There stood the baffled Capitola, extricating her head from the pea-jacket, and with her eyes fairly flashing out sparks of anger, exclaiming, "Oh, wretches! wretches that you are! If you'd been worth salt you could have caught him while I clung to him so!"
There wallowed Old Hurricane, spluttering, floundering, half drowning, in the horse pond, making the most frantic efforts to curse and swear as he struggled to get out.
There stood the crowd of negroes brought to a sudden stand by a panic of horror at seeing the dignity of their master so outraged!
And, most frenzied of all, there ran Wool around and around the margin of the pond, in a state of violent perplexity how to get his master out without half drowning himself!
"Blurr-urr-rr! flitch! flitch! Blurr!-ur!" spluttered and sneezed and strangled, Old Hurricane, as he floundered to the edge of the pond—"Burr-urr-rr! Help me out, you scoundrel! I'll break every bone in your—flitch! body! Do you hear me—ca-snish!—villain you! flitch! flitch! ca-snish! oh-h!"
Wool with his eyes starting from his head and his hair standing up with terrors of all sorts, plunged at last into the water and pulled his old master up upon his feet.
"Ca-snish! ca-snish! blurr-rr! flitch!—what are you gaping there for as if you'd raised the devil, you crowd of born fools!" bawled Old Hurricane as soon as he could get the water out of his mouth and nose—"what are you standing there for! After him! After him, I say! Scour the woods in every direction! His freedom to any man who brings me Black Donald, dead or alive—Wool!"
"Yes, sir," said that functionary, who was busying himself with squeezing the water out of his master's garments.
"Wool, let me alone? Take the fleetest horse in the stable! Ride for your life to the Court House! Tell Keepe to have new bills posted everywhere, offering an additional five hundred dollars for the apprehension of that—that—that"—for the want of a word strong enough to express himself, Old Hurricane suddenly stopped, and for the lack of his stick to make silence emphatic, he seized his gray hair with both hands and groaned aloud!
Wool waited no second bidding, but flew to do his errand.