"I would, good woman, had I a bed for her; but, alas, all doors are shut against us."
"Surely not all!"
"I have tried the inns and the home of the smith; but they seem to fear us, as if we were polution."
"Have you called at that house?" she asked, pointing to a steep-roofed building, the top of which was just visible over the hill in the light of the rising moon.
"No, who lives there?"
"Mathew Stevens, a very good old man."
"Has he a heart? Is he brave?"
"He has a heart tender enough, and he is brave enough to shelter the oppressed, in spite of other people's opinions."
The woman went her way, and the traveller and his weary child went slowly over the hill to the house. It seemed a great distance. Many a time after that Ester traversed the distance alone and thought it short; but on that night rods were lengthened out into miles. As they were passing the window, Ester saw a man about the age of her father reading a Bible. He sat at a table on which burned a taper, and his wife and children were gathered about listening. Surely a man who would read the Bible would not refuse them food and shelter. She staggered up to the door by her father's side, in a dazed, half-conscious manner, and was cognizant of his knocking, and the door being opened. Their story was told briefly, and then warm arms encircled the little fugitive, a colored slave prepared a supper, and Ester was awakened to eat it, after which she sank into slumber on her father's breast.