‘Now, I tell ye what,’ she said to Digo,—‘jest ’cause you wear your master’s old coats and hats, you tink you must go in for all dese yer old, mean, white ’pinions. A’n’t ye ’shamed—you, a black man—to have no more pluck and make cause wid de Egyptians? Now, ’ta’n’t what my Doctor gives me,—he never giv’ me the snip of a finger-nail,—but it’s what he does for mine; and when de poor critturs lands dar, tumbled out like bales on de wharves, ha’n’t dey seen his great cocked hat, like a lighthouse, and his big eyes lookin’ sort o’ pitiful at ’em, as ef he felt o’ one blood wid ’em? Why, de very looks of de man is worth everyting; and who ever thought o’ doin’ anyting for deir souls, or cared ef dey had souls, till he begun it?’
‘Well, at any rate,’ said Digo, brightening up, ‘I don’t believe his doctrine about de doings of de unregenerate,—it’s quite clear he’s wrong dar.’
‘Who cares?’ said Candace,—‘generate or unregenerate, it’s all one to me. I believe a man dat acts as he does. Him as stands up for de poor,—him as pleads for de weak,—he’s my man. I’ll believe straight through anyting he’s a mind to put at me.’
At this juncture, Mary’s fair face appearing at the door put a stop to the discussion.
‘Bress you, Miss Mary! comin’ here like a fresh June rose! it makes a body’s eyes dance in deir head! Come right in! I got Cato up from de lot, ’cause he’s rader poorly dis mornin’; his cough makes me a sight o’ concern; he’s allers a-pullin’ off his jacket de wrong time, or doin’ sometin’ I tell him not to,—and it just keeps him hack, hack, hackin’, all de time.’
During this speech, Cato stood meekly bowing, feeling that he was being apologized for in the best possible manner; for long years of instruction had fixed the idea in his mind, that he was an ignorant sinner, who had not the smallest notion how to conduct himself in this world, and that, if it were not for his wife’s distinguishing grace, he would long since have been in the shades of oblivion.
‘Missis is spinnin’ up in de north chamber,’ said Candace; ‘but I’ll run up and fetch her down.’
Candace, who was about the size of a puncheon, was fond of this familiar manner of representing her mode of ascending the stairs; but Mary, suppressing a smile, said, ‘Oh, no, Candace; don’t for the world disturb her. I know just where she is.’ And before Candace could stop her, Mary’s light foot was on the top step of the staircase that led up from the kitchen.
The north room was a large chamber, overlooking a splendid reach of sea-prospect. A moving panorama of blue water and gliding sails was unrolled before its three windows, so that stepping into the room gave one an instant and breezy sense of expansion. Mrs. Marvyn was standing at the large wheel, spinning wool,—a reel and basket of spools on her side. Her large brown eyes had an eager joy in them when Mary entered; but they seemed to calm down again, and she received her only with that placid, sincere air which was her habit. Everything about this woman showed an ardent soul, repressed by timidity and by a certain dumbness in the faculties of outward expression; but her eyes had, at times, that earnest, appealing language which is so pathetic in the silence of inferior animals. One sometimes sees such eyes, and wonders whether the story they intimate will ever be spoken in mortal language.