"Why she see'd them shoot poor 'Ercles and the other two," replied the old woman; "and they knew she would witness against them; so they got her out of de State, and will keep her till it's all blown over. Dat's de reason, I am sure."
"Then why did they not send you away, too?" I asked.
"'Cause I'm a coloured woman, and my oath worth nothing," answered aunt Jenny.
"But if they have taken her into another State, how shall we ever find her?" I exclaimed, almost in despair.
"Oh, she close by--not two miles off," she answered. "Why we are in Nort Carolina now."
"Well, take a little more brandy, aunty," I said. "I will lift you on my horse, and we will go on, if you can show me the best way, for it is beginning to grow darkish." She would fain have walked, declaring that she was quite able, and that the brandy had done her "a mighty power of good." But I would have my own way, and we made our road forward just as the last glowing spot of the sun's disk sank below the horizon. He left a bright and beautiful twilight behind him, however, and we had no difficulty in finding our way onward, the road soon after beginning to rise out of the swamp into the firmer ground beyond.
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
Though it might be called night when we came in view of a house which Mr. William Thornton had formerly occupied, and which his people still called the old place, or the old quarters, everything around was distinctly visible by the pale, whitish light, which often in this part of the world lingers long in the sky after the sun is down. It was a desolate-looking scene, in which everything spoke of neglect and decay. In the fields, which had been once cultivated, and probably exhausted, young self-sown pine-plants might be seen springing up wherever the ground was not too thickly covered with weeds. Fences there were none, except some fragments round a kitchen garden at the side of the house, which seemed the only spot still cultivated. The house itself, though not actually tumbling down, was sadly dilapidated. Some of the rooms had not even the window-frames in them, and in several others the glass was gone or broken. I never could make out how it is that an uninhabited house always gets its windows broken. Can it be that the persecution which always dogs misery, extends itself to inanimate objects, and that the same spirit which leads a dog to bark at a beggar on no other pretext but his rags, leads the hand of mischief to hurry on ruin wherever it sees it commenced? I marched straight up to the front door, and aunt Jenny slipped quietly off the horse, while I tried the door, and knocked with my knuckles on finding it locked. The head of an old negro, covered with white wool, was speedily put out of a window above, and I was saluted with the words, spoken rather sharply,--
"What you want, mas'r? Can't get in dere."
"I want a night's lodging, and something to eat," I answered boldly. "I have travelled a long way, and can't go farther. Come down, and open the door."