The negro driver, with the agility of a country coachman, had already sprung to the ground, and was holding the carriage door open.
Before them lay a small cleared tract of land, where a pleasant greenness of young potato vines hid the sand. In the centre was a tumble-down cabin, with a mud chimney on the outside. The one window had no sash, and its rude shutter hung precariously by a single leathern hinge. The door was open, revealing that the interior was papered with newspapers. Three or four yelping curs seemed to be all the furniture.
There was nothing extraordinary in the picture; one could see fifty such cabins, in a radius of half a mile. Nor was there anything of mark in the appearance of Demming himself, dressed exactly as he was the day before, and rubbing his eyes in the doorway. But behind him! The coachman’s under jaw dropped beneath the weight of a loud “Fo’ de Lawd!” The Bishop’s benignant countenance was suddenly crimsoned. Talboys and Louise looked at each other, and bit their lips. It was only a woman,—a tall, thin, bent woman in a shabby print gown, with a faded sunbonnet pushed back from her gray head and a common clay pipe between her lips. Probably in her youth she had been a pretty woman, and the worn features and dim eyes still retained something engaging in their expression of timid good-will.
“Won’ you all step in?” she said, advancing.
“Yes, yes,” added Demming, inclining his body and waving both hands with magnificent courtesy; “alight, gen’lemen, alight! I’m sorry I ain’t no staggah juice to offah ye, but yo’ right welcome to sweet potatoes an’ pussimmon beah, w’ich’s all—”
“Demming,” said the Bishop, sternly, “what does this mean? I came to bury Mrs. Demming, and—and here she is!”
“Burry me!” exclaimed the woman. “Why, I ain’t dead!”
Demming rubbed his hands, his face wearing an indescribable expression of mingled embarrassment, contrition, and bland insinuation. “Well, yes, Bishop, yere she is, an’ no mistake! Nuthin’ more ’n a swond, you unnerstan’. I ’lowed ter notify you uns this mahnin’, but fac’ is I wuz so decomposed, fin’in’ her traipsin’ ’bout in the gyardin an’ you all ’xpectin’ a fun’al, thet I jes’ hed ter brace up; an’ fac’ is I braced up too much, an’ ovahslep’. I’m powerful sorry, an’ I don’ blame you uns ef you do feel mad!”
The Bishop flung off his robes in haste and walked to the carriage, where he bundled them in with scant regard for their crispness.