The house at Mount Pleasant had been an irregular, low-roofed,
picturesque residence, built with only one floor, and surrounded on
all sides by large verandahs. In the old days it had always been
kept in perfect order, but now this was far from being the case. Few
young bachelors can keep a house in order, but no bachelor young or
old can do so under such a doom as that of Maurice Cumming. Every
shilling that Maurice Cumming could collect was spent in bribing
negroes to work for him. But bribe as he would the negroes would not
work. "No, massa: me pain here; me no workee to-day," and Sambo
would lay his fat hand on his fat stomach.

I have said that he lived generally alone. Occasionally his house on
Mount Pleasant was enlivened by visits of an aunt, a maiden sister of
his mother, whose usual residence was at Spanish Town. It is or
should be known to all men that Spanish Town was and is the seat of
Jamaica legislature.

But Maurice was not over fond of his relative. In this he was both
wrong and foolish, for Miss Sarah Jack--such was her name--was in
many respects a good woman, and was certainly a rich woman. It is
true that she was not a handsome woman, nor a fashionable woman, nor
perhaps altogether an agreeable woman. She was tall, thin, ungainly,
and yellow. Her voice, which she used freely, was harsh. She was a
politician and a patriot. She regarded England as the greatest of
countries, and Jamaica as the greatest of colonies. But much as she
loved England she was very loud in denouncing what she called the
perfidy of the mother to the brightest of her children. And much as
she loved Jamaica she was equally severe in her taunts against those
of her brother-islanders who would not believe that the island might