When the two negroes saw Eliza's escape, they began to laugh and cheer; on which the trader chased them with his horsewhip, cursing and swearing as usual. But he could not get over the river, and went in very bad temper to spend that night at the little inn, determined to get a boat, if possible, and catch Harry in the morning. The man who had helped Eliza up the river's bank, showed her a pretty white house at some distance, where a kind gentleman and his wife lived. The dark night had fallen, the tea-cups were on the table, and the fires were bright in kitchen and parlour, when the poor mother, all wet and weary, her feet cut by the sharp ice (for she had lost her shoes in the river), walked in, with Harry still in her arms. Before she could ask for shelter, she dropped down fainting on the floor. The good people of the house thought she was dead, and raised a terrible alarm. Mr. and Mrs. Bird ran into the kitchen to see what had happened. They were good, kind people, and great in that place, for Mr. Bird was a member of the American Parliament. He kept slaves himself, and tried to think it was no sin. He had even been trying that very night, in conversation with his wife, to defend a law lately passed, which forbade any one to give shelter to poor runaway slaves. But Mrs. Bird would listen to no defence of such a law, and said, "It is a shameful, wicked, and abominable law, and I'll break it for one the first time I have a chance, and I hope I shall have a chance too. I know nothing about politics, but I can read my Bible, and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow. No, no, John, said she, you may talk all night, but you would not do what you say. Would you now turn away a poor, shivering, hungry creature from your door because he was a runaway? Would you, now?"

Now, if the truth must be told, Mr. Bird was a very kind man, and could not in his heart give a very decided reply to his wife; and it was just at this moment that poor Eliza and little Harry came to his door. As we said, Mr. and Mrs. Bird ran to the kitchen to see what had happened. They found poor Eliza just recovering from her faint. She stared wildly round her for a moment, and then sprang to her feet, saying, "Oh! my Harry! have you got him?" The boy at this ran to her, and put his arms round her neck. "Oh! he's here, he's here!" she exclaimed. And then she cried wildly to Mrs. Bird, "O, ma'am, do protect us, don't let them get him!"

"Nobody shall hurt you here, poor woman," said Mrs. Bird. "You are safe; don't be afraid."

"God bless you," said the woman, covering her face and sobbing, while poor little Harry, seeing her crying, tried to get into her lap.

With many gentle and womanly offices which no one knew better how to render than Mrs. Bird, the poor woman was rendered more calm. A temporary bed was provided for her near the fire; and after a short time, Eliza, faint and weary with her long journey, fell into a heavy slumber, with little Harry soundly sleeping on her arm.

"I wonder who and what she is," said Mr. Bird, when he had gone back to the parlour with his wife.

"When she wakes and feels a little rested, we shall see," said Mrs. Bird, who began to busy herself with her knitting.

Mr. Bird took up a newspaper, and pretended to be reading it, but it was not long before he turned to his wife and said, "I say, wife, couldn't she wear one of your gowns; and there's that old cloak that you keep on purpose to put over me when I take my afternoon's nap, you might give her that; she needs clothes."

Mrs. Bird simply replied, "We'll see;" but a quiet smile passed over her face as she remembered the conversation they had had together that very night before Eliza and little Harry came to their door.

After an hour or two, Eliza awoke, and Mr. and Mrs. Bird again went to the kitchen. As they entered, poor Eliza lifted her dark eyes, and fixed them on Mrs. Bird, with such a forlorn and imploring expression, that the tears came into the kind-hearted woman's eyes.

"You need not be afraid of anything; we are friends here, poor woman! Tell me where you came from, and what you want?" said she.

"I came from Kentucky," said poor Eliza.

"And what induced you to run away?" said Mrs. Bird.

The woman looked up with a keen, scrutinising glance, and it did not escape her that Mrs. Bird was dressed in deep mourning.

"Ma'am," she said, suddenly, "have you ever lost a child?"

The question was unexpected, and it was a thrust on a new wound; for it was only a month since a darling child of the family had been laid in the grave.

Mr. Bird turned round and walked to the window, and Mrs. Bird burst into tears; but, recovering her voice, she said—

"Why do you ask that? I have lost a little one."

"Then you will feel for me. I have lost two, one after another—left them buried there when I came away; and I had only this one left. I never slept a night without him; he was all I had. He was my comfort and pride day and night; and, ma'am, they were going to take him away from me—to sell him—a baby that had never been away from his mother in his life! I couldn't stand it, ma'am. I knew I never should be good for anything if they did; and when I knew the papers were signed and he was sold, I took him and came off in the night, and they chased me—the man that bought him and some of master's folks, and they were coming down right behind me, and I heard them—I jumped right on to the ice, and how I got across I don't know, but first I knew a man was helping me up the bank."

"Crossed on the ice?" cried every one present.

"Yes," said poor Eliza, slowly. "I did, God helping me. I crossed on the ice, for they were behind me—right behind—and there was no other way!"

All around were affected to tears by Eliza's story.

Mr. Bird himself, to hide his feelings, had to turn away, and became particularly busy in wiping his spectacle-glasses and blowing his nose.

After a short pause, Mrs. Bird asked:—

"And where do you mean to go to, my poor woman?"

"To Canada if I only knew where that was. Is it very far off ma'am?" said she, looking up with a simple and confiding air to Mrs. Bird's face.

"Poor woman," said Mrs. Bird, "it is much further off than you think; but we will try to think what can be done for you. Here Dinah," said she to one of the servants, "make her up a bed in your own room close by the kitchen, and I'll think what to do for her in the morning. Meanwhile, never fear poor woman, put your trust in God, He will protect you."

Mrs. Bird and her husband re-entered the parlour. She sat down in her little rocking chair before the fire, swinging it thoughtfully to and fro. Mr. Bird strode up and down the room, grumbling to himself. At length, striding up to his wife, he said:—

"I say, wife, she'll have to get away from here this very night. That trader fellow will be down after her early to-morrow morning."

"To-night," said Mrs. Bird, "how is it possible—and where to?"

"Well, I know pretty well where to," said Mr. Bird, beginning to put on his boots. "I know a place where she would be safe enough, but the plague of the thing is, nobody could drive a carriage there to-night but me. The creek has to be crossed twice, and the second crossing is quite dangerous, unless one know it as I do. But never mind. I'll take her over myself. There is no help for it. I could not bear to see the poor woman caught."

"Thank you, thank you, dear John," said the wife, laying her white hand on his—"Could I ever have loved you had I not known you better than you do yourself?"

Off Mr. Bird set to see about the carriage, but at the door he stopped for a moment, and then coming back, he said, with a quivering voice,—

"Mary, I don't know how you'd feel about it, but there's the drawer full of things—of—of—poor little Henry's." So saying, he turned quickly on his heel, and shut the door after him.

His wife opened the little bedroom door adjoining her room, and taking the candle, set it down on the top of a bureau there; then from a small recess she took a key, and put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer, and made a sudden pause, while two boys, who, boy-like, had followed close on her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant glances, at their mother. And oh! mother that reads this, has there never been in your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you are, if it has not been so!

Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little coats of many a form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings; and even a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping from the folds of a paper. There was a toy horse and waggon, a top, a ball—memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heartbreak! She sat down by the drawer, and leaning her head on her hands over it, wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then suddenly raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the plainest and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a bundle.

"Mamma," said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, "are you going to give away those things?"

"My dear boys," she said, softly and earnestly, "if our dear, loving, little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do this. I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common person—to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his blessings with them!"

Mr. Bird returned about twelve o'clock with the carriage. "Mary," said he, coming in with his overcoat in his hand, you must wake her up now. "We must be off." Soon arrayed in a cloak, bonnet, and shawl that had belonged to her benefactress, poor Eliza appeared at the door with her child in her arms. When she got seated in the carriage, she fixed her large dark eyes on Mrs. Bird's face, and seemed going to speak. Her lips moved, but there was no sound; pointing upward with a look never to be forgotten, she fell back in her seat and covered her face. The door was shut, and the carriage drove on.

It was not long before they arrived at the place where Mr. Bird thought they would be safe from the cruel trader. It was a village about seven miles off, consisting of neat houses, with orchards and meadows about them.

They all belonged to Quakers, a sect of Christians whom foolish people laugh at, because they think it right to wear broad-brimmed hats, and odd old-fashioned bonnets; but they do many good and charitable things, especially for the poor negroes, and one of them took Harry and his mother in.

I cannot tell all the kindness the Quaker and his family did to them, giving Harry such good things, and watching lest the trader should come that way; but the greatest joy of all was, one evening, when a tall strong man, called Phineas Fletcher, who was a Quaker, and a great traveller, guided to the village Harry's poor father, George. His master was going to sell him too, and he had run away, and searched everywhere for his wife and child, to take them with him to Canada, which you know belongs to England. Oh what a happy meeting that was between George, Eliza, and little Harry.

But they could not remain long with the kind Quakers. Their cruel pursuers had found out where they were hid, so they had all to set out again together. This time they were guided by the brave-hearted Phineas Fletcher, and hoped to reach Canada in safety. But their pursuers overtook them, and they had to run to the rocks to defend themselves, as the verses will tell.