tled the matter. The bell was not tolled until Mrs. Willoughby,
and her daughters, had got fairly through the still unprotected gateway
of the stockade, although the recent discussion of political questions
had so far substituted discontent for subordination in the settlement,
that more than half of those who were of New England descent, had
openly expressed their dissatisfaction at the delay. Mike, however, was
as unmoved as the little chapel itself, refusing to open the door until
the proper moment had arrived, according to his own notion of the
fitness of things. He then proceeded to the elm, against which the
little bell was hung, and commenced tolling it with as much seriousness
as if the conveyer of sounds had been duly consecrated.

When the family from the Hut entered the chapel, all the rest of the
congregation were in their customary seats. This arrival, however,
added materially to the audience, Great Smash and Little Smash, the two
Plinys, and some five or six coloured children, between the ages of six
and twelve, following in the train of their master. For the blacks, a
small gallery had been built, where they could sit apart, a proscribed,
if not a persecuted race. Little did the Plinys or the Smashes,
notwithstanding, think of this. Habit had rendered their situation more
than tolerable, for it had created notions and usages that would have
rendered them uncomfortable, in closer contact with the whites. In that
day, the two colours never ate together, by any accident; the eastern
castes being scarcely more rigid in the observance of their rules, than
the people of America were on this great point. The men who would toil
together, joke together, and pass their days in familiar intercourse,
would not sit down at the same board. There seemed to be a sort of
contamination, according to the opinions of one of these castes, in
breaking bread with the other. This prejudice often gave rise to
singular scenes, more especially in the households of those who
habitually laboured in company with their slaves. In such families, it
not unfrequently happened that a black led the councils of the farm. He
might be seen seated by the fire, uttering his opinions dogmatically,
reasoning warmly against his own master, and dealing out his wisdom
_ex cathedra_, even while he waited, with patient humility, when he
might approach, and satisfy his hunger, after all of the other colour
had quitted the table.

Mr. Woods was not fort