"Is that one of the labourers—the young giant by the fence?"
"Well, I dare say he labours, if that's what you mean. He's young
Blake, you know."
"Young Blake?" She bent her brows, and it was clear that the name suggested only a trivial recollection to her mind. "There used to be some Blake children in the old overseer's house—is this one of them."
"Possibly; they live in the overseer's house."
She leaned over, fastening her heavy gauntlet. "They wouldn't play with me, I remember; I couldn't understand why. Once I carried my dolls over to their yard, and the boy set a pack of hounds on me. I screamed so that an old Negro ran out and drove them off, and all the time the boy stood by, laughing and calling me names. Is that he, do you think?"
"I dare say. It sounds like him."
"Is he so cruel?" she asked a little wistfully.
"I don't know about that—but he doesn't like your people. Your grandfather had some trouble with him a long time ago."
"And he wanted to punish me?—how cowardly."
"It does sound rather savage, but it isn't an ordinary case, you know. He's the kind of person to curse 'root and branch,' from all I hear, in the good old Biblical fashion."