"No, sir, your niggers have all got to stay right here in Washington and starve or steal. You can't take'em to Indiana, that's mighty certain. Why, when that Constitution was passed only a year or two ago, there wern't but 21,000 voters in the whole blessed State that didn't vote to punish a white man for even giving employment to a free nigger. Public sentiment as well as law is _all_ against you. You can't take those niggers to Indiana--that's certain!" "Dar now! Dar now! wat I done tole you?" exclaimed Mammy. "What I done tole Mos' Grif 'bout all dis foolishness? Mis' Kate, you ain't gwine ter 'low dat is you? Me an' Judy free niggers! _Town_ free niggers wid no fambly!" The tone indicated that no lower depth of degradation and misfortune than this could be thrust upon any human being. "I's gwine ter keep dis heah baby, den. Who gwine ter take cahr ob her widout me?" The child was patting the black face and pulling the black ear in a gleeful effort to call forth the usual snort and threat to "swaller her whole." "Bless yoah hawt, honey, yoh ain't gwine t' hab no odder nus, is yo'? Nus! Nus! White trash t' nus my baby! Yoh des gwine ter hab yoh ole mammy, dat's wat!" The attorney took Mr. Davenport and Katherine to an inner office. It was two hours later when they came out. Both were pale and half dazed, but arrangements had been made, papers had been drawn, by which the nine oldest negroes were, in future, to appear at this office once every three months and draw the sum of twenty-four dollars each, so long as they might live. The younger ones must hereafter shift, as best they could, for themselves. The die was cast. The bridges were burned behind them. There was no return, and the negroes were indeed, "free, town niggers," henceforth. "God forgive me if I have done wrong," said Griffith, as he left the office. "If I have done wrong in deserting these poor black children, for children they will always be, though pensioned as too old to work! Poor Mammy, Poor Judy! And Mart, and old Peyton!" He shook his head and compressed his lips as he walked toward the door, with a stoop in his shoulders that was not there when he had entered. All the facts of this manumission were so wholly at variance with the established theories. Every thing had been so different from even what Griffith had expected to meet. As they reached the door the attorney took the proffered hand and laughed a little, satirically.