My nerves were so wrought upon by the continuous dread of the doctor's coming that by the time the meal was over I was almost in a state of collapse. Young Master's eye noticed my indisposition, and as we turned about in the hall to mount the stairs, he said to me:  
"Slip out, Dan, and take a walk in the fresh air, alone. You don't look well." I thanked him and halted, and he passed on without inquiring into the cause of what he must have seen was a pitiable dejection. A thousand well-sifted words could not have shown the delicacy of his nature more fittingly, and my gratitude followed him step by step as he went up the stairs; and when he had reached the landing I stole out of the house.
 
The brown veil of dusk lay upon the land, but in a hill-side thicket far away a light was shimmering to illumine the early evening festival of the gray fox—the moon was coming up. The air was still and soft, but heavy with the sappy scent from the[Pg 175] damp grass land down the creek. On the comb of a cabin, grotesquely outlined in this dun-colored close of day, sat a negro blowing a melancholy reed, and high above him the bull-bats were screaming. In the shrubbery a hord of negro children were playing a counting-out game. I passed the cow-pens; the women were there and I heard the stream of milk spurting hard in the "piggin." My spirits rose out of their nervous lassitude; I felt a strong and almost unnatural sense of exhilaration, and this alarmed me, for we are sometimes afraid to feel an unaccountable buoyancy lest it may foretell a coming fall. I have known Christians who had prayed for sanctity in the sight of the Lord, to tremble at happiness, afraid that it might be a trap set by the devil. I skirted the shore of the creek, crossed the meadow, passed through the woods, entered the grassy lane and stood there with my arms on the fence, looking at the full moon, now high above the trees. And I thought that the foxes must have given over their dancing to scatter about for a night of mischievous prowling. I was on a knoll, and turning about I could see the lights in the cabins and the great house, a hen and her chickens squatted upon the ground, I fancied. The strongest light came from my Young Master's room, and in my mind I[Pg 176] could see him sitting at the table with his eyes fastened upon his sheep-bound book. And the self-reproach of an ambitious thought that I was not keeping up with him started me homeward at a bound. But I had not gone far before I was stopped by a voice. A man stepped from the corner of the zig-zag fence. "Hold on!" he said, and the doctor stood before me. The moon was on his face and in the coarse lines that traced his countenance the devil's mockery was legible.
 
"Where are you going?" he asked, standing with his hands behind him.
 
"Home," I answered.
 
"Home!" he repeated, and vitriol was in his voice. "Is there a home for everyone but me?" He threw his head back as if motioning toward the house. "Can you go back there and sleep on a bed when I am told never to cross that threshold again? Can you?"
 
"I don't know what you mean, doctor?"
 
"I have been driven away this night. The old man has turned me out."
 
"But am I to blame? I am the humblest member of that household."
 
He did not change his attitude, but I thought that I saw his bosom swelling. "The humblest because you[Pg 177] are the lowest down, but a snake is low down," he said, thrusting his chin toward me. "Look here, spawn. The first step you took put you in my way. Do you hear me?"
 
"Yes, sir, and I am much surprised to hear you say it. I didn't think you would acknowledge that I had so much force. We have not been friends, it is true, but I thought that my position kept us from being enemies. To be enemies must argue a certain degree of equality, and I have never presumed upon that. You may have stooped. And now let me beg you to straighten up and forget that I ever existed."
 
"I will forget that you have existed, and I will straighten up, but not until I have stooped lower. Look here. I hate the fool boy that owns you, and if I could kill him this moment, I would. I am getting old and there is nothing left for me. But I want revenge and I am going to have it, for I am going to be sensible. I never was a fool."
 
"Doctor, I don't understand your meaning."
 
"You are duller than usual. If I were to kill your master or that old imbecile, this whole county would follow me, but if I kill a yellow dog, they—" He leered at me, the moon full on his face. A chill seized[Pg 178] my legs and ran to the top of my head and the roots of my hair felt cold.
 
"You mean that you will kill me?"
 
"That's what I mean. They drove me to brandy and brandy has pointed you out."
 
I was perfectly calm; the chill had left me. "Will you please let me pass?" I asked; and he stepped back, still with his hands behind him. "No," he said.
 
"Have you forgotten our contract?"
 
"You are a fool if you put faith in it. You are not negro enough to be put by with a kick. You are white man enough to be killed. And when they find you in the morning they will think ............