the fire was low. He walked to the door, and there was a
sign of day; the all-surrounding woods of pine were still dark, but on
the sandy road and hummock-field some light was shining, like
hopefulness against hope; the farm was ploughed no more; the ungrateful
centuries were left behind and abandoned, like old wilderness
battle-fields, so sterile that their great events remain ever unvisited.

"Ho! Samson, boy! It is time!"

"Yes, marster!" answered the negro in the loft.

As the negro gathered himself up and passed down the stairs, he saw
Meshach Milburn before the fire, stirring the coals. Passing out, Samson
stood a moment at the gate, and lounged up the road, not to lose his
master. As he stood there, flames burst out of the old hut and glistened
on the evergreen forest, lighting the tops of the mossy cypresses in the
mill-pond, and revealing the forms of the sandy fields. Before he could
start back Samson saw his master's figure go round and round the house,
lighting the weather-boarding from place to place with a torch; and then
the low figure, capped with the long hat, came up the road as if at
mighty strides, so lengthened by the fire.

"No need of alarm, boy!" exclaimed the filial incendiary. "Henceforth my
only ancestral hall is _here_!"

He held the ancient tile up in the light of the blaze.

"Ah, marster!" said the negro, "yo' hat will never give comfort like a
home, fine as de hat may be, mean as de roof! De hat will never hold two
heads, and dat makes happiness."

"The hat, at least," answered Milburn, bitterly, "will cover me where I
go. Such rotted roofs as that was make captives of bright souls."

They looked on the fire in silence a few minutes.

"You have burnt me out, boss," said old Samson, finally. "I ain't got no
place to go an' hide when I fights, now. It makes me feel solemn."

"Peace!" replied Meshach Milburn. "Now for the horses and Princess
Anne!"

CHAPTER VI.

THE CUSTISES RUINED.

Vesta Custis, dressing in her chamber, heard early wheels upon the
morning air, and looking through the blinds saw a double team coming up
the road from Hardship.

"Mother," she said, "is that father coming, yonder? No, it is not his
driver."

"Why, Vesta!" exclaimed Mrs. Custis, "that is old Milburn's man."

"Samson Hat? so it is. What is he doing with two horses?"

Here Vesta laughed aloud, and began to skip about in her long, slender,
worked slippers, whose insteps would spare a mo