Nature laughed them to scorn.

For my own part, I had now become altogether too big for my chains.

Father Lawson's solemn words, of what I ought to be, and might be, in the providence of God, had not fallen dead on my soul.

I was fast verging toward manhood, and the prophecies of my childhood were still unfulfilled.

The thought, that year after year had passed away, and my resolutions to run away had failed and faded--that I was _still a slave_, and a slave, too, with chances for gaining my freedom diminished and still diminishing--was not a matter to be slept over easily; nor did I easily sleep over it.
But here came a new trouble.