DRED A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp TOGETHER WITH ANTI-SLAVERY TALES AND PAPERS, AND BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1896 Copyright, 1856 and 1884, BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. Copyright, 1873, BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. Copyright, 1896, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. The frontispiece (Tiff's prayer, page 32), is from a drawing by B. West The vignette (Mrs. Stowe's home at Mandarin, Florida) is from a draw- DRED A TALE OF THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP CHAPTER XXXVII THE TIE BREAKS CLAYTON remained at Canema several days after the funeral. He had been much affected by the last charge given him by Nina, that he should care for her people; and the scene of distress which he witnessed among them, at her death, added to the strength of his desire to be of service to them. He spent some time in looking over and arranging Nina's papers. He sealed up the letters of her different friends, and directed them in order to be returned to the writers, causing Harry to add to each a memorandum of the time of her death. His heart sunk heavily when he reflected how little it was possible for any one to do for servants left in the uncontrolled power of a man like Tom Gordon. The awful words of his father's decision, with regard to the power of the master, never seemed so dreadful as now, when he was to see this unlimited authority passed into the hands of one whose passions were his only law. He recalled, too, what Nina had said of the special bitterness existing between Tom and Harry; and his heart almost failed him when he recollected that the very step which Nina, in her generosity, had taken to save Lisette from his lawlessness, had been the VOL. II. |