"Let me go, then, and guide you!" she exclaimed, glad he was so resolved, yet unwilling to trust him out of her sight.
"No, daughter. Toby will be eyes for me. Yet I scarcely need even him. I can find my way as well as he can in the dark."
The negro opened the door, and was leading out the blind old minister, when the light from within fell upon a singular object approaching the house. It started back again, like some guilty thing; but Toby had seen it. Toby uttered a shriek.
"De debil! de debil hisself, massa!" and he pulled the old man back hurriedly into the house.
"The devil, Toby? What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Villars.
"O, laws, bress ye, massa, ye hain't got no eyes, and ye can't see!" said Toby, shutting the door in his fright, and rolling his eyes wildly. "It's de bery debil! he's come for dis niggah dis time, sartin'. Cos I, cos I 'pealed to him, as you said, massa! cos I's got de habit ob speakin' his name widout no kind o' respec'!"
And he stood bracing himself, with his back against the door, as if determined that not even that powerful individual himself should get in.
"You poor old simpleton!" said Mr. Villars, "there is no fiend except in your own imagination. Open the door!"
"No, no, massa! He's dar! he's dar! He'll cotch old Toby, shore!" And the terrified black held the latch and pushed with all his might.
"What did he see, Virginia?"