Mr. M’Fadden acquiesces in the correctness of this remark, but desires to inform the practitioner what a sad loss he has met with.  He is sure the gentleman will scarcely believe his word when he tells him what it is.  “I saw how ye felt downright affected when that nigger o’ mine prayed with so much that seemed like honesty and christianity, last night,” he says.

“Yes,” interrupts the man of medicine, “he was a wonderful nigger that.  I never heard such natural eloquence nor such pathos; he is a wonder among niggers, he is!  Extraordinary fellow for one raised up on a plantation.  Pity, almost, that such a clergyman should be a slave.”

“You don’t say so, Doctor, do you?  Well!  I’ve lost him just when I wanted him most.”

“He is not dead?” enquires the physician, suddenly interrupting.  He had seen Mr. M’Fadden’s courage fail at the approach of death, and again recover quickly when the distance widened between that monitor and himself, and could not suppress the smile stealing over his countenance.

“Dead! no indeed.  Worse-he has run away!” Mr. M’Fadden quickly retorted, clenching his right hand, and scowling.  In another minute he turns back the sheets, and, with returned strength, makes a successful attempt to sit up in bed.  “I don’t know whether I’m better or worse; but I think it would be all right if I warn’t worried so much about the loss of that preacher.  I paid a tremendous sum for him.  And the worst of it is, my cousin deacon Stoner, of a down-east church, holds a mortgage on my nigger stock, and he may feel streaked when he hears of the loss;” Mr. M’Fadden concludes, holding his side to the physician, who commences examining the wound, which the enfeebled man says is very sore and must be dressed cautiously, so that he may be enabled to get out and see to his property.

To the great surprise of all, the wound turns out to be merely a slight cut, with no appearance of inflammation, and every prospect of being cured through a further application of a very small bit of dressing plaster.

The physician smiled, mine host smiled; it was impossible to suppress the risible faculties.  The poor invalid is overpowered with disappointment.  His imagination had betrayed him into one of those desperate, fearful, and indubitable brinks of death, upon which it seems the first law of nature reminds us what is necessary to die by.  They laughed, and laughed, and laughed, till Mr. M’Fadden suddenly changed countenance, and said it was no laughing affair,—­such things were not to be trifled with; men should be thinking of more important matters.  And he looked at the wound, run his fingers over it gently, and rubbed it as if doubting the depth.

“A little more whiskey would’nt hurt me, Doctor?” he enquires, complacently, looking round the room distrustfully at those who were enjoying the joke, more at his expense than he held to be in accordance with strict rules of etiquette.