There was a basket of resinous pine beside the hearth, and Dan kindled a fire from a handful of rich knots. As the flames shot up, the rough little cabin grew more cheerful, and the Governor laughed softly lying on his pallet. “Why, I thought you were Dick Wythe, my boy,” he said. “The light was so dim I couldn't see, and, after all, it was no great harm, for there was not a handsomer man in the state than my friend Dick--the ladies used to call him 'Apollo Unarmed,' you know. Ah, I was jealous enough of Dick in my day, though he never knew it. He rather took Julia's fancy when I first began courting her, and, for a time, he pretended to reform and refused to touch a drop even at the table. I've seen him sit for hours, too, in Julia's Bible class of little negroes, with his eyes positively glued on her face while she read the hymns aloud. Yes, he was over head and ears in love with her, there's no doubt of that--though she has always denied it--and, I dare say, he would have been a much better man if she had married him, and I a much worse one. Somehow, I can't help feeling that it wasn't quite just, and that I ought to square up things with Dick at Judgment Day. I shouldn't like to reap any good from his mistakes, poor fellow.” He broke off for an instant, lay gazing at the lightwood blaze, and then took up the thread. “He had his fall at last, and it's been on my conscience ever since that I didn't toss that bowl of apple toddy through the window when I saw him going towards it. We were at Chericoke on Christmas Eve in a big snowstorm, and Dick couldn't resist his glass--he never could so long as there was a drop at the bottom of it--the more he drank, the thirstier he got, he used to say. Well, he took a good deal, more than he could stand, and when the Major began toasting the ladies and called them the prettiest things God ever made, Dick flew into a rage and tried to fight him. 'There are two prettier sights than any woman that ever wore petticoats,' he thundered; 'and (here he ripped out an oath) I'll prove it to you at the sword's point before sunrise. God made but one thing, sir, prettier than the cobwebs on a bottle of wine, and that's the bottle of wine without the cobwebs!' Then he went at the Major, and we had to hold him back and rub snow on his temples. That night I drove home with Julia, and she accepted me before we passed the wild cherry tree on the way to Uplands.” As he fell silent the old negro, treading softly, came into the room and made the preparations for his simple supper, which he carried outside beneath the trees. In a little bared place amid charred wood, a fire was started, and Dan watched through the open doorway the stooping figures of the two negroes as they bent beside the flames. In a little while Big Abel came into the room and beckoned him, but he shook his head impatiently and turned away, sickened by the thought of food.