182 A COTTON PLANTATION. 



plenty of blackbirds, I took the road again 

 and went further, and an hour or two after- 

 ward, on getting back to the same place, was 

 overtaken again by the horseman. He 

 pulled up his horse and bade me good-after- 

 noon. Would I lend him my opera-glass, 

 which happened to be in my hand at the 

 moment ? "I should like to see how my 

 house looks from here," he said ; and he 

 pointed across the field to a house on the 

 hill some distance beyond. " Ah," said I, 

 glad to set myself right by a piece of frank- 

 ness that under the circumstances could 

 hardly work to my disadvantage ; " then it 

 is your land on which I have been tres- 

 passing." " How so ? " he asked, with a 

 smile ; and I explained that I had been 

 across his cotton-field a little while before. 

 " That is no trespass," he answered (so the 

 reader will perceive that I had been quite 

 correct in my understanding of the law) ; 

 and when I went on to explain my object in 

 visiting his cane-swamp (for such it was, he 

 said, but an unexpected freshet had ruined 

 the crop when it was barely out of the 

 ground), he assured me that I was welcome 

 to visit it as often as I wished. He himself 



