“No,” and hypocritically concealing his extravagant joy, he turned and walked beside her. “You have a very high color this morning, Stargarde,” he said demurely. "I hope that you are not feverish.”[feverish.”]
“Why, it is cold, Brian, very cold for Halifax. Don’t you feel the chill in the air?”
“No,” indifferently, and swinging open his coat. “I am never cold; don’t feel a lowering of the temperature any more than our friends the market women. Just look at them, Stargarde,” and with a sudden interest in his surroundings, now that he was no longer alone, he pointed to the unique spectacle before them.
The people in the market on this particular morning were mostly colored. Their rough sleds, many of which were drawn by oxen, were ranged along the gutters close to the pavements. In most cases the animals had been taken out, and were fastened to telegraph poles, railings, anywhere that the ingenious Negro could find a rod or a staff around which to twine a rope. A few of the oxen were tethered to the tailboards of their sleds and stood patiently munching wisps of hay, and surveying their owners with kind, pathetic eyes.
One woman who had had the good fortune to dispose of her stock, was just about leaving the market, skillfully guiding through the crowded street her tandem pair, consisting of a cow and an attenuated horse, the horse leading.
“Look at her,” said Camperdown. “Happy as a queen! She has sold her stuff, and sits enthroned on a bundle of old clothes, and a few packages of flour and sugar and a jug of molasses that she’s taking home to her pickaninnies. You won’t see many ‘carriage ladies’ with an expression like that. What’s this? ‘Cow for sail,’” and he read the placard hanging over the neck of a dirty white animal tied to a telegraph pole. “When does that cow sail?” to a melancholy-looking Negro standing near, whose two huge, protruding lips curled back like pink-lined breakers over the foam-like whiteness of a jagged reef of teeth.
“She’ll sail now, mister, if you can raise de wind,” said the man with a depressed yet amiable smile.
“Ah, Brian, the biter bitten,” observed Stargarde laughingly.
“He’s gut out three sheets now, I b’lieve, missis,” the Negro went on inexorably. “You white folkses be always a makin’ fun of us Niggers,” with an apologetic grin.
“Oh, take in sail, take in sail,” said Camperdown, pointing to the obnoxious placard.