y. It's a free country, sir; the man's _mine_, and I
do what I please with him--that's it."

'And so fell George's last hope: nothing before him but a life of toil
and drudgery, rendered more bitter by every little smarting vexation
and indignity which tyrannical ingenuity could devise.' One day George
visited his wife in a distracted state of feeling. '"I have been
careful, and I have been patient," said he; "but it's growing worse
and worse: flesh and blood can't bear it any longer. Every chance he
can get to insult and torment me, he takes. I thought I could do my
work well, and keep on quiet, and have some time to read and learn out
of work-hours; but the more he sees I can do, the more he loads on. He
says that though I don't say anything, he sees I've got the devil in
me, and he means to bring it out; and one of these days it will come
out in a way that he wont like, or I'm mistaken."

"O dear! what shall we do?" said Eliza mournfully.

"It was only yesterday," said George, "as I was busy loading stones
into a cart, that young Mas'r Tom stood there, slashing his whip so
near the horse, that the creature was frightened. I asked him to stop,
as pleasant as I could: he just kept right on. I begged him again, and
then he turned on me, and began striking me. I held his hand, and then
he screamed, and kicked, and ran to his father, and told him that I
was fighting him. He came in a rage, and said he'd teach me who was my
master; and he tied me to a tree, and cut switches for young master,
and told him that he might whip me till he was tired; and he did do
it. If I don't make him remember it some time!" And the brow of the
young man grew dark, and his eyes burned with an expression that made
his young wife tremble. "Who made this man my master--that's what I
want to know?" he said.

"Well," said Eliza mournfully, "I always thought that I must obey my
master and mistress, or I couldn't be a Christian."

"There is some sense in it, in your case: they have brought you up
like a child--fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so
that you have a good education--that is some reason why they should
claim you. But I have been kicked, and cuffed, and sworn at, and at
the best only let alone; and what do I owe? I've paid for all my
keeping a hundred times over. I _won't_ bear it--no, I _won't_!" he
said, clenching his hand with a fierce frown.

'Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in
th