It was a beautiful morning, and though Bart saw high fog banks piled up to the skies in the harbor and in the bay, yet he soon left behind him all thought of this, and entered the country. The scenery was attractive, the air was clear and exhilarating, the horse was fast, and everything conspired to fill him with joyous feeling. His mind reverted to Bruce’s letter, and he passed most of his time during the drive in speculating about the coming excursion, and in rejoicing over the happy accident that had taken Captain Corbet to Prince Edward Island, and brought him within sight of Bruce before he had engaged about the oats. Amid such pleasant thoughts as these his mind busied itself, and at length he reached the colored settlement.
He stopped at a rude log hut, which had a roof of poles and mud, from which a flour barrel projected, and served as a chimney. Here some squalid children were playing on the turf, and an elderly colored lady was engaged in washing. Her Bart accosted with a polite inquiry about Solomon.
“Solomon!” said she. “Wha dat ar? What? dat ar ole man? Mrs. Franklin’s ole man?”
Bart didn’t know anything about Mrs. Franklin, but he gave a description of Solomon, which was sufficiently accurate for this lady to recognize it.
“Dem’s um,” she said, in a positive tone. “Wal—dat ar ole man’s libben at Mrs. Franklin’s—”
“And where is Mrs. Franklin’s?”
“Jes you go ahead till you come to de meetin’ house, an it’s de sebent house after you get to de meetin-house.”
Bart drove on, and in due process of time reached the meeting-house, and then began to count the houses. He found a little difficulty about this, as he could hardly distinguish between what might be a house and what might also be a barn, and was stopping at a place in the road opposite a hut like the one at which he had first stopped, when his attention was arrested by the sight of a man in the field on the other side of the way. The man’s back was turned towards him, and he was toiling with all his might over a stone and a crowbar, occasionally straightening himself up and rubbing his back, and uttering groans which reached Bart’s ears even at that distance, and smote upon his heart.
That aged figure,—aged it was,—could that indeed be Solomon? and was this the way he enjoyed himself while on a visit to his friends? With a crowbar, prying up granite boulders? What a thought!
In a moment Bart was out of the wagon, and was running over the fields towards the old man. He came up close just as the old man was rubbing his back. He caught him by the arm. The old man gave a wild leap, and turned round with an expression of awful fear.