What was going on at the cape all this time?
Mr Clare did not return on Saturday, and as night set in without our appearance, Clump and Juno got anxious. Having, however, great confidence in the Captain’s care and skill, they were not so much alarmed as they might have been, supposing that he, seeing the approaching gale, had made some harbour, and that there we should stay until the weather changed. For some reason, both Clump and Juno supposed we had gone to the westward. That shore was broken by several bays and small rivers, and eleven miles westward was the fishing-village of —. Nevertheless, the good old people were somewhat alarmed, and sat up all night over their kitchen fire.
By ten o’clock of the next day their fears had grown too troublesome to allow further inaction. Clump pulled over in his punt to the village, across the bay. There he got some sailors to take a boat and go down the south coast to look for us, and gathering all the advice and surmises he could, (which were not consoling), from seafaring men he knew, returned to the cape.
When Juno heard Clump’s report, her distress was very great. As she groaned, and wiped her wet, shrivelled eyes with a duster, she said—
“Lor’ o’ Marsy! Clump, ef harm’s cum ter dem chiles ob Massa Tregellin—den—den—you berry me—berry dis ole ’ooman deep.”
“Now, toff your mout, June—toff your mout! Wen I’se done berry you, ou yer ’spects gwine ’posit Clump en de bowels ob de arth, ay? He jist stay here and tink.”—He did not mean think, but another word commencing with that unpronounceable s—“You’se fool, ole ’ooman; when you’se begin mittrut de Lor’, ay?”
Clump was so frightened himself that he had to talk pretty strong to his spouse.
Mr Clare, after morning service in the church at Q—town, where he had gone to hear a college friend preach, took advantage of the lovely autumn day to walk home, which was about ten miles. He made his way slowly, enjoying every foot of the road, little contemplating the shock he was to receive at his journey’s end.
He heard Clump and Juno’s report without a word, only growing paler and paler. Then he sat down and covered his face, and, after a moment of silence, asked the negroes certain questions as to the course they supposed us to have taken, as to the storm on the cape, etcetera, etcetera.