“Roland, come here and get into this cart afore this here brute goes to sleep and drops down. There’s a time for all things, sez I, and the time to stand staring after a young gal, sez I, isn’t nine o’clock at night when there’s an ole ’oman and wicious mule on a cart waitin’ for you, and a mighty dark night and a rough road afore you, sez I!” called Miss Sibby, from her seat.
“All right, aunty, I’m coming.”
And the young fellow jumped into the cart, took the reins from the old lady, and started the mule at a speed that made the animal cock his ears and meditate rebellion.
By this time Mr. and Mrs. Force, their three daughters and Leonidas were seated in the break.
Mrs. Anglesea was on the box, driving. This she so insisted on doing that there was no preventing her except by enacting a scene.
“Jake’s getting old, and blind, and stupid. I’m not going to trust my precious neck to him, you bet! I have lost a good deal, but I want to keep my head on my shoulders,” she had said, as she took the reins from Jake, who immediately folded his arms, closed his eyes and resigned himself to sleep.
“You had better let me drive if you are afraid to trust Jake, Mrs. Anglesea,” suggested Mr. Force.
“You!” said the lady from Wild Cats’, in a tone of ineffable contempt. “Not much! I’d a heap rather trust Jake than you! Why, ole man, you never were a good whip since I knowed you, and you’ve been out of practice three years! Sit still and make yourself comfortable, and I’ll land you safe at Mondreer. Old Luce will have a comfortable tea there for you, and strawberry shortcake, too. Think of strawberries on the twelfth of April! But I raised ’em under glass. And so my beat wasn’t dead, after all! And I in mourning for him ever since the fourteenth of February! Well, my beat beats all! I shall never believe him dead until I see him strung up by a hangman and cut up by the doctors—of which I live in hopes! No, you needn’t worry. Jake’s fast asleep, and he wouldn’t hear thunder, nor even the dinner horn, much less my talk!”
“How did you hear that Col. Anglesea had turned up again?” inquired Mr. Force.
“Why, Lord! ole man, it’s all over the whole country. You couldn’t cork up and seal down news like that! It would bu’st the bottle! I believe some one fetched it down from Washington to the Calvert House, and then it got all over the country; and Lord love you, Jake heard it at the post office and fetched it home to the house. And then—when Beever got your letter, and not a word was said about the wedding, and Miss Grandiere got two—one from you and one from Rosemary—and nothing said neither about no brides nor grooms, we felt to see how it was. And now there’s lynching parties sworn in all over the neighborhood to put an end to that beat if ever he dares to show his face here again. Oh! the whole neighborhood is up in arms, I tell you!”