"What's this all about?" asked Nimbus.
"Well, I suppose the old man Sykes got ye indicted under the statute making it a misdemeanor, punishable with fine and imprisonment, to coax, hire, or seduce away one's niggers after he's hired 'em. Just the same question as the other, only this is an indictment and that's a civil action—an action under the code, as they call it, since you Radicals tinkered over the law. One is for the damage to old man Sykes, and the other because it's a crime to coax off or harbor any one's hirelings."
"Is dat de law, Mister Sheriff?"
"Oh, yes, that's the law, fast enough. No trouble about that. Didn't know it, did you? Thought you could go and take a man's "hands" right out from under his nose, and not get into trouble about it, didn't ye?"
"I t'ought dat when a man was free anudder could hire him widout axin' leave of his marster. Dat's what I t'ought freedom meant."
"Oh, not exactly; there's lots of freedom lyin' round loose, but it don't allow a man to hire another man's hands, nor give them aid and comfort by harboring and feeding them when they break their contracts and run away. I reckon the old man's got you, Nimbus. If one hook don't catch, the other will. You've been harborin' the cuss, if you didn't entice him away, and that's just the same."
"Ef you mean by harborin' that I tuk my wife's kinsman in when ole Marse Sykes turned his family out in de big road like a damned ole rascal—"
"Hold on, Nimbus!" said the sheriff, with a dangerous light in his cold gray eyes; "you'd better not talk like that about a white gentleman."
"Whose ter hender my talkin', I'd like ter know? Hain't I jes' de same right ter talk ez you er Marse Sykes, an' wouldn't you call me a damn rascal ef I'd done ez he did? Ain't I ez free ez he is?"
"You ain't white!" hissed the sheriff.