THE SLAVE PUGILIST. 



had evidently long been extinct its dead clinkers were covered with 

 a thick pall of soot. Beyond the smithy was a kitchen, the door of 

 which stood invitingly open. Hannibal entered, twirling the horse- 

 shoe with great rapidity round his fore-finger. An infant in a cradle 

 was squalling vehemently a little girl, who had apparently been left 

 in charge of it, was perched on the upper rail of a chair, stealing 

 sugar from a brown crock on the top shelf of a three-cornered beaufet. 

 At the sight of Hannibal she screamed, and would have tumbled with 

 terror had he not reached forward and caught her. In doing this he 

 awkwardly upset the cradle, and the child rolled under the grate. 

 The little girl struggled to get free from him ; and the moment he had 

 placed her on her legs, she ran off too breathless even to shriek. 

 Hannibal then put the baby clothes to rights, replaced tfre. child in its 

 cradle, and by his quaint contortions of countenance, and exhilirating 

 snatches of song for Hannibal had now forgotten all his troubles in 

 the occupation of the moment he made the little creature crow with 

 delight. 



Meantime the melancholy toll of the bell had ceased, and while the 

 whole of his faculties were absorbed in amusing the young gentleman 

 in the cradle, a train of persons, all clad in black, approached. At a short 

 distance from the smithy they stopped, fell out of column, and formed 

 an irregular group ; which, after some slight consultation, flocked 

 tumultuously into the kitchen. They stared in silent astonishment at 

 the scene before them Hannibal stopped, got up, and made his most 

 obedient bow. " Poor fellow," said a pale, fine-formed young 

 woman, raising her bloodshot eyes " after all its only a black man. 

 I've seen many such, neighbours ; there's no harm in him for look 

 how little Peter laughs." 



The woman now snatched the child from the cradle, placed its 

 mouth to her breast, and seemed to derive exquisite consolation, from 

 the little creature looking up into her eyes as it sucked. The other 

 parties still regarded Hannibal with awe for they had never seen a 

 black human being before. At length the tailor hobbled in on 

 crutches to partake of the funeral feast for the village smith had 

 just been buried and speedily set all to rights. He had been at 

 Trinidad, Tobago, and various other outlandish parts ; he rejoiced in 

 the sight of Hannibal, for now neighbour Simpson could no longer 

 laugh at him for asserting that there were men abroad as black as a 

 sea-coal. Neighbour Simpson gaped at Hannibal like a gudgeon with 

 a fish-hook in his throat. He saw but scarcely believed his eyes. 



Under the auspices of the tailor, and the smith's handsome widow, 

 whose favour he had won by his successful attention to her child, 

 Hannibal soon found himself at home. He partook of the burial 

 bread and cheese and ale ; and before the guests departed irradiated 

 their hearts with a dawning beam of delight by assuring them that 

 he could shoe their horses, tip their bullocks, point their pitch-forks, 

 weld their broken coulters, retooth their harrows, and new-tongue 

 their hinges as well as their deceased neighbour, Blacksmith Batterbee, 

 or any other individual of the craft. 



That night Hannibal slept in the loft above the widow's bed-room : 

 the next morning, the voice of the bellows, the roar of the fire, and 



