"
One of the young men told him to conceal himself from the sight of the
neighbors, and he would go and consult with his mother what had best
be done. He soon returned, bringing two large pieces of bread and
butter and a decent pair of pantaloons. He then told him to go to the
side of the barn and wait there for his mother, but not to allow
himself to be seen. The boys' mother came out to speak to him with a
shirt on her arm. As he incautiously moved around the side of the barn
to meet her, she exclaimed, "For God's sake don't let that black woman
see you!" A slave was washing clothes near the back door of the farm
house. The poor woman explained to Hawkins that this negress would
betray him, "For she is as big a devil as any of the king's folks, and
she will bring me out, and then we should all be put in the provost
and die there, for my husband was put there more than two years ago,
and rotted and died there not more than two weeks since."
The poor woman wept as she told her story, and the escaped prisoner
wept with her. This woman and her two sons were Dutch, and their house
was only nine miles from Brooklyn ferry. She now directed the boy to a
house at Oyster Bay where she said there was a man who would assist
him to escape.
After running many risks he found the house at last, but the woman who
answered his knock told him that her husband was away and when he
explained who he was she became very angry, and said that it was her
duty to give him up.
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