“No, no! Come ’long wid you—idle t’ing!” he exclaimed, with sudden severity, and apparent though not real violence, for at the moment his watchful eye had observed one of the slave guards approaching them.
As the two went hurriedly past the place where Hugh Sommers was sitting, he looked up with an expression of pity.
“Poor thing!” he said. “The black scoundrel is cruel to you, and I am powerless to kick him!”
He clinked the fetters on his legs significantly as he spoke.
The mingled pathos and indignation of the loved voice was too much for poor Hester. She was on the point of exclaiming “Father!” when Peter’s great black paw extinguished her mouth, and was not removed till they were out of danger.
“You’s like all de rest ob de womans,” said the negro, as they hurried through the streets; “awrful dif’cult to manidge. Come ’long, we’ll go home and hab a talk ober it.”
Hester was too miserable to reply. She did not again speak till they were both safe in the boudoir.
There she sat down on the bed, laid her face in her hands, and burst into a passion of tears, while Peter stood looking on, his head nearly touching the low ceiling, his bulky frame filling half the remainder of the little room, and two mighty unbidden tears in his great eyes.
“Das right, Geo’giana,” he said, in a soft voice; “cry away, it’ll do you good. Nuffin like cryin’ w’en you’s fit to bust! An’ w’en you’s got it ober we’ll talk all about it.”
“Oh, Peter!” cried Hester, drying her eyes somewhat impatiently; “how could you be so cruel? Why—why could you not have waited just one minute to let me look at him?”