“Never mind the Dominie,” yelled Inky Mike, laying hold of the rail by an end and hauling it around. “He don’t mean nothin’.”
Old bones are no match for young barbarism. The rush through the gate brushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as I leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous urchins, the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted aloft, bleeding but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out reassurances to his wife; the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a frantic woman, clawing, sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened for the splash.
It did not come.
A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To my unsuccessful rôle of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray had succeeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel Pinckney Pemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia.
Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously anticipative rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most peremptory of aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing.
I like to think—the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself thereby—that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort to hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self to intervene.
Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, the Pemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, Black Sally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbance grated upon her sensitive ear.
“What is that rabble about, Sally?” she inquired.
The aged negress reconnoitered. “Reckon dey’s ridin’ a gentmun on a rail,” she reported.
“A gentleman, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure such an affront. Look again.”