“I say I have, and if she hears me call she will answer me.” Saying which he went to the stairway and called “Lavinia, Lavinia.”
The child heard the voice, recognized it, and at once quietly hid herself within the bed. Though the call was repeated several times, no answer came, and Mrs. Coleman inquired, “Are you satisfied now?”
“I know my child is here, and you cursed Abolitionist have hidden her away,” said the now almost frantic Scanlan. “You need not think you are going to fool me. I’m going to have my child, my slave, my property. I shall go down town and get a warrant and an officer to search your house, and you’ll get no chance to run the girl away either, for I shall leave a guard over you whilst I am gone,” then stepping to the door he said, “Hawkins, come in here,” and the brother-in-law, before unseen by the inmates of the house, entered. “Now, Mr. Hawkins, I am going for a warrant, and I want you to see that my child does not get away till the officer comes,” saying which Scanlan took his departure and Hawkins a seat, though evidently very ill at ease.
When part way down town the Southron recognized Mr. Harwood coming up the hill in his buggy, and thinking to intimidate him said, “I am after my slave girl who is in your house. Your women refuse to give her up. You will find the place well guarded, and I will soon have a warrant to search the place.”
“I’ll make it hotter than tophet for any one guarding my house, and the man who comes about my premises with a search warrant until I am accused of murder or theft, does so at his peril,” was the warm reply, as Mr. Harwood started rapidly towards his home. Arriving there he thus addressed Mr. Hawkins: “I am told, sir, you are here to guard my house and family. We have need of no such attention, and if you do not immediately depart from our premises I shall pitch you headlong into the street. Be gone you miserable tool of a most miserable whelp.” Just then the cowed and crestfallen Hawkins made a practical application of his knowledge of Shakespeare, and “stood not upon his going.”
Remembering the great pro-slavery mob of 1836, when the office of James G. Birney’s paper, The Philanthropist, was destroyed, and that of 1841, when but for the prompt action of Governor Corwin in aiding the arming of the students, an attack would have been made upon Lane Seminary as a “d—d Abolition hole,” Scanlan hastened to the “Alhambra,” then a popular saloon, gathered about him a band of roughs and after a treat all round proceeded to harangue them regarding his loss and also his unavailing efforts to regain his chattel. Under the influence of his speech and the more potent one of an open bar, the crowd readily promised him their support, and arranged to be at the hill in the evening time to see the fun.
Meantime Mr. Harwood was apprising his friends of the state of affairs, and these were beginning to gather at his house. One of them, an employee of Mr. Coleman, as he came up the hill, found a number of flags already set to guide the mob to the Harwood residence. These were torn down. Before the arrival of Mr. Coleman a crowd of excited people had assembled in the street below the house. Seeing among them an officer notorious for his cupidity and in entire sympathy with the slave catchers, Mr. Coleman approached him and shaking hands said, “Why how do you do, Mr. O’Neil? I am told you have a search warrant for my house.”
“For your house?”
“Yes; here is where I live and I wish to know on what grounds you intend to search my house, as I am not aware of having laid myself liable to such a process.”
“There must be some mistake,” said the officer. “Indeed, Mr. Coleman, I must have been misinformed as to the merits of the case.”