We came to Blanty's farm. The Doctor stopped at the gate and we rejoined him there. Blanty was standing before his door, in conference with a tall, strong, self-reliant-looking black man,--a slave, but a slave as he might have been in Africa: the respectful and respected aid, companion, adviser of his master. Blanty, seeing us, came down to the gate and asked us to go in. We had not time; but we had a little talk where we were. Blanty and I discussed the future of our crops. He was well content with the season and its prospects. He had seen Dr. Borrow and Harry on Sunday. A single interview at a common friend's makes intimate acquaintance out here. Blanty was quite unreserved, and praised himself and everything belonging to him as frankly as ever Ulysses did. He is a grand good fellow. Dr. Borrow's eye rested on the black man, who remained where his master had left him, in an attitude for a statue,--so firm was his stand, so easy, so unconscious. "He would make a good Othello," said the Doctor to Blanty. "Yes, it is Othello. Mr. Colvil has told you about him?" "Where did he get his name?" asked the Doctor. "My mother gave it to him. He will not let himself be called out of it. He never knows himself by it, if it is shortened. He is a native African, though all of his life that he can remember he has passed here. His mother brought him away in her arms. They were carried to Cuba first, and re-shipped. He is more of a man than I am," continued Blanty, who is enough of a man to risk admitting a superior. "If I had his head and his tongue, I would have been in Congress before this." "Can he read?" asked the Doctor. "Can and does." "But how does that agree with your law?" "He's thirty years old," answered Blanty. "The law hadn't taken hold of reading and writing when he had his bringing up. My mother gave him as careful teaching as she did her own boys, and he got more out of it. 'Search the Scriptures,' she said, was a plain command; and how could a man search the Scriptures, if he couldn't read? But he works as well. Things here look famously, as you say; I see it myself. It's more to his praise than mine. He has done well by me; I should like to do well by him. My farm's larger than I want. I might give him a piece, as you have your German; but I can't, you know. It's hard, in a free country, that a man can't do as he would with his own. I don't want to send him off, and he doesn't want to go. I married late; if I should be taken away, I should leave my children young. I'd as soon leave them to his care as to a brother's. I've talked it over with him; he knows how I feel. And then, he's married his wife on Piney's plantation. Foolish; but I didn't tell him so. I knew marriage was a thing a man hadn't his choice in. I sometimes think it was a providence for the easing of my mind." "You are a young man, Mr. Blanty," said the Doctor. "I am forty-five." "You have thirty good years before you, at least."