“Now, I say, gal, you needn’t be a bit afeard, let who will come here.  I’m up to all that sort o’ thing,” said he, pointing to two or three goodly rifles over the mantel-piece; “and most people that know me know that ‘t wouldn’t be healthy to try to get anybody out o’ my house when I’m agin it.  So now you jist go to sleep now, as quiet as if yer mother was a rockin’ ye,” said he, as he shut the door.

“Why, this is an uncommon handsome un,” he said to the senator.  “Ah, well; handsome uns has the greatest cause to run, sometimes, if they has any kind o’ feelin, such as decent women should.  I know all about that.”

The senator, in a few words, briefly explained Eliza’s history.

“O! ou! aw! now, I want to know?” said the good man, pitifully; “sho! now sho!  That’s natur now, poor crittur! hunted down now like a deer,—­hunted down, jest for havin’ natural feelin’s, and doin’ what no kind o’ mother could help a doin’!  I tell ye what, these yer things make me come the nighest to swearin’, now, o’ most anything,” said honest John, as he wiped his eyes with the back of a great, freckled, yellow hand.  “I tell yer what, stranger, it was years and years before I’d jine the church, ’cause the ministers round in our parts used to preach that the Bible went in for these ere cuttings up,—­and I couldn’t be up to ’em with their Greek and Hebrew, and so I took up agin ’em, Bible and all.  I never jined the church till I found a minister that was up to ’em all in Greek and all that, and he said right the contrary; and then I took right hold, and jined the church,—­I did now, fact,” said John, who had been all this time uncorking some very frisky bottled cider, which at this juncture he presented.

“Ye’d better jest put up here, now, till daylight,” said he, heartily, “and I’ll call up the old woman, and have a bed got ready for you in no time.”

“Thank you, my good friend,” said the senator, “I must be along, to take the night stage for Columbus.”

“Ah! well, then, if you must, I’ll go a piece with you, and show you a cross road that will take you there better than the road you came on.  That road’s mighty bad.”

John equipped himself, and, with a lantern in hand, was soon seen guiding the senator’s carriage towards a road that ran down in a hollow, back of his dwelling.  When they parted, the senator put into his hand a ten-dollar bill.

“It’s for her,” he said, briefly.

“Ay, ay,” said John, with equal conciseness.

They shook hands, and parted.

CHAPTER X

The Property Is Carried Off

The February morning looked gray and drizzling through the window of Uncle Tom’s cabin.  It looked on downcast faces, the images of mournful hearts.  The little table stood out before the fire, covered with an ironing-cloth; a coarse but clean shirt or two, fresh from the iron, hung on the back of a chair by the fire, and Aunt Chloe had another spread out before her on the table.  Carefully she rubbed and ironed every fold and every hem, with the most scrupulous exactness, every now and then raising her hand to her face to wipe off the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.