_"That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns."_*


* A slightly inaccurate quotation from _Hamlet_, Act III,
scene I, lines 369-370.

A missionary figure among the fugitives in Canada told us that many of
the fugitives confessed themselves to have escaped from comparatively
kind masters, and that they were induced to brave the perils of escape,
in almost every case, by the desperate horror with which they regarded
being sold south,--a doom which was hanging either over themselves
or their husbands, their wives or children. This nerves the African,
naturally patient, timid and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and
leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, the perils of the wilderness,
and the more dread penalties of recapture.

The simple morning meal now smoked on the table, for Mrs. Shelby had
excused Aunt Chloe's attendance at the great house that morning.
The poor soul had expended all her little energies on this farewell
feast,--had killed and dressed her choicest chicken, and prepared her
corn-cake with scrupulous exactness, just to her husband's taste, and
brought out certain mysterious jars on the mantel-piece, some preserves
that were never produced except on extreme occasions.

"Lor, Pete," said Mose, triumphantly, "han't we got a buster of a
breakfast!" at the same time catching at a fragment of the chicken.

Aunt Chloe gave him a sudden box on the ear. "Thar now! crowing over the
last breakfast yer poor daddy's gwine to have to home!"