216 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
trembler ceased to weep, and looking up into his face with a 
smile, said— 
“Well, then, you may run along, Billy—I’ll wait for you!” 
He was off in an instant, and with her last pure kiss upon 
his lips, he plied his little legs as fast as they could carry 
him on the road which he had learned led to the capital of 
the State. His heart was light, his spirit bold, and the great 
world before him a shrouded mystery. He reached Raleigh 
in about a week, begging his way after his own little store 
gave out. He must have exhibited a great deal of audacity 
and address, for a child of his age, to have succeeded in 
getting through such a journey without being stopped by the 
authorities somewhere on the way. However, it is not more 
remarkable than many other of the events of his life. 
After reaching Raleigh, his life was of course wretchedly 
precarious for some time. He prowled about the kitchens of 
the gentry at meal times, and lived upon such of the sciaps 
of the tables as the negroes chose to throw to him in compas- 
sion—at night he crawled into some shed or stable to shiver 
in the straw till morning. 
It happened that a kind-hearted old Judge of the Circuit 
Court—Campbell by name—who was a very early riser, and 
always went, the first thing, to see how the cattle and horses 
came on, found one morning a feeble looking child, with 
features ghastly and sharpened by hunger, lying in the 
trough of his cow-house, which was a close shed around three 
sides of the stable. He stopped, astonished, to gaze upon 
him. The little fellow had not rags enough upon him to 
cover his nakedness, and had drawn down some of the hay 
from the manger above to cover him, and the whole pile 
shook as he shuddered with the cold. 
The old man gazed for a moment or two upon that troubled 
sleep, the irregular breathing, broken so often with faint 
moans, that they touched deeply, and as the tears sprang to 
his eyes, he murmured— 
