ey seem to fear
us, as if we were polution."

"Have you called at that house?" she asked, pointing to a steep-roofed
building, the top of which was just visible over the hill in the light
of the rising moon.

"No, who lives there?"

"Mathew Stevens, a very good old man."

"Has he a heart? Is he brave?"

"He has a heart tender enough, and he is brave enough to shelter the
oppressed, in spite of other people's opinions."

The woman went her way, and the traveller and his weary child went
slowly over the hill to the house. It seemed a great distance. Many a
time after that Ester traversed the distance alone and thought it short;
but on that night rods were lengthened out into miles. As they were
passing the window, Ester saw a man about the age of her father reading
a Bible. He sat at a table on which burned a taper, and his wife and
children were gathered about listening. Surely a man who would read the
Bible would not refuse them food and shelter. She staggered up to the
door by her father's side, in a dazed, half-conscious manner, and was
cognizant of his knocking, and the door being opened. Their story was
told briefly, and then warm arms encircled the little fugitive, a
colored slave prepared a supper, and Ester was awakened to eat it, after
which she sank into slumber on her father's breast.

CHAPTER XI.

TYRANNY AND FLIGHT.

"Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of successful or unsuccessful war,
Might never reach me more."
--Cowper.

When Virginia came back to the royal fold, her people little suspected
that she was to be fleeced by the very men for whom they had clamored.
No event worthy of note had occurred in the colony until September,
1663, when what was known as the "Oliverian Plot" was concocted. A
number of indented servants conspired to "anticipate the period of their
freedom," and made an appointment to assemble at Poplar Spring in
Gloucester, with what precise designs is not known. They were betrayed
by one of their number, and Berkeley, who already seemed to thirst for
blood, had the four ringleaders hung.

Jamestown was the gay city of the South; but the halcyon days promised
on the restoration of Virginia to royalty were never realized. The
common people were made worse for the change, and only the favorite few
were bettered.

At the home