“Screech away,” said the Judge, as a cry, sharper and more prolonged, fell upon his ear; “screech away till you split your throat; but I’ll know why a Christian man, who hates children, must be driven distracted in his own house,” and stepping into the hall, he called out, at the top of his voice, “Ho, Rachel!” but no Rachel made her appearance; and a little further investigation sufficed to show that she had retired to the little cottage in the back yard, which, in accordance with a Southern custom, the Judge, who was a Virginian, had built for herself and her husband. Rachel was also a native of Virginia, but for many years she had lived at Beechwood, where she was now the presiding genius,—and the one servant whom the Judge trusted above all others. But she had one great fault, at which her master chafed terribly; she had nearly as many children as the fabled woman who lived in a shoe. Indeed there seemed to be no end to the little darkies who daily sunned themselves upon the velvety sward in front of their cabin door, and were nightly stowed away in the three wide trundle-beds, which Rachel brought forth from unheard-of hiding-places, and made up near her own. If there was one thing in the world more than another which the Judge professed to hate, it was children, and when Rachel innocently asked him to name her _twelfth_, he answered wrathfully: “A dozen,—the old Harry!—call it FINIS,—and let it be so,—do you hear?” “Yes, marster,” was the submissive answer, and so Finis, or _Finn_, for short, was the name given to the child, which the Judge fancied was so disturbing him, as, leaning over the banister, he called aloud to Rachel, “to stop that noise, and carry Finn back where he belonged.” “She has carried him back, I do believe,” he said to himself, as he heard how still it was below, and retiring to his room, he tried again to sleep, succeeding so far as to fall away into a doze, from which he was aroused by a thunder-crash, which shook the massive building to its foundation, and wrung from the watch-dog, Tiger, who kept guard without, a deafening yell. But to neither of these sounds did the Judge pay the least attention, for, mingled with them, and continuing after both had died away, was that same infant wail, tuned now to a higher, shriller note, as if the little creature were suffering from fear or bodily pain. “Might as well try to sleep in bedlam!” exclaimed the exasperated Judge, stepping from his bed a second time, and commencing to dress himself, while his nervousness and irritability increased in proportion as the cries grew louder and more alarming.