The servants were thrown into an uproar when Dan was carried back into the house.  Harry was white and almost in tears.

“I did it, father, I did it,” he said, at the foot of the steps.

“No,” said Chad, sturdily, “I done it myself.”

Margaret heard and ran from the hallway and down the steps, brushing away her tears with both hands.

“Yes, you did—­you did,” she cried.  “I hate you.”

“Why, Margaret,” said General Dan.

Chad startled and stung, turned without a word and, unnoticed by the rest, made his way slowly across the fields.

CHAPTER 12.  BACK TO KINGDOM COME

It was the tournament that, at last, loosed Mammy’s tongue.  She was savage in her denunciation of Chad to Mrs. Dean—­so savage and in such plain language that her mistress checked her sharply, but not before Margaret had heard, though the little girl, with an awed face, slipped quietly out of the room into the yard, while Harry stood in the doorway, troubled and silent.

“Don’t let me hear you speak that way again Mammy,” said Mrs. Dean, so sternly that the old woman swept out of the room in high dudgeon And yet she told her husband of Mammy’s charge;

“I am rather surprised at Major Buford.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know,” said the General.  “Perhaps it isn’t true.”

“Nobody knows anything about the boy.”

“Well, I cannot have my children associating with a waif.”

“He seems like a nice boy.”

“He uses extraordinary language.  I cannot have him teaching my children mischief.  Why I believe Margaret is really fond of him.  I know Harry and Dan are.”  The General looked thoughtful.

“I will speak to Major Buford about him,” he said, and he did—­no little to that gentleman’s confusion—­though he defended Chad staunchly—­and the two friends parted with some heat.

Thereafter, the world changed for Chad, for is there any older and truer story than that Evil has wings, while Good goes a plodding way?  Chad felt the change, in the negroes, in the sneering overseer, and could not understand.  The rumor reached Miss Lucy’s ears and she and the Major had a spirited discussion that rather staggered Chad’s kind-hearted companion.  It reached the school, and a black-haired youngster, named Georgie Forbes, who had long been one of Margaret’s abject slaves, and who hated Chad, brought out the terrible charge in the presence of a dozen school-children at noon-recess one day.  It had been no insult in the mountains, but Chad, dazed though he was, knew it was meant for an insult, and his hard fist shot out promptly, landing in his enemy’s chin and bringing him bawling to the earth.  Others gave out the cry then, and the boy fought right and left like a demon.  Dan stood sullenly near, taking no part, and Harry, while he stopped the unequal fight, turned away from Chad coldly,