ded and atrocious, may there be committed, with almost
as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship--it is, nevertheless,
altogether, to outward seeming, a most strikingly interesting place,
full of life, activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable
contrast to the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe. Keen as was
my regret and great as was my sorrow at leaving the latter, I was not
long in adapting myself to this, my new home. A man's troubles are
always half disposed of, when he finds endurance his only remedy. I
found myself here; there was no getting away; and what remained for me,
but to make the best of it? Here were plenty of children to play with,
and plenty of places of pleasant resort for boys of my age, and boys
older. The little tendrils of affection, so rudely and treacherously
broken from around the darling objects of my grandmother's hut,
gradually began to extend, and to entwine about the new objects by which
I now found myself surrounded.

There was a windmill (always a commanding object to a child's eye) on
Long Point--a tract of land dividing Miles river from the Wye a mile or
more from my old master's house. There was a creek to swim in, at the
bottom of an open flat space, of twenty acres or more, called "the Long
Green"--a very beautiful play-ground for the children.{51}

In the river, a short distance from the shore, lying quietly at anchor,
with her small boat dancing at her stern, was a large sloop--the Sally
Lloyd; called by that name in honor of a favorite daughter of the
colonel. The sloop and the mill were wondrous things, full of thoughts
and ideas. A child cannot well look at such objects without _thinking_.

Then here were a great many houses; human habitations, full of the
mysteries of life at every stage of it. There was the little red house,
up the road, occupied by Mr. Sevier, the overseer. A little nearer to
my old master's, stood a very long, rough, low building, literally alive
with slaves, of all ages, conditions and sizes. This was called "the
Longe Quarter." Perched upon a hill, across the Long Green, was a very
tall, dilapidated, old brick building--the architectural dimensions of
which proclaimed its erection for a different purpose--now occupied by
slaves, in a similar manner to the Long Quarter. Besides these, there
were numerous other slave houses and huts, scattered around in the
neighborhood, every nook and corner of which was completely occupied.
Old