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 lofty, terrible Weymouth—he bearded him there at the brink of the awful thing that was about to happen.

“Marse Robert,” he began, his voice quavering a little with the stress of his feelings, “you ’member de day deyall rode de tunnament at Oak Lawn? De day, suh, dat you win in de ridin’, and you crown Miss Lucy de queen?”

“Tournament?” said Mr. Robert, taking his cigar from his mouth, “Yes, I remember very well the—but what the deuce are you talking about tournaments here at midnight for? Go ’long home, Bushrod. I believe you’re sleepwalking.”

“Miss Lucy tetch you on de shoulder,” continued the old man, never heeding, “wid a s’ord, and say: ‘I mek you a knight, Suh Robert—rise up, pure and fearless and widout reproach.’ Dat what Miss Lucy say. Dat’s been a long time ago, but me nor you ain’t forgot it. And den dar’s another time we ain’t forgot—de time when Miss Lucy lay on her las’ bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she say: ‘Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr. Robert. Seem like’—so Miss Lucy say—‘he listen to you mo’ dan to anybody else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you when you try to ’suade him, but he need somebody what understand him to be ’round wid him. He am like a little child sometimes’—so Miss Lucy say, wid her eyes shinin’ in her po’, thin face—‘but he always been’—dem was her words—‘my knight, pure and fearless and widout reproach.’”

Mr. Robert began to mask, as was his habit, a tendency to soft-heartedness with a spurious anger.