It is impossible to conceive of a human being more wholly desolate and forlorn than Eliza as she left the only home she had ever known. Her husband's sufferings and danger, and the danger of her child, all blended in her mind, she trembled at every sound, and every quaking leaf quickened her steps. She felt the weight of her boy as if it had been a feather, he was old enough to have walked by her side, but now she strained him to her bosom as she went rapidly forward; and every flutter of fear seemed to increase the supernatural strength that bore her on, while from her pale lips burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, "Lord help me."
Still she went, leaving one familiar object after another, till reddening daylight found her many a long mile, upon the open highway, on the way to the village of T---- upon the Ohio river, when she constrained herself to walk regularly and composedly, quickening the speed of her child, by rolling an apple before him, when the boy would run with all his might after it; this ruse often repeated carried them over many a half-mile.
An hour before sunset she came in sight of the river, which lay between her and liberty. Great cakes of floating ice were swinging heavily to and fro in the turbid waters. Eliza turned into a small public house to ask if there was no ferry boat.
"No, indeed," said the hostess, stopping her cooking as Eliza's sweet, plaintive voice fell on her ear; "the boats has stopped running." Eliza's look of dismay struck her and she said, "Maybe you're wanting to get over? anybody sick? Ye seem mighty anxious."
"I've got a child that's very dangerous," said Eliza, "I never heard of it till last night, and I've walked quite a piece to-day, in hopes to get to the ferry."
"Well, now, that's unlucky" said the woman, her motherly sympathies aroused; "I'm rilly concerned for ye. Solomon!" she called from the window. "I say Sol, is that ar man going to tote them bar'ls over to-night?"
"He said he should try, if 'twas any ways prudent," replied a man's voice.
"There's a man going over to-night, if he durs' to; he'll be in to supper, so you'd better sit down and wait. That's a sweet little fellow" added the woman, offering him a cake.
But the child, wholly exhausted, cried with weariness.
"Take him into this room," said the woman opening into a small bedroom, and Eliza laid the weary boy on the comfortable bed, and held his hands till he was fast asleep. For her there was no rest, the thought of her pursuers urged her on, and she gazed with longing eyes on the swaying waters between her and liberty.