ve Slavery is
God; and he can't get over it. Pomp, here, saved our lives in the fire
the other night; and Deslow couldn't stand it. To owe his life to a
runaway slave--that was too dreadful!" said Stackridge with savage
sarcasm. "He's a man that would rather be roasted alive, and see his
country ruined, I suppose, than do anything that might damage in the
least degree his divine institution! There's the difference 'twixt him
and me. Sence slavery has made war agin' the Union, and turned us out of
our homes, I say, by the Lord! let it go down to hell, as it desarves!"

"You use strong language, neighbor!"

"I do; and it's time, I reckon, when strong language, and strong actions
too, are called fur. You hate a man that you've befriended, and that's
turned traitor agin' ye, worse'n you hate an open inemy, don't ye? Wal,
I've befriended slavery, and it's turned traitor agin' me, and all I
hold most sacred in this world, and I'm jest getting my eyes open to it;
and so I say, let it go down! I've no patience with such men as Deslow,
and I'm glad, on the whole, he's gone. He don't belong with us anyhow. I
say, any man that loves any kind of property, or any party, or
institution, better than he loves the old Union"--Stackridge said this
with tears of passion in his eyes,--"such a man belongs with the rebels,
and the sooner we sift 'em out of our ranks the better."

"When did he go?"

"Some of us were out foraging again last night; Withers and Deslow with
the rest. Tell what he said to you, Withers."

The group of fugitives had gathered about the bed on which the old
clergyman sat. Withers was scraping his long horny nails with a huge
jackknife.

"He says to me, says he, 'Withers, we've got inter a bad scrape.' 'How
so?' says I; for I thought we war gittin' out of a right bad scrape when
we got out of that temp'rary jail. 'The wust hain't happened yet,' says
he. 'That's bad,' says I, 'fur it's allus good fur a feller to know the
wust has happened.' And so I told him a little story. Says I, 'When I
was a little boy 'bout that high, I was helping my daddy one day secure
some hay. Wal, it looked like rain, and we put in right smart till the
fust sprinkles begun to fall,--great drops, big as ox-eyes,--and they
skeert me, for I war awful 'fraid of gittin' wet. So what did I do but
run and git under some boards. My daddy war so busy he didn't see me,
till bime-by he come that way, rolling up the hay-cocks to kill, and
looked,