infuriated young slave. He scarcely knew how to account for his
fighting strength, and his daredevil spirit so dumfounded the master
that he gaspingly said: "Are you going to resist me, you young
scoundrel?" "Yes, sir," was the quick reply.

Finding himself baffled, Covey called for assistance. His cousin
Hughes came to aid him, but as he was attempting to put a noose over
the unruly slave's foot, Douglass promptly gave him a blow in the
stomach which at once put him out of the combat and he fled. After
Hughes had been disabled, Covey called on first one and then another of
his slaves, but each refused to assist him. Finding himself fairly
outdone by his angry antagonist, Covey quit; with the discreet remark:
"Now, you young scoundrel, you go to work; I would not have whipped you
half so hard if you had not resisted."

Douglass had thus won his first victory, and was never again threatened
or flogged by his master. The effect of this encounter, as far as he
himself was concerned, was to increase his self-respect, and to give
him more courage for the future. He said that, "when a slave cannot be
flogged, he is more than half free." To the other slaves he became a
hero, and Covey was not anxious to advertise his complete failure to
break in this "unruly nigger." It speaks well for the natural dignity
and good sense of young Douglass that he neither boasted of his triumph
nor did anything rash as a consequence of it, as might have been
expected from a boy of his age and spirit. . . .


[A carefully planned attempt at escape failed dismally, but he remained
undaunted.]