you bottle a fellow up too tight, I shall
split," said Tom. "But about the gal,--tell 'em to dress her up some
way, so's to alter her. Her description's out in Sandusky."

"We will attend to that matter," said Dorcas, with characteristic
composure.

As we at this place take leave of Tom Loker, we may as well say, that,
having lain three weeks at the Quaker dwelling, sick with a rheumatic
fever, which set in, in company with his other afflictions, Tom
arose from his bed a somewhat sadder and wiser man; and, in place of
slave-catching, betook himself to life in one of the new settlements,
where his talents developed themselves more happily in trapping bears,
wolves, and other inhabitants of the forest, in which he made himself
quite a name in the land. Tom always spoke reverently of the Quakers.
"Nice people," he would say; "wanted to convert me, but couldn't come
it, exactly. But, tell ye what, stranger, they do fix up a sick fellow
first rate,--no mistake. Make jist the tallest kind o' broth and
knicknacks."

As Tom had informed them that their party would be looked for in
Sandusky, it was thought prudent to divide them. Jim, with his old
mother, was forwarded separately; and a night or two after, George and
Eliza, with their child, were driven privately into Sandusky, and lodged
beneath a hospital roof, preparatory to taking their last passage on the
lake.

Their night was now far spent, and the morning star of liberty rose fair
before them!--electric word! What is it? Is there anything more in it
than a name--a rhetorical flourish? Why, men and women of America, does
your heart's blood thrill at that word, for which your fathers bled, and
your braver mothers were willing that their noblest and best should die?

Is there anything in it glorious and dear for a nation, that is not also
glorious and dear for a man? What is freedom to a nation, but freedom
to the individuals in it? What is freedom to that young man, who sits
there, with his arms folded over his broad chest, the tint of African
blood in his cheek, its dark fires in his eyes,--what is freedom to
George Harris? To your fathers, freedom was the right of a nation to be
a nation. To him, it is the right of a man to be a man, and not a brute;
the right to call the wife of his bosom is wife, and to protect her from
lawless violence; the right to protect and educate his child; the right
to have a home of his own, a religion of his own, a character of his
own