show
they feel intense interest in what is going on, and know it concerns
_them_."

"I haven't remarked that," he said rather musingly, "but it _may_ be so.
Does the North believe it? If we came to blows, would they try to excite
servile insurrection among us?"

"The North, beyond a doubt, believes it," I replied, "yet I think even
the Abolitionists would aid you in putting down an insurrection; but
war, in my opinion, would not leave you a slave between the Rio Grande
and the Potomac."

The Colonel at this rose, remarking: "You are mistaken. You are
mistaken, sir!" then turning to our host, said: "Captain, it is late:
had we not better retire?" Bidding me "good-night," he was gone.

Our host soon returned from showing the guest to his apartment, and with
a quiet but deliberate manner, said to me: "You touched him, Mr. K----,
on a point where he knows we are weakest; but allow me to caution you
about expressing your opinions so freely. The Colonel is a gentleman,
and what you have said will do no harm, but, long as I have lived here,
_I_ dare not say to many what you have said to him to-night."

Thanking the worthy gentleman for the caution, I followed him up stairs,
and soon lost, in a sweet oblivion, all thoughts of Abolitionists,
niggers, and the "grand empire."

I was awakened in the morning by music under my window, and looking out
discovered about a dozen darkies gathered around my ebony driver, who
was clawing away with all his might at a dilapidated banjo, while his
auditory kept time to his singing, by striking the hand on the knee, and
by other gesticulations too numerous to mention. The songs were not much
to boast of, but the music was the genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, darky
article. The following was the refrain of one of the songs, which the
reader will perceive was an exhortation to early rising:

"So up, good massa, let's be gwoin',
Let's be scratchin' ob de grabble;
For soon de wind may be a blowin',
An' we'se a sorry road to trabble."

The storm of the previous night had ceased, but the sky was overcast,
and looked as if "soon de wind might be a-blowin'." Prudence counselled
an early start, for, doubtless, the runs, or small creeks, had become
swollen by the heavy rain, and would be unsafe to cross after dark.
Besides, beyond Conwayboro, our route lay for thirty miles through a
country without a solitary house where we could get decent shelter, were
we ov