and I keep sayin' to myself, says I, 'Jim Lewis, what an
old devil you are!' But please, master, if you won't be too hard on me,
I think I'll be better. I can't live long nohow. But----"

"There, that'll do," said Browne.

"Please, Mr. Browne," interposed Judy.

"Lewis, do you remember when you woolded a sailor's head?" demanded the
planter.

"I don't know, master. I have done lots of things a little hard.
Sailors are a hard lot."

"If you'd had pity on that poor sailor when he begged for mercy, I'd
have pity on you to-night But I cried over that sailor that you
wouldn't have mercy on, and now I can't pity you a bit. You've made
your own bed. Your turn has come."

Saying this, Sanford Browne went into the house, while the old sea
captain followed Bob in a half-palsied way round the south end of the
house toward the servants' quarters, muttering, "Well, now, Jim Lewis,
you're done fer."

"Mr. Browne, what are you going to do with that old man?" asked Judy,
with more energy than she usually showed in speaking to her husband.

"I don't know, Judy. Something awful, I reckon." Browne could not make
up his mind to any distinct act of cruelty beyond sending the convict
supperless to bed.

"I don't like you to be so hard on an old man. I know he's bad--as bad
as can be, but that's no reason why you should be bad."

"I wouldn't be bad, Judy. Just think how he sold me, like Joseph, away
from my family!"

"But Joseph wasn't really very unkind to his brothers, Mr. Browne; and
you won't be too hard on the poor old wretch, now will you?"

"Judy, I mean to make him suffer. When I think of my mother, and all
she must have suffered, I haven't a drop of pity in me. He's got to
suffer for his crimes now. That's what he was thrown into my hands for,
I reckon, Judy."

"Then you won't be the man you have been. Time and again you've bought
some poor kid from a hard master like old Hoak, to save him from
suffering. Now you'll get to be hard and hateful like old Hoak
yourself."

"Judy, remember my mother."

"Do you think your mother, if she is alive, would like to think of your
standing over that old wretch while he was whipped and whipped and
washed with salt water, maybe? If your mother has lived, she has been
kept alive just by thinking what a good boy you were; and she says to
herself, 'My Sanford wouldn't hurt anything. If he was run off to the
plantations, he has grown to be the best man in all the country.' Do
you th