"
"A Christian, too, I hope," answered Levin, forcing his nag up the road.
"Then thee is better than a youth in this dwelling we next pass," the
Quaker said, pointing to a brick house on the left; "for there lived a
judge whose son bucked a poor negro fiddler in his father's cellar, and
delivered him to Derrick Molleston to be sold in slavery. I hear the
poor man tells it in his distant house of bondage."
"What's this?" Levin inquired, seeing a strange structure of beams on a
cape or swell to the right, in sight of the dark forms of a town on the
next crest beyond.
"A gallows," said the Quaker, "on which a horse-thief will be hanged
to-morrow. To steal a horse is death; to steal a fellow-man is nothing."
As he spoke, the mysterious carriage turned down a cross street of Dover
and stole into the obscurity of the town.
"Ha! ha!" exclaimed the Quaker; "if Joe Johnson had not stopped to feed
at Devil Jim's, he might have overtaken my brother's wagon full of
escaping slaves. I tell thee, friend, because I'm scarce concerned for
thee now."
CHAPTER XXXV.
COWGILL HOUSE.
Long after midnight, Dover was in bed, except at one large house on the
Capitol green, where light shone through the chinks and cracks of
curtains and shutters, and some watch-dog, perhaps, ran along curiously
to see why.
The stars and clouds in the somewhat troubled sky looked down through
the leafless trees upon the pretty town and St.
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