"Massa's nigger alwes mind him," was the dutiful response.
Mrs. Laudersdale's handkerchief fell at that moment from the hand that hung over the balustrade. Capua darted to restore it.
"Bress her pretty eyes!" said he. "Ole Cap see's fur into a millstone as any one!" and vanished through the doorway.
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Raleigh, turning to Mrs. Laudersdale. "He has refused to leave me, and I must indulge him too much, and my sins fall on the head of the nearest passer. He appears to have a constitutional inability to comprehend this absence of punishment. His immunity is so painful to him that I sometimes fancy him to be homesick for a lashing. Now if I do not hasten home, Kate, I shall find a conflagration of the whole house there before me."
And making quick adieux,—while Mrs. Laudersdale jested about tempting the raging waters, and the dinner-bell was ringing, and Helen singing, "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine wi' McLean,"—he opened the door, suffered a patch of blue sky to be seen, and the segment of an afternoon rainbow, shut it, and was gone.
Early again the next morning, Mr. Raleigh sought the Bawn, followed this time by Capua, who was determined not to lose any ground once made, and who now carried the rods, bait, and other paraphernalia.
"Powerful pretty woman, dat, Massa!" said he, as through the open doors a voice was heard gayly exclaiming and answering.
"Which one, Capua?" asked his master.
"A'n't no t'orrer," was his reply; "leastwise, a'n't no 'count,—good for nott'n. Now she,—pity she a'n't single, Massa,—should say she'd lived where sun was plenty and had laid up heaps in her heart."
Here Mrs. Laudersdale came out, and shortly afterward Helen and three or four others. In reply to their questions, Mr. Raleigh stated that the preceding day's disaster had been occasioned by a meerschaum, and had merely charred a table with its superficies of papers and pamphlets, which Capua had chosen to magnify for his own purposes; and the assemblage immediately turned its course inland and toward the brooks. The two who led soon distanced the rest, Capua trudging respectfully behind and keeping them in sight. Here, as they brushed along through the woods, they delayed in order to examine a partridge's nest, to tree a squirrel, to gather some strange wild-flower opening at their approach. Here on the banks they watched the bitterns rise and sail heavily away, and finally in silence commenced the genuine sport.