"Man, I fear neither your weapons nor your threats; they are powerless. You are not at home—you are not in Tennessee. And as for your property, I have none of it about me or on my premises. We also know what we are about; we also understand, not only ourselves, but you."
Pale and trembling with rage they still shook their pistols in my face, and Chester, in a choked voice, exclaimed: "I'll—I'll—I won't say much more to you—you're a woman—but that young man of yours; I'll give five hundred dollars if he'll go to Kentucky with me."
Just then the conductor appeared and cried out: "What are you doing here, you villainous scoundrels? We'll have you arrested in five minutes." At this they fled precipitately to the woods, and the last we saw of these tall and valiant representatives of the land of chivalry were their heels feat receding in the thicket.
Of course, this brave exhibition of rhetoric and valor called out innumerable questions from the passengers; and from there on to Adrian, though already terribly fatigued, we had to be continually framing replies and making explanations.
Among the people of Sylvania the news spread like wildfire, and it was reported that over forty men were at the depot with hand-spikes and iron bars, ready to tear up the track in case the Hamilton family had been found on the train bound for Toledo.
When we arrived at Adrian my oldest son, Harvey, and Willis were there to meet us; and when we told Willis that Elsie's old master and his son had but an hour previously pointed pistols at our heads and threatened our lives, he could hardly speak from astonishment. Harvey said my letter arrived before sunrise, but that no one believed I had any thing to do with it. However, as the porter swore he saw me write it, Professor Patchin and J. F. Dolbeare were sent for; but they also distrusted its validity and the truthfulness of the bearer.
Elsie had no faith in it at all. "If," said she, "the old man is so very sick, as he hasn't seen us for years, they could bring him any black man and woman, and call them Willis and Elsie, and he'd never know the difference; and as for that letter, Mrs. Haviland never saw it. I believe the slave-holders wrote it themselves. They thought, as she was a widow, she'd have a black dress, and you know she hasn't got one in the house. And where's the pink aprons and green striped dresses? And there's no south bed-room in this house. It's all humbug; and I sha'n't stir a step until I see Mrs. Haviland."
Said another: "These things look queer. There's no bureau in the west room."
The porter, seeing he could not get the family, offered Willis ten dollars if he would go to Palmyra with him, but he refused. He then offered it to my son Harvey if he would take Wills to Palmyra.
"No, sir; I shall take him nowhere but to Adrian, to meet mother," was
Harvey's reply.