Jumping in the skiff, a few vigorous strokes sent me to the opposite shore, where the singular being awaited my coming.
He was a negro dwarf of the most frightful appearance; his diminutive body was garnished with legs and arms of enormously disproportionate length; his face was hideous: a pair of tushes projected from either side of a double hare-lip; and taking him altogether, he was the nearest essemblance to the ourang outang mixed with the devil that human eyes ever dwelt upon. I could not look at him without feeling disgust.
“Massa Bill sent me with a letter,” was his reply to my asking him his business.
Opening it, I found a summons to see a patient, the mother of a man named Disney, living some twenty miles distant by the usual road. It was in no good humour that I told the dwarf to wait until I could swim my horse over, and I would accompany him.
By the time I had concluded my preparations, and put a large bottle of brandy in my pocket, my steed was awaiting me upon the opposite shore.
“Massa tole me to tell you ef you didn't mine swimming a little you had better kum de nere way.”
“Do you have to swim much?”
“Oh no, massa, onely swim Plurisy Lake, and wade de back water a few mile, you'll save haf de way at leste.” I looked at the sun. It was only about two hours high, and the roads were in such miserable condition that six miles an hour would be making fine speed, so I determined to go the near way, and swim “Pleurisy slough.”
“You are certain you know the road, boy?”
“Oh, yes, massa, me know um ebery inch ob de groun'; hunted possum an' coon ober him many a night. Massa, you ain't got any 'baccy, is you?”