Uncle Tom's Cabin
in his arms. Jim came second, bearing his trembling old mother over his
shoulder, and George and Eliza brought up the rear. The party of
horsemen came up to the fence, and, with mingled shouts and oaths, were
dismounting, to prepare to follow them. A few moments’ scrambling
brought them to the top of the ledge; the path then passed between a
narrow defile, where only one could walk at a time, till suddenly they
came to a rift or chasm more than a yard in breadth, and beyond which
lay a pile of rocks, separate from the rest of the ledge, standing full
thirty feet high, with its sides steep and perpendicular as those of a
castle. Phineas easily leaped the chasm, and sat down the boy on a
smooth, flat platform of crisp white moss, that covered the top of the
rock.
“Over with you!” he called; “spring, now, once, for your lives!” said
he, as one after another sprang across. Several fragments of loose
stone formed a kind of breast-work, which sheltered their position from
the observation of those below.
“Well, here we all are,” said Phineas, peeping over the stone
breast-work to watch the assailants, who were coming tumultuously up
under the rocks. “Let ’em get us, if they can. Whoever comes here has
to walk single file between those two rocks, in fair range of your
pistols, boys, d’ye see?”
“I do see,” said George! “and now, as this matter is ours, let us take
all the risk, and do all the fighting.”
“Thee’s quite welcome to do the fighting, George,” said Phineas,
chewing some checkerberry-leaves as he spoke; “but I may have the fun
of looking on, I suppose. But see, these fellows are kinder debating
down there, and looking up, like hens when they are going to fly up on
to the roost. Hadn’t thee better give ’em a word of advice, before they
come up, just to tell ’em handsomely they’ll be shot if they do?”
The party beneath, now more apparent in the light of the dawn,
consisted of our old acquaintances, Tom Loker and Marks, with two
constables, and a posse consisting of such rowdies at the last tavern
as could be engaged by a little brandy to go and help the fun of
trapping a set of niggers.
“Well, Tom, yer coons are farly treed,” said one.
“Yes, I see ’em go up right here,” said Tom; “and here’s a path. I’m
for going right up. They can’t jump down in a hurry, and it won’t take
long to ferret ’em out.”
“But, Tom, they might fire at us from behind the rocks,” said Marks.
“That would be ugly, you know.”
“Ugh!” said Tom, with a sneer. “Always for saving your skin, Marks! No
danger! niggers are too plaguy scared!”
“I don’t know why I _shouldn’t_ save my skin,” said Marks. “It’s the
best I’ve got; and niggers _do_ fight like the devil, sometimes.”
At this moment, George appeared on the top of a rock above them, and,
speaking in a calm, clear voice, said,
“Gentlemen, who are you, down there, and what do you want?”
“We want a party of runaway niggers,” said Tom Loker. “One George
Harris, and Eliza Harris, and their son, and Jim Selden, and an old
woman. We’ve got the officers, here, and a warrant to take ’em; and
we’re going to have ’em, too. D’ye hear? An’t you George Harris, that
belongs to Mr. Harris, of Shelby county, Kentucky?”
“I am George Harris. A Mr. Harris, of Kentucky, did call me his
property. But now I’m a free man, standing on God’s free soil; and my
wife and my child I claim as mine. Jim and his mother are here. We have
arms to defend ourselves, and we mean to do it. You can come up, if you
like; but the first one of you that comes within the range of our
bullets is a dead man, and the next, and the next; and so on till the
last.”
“O, come! come!” said a short, puffy man, stepping forward, and blowing
his nose as he did so. “Young man, this an’t no kind of talk at all for
you. You see, we’re officers of justice. We’ve got the law on our side,
and the power, and so forth; so you’d better give up peaceably, you
see; for you’ll certainly have to give up, at last.”
“I know very well that you’ve got the law on your side, and the power,”
said George, bitterly. “You mean to take my wife to sell in New
Orleans, and put my boy like a calf in a trader’s pen, and send Jim’s
old mother to the brute that whipped and abused her before, because he
couldn’t abuse her son. You want to send Jim and me back to be whipped
and tortured, and ground down under the heels of them that you call
masters; and your laws _will_ bear you out in it,—more shame for you
and them! But you haven’t got us. We don’t own your laws; we don’t own
your country; we stand here as free, under God’s sky, as you are; and,
by the great God that made us, we’ll fight for our liberty till we
die.”
George stood out in fair sight, on the top of the rock, as he made his
declaration of independence; the glow of dawn gave a flush to his
swarthy cheek, and bitter indignation and despair gave fire to his dark
eye; and, as if appealing from man to the justice of God, he raised his
hand to heaven as he spoke.
If it had been only a Hungarian youth, now bravely defending in some
mountain fastness the retreat of fugitives escaping from Austria into
America, this would have been sublime heroism; but as it was a youth of
African descent, defending the retreat of fugitives through America
into Canada, of course we are too well instructed and patriotic to see
any heroism in it; and if any of our readers do, they must do it on
their own private responsibility. When despairing Hungarian fugitives
make their way, against all the search-warrants and authorities of
their lawful government, to America, press and political cabinet ring
with applause and welcome. When despairing African fugitives do the
same thing,—it is—what _is_ it?
Be it as it may, it is certain that the attitude, eye, voice, manner,
of the speaker for a moment struck the party below to silence. There is
something in boldness and determination that for a time hushes even the
rudest nature. Marks was the only one who remained wholly untouched. He
was deliberately cocking his pistol, and, in the momentary silence that
followed George’s speech, he fired at him.
“Ye see ye get jist as much for him dead as alive in Kentucky,” he said
coolly, as he wiped his pistol on his coat-sleeve.
George sprang backward,—Eliza uttered a shriek,—the ball had passed
close to his hair, had nearly grazed the cheek of his wife, and struck
in the tree above.
“It’s nothing, Eliza,” said George, quickly.
“Thee’d better keep out of sight, with thy speechifying,” said Phineas;
“they’re mean scamps.”
“Now, Jim,” said George, “look that your pistols are all right, and
watch that pass with me. The first man that shows himself I fire at;
you take the second, and so on. It won’t do, you know, to waste two
shots on one.”
“But what if you don’t hit?”
“I _shall_ hit,” said George, coolly.
“Good! now, there’s stuff in that fellow,” muttered Phineas, between
his teeth.
The party below, after Marks had fired, stood, for a moment, rather
undecided.
“I think you must have hit some on ’em,” said one of the men. “I heard
a squeal!”
“I’m going right up for one,” said Tom. “I never was afraid of niggers,
and I an’t going to be now. Who goes after?” he said, springing up the
rocks.
George heard the words distinctly. He drew up his pistol, examined it,
pointed it towards that point in the defile where the first man would
appear.
One of the most courageous of the party followed Tom, and, the way
being thus made, the whole party began pushing up the rock,—the
hindermost pushing the front ones faster than they would have gone of
themselves. On they came, and in a moment the burly form of Tom
appeared in sight, almost at the verge of the chasm.
George fired,—the shot entered his side,—but, though wounded, he would
not retreat, but, with a yell like that of a mad bull, he was leaping
right across the chasm into the party.
“Friend,” said Phineas, suddenly stepping to the front, and meeting him
with a push from his long arms, “thee isn’t wanted here.”
Down he fell into the chasm, crackling down among trees, bushes, logs,
loose stones, till he lay bruised and groaning thirty feet below. The
fall might have killed him, had it not been broken and moderated by his
clothes catching in the branches of a large tree; but he came down with
some force, however,—more than was at all agreeable or convenient.
“Lord help us, they are perfect devils!” said Marks, heading the
retreat down the rocks with much more of a will than he had joined the
ascent, while all the party came tumbling precipitately after him,—the
fat constable, in particular, blowing and puffing in a very energetic
manner.
“I say, fellers,” said Marks, “you jist go round and pick up Tom,
there, while I run and get on to my horse to go back for help,—that’s
you;” and, without minding the hootings and jeers of his company, Marks
was as good as his word, and was soon seen galloping away.
“Was ever such a sneaking varmint?” said one of the men; “to come on
his business, and he clear out and leave us this yer way!”
“Well, we must pick up that feller,” said another. “Cuss me if I much
care whether he is dead or alive.”
The men, led by the groans of Tom, scrambled and crackled through
stumps, logs and bushes, to where that hero lay groaning and swearing
with alternate vehemence.
“Ye keep it agoing pretty loud, Tom,” said one. “Ye much hurt?”
“Don’t know. Get me up, can’t ye? Blast that infernal Quaker! If it
hadn’t been for him, I’d a pitched some on ’em down here, to see how
they liked it.”
With much labor and groaning, the fallen hero was assisted to rise;
and, with one holding him up under each shoulder, they got him as far
as the horses.
“If you could only get me a mile back to that ar tavern. Give me a
handkerchief or something, to stuff into this place, and stop this
infernal bleeding.”
George looked over the rocks, and saw them trying to lift the burly
form of Tom into the saddle. After two or three ineffectual attempts,
he reeled, and fell heavily to the ground.
“O, I hope he isn’t killed!” said Eliza, who, with all the party, stood
watching the proceeding.
“Why not?” said Phineas; “serves him right.”
“Because after death comes the judgment,” said Eliza.
“Yes,” said the old woman, who had been groaning and praying, in her
Methodist fashion, during all the encounter, “it’s an awful case for
the poor crittur’s soul.”
“On my word, they’re leaving him, I do believe,” said Phineas.
It was true; for after some appearance of irresolution and
consultation, the whole party got on their horses and rode away. When
they were quite out of sight, Phineas began to bestir himself.
“Well, we must go down and walk a piece,” he said. “I told Michael to
go forward and bring help, and be along back here with the wagon; but
we shall have to walk a piece along the road, I reckon, to meet them.
The Lord grant he be along soon! It’s early in the day; there won’t be
much travel afoot yet a while; we an’t much more than two miles from
our stopping-place. If the road hadn’t been so rough last night, we
could have outrun ’em entirely.”
As the party neared the fence, they discovered in the distance, along
the road, their own wagon coming back, accompanied by some men on
horseback.
“Well, now, there’s Michael, and Stephen and Amariah,” exclaimed
Phineas, joyfully. “Now we _are_ made—as safe as if we’d got there.”
“Well, do stop, then,” said Eliza, “and do something for that poor man;
he’s groaning dreadfully.”
“It would be no more than Christian,” said George; “let’s take him up
and carry him on.”
“And doctor him up among the Quakers!” said Phineas; “pretty well,
that! Well, I don’t care if we do. Here, let’s have a look at him;” and