however well you've treated them. It's all right if you get them quite
young and keep them away from their own people; but if once a nigger
woman's had a nigger man and had children by him, you might as well try to
hold a she-devil! they'll always go back. If ever I'm shot, it's as likely
as not it'll be by my own gun, with my own cartridges. And she'd stand by
and watch it, and cheer them on; though I never gave her a blow all the
time she was with me. But I tell you what--if ever I come across that
bloody nigger, I'll take it out of him. He won't count many days to his
year, after I've spotted him!" Peter Halket paused. It seemed to him that
the eyes under their heavy, curled lashes, were looking at something beyond
him with an infinite sadness, almost as of eyes that wept.

"You look awfully tired," said Peter; "wouldn't you like to lie down and
sleep? You could put your head down on that stone, and I'd keep watch."

"I have no need of sleep," the stranger said; "I will watch with you."

"You've been in the wars, too, I see," said Peter, bending forward a
little, and looking at the stranger's feet. "By God! Both of them!--And
right through! You must have had a bad time of it?"

"It was very long ago," said the stranger.

Peter Halket threw two more logs on the fire. "Do you know," he said,
"I've been wondering ever since you came, who it was you reminded me of.
It's my mother! You're not like her in the face, but when your eyes look
at me it seems to me as if it was she looking at me. Curious, isn't it? I
don't know you from Adam, and you've hardly spoken a word since you came;
and yet I seem as if I'd known you all my life." Peter moved a little
nearer him. "I was awfully afraid of you when you first came; even when I