"I will go out to him," Mrs.Wingfield replied.Vincent followed her to the door.
"Mrs.Wingfield," the sheriff said, "I am the holder of a warrant; to search your slave-huts and grounds for a run-away negro named Anthony Moore, the property of Mr.Jackson here.""Do you suppose, sir," Mrs.Wingfield asked angrily, "that I am the sort of person to give shelter to runaway slaves?"No, madam, certainly not," the sheriff replied; "no one would suppose for a moment that Mrs.Wingfield of the Orangery would have anything to do with a runaway, but Mr.Jackson here learned only yesterday that the wife of this slave was here, and every one knows that where the wife is the husband is not likely to be far off.""I suppose, sir," Mrs.Wingfleld said coldly, "that there was no necessity for me to acquaint Mr.Jackson formerly with the fact that I had purchased through my agent the woman he sold to separate her from her husband.".'By no means, madam, by no means; though, had we known it;before, it might have been some aid to us in our search.Have we your permission to see this woman and to question her?""Certainly not," Mrs.Wingfield said; "but if you have any question to ask I will ask her and give you her answer.""We want to know whether she has seen her husband since the day of his flight; from the plantation?""I shall certainly not ask her that question, Mr.Sheriff.I have no doubt that, as the place from which he has escaped is only a few miles from here, he did come to see his wife.It would have been very strange if he did not.I hope that by this time the man is hundreds of miles away.He was brutally treated by a brutal master, who, I believe, deliberately set to work to make him run away, so that he could hunt him down and punish him.I presume, sir, you do not wish to search this house, and you do not suppose that the man is hidden here.As to the slave-huts and the plantation, you can, of course, search them thoroughly; but as it is now more than a fortnight since the man escaped, it is not likely you will find him hiding within a few miles of his master's plantation."So saying she went into the house and shut the door behind her.
Mr.Jackson ground his teeth with rage, but the sheriff rode off toward the slave-huts without a word.The position of Mrs.
Wingfield of the Orangery, connected as she was with half the old families of Virginia, and herself a large slave-owner, was beyond suspicion, and no one would venture to suggest that such a lady could have the smallest sympathy for a runaway slave.
"She was down upon you pretty hot, Mr.Jackson," the sheriff said as they rode off."You don't seem to be in her good books."Jackson muttered an imprecation.
"It is certainly odd," the sheriff went on, "after what you were telling me about her son pitching into Andrew over flogging this very slave, that she should go and buy his wife.Still, that's a very different thing from hiding a runaway.I dare say that, as she says, the fellow came here to see his wife when he first ran away; but Idon't; think you will find him anywhere about here now.It's pretty certain from what we hear that he hasn't made for the North, and where the fellow can be hiding I can't think.Still the woods about this country are mighty big, and the fellow can go out on to the farms and pick corn and keep himself going for a long time.Still, he's sure to be brought; up sooner or later."A thorough search was made of the slave-huts, and the slaves were closely questioned, but all denied any knowledge of the runaway.
