THE SITTING-ROOM of Legree's establishment was a large long room, with a wide, ample fireplace. It had once been hung with showy and expensive paper, which now hung moldering, torn, and discolored, from the damp walls. The place had that peculiar, sickening, unwholesome smell, compounded of mingled damp, dirt and decay, which one often notices in close old houses. The wall paper was defaced in spots, by slops of beer and wine: or garnished with chalk memorandums, and long sums footed up, as if somebody had been practising arithmetic there. In the fireplace stood a brazier full of burning charcoal; for though the weather was not cold, the evenings always seemed damp and chilly in that great room; and Legree, moreover, wanted a place to light his cigars, and heat his water for punches. The ruddy glare of the charcoal displayed the confused and unpromising aspect of the room—saddles, bridles, several sorts of harness, riding whips, overcoats, and various articles of clothing scattered up and down the room in confused variety; and the dogs, of whom we have before spoken, had encamped themselves among them, to suit their own taste and convenience.

  Legree was just mixing himself a tumbler of punch, pouring his hot water from a cracked and broken-nosed pitcher, grumbling as he did so:

  "Plague on that Sambo, to kick up this yer row between me and the new hands! The fellow won't be fit to work for a week, now, right in the press of the season."

  "Yes, just like you," said a voice, behind his chair. It was the woman, Cassy, who had stolen upon his soliloquy.

  "Hah! you she-devil! you've come back, have you?"

  "Yes, I have," she said, coolly; "come to have my own way, too!"

  "You lie, you jade! I'll be up to my word. Either behave yourself, or stay down to the quarters, and fare and work with the rest."

  "I'd rather, ten thousand times," said the woman, "live in the dirtiest hole at the quarters than be under your hoof!"

  "But you are under my hoof, for all that," said he, turning upon her, with a savage grin; "that's one comfort."

  "Simon Legree, take care!" said the woman, with a sharp flash of her eye, a glance so wild and insane in its light as to be almost appalling. "You

  The last words she whispered in a hissing voice, close to his ear.

  "Get out! I believe, to my soul, you have!" said Legree, pushing her from him, and looking uncomfortably at her. "After all, Cassy," he said, "why can't you be friends with me as you used to be?"

  "Used to!" said she bitterly. She stopped short—a world of choking feeelings rising in her heart, kept her silent.

  Cassy had always kept over Legree the kind of influence that a strong, impassioned woman can ever keep over the most brutal man; but, of late, she had grown more irritable and restless, under the hideous yoke of her servitude, and her irritability, at times, broke out into raving insanity; and this liability made her a sort of object of dread to Legree, who had that superstitious horror of insane persons which is common to uninstructed minds. When Legree brought Emmeline to the house, all the smoldering embers of womanly feeling flashed up in the worn heart of Cassy, and she took part with the girl; and a fierce quarrel ensued between her and Legree. Legree, in a fury, swore she should be put to field service, if she would not be peaceable. Cassy, with proud scorn, declared she would go to the field. And, as has been described, she worked there one day, to show how perfectly she scorned the threat.

  Legree was secretly uneasy, all day; for Cassy had an influence over him from which he could not free himself. When she presented her basket at the scales, he had hoped for some concession, and addressed her in a sort of half conciliatory, half scornful tone; and she had answered with the bitterest contempt.

  The outrageous treatment of Tom had roused her still more, and she had followed Legree to the house, with no particular intention, but to upbraid him for his brutality.

  "I wish, Cassy," said Legree, "you'd behave yourself decently."

  "You talk about behaving decently! And what have you been doing? you, who haven't sense enough to keep from spoiling one of your best hands, right in the most pressing season, just for your devilish temper!"

  "I was a fool, it's a fact, to let such any brangle come up," said Legree; "but when the boy set up his will, he had to be broke in."

  "I reckon you won't break him in!"

  "Won't I?" said Legree, rising, passionately. "I'd like to know if I won't? He'll be the first nigger that ever came around here that I didn't. I'll break every bone in his body, but he shall give up!"

  Just then the door opened and Sambo entered. He came forward, bowing, and holding out something in a paper.

  "What's that, you dog?" said Legree.

  "Something that niggers get from witches. Keeps 'em from feelin' when they's flogged. He had it tied round his neck, with a black string."

  Legree, like most godless and cruel men, was superstitious. He took the paper, and opened it uneasily.

  There dropped out of the paper a silver dollar, and a long, shining curl of fair hair—hair, which, like a living thing, twined itself round his fingers.

  "Damnation!" screamed Legree, in a sudden passion, stamping on the floor, and pulling furiously at the hair, as if it burned him. "Where did this come from? Take it off! burn it! burn it up!" he screamed, tearing it off and throwing it into the charcoal.

  "Don't you bring me any more of your devilish things!" said he, shaking his fist at Sambo, who retreated hastily toward the door.

  Sambo was glad to make his escape. When he was gone, Legree seemed a little ashamed of his fit of alarm. He sat doggedly down in his chair, and began sullenly sipping his tumbler of punch.

  Cassy prepared herself for going out, unobserved by him and slipped away to minister to poor Tom, as we have already seen.

  And what was the matter with Legree? What was there in a simple curl of fair hair to appall that brutal man, familiar with every form of cruelty? Hard and brutal as the godless man seemed now, in childhood a fair-haired mother had trained him with unwearied love. Boisterous and unruly as a boy, he had despised all her counsels, and at an early age, broke from her to seek his fortunes at sea. He came home but once afterward, and then his mother sought with passionate prayers to win him from a life of sin. But he set all the force of his rough nature against the conviction of his conscience. He drank and swore—was wilder and more brutal than ever. And one night, when his mother in despair knelt at his feet, he spurned her from him, and with brutal curses fled to his ship. The next Legree heard of his mother was when he received a letter containing a lock of long, curling, fair hair. The letter told him that his mother was dead, and that dying, she blessed and forgave him. He burned the hair and the letter, but often in the deep night he had seen that pale mother rising by his bedside, and felt the soft twining of that hair around his fingers, till he would spring from his bed in horror.

  Legree would sometimes get Sambo and Quimbo into the sitting-room, and after warming them up with whiskey, would amuse himself by setting them to singing, dancing, or fighting. Now to rid himself of recollections that tortured him, he summoned the two worthies to a carouse.

  Between one and two o'clock in the morning, as Cassy was returning from her ministrations to poor Tom, she heard the sound of wild whooping and singing from the sitting-room, and looking in at a window saw Legree and both the drivers in a state of furious intoxication.

  She turned hurriedly away, and, passing round to a back door, glided upstairs, and tapped at Emmeline's door.

  Cassy entered the room, and found Emmeline sitting, pale with fear, in the furthest comer of it. As she came in, the girl started up nervously; but on seeing who it was, rushed forward, and, catching her arm, said: "O, Cassy, is it you? I'm so glad you've come! I was afraid it was—O, you don't know what a horrid noise there has been down stairs, all this evening."

  "I ought to know," said Cassy, "I've heard it often enough."

  "O, Cassy, couldn't we get away from this place? I don't care where—into the swamps among the snakes—anywhere! Couldn't we get somewhere away from here?"

  "There have been a good many here of your opinion," said Cassy, "but you couldn't stay in the swamps—you'd be tracked by the dogs, and brought back, and then—then—"

  "What would he do?" asked the girl.

  "What wouldn't he do, you'd better ask," said Cassy. "He's learned his trade well, among the pirates in the West Indies. You wouldn't sleep much if I should tell you things I've seen—things that he tells of, sometimes, for good jokes. I've heard screams here that I haven't been able to get out of my head for weeks and weeks. There's a place way out down by the quarters, where you can see a black, blasted tree, and the ground all covered with black ashes. Ask anyone what was done there, and see if they will dare to tell you."

  Emmeline turned away, and hid her face in her hands. While this conversation was taking place in Emmeline's room, Legree, overcome with his carouse, had sunk to sleep in the room below. His sleep was heavy and feverish, and broken by dreams that chilled him with horror. At dawn he woke with an oath and a curse, and pouring out a tumbler of brandy drank half of it.

  "I've had a terrible night," he said to Cassy, who just then entered from an opposite door.

  "You'll get plenty of the same sort, by and by," said she, dryly.

  "What do you mean, minx?"

  "You'll find out one of these days," replied Cassy, in the same tone. "Now, Simon, I've one piece of advice to give you; let Tom alone."

  "What business is it of yours?"

  "What? To be sure, I don't know what it should be. If you want to pay twelve hundred dollars for a fellow, and then use him right up in the press of the season, just to satisfy your own spite, it's no business of mine. I've done what I could for him."

  "You have? What business have you meddling in my matters?"

  "None, to be sure. I've saved you some thousands of dollars at different times, by taking care of your hands—that's all the thanks I get. If your crop comes shorter into the market than any of theirs, you won't lose your bet, I suppose? Tompkins won't lord it over you any, I suppose—and you'll pay your money down like a lady, won't you? I think I see you doing it."

  Legree, like many other planters, had but one form of ambition—to have the heaviest crop of the season—and he had several bets on this very present season, pending in the next town. Cassy, therefore, with a woman's tact, touched the only string that could be made to vibrate.

  "Well, I'll let him off at what he's got," said Legree; "but he shall beg my pardon, and promise better fashions."

  Legree, though he talked so stoutly to Cassy, still sallied forth from the house with a degree of misgiving which was not common with him.

  "Well, my boy," said Legree, with a contemptuous kick, "how do you find yourself? Didn't I tell yer I could larn yer a thing or two? How do yer like it—eh? How did yer whaling agree with yer, Tom? Ain't quite so crank as ye was last night. Ye couldn't treat a poor sinner, now, to a bit of a sermon, could ye—eh?"

  Tom answered nothing.

  "Get up, you beast!" said Legree, kicking him again.

  This was a difficult matter for one so bruised and faint; and, as Tom made efforts to do so, Legree laughed brutally.

  "What makes ye so spry, this morning, Tom? Cotched cold. may be, last night."

  Tom by this time had gained his feet, and was confronting his master with steady, unmoved front.

  "The devil, you can!" said Legree, looking him over. "I believe you haven't got enough yet. Now, Tom, get right down on your knees, and beg my pardon, for yer shines last night."

  Tom did not move.

  "Down, you dog!" said Legree, striking him with his riding-whip.

  "Mas'r Legree," said Tom, "I can't do it. I did only what I thought was right. I shall do just so again, if ever the time comes. I never will do a cruel thing, come what may."

  "D—n you!" said Legree, as with one blow of his fist he felled Tom to the earth.

  "Hark ye!" he said to Tom, "I won't deal with ye now, because the business is pressing, and I want all my hands; but I never forget. I'll score it against ye, and sometime I'll have my pay out o' yer old black hide—"

  Legree turned and went out.