There was something so ludicrous in the sight, that the young Englishman forgot for a moment the grave thoughts that had been harassing him; and once more checking his steed into a halt, gave utterance to roars of laughter. The darkey joined in his mirth with a grin that extended his mouth from ear to ear—though he was utterly unconscious of what the young buckra was laughing at. He could not see anything comic in a custom which he was almost daily in the habit of practising—for it was not the first time Quashie had travelled at the tail of a horse.
Journeying about half a mile further along the main road, the entrance-gate of Mount Welcome was reached. There was no lodge—only a pair of grand stone piers, with a wing of strong mason-work on each flank, and a massive folding gate between them.
From the directions Herbert had already received, he might have known this to be the entrance to his uncle’s plantation; but Quashie, still clinging to the pony’s tail, removed all doubt by crying out,—
“Da’s da gate, buckra gemman—da’s de way fo’ Moun’ Welc’m’!”
On passing through the gateway, the mansion itself came in sight—its white walls and green jalousies shining conspicuously at the extreme end of the long avenue; which last, with its bordering rows of palms and tamarinds, gave to the approach an air of aristocratic grandeur.
Herbert had been prepared for something of this kind. He had heard at home that his father’s brother was a man of great wealth; and this was nearly all his father had himself known respecting him.
The equipage which had transported his more favoured fellow-voyager—and which had passed over the same road about an hour before him—also gave evidence of the grand style in which his uncle lived.
The mansion now before his eyes was in correspondence with what he had heard and seen. There could be no doubt that his uncle was one of the grandees of the island.
The reflection gave him less pleasure than pain. His pride had been already wounded; and as he looked up the noble avenue, he was oppressed with a presentiment that some even greater humiliation was in store for him.
“Tell me, Quashie,” said he, after a spell of painful reflection, “was it your master himself who gave you directions about conducting me to Mount Welcome? Or did you have your orders from the overseer?”