ge
Custis, taking the last of the brandy.

He was interrupted by the entrance of Samson Hat.

"Where's your master, boy?" asked the Judge.

"He's gone up to de ole house, Judge, where his daddy and mammy died.
It's de place where I hides after my fights."

"May the ague strike him there! Let the bilious sweat from the mill-pond
be strong to-night, that, like Judas of old, his bowels may drop out!
But, no," continued the irresolute man, "I have no right to hate him."

"Judge," softly said the old negro, "my marster is a sick man. He ain't
happy like you an' me. He's 'bitious. He's lonely. Dat's enough to spile
angels. But a gooder man I never knowed, 'cept in de onpious sperrit.
He's proud as Lucifer. He's full of hate at Princess Anne and all de
people. Your darter may git a better man, not a pyorer one."

"Purity goes a very little way," exclaimed the Judge, "on the male side
of marriage contracts. It's always assumed, and never expected. You need
not remember, Samson, that I expressed any anger at your master!"

"My whole heart, judge, is to see him happy. Hard as he is, dat man has
power to make him loved. Your darter might go farder and fare wuss! I
wish her no harm, God knows!"

The negro said an humble good-night, and the Judge lay down upon his bed
to think of the dread alternatives of the coming week; but, voluptuous
even in despair, he slept before he had come to any conclusion.

Samson Hat walked up the side of the mill-pond on a sandy road, divided
from the water by a dense growth of pines. The bullfrogs and insects
serenaded the forest; the furnace chimney smoked lurid on the midnight.
At the distance of half a mile or more an old cabin, in decay, stood in
a sandy field near the road; it had no door in the hollow doorway, no
sash in the one gaping window; the step was broken leading to the sill,
and some of the weather-boarding had rotted from the skeleton. The old
end-chimney bore it toughly up, however, and the low brick props under
the corners stood plumb. Within lay a single room with open beams, a
sort of cupboard stairway projecting over the fireplace, and another
door and window were in the rear. Before this fireplace sat Meshach
Milburn on an old chair, fairly revealed by the light of some of the
burning weather-boarding he had thrown upon the hearth. On the hearth
was a little heap of the bog iron ore and a bottle.

"Come in, Samson!" he called. "Don't think me turned drunkard because I
a