I was a leper, unfit for gentlefolks' company, because, forsooth, I had sold goods, which every one of them did also, and had tried to sell them fair.
The thing made me very bitter.

I sat in my house during the hot noons when no one stirred, and black anger filled my heart.

I grew as peevish as a slighted girl, and would no doubt have fretted myself into some signal folly, had not an event occurred which braced my soul again.
This was the arrival of the English convoy.
When I heard that the ships were sighted, I made certain of trouble.

I had meantime added to my staff two other young men, who, like Faulkner, lived with me at the store.

Also I had got four stalwart negro slaves who slept in a hut in my garden.