Brother Brannum's eyes, Brother Roach beheld, with
astonishment not unmixed with awe, the head and shoulders of a
powerfully built negro. The attitude of the negro was one of attention.
He was evidently trying to hear the sermon. His head was bent, and the
expression of his face was indicative of great good-humour. His shirt
was ragged and dirty, and had fallen completely away from one arm and
shoulder, and the billowy muscles glistened in the sun. While Brother
Brannum and Brother Roach were gazing at him with some degree of
amazement, an acorn dropped upon the roof from one of the tall oaks.
Startled by the sudden noise, the negro glanced hurriedly around, and
dropped quickly below the line of vision.

"Well, well, well!" exclaimed Brother Roach, after exchanging a look of
amazement with Brother Brannum. "Well, well, well! Who'd 'a' thought
it? Once 'twas the nigger in the wood-pile; now it's the nigger in the
steeple, and arter a while they'll be a-flying in the air,--mark my
words. I call that the impidence of the Old Boy. Maybe you don't know
that nigger, Brother Brannum?"

"I disremember if I do, Brother Roach."

"Well, sir, when one of 'em passes in front of your Uncle Johnny, you
may up and sw'ar his dagarrytype is took. That nigger, roosting up
there so slick and cool, is Bledser's Blue Dave. Nuther more, nuther
less."

"Bledser's Blue Dave!" exclaimed Brother Brannum in a voice made
sepulchral by amazement.

"The identical nigger! I'd know him if I met him arm-in-arm with the
King and Queen of France."

"Why, I thought Blue Dave had made his disappearance five year ago,"
said Brother Brannum.

"Well, sir, my two eyes tells me different. Time and time ag'in I've
been told he's a quare creetur. Some say he's strong as a horse and
venomous as a snake. Some say he's swifter than the wind and slicker
than a red fox. And many's the time by my own h'a'th-stone I've had to
pooh-pooh these relations; yet there's no denying that for mighty nigh
seven year that nigger's been trolloping round through the woods
foot-loose and scotch-free, bidding defiance to the law of the State
and Bill Brand's track dogs."

"Well, sir," said Brother Brannum, fetching his hand down on his knee
with a thwack, "we ought to alarm the assemblage."

"Jes so," replied Brother Roach, with something like a chuckle; "but
you forgit the time and the occasion, Brother Brannum. I'm a worldly
man myself, as you may say, but 'twill be long