"Well, not long after the death of the parents, dark stories began
to be circulated about cruelty and punishment and whippings and
starvation inflicted by the new master upon his nephew. People who
had business at the homestead would frequently, when they came away,
relate the most fearful things of its manager, and how he misused
his brother's child. It was half hinted that he strove to get the
youngster out of the way in order that the whole estate might fall
into his own hands. As I told you before, however, nobody liked the
man; and perhaps they judged him too uncharitably.
"After things had gone on in this way for some time, a countryman, a
laborer, who was hired to do farm-work upon the place, one evening
observed that the little orphan Vanhome was more faint and pale even
than usual, for he was always delicate, and that is one reason why I
think it possible that his death, of which I am now going to tell you,
was but the result of his own weak constitution, and nothing else. The
laborer slept that night at the farmhouse. Just before the time at
which they usually retired to bed, this person, feeling sleepy with
his day's toil, left the kitchen hearth and wended his way to rest.
In going to his place of repose he had to pass a chamber--the very
chamber where you, sir, are to sleep to-night--and there he heard the
voice of the orphan child uttering half-suppress'd exclamations as if
in pitiful entreaty. Upon stopping, he heard also the tones of the
elder Vanhome, but they were harsh and bitter.
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