UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

what?"
did
of
have
speak
don't
LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY. 149
about it. Perhapsyou'd better try it!*' and laid down his paper,
and seeingan old book
tben immediately she shut and locked the door.
lying
on the table,which he had noticed Cassy
Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to reading, the first part of the evening, took it up,
break down the door ; but apparentlythought and began to turn it
.
over. It was one of those
Better of it,and walked uneasily into the sittingroom.
Cassyperceived that her shaft had struck legends,and supernaturalvisitations, which,
collectionsof stories of bloodymurders,ghostly
home ; and, from that hour, with the most exquisitecoarselygot
up and illustrated, have a strange
address,she never ceased to continue the fascination for one who once beginsto read them.
train of influences she had begun.
Legreepoohed and pished,but read,turning
In a knot-hole in the garretshe had inserted
page after page, till,finally, after reading some
the neck of an old bottle,in such a manner that way, he threw down the book,with an oath.
when there was the least wind most doleful and "You don't believe in ghosts,"3o you, Cass?"
lugubriouswailing sounds proceeded from it said he, taking the tongs and settling the fire.
which, in a "
high wiud, increased to a perfect I thought you 'd more sense than to let noises
shriek șuch as to credulous and superstitious scare you."1
"
ears mighteasily seem to be that of horror and No matter what I believe,'" said Cassy șullenly.
despair.
"
These sounds were, from time to time,heard Fellows used to tryto frighten me with their
by the servants, and revived in full force the yarns at sea," said Legree. "Never come it
memory
of the old ghostlegend. A superstitious round me that way. I 'ni too toughfor any such
creepinghorror seemed to fillthe house ; and trash țellye."
though no one dared to breathe it to Legree, he Cassy sat lookingintensely at him in the
found himself encompassedby it,as by an atmosphere.
shadowT of the corner. There was that strange
light in her eyes that alwaysimpressedLegree
No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the with uneasiness.
godless man. The Christian is composedby the
"
Them noises was nothingbut rats and the
belief of a wise,all-ruling Father,whose presence
wind," said Legree. "Rats will make a devil
fillsthe void unknown with light and order ; of a noise. I used to hear 'em sometimes down
but to the man who has dethroned God,the spirit-iland is,indeed,in the words of the Hebrew poet, sake ! ye
the hold of the ship; and Lord's
wind,"
can make anythingout o' wind."
"
a land*of darkness and the shadow of death," Cassy knew Legreewas uneasy under her eyes,
without any order,where the light is as darkness. and,therefbre, she made no answer, but sat fixing
Life and death to him are haunted grounds,filled them on him, with that strange,unearthly
with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread. expression, as before
Legree had had the slumbering moral element "
"
Come, speakoui, woman, you think
in him roused by his encounters with "
Tom, so?" said Legree.
roused,only to be resisted by the determinate
"
Can rats walk down stairs, and come walking
force of evil ; but still there was a thrill and throughthe entry, and a
open door Avhen
commotion of the dark inner world,producedby you've locked it and set a chair againstit?"
every word,or prayer, or hymn, that reacted in said Cassy; "and come walk, walk, walking
superstitious dread. The influenceof Cassy over rightup to your bed,and put out their hand so ?"
him was of a strange and singular kind. lie was Cassykept her glittering eyes fixed on Legree,
her owner, her tyrant and tormentor. She was, as she spoke,and he stared at her like a man in
as he knew, wholly, and without any possibility the nightmarețill, when she finished by laying
of help or redress,in his hands; and yet so it her hand,icycold,on his,he sprung back,with
is,that the most brutal man cannot livein constant
associationwith a strong female influence,
and not be greatlycontrolled by it. When he
first boughther, she was, as she had said,a
woman delicately bred; and then he crushed
her,without scruple,beneath the foot of his bru-
But, as time,and debasinginfluences, and
tality.
"
But
" "
despair,hardened womanhood within "
her,and Cass,what is it,now, out !"
waked the firesof fiercerpassions, she had become
"You may sleepthere yourself,"
in a measure his mistress,and he alternately
"
if you want to know."
tyrannized over and dreaded her.
This influencehad become more harassing and "It
"
said Cassy.
decided since partialinsanity had givena strange,
"
Why, what you told of "
"
weird, unsettled cast to all her words and language._
dogged sullenness.
"
I did n't tell you anything,"
A night or two after this,Legree was sitting
in the old sitting-room, by the side of a flickering
wood firețhat threw uncertain glances round the
room. It was a stormy,windy nightșuch as
raises whole squadronsof nondescript noises in
an
oath.
"Woman! what do ycu mean? Nobody
did?" "
"
"0, no,
you really seen ? "
"
Did it come from the garret,Cassy?"
Come,
course not, "did I say they
did?" said Cassy, with a smile of chilling derision.
said Cassy,
sr.idCassywitli
Legree walked up and down the room, uneasily.
"
I '11have this yer thingexamined. I '11look
into it țhis "
very night. I '11take my
"
pistols
"
Do," said Cassy; " sleepin that room. I 'c
"
like to see
you doingit. Fire your pistols,
rickety old houses. Windows were rattling, do ! "
shutters flapping, the wind
carousing, rumbling, Legreestampedhis foot,and swore
and tumblingdown the chhnniy,and, Don't violently.
" "
every once
swear,"said Cassy; nobody knows
in a while,puffing out smoke and ashes,as if a who
legion of may be hearingyou. Hark! What was
spiritswere coming after them. Legree
that?"
had been castingup accounts and "
reading What?" said Legree,starting.
newspapers for some hours, while Cassysat in
the corner, sullenly lookinginto the fire. Legree
A heavyold Dutch clock,that stood in the corner
t-fthe toom, began, and slowlystruck twelve.
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