They were the pride
of our hearts.
As often happens in the South, there were bedrooms on the lower
floor; two of them, in fact, on one side of the hall. The front one
had been not only locked but padlocked; the windows had been nailed
on the inside, and heavy wooden shutters nailed on the outside. So
long had the room been closed that dry-rot had set in. The silk
quilt on the four-poster was falling to pieces, the linen was as
yellow as beeswax, and the sheets made one think of the Flying
Dutchman's sails. This room was of almost monastic severity: an
ascetic or a stern soldier might have occupied it. Besides the bed
it contained four chairs, a clothes-press, a secretary, and a
shaving-stand. On a small table near the bed were a Wedgwood mortar
with a heavy pestle, a medicine glass, and a pewter candlestick
turned as black as iron. The press in the corner still held a few
clothes, threadbare and sleazy, and in the desk were some dry
letters and a Business Book--at least, that's how it was
marked--with lists of names, each having an occupation or task set
down opposite it, I suppose the names of long-dead slaves. On the
fly-leaf was written, in a neat and very legible hand, "_Freeman
Hynds_.
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