In that day, a lease in perpetuity was thought a more advantageous bargain for the tenant, than a lease for a year, or a term of years; and men did not begin to reason as if one indulgence gave birth to a right, to demand more.  In that day, paying rent in chickens, and wood, and work, was not fancied to be a remnant of feudality, but it was regarded as a favour conferred on him who had the privilege:  and even now, nine countrymen in ten endeavour to pay their debts in everything they can, before they resort to the purse.  In that day, the audacious sophism of calling land a monopoly, in a country that probably possesses more than a hundred acres for every living soul within its limits, was not broached:  and, in that day, knots of men did not set themselves up as special representatives of the whole community, and interpret the laws in their own favour, as if they were the first principles of the entire republic.  But my pen is running away with me, and I must return to Lucy.  A crisis is at hand; and we are about to see the laws triumphant, or acts of aggression that will far outdo all that has hitherto rested on the American name, as connected with a want of faith in pecuniary transactions.

Should I ever continue these adventures, occasions may offer to draw certain pictures of the signs of the times; signs that have an ominous aspect as regards real liberty, by substituting the most fearful of all tyrannies, the spurious, in its place.  God alone knows for what we are reserved; but one thing is certain—­there must be a serious movement backward, or the nation is lost.

I had no tenantry to come out and meet me; but there were the blacks.  It is true, the law was on the point of liberating these slaves, leaving a few of the younger to serve for a term of years, that should requite their owners for the care of their infancies and their educations; but this law could not effect an immediate change in the condition of the Clawbonnys.  The old ones did not wish to quit me, and never did; while it took years to loosen the tie which bound the younger portion of them to me and mine.  At this hour, near twenty of them are living round me, in cottages of mine; and the service of my kitchen is entirely conducted by them.  Lucy prepared me for a reception by these children of Africa, even the outcasts having united with the rest to do honour to their young master.  Honour is not the word; there was too much heart in the affair for so cold a term; the negro, whatever may be his faults, almost always possessing an affectionate heart.

At length, I remembered Marble, and, taking leave of Lucy, who would not let me accompany her home, I threw myself down the path, and found my mate cogitating in the carnage, at the foot of the hill.