irons with a watch-sprint: saw; goes off in his
dandy clothes; takes coach to Richmond City;
and passes for a white mail—confound his
impudence!”

The major went on to say that it had been
ascertained that the fugitive had not yet escaped
over the border of the nearest Free Commonwealth,
and that he was suspected to be lurking
in Western Virginia. A large reward had
been offered for his seizure, dead or alive, so
incensed was Mr. Randolph at his daring escape,
and so important did it seem to make an
example that should strike terror to the hearts of
all “clever niggers,” as the more adroit and
enlightened of the enslaved race are called. It
was conjectured that the runaway had white
friends, who were concealing him, and who would
endeavour to assist him in passing the boundary-
line, on his way to rejoin his wife in Canada.

“I only wish,” said the major, grimly, as he
strutted away, “that we could lay a hand on
them philanthropists! We’d make ’em a caution
to all the rest of the breed. ’Tain’t tar and
feathers will serve their turn, I reckon; no, nor
yet flogging, nor rail-riding. A load of brush-
wood and a lucifer-match will be about their
mark, I calculate. I must leave you, doctor.
A meeting of citizens is con-vened to organise
for catching this black thief.”

And the major went away, to attend the
meeting. As I went my rounds, from house to
house where sickness yet lingered, I could not
but think over the strange story I had heard.
Prudence bade me suppress my sympathies, but
no man born on British soil could help siding in
his heart with the oppressed fugitive, whose only
crime was his colour. And yet how wonderfully
had the consciences of the ruling race been
warped by the long habit of trampling on the
rights of their dusky fellow-men! Here was
Major Blight: bilious and pugnacious, certainly,
but a kind neighbour and an honourable man in
social intercourse: who was yet unable to comprehend
that “niggers” could have any more feeling
or privileges than the cattle in the fields!
However, I got through my town visits, and,
looking at my watch, I saw that it was time to
drive out to my distinguished patient at the
Holt, the Honourable Abiram Green. I drove
out accordingly, and again I was ushered into
the darkened chamber; for the legislator’s eyes,
though bright, were weak, and anything like
strong sunshine distressed them. Mr. Green
was better. Better, but very weak. His pulse
was not much too fast for the normal rate of
beating; there were few signs of fever; but the
prostration was extreme. Tonics, jellies, rest,
and a little old Madeira, were clearly the
remedies best adapted to such a case. The
convalescent had excellent nurses in tidy motherly
Mrs. Clay and her trim daughters. I did not
see the farmer himself, who was absent at some
distant market. But I had a long and pleasant
conversation with my patient, whose voice was
much more clear than on the previous evening,
and who seemed disposed to talk as much as I
would permit.

“A very well-informed intellectual person is
Mr. Green,” said I, as I took leave of the Clays,
after tasting the hominy and hot cakes, which
they hospitably pressed upon me; “a very
superior man, and it does good to a recluse like
myself to chat with one who evidently knows
the world of statesmen and diplomatists so
thoroughly.”

Mrs. Clay assented smilingly, but her youngest
daughter put her snowy apron to her mouth,
as if to smother a very unaccustomed and un-
Quakerlike fit of audible giggling.

“Ruth, Ruth!” said her mother, reprovingly.

But girls may have exuberant spirits, and may
laugh at trifles light as air, even in the
Society of Friends, I suppose: so I thought little
of the circumstance. I called two or three
times, on consecutive days, at the Holt. Mr.
Green's convalescence made slow progress, but
he did gain a little strength by degrees, and I
was always delighted by his conversation. Now
and then, he threw out a hint that I was lost in
such a place as Morgan Town; that I should be
appreciated at my just value, elsewhere; and once
said something about the White House and
the president’s discontent with his medical
adviser; which caused me to write a long and
sanguine letter home to my dear Jane at Highgate.

Evidently my distinguished patient had taken
a fancy to me, and would give me the benefit of
his recommendation among his powerful friends.
He was mending visibly, and began to fret
against the restraint of the sick-room, and to long
for fresh air and motion. The Clays, all of
them, husband, wife, and children, seconded
this wish: not from any inhospitable anxiety to
be rid of their guest, but from pure kindness.
(There may, perhaps, have been another motive
which I did not then guess.) “Might not Mr.
Green take a little exercise?” I shook my head
reprovingly, as a doctor should, and scouted the
innovation; but presently yielded so far as to
say that a little very gentle exercise might not
harm the invalid, if well wrapped up. For now
the Indian summer was over, and there was a
crisp frosty dryness in the air. “A drive in a
carriage, now?” Ah! There was the difficulty.
Morgan Town had no liveryman, no letter-out
of hack vehicles, and the carryall which formed
the Clays’ equipage, was but a homely affair,
jolting horribly. Suddenly Ruth clapped her
little hands. She had found an expedient.
“Why should not friend Mylner take friend
Green for a nice ride in his comfortable
carriage, easy as a feather-bed on wings? The
doctor had said he was going to Shawnee Ford
to-morrow, to visit old Bailey, the lumberer,
who was sick. He could call for Mr. Green on
his way.” Nem. con. the proposition was
carried. I agreed to call at the Holt by eleven
next day, and I returned to the town. Curiously
enough, I believe the sick congress man’s
presence at the farm was scarcely known to
a single white inhabitant of Morgan Town. I
had never mentioned my new patient in paying
my rounds; indeed, I was the reverse of a