massa Jones, dat I is afeared to stay in here, too. We had better be a getting away from dis place, now I tells you so." Jones told her to be quiet, and then, taking a hatchet, he went out, and climbing a large tree which stood so near the house that in case it blew down the house would suffer very greatly, he cut the entire top out, while the old woman looked on with no degree of pleasure, praying all the time for the safety of her good master. While in the tree, Jones could look abroad over the waving forest to the foaming Chesapeake, whose billows were rolling tremendously high. The vast, uneven surface was white with the froth of "Juno's" anger, and the obedience of "Eolus," before the commanding voice of "Neptune" had spoken peace and called the gentle gales of the south to smooth the ruffled sea; and forcibly did it remind him of that calamitous tempest which wrecked the fleet of "Eneas," the brave defender of mighty "Troy." As he gazed, he fancied he saw a boat unguided approaching the shore. Ever and anon the small speck would rise upon a billow and be seen very distinctly, then disappear and be concealed from sight so long that he was ready to believe that he had seen nothing; but again the crested wave would roll it up, till certainty overcame doubt, and perplexity gave place to reality. Its appearance presented emptiness, but the distance was too long to form a very correct idea of its contents. Weary with his unpleasant situation, he descended; yet the possibility that the floating speck which he had seen might contain a sufferer, he could find no peace of mind until he had put on his long pilot cloth jacket and water-proof boots, and started for the bayshore, hardly able to proceed against the fury of the blast. CHAPTER IV. "TALENTS, angel bright, If wanting worth, are shining instruments Illustrious, and give infamy renown."-YOUNG. ABOUT twenty and five years before Jones came to Onancock, a very wealthy family, under the title of Scarborough, emigrated from England, and buying a large tract of land and many slaves, settled on the banks of another small creek in the same province, and distant ten miles from the former. Here he built a splendid house on the plan of English architecture, and lived in very high style, entertaining at his mansion a few of the rich only, and associating with no one who could not boast of aristocracy. From this date began the most damnable government in the history of Virginia, namely, that in which a few persons, called "great folks," held empire over those who were too poor even to advocate, or at least to defend, their own cause. Well would it have been for the "Old Dominion" if on the onset it had met with a final extermination, instead of existing with all its baneful consequences, till the dawning of better days, in the year 1851, when the old hereditary con stitution was uprooted, and a new and better one substituted, which confers upon the honest, meritorious youth the same honors that the old exclusively bestowed upon a certain class of favored individuals, who, from the long and excessive benefits of power, grew in their own, as well as the estimation of many illiterate men, above the ordinary rank of their fellowcitizens. Few, if any, of his neighbors knew any thing about the real character or circumstances of Manchester Scarborough, except that he was rich; nor did they with any certainty know that. They could only judge from outward appearance, which too often deceives the most acute observer; for frequently beneath a great name is concealed a foul heart, as under a surface of gold is hidden the cankering brass. The exterior may be polished like the marble which hides the mouldering dead, while the interior is full of rottenness and putrefaction. Manners in a person of low estate is not difficult to be perceived; but the man of wealth has so many conveniences to attract attention, and divert the eye of justice, that not unfrequently his crimes go unpunished-the poor, friendless wretch suffering to the last point of the law. Whether Manchester Scarborough was a bad man or not, was a question that time only might answer, there being no person in the community well enough acquainted with him to justly form an opinion. But that he was not held in very exalted estimation by his neighbors, was a well-established fact, though his unsociableness may have been the most serious objection. He was tall— This contrasted His family consisted, in the first place, of himself, a man of about forty-five years of age. above the medium height of tall men. very unbecomingly with a slight, bony form, possessing hardly enough muscle to brace it in proper attitude. Upon a long, slim neck was placed a narrow head, illshapen and poorly developed. In his speech there was a want of volubility, which, upon every occasion, he tried in vain to remedy. His manners were stiff, uninviting, and reserved, yet at times one might see that they were to a degree assumed. In a word, he was a man that few could understand satisfactorily, and not any one entirely. That there are such beings in the world, can not be denied; they are strangers to all around them, and strangers also to themselves. Of such men, (if digression is just here practicable and unobjectionable,) of such men we gently warn you, unprejudiced reader, be aware, for those are the most dangerous in creation. If there is any being in the shape of a man whom you ought to fear, let it be him who hides deep in his bosom his own personal qualities. He may be a saint, but the probability is, that he is a devil. Good things shine out with a cheer ing lustre, while the evil love to withdraw from sight, and work destruction in the dark. In the second place, of his wife, a woman of nearly the same age, of ordinary size, ordinary cast of features, ordinary mind, ordinary disposition, and as nearly as any other person, ordinary every thing. In the third place, of a boy, eight or nine years old, small-featured, gray-eyed, what some call "sandyhaired," and ill-natured. He never seemed in his |