The real kindliness of his tone, his simple generosity, touched even the granite heart of the hard gipsy queen. Lifting her eyes, that all this time had been moodily gazing into the dashing, foam-crested waves, she said, in a softer voice than he ever expected to hear from her lips:
“I thank you and accept your offer, and more for their sake, however, than my own”—pointing to the children. “I could make my way through the world easily enough, but they are young and tender, and need care. I will go with you.”
She turned away as she ceased, as if there was no more to be said on the subject, and again looked fixedly down into the wide waste of waters.
“It’s real good of you to say so, Mrs. Ketura, and I’m very much obliged to you,” said Mr. Toosypegs with a brightening up of his pallid features. “We will land at New York, and after that, go to Dismal Hollow via Baltimore, which means, Mrs. Ketura,” said Mr. Toosypegs, interrupting himself, to throw in a word of explanation, “‘by way of’ It’s Latin, or Greek, I guess, though I never learned either. Ugh! ain’t Latin nice, though!” added the owner of the sickly complexion, with a grimace of intensest disgust. “I tried it for six weeks one time, with an apothecary; and then, as it began to throw me into a decline, I gave it up. Not any more. I’m very much obliged to you.”
Three days after that the vessel touched the wharf at New York. And after two days’ delay, which Mr. Toosypegs required to get his “land legs” on, they set off for Baltimore.
In due course of time that goodly city was reached, and one week after, the whole party arrived at Judestown—a thriving country town on the sea-coast, called then after the first settler, but known by another name, now.
Driving through the town, they reached the suburbs, and entered a more thinly-settled part of the country. Gleaming here and there through the trees, they could catch occasional glimpses of the bright waters of the Chesapeake, and hear the booming of the waves on the low shore.
Turning an abrupt angle in the road, they drove down a long, steep, craggy path, toward a gloomy mountain gorge, at sight of which Mr. Toosypegs so far forgot himself as to take off his hat and wave it over his head, with a feeble “Hooray for Dismal Hollow!” which so scandalized that strict Christian, his aunt, that she gave him a look beneath which he wilted down, and was heard no more.
“What an ugly old place! I won’t go there!” exclaimed little Raymond, with a strong expression of contempt.
And truly it did not look very inviting. The mountain, which, by some convulsion of nature, seemed to have been violently rent in twain, was only passable by a narrow, dangerous bridle-path. Down in the very bottom of this deep, gloomy gorge, stood an old, time-worn building of what had once been red brick, with dismal, black, broken window shutters, that at some far-distant time might have been green. A range of dilapidated barns and outhouses spread away behind, and in front, some hundred yards distant, ran a slender rivulet, which every spring became swollen into a foaming torrent.