"Get out of town as fast as you can drive," said I to Henry.
We were not half an hour in reaching Belvidere. There I stopped to
breathe the horse a few minutes, and Henry insisted that he was
starving, and must have something to eat; he would go into the hotel
he said, and get some dinner. I told him it was madness to do it;
but he would not move an inch further on the road till he had some
dinner. He went into the dining room, and I paced up and down the
piazza, nervous, anxious, fearing pursuit, dreading capture, well
knowing what would happen when those Jerseymen should get hold of me
and find out who I was. At that moment I saw the pursuers coming
rapidly up the road. I called to my son:
"Henry, Henry! for God's sake come out here, quick!"
But he thought I was only trying to frighten him so as to hurry him
away from his dinner, and get him on the road, and he paid no
attention to my summons. I knew that I was the man who was wanted,
and, without waiting for Henry, I jumped into my wagon and drove
off. I just escaped, that's all. The moment I left, my pursuers were
at the door. I looked back and saw them drag my son out of the
house, and take him away with them. I turned my horse's head towards
the Belvidere Bridge. All the country about there was as familiar to
me as the county I was born in. I knew every road, and I had no fear
of being caught. Once across the bridge and in Pennsylvania, and I
was comparatively safe, unless I myself should be kidnapped as I was
at midnight, only a little way from this very spot, eleven years
before.
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