“Why did not you wait for me, or call me when you wanted to go, as you promised?”
“Reckoned yer was inside—didn’t look in, coz I asked if ’twas all right, and somebody, this ’ere gentleman here”—[who had got my seat]—“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘all right;’ so I reckoned ’twas, and driv along. Mustn’t blame me. Ortn’t to be so long swallerin’ yer dinner—mind, next time!”
The road was as bad as anything under the name of a road can be conceived to be. Wherever the adjoining swamps, fallen trees, stumps, and plantation fences would admit of it, the coach was driven, with a great deal of dexterity, out of the road. When the wheels sunk in the mud, below the hubs, we were sometimes requested to get out and walk. An upset seemed every moment inevitable. At length, it came; and the driver, climbing on to the upper side, opened the door, and asked—
“Got mixed up some in here then, didn’t ye? Ladies, hurt any? Well, come, get out here; don’t want to stay here all night I reckon, do ye?—Aint nothing broke, as I see. We’ll right her right up. Nary durn’d rail within a thousan’ mile, I don’t s’pose; better be lookin’ roun’; got to get somethin’ for a pry.”
In four hours after I left the hotel at Weldon, the coach reached the bank of the Roanoke, a distance of fourteen miles, and stopped. “Here we are,” said the driver, opening the door.
“Where are we—not in Gaston?”
“Durned nigh it. That ere’s Gaston, over thar; and you jast holler, and they’ll come over arter you in the boat.”
Gaston was a mile above us, and on the other side of the river. Nearly opposite was a house, and a scow drawn up on the beach; the distance across the river was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile. When the driver had got the luggage off, he gathered his reins, and said—
“Seems to me them ther gol-durned lazy niggers aint a goin’ to come over arter you now; if they won’t you’d better go up to the railroad bridge, some of ye, and get a boat, or else go down here to Free Town; some of them cussed free niggers ’ll be glad of the job, I no doubt.”
“But, confound it, driver! you are not going to leave us here, are you? we paid to be carried to Gaston.”