She was standing by the window as Haley and two of Mr. Shelby's servants came riding by. Sam, the foremost, catching sight of her, contrived to have his hat blown off, and uttered a loud and characteristic ejaculation. She drew back and the whole train swept by to the front door. A thousand lives were concentrated in that moment to Eliza. Her room opened by a side door to the river. She caught her child and sprang down the steps. The trader caught a glimpse of her as she disappeared down the bank, and calling loudly to Sam and Andy, was after her like a hound after a deer. Her feet scarce seemed to touch the ground, a moment brought her to the water's edge. Right on behind they came, and nerved with strength such as God gives only to the desperate, with one wild and flying leap, she vaulted sheer over the current by the shore, on to the raft of ice beyond. It was a desperate leap--impossible to anything but madmen and despair. The huge green fragment of ice pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she stayed there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; stumbling, leaping, slipping, springing upwards again. Her shoes were gone--her stockings cut from her feet--while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.
"Yer a brave girl, now, whoever ye are!" said he. Eliza recognised a farmer from near her old home. "Oh, Mr. Symmes! save me! do save me! do hide me!" said Eliza.
"Why, what's this?" said the man, "why, if 'taint Shelby's gal!"
"My child!--this boy--he'd sold him! There is his mas'r," said she, pointing to the Kentucky shore. "Oh, Mr. Symmes, you've got a little boy."
"So I have," said the man, as he roughly but kindly helped her up the bank. "Besides, you're a right brave gal. I'd be glad to do something for you. The best thing I can do is to tell you to go there," pointing to a large white house, standing by itself, "they're kind folks. There's no kind o' danger but they'll help you--they're up to all that sort of thing."
"The Lord bless you!" said Eliza earnestly, and folding her child to her bosom, walked firmly away.
Late that night the fugitives were driven to the house of a man who had once been a considerable shareholder in Kentucky; but, being possessed of a great, honest, just heart, he had witnessed for years with uneasiness the workings of a system equally bad for oppressors and oppressed, and one day bought some land in Ohio, made out free passes for all his people, and settled down to enjoy his conscience. He conveyed Eliza to a Quaker settlement, where by the help of these good friends she was joined by her husband and soon landed in Canada. Free!
III.--The Property Is Carried Off
An unceremonious kick pushed open the door of Uncle Tom's cabin, and Mr. Haley stood there in very ill humour after his hard riding and ill success.