"
"What's this all about?" asked Nimbus.
"Well, I suppose the old man Sykes got ye indicted under the statute
making it a misdemeanor, punishable with fine and imprisonment,
to coax, hire, or seduce away one's niggers after he's hired 'em.
Just the same question as the other, only this is an indictment
and that's a civil action--an action under the code, as they call
it, since you Radicals tinkered over the law. One is for the damage
to old man Sykes, and the other because it's a crime to coax off
or harbor any one's hirelings."
"Is dat de law, Mister Sheriff?"
"Oh, yes, that's the law, fast enough. No trouble about that. Didn't
know it, did you? Thought you could go and take a man's "hands"
right out from under his nose, and not get into trouble about it,
didn't ye?"
"I t'ought dat when a man was free anudder could hire him widout
axin' leave of his marster. Dat's what I t'ought freedom meant."
"Oh, not exactly; there's lots of freedom lyin' round loose, but
it don't allow a man to hire another man's hands, nor give them
aid and comfort by harboring and feeding them when they break their
contracts and run away. I reckon the old man's got you, Nimbus. If
one hook don't catch, the other will. You've been harborin' the
cuss, if you didn't entice him away, and that's just the same."
"Ef you mean by harborin' that I tuk my wife's kinsman in when
ole Marse Sykes turned his family out in de big road like a damned
ole rascal--"
"Hold on, Nimbus!" said the sheriff, with a dangerous light in
his cold gray eyes; "you'd better not talk like that about a white
gentleman.
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