"
"Judge," softly said the old negro, "my marster is a sick man. He ain't
happy like you an' me. He's 'bitious. He's lonely. Dat's enough to spile
angels. But a gooder man I never knowed, 'cept in de onpious sperrit.
He's proud as Lucifer. He's full of hate at Princess Anne and all de
people. Your darter may git a better man, not a pyorer one."
"Purity goes a very little way," exclaimed the Judge, "on the male side
of marriage contracts. It's always assumed, and never expected. You need
not remember, Samson, that I expressed any anger at your master!"
"My whole heart, judge, is to see him happy. Hard as he is, dat man has
power to make him loved. Your darter might go farder and fare wuss! I
wish her no harm, God knows!"
The negro said an humble good-night, and the Judge lay down upon his bed
to think of the dread alternatives of the coming week; but, voluptuous
even in despair, he slept before he had come to any conclusion.
Samson Hat walked up the side of the mill-pond on a sandy road, divided
from the water by a dense growth of pines. The bullfrogs and insects
serenaded the forest; the furnace chimney smoked lurid on the midnight.
At the distance of half a mile or more an old cabin, in decay, stood in
a sandy field near the road; it had no door in the hollow doorway, no
sash in the one gaping window; the step was broken leading to the sill,
and some of the weather-boarding had rotted from the skeleton.
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