Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/38

 as it was, had been in a manner, my own choice. In choosing it, I had escaped a worse tyranny and a more bitter servitude, I had avoided falling into the hands of master William.

As I shall not have occasion to mention that amiable youth again, I may as well finish his history here. Some six or eight months after the death of his younger brother, he became involved in a drunken quarrel, at a cock-fight. This quarrel ended in a duel, and master William fell dead at the first fire. His death was a great stroke to colonel Moore, who seemed for a long time, almost inconsolable. I did not lament him, either for his own sake or his father's. l knew well, that in his death, I had escaped a cruel and vindictive master; and I felt a stern and bitter pleasure in seeing the bereavements of a man who had dared to trample upon the sacred ties of nature.





I had the same task with those who had been field hands all their lives; but I was too proud to flinch or comlain. I exerted myself to the utmost, so that even Mr tubbs had no fault to find, but on the contrary, pronounced me, more than once, a "right likely hand."

The cabin which I shared with Billy, had a very leaky roof; and as the weather was rainy, we found it by no means comfortable. At length, we determined one day, to repair it; and to get time to do so, we exerted ourselves to get through our tasks at an early hour.

We had finished about four o'clock in the afternoon, and were returning together to the town, — for so we called the collection of cabins, in which the servants lived. Mr Stubbs met us, and having inquired if we had finished om tasks, he muttered something about our not having half enough to do, and ordered us to go and weed his garden. Billy submitted in silence, for he had been too long under Mr Stubbs's jurisdiction, to think of questioning his 