“Well, ’tis this way; you believe in me; you take my oath I’m honest. But the world don’t. I can’t go back to England and stand up an’ say ‘I didn’t do it, neighbours,’ because the Law’s up against me an’ there’s nought but short shrift an’ long drop waiting for me as things are. But—”
“Stop here, then, for the present.”
“That won’t do neither. I’ve gotten a feeling pulling at me like horses, to get home. I’m wanted there. My girl wants me. I know it.”
“How’s that to be done? Show your nose on the countryside and you’ll be arrested.”
“So I should be—such a nose as mine, for there’s no mistaking it; but how if I bide the colour I be now?”
“Go home black!”
“Why for not? ’Tis that I ax of you, sir, as payment for saving your life. You take me back as your black servant. I’m dumb, but I’m such a treasure that you can’t get on without me. Do it! Do it for love of a hardly-used man! I’ll ax it on my knees, if you say so. Let me go back with you as your nigger sarvant, an’ if I don’t clear myself in six months from the day I set foot in England, then I’ll clear out altogether and trouble you no more. The man’s living that killed Adam Thorpe, and who more likely to worm out the truth than I be, with such a motive to find it as I’ve got? There I’ll bide patient an’ quiet an’ dumb as a newt, an’ I’ll work for you as never man yet worked. I beg you let me do this—by my faither’s good name an’ for love of my mother an’ my little lonely wife, I beg you. You’ll never regret it—never. ’Tis a good deed and will stand to your credit in this world so well as t’other.”
“They’ll find you out. Sim will see through you, and your father will. Who can forget your size and your walk?”
“Don’t fear that. Such things be forgotten quick enough. Not a soul will know so long as I keep my mouth shut; an’ that I’ll do for my neck’s sake, be sure of it. Not a soul living will guess. I only ax for six months. Then I’ll vanish again, if I haven’t found some damned rascal to fill my shoes. An’ this I will bet; that my own mother don’t know me. With my curly hair an’ black eyes I was half a nig afore I comed here. Now I’m nigger all over. The coloured men here think I am, anyhow, for they axed me who I was, an’ where I comed from, an’ where Marse Ford was got to. But I just pointed to my mouth an’ shook my head, so they all think I’m dumb.”
“It might be better at home if they thought that you were deaf too,” reflected Vivian. “Since you’re so set on this experiment, I must fall in with it. I owe you too much to refuse.”