Then new voices. A tall, stout man stalked heavily in. "And the boy was his own, after all," burst from him as he rejoined the others.
"The boy was not his own. He didn't buy him fairly to keep and work him. It was a sham sale. He meant to free him from the first, and the boy knew it. He was free by intention and in fact. He had all the mischief in him of a free negro."
"The man was a New-Englander, and saw it differently," answered the first voice.
"A man is not a fool because he is a New-Englander," replied the second. "I am from New England myself."
"I don't see much of the same about you. Are there more there like him or like you?"
"I tell you he has died as the fool dieth," the other answered sharply, coming carelessly in as he spoke. He was a mean-looking man, trimly dressed, in whom I could not but recognize the Yankee schoolmaster.
As he stooped down over the man he had contemned, some dormant inheritance of manhood revealed itself in his breast, some lingering trace of richer blood stirred in his dull veins. He turned away, cast towards me a humble, deprecating look, and, still bending forward, went out on tiptoe.
Then, accompanied by a sweeping and a rustling, came a light step, but a decided, and, I felt, an indifferent one. A woman came in. She took account with imperious eyes of every object,—of me, of Orphy, of the coarse bench spread with hay, which served as bier,—and then walked confidently and coldly forward to the spectacle of death. When she had sight of the beautiful young face, she uttered a cry, then burst into passionate sobs, which she silenced as suddenly, turned, shook her fist at Orphy, and was gone.
"Dr. Borrow is come."
Come! To what a different appointment!