Rhoda’s heart was high with expectation of success when she and Mary
Ellen started upon the journey to Cleveland. The runaway, in her new
gown and a bonnet and veil, played her part perfectly, and Rhoda told
her father that he might expect her back in a few days with the news
that all had gone well. “And I,” she added to herself, “shall then be
able to feel that I have paid off Jeff’s debt of wrongdoing to this
poor girl.”
As they were going on board the steamboat Jim came hurrying down to the
landing from the post-office with the morning mail, which contained
a letter for Rhoda. She saw that it was from Charlotte, and put it
unopened into her pocket to read later. For, notwithstanding her inward
assurance that her adventure could not fail, she felt anxious about the
short time they would have to remain on the river boat. Slave traders
and their agents and slave catchers were constantly journeying up and
down the river, and if one of these who had appraised Mary Ellen in her
days of bondage should happen to see her he might recognize her as Lear
White. She kept her charge engaged in conversation, the better to carry
out the pretense that they were two ladies traveling together, and
warned her not to raise her veil.
The transfer to the canal boat safely made, Rhoda felt much less
anxious and relaxed a little of her care. They sat upon the deck,
and Mary Ellen lifted her veil now and then, the better to see the
succession of charming views through which they passed. The wooded
hills were ablaze with autumn foliage and these alternated with open
lands where fields of brown stubble, acres of ripened corn, pasturing
cattle and busy farm yards told of autumn’s rewards for the year’s
labor. Mary Ellen was much interested in all this and had many
questions to ask as to how the work was done and whether or not it
would be the same in Canada. Several hours passed in this way before
Rhoda bethought her again of the letter from Charlotte. Smiling at
thought of the enthusiastic account it would contain of the round of
pleasures since her last missive, she took it from her pocket and
drew a little apart, while Mary Ellen became engrossed in looking at
a town which they were approaching. A number of people were at the
landing and she gazed at them, the tree-shaded streets, the buildings
and the church spires with the self-forgetfulness of a child amid new
surroundings.
Instead of the long letter she expected Rhoda found in the envelope a
single sheet and dashed across the middle of it the one sentence, “I
told you I’d soon be engaged, and I am! Charlotte.”
The words danced and blurred before her eyes as she stared at them,
all her attention indrawn to the pain in her breast. This, then, was
all love meant to a man--the whim of a moment or a month, ready to be
captured by the first pretty girl who made the effort. Had it not been
the same with Horace Hardaker? Why should she have expected Jeff’s love
to be of any more substantial fiber? And, moreover, what right had she
to expect or wish him to be faithful to her? But her quivering heart
cried out that if he had loved as she did he would have been faithful,
even unto death. And down in the bottom of her soul she knew that her
pain was not all for his lost love, that some of it, much of it, was
for her ideal of his love and faith and chivalrous heart, stabbed to
death by this immediate surrender to Charlotte’s allurements.
“Miss Rhoda! Miss Rhoda! Miss Rhoda!”
The frightened cry, repeated over and over, seeming at first to come
out of some far-off space, pierced her indrawn consciousness. She
looked up in a dazed way, her thoughts stumbling back slowly to her
surroundings. Then she saw that Mary Ellen, between two men, was being
hustled off the boat.
She sprang after them and seized the arm of one of the men. “What are
you doing?” she demanded.
“You’ll soon find out what you’ve been doing!” the man replied.
“This is an outrage!” Rhoda exclaimed. “Let this woman go, or I
shall have you arrested! She is Miss Dunstable of Cincinnati, and is
traveling with me. Let her go, I say!”
The man laughed and pushed on. “No, she ain’t. She’s Lear White and
she’s a slave and belongs to William H. Burns. I’m his agent and I was
with him when he bought her and helped to take her and the rest of his
gang to Louisville, where she give him the slip. I come up through this
black abolition country to watch for her, and I knew her the minute I
set eyes on her, though you have got her fixed up so fine.”
With one sweep of his handkerchief across her cheek, he exposed a broad
stripe of browner skin. He laughed contemptuously, and a number of
others who had gathered round them on the landing laughed also. Rhoda
heard the epithet, “nigger-thief,” in derisive tones passed from one
to another. She knew well that if the crowd’s sympathies were with him
there was no telling what it might do. Gripping his arm with both hands
and bracing herself against his effort to move on, she faced about,
head high and eyes flashing, and cried:
“Is there no one here who will help me to save this poor girl?”
Then she was aware that from the back of the concourse some men were
pushing their way toward her. She struggled against the efforts of
Mary Ellen’s captors to go on and would not release her hold of the
one next her, thinking that here might be deliverance, or, at least,
help. As they came nearer she saw that one was in Quaker garb, and her
hopes rose. In the matter of a runaway slave there was no doubting on
which side would be the active sympathy and assistance of a Friend. In
response to his inquiry she told him her own and her father’s name.
“Yes, yes,” he said heartily, “I’ve heard of Dr. Ware.” He glanced at
Mary Ellen, dumb and patient between her captors, then back at Rhoda,
and understanding flashed between their eyes.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Thee’ll soon find friends here, who’ll do
their best to bring things out all right for thee and for her too.”
They moved on, the mob around them rapidly increasing. By the looks
of the men and the remarks which reached her ears she knew that it
was, for the most part, pro-slavery in feeling. The Quaker was walking
beside her, but his companions had disappeared. Presently he whispered:
“The marshal will be here soon. Perhaps thee could slip away and hide.
There’ll be help if thee wants to try it.”
Rhoda shook her head and whispered back: “No, no. I mustn’t leave her.”
In a whisper so low it barely reached her ears she heard him say:
“Never mind her. She’ll be looked after.”
But before Rhoda could reply three men, pushing their way
authoritatively, were beside them, and a moment later she found
herself under arrest and being marched along between the marshal’s two
assistants.
Soon she saw that a change was taking place in the character of the
crowd. Its numbers were being rapidly augmented, but most of those
who were joining it now were silent, and Rhoda guessed by their looks
and by the glint of an eye here and there that they were moved by a
determined purpose. The marshal surveyed them anxiously, spoke to his
aids, and they, with Rhoda between them, held back, then edged their
way into a cross street and let the throng surge on past them. Then
they rushed her along until they came to a two-story brick building,
where they gave her into the charge of another official, who locked her
into an upstairs room.
Through the barred windows she could see the mob, now at a standstill
half a block down the street, eddying round the center where stood
Mary Ellen between her two captors, a drooping figure of despair and
resignation. On the outskirts and apparently merely looking on was
the Quaker, who had told her his name was Daniel Benedict. And still
farther away her eye caught sight of a familiar form, old and shabby,
topped by a bell-crowned hat, standing beside a dingy peddler’s wagon
and watching the proceedings with an interest which broke out now and
then in shrill calls and shuffling capers.
Rhoda leaned against the bars, her hands wrung together, and waited
breathlessly for what might happen next. The men were surging and
pushing this way and that, and she soon made out a resolute movement
on the part of those who were on the outside to force their way to the
center. Many of those who made up the nucleus had been moved apparently
by idle curiosity, and they were now falling back, out of the way of
the onward efforts of the others.
“There’s the marshal,” Rhoda exclaimed to herself, pressing her face
against the bars, “right in front of Mary Ellen! Oh, poor, poor girl!
Surely, God won’t let them take her back! Those men are pushing up
closer! What’s the marshal saying? Oh, he’s calling for a posse! There,
they’re fighting! Oh, see, they’ve got hold of him!”
In her excitement she was breaking into speech. “Oh, oh! They’ve
knocked down the trader!--and the other man--Mary Ellen--they’ve got
her! They’ve got her! And they’re shooting! Oh, again! Again!”
Hands clasped hard against her heart, she stood breathless, silent,
watching the struggle, while the sound of shots, the cries of the
mob, and the shouts of the officers broke the stillness of the room.
“There, they are getting her out! Oh, don’t hurt her! Now--oh, run,
Mary Ellen, run, run! Oh, they’re helping her--two men--and another
running ahead-- Oh, God, help her, help her to safety!”
She leaned against the side of the window, sight swimming and lips
trembling, as Mary Ellen and her body-guard of rescuers, dashing down
another street, passed from her view. Then she turned her attention
back to the throng of men who seemed now to be intricately struggling
with one another. But presently the mass began to resolve itself. A
number, which seemed to contain both parties, for some were evidently
trying to stop or hinder the others, rushed after the slave girl and
her protectors. Many others fell back and stood near to be on hand for
the next development. They had not long to wait, for the marshal and
his assistants, regaining their feet, speedily began arresting their
assailants. Rhoda presently saw them marching up to the jail door with
a dozen men under guard, of whom several were wounded.
A few minutes later she heard a tenor voice, surprisingly good though
somewhat cracked with age, singing loudly in the street, “In Dixie land
I’ll take my stand.” She smiled, for she knew the voice at once, and
hurried back to the window. Chad Wallace in his dingy peddler’s wagon
was passing the jail. His eyes were roving carelessly over the front
of the building and she felt sure he saw her, although he made no sign.
But he flourished his whip in a wide circle round his head and held it
poised for a moment above his shoulder, pointing back into the middle
of his wagon.
Later in the day Daniel Benedict came to see her and gave her
explanation of what had happened. His wrinkled, benignant face and
silver gray hair seemed to her distraught heart to carry assurance of
fatherly protection.
“Thy friend is safe now,” he told her, “and not much the worse for her
experience.”
“I saw from that window,” she exclaimed, “the way they got her out of
the crowd. It was wonderful--just pushing a way for her and handing her
on from one to another and protecting her with their bodies!”
“Yes,” assented the Quaker, calmly, “it was good work, and quickly
done--else, they would not have succeeded. I could take no part in it,
for, as thee doubtless knows, it is against my principles to offer
violent resistance to the law. But,” he hesitated a moment and Rhoda
saw a twinkle flicker across his kindly eyes, “I do not feel that it
is necessary to hinder those who think differently. There is a pretty
strong anti-slavery sentiment here, although there is plenty for the
other side too, and we determined some time ago that not another seeker
after freedom should ever be sent back to his chains from this place.
Those who had no scruples against violent resistance were to be free
to do whatever they might think best and, for the rest of us,”--and his
eyes twinkled again,--“there would not be lacking work for us, either.”
“But Mary Ellen? How did the trader get hold of her? Do you know how it
happened? I had been so watchful, and had let her raise her veil only
now and then, when it seemed safe. I had not left her side since we
started, until just before the awful thing happened. Then I heard her
call and they were dragging her off the boat. I was hardly three feet
away and had had my hand off her arm, oh, it seemed hardly a minute!
Have you talked with her? Has she told you?”
He nodded gravely and the suggestion of a smile appeared about his
lips. Rhoda guessed that Mary Ellen was hidden in his house. “Yes,
I have talked with the fugitive. She was leaning on the rail, so
interested in looking at the town and at the landing as the boat came
up that she forgot about her veil. Then, among the people on shore she
recognized the trader and was so frightened that she seemed to lose the
power of motion. He saw her the same instant, rushed upon the boat and
seized her.”
“Oh, the fault is all mine!” moaned Rhoda. “I should not have left
her, I should not have taken my eyes off her, for one single minute! I
was too proud, Mr. Benedict, and this is my punishment. For I thought
nobody but me could get her safely to Cleveland and I had been so
successful with others--and with her too--that I thought I couldn’t
fail!”
“Well, she is safe again. But thee is likely to suffer sadly for thy
one moment of forgetfulness.”
She told him Mary Ellen’s story, dwelling especially upon her
sufferings during her long hours in the box. When she ended he brought
his fist down on his knee and exclaimed solemnly:
“She has earned her freedom twenty times over and she shall have
it--fugitive slave law, constitution, marshals, or presidents
notwithstanding, even if--if--Daniel Benedict has to forget his
principles for once!”
The next day he came again to see her, bringing with him his wife, a
little woman in Quaker bonnet and gown, with a strong face and a sweet
smile. Mary Ellen, they told her, had been safely started on her way
again at midnight. Chaddle Wallace had taken her in his peddler’s
wagon. Their news well-nigh dissipated Rhoda’s anxiety. For, of all
the many fugitives he had hauled part or all the way to the northern
boundary she knew that not one had failed to reach Canada in safety.