wink, that "he
had been out to de prayer-meetin'."

"Seems to me, Jim," says Tom, one morning, when he felt peculiarly
ill-natured, "seems to me you are doing nothing but go to meeting,
lately. I don't like it, and I'm not going to have it. Some deviltry or
other you are up to, and I'm going to put a stop to it. Now, mind
yourself; don't you go any more, or I'll give you----"

We shall not mention particularly what Tom was in the habit of
threatening to give.

Here was a dilemma. One attendance more in the woods this very night was
necessary,--was, indeed, indispensable. Jim put all his powers of
pleasing into requisition. Never had he made such desperate efforts to
be entertaining. He sang, he danced, he mimicked sermons, carried on
mock meetings, and seemed to whip all things sacred and profane
together, in one great syllabub of uproarious merriment; and this to an
idle man, with a whole day upon his hands, and an urgent necessity for
never having time to think, was no small affair.

Tom mentally reflected in the evening, as he lay stretched out in the
veranda, smoking his cigar, what in the world he should do without Jim,
to keep him in spirits; and Jim, under cover of the day's glory, had
ventured to request of his master the liberty of an hour, which he
employed in going to his tryst in the woods. This was a bold step,
considering how positively he had been forbidden to do it in the
morning; but Jim heartily prayed to his own wits, the only god he had
been taught to worship, to help him out once more. He was returning
home, hastening, in order to be in season for his master's bed-time,
hoping to escape unquestioned as to where he had been.

The appointments had all been made, and, between two and three o'clock
that night, the whole party were to strike out upon their course, and
ere morning to have travelled the first stage of their pilgrimage
towards freedom.

Already the sense of a new nature was beginning to dawn on Jim's mind--a
sense of something graver, steadier, and more manly, than the wild,
frolicsome life he had been leading; and his bosom throbbed with a
strange, new, unknown hope.

Suddenly, on the very boundary of the spot where the wood joins the
plantation, whom should he meet but Tom Gordon, sent there as if he had
been warned by his evil stars.

"Now, Lord help me! if dere is any Lord," said Jim. "Well, I's got to
blaze it out now de best way I ken."

He walked directly up to his master, with his usual air of saucy
assurance.

"Why, Jim," said Tom, "where have you been? I've been looking for you."

"Why, bless you, mas'r, honey, I's been out to de meetin'."

"Didn't I tell you, you dog," said Tom, with an oath, "that you were not
to go to any more of those meetings?"

"Why, laws, mas'r, honey, chile, 'fore my heavenly mas'r, I done forgot
every word you said!" said Jim. "I's so kind o' tumbled up and down this
day, and things has been so cur'us!"

The ludicrous grimace and tone, and attitude of affected contrition,
with which all this was said, rather amused Tom; and, though he still
maintained an air of sternness, the subtle negro saw at once his
advantage, and added, "'Clare if I isn't most dead! Ole Pomp, he
preached, and he gets me so full o' grace I's fit to bust. Has to do
something wicked, else I'll get translated one dese yer days, like
'Lijah, and den who'd mas'r have fur to wait on him?"

"I don't believe you've been to meeting," said Tom, eyeing him with
affected suspicion. "You've been out on some spree."

"Why, laws, mas'r, honey, you hurts my feelings! Why, now, I's in hopes
you'd say you see de grace a shining out all over me. Why, I's been in a
clar state of glorrufication all dis evening. Dat ar ole Pomp, dar's no
mistake, he does lift a body up powerful!"

"You don't remember a word he said, now, I'll bet," said Tom. "Where was
the text?"

"Text!" said Jim, with assurance; "'twas in de twenty-fourth chapter of
Jerusalem, sixteenth verse."

"Well," said Tom, "what was it? I should like to know."

"Laws, mas'r, I b'lieve I can 'peat it," said Jim, with an indescribable
air of waggish satisfaction. "'Twas dis yer: 'Ye shall sarch fur me in
de mornin' and ye won't find me.' Dat ar's a mighty solemn text, mas'r,
and ye ought to be 'flecting on't."

And Tom had occasion to reflect upon it, the next morning, when, having
stormed, and sworn, and pulled until he broke the bell-wire, no Jim
appeared. It was some time before he could actually realize or believe
he was gone.

The ungrateful dog! The impudent puppy, who had had all his life
everything he wanted, to run away from him!

Tom aroused the whole country in pursuit; and, as servants were found
missing in many other plantations, there was a general excitement
through the community. The _Trumpet of Liberty_ began to blow dolorous
notes, and articles headed, "The results of Abolitionist teaching, and
covert incendiarism," began to appear. It was recommended that a general
search should be made through the country for all persons tinctured with
abolitionist sentiments, and immediate measures pursued to oblige them
to leave the state forthwith.

One or two respectable gentlemen, who were in the habit of taking the
_National Era_, were visited by members of a vigilance committee, and
informed that they must immediately drop the paper or leave the state;
and when one of them talked of his rights as a free citizen, and
inquired how they would enforce their requisitions, supposing he
determined to stand for his liberty, the party informed him succinctly
to the following purport: "If you do not comply, your corn, grain, and
fodder, will be burned; your cattle driven off; and, if you still
persist, your house will be set on fire and consumed, and you will never
know who does it."

When the good gentleman inquired if this was freedom, his instructors
informed him that freedom consisted in their right and power to make
their neighbors submit to their own will and dictation; and he would
find himself in a free country so far as this, that every one would feel
at liberty to annoy and maltreat him so long as he opposed the popular
will.

This modern doctrine of liberty has of late been strikingly and
edifyingly enforced on the minds of some of our brethren and sisters in
the new states, to whom the offer of relinquishing their principles or
their property and lives has been tendered with the same admirable
explicitness.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that both these worthy gentlemen, to
use the language of their conquerors, "caved in," and thus escaped with
no other disadvantage than a general plundering of their smoke-houses,
the hams in which were thought a desirable addition to a triumphal
entertainment proposed to be given in honor of law and order by THE
ASSOCIATE BANDS of the GLORIOUS IMMORTAL COONS, the body-guard which was
Tom Gordon's instrument in all these exploits.

In fact, this association, although wanting the advantage of an
ordaining prayer and a distribution of Bibles, as has been the case with
some more recently sent from Southern States, to beat the missionary
drum of state rights and the principles of law and order on our
frontiers, yet conducted themselves in a manner which might have won
them approbation even in Col. Buford's regiment, giving such exhibitions
of liberty as were sufficient to justify all despots for putting it down
by force for centuries to come.

Tom Gordon was the great organizer and leader of all these operations;
his suspicions had connected Clayton with the disappearance of his
slaves, and he followed upon his track with the sagacity of a
bloodhound.

The outrage which he had perpetrated upon him in the forest, so far from
being a matter of shame or concealment, was paraded as a cause for open
boast and triumph. Tom rode about with his arm in a sling as a wounded
hero, and received touching testimonials and demonstrations from sundry
ladies of his acquaintance for his gallantry and spirit. When on the
present occasion he found the pursuit of his slaves hopeless, his wrath
and malice knew no bounds, and he determined to stir up and enkindle
against Clayton to the utmost degree the animosities of the planters
around his estate of Magnolia Grove.

This it was not difficult to do. We have already shown how much latent
discontent and heart-burning had been excited by the course which
Clayton and his sister had pursued on their estate.

Tom Gordon had a college acquaintance with the eldest son of one of the
neighboring families, a young man of as reckless and dissipated habits
as his own.

Hearing, therefore, that Clayton had retired to Magnolia Grove, he
accepted an invitation of this young man to make him a visit,
principally, as it would appear, for the purpose of instigating some
mischief.

CHAPTER LV.

LYNCH LAW AGAIN.

The reader next beholds Clayton at Magnolia Grove, whither he had fled
to recruit his exhausted health and spirits. He had been accompanied
there by Frank Russel.

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 them forever.

For such is the force of moral elements, that the ambitious and
self-seeking cannot _always_ walk with those who love good for its own
sake. In this world, however, where all these things are imperfectly
developed, habits of intimacy often subsist a long time between the most
opposing affinities.

The fact was that Russel would not give up the society of Clayton. He
admired the very thing in him which he wanted himself; and he comforted
himself for not listening to his admonitions by the tolerance and
good-nature with which he had always heard them. When he heard that he
was ill, he came to him and insisted upon travelling with him, attending
him with the utmost fidelity and kindness.

Clayton had not seen Anne before since his affliction--both because his
time had been very much engaged, and because they who cannot speak of
their sorrows often shrink from the society of those whose habits of
intimacy and affection might lead them to desire such confidence. But he
was not destined in his new retreat to find the peace he desired. Our
readers may remember that there were intimations conveyed through his
sister some time since of discontent arising in the neighborhood.

The presence of Tom Gordon soon began to make itself felt. As a
conductor introduced into an electric atmosphere will draw to itself
the fluid, so he became an organizing point for the prevailing
dissatisfaction.

He went to dinner-parties and talked; he wrote in the nearest paper; he
excited the inflammable and inconsiderate; and, before he had been there
many weeks, a vigilance association was formed among the younger and
more hot-headed of his associates, to search out and extirpate covert