d about us and assumed a very determined attitude.
The orator said:

"If, indeed, ye are freemen, ye have nought to fear--the God-given
liberties of Britain are about ye for your shield and shelter!
(Applause.) Ye shall soon see. Bring forth your proofs."

"What proofs?"

"Proof that ye are freemen."

Ah--I remembered! I came to myself; I said nothing. But the
king stormed out:

"Thou'rt insane, man. It were better, and more in reason, that
this thief and scoundrel here prove that we are _not_ freemen."

You see, he knew his own laws just as other people so often know
the laws; by words, not by effects. They take a _meaning_, and get
to be very vivid, when you come to apply them to yourself.

All hands shook their heads and looked disappointed; some turned
away, no longer interested. The orator said--and this time in the
tones of business, not of sentiment:

"An ye do not know your country's laws, it were time ye learned
them. Ye are strangers to us; ye will not deny that. Ye may be
freemen, we do not deny that; but also ye may be slaves. The law
is clear: it doth not require the claimant to prove ye are slaves,
it requireth you to prove ye are not."

I said:

"Dear sir, give us only time to send to Astolat; or give us only
time to send to the Valley of Holiness--"

"Peace, good man, these are extraordinary requests, and you may
not hope to have them granted. It would cost much time, and would
unwarrantably inconvenience your master--"

"_Master_, idiot!" stormed the king. "I have no master, I myself
am the m--"

"Silence, for God's sake!"

I got the words out in time to stop the king. We were in trouble
enough already; it could not help us any to give these people
the notion that we were lunatics.

There is no use in stringing out the details. The earl put us up
and sold us at auction. This same infernal law had existed in
our own South in my own time, more than thirteen hundred years
later, and under it hundreds of freemen who could not prove that
they were freemen had been sold into lifelong slavery without
the circumstance making any particular impression upon me; but the
minute law and the auction block came into my personal experience,
a thing which had been merely improper before became suddenly
hellish. Well, that's the way we are made.

Yes, we were sold at auction, like swine. In a big town and an
active market we should have brought a good price; but this place
was utter