“No need at all, sir. I doubt if I go off your grounds. I’ll trap one down in the bottoms below the meadow.”
William Freeland thought about the doctor that night when he went to bed—out chasing moths in the dark. Freeland took another sip of brandy before he put out his light.
Nine young men met Alexander Ross that night in the woods. To all of them, through devious channels, had come the word that “riders” on the Underground Railroad could be accommodated.
Dr. Ross sorted them into three groups and gave each one a set of directions. At such and such a place in the woods, the first trio would find a man waiting. Half a mile up the river bank, the second contingent were to look for an empty skiff tied to a willow: it wasn’t empty. The others had a wagon waiting for them on a nearby back road.
They had come supplied with as much food as they could conveniently carry. Ross handed each slave a few dollars, a pocket compass, a knife and pistol.
Then they scattered. Ross went a few miles with the group heading inland through the woods and then doubled back toward Freelands. He even caught a rare moth, which he carefully placed in his mesh bag.
A few days later the quiet little scientist shook hands with his host and took his departure.
Such was Alexander Ross before he was knighted by several kings for his scientific discoveries and honored by the French Academy. Wherever he went in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi, he talked of birds and plants. Equipped with shotgun and preservatives, he roamed nonchalantly into field and wood. The slave disappearances were never related to him.
Along the Underground Railroad they called him “the Birdman.” Through him, Jeb, the boy Frederick had left behind in Baltimore, got away to freedom. And there were others along the Eastern Shore to whom Frederick had said, “I’ll not be forgetting!” Douglass sent Alexander Ross back along the way he had come and made good his promises.