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So they decided to take her to the church, yea, gather the whole neighborhood in there. "Sho, dey won't shoot in de house er God," said an old lady. "Le'us git dar an' pray; we kin do nuth'n better. Le' us ask de Lawd wot it all means?" When Rev. Silkirk reached a secluded spot in the woods he was wet, sore and exhausted from wading through marshes and being scratched by briars. Night had set in.
Git up, Nell," and the horse started off in a brisk trot. "Looker here, mister, I ain't got no more resterant then er dog. Ain't your name Silkirk?" "That's may name," returned the passenger in astonishment. "I knowed it," said the driver. "I got on that train ter save yer life ter night. Slower dar, Nell! This road's full er mud holes sence the big rain we had tother day.
Silkirk was true to his own, and when the time came to test that devotion, he arrayed himself with his own people and endangered his own life. When, in the early part of August, 1898, the fight between the editor of the Record and the editor of the Messenger waxed hot over the inflammatory letters on the race question from the pen of Mrs.
Thomas Miller, Aria Bryant and other citizens had been taken off and jailed at Goldsboro, and one man in trying to escape was shot to death. The Rev. Silkirk did not feel very comfortable under the searching eye of the conductor who lifted his fare, and that individual's refusal to give satisfactory answers to inquiries concerning connections at Rocky Mount increased his feeling of uneasiness.
The mob mounted their horses and made a dash for Oak Dale Cemetery. The colored people in the neighborhood, afraid to approach to offer protection to poor Mrs. Silkirk, now gathered about her. All were unanimous in the belief that the bandits would return should they fail to find the minister, and not only molest her, but shoot into the houses of others as well.
He lay down beneath a clump of bushes to rest; but there was no rest for this poor innocent wretch, outlawed by ruffians and compelled to leave his wife and little ones, and be hunted as a wild beast in the forest. This is the fate of many a Negro who had committed no more offense against law and order. But this, to such characters as Rev. Silkirk, was no evidence of God's displeasure.
Silkirk gently led his wife, who had almost fainted in his arms, to a chair and raised his hand for silence. "Brethren and sisters," he began, "my escape from death to-day has been a narrow one. I knew that my attitude in the Manly-Fells controversy had caused some of my friends to cool toward me, but I did not believe that it would ripen into a desire to murder me, because of my opinions.
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