ount of
your rheumatism. Think it'll be a clear day, Bushrod?"

"I 'low it will, suh. De sun sot red las' night."

Mr. Robert lit a cigar in the shadow, and the smoke looked like his
gray ghost expanding and escaping into the night air. Somehow, Uncle
Bushrod could barely force his reluctant tongue to the dreadful
subject. He stood, awkward, shambling, with his feet upon the gravel
and fumbling with his stick. But then, afar off--three miles away,
at the Jimtown switch--he heard the faint whistle of the coming
train, the one that was to transport the Weymouth name into the
regions of dishonour and shame. All fear left him. He took off his
hat and faced the chief of the clan he served, the great, royal,
kind, lofty, terrible Weymouth--he bearded him there at the brink of
the awful thing that was about to happen.

"Marse Robert," he began, his voice quivering a little with the
stress of his feelings, "you 'member de day dey-all rode de
tunnament at Oak Lawn? De day, suh, dat you win in de ridin', and
you crown Miss Lucy de queen?"

"Tournament?" said Mr. Robert, taking his cigar from his mouth.
"Yes, I remember very well the--but what the deuce are you talking
about tournaments here at midnight for? Go 'long home, Bushrod. I
believe you're sleep-walking."

"Miss Lucy tetch you on de shoulder," continued the old man,
never heeding, "wid a s'ord, and say: 'I mek you a knight, Suh
Robert--rise up, pure and fearless and widout reproach.' Dat what
Miss Lucy say. Dat's been a long time ago, but me nor you ain't
forgot it. And den dar's another time we ain't forgot--de time when
Miss Lucy lay on her las' bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she
say: 'Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr.
Robert. Seem like'--so Miss Lucy say--'he listen to you mo' dan to
anybody else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe
he cuss you when you try to 'suade him but he need somebody what
understand him to be 'round wid him. He am like a little child
sometimes'--so Miss Lucy say, wid her eyes shinin' in her po', thin
face--'but he always been'--dem was her words--'my knight, pure and
fearless and widout reproach.'"

Mr. Robert began to mask, as was his habit, a tendency to
soft-heartedness with a spurious anger.

"You--you old windbag!" he growled through a cloud of swirling cigar
smoke. "I believe you are crazy. I told you to go home, Bushrod.
Miss Lucy said that, did she? Well, we haven't kept the sc