"It is _not_ my work, Ben, and you know it. Do not blame me. I pity you; I pray for you. But do go away from here--do go! I would rather you would harm me than to harm those I love. Oh, if you really care for me, go away from this spot--leave me to my happiness, and try and be happy yourself. Be a man. Go, Ben--let us alone. If you do _not_ go, you will certainly be taken by others, and perhaps punished." "Catch a weasel asleep, but you can't catch me. You may put twenty men on the watch. How pleasant it must be for you to sit here making your weddin'-clothes; I think of it nights, as I lay on the hemlock boughs, with my eyes wide open, staring up at the stars. What's that song I used to like to hear you sing so well, Alice? "'They made her a grave too cold and damp For a soul so warm and true; And she's gone to the lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where, all night long, by the fire-fly lamp, She paddles her light canoe.'" The maiden shuddered to her heart's core as his voice rose wild and mournful in the sweet tune to which the ballad was set, "Ha! ha! Alice, it's the same little canoe that you used to come up to the mill in so often, in those pleasant old times-- "'And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, Her paddle I soon shall hear; Long and loving our life shall be, And I'll hide the maid in a cypress-tree, When the footstep of death is near.'" Alice seemed to be listening to her own dirge; "'Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds-- His path was rugged and sore: Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds, And man never trod before!'"-- and with an unearthly shriek he bounded away through the garden and into the woods, leaving Alice so overcome, that Pallas, who had been attracted to the door by the strange voice, brought her the "camfire" bottle to restore her. "He's a ravin' maniac, that poor boy is, my chile. He ought to be cotch'd and put in de 'sylum at onct 'fore harm's done. Mercy, chile, I was jus' goin' to take down de rifle to 'fend my pickaninny. I was 'fraid he'd t'ar you all to pieces, like a ragin' wild beas'." "You wouldn't have had courage to fire, would you? I'm sure I shouldn't." "In course I should have had courage. S'pose I'd stan' by and see my chile toted off into the woods by a madman? Tush! even a hen'll fight for her chickens. Ef I hadn't a rifle, I'd spring on 'em, tooth and nail, ef he laid a hand on my chile;" and the old negro woman breathed hard, holding herself erect, and looking so determined, that she inspired courage in the one who regarded her. "Then I shall choose you for my body-guard," said Alice, "for I begin to feel like a poor little chick in a big field, with an unseen hawk in the air which might pounce on it at any time. Oh, Pallas, didn't he look fearful?"