As if for endorsement, a knock was heard at the door.
There were two to enter, a man and a woman. The man was huge of frame, shambling, uncouth, with knobby joints and large uncertain feet; his face flabby, sickly, with little greedy, shifty eyes, like the eyes of swine; gross mouth, full lipped and coarse, and working and munching in a full-fed way, engaging itself upon imaginary mouthfuls. The hands of this individual were puffy, warty members, with palms as hot and wet and soft as an August swamp, and, save for their temperature, much like the belly of a toad to the feel. These hands were commonly in motion, making plausible and deprecatory gestures. It was as though the world were a cat and they would stroke its back by way of conciliation. Over all was obsequiousness like a veil—my visitor seemed to sweat subserviency, exhale abasement as an atmosphere. The woman, thin, and bird-faced, and with beaky nose that looked as though the frost had pinched the neb, was of the chattering, empty, magpie flock; she appeared as vulgar as the man; albeit, not with his obsequiousness, since she affected the girlish, and stood ready with giggle and gurgle and arch look, all of which but poorly fitted with her sober fifty years. From an odor of pulpits observable, I thought him a preacher; also, I took the woman to be his wife.
The man—I will thus far defend him—was not, however, that subscription person whom Jim remembered with the General.
“Dish yere's d'gentleman who is done been teeterin' 'round our door this mornin',” said Jim, as he ushered the visitors.
“It is not the gentleman who called on the General,” I remarked.
“Well, what's d'diffrunce, anyhow?” asked Jim with mighty unconcern. “He's a preacher, so it's all d'same.”
“No difference, perhaps,” I returned, “except to make plain how little you are to be relied on.”
“I s'ppose Jim's as cap'ble of mistakes as anybody.” Here Jim lapsed into the abused tone of one virtuous, and driven to the desperate by ill-usage. “But I tells you-all, Marse Major; since you done locks up that demijohn, Jim aint been d'same niggah. His mem'ry has sort o' begun to bog down. No wonder Jim gets folks swapped 'round foolish in his mind.”
While these reproofs were going, my callers stood by the door, inviting consideration with much bending of the body and bowing of the head.
“I am the Reverend Campbell,” began the man; “I am pastor of a precious flock in this town. And this is Deborah, my beloved consort. I trust I find all well and holy here, and the blessing of the Spirit upon this place?”