Bob, faithful unto death, remained his lone
watcher. Disguising his ownership, he has toiled from day to day
that the fruits thereof might relieve master's necessities; and he
had shared them with the flowing goodness of a simple heart. In a
malarious cell, how happy was he to make his bed on the cold plank
beside his master's cot, where he might watch over his declining
spirit. Kindness was his by nature,--no cruel law could rob his heart
of its treasure: he would follow master to the grave, and lavish it
upon the soil that covered him.
Having accompanied Franconia to the Rosebrook Villa, he will return
to the prison and join Harry, alone watching over the dead. The city
clock strikes the hour of eleven as he leaves the outer gate, and
turns into the broad road leading to the city. The scene before him
is vamped in still darkness; a murky light now and then sheds its
glimmers across the broad road; and as he hurries onward,
contemplating the sad spectacle presented in the prison, happy
incidents of old plantation life mingle their associations with his
thoughts. He muses to himself, and then, as if bewildered, commences
humming his favourite tune-"There's a place for old mas'r yet, when
all 'um dead and gone!" His soul is free from suspicion: he fears
not the savage guardsman's coming; the pure kindliness of his heart
is his shield. How often has he scanned this same scene,--paced this
same road on his master's errands! How death has changed the
circumstances of this his nightly errand! Far away to the east, on
his left, the broad landscape seems black and ominous; before him,
the sleeping city spreads its panorama, broken and sombre, beneath
heavy clouds; the fretted towers on the massive prison frown dimly
through the mist to the right, from which a low marshy expanse
dwindles into the dark horizon.
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