Rolling his eyes wildly in their sockets, the crest fallen Bill folded his arms and resigned the horses to their fate, saying mentally, “I shall war mournin’ for ’em, I shall, and he may help hisself.”
Over rough and stony places—over smooth and sandy roads—over hills, over plains—through the woods, through the swamps, and through the winding valleys, on they sped like lightning, the excited horses covered with foam, their driver stern, silent and determined, while poor Bill, with the perspiration streaming down his shining face, kept up a continued expostulation, “Now, mars’r, for de dear Lord’s sake, stop ’em ‘fore dey draps down dead. Look at de white specks all over Ferd’s back—he’ll never stan’ it without dat t’other half bucket. You kills ’em sartin, and dar goes a thousand dollars, smack and clean.”
But Bill’s entreaties were all in vain, and his distress was at its height, when fortunately his thoughts were diverted in another channel. At a sudden turn of the road a gust of wind lifted the old palmleaf from his woolly head, and carried it far away. “Now, dear Mars’r,” said Bill, laying his hand on that of Mr. Delafield, “you’ll sartin let ’em breathe while I picks up my hat, ’case you see how’ll you look gwine into town wid a barheaded nigger. In de Lord’s name, stop,” he continued, as he saw in his master no signs of relenting.
Glancing over his shoulder Mr. Delafield saw the hat away over the fields, and quietly taking a bill from his pocket and placing it in the negro’s hand, he replied; “That will buy you five such hats.”
“Yes, but de hosses, lor’ a mighty, de hosses!” exclaimed Bill almost frantically, “Don’t you see Ferd is gwine to gin out?”
Mr. Delafield feared so, too, and more to himself than to his servant, he said, “perhaps the cars will be behind time, they usually are.”
Without considering the consequences, Bill answered, “No they won’t; case I hear how they hired a tarin’ Yankee for an engine, and he drives all afore him—gits ahead of de time and all dat.”
The next minute he repented a speech whose disastrous effects he foresaw, and he was about to deny it as a fabrication of his own brain, when his master, who really saw signs of lagging in the nervous, fiery Ferd, said, “Bill, you have a peculiar whistle with which you spur up the horses—make it now; Ferd has run himself almost down.”
“De Lord have massy on us,” groaned Bill, wiping away a tear; then, as Mr. Delafield repeated his order, he said, in a whining tone, “Can’t, mars’r, no how; case you see my throat is dreffle sore, ridin’ barheaded so in the breeze which you kicks up—can’t, no how.”
“But you must,” persisted Mr. Delafield.