"Grandison, I 'm going up the road a bit, to the inn over yonder. You
stay here until I return. I 'll not be gone a great while."
Grandison's eyes opened wide and he looked somewhat fearful.
"Is dey any er dem dadblasted abolitioners roun' heah, Mars Dick?"
"I don't imagine that there are," replied his master, hoping there
might be. "But I 'm not afraid of _your_ running away, Grandison. I only
wish I were," he added to himself.
Dick walked leisurely down the road to where the whitewashed inn, built
of stone, with true British solidity, loomed up through the trees by the
roadside. Arrived there he ordered a glass of ale and a sandwich, and
took a seat at a table by a window, from which he could see Grandison in
the distance. For a while he hoped that the seed he had sown might have
fallen on fertile ground, and that Grandison, relieved from the
restraining power of a master's eye, and finding himself in a free
country, might get up and walk away; but the hope was vain, for
Grandison remained faithfully at his post, awaiting his master's return.
He had seated himself on a broad flat stone, and, turning his eyes away
from the grand and awe-inspiring spectacle that lay close at hand, was
looking anxiously toward the inn where his master sat cursing his
ill-timed fidelity.
By and by a girl came into the room to serve his order, and Dick very
naturally glanced at her; and as she was young and pretty and remained
in attendance, it was some minutes before he looked for Grandison. When
he did so his faithful servant had disappeared.
To pay his reckoning and go away without the change was a matter quickly
accomplished. Retracing his footsteps toward the Falls, he saw, to his
great disgust, as he approached the spot where he had left Grandison,
the familiar form of his servant stretched out on the ground, his face
to the sun, his mouth open, sleeping the time away, oblivious alike to
the grandeur of the scenery, the thunderous roar of the cataract, or the
insidious voice of sentiment.
"Grandison," soliloquized his master, as he stood gazing down at his
ebony encumbrance, "I do not deserve to be an American citizen; I ought
not to have the advantages I possess over you; and I certainly am not
worthy of Charity Lomax, if I am not smart enough to get rid of you. I
have an idea! You shall yet be free, and I will be the instrument of
your deliverance. Sleep on, faithful and affectionate servitor, and
dream of the blue grass and the bright skies of old Kentucky, for it is
only in your dreams that you will ever see them again!"
Dick retraced his footsteps towards the inn. The young woman chanced to
look out of the window and saw the handsome young gentleman she had
waited on a few minutes before, standing in the road a short distance
away, apparently engaged in earnest conversation with a colored man
employed as hostler for the inn. She thought she saw something pass from
the white man to the other, but at that moment her duties called her
away from the window, and when she looked out again the young gentleman
had disappeared, and the hostler, with two other young men of the
neighborhood, one white and one colored, were walking rapidly towards
the Falls.