, were in twenty minutes in our saddles, and ready for
the journey. The mulatto coachman, with a third horse, was at the door,
ready to accompany us, and as we mounted, the Colonel said to him:

'Go and call Sam, the driver.'

The darky soon returned with the heavy, ugly-visaged black who had been
whipped, by Madam P----'s order, the day before.

'Sam,' said his master, 'I shall be gone some days, and I leave the
field-work in your hands. Let me have a good account of you when I
return.'

'Yas, massa, you shill dat,' replied the negro.

'Put Jule--Sam's Jule--into the field, and see that she does full
tasks,' continued the Colonel.

'Hain't she wanted 'mong de nusses, massa?'

'Put some one else there--give her field-work; she needs it.'

I will here explain that on large plantations the young children of the
field-women are left with them only at night, being herded together
during the day in a separate cabin, in charge of nurses. These nurses
are feeble, sickly women, or recent mothers; and the fact of Jule's
being employed in that capacity was evidence that she was unfit for
out-door labor.

Madam P----, who was waiting on the piazza to see us off, seemed about
to remonstrate against this arrangement, but she hesitated a moment, and
in that moment we had bidden her 'Good-by,' and galloped away.

We were soon at the cabin of the negro-hunter, and the coachman
dismounting, called him out.

'Hurry up, hurry up,' said the Colonel, as Sandy appeared, 'we haven't a
moment to spare.'

'Jest so, jest so, Cunnel; I'll jine ye in a jiffin,' replied he of the
reddish extremities.

Emerging from the shanty with provoking deliberation--the impatience of
my host had infected me--the clay-eater slowly proceeded to mount the
horse of the negro, his dirt-bedraggled wife, and clay-incrusted
children, following close at his heels, and the younger ones huddling
around for the tokens of paternal affection usual at parting. Whether it
was the noise they made, or their frightful aspect, I know not, but the
horse, a spirited animal, took fright on their appearance, and nearly
broke away from the negro, who was holding him. Seeing this, the Colonel
said:

'Clear out, you young scarecrows. Into the house with you.'

'They hain't no more scarecrows than yourn, Cunnel J----,' said the
mother, in a decidedly belligerent tone. 'You may 'buse my old man--he
kin stand it--but ye shan't blackguard my young 'uns!'

The Colonel la