Had it been his own case, I think I know my father well enough to believe that he would have started directly South for "dat yer gal 'n' little Pompey," though he had to face a frowning world. But being John's counsellor, his _role_ was to counsel moderation, and his duty to put before him the immense improbability of his ever making a second passage of the Red Sea, if he now returned. If he were caught and whipped to death, of what benefit could he be to his wife and child? Why not stay North and buy them? But the marital and the parental are also the automatic and the immediate. Reason with love! As well with orange-boughs for bearing orange-buds, or water upon its boiling-point! When John's earnestness made my father realize that this is the truth, he gave John all the available funds in the underground till, and started him off at six in the morning. I was not awake when he went, and felt that my luck was down on me. I never should see that hole where the black came up. For six months the Care-Taker of Ravens had under His sole keeping a brave head as black as theirs, and a heart like that of the pious negro, who, in a Southern revival-hymn is thus referred to:-- "O! O! Him hab face jus' like de crow, But de Lor' gib him heart like snow." (The most Southern slaves, who had never travelled and seen snow, found greater reality in the image of "cotton wool," and used to sing the hymn with that variation.) At the end of that time, contrary to our most sanguine expectations, John Peterson appeared. Nor John Peterson alone, for when he rang our door-bell he put into the arms of a nice-looking mulatto woman of thirty a little youngster about two years old. A new servant, with some trepidation, showed them up to "Massa's" study. We had weeded John's dialect of that word before he went away, but he had been six months since then in a servile atmosphere. He stood at the open study-door. My father stopped shaving, and let the lather dry on his face, as he shielded with his hand the eyes he in vain tried to believe. Yes, veritably, John Peterson! But John Peterson could not speak. He choked visibly; and then, pointing to the two beside him, blurted out,-- "I's done did it, Massa!" and broke entirely down. Again it was AEnon generally, and there was more baptizing done. John had made a march somewhat like Sherman's. He had crossed the entire States of Virginia and Maryland, carrying two non-combatants, and no weapon of his own but a knife,--subsisting his army on the enemy all the way,--using negro guides freely, but never sending them back to their masters,--and terminating his brilliant campaign with an act of bold, unconstitutional confiscation. He couldn't have found a Chief-Justice in the world to uphold him in it at that time.