Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/151

 high-way, and to be travelling some cross-road, which wound along through dreary and deserted fields, and appeared to be very little frequented. All that night, she did not meet a single person, or pass a single house. Painful as was the effort, she still struggled to drag along her weary steps; but her spirits were broken, her heart was sinking, and her strength was almost gone. At length the morning dawned; but the wretched Cassy did not seek her customary hiding-place. She still kept on in hopes of reaching some house. She was now quite subdued; and chose to risk her liberty, and even to hazard being carried back to Spring-Meadow, and subjected to the fearful fate from which she was flying, rather than perish with hunger and fatigue. Sad indeed it is, that the noblest resolution and the loftiest stubbornness of soul is compelled so often to yield to the base necessities of animal nature, and from a paltry and irrational fear of death, — of which tyrants have ever known so well to take advantage, — to sink down from the lofty height of heroic virtue, to the dastard submissiveness of a craven and obedient slave!

She had not gone far before she saw a low mean looking house by the road side. It was a small building of logs, blackened with age, and not a little dilapidated. Half the panes or more, were wanting in the two or three little windows with which it was provided, and their places were supplied by old hats, old coats, and pieces of plank. The door seemed dropping from its hinges; and there was no enclosure of any kind about the house, unless that name might properly be given to the tall weeds with which it was surrounded. Altogether, it showed most manifest signs of thriftless and comfortless indolence.

She knocked softly at the door; and a female voice, but a rough and harsh one, bade her come in. There was no hall or entry; the out-door opened directly into the only room; and on entering, she found it occupied by a middle aged woman, barefooted, and in a slovenly dress, with her uncombed hair hanging about a haggard and sun-burnt face. She was setting a rickety table, and seemed to be making preparations for breakfast. One side of the room was almost wholly taken up by an enormous fire place. A fire