VII.
In the township of Harbor Creek, Pa., east of the city of Erie, and a short distance out of Wesleyville, was the farm house of Frank Henry, a man of medium size, black hair, eyes of the same hue and sparkling like diamonds, nervous temperament, quick, wiry and the soul of honor and generosity. For a young man he was one of the best known and most efficient conductor-agents in Western Pennsylvania. About midsummer, 1858, he received the following note:—
Erie, Pa., 51, 7, 5881.
Dear Frank:
The mirage lifts Long Point into view. Oooo. Come up and see the beautiful sight. I can’t promise a view to-morrow.
Truly,
Jehiel Towner.
That evening found Mr. Henry early in the presence of Mr. Towner, inquiring diligently as to the great natural phenomenon which had brought the land of the Canucks so distinctly to view.
“Yes, yes, it became visible last night about twelve o’clock, when Drury’s team came in from Girard bearing three fugitives. They are down in the ‘Retreat Himrod,’ and must be put across the lake in the shortest and safest possible manner, for parties in town are on the lookout for them, as all are liberally advertised. I believe you are just the man to undertake the transportation. Will you do it?”
“Are they to go from the ‘Retreat,’ as usual?”
“Not as usual. So close a watch is kept for them that it is thought best to send them off and have them shipped from some point along the beach.”
“There’s a big risk, Towner.”
“Yes, a chance to pay a thousand dollars and see the inside of the ‘Western’ without charge. But you know you are to have nothing to do with runaway niggers. I will just send you some ‘passengers’ to forward. Shall they be sent?”
“I shrink from no humanitarian work. Let them come.”
A few preliminaries were settled and the parties separated. The next night Hamilton Waters, a nearly blind mulatto, long a resident of Erie, guided by a little boy, drove into Mr. Henry’s yard and unloaded a cargo which the receiver thus describes:
“The old man brought me three of the strangest looking passengers you ever saw. I can, to-day, remember how oddly they looked as they clambered out of the wagon. There was a man they called Sam, a great strapping fellow, something over thirty years old, I should say. He was loose jointed, with a head like a pumpkin and a mouth like a cavern, its vast circumference always stretched in a glorious grin; for no matter how bad Sam might feel, the grin had so grown into his black face that it never vanished. I remember how, a few nights after, when the poor fellow was scared just about out of his wits, that his grin, though a little ghastly, was as broad as ever. Sam was one of the queerest characters I ever met. His long arms seemed like wrists, his long legs all ankles; and when he walked his nether limbs had a flail-like flop that made him look like a runaway windmill. The bases upon which rested this fearfully and wonderfully made superstructure were abundantly ample. Unlike the forlorn hope who
‘One stocking on one foot he had,
The other on a shoe,’
he on one foot wore an old shoe—at least a number twelve—and on the other an enormously heavy boot, and his trouser-legs, by a grim fatality, were similarly unbalanced, for while the one was tucked in the boot-top, its fellow, from knee down, had wholly vanished. Sam wore a weather-beaten and brimless ‘tile’ on his head, and carried an old-fashioned, long-barrelled rifle. He set great store by his ‘ole smooth bo’,’ though he handled it in a gingerly kind of a way that suggested a greater fear of its kicks than confidence in its aim.”
Sam’s companions were an intelligent-looking negro about twenty-five, named Martin, and his wife, a pretty quadroon girl with thin lips and a pleasant voice, for all the world like Eliza in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She carried a plump little picaninny on her breast, over which a shawl was slightly drawn. She was an uncommonly attractive young woman, and I made up my mind then and there that she shouldn’t be carried back to slavery if I could help it.
As there was close pursuit, station “Sanctum Sanctorum” was again called into requisition, though as it was summer, no draft was made on the church wood-pile. Here they were kept for several days, none knowing of their whereabouts except two intimate friends of Mr. Henry, whose house being under nightly espionage necessitated their assistance.
Through Wesleyville runs a little stream, Fourmile Creek, to the lake, and nearly parallel to it a public highway. From the mouth of this creek it was proposed to ship the fugitives to Long Point, Canada, a distance of some thirty-five or forty miles, but for some days the wind was unfavorable. At length one dark and stormy night Mr. Henry received notice that the wind was favorable and a boat in readiness.
What was to be done? It would not do for him to take anything from his house, that would excite suspicion; the same would be true if he went to the houses of his friends. Bethinking himself of an honest Jacksonian Democrat, a man with a generous heart, residing about half way down to the lake, he decided to take a venture. Proceeding to the old church he formed the little party in single file and marched them through the rain to the door of this man, familiarly known as “General” Kilpatrick, a man of giant proportions, and afterwards sheriff of Erie county.
Rap, rap, rap, went the knuckles of the leader against the door, which soon stood wide ajar, revealing the proprietor with a thousand interrogation points freezing into his face that July night, as he paused for a moment, one hand holding aloft a candle whilst the other shaded his eyes as he peered out upon the wet and shivering crowd gathered about his doorway, the very picture of dumfounded astonishment. The situation was soon grasped; he hustled the party into the house, gave the door a significant slam and in a pious air that would have startled even Peter Cartwright, exclaimed, “Henry, what in hell does this mean?”
“It means, General,” replied Mr. Henry, “these are a party of fugitives from slavery I am about sending to Canada; they are destitute, as you can see, and closely pursued; their only crime is a desire for freedom; that young woman and mother has been sold from her husband and child to a dealer in the far South for the vilest of purposes, and if recaptured will be consigned to a life of shame.”
Meanwhile the woman’s eyes were pleading eloquently; whilst a dubious grin overspread the entire of Sam’s ebony phiz, and the host looked assumedly fierce and angry as he retorted, “Well, what the d—l do you want of me?”
“Clothing and provisions.”
“You do, do you?” came back in tones even gruffer than before. “See here you darkies, this is a bad job. Canada is full of runaway niggers already. They’re a-freezin’ and a-starvin’ by thousands. Why, I was over there t’other day, and saw six niggers dead by the roadside. More’n forty were strung up in the trees with the crows feedin’ on their black carcasses,” and turning to Sam, “You better go back, d’ye hear! They’ll make your black hide into razor strops ’nless than a week. I paid a dollar for one made from a black nigger. They’re sending hundreds of them across the sea every week.”
During this harangue, Sam was shaking in his footgear and his eyes rolled widely on the background of that inexpressible grin. His fingers clutched convulsively his shooting-iron, and he evidently didn’t know which to do, turn it upon his Democratic entertainer or keep his “powder dry” for Canuck crows. The woman caught, through this assumed roughness, the inner heart of the man, and though she shuddered at the pictures drawn, and the possibilities of a grave in the lake, yet she preferred that, or even to be food for the vultures of Canada, to return to an ignominious servitude.
Then came a strange medley: Blanket and hood—“there, the huzzy”—a basket of provisions—“d—m me if I’ll ever help a set of runaway niggers, no sir, it’s agin my religion”—off came his own coat and was hurled at the astonished Sam with, “There you black imp, you’ll find ’em on the Pint waitin’ for ye; they’ll catch ye and kill ye and skin yer carcass for a scare-crow and take yer hide for a drum head, and play ‘God save the Queen’ with your bones. Yes, sir, I shall see them long shanks converted into drum-sticks the next time I go over.”
All else being done, he thrust his hands into his pockets and drawing thence a quantity of change bestowed it upon the woman, exclaiming, “There, take that; it will help bury the baby, if you will go. Better go back, you huzzy; better go back.”
Everything ready, the party was shoved out, but as he passed over the threshold, Sam’s tongue was loosened, and with the smile all the time deepening, and the great tears rolling down his sable cheeks, he broke forth:
“Look ’e hyar, Massa, you’s good to we uns, an’ fo’ de Lo’d I tank you. Ef enny No’then gemmen hankah fur my chances in the Souf I’zins in favor ob de same. For de good Lo’d, I tank you, I do suah.”
“Hist, you black rascal,” said the man in the doorway, “And see here, Henry, remember you never were at my house with a lot of damned niggers in the night. Do you understand?”
“All right, sir. No man will ever charge you with abolitionism. If he does, call on me. I can swear you denounce it in most unmeasured terms.”
The rain had now ceased; the stars were out and the party trudged rapidly down to the lake, caring little for the mud and wet. The boat was found in waiting, and Martin and his wife had just waded out to it when Henry and Sam, standing on the shore, had their attention attracted by a noise, as the crushing of a fence-board, and looking to the westward they saw a man sliding down the bank into the shadow. Old “’tection” was immediately brought to aim, so exact that had Henry not struck the barrel upward just as the trigger was pulled, sending the ball whistling in the air, there could not have failed a subject for a “first-class funeral.” The sneak took to his heels, Sam took to the boat, and Henry stood long upon the shore peering into the darkness, catching the rich, mellow tones of Mrs. Martin’s voice as she warbled forth in real negro minstrelsy, interrupted by an occasional “’lujah” from Sam as the boat receded,
“There is a railrod undergroun’
On which de negroes lope,
An’ when dey gets dare ticket
Dare hearts is full ob hope;
De engine nebber whistles
An’ de cars dey make no noise,
But dey carry off de darkies,
Dare wives, an’ girls, an’ boys.”
Returning homeward, Mr. Henry traced the human sleuth-hound by his footsteps in the mud, the nibbling of his horses where they had been left, and the marks of his carriage wheels at Wesleyville where they turned toward Erie, and were lost in the new made tracks of the early morning marketers.