The Runaway | Page 7

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 a bar covered with bottles and glasses, behind which stood a large, red-faced man, with a big nose, and little ferret, fiery eyes, now grinning like a satyr, now scowling like a demon, dealing out burning liquors to his miserable customers.
A man fell beastly drunk from a bench upon the floor. "Take him up stairs," said the man at the bar. Rodney followed the two men who carried him up, and looked into the sleeping apartment. The floor was covered with dirty straw, where lodgers were accommodated for three cents a night. Here the poor wretches were huddled together every night, to get what sleep they could in the only home they had on earth.
Thus does vice humble, and degrade, and scourge those who are taken in its toils. From the threshold of the house of guilty pleasure there may issue the song and laugh of boisterous mirth; but those who enter within shall find disgrace and infamy,