CHAPTER XVII.
At about the hour at which I was taking leave of the Don my grandfather was sitting alone in his dining-room, reading; his snow-white hair and beard, as they glistened in the lamp-light, affording a strong contrast to the vivacity of his dark eyes and the ruddy glow of his complexion. But the book before him was hardly able to fix his attention. Every now and then he would raise his eyes from its pages, with the look of one who fancied that he heard an expected sound. Several times he had risen from his seat, gone to the door, opened it, and listened. Something like this he had been doing now for nearly a week. “Dick!” called he at last, opening the door: “Dick!”
Uncle Dick emerged from the kitchen, where, for several days past, he had had orders to sit up till ten o’clock in the hope that Charley might arrive.
“Yes, mahster!”
“Dick, I thought I heard some one coming.”
Uncle Dick, who very naturally (and correctly) supposed that this was another false alarm, threw his head into an attitude of pretended listening.
“Do you hear anything?” asked the old gentleman.
“Ain’t dem de horses a-stompin’ down at de stable?”
“I believe you are right,” sighed the old gentleman, as he turned to re-enter the dining-room.
“Marse Charley ain’t sont you no letter, is he?” asked Uncle Dick, advancing deferentially towards my grandfather, across the space that separated the kitchen from the “Great-House.”
“Why, no; but I thought he might come. He wrote me a week ago that the gentleman was getting well.”
“Adzackly!” replied Dick, scratching in the fringe of white wool that bordered his bald head. “Jess so! Does you think it rimprobable, mahster,” he began again after a moment of seeming reflection, “dat Marse Charley would come without he writ fust and ’pinted de day, and de ferry ’most twenty miles from here, and nothin’ to hire dere ’cep’n ’tis dat old flea-bitten gray, and he a-string-halted?”
“True enough.”
“Dat ain’t no fitten animil for de likes o’ Marse Charley, and he a-used to straddlin’ o’ de very best dat steps.”
“But listen, Dick! what’s that?”
“Lor’, mahster, dat ain’t nothin’ but de old m’yar and colt out d’yar in de pasture.”
“Well, what in the blue-blazes makes them all stamp so to-night?” replied the old gentleman, not without a little petulance.
“Dat’s jess what I say! leastwise d’yar ain’t no flies to bite ’em dis weather; but dey will do it, mahster, dey will do it. Every dog have he day, dey tell me.”
Uncle Dick was strong on proverbs, though hardly happy in their application. Sometimes, in fact, just as doctors will, when they don’t know what is the matter with a patient, prescribe pills of several remedial agents, in the hope that if one shall miss another may hit, so our old hostler, carriage-driver, and dining-room servant would not scruple, when aiming at a truth, to let fly at it an aphorism compound of the head of one proverb and the tail of another.
“Yes,” said my grandfather, applying Dick’s saying for him, “every dog will have his day, and I suppose that is why your Marse Charles is staying so long in Richmond.”
Uncle Dick was a year or two his master’s senior, and many a “wrassle” had they had together as boys. He was, of course, a privileged character, and he now gave one of those low chuckles beyond the reach of the typographer’s art to represent to the eye. “Yes, mahster, I hears ’em say dat d’yar is some monstrous pretty gals, nebberdeless I should say young ladies, up d’yar in Richmond. Howsomever, pretty is as pretty does. Dat’s what old Dick tells ’em.”
“You think Charley is in love, I presume?”
Old Dick drew himself up as became one consulted on family affairs, and, dropping his head on one side, he assumed, with his knitted brows and pursed lips, an eminently judicial air.
“Well, mahster, ef you axes me ’bout dat, I couldn’t ’espond pint’ly, in course; for I ain’t seen Marse Charles a-noratin’ of it and a-splanifyin’ amongst de Richmond f’yar sect; but old Dick ain’t been a-wrasslin’ and a-spyin’ ’round in dis here vain world for nigh on to a hundred year for nothin’ ef you listen to Dick; and ef you believes me, mahster, dey all of ’em most inginerally gits tetched with love onetimeornuther.”
“I believe you are quite right, Dick.”
“Why, Lor’ me, mahster,” began Dick, encouraged, and assuming an attitude worthy of the vast generalization he was about to utter, “I really do believe into my soul dat people is born so; dey is pint’ly,—specially young folks.” And he stopped in mid-career. “What dat? ’Pear like I hear the far gate slam. But Marse Charley, he are a keener, he are, and the gal what catches him will have to be a keener too, she will pint’ly. Marse Charley worse’n a oyster at low tide; soon as a young ’oman begins a-speculatin’ and a-gallivantin’ round him, he shets up, he do.” And the old man chuckled. “Howsomever, he am pint’ly a keener, ef you hear Dick—”
“Listen, Dick!”
“I do believe I hear a horse snort! D’yar ’tis again! Somebody comin’ through de gate. ’Fore de Lord, I believe ’tis Marse Charley! Lemme look good! Sure enough, d’yar he is! Sarvant, Marse Charles! I knowed you was a-comin’ dis very night, and I hope I may die ef he ain’t on old Hop-and-go-fetch-it! Lord a’ massy! Lord a’ massy! Well, it’s an ill wind what don’t blow de crows out o’ some gent’mun’s cornfield. Lord a’ massy, Marse Charley, what is you a-doin’ up d’yar on dat poor old critter, and de horses in de stable jess a-spilin’ to have somebody fling he leg over ’em?”
“Well, my boy, is that you?”
“Yes, here I am again, and glad to be back at home. How are you, Uncle Tom?”
“The same old seven-and-sixpence,—always well; and how are you?”
“Sound in wind and limb, and savagely hungry.”
“Well, get down, and we’ll soon cure that ailment.”
“I am very sorry,” said Charley, as they entered the dining-room, “that I had to stay away so long, but it seemed right that I should help nurse him. Ah, what a noble fire!”
“Well, you are at home again, at any rate. Polly will soon have some supper for you, and you know what is in the sideboard.”
Old Dick, meanwhile, was carrying out his share in the programme.
“Well, I s’pose I’ll have to feed you,” said he to the flea-bitten, surveying him from head to hock.
No true negro feels any doubt whatever as to his words being perfectly intelligible to horse, mule, cow, or dog.
“Ef ever I see a poor-folks’ horse, you is one. Git up! git up! don’t you hear me? You needn’t be a-standin’ here a-thinkin’ Dick gwine to ride you to de stable. Aha! you hear dat word stable, did you? Bound for you! You been d’yar befo’, and you know d’yar’s corn in dat ’ar stable; and a heap mo’, besides you, know dat d’yar is pervisions a-layin’ around here, and dey ain’t horses neither, nor yet mules. Git up, I tell you! Ain’t you got no more sense, old as you is, than to be a-snatchin’ at dry grass like dat? But Lor’, Dick don’t blame you! No, honey, Dick ain’t got a word agin you. Who is you, any way, I ax you dat? Is you blood? Is you quality? Dat’s what’s de matter, ef you believe me. You needn’t be a-shakin’ your head; you can’t tell Dick nothin’. Anybody can see you ain’t kin to nobody. ’M’h’m! yes, chile! you needn’t say a word, Dick knows dat kind far as he can see ’em, be dey man or beast. Howsomever, Dick don’t mount no sich. Nigger property is too unsartin for dat. Nebberdeless, Marse Charles, bein’ as how he belongs to his self, he mought. Nebberdeless, you fotch him home, and pretty is as pretty does, dat’s de way old Dick talks it. Polly! Polly!” shouted he to his wife, the cook, as he passed the kitchen door; “Polly! git up, gal! Marse Charles done come and want he supper. I would say,” continued he, not content with the colloquial phrases in which he had announced his young master’s arrival and the state of his appetite,—“I would say, Polly,”—and enveloped in darkness as he was, and invisible even to his spouse, the old man threw himself into an impressive pose, as he always did when about to adorn his language with phrases caught up from the conversation of his master and his guests,—“I would say de Prodigy Son have arrove, and he as ravenous as de fatted calf.” Hearing Polly bustling about within the kitchen: “Polly,” inquired he, in a stately voice, “did you hearken to what I rubserved?”
“I hear you, Dick.”
“But did you make me out, chile, dat’s de pint, did you make me out?”
“G’long, man, and put dat horse in de stable. Marse Charley want he supper, course he do. What’s de use o’ talkin’ about fat calves, when you know as well as I does d’yar ain’t no sich a thing in de kitchen. Marse Charley want he supper, I know dat, and I’se gittin’ ready to cook it fast as I can.”
“I b’lieve you. Well, put my name in de pot, chile.” And the old man went his way. “Well,” said he, soliloquizing upon the much-longed-for return of his young master, “dey tell me chickens, like horses [curses?], always does come home to roost—git up, I tell you!—’cep’n onless dey meets a free nigger in de road, den good-by chickens—for you’re gwine to leave us.”