But, although Judith had twice Jacqueline's knowledge of music, with all her feeling for it, Freke was piqued to see that she did not for a moment confound his music with his personality. She seemed to take a malicious pleasure in complimenting him glibly, which is the last snub to an artist. Freke was so vexed by her indifference, that he began to play cats mewing and dogs barking, on his fiddle, to frighten little Beverley, who looked at him with wide, scared eyes.
"Never mind, my darling," cried Judith, laughing. "Be a brave little boy--only girls are scared at such things."
Beverley, thus exhorted, summoned up his courage and proposed to get grandfather's sword to defend himself. Judith's laughter, the defiant light in her eyes, the passionate kiss she gave the boy as a reward for his bravery, annoyed Freke. His vanity as an artist, however, was consoled by hearing Simon Peter's voice, in an awed and solemn whisper from the door, through which his woolly head was just visible in the surrounding darkness:
"I 'clar' ter God, dat fiddle is got evils in it. I hear some on 'em hollerin' an' cryin' fur ter git out, an' some on 'em larfin' an' jumpin'. Marse Temple, dem is spirits in dat fiddle. I knows it."
"They are, indeed; and, if I go down to the grave-yard at midnight and play, all the dead and gone Temples will rise out of their graves and dance around in their grave-clothes. Do you hear that?" said Freke, gravely.
"Lord God A'mighty!" yelled Simon Peter, "I gwi' sleep wid a sifter" (a sieve) "over my hade ev'y night arter dis. Sifters keeps away de evils, kase dey slips th'u de holes." And, sure enough, a sieve was hung up over Simon Peter's bed that very night, with a rabbit's foot as an additional safeguard, and a bunch of peacock's feathers over the fireplace was ruthlessly thrown into the fire to propitiate "de evils."
When Thursday evening came, General Temple was high and dry with the gout, and Mrs. Temple, of course, could not leave him alone to fight it out with Delilah.
"Ole marse, you gwi' keep on havin' de gout twell you w'yar a ole h'yar foot in yo' pocket. I done tole you so, an' I ain' feerd ter keep on tellin' you so," was Delilah's Job-like advice.