Ef there ain't much competition
for his services and the time is a long one, he'll have his own
stubbornness an' deviltry to thank for it. He's strong and healthy and
able to do good work for any one that can manage him."
There was no immediate response. Turner walked forward and viewed the
prisoner from head to foot with a coldly sneering look.
"Well, Bud," he said, "I reckon we'll hafter try it ag'in. I have
never yet allowed a nigger to git the better o' me, an', moreover, I
never will. I'll bid eighteen months, Squire; an' that's all he's
worth, with his keep."
There was no competition, and the prisoner was knocked down to Turner,
for Fetters, for eighteen months.
"Lock 'im up till I'm ready to go, Bill," said Turner to the
constable, "an' just leave the irons on him. I'll fetch 'em back next
time I come to town."
The unconscious brutality of the proceeding grated harshly upon the
colonel's nerves. Delinquents of some kind these men must be, who were
thus dealt with; but he had lived away from the South so long that so
sudden an introduction to some of its customs came with something of a
shock. He had remembered the pleasant things, and these but vaguely,
since his thoughts and his interests had been elsewhere; and in the
sifting process of a healthy memory he had forgotten the disagreeable
things altogether. He had found the pleasant things still in
existence, faded but still fragrant. Fresh from a land of labour
unions, and of struggle for wealth and power, of strivings first for
equality with those above, and, this attained, for a point of vantage
to look down upon former equals, he had found in old Peter, only the
day before, a touching loyalty to a family from which he could no
longer expect anything in return.
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