She rode even further next morning than she had the preceding day, when Pluto was her guide, and she rode as straight east as she could go towards the coast. When she met colored folk along the road she halted, and spoke with them, to their great delight. She asked of the older ones where the road led to, and were the pine woods everywhere along it, and what about swamps and streams to ford, etc., etc. Altogether, she had gained considerable knowledge of that especial territory by the time she rode back to the Terrace and joined the rest at the late breakfast. She had been in the saddle since dawn, and recounted with vivacity all the little episodes of her solitary constitutional; the novelty of it was exhilarating. That it appeared a trifle eccentric to a Southerner did not suggest itself to her; all her eccentricities were charming to the McVeigh household, and Delaven lamented he had not been invited as proxy for Pluto, and amused the breakfast party by anecdotes of hunting days in Ireland, and the energy and daring of the ladies who rode at dawn there.
Several times during the day Judithe attempted to have a tete-a-tete with Mrs. McVeigh, and learn more about Miss 244 Loring’s silent maid, who was the first person she saw on her return from the ride that morning. The absolute self-effacement of an individual whose repose suggested self-reliance, and whose well shaped head was poised so admirably as to suggest pride, made the sad-faced servant a fascinating personality to any one interested in questions concerning her race. No other had so won her attention since she made compact with Kora in Paris.
But Mistress McVeigh was a very busy woman that day. Pluto’s absence left a vacancy in the establishment no other could fill so intelligently. Miss Loring had promptly attached herself as general assistant to the mistress of the house. Delaven noticed how naturally she fell into the position of an elder daughter there, and, remembering Evilena’s disclosures at Loringwood, and Matthew Loring’s own statement, he concluded that the wedding bells might sound at any time after Kenneth’s return, and he fancied they had been delayed, already, three years longer than suited the pleasure of her uncle.
Delaven, as well as Judithe, was attracted by the personality of Margeret. In the light, or the shadow, of the sad story he had listened to, she took on a new interest, an atmosphere of romance surrounded her. He pictured what her life must have been as a child, amid the sunshine of Florida, the favorite of her easy-living, easy-loving Greek father, the sole relic of some pretty slave! As she walked silently along the halls of the Terrace, he tried to realize Nelse’s description of her gayety, once, in the halls of Loringwood. And when he observed the adoring eyes with which she regarded the Marquise after the pickaninny episode, he understood it was another child she was thinking of––a child who should have been freed, and was not, and the feelings of Pluto were as her own.
Two entire days passed without Pluto’s return. There was some delay, owing to the absence of the overseer from the Larue estate; then, Zekal was ailing, and that delayed him until sundown of the second day, when he took the child in his arms––his own child now––and with its scanty wardrobe, and a few sundry articles of Rose’s, all saved religiously by an old “aunty,” who had nursed her––he started homeward on his long night tramp, so happy he scarce felt the weight of the boy in his arms, or that of the bundle fastened with a rope across his shoulders. He had his boy, and the boy was free! and when he thought of the stranger who had wrought this miracle his heart swelled with gratitude and the tears blinded him as he tramped homeward through the darkness.
The first faint color of dawn was showing in the east when he walked into Dilsey’s cook-house and showed the child asleep in his arms.
What a commotion! as the other house servants mustered in, sleepily, and straightway were startled very wide awake indeed, and each insisted on feeling the weight of the newcomer, just, Dilsey said, as if there never was a child seen on that plantation before. And all had cures for the “brashy” spell the little chap had been afflicted by, and which seemed frightened away entirely, as he looked about him with eyes like black beads. All the new faces, and the petting, were a revelation to Zekal.
Dilsey put up with it till everything else seemed at a standstill in the morning’s work, when she scattered the young folks right and left to their several duties, got Pluto an excellent breakfast, and gave the child in charge of one of the mothers in the quarters till “mist’ess” settled about him.
“Yo’ better take his little duds, too, Lucy,” suggested Pluto, as the boy was toddling away with her, contentedly, 246 rich in the possession of two little fists full of sweet things; “they’re tied up in that bandana––not the blue one! That blue one got some o’ his mammy’s things I gwine look over; maybe might be something make him shirts or aprons, an’ if there is a clean dress in that poke I––I like to have it put on ’im ’fore she sees him––Madame Caron, an’, an’ Mist’ess, o’ course! I like her to see he’s worth while.”