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CHAPTER XVI.

CASSEY ESCAPES FROM BALTIMORE—RETURNS FOR HER CHILD—ESCAPES AGAIN IN SAILOR COSTUME—ELUDES THE SLAVE CATCHER, CATHCART—GOES TO CANADA—RETURNS TO NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.—THE SLAVE CATCHER FINDS HER—A LONG RIDE AND HOW IT CAME OUT—AN INTELLIGENT IRISHMAN—WHAT MARGARET^[1] DID FOR HIM.

Cassey was a slave in Baltimore; her master’s name was Claggett. She had been assured by those who knew, that she was about to be sold to a man who was making up a coffle for the markets in Louisiana or Texas. Xone but slaves can imagine the terror felt in view of such a prospect. Cassey fled like a frightened bird, and succeeded in reaching a place of safety near Haddonfield, N.J., where she obtained service in a respectable family. She was industrious, steady and honest, and her cheerful, obliging manners secured her many friends, yet a sadness was ever present on her countenance, for she had left in Baltimore a child, little more than a year old. Her master had not been unusually severe, but she had experienced and witnessed enough of slavery to dread it for her child, and she therefore determined to make a desperate effort to save her little one from the liability of being sold and treated like a mere brute. The kind Quaker people among whom she had

1. See Margaret, Chapter XII.