The Runaway | Page 7

Philadelphia. They were soon beyond the pavements of the
town, and in the open country. It was a lovely morning, and the bright
summer developed its beauties, and dispensed its fragrance along their
path. The birds sang sweetly, and darted on swift wing around them.
The cattle roamed lazily over the fields, and the busy farmers were
everywhere industriously toiling. All nature seemed joyously reflecting
the serene smile of a benevolent God.
Even the wicked hearts of the wanderers seemed lightened by the

influence of the glorious morning, and cheerily, with many a jocund
song and homely jest, they pressed on their way. Even guilt can
sometimes forget its baseness, and enjoy the bounties of the kind
Creator, for which it expresses no thankfulness and feels no gratitude.
At noon they stopped at a farmer's house, and Bill told the honest old
man that they belonged to a ship which had sailed round to
Philadelphia; that it had left New York unexpectedly, without their
knowledge, and taken their chests and clothes which had been placed
on board; and that, being without money, they were compelled to walk
across to Philadelphia to meet it.
The farmer believed the falsehood, and charitably gave them a good
dinner. They walked on till after sunset, and then crossed over a field,
and climbed up into a rack filled with hay, where they slept all night.
In the morning they started forward very hungry, for they had eaten
nothing, since the noon before, except a few green apples. They
stopped at the first farm-house on the road, and, by telling the same
falsehood that had procured them a meal the day before, excited the
pity of the farmer and obtained a good breakfast.
Thus did they go on, lying and begging their way along.
On the third day there were heavy showers, accompanied by fierce
lightnings and crashing thunders. They were as thoroughly soaked as if
they had been thrown into the river, and at night had to sleep on a
haystack, in the open field, in their wet clothes. Rodney's feet, too, had
become very sore, and he walked in great and constant pain.
In the afternoon of the fourth day they stopped on the banks of the
Delaware, five or six miles from Philadelphia, to wash their clothes,
which had become filthy in travelling through the dust and mud. As
they had no clothing but what they wore, there was nothing else to be
done but to strip, wash out their soiled garments, and lay them out on
the bank to dry, while they swam about the river, or waited on the shore,
with what patience they could summon.

A little after sunset they reached the suburbs of the great city; and now
the sore feet and wearied limbs of the boy could scarcely sustain him
over the hard pavements. Yet Bill urged him onward with many an
impatient oath, on past the ship-yards of Kensington,--on, past the
factories, and markets, and farmers' taverns, and shops of the Northern
Liberties,--on, through the crowded thoroughfares, and by the brilliant
stores of the city,--on, into the most degraded section of Southwark, in
Plumb-street, where Bill said a friend of his lived. This friend was an
abandoned woman, who lived in a miserable frame cabin, crowded
with wicked and degraded wretches, who seemed the well-known and
fitting companions of Rodney's patron. The woman for whom he
inquired was at a dance in the neighborhood, and there Bill took the
boy in search of her.
They went up a dark alley, and were admitted into a large room filled
with men and women, black and white, the dregs and outcasts of
society.
A few dripping candles, placed in tin sconces along the bare walls,
threw a dim and sickly glare over the motley throng. A couple of negro
men, sitting on barrels at the head of the room, were drawing
discordant notes from a pair of cracked, patched, and greasy fiddles.
And there were men, whose red and bloated faces gave faithful witness
of their habitual intemperance; and men, whose threadbare and ragged
garments betokened sloth and poverty; and men, whose vulgar and
ostentatious display of showy clothing, and gaudy chains, and rings and
breast-pins, which they did not know how to wear, indicated dishonest
pursuits; and men, whose blue jackets and bluff, brown faces showed
them to be sailors; and men, whose scowling brows and fiendlike
countenances marked them as villains of the blackest and lowest type.
And there were women, too, some old--at least, they looked so--and
haggard; some young, but with wretched-looking faces, and dressed in
tawdry garments, yet generally faded, some torn and some patched, and
all seeming to be brought from the pawnbroker's dusty shop for the
occasion.
In a little filthy side-room was