south-west from the Blue Mountain peak towards the sea; and but
little behind these in beauty are the rich wooded hills which in the
western part of the island divide the counties of Hanover and
Westmoreland. The hero of the tale which I am going to tell was a
sugar-grower in the latter district, and the heroine was a girl who
lived under that Blue Mountain peak.

The very name of a sugar-grower as connected with Jamaica savours of
fruitless struggle, failure, and desolation. And from his earliest
growth fruitless struggle, failure, and desolation had been the lot
of Maurice Cumming. At eighteen years of age he had been left by his
father sole possessor of the Mount Pleasant estate, than which in her
palmy days Jamaica had little to boast of that was more pleasant or
more palmy. But those days had passed by before Roger Cumming, the
father of our friend, had died.

These misfortunes coming on the head of one another, at intervals of
a few years, had first stunned and then killed him. His slaves rose
against him, as they did against other proprietors around him, and
burned down his house and mills, his homestead and offices. Those
who know the amount of capital which a sugar-grower must invest in
such buildings will understand the extent of this misfortune. Then
the slaves were emancipated. It is not perhaps possible that we,
now-a-days, should regard this as a calamity; but it was quite
impossible that a Jamaica proprietor of those days should not have
done so. Men will do much for philanthropy, they will work hard,
they will give the coat from their back;--nay the very shirt from
their body; but few men will endure to look on with satisfaction
while their commerce is destroyed.