"The nigger is not in this barn," said the officer.
"I know he is not," quietly answered the Quaker.
"What were you nailing up your door for, then, as if you were afraid we
would enter?" inquired one of the kidnappers.
"I can do what I please with my own door, can't I," said the Quaker.
The secret was out; the fugitive had gone in at the front
door and out at the back; and the reading of the warrant,
nailing up of the door, and other preliminaries of the Quaker,
was to give the fugitive time and opportunity to escape.
It was now late in the morning, and the slave-catchers were a long way
from home, and the horses were jaded by the rapid manner in which they
had travelled. The Friends, in high glee, returned to the house
for breakfast; the man of the law, after taking his fee, went home,
and the kidnappers turned back, muttering, "Better luck next time."
CHAPTER XXI
SELF-SACRIFICE
NOW in her seventeenth year, Clotelle's personal appearance presented
a great contrast to the time when she lived with old Mrs. Miller.
Her tall and well-developed figure; her long, silky black hair,
falling in curls down her swan-like neck; her bright, black eyes
lighting up her olive-tinted face, and a set of teeth that a Tuscarora
might envy, she was a picture of tropical-ripened beauty.
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