"You don't like that neither?" he asked.
"Like it!" the poor man echoed again, sank into a chair, and,
shuddering, covered his face. "It makes my soul creep with shame."
Silence followed for a dozen long seconds.
"Master!"
The Major shuddered again, but looked up a moment later with tears in
his eyes as Cai laid a hand kindly yet respectfully on his shoulder.
"Master, I ax your pardon." He stepped back and paused, seeming
to swallow some words in his throat before he spoke again.
"You're a long way more of a man than ever I gave 'ee credit to be.
Twelve year I passed in your service, too; an' I take ye to witness
that 'twas Cai Tamblyn an' not Scipio Johnson that knawed 'ee agen,
for all the change in your faytures. Whereby you misjudged us, sir,
when you left me fifty pound and that nigger a hundred an' fifty.
Whereby I misjudged ye in turn, an' I ax your pardon."
"No, Cai; you judged me truly enough, if severely. There was a time
when I'd have fed myself on those praises that now sicken me."
"An' you was happy in them days."
"Yes, happy enough."
"Would you have 'em back, master?"
"Would I have them back?" The Major straightened himself up and
stood for a moment staring out of the window. "No, Cai," he said
resolutely, squaring his chin; "not for worlds."
"There's one little bit of it, sir, you got to have back," said Cai;
"an' that's my fifty pound.
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