"Ah! please, Mr. Rutledge!"
But it did not please Mr. Rutledge to do anything but tease me just at that time. After breakfast was over, he told me, looking at his watch in his precise manner, that there was just an hour and a quarter before it would be time to start, and if I had nothing better to do, I might come down to the stables with him, and give my parting orders about the care of the horses and dogs. I did not know whether this invitation was given sarcastically or sincerely, but I preferred accepting it in the latter sense; so I ran upstairs and put on my bonnet and cloak and joined him in the hall in a very short time. He evidently did not mean to give me opportunity for any sentimental regrets, for he never before had been half so teasing. I could not do anything right, though I was a baa-lamb, as far as submissiveness went. I walked either too slow or too fast, was too chatty with the groom, or too taciturn with him; there was not a fault or indiscretion in all our previous acquaintance that I did not then and there have to bear the penalty of. It was only when I came to say good-bye to Madge that my courage gave way completely, and I leaned my forehead on her glossy neck to conceal the silly tears that filled my eyes.
"I verily believe," said Mr. Rutledge, "that she knows you. She does not submit to such familiarity from strangers."
Finding that I did not answer, he continued, in a kinder tone:
"I think, as you broke her in, to feminine usage at least, you are entitled to her; so I make her over to you, body and soul, if soul she has, to have and to hold, from this day forward; and a tender mistress may she find you."
"Thank you," I said, without raising my head; "a very useful gift; of about as much service to me as if you should make over to me your right and title in the fastest pair of reindeer in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company."
"Why, don't you mean ever to come here again? If you don't, you had better take her with you. Any way, she is mine no longer. What shall be done with her? Shall Michael blanket and prepare her to accompany us to New York? or will you leave her here till you come back?"
"Ah! Do you fancy I am child enough to believe in such a conveyance as that? It wouldn't stand in any court of law."
"What would you have? There isn't a magistrate within four miles, and we haven't the time to draw up a document properly. I will tell you what can be done as next best. I will record the transaction here, above her manger, and there it shall remain to remotest ages, 'to witness if I lie.'"
Mr. Rutledge took out his penknife, and with considerable ingenuity carved in the sturdy old oak beam, the transfer of Madge Wildfire from himself to me, using, for brevity, only initials, and then the date. I climbed up to the fourth round of the ladder when it was completed, and did my best to achieve a signature, but the result was so unsatisfactory that Mr. Rutledge put beneath it, "her mark," and so it stands to this day, I suppose. This transaction having consumed a good deal of the hour and a quarter that we had before starting, Mr. Rutledge rather hurried up my adieux with my new favorite, and it was very ungraciously that he submitted to wait till I had cut a lock from her black mane, and embraced her tenderly for the twentieth time.