"Ha, friend! Is it not Derrick Molleston's loper thee has—the same that he gets from Devil Jim Clark? What art thou, then? I feel concerned for thee."
"A Christian, too, I hope," answered Levin, forcing his nag up the road.
"Then thee is better than a youth in this dwelling we next pass," the Quaker said, pointing to a brick house on the left; "for there lived a judge whose son bucked a poor negro fiddler in his father's cellar, and delivered him to Derrick Molleston to be sold in slavery. I hear the poor man tells it in his distant house of bondage."
"What's this?" Levin inquired, seeing a strange structure of beams on a cape or swell to the right, in sight of the dark forms of a town on the next crest beyond.
"A gallows," said the Quaker, "on which a horse-thief will be hanged to-morrow. To steal a horse is death; to steal a fellow-man is nothing."
As he spoke, the mysterious carriage turned down a cross street of Dover and stole into the obscurity of the town.
"Ha! ha!" exclaimed the Quaker; "if Joe Johnson had not stopped to feed at Devil Jim's, he might have overtaken my brother's wagon full of escaping slaves. I tell thee, friend, because I'm scarce concerned for thee now."