He was almost super-anxious lest
it be said that the fear of the mob drove him out of Boston, and that
the fear of it kept him out. This super-anxiety in that regard his
friends to a certain degree shared with him. It was a phase of Abolition
grit. Danger attracted this new species of reformers as a magnet draws
iron. Instead of running away from it, they were, with one accord,
forever rushing into it. And the leader in Brooklyn was for rushing back
to Boston, where, if one chanced to sow the wind in the morning, he
might be morally certain of reaping the whirlwind in the afternoon.
Two weeks after he had been secretly conveyed to Canton by Deputy
Sheriff Parkman, being the day of his discharge from Leverett street
jail, he was back again in Boston. The popular excitement had subsided.
He showed himself freely in the streets and was nowhere molested. One
day, however, while at the anti-slavery office on Washington street, he
witnessed what was perhaps a final manifestation of the cat-like spirit
of the great mob. A procession passed by with band and music, bearing
aloft a large board on which were represented George Thompson and a
black woman with this significant allusion to the riot, made as if
addressed to himself by his dusky companion in disgrace: "When are we
going to have another meeting, Brother Thompson?" The cat-like creature
had lapsed into a playful mood, but its playfulness would have quickly
given place to an altogether different fit did it but know that Garrison
was watching it from the window of the very room where a few weeks
before he had nearly fallen into its clutches.
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