"Excuse me for contradicting you, but I think you can, Sir. I shouldn't like to do it myself, in the daytime; but in the night so, who cares? Nobody'll laugh at us, even if we don't succeed. Really, I wish you wasn't quite so wet, Sir; for these here is my Sunday clothes. But never mind a little water; we'll find a fire to get dry again. There you are, my friend! A little higher. Put your hands over across my breast. Couldn't manage to hold, the umbrella over us, could you? So fashion. Now steady, while I rise with you."
And the stalwart young negro, hooking his arms well under the legs of his rider, got up stoopingly, gave a toss and a jolt to get him into the right position, and walked off with him. Away they go, tramp, tramp, in the storm and darkness. Thank Heaven, the Judge's fame is safe! If the pauper dies, it will not be at his door. Little he knows, there in his elegant study, what an inestimable service this black Samaritan is rendering him. And it was just; for, after all the Judge had done for the negro, (who, I suppose, was equally unconscious of any substantial benefit received,) it was time that the negro should do something for him in return.
Tramp! tramp! a famous beggar's ride! It was a picturesque scene, with food for laughter and tears in it, had we only been there with a lantern. Fessenden's, fantastic, astride of the African, staring forward into the darkness from under his ragged hat-brim, endeavoring to hold the wreck of an umbrella over them,—the wind flapping and whirling it. Tramp! tramp! past all those noble mansions, to the negro-hut beyond the village. And, oh, to think of it! the rich citizens, the enlightened and white-skinned Levites, having left him out, one of their own race, to perish in the storm, this despised black man is found, alone of all the world, to show mercy unto him!
"How do you get on, Sir?" says the stout young Ethiop. "Would you ride easier, if I should trot? or would you prefer a canter? Tell 'em to bring on their two-forty nags now, if they want a race."
Talking in this strain, to keep up his rider's spirits, he brought him, not without sweat and toil, to the hut. A kick on the door with the beggar's foot, which he used for the purpose, caused it to be opened by a woolly-headed urchin; and in he staggered.
Little woolly-head clapped his hands and screamed.
"Oh, crackie, pappy! here comes Bill with the Devil on his back!"
Sensation in the hut. There was an old negro woman in the corner, on one side of the stove, knitting; and a very old negro man in the opposite corner, napping; and a middle-aged man, with spectacles on his ebony nose, reading slowly aloud from an ancient grease-covered book opened before him on the old pine table; and a middle-aged woman patching a jacket; and a girl washing dishes, which another girl was wiping: representatives of four generations: and they all quitted their occupations at once, to see what sort of a devil Bill had brought home.
"Why, William! who have you got there, William?" said he of the spectacles, with mild wonder,—removing those clerkly aids of vision, and laying them across the book.