from which his own back was
still sore.

"Ye pooty sick, sar?"

"Water!" gasped Lysander.

The patriots had finished their coffee and taken their guns. Toby ran to
them.

"Some on ye be so good as keep an eye skinned on de prisoner, while I's
gittin' him a drink!"

He hastened with the gourd to a dark interior niche where a little
trickling spring dripped, drop by drop, into a basin hollowed in the
rocky floor. As he bore it, cool and brimming, to his captive-patient,
Withers said,--

"I don't keer! it's a sight to make most white folks ashamed of their
Christianity, to see that old nigger waiting on that rascal, 'fore his
own back has done smarting!"

"If, as I believe," said Mr. Villars, "men stand approved before God,
not for their pride of intellect or of birth, but for the love that is
in their hearts, who can doubt but there will be higher seats in heaven
for many a poor black man than for their haughty masters?"

"According to that," replied Withers, "maybe some besides the haughty
masters will be a little astonished if they ever git into
heaven--nigger-haters that won't set in a car, or a meeting-house, or to
see a theatre-play, if there's a nigger allowed the same privilege! Now
I never was any thing of an emancipationist; but by George! if there's
anything I detest, it's this etarnal and unreasonable prejudice agin'
niggers! How do you account for it, Mr. Villars?"

"Prejudice," said the old man, "is always a mark of narrowness and
ignorance. You might almost, I think, decide the question of a man's
Christianity by his answer to this: 'What is your feeling towards the
negro?' The larger his heart and mind, the more compassionate and
generous will be his views. But where you find most bigotry and
ignorance, there you will find the negro hated most violently. I think
there are men in the free states whose sins of prejudice and blind
passion against the unhappy race are greater than those of the
slaveholders themselves."

"Our interest is in our property--that's nat'ral; but what possesses
them to want to see the nigger's face held tight to the grindstone, and
never let up?" said Withers. "Their howl now is, 'Put down the
rebellion! but don't tech slavery, and don't bring in the nigger!' As
if, arter dogs had been killing my sheep, you should preach to me, 'Save
your sheep, neighbor, but don't agitate the dog question! You mustn't
tech the dogs!' I say, if the dogs begin the trouble, they must take