rward and viewed the
prisoner from head to foot with a coldly sneering look.

"Well, Bud," he said, "I reckon we'll hafter try it ag'in. I have
never yet allowed a nigger to git the better o' me, an', moreover, I
never will. I'll bid eighteen months, Squire; an' that's all he's
worth, with his keep."

There was no competition, and the prisoner was knocked down to Turner,
for Fetters, for eighteen months.

"Lock 'im up till I'm ready to go, Bill," said Turner to the
constable, "an' just leave the irons on him. I'll fetch 'em back next
time I come to town."

The unconscious brutality of the proceeding grated harshly upon the
colonel's nerves. Delinquents of some kind these men must be, who were
thus dealt with; but he had lived away from the South so long that so
sudden an introduction to some of its customs came with something of a
shock. He had remembered the pleasant things, and these but vaguely,
since his thoughts and his interests had been elsewhere; and in the
sifting process of a healthy memory he had forgotten the disagreeable
things altogether. He had found the pleasant things still in
existence, faded but still fragrant. Fresh from a land of labour
unions, and of struggle for wealth and power, of strivings first for
equality with those above, and, this attained, for a point of vantage
to look down upon former equals, he had found in old Peter, only the
day before, a touching loyalty to a family from which he could no
longer expect anything in return. Fresh from a land of women's clubs
and women's claims, he had reveled last night in the charming
domestic, life of the old South, so perfectly preserved in a quiet
household. Things Southern, as he had already reflected, lived long
and died hard, and these things which he saw now in the clear light of
day, were also of the South, and singularly suggestive of other things
Southern which he had supposed outlawed and discarded long ago.

"Now, Mr. Haines, bring in the next lot," said the Squire.

The constable led out an old coloured man, clad in a quaint assortment
of tattered garments, whom the colonel did not for a moment recognise,
not having, from where he stood, a full view of the prisoner's face.

"Gentlemen, I now call yo'r attention to Lot Number Fo', left over
from befo' the wah; not much for looks, but respectful and obedient,
and accustomed, for some time past, to eat very little. Can be made
useful in many ways--can feed the chickens, take care of