The advocate., 1895-09-04
CHAPTER VI.

aghast at sight so unexpected, so un-
welcome Already the day had brought
him weird and thrilling experience 1t
all came back to him now with double
force Through the earliest morning he
had ridden fast, picking his way along
bride paths through overgrown neg
lected byways to the conjure woman's
cabin Why he could not have put in
words had life depended on it. For days
the feeling had been growing upon him
vague, intuitive, expectant. Jincey,
once his fathers slave, years older than
himself, was living link with that
fated, fateful past. Her own race ranked
her at once seer and sorceress. Further,
her masters son knew experimentally
that her magic was not wholly matter
Of fable. He remembered but too well
how in the old days the strongest arm in
the plantation had withered at her curse;
even better, tho sidelong downcast look
with which, after freedom came, she had
approached him, saying, 'Marse Frank,
L--I--gwine leave yo'-fur yo' own
good, unnerstan.
He could not, if he would, forget the
unctuous satisfaction underlying the
seemingly humble words Then he did
not stop to think what it might mean,
rent and torn as his mind was with the
blows and buffetings of fate. AS time
brought calmness and clarity to his men,
tai atmosphere, he had begun to piece
together many shreds Of his misfortunes
and SO in measure judge the stuff
whereof they were spun.
Throughout the process the feeling
had grown and strengthened that this
weazened creature, so brown, so bent, so
soft of voice and doWncast Of eye, held
in her hands more than one clew, worth
to him far more than life. Indeed life
meant to this brave gentleman but a
weary battle, where defeat was shame,
victory only death with honor.
Fate had so nearly stripped him Of
human feelings, Of human ties, There
was only Dare, slip of girl, who
would marry away from the Overton
name, who would forget in her frocks,
her babies, her husband, all the story,
the wrong, the tragedy Of her race.
From the outset she was among his dis
appointments. He had so hoped for a
grandson that this pulling girl seemed
sorry Jest of fate--all the more when
within year of her birth she was left
wholly orphaned If her father had but
lived, if that other Brave as he was,
Francis Overton dared not trust himself
to think of or remember the valley OF the
shadow from which his soul had come
out so cruelty scared.
Strong in this nameless, formless i'm
pulse, he had drawn rein at Jincey's
cabin when the sun was an hour high.
It sat under the lee of sharp hill, whose
shadow fell heavily about it. A brindled
starveling dog lay ON the step before the
single door. Its shutter stood fairly ajar,
giving long glimpse of the dusk inte-
rior where fire of roots smoldered in
the big fireplace, their burning filling
all the place with dank, pungent smell
The mongrel lay voiceless, motionless,
watching the newcomer with fierce,
beady yes 1t was but starveling atom
of skin and bone, hardly able by the look
Of it to upbear the chain which was fas-
tened at one end to its collar, at the 9TH
er to a staple driven in the long wall.
Major Overton looked at it compass
sionately. He knew that the gaunt crea-
ture was no reflex Of poverty within, but
victim to the belief among the class OF
its mistress that only hungry dog is a
trusty guard AS he set foot upon the
threshold, rapping loudly ON the batten,