As soon as it was deemed safe, the ladder was let down, and Charley was supplied with a hearty breakfast, and then bidden to make himself comfortable for the day, a thing he was not slow to do, as he had slept little since his flight began. When evening came, he was called down, and after a bountiful supper, which was dispatched in silence, he was taken to the road where three horses were standing. On one of these a man was already seated; the second Charley was bidden to mount, and into the saddle of the third his kind host vaulted.
Moving around the town, they came to a road leading northward, Charley’s feelings alternately ebbing and flowing between fear and hope, for, notwithstanding the kindness of his host and hostess, he could but fear that he was to be given up for the $500.
Proceeding some distance up the river, the horses were hitched in some bushes and the party descended to the river, where a boat was loosened and Charley was bidden to enter. When all were seated, the little craft pushed out into the stream, and soon Charley and his host stepped onto the other shore. Going up the bank into a public highway, the man placed in his hands some little articles of clothing and some bread, and then, pointing with the index finger, said: “Yonder is the North Star; you are now in a free state and may go forward; may God bless you; good-by;” and before Charley, in his astonishment, could utter a word, he was gone. A few moments the fugitive stood in a reverie which was broken by the splash of the oar in the river below, and he awoke to the consciousness that he was again alone. On the one hand was the beautiful river, whose outline he could dimly see; on the other were far-reaching fields, with no habitation looming up in the darkness, and above him was the star bespangled sky, among whose myriad twinklers he looked in vain for the one which had so recently been pointed out to him. Alas, the defectiveness of his education! whilst others of his kind had been diligent in securing a definite knowledge of this loadstone of the Heavens, he had been happy in the discharge of the light duties of his childhood home, never once thinking of flight until the fact of his sale was broken to him by his mother, and then there was no time for schooling. The dazed condition in which he now found himself from the revelations of the past hour caused him to look up to the starry firmament as into vacancy, finding nothing with which to guide himself. At length he proceeded a short distance, but becoming bewildered he sat down and soon fell asleep and dreamed that two men came and were putting him in jail. His struggles and resistance wakened him, and he set out and proceeded as best he could in the darkness. Just at daylight he espied a piece of paper nailed to a fence.
Approaching it he perceived it had upon it the picture of a negro running, and in every way looked like the one the landlord had shown him in the barn. Whilst standing thus before the picture, wrapped in thought as to what to do next, he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder, and turning saw a man with a very broad-brimmed hat and so peculiarly clothed as he had never seen one before. He was about to run when the man said: “Stop, friend, thee need not run. What have we here?” and reading the bill, he at once remarked: “Why, friend, this means thee, and thy master is ready to pay any man $500, who will place thee in his hands. Come with me or somebody may enrich himself at thy expense.”
There was something so kind and frank in the manner and words of the man that Charley followed him to a retreat deep in the woods. Seeing that he had bread with him, the stranger said: “Keep quiet and I will bring thee more food to-night,” and immediately left.
As was customary in other cases, hand-bills minutely describing Charley had been widely distributed, and, of course, read by everybody, and it being a free country everybody had a right to apply the information gained as he saw fit. So it was that when Charley’s master crossed into Ohio twelve hours after his chattel, and proceeded northward, he found no lack of persons who had seen just such a person that very day. Even our friend of the early morning described him minutely and had seen him wending his way into the interior only a few hours before, bearing with him a little bundle. As the route at this season of the year was supposed to be towards Sandusky or Detroit, the pursuers were decoyed on by the way of Carrollton, Allian and Ravenna towards the lake, by the smooth stories of men who had seen him only a day or two before—but only on paper. Wearied, however, they at length committed his capture to the hands of the organized set of biped hounds which infested the whole south shore from Detroit to Buffalo, and returned homeward.
When Charley’s friend returned to him in the evening, he informed him of the little interview he had had with his master, and that it would be necessary for him to remain some time in his charge. He was consequently taken to a more comfortable hiding place, and after the lapse of some three weeks was forwarded by way of New Lisbon, Poland, and Indian Run, to Meadville, and thence by way of Cambridge and Union to the parsonage at Wattsburg.
III.
The traveler who has been swept along on the Nickle Plate or Lake Shore Rail Road over the Black Swamp country and onward through Cleveland, Ashtabula and Erie, seeing little that savors of roughness, except perchance the gulches about the Forest City, the bluffs at Euclid and Little Mountain in the distance, would little think as he crosses the unpretentious bridges spanning Six-Mile-Creek, east of Erie, that just a little way back it passed through some wild and rugged country; yet such is the fact. Down through a deep gorge come its crystal waters, whilst high above them on its precipitate banks the hemlock has cast its somber shadows for centuries. Into a thin, scarcely accessible portion of this gorge came years ago John Cass, and took possession of a primitive “carding works,” where he diligently plied his craft, rearing his sons and daughters to habits of industry, frugality, virtue, and a love of their little church, which is situated some two miles away on an elevated plateau, which, from its largely Celtic population has acquired the appelation of “Wales.”
The little Celts of this rural community were very much surprised one winter day to see their old pastor, Parson Rice, who resided at Wattsburg, go dashing by the school-house with a colored man in his sleigh. Never before had their unsophisticated eyes seen such a sight, and what they that day beheld was the all-engrossing theme in the homes of the Joneses, the Williamses and the Davises that night.