awe-inspiring unworldliness in his talk, has entered into them. No
novice is he in the affairs of either world--this or the Unseen. At
night he will look up to the stars that glitter above the still camp
and talk like a theologian, moralizing upon the fact that while God's
stars are unerring in their courses God's human creatures are so
erratic. But he is no mere dreamer; you may see him, when the enemy is
known to be near, sleeping in his saddle, with his gun across it, that
he may be no sooner awake than ready. One who knew not of this habit
was once imprudent enough to touch him in his sleep, as he wanted to
speak to him; he had only time to knock up the swiftly pointed barrel
with his hand and John Brown's bullet grazed the intruder's shoulder.

One of the first deeds in this campaign, and the one that certainly
first turned the tide and caused the pro-slavery ruffians to feel that
they had need to look to their own safety, and would not be suffered
with impunity to murder whom they chose and fire honest men's houses
like fiends let loose, was the midnight massacre at Pottawatomie.
Along a certain creek there lived five of these incendiaries and
outrage-mongers who were specially notorious. A report reached Brown
that they were sworn to sweep the neighbourhood clear of Abolitionists,
not forgetting 'those Browns.' That they were to be kept in terror by
such a gang seemed to Brown an unrighteous state of things, and he
formed the desperate design of visiting them first. But he loved not
slaughter for slaughter's sake. Not only could he strike upon
occasion, but he could be just in his rough-and-ready fashion. He
argued within himself, 'I shall be right in killing these men if I am
sure they intend these murders, but I will not act upon mere report.'
Disguising himself, he started with two men to carry a surveyor's
chain, and one to carry a flag. No coward was this man. He would put
his life in peril rather than act on mere suspicion. So he ran his
lines past the houses of these five men, and they naturally came out to
see what this surveying business was. Brown told them, as he looked
through his instrument and waved the flagman to this side or that,
'Yours is a grand country. Are there many Abolitionists about here?'
In his pocket-book he jotted down the answer 'Yes,' and, swearing great
oaths, they told him that they meant to sweep the region clear of them
in a week. 'Are there some called Brown?' 'Ye