The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-01-08 00:00:00

CHAPTER 111.

A VIOLFNT rattling at his door aroused M. Lecour
from his leaden slumbers, but the voice of old Eady
re-assured him, as lie started up in affright. The
broad glare of daylight was streaming into the apart-
ment through the open shutters, and the pale flame
of the candles looked feeble and sickly in contrast
with it.

He glanced around the room, and hurriedly replacing
the curtain over the picture of the uuhappy queen,
proceeded to open the door,

The negress stood without, with the breakfast tray
lightly poised upon her head, and she peered curiously
at her master while she arranged the table. She
noted the disorder in which the room was left by his
wild dance of the previous night, and, with a degree
of freedom 'which had become habitual with her, she
bluntly said:
"Seems to me de debbil's bin to pay here las' night.
What's gwine to come o' you, I'd like to know, ef you
keeps on cuttin' up like mad, as you'm been doin' o'
rate? I hearn you a atormin' an' goin' on, even in my
ole shanty, eber so fur off."
"Why didn't you-come to me then, you old thunder
cloud? lam sure I called you loud enough, if you
had chosen to hear me."

The woman gave him a shrewd glance, as she
replied:
"I've come aforetime at your call, an' you knows
what I got for dat 'tention. No, thank you, sir; old
Eady's head ain't a gwine to poke itself where it'll
be likely to get punched for nothin'. Is dose letters
to go in do pos'-offis, sir? Pierre is uncommon
willin' to take 'cm, for he's cravin' another taste o' de
stuff that takes away de use o' de little brains do
creeter have."
"Put the room in order, and take the letters tl
Pierre, with strict orders from me not to get drunk
again, or I will punish him with a night in the picture
room. That threat will keep him sober, I think."

"Hi ! I don' no' dat ; caze you see, -fool as ha is,
Pierre knows you ain't a gwine to put him in thar.
The fustest reason is, he'd die o' fright afore you git
him in, an' de ilex' is, you'm got too many o' yer own
deviltries shet up in thar for you to be willin' to lot
him see 'em."

Put into a good humour by the succulent breakfast
she had prepared fcr him, Monsieur Lecour only
laughed at a liberty of speech which, in another mood,
he might have punished; but the shrewd old woman
knew when to utter her jests, and her master rather
liked ILT for the independece of her replies. He only
said:

"You had better not try my forbearance too far,
or you may chance to get in there yourself, though
you would be certain to blab everything you saw, if
ycu could only find a listener." _
"An' it listener I shall soon have, I suppose, in dat
fine young I, ..y• what's comin' here to live or to die,
mebbs, for it's my 'pinion dat the chances is even for
one or Cother. I wishes to know what room I'm to
fix for her. caze de goblins has tuk persession o' all de
ole parts o' the house, an' you wouldn't like her to
live in the lady's tower, I reckon."
A sickly pallor swept over tile face of her master,
and he hastily replied:
"1 have changed my mind, Jackdaw, and your
young mistress will not come to me. You ne(cl net
trouble
.7ourself about finding a room for her, for I
have written ta forbid her to leave France. Reflection
convinced me that no young girl could exist a
week in this old den, with such a companion as I
shodd be for her." . . _ _
" Bress de Ler' dat some sense have come back to
you through ole Eady's argifieation. I'd I•,<, glad
enuir to see anything young and gay a-comin' in here
to brighten us all up, ef I didn't know she'd pine her-
self to death. Ah, well, sir, I'll take de letters to my
'ele man, an' make 11 m understand dat dey outs' go by
de berry next chance."
Secretly rejoiced that her young mistress was not
co:ning, Eady took the letters away; and a short time
afterwards, Pierre, mounted on a small Creole pony,
issued from the tangled lawn that surrounded Castle
Disaust, and trotted off upon his errand. The small
trading-house, on the bank of the Mississippi, to which
letters were slowly transmitted from New Orleans,
was dignified by tho name of Post-office by the negro,
but it was, in reality, only a depot for such goods as
were necessary to the few planters in the vicinity.
The date of our story goes hick to the early part of
the present century, when Napoleon was meditating
the seizure of imperial authority, and but one year
previous to the transfer of Louisiana to the tiovern-
' ment of the United States. At that day letters were
long in reaching their destimation, and those to which
Pierre bore replies had been two months upon their
way.
The road lay through wide fields, cultivated in
sugar and indigo, the last of sihich was destined to
give place to cotton at no distant day.
QAbout a Milo
from the house he passed a high-roofed. panish
build-
surrounded by cottages, which formed the negro
quarter to his master's estate; hut Pierre knew better
hold
than to pause there, for he was not permitted to old
any intercourse w:th the other blacks. To prevent it
the more effectually, M. Lecour had purchased him-
self, his wife, and son; from Virginia, while the hands
upon the place were either Africans, or natives of the
colony, who spoke only a corrupt kind of French.
Another recommendation of the old pair was, that
their child was dumb—he could not reveal the secrets
of his prison-house, even if tempted to do so; but the
poor lad did not live many years after his transfer to
a new climate.
Pierre had proceeded about half the distance toward
the landing, when he descried two parsons on horse-
back approaching him. One was a tall, dark man,
with regular features, and hair just beginning to be
tinged with grey. His eyes were black and piercing,
yet cold in their expression, revealing an unscrupulous
nature, combined with fearlessness of consequences,
which would make him a formidable antagonist. He
was mounted on a magnificent horse, of a deep chest-
nut colour, which looked as fiery as its rider.
The companion of this traveller was a young girl,
mounted upon a white horse, very handsomely
caparisoned. that curvetted and bounded alone as if