nted not only a problem of large concern, but, in the watchful
eyes of Hillsborough, he was the embodiment of that vague and mysterious
danger that seemed to be forever lurking on the outskirts of slavery,
ready to sound a shrill and ghostly signal in the impenetrable swamps,
and steal forth under the midnight stars to murder, rapine, and
pillage--a danger always threatening, and yet never assuming shape;
intangible, and yet real; impossible, and yet not improbable. Across the
serene and smiling front of safety, the pale outlines of the awful
shadow of insurrection sometimes fell. With this invisible panorama as a
background, it was natural that the figure of Free Joe, simple and
humble as it was, should assume undue proportions. Go where he would, do
what he might, he could not escape the finger of observation and the
kindling eye of suspicion. His lightest words were noted, his slightest
actions marked.

Under all the circumstances it was natural that his peculiar condition
should reflect itself in his habits and manners. The slaves laughed
loudly day by day, but Free Joe rarely laughed. The slaves sang at their
work and danced at their frolics, but no one ever heard Free Joe sing or
saw him dance. There was something painfully plaintive and appealing in
his attitude, something touching in his anxiety to please. He was of the
friendliest nature, and seemed to be delighted when he could amuse the
little children who had made a playground of the public square. At times
he would please them by making his little dog Dan perform all sorts of
curious tricks, or he would tell them quaint stories of the beasts of
the field and birds of the air; and frequently he was coaxed into
relating the story of his own freedom. That story was brief, but
tragical.

In the year of our Lord 1840, when a negro speculator of a sportive turn
of mind reached the little village of Hillsborough on his way to the
Mississippi region, with a caravan of likely negroes of both sexes, he
found much to interest him. In that day and at that time there were a
number of young men in the village who had not bound themselves over to
repentance for the various misdeeds of the flesh. To these young men the
negro speculator (Major Frampton was his name) proceeded to address
himself. He was a Virginian, he declared; and, to prove the statement,
he referred all the festively inclined young men of Hillsborough to a
barrel of peach-brandy in one of his covered wag