“A wife and child!” said the stranger half musingly. “Well my good fellow, we will see what can be done, but we must talk no more now. Meet me on the corner of “F” and the Avenue two weeks from to-day at noon.”
“Yes sah,” and the two parted.
Two weeks passed, and, as agreed, the parties met, the one readily assuming the air of a southern gentleman and the other instinctively falling into the role of his servant. Thus they passed on until a quiet place was reached, when it was agreed that Jo should take a designated place in the old cemetery three weeks from that night, but that Mary and the child should be left in the city till a fitting way for their escape presented itself. In the mean time the other parties had been separately interviewed, and assigned their several hiding places, and given the signal which would call them into the presence of a stranger. Thus it was that they came together unawares.
II.
Once upon the public highway the little party struck out briskly for the railroad upon which they turned their faces towards Baltimore, and following their instructions were making fine progress, when, about midnight, as they were passing around a village the heavens became suddenly overcast with clouds, and for an hour or more they wandered in uncertainty. A halt being called, a lively discussion based upon five different opinions arose, and how it might have terminated no one can tell had not the heavens just then cleared up, enabling Harry, who was both conductor to and astronomer for the train, to get their bearings from “de ol’ norf.” So much time had thus been lost that daybreak was just beginning to tinge the east when the mystical word “Ben” fell from the lips of a man standing upon the track, whom they at once followed for some distance into a corn-field, where he removed several bundles from a stack of corn-fodder, and the two women entered a “dodger” apartment, whilst the men were similarly secreted a little farther on.
A thirty mile walk had given them a good appetite for the bountiful breakfast provided, after partaking of which they lay down and slept soundly, whilst “Old Ben,” a free negro who had been furnished the means to rent and till this field and arrange it as a “way station,” kept constant vigil and obliterated their tracks by husking corn and carefully drawing the stocks over them.
III.
Morning came in the city, and soon the absence of the servants from their employers was reported at the plantation, where the non-appearance of Jo had already caused the Colonel to give his daughter a special cursing for “letting that d—d nigger, Jo, have a pass.” Hounds and hunters were at once called into requisition, but all in vain. All about the country was scoured and searched, but Uncle Ben’s field was so public and he so honest, that no one thought of troubling it, or him.
Night came, and under cover of the first hour of darkness the two women were taken in charge by a man who led them rapidly along the railroad track till they came to a road where a carriage received them and they were driven rapidly into the city of Baltimore and there carefully secreted. Scarcely had they departed when a pack of hounds came into the field, and, after scenting around for some time, struck their track and were off in pursuit with such a wild scream as to waken the men from their quiet slumber.
Meanwhile the letter addressed to Mr. Jones was speeding on its way, and in due time on an editorial derived therefrom, the compositors in the office of the Liberty Press at Albany were busy, and on Friday Col. Hardy received a marked copy of that paper which informed him that his “chattels” arrived safe in Albany on Tuesday evening, and of course all farther effort for their recovery was stopped, though the atmosphere was for some time blue from the effects of the forcible vocabulary which this piece of news, manufactured specially for a southern market, eliminated from the old Colonel’s tongue.