Louis accordingly repaired to the kitchen and delivered the order to poor Jupiter—who, bemoaning his hard fate in being obliged to serve so whimsical a master, was forced to set out in the storm in search of the capricious Gipsy.
Half an hour, three-quarters passed, and then Jupiter, soaking with rain, and reeking with sweat, came galloping back; but like young Lochinvar, immortalized in the song:
"He rode unattended and rode all alone,"
and gray, and shaking, and trembling with fear and expectation of the "wrath which was to come," he presented himself before his master.
"Well, sir, where's Miss Gipsy?" shouted the old man, as he entered.
"Mas'r, I couldn't bring her, to save my precious life; she wouldn't come, nohow. I tell her you wanted her in a desprit hurry; and she said, s'posin' you waited till your hurry was over. I said you tole me not to come home 'thout her; and she said, very well, I might stay all night, if I liked, 'cause she warn't comin' home till to-morrer. I tole her you was t'arin' mad; and she said, you'd better have patience, and smoke your pipe. I couldn't do nothin' 'tall with her, so I left, an' come back, an' dat's all." And without waiting for the burst of wrath which he saw coming, Jupiter beat a precipitate retreat to the lower regions.
You should have seen the wrath of Squire Erliston then. How he stamped, and raged, and swore, and threatened, until he nearly frightened Lizzie into hysterics, used as she was to his fits of passion. And then, at last, when utterly exhausted, he ordered the servants to go and prepare a large, empty room, which had long been unused, as a prison for Gipsy, upon her return. Everything was taken out of it, and here the squire vowed she should remain until she had learned to obey him for the future. Then, relapsing into sulky silence, he sat down, "nursing his wrath to keep it warm," until the return of the little delinquent.