I remember that Breed gave a wink, and led me out of the window onto a gallery above the one where we had found the master the night before.  He pointed across the dense foliage of the garden to a strip of water gleaming in the morning sun beyond.

“See dat boat?” said the negro.  “Sometime de Marse he tek ar ride in dat boat at night.  Sometime gentlemen comes heah in a pow’ful hurry to git away, out’n de harbor whah de English is at.”

By that time I was dressed, and marvellously uncomfortable in Master Nick’s clothes.  But as I was going out of the door, Breed hailed me.

“Marse Dave,”—­it was the first time I had been called that,—­“Marse Dave, you ain’t gwineter tell?”

“Tell what?” I asked.

“Bout’n de boat, and Marsa agwine away nights.”

“No,” said I, indignantly.

“I knowed you wahn’t,” said Breed.  “You don’ look as if you’d tell anything.”

We found the master pacing the lower gallery.  At first he barely glanced at me, and nodded.  After a while he stopped, and began to put to me many questions about my life:  when and how I had lived.  And to some of my answers he exclaimed, “Good God!” That was all.  He was a handsome man, with hands like a woman’s, well set off by the lace at his sleeves.  He had fine-cut features, and the white linen he wore was most becoming.

“David,” said he, at length, and I noted that he lowered his voice, “David, you seem a discreet lad.  Pay attention to what I tell you.  And mark! if you disobey me, you will be well whipped.  You have this house and garden to play in, but you are by no means to go out at the front of the house.  And whatever you may see or hear, you are to tell no one.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“For the rest,” said he, “Breed will give you food, and look out for your welfare.”

And so he dismissed me.  They were lonely days after that for a boy used to activity, and only the damp garden paths and lawns to run on.  The creek at the back of the garden was stagnant and marshy when the water fell, and overhung by leafy boughs.  On each side of the garden was a high brick wall.  And though I was often tempted to climb it, I felt that disobedience was disloyalty to my father.  Then there was the great house, dark and lonely in its magnificence, over which I roamed until I knew every corner of it.

I was most interested of all in the pictures of men and women in quaint, old-time costumes, and I used during the great heat of the day to sit in the drawing-room and study these, and wonder who they were and when they lived.  Another amusement I had was to climb into the deep windows and peer through the blinds across the front garden into the street.  Sometimes men stopped and talked loudly there, and again a rattle of drums would send me running to see the soldiers.  I recall that I had a poor enough notion of what the fighting was all about.  And no wonder.  But I remember chiefly my insatiable longing to escape from this prison, as the great house soon became for me.  And I yearned with a yearning I cannot express for our cabin in the hills and the old life there.