who
brought me here; why he did it, and what became of him; how he lived and
died.

"The earliest remembrance I have of myself is of the cooper's shop where
I was made. Although I look worn now, I can recall the time when all my
staves were smooth and clean, so that the oak-grain showed clearly from
the top to the bottom of me, and my steel hoops were strong and bright.
The cooper made me on his honor and took a deal of honest pride in
putting me together, as every workman should in doing his work. I
remember that when I was finished and the cooper had sanded me off and
oiled me, he set me up on a bench and said to his apprentice boy:
'There, that Keg will last till the Judgment Day, and well on toward
night at that.' I wondered at that.

"One day a few weeks later a man came into the shop and said, 'Have you
a good strong keg for sale?'

"He put the question in such a half-spiteful, half-suspicious way that I
eyed him curiously. And a very peculiar man I saw. He was not more than
forty years old, of good height and strongly built. He was a gentleman,
evidently, although his face was darkly tanned and his clothes were old
and threadbare. His mouth was small. His lips were thin, and had a look
of being drawn tightly over his teeth. His chin was long, his jaws large
and strong. His hair was thin and brown. But the remarkable feature of
his face was his eyes. They were blue-gray in color, small, and deeply
set under his arching eye-brows. How hard and steel-like they were, and
restless as a rat's! And what an intense look of suspicion there was in
them; a half-scared, defiant look, as if their owner felt every one to
be his enemy. Ah, what eyes they were! I came to know them well
afterward, and to know what the wild, strange light in them meant; but
of that by and by.

"'Have you a good strong keg for sale?' he shouted to my master, who
turned round and looked squarely at the questioner.

"'Yes, I have, Mr. Roberts. Do you want one?'

"'Yes!' returned the other; 'but I want a strong one--_strong_, do you
hear?'

"'Here's a keg,' said my master, tapping me with his mallet, 'that I
made with my own hands from the very best stuff. It will last as long as
steel and white oak staves will last.'

"The price was paid with a muttered protest and Roberts hoisted me under
his arm and bore me from the shop.

"As we hurried along, I noticed that my new master spoke to no one, and
that people looked at him coldly or wonderi