Читать книгу From Dixie to Canada - H. U. Johnson - Страница 8

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Morning came in the city, and soon the absence of the servants from their employers was reported at the plantation, where the non-appearance of Jo had already caused the Colonel to give his daughter a special cursing for “letting that d—d nigger, Jo, have a pass.” Hounds and hunters were at once called into requisition, but all in vain. All about the country was scoured and searched, but Uncle Ben’s field was so public and he so honest, that no one thought of troubling it, or him.

Night came, and under cover of the first hour of darkness the two women were taken in charge by a man who led them rapidly along the railroad track till they came to a road where a carriage received them and they were driven rapidly into the city of Baltimore and there carefully secreted. Scarcely had they departed when a pack of hounds came into the field, and, after scenting around for some time, struck their track and were off in pursuit with such a wild scream as to waken the men from their quiet slumber.

Meanwhile the letter addressed to Mr. Jones was speeding on its way, and in due time on an editorial derived therefrom, the compositors in the office of the Liberty Press at Albany were busy, and on Friday Col. Hardy received a marked copy of that paper which informed him that his “chattels” arrived safe in Albany on Tuesday evening, and of course all farther effort for their recovery was stopped, though the atmosphere was for some time blue from the effects of the forcible vocabulary which this piece of news, manufactured specially for a southern market, eliminated from the old Colonel’s tongue.