[CHAPTER XI]
MOREY MAKES AMOS A NOTE.
It was eleven o’clock of a moonless June night when Morey and Amos closed the disjointed gate and turned their backs on Aspley Place. There was a little chill in the air and the vapor of dew. On each side of the broad and rough dirt road little more could be seen than the creeper-covered fences. Neither cabin nor farmhouse showed a light. Even over the distant village of Lee’s Court House, toward which old Betty’s head was turned, hung a pall of blackness.
Morey was in high spirits. Considering the dire possibilities of his flight he might well have been downhearted. But the spell of coming adventure was on him. He patted his feet on the rickety bottom of the surrey, he whistled, he cocked his feet on the loose dashboard as he smacked the lines on Betty’s back, and he hummed the darky songs that Amos knew. But Amos did not join in the choruses. The black boy was far from being in jovial spirits.
“Yo’ all ain’t gwine plumb thro’ de town is yo’?”
This was his first concern.
“You don’t think the marshal is awake now, do you?” answered Morey, with a resounding “Giddap, Betty.”
“He’s loafin’ on de square, ef de saloons is open,” Amos assured him.
“Perhaps it would be safer to go around,” concluded Morey, “but it’s a long way.”