a chapter out of "Amyas
Leigh"; but as I had happened to hear that the lady herself was a
Philadelphian and her deceased husband a New-Yorker, I could not feel
even that modicum of reverence due to sincere Southerners. However, I
wished to present my credentials; so, calling up my companion, I said
that I believed she had been previously acquainted with Corporal Robert
Sutton? I never saw a finer bit of unutterable indignation than came
over the face of my hostess, as she slowly recognized him. She drew
herself up, and dropped out the monosyllables of her answer as if they
were so many drops of nitric acid. "Ah," quoth my lady, "_we_ called him
Bob!"

It was a group for a painter. The whole drama of the war seemed to
reverse itself in an instant, and my tall, well-dressed, imposing,
philosophic Corporal dropped down the immeasurable depth into a mere
plantation "Bob" again. So at least in my imagination; not to that
personage himself. Too essentially dignified in his nature to be moved
by words where substantial realities were in question, he simply turned
from the lady, touched his hat to me, and asked if I would wish to see
the slave-jail, as he had the keys in his possession.

If he fancied that I was in danger of being overcome by blandishments
and needed to be recalled to realities, it was a master-stroke.

I must say, that, when the door of that villainous edifice was thrown
open before me, I felt glad that my main interview with its lady
proprietor had passed before I saw it. It was a small building, like a
Northern corn-barn, and seemed to have as prominent and as legitimate a
place among the outbuildings of the establishment. In the middle of the
floor was a large staple with a rusty chain, like an ox-chain, for
fastening a victim down. When the door had been opened after the death
of the late proprietor, my informant said a man was found padlocked in
that chain. We found also three pairs of stocks of various construction,
two of which had smaller as well as larger holes, evidently for the feet
of women or children. In a building near by we found something far more
complicated, which was perfectly unintelligible till the men explained
all its parts: a machine so contrived that a person once imprisoned in
it could neither sit, stand, nor lie, but must support the body half
raised, in a position scarcely endurable. I have since bitterly
reproached myself for leaving this piece of ingenuity behind; but it
woul