"A daring enterprise, indeed! It is not easy to conceive of an undertaking more hazardous, or one that more peremptorily demanded, in him who should attempt it, all the qualities that give the world a.s.surance of a man.

"The plantation that Seth Conklin was to reach lay in the north-western part of Alabama, eight hundred miles from Cincinnati. He was to traverse two slave States--Kentucky and Tennessee. To penetrate thus deep into slave-land, at a time when the ferocity and the fear that guard it had been startled from their long slumber by the far-off coming of the step of doom, for the purpose of plucking therefrom a poor bondwoman and her children, outdoes all the fabled feats of old knighthood.

"Our hero took with him neither pistol nor bowie-knife, although he knew how to use them, for, as has since been learned, he had been a soldier. 'He should be tempted to use them,' he said, 'and then he should be sure to be overborne.'

"His first object was to explore the route, to discover safe hiding-places, and to ascertain who in the border free States would be willing to befriend and aid him, when he should have succeeded--if he should succeed--in escaping with his protges from the slave States. At Cincinnati, he met with devoted friends, who appreciated all the hazards of the attempt. But he soon ascertained that his perils would be far from being at an end when he should have got, on his return, beyond the limits of Kentucky.

Indeed, when he entered the slave States, it was under the impression that the chief hazard of the undertaking, as the result most fearfully proved, would be encountered in the bordering free States. In seeking to provide places of refuge in Illinois and Indiana, he found the southern boundaries of these States, free as they claim to be, infested with men thirsting for the rewards offered to those who are willing to cast aside their humanity, and do the work of bloodhounds--hunting the outcast, and seeking and dragging back the fugitive. 'Searching the country opposite Paducah, Ky., I found,' he wrote, in a letter dated Eastport. Miss., Feb. 3d, 'the whole country, fifty miles around, is inhabited by Christian wolves. It is customary, when a strange negro is seen, for any white man to seize him, and convey him through and out of the State of Illinois to Paducah, and lodge such stranger in Paducah jail, and then claim such reward as may be offered by the master.'

"Failing in the attempt to secure friends on the borders of Illinois, to meet him upon his return, yet, trusting, nevertheless, to his own address, and to a good Providence, he crossed to Paducah, and took a steamboat on the Tennessee river for South Florence, the final point of his journey. This was a little town, four hundred miles up the river, containing about twenty families, and a post-office, but no school!"

This place he reached on the twenty-eighth of January, having been four days coming up the Tennessee.

Soon after his arrival at South Florence, Concklin made his way to the plantation of Mr. McKiernan, and succeeded in obtaining an interview with Vina. It was a cold, dark night. Trembling, the faithful wife went forth form her cabin to the place where it had been intimated to her she should hear from her husband. Every few steps she stopped and listened, for fear some curious neighbor had watched her exit, and would follow her, or--what was worse--report her absence to the overseer. And then she grew afraid to venture forward, lest some trap were laid for her unwary feet.

At last, however, the thought of Peter, and the hope of hearing of his welfare, conquered all her fears, and she walked on. Soon she discerned a figure at a little distance, but the darkness was so intense that she could not tell whether it was friend or foe. She paused. "Is your name Vina?" said a strange voice.

"Yes, sir," she whispered.

"Are you Peter Friedman's wife?"

"Yes, sir, I's his wife."

"How would you like to go to him?"

"I'd like it mons's well, sir, if I could git thar."

"Well, I have come on purpose to take you to see him. Do you believe me?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Can you see me, so as to know me if you should meet me again?"

"No, sir, it's so dark; I can't see your face good."

He held up one hand. "Do you see my hand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, if you see me again, you will know me by that hand. You see that half the forefinger is cut off?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you believe that I came from Peter?"

"I don't know, sir."

He drew forth from his pocket the gingham cape which Peter had given him as a sign. She could see its form, and she recognized it in a moment. That moment her doubts of his sincerity were gone.

Yet she hesitated. She well knew the difficulties and dangers that would attend an effort to escape; especially when a family of four should make the attempt together; and nothing but her deep love for her husband, and her faith in his discretion could have tempted her to dare it. "But," thought she, "he never, would 'a'sent a man 'way here to help as if he didn't think we mought git off. Leastways we'll try. He knows best what we can do, for he's done took the journey twice."

"When does you want us to go?" said she aloud.

"Just as soon as you can get ready. How long will it take you, do you think?"

"I don't know, Sir. I don't believe we could git ready short o' four weeks."

"Well, I can wait. I must go back to Louisville to do some business before I take you on. But I want first to see the boys, where are they?"

"Oh, they're off on the Island, they won't come home 'fore Sat.u.r.day night."

"Well, you tell them to come down to the landing on Sunday. I will be there walking about, and if I see two young men, I will keep this hand in sight. You describe it to them, that they will know me.

Now, good bye. Don't be afraid. I will do all I can for you, but you must help yourselves."

Vina returned to her cabin. Her heart was full. One moment the hope was strong within her that they should all escape in safety.

She saw the face of her husband, she listened to his voice; again she heard the fierce pursuer on her track, and felt herself dragged back to meet a tenfold darker doom than she had yet encountered.

"I couldn' b'ar," she says, "the idea of totin' a scabby back from one year to another, and sometimes 'peard like I couldn't tell whether to go or not. One mind say, yes, and t'other mind say, no, but at last I des' thought I would start, any how, whether I prevailed or not.

The next Sunday, Peter and Levin walked down towards the river, and when about half-way to the landing, they met a stranger. He were an old pair of low quarter shoes without stockings, and his pantaloons were rolled up half-way to the knee. Altogether his appearance was that of the "poor white men," who inhabit the mountainous districts back of the rich plantations. As he approached they noticed the mutilated finger, but they did not speak, they would not appear too hasty.

The stranger stopped. "Do you know me?" said he.

"No, Sir."

"Did you ever see me before?"

"No, Sir."

"Your name is Peter, is it not?" said he, addressing the oldest.

"Yes, Sir."

"And yours is Levin?"

"Yes, Sir, but how did you a know it?"

"I know you by your resemblance to your father."

"Where did you see our father?"

"I saw him only once, in Philadelphia."

They then turned aside into the woods, and there, seated upon a log, they held a long consultation concerning the best means of escape. Concklin told them all his plans, and listened patiently to their suggestions, and then, lest some wanderer in the woods should discover them in council, they separated.

The next Wednesday the stranger left the neighborhood on board the boat for Louisville. On the same boat Mr. McKiernan started for his usual annual visit to New Orleans; but as Concklin appeared in humble garb, and neither drank nor gambled, he came into no contact with the planter.

This trip down the Tennessee confirmed Concklin in the opinion he had already formed--that it would be unsafe to depend upon escaping with his poor helpless friends upon a steamboat. He procured a skiff, and early in March he returned, having made all possible arrangements for their speedy transport beyond the bounds of slavery's domain.

For two weeks he was obliged to wait for them to complete their preparations, or rather, for an opportunity for the whole family to leave the place without exciting suspicion. At last, on Sat.u.r.day night, the boys obtained of the overseer pa.s.ses to go to South Florence on Sunday, to buy sugar and coffee for their mother. Vina and her daughter also procured pa.s.ses to go to Mrs. Jackson's, a few miles distant, where they were to remain until the boys returned. They asked for the pa.s.ses at night in order , as they said, that they might start soon in the morning, and get to Mrs. Jackson's before breakfast.