Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/15

Rh lady related to me her loss and grivances, but, as I could not recognize the right of one human being to own another, I did not sympathize with her in the least.

Shortly after this, Mrs. W visited Louisville, and I accompanied her as child's nurse. We stopped at the Louisville Hotel, where it happened that the brother of the missing slave, of whom I have just spoken, was employed as a servant. This brother the lady had publicly threatened to sell unless the girl should produce herself. I saw him—pitied him, and had some conversation with him, during which he told me a sad story of suffering, and asked me, in imploring accents, if I knew of a spot on this wide earth, where he could be free? I frankly told him all I knew of Canada. I informed him how he could reach there; and yet I trembled for his youth and inexperience in a strange country, and a doubt rose in my mind, as to whether I had been his friend, or his enemy, in thus directing his footsteps to a new world and a new home. Future accounts of him, however, set my heart at rest upon this point, and on my knees I thanked God that I had been the humble means of unloosing the shackles of one upright and manly soul. His owners pursued him, but he was beyond their reach, and I was pounced upon by them, after having returned to Cincinnati, and arrested as accessory to the deed. When the officers came for me, I was alone with the baby, and refused accompanying them until Mrs. W 's return, to which determination they reluctantly assented. I also refused riding to the place of justice in a carriage which they had provided for the purpose, which very much disconcerted plans on foot