THE DREARY NIGHT RIDE.
Her brain is sick with thinking,
Her heart is almost sinking,
She cannot look before her,
On the evil haunted way;
Uphold her, oh! restore her!
Thou Lord of life and day.—MONCTON MILNES.
A few minutes after three o’clock, the carriage containing Drusilla and
her attendant stopped before the office of the Washington and Western
Virginia line of stage coaches.
In great anxiety, Drusilla drew up the carriage curtain and looked out
of the window.
There was no sign of a coach near the office.
“It is gone, it is gone,” she cried, clasping her hands in despair. “It
is gone and I know I can never reach the place in time to save him!”
“Now don’t you take on so, ma’am, that’s a dear child. The coach mayn’t
have come yet, much less gone,” said mammy, soothingly.
Meanwhile the porters about the office had come forward and commenced
unstrapping the baggage from behind.
Leo jumped off his seat and came and opened the carriage door and let
down the steps.
“Is it any use to alight, Leo? Is not the coach gone?” sighed the lady.
“Lor’, no, ma’am—it haven’t gone out of the stable yet. We’ve lots of
time.”
“Oh, thank heaven!” exclaimed Drusilla, in a tone of great relief.
Mammy gathered up her carpet bag, umbrella and big shawl—all carried for
her mistress’s accommodation and not for her own—and prepared to alight.
“Here, boy, you let me get out first, so I can help the madam,” she
said, handing a part of her paraphernalia to her son, and then clumsily
but safely tumbling herself down to the sidewalk.
“Take care, mammy,” said the boy, when all the danger was over.
“Now, that job’s done! I’m allus thankful when I can get out’n a
carriage without hurting of myself or breaking anything. And now, honey,
let me help _you_ out. Be careful, child,” she said, holding her arms
forth to receive her charge.
“Stand aside, please,” smiled Drusilla; and then, rather than avail
herself of mammy’s dangerous assistance, she alighted without aid, and
immediately entered the office, calling Leo to attend her.
Seeing a lady’s waiting-room back of the office, she gave her purse to
Leo, telling him to go to the clerk and secure their seats; but then, as
the sudden thought that they might all be already taken flashed into her
mind, she hurried after the boy up to the clerk’s desk and eagerly
inquired:
“Have you any seats left in the coach now about to start?”
“Yes, Miss; lots. We have nine inside, and only one taken.”
“Then I will take two at once,” said Drusilla, with another sigh of
relieved anxiety.
“Four, master, if you please; we’ll take four. _All_ the back seats and
one of the others,” said mammy.
“What is that for?” hastily whispered Drusilla.
“’Cause, child, you can’t sit up all night. You must lie down, and you
must have all the back seats to lie on like a sofy, you know,” whispered
mammy, in reply.
“How many seats will you take, Miss?” inquired the clerk, who had looked
on, pen in hand, while this low-toned consultation was going forward.
“Four,” answered Drusilla. “And my servant here will settle for them.
Come, nurse, leave Leo to finish this business, and attend me to the
ladies’ room.”
“Yes, honey, in one minute. I just want to stop here and see the _back_
seats secured all for you, all together, to lie down on. ’Twould be no
use for you to have three seats ’stributed all about the coach, for how
could you ’cline on them? Leave me to ’range for you, ma’am.”
“Very well, nurse, do as you think best,” said Drusilla, passing on to
the back room.
There was a side window, opening upon an alley leading to the stables
where the coaches were kept.
Drusilla perceived this, and seated herself by the window to watch for
the coming of the night coach. She was in such a state of feverish
anxiety, that she could not rest. True, two great causes of uneasiness
were removed. She was in time for the coach, and she could get seats
enough; but still, in her eager impatience, she could not be at peace,
and she longed to be on her journey, to feel herself whirled swiftly
onward towards the place she was so ardently desirous to reach.
Presently she was joined by mammy, who dropped her fat self down upon a
chair, making it creak under her weight, and said, triumphantly:
“Well, honey, it’s all right, and you’ll travel as easy as if you was a
lying on your own sofy! I left that boy Leo to watch the luggidge.”
“I’m very much obliged to you; but at the same time, if the coach should
be full, and any one should want two of my places, they must have them,”
said Drusilla.
“Must they? What’s the use o’ our paying for them, if it wasn’t to keep
out all ’truders that _did_ come? If the coach wasn’t _going_ to be
full, we needn’t a paid for no extra seats, seeing as we might a had ’em
for nothing, ma’am. And don’t you think so much of other people. Think a
little more of yourself, ma’am. Take a _little_ bit of pity on yourself,
which you never does, though the Lord knows you needs it.”
Mammy’s discourse was interrupted by music as delightful to the eager
ears of Drusilla as the sublimest strains of Handel—the rumbling of the
stage-coach as it rolled out of the stable yard, and whirled around the
corner and drew up before the office door.
Drusilla was on her feet in an instant.
“Now don’t be in such a hurry, ma’am. You be quiet. Bless you, it will
be some time yet before it starts. They’ve got all the luggidge to put
up yet. Leo, he’ll call us when it’s time to get in.”
With a sigh Drusilla dropped into her seat. Moments seemed hours, and
hours months to her, until she could reach old Lyon Hall and prevent the
consummation of her Alick’s meditated crime.
At length the long wished for signal came. Leo looked into the room,
touched his hat, and said:
“Coach ready, ma’am.”
Drusilla arose in haste and excitement.
Leo loaded himself with the light luggage.
Mammy drew her big blanket shawl about her, and so they went out of the
office.
“Leo, my good boy, take great care of yourself and your sister, and of
the house and the animals, while I am gone,” said the lady.
“Yes, ma’am; you may trust me for that,” answered the boy, very
earnestly.
“And Leo, mind, go to the office every day; and if you find letters for
me, put them in the directed and stamped envelopes I gave you, and post
them with your own hand—do you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am, and will be sure to remember,” said Leo, almost weeping.
She shook hands with her servant, and sent her love by him to Pina, and
bade him good-bye.
In another moment Drusilla and her attendant were in the coach—the only
passengers there.
Drusilla sat reclining in the corner of the back seat, but mammy, who
had not yet seated herself, was fussing about, stowing away such
portable luggage as they had brought in their hands.
“There, honey!” she said, as she placed a carpet bag in the other corner
of the seat, where her lady sat, and spread a soft shawl doubled over
it, “there, that will be a tolerable pillow for you when you want to lay
down. And here’s another shawl that’ll do to spread over you. And I
reckon I might’s well take the lunching basket and umberella on to the
seat with me. And, dear knows, it looks as if we was agoing to have all
the coach to ourselves, any way; so we had no call to pay for so many
seats we might a had for nothing.”
While mammy rambled on in this manner, apparently for no other purpose
than the pleasure of hearing the sound of her own voice, Drusilla sat
gazing out of the window at her own pretty little carriage, with her
faithful boy perched upon the coachman’s seat. Poor Leo was waiting to
see his beloved mistress off before leaving the spot.
“And now let me see—whar shall I put this ’ere bundle so I won’t forget
it? And here, ma’am, you better take this purty little reticule o’ yours
in with you, ’cause——”
“Nurse,” said Drusilla, drawing in her head, “you had better sit down
and be still. The coach is about to start.”
“Yes, ma’am, so I will, soon’s ever I find a convenient place for these
gum shoes in case we have to get out in the wet, ’cause you see, honey—”
The sudden starting of the coach stopped mammy’s oration short by
jerking her forward upon her hands and knees.
“Lor’ a massy upon me! This is a pretty beginning, isn’t it now? if it’s
all agoing to be like this!” grumbled mammy, as she gathered herself up,
and reeled to and fro with the swinging action of the coach before she
could recover her equilibrium and take her seat.
Drusilla, who was looking out of the window, and waving her hand in a
last adieu to her poor devoted servant, did not perceive mammy’s
summersault or her complaints.
The coach swung on at a fearful rate until it reached Fourteenth street,
where it stopped at the great hotel there.
“I s’pects here’s where they’re gwine to pick up the other passenger,
which sorry enough am I for it as anybody else should be intruding upon
us,” said mammy, folding her arms and sitting up as if she had been in
her own private equipage.
But Drusilla lay back in her corner, not even caring enough about her
unknown fellow-passenger to turn her eyes towards the sidewalk.
A tall young man, wrapped in a dark cloak, with its collar turned up
around his face, and wearing a cap pulled low over his brow, came out of
the hotel, followed by a porter with some luggage.
The luggage was put into the boot behind. The young man climbed up on
top.
“Oh, a outside passenger, after all, thank goodness,” said mammy,
reposing herself cautiously back upon the cushions to avoid another jar
as the horses started.
The coach thundered down Fourteenth street south, and onward until it
reached the foot of the Long Bridge, where it slackened speed, as “the
law directs.”
Ah, Heaven! what pleasing, painful memories were awakened in the poor
child’s mind and heart by the sight of this old bridge.
Upon just such a day and hour as this she had crossed it for the first
time. Then as now, the gorgeous crimson rays of the afternoon sun blazed
down upon the river, and the wintry wooded shores were reflected in deep
shadows along the reddened waters. Then as now, the scene was
transfigured by the hour into supernal beauty and glory.
But _then_ she was a newly made and blessed bride, seated by her
husband’s side and going to share his home and bless his life.
Scarcely eleven months had passed, and now, now she was recrossing the
same river, gazing on the same scene, at the same hour,—a deserted wife
though an expectant mother—a nearly heart-broken woman because an
accusing spirit, going to confront her husband, and confound his
criminal plans. And at this hour on the morrow, where should she be? At
Old Lyon Hall, bringing exposure and shame upon her guilty but still
dear Alick—bringing mortification and sorrow to his expectant young
bride—spreading consternation and gloom among the gay wedding guests.
Could she bear to do this? But perhaps at this hour to-morrow she might
be dead and “past her pain,” for who could say whether she would have
strength to live through the terrors of the scene she was so resolved to
brave?
Her mournful reverie was interrupted by mammy. The slow motion of the
coach was favorable to conversation, and mammy loved to let her tongue
run.
“You see that sunset, don’t you, ma’am?” asked the old woman, pointing
to where the sun was slowly sinking behind some long black clouds that
lay along the summits of the western hills.
“Yes, I see them.”
“That means bad weather, ma’am. All the good Indy summer goes down with
that sun, ma’am. You may take my ’sperience for that. We gwine to have
rain and wind, and may be snow and sleet. For my part I pray to the Lord
as we may reach our journey’s end before it comes too severe. When does
you expect to get there, ma’am?”
“Some time to-morrow afternoon or evening; I do not exactly know the
hour.”
The coach reached the western terminus of the bridge, passed quietly
through it, and then rapidly increasing its speed, thundered onward over
the rough old turnpike road.
Trees, houses, farms, forests flew past as the coach whirled onward up
hill and down dale, until it reached Alexandria.
It drew up in the midst of the old town, before its office, took the
address of the single passenger for whom it was directed to call,
changed horses for a fresh start, and swung around into Duke street.
What was it here that suddenly aroused Drusilla from her painful
absorption in her own troubled thoughts?
The coach drew up before the house in which she had been married!
She let down her veil, and, growing rapidly red and pale with
excitement, looked out.
Soon the door opened, and the young minister—the very one who had
performed her marriage ceremony—came out, carpet bag in hand, and shawl
over his shoulders.
“You see I am quite punctual,” he said, speaking to the gentleman
passenger on top.
The other did not reply, but probably made a sign, for the minister
nodded pleasantly, saying:
“Yes. I am coming up there to sit by you. Besides, the night is so fine
it would be a pity to box one’s self up inside.”
And with this the reverend traveller climbed to his place, and the coach
started.
Drusilla sat back in her corner and drew aside her veil. Then she saw at
the same moment mammy draw her head in from the other window and raise
her eyes with a look of astonishment.
“Well, if that don’t beat Injuns!”
“What, nurse?” inquired Drusilla.
“Why, honey, that gentleman as has just got up on top, is the Reberend
Mr. Hopper.”
“You have known him, then,” said Drusilla, with awakened interest.
“Hi, honey, why wouldn’t I know my own pastors and masters and sponsors
in baptism? Sure I does know him, good too. Didn’t I sit underneaf of
his preaching ebber since here he’s been till I come to lib long o’ you?
What you talking ’bout, honey? I knows him good as I do my own chillun.”
“Is he an Alexandria man?”
“Oh lor, no, honey, not he! He comes from the northud and hasn’t been in
these here parts moren’ a year; no, nor come to think of it, that long,
nyther; ’cause I ’members well, he come the first of last Janivary as
ebber was.”
“Then,” thought Drusilla to herself, “he could not have been but a few
days in the State before he married Alick and me.” And speaking aloud,
she asked—“What did you say his name was, nurse? I have forgotten.”
“Hopper, child! Mr. Hopper, honey; the Reberent Mr. Hopper; which
whoever heard tell of a reberent gentleman of the name o’ Hopper, which
to my thinking is more besuited a dancing-master, or a skipping-jack nor
a Methody minis’er. But so it is, honey; and I ’spose people aint to be
blamed for their misfortnit names. But what _I_ would like to know is,
what he gwine prowlywowling ’bout the country for?” said mammy.
And Drusilla shared her curiosity, though she did not answer it.
“What, indeed, could be taking this young Methodist minister, who had
married her to Alick, and who could testify to the validity of the
marriage? What _could_ be taking him on the same day, by the same
conveyance, on the same journey with herself? Could his errand have any
connection with Alick’s approaching iniquitous marriage, or with his
prior one? Indeed it looked so.
“But, nonsense, I am morbid and fanciful; the minister who married us
happens to be journeying at the same time and in the same coach with
myself, and I jump to the conclusion that he is going to the like place
on the like business. What a weak fool my sorrows have made me, to be
sure,” said Drusilla to herself, taking her imagination to task for its
vagaries.
But she could not quite stop its wanderings.
“I’ll tell you what, honey, the night is a going to be a bad one. Them
clouds over there is a banking up like mountains of soot. And the most
_I_ care for is this:—it will drive them there passengers from the top
to the inside, to moilest us,” said mammy, drawing her head in from the
window.
“Well, they have a right to come, nurse. You would not keep them out in
the rain all night, would you?”
“Yes; that I would; ’cause I want to have the coach all to ourselves,”
said mammy, positively.
It was quite dark and very cloudy when the coach reached the little,
rural town of Drainsville, where the horses were to be changed and the
passengers were to take tea.
“Come, honey; les us get out,” said mammy, hiding away some of her
treasures, while she loaded herself with others.
“I think I would rather stay here, nurse,” said Drusilla, languidly.
“No, no, no,” objected mammy, authoritatively, “not at all. I can’t
allow it. The coach will be here for a good half an hour. You get out,
and come in the house, and walk about a little to stretch your limbs;
and take off your bonnet to ease your head, and have your tea
comfortable. It will freshen you up a heap for the rest of the journey.
“And the goodness gracious alive knows as you _need_ freshening up, and
you won’t get another chance till the stage stops at Frostville to
breakfast. And that will be a good twelve hour long. Think of that, now,
and do as I ’vises of you.”
Before mammy was half through her exordium, Drusilla, convinced by her
eloquence, had risen to her feet, and was drawing her cloak around her.
She saw through the darkness her fellow-travellers from the top get off
and go into the bar-room of the neat and comfortable inn. And she gave
her hand to the guard, who kindly came around to help her to alight.
“There, Miss, there is the private door—a nice place, Miss, with a nice
landlady and a good table; shall I take you in, Miss?” he inquired,
hoisting a large umbrella, for it was now beginning to rain.
“Thanks, yes,” returned Drusilla, “the ground seems slippery.”
“This way, if you please, Miss.”
“Bad manners to your imperence, this lady is a married lady, and not a
young Miss,” said mammy, indignantly.
“Beg pardon; but I thought the madam _looked_ young,” said the guard,
laughing, yet not disrespectfully.
He took her safely across the slippery way, and showed her into a neat,
well warmed and lighted parlor, where the table was cleanly set for tea.
The landlady, a cheerful, hospitable looking person, as a landlady
should be, came to meet her.
“Would you like to go to a bedroom, ma’am?” inquired the smiling
hostess, who was led into no mistake by the child face of her guest,
because her quick and experienced eye had discovered the truth at a
glance.
“Yes, please,” answered Drusilla.
And preceded by the landlady and followed by the nurse, she was taken up
stairs to a large bed room, whose red carpet, white walls and draperies,
and bright fire, gave it a very pleasant aspect.
Drusilla sauntered about, enjoying the privilege of locomotion.
“You’ll have tea, I suppose, ma’am?” inquired the hostess.
“Yes, please; and I will have it here,” answered Drusilla, as she took
off her bonnet and laid it on the table.
The landlady left the room to issue orders.
While waiting for her tea, Drusilla washed her face and took down her
hair and combed it out, and then did it up loosely in a net, so that she
would be able to lie down and sleep with it so. Then she made the
fastenings of her clothing easy.
And by the time she had finished preparing her toilet for the night
journey, a maid-servant appeared with a tablecloth and tea tray.
Drusilla drank two cups of tea, for she was feverishly thirsty. And
then, being scolded into the measure by mammy, who assured her that two
lives depended on her feeding, she ate a buttered muffin, and the breast
of a boiled chicken with cream sauce.
Drusilla, in the child-like simplicity of her heart, would have made her
nurse sit down to the table and partake her supper.
But mammy asserted that she—Aunt Hector—knew her place. And so she
filled the slop bowl brimming full of tea, piled up a plate with three
quarters of the chicken and half a dozen muffins, went off to a distant
corner of the room, seated herself upon an old chest, ranged her supper
around her, and, with a promptness and dispatch that made her mistress
stare, she dispatched all these edibles, and announced herself in
condition to pursue her journey.
“And now if the coach is ready, I is.”
But if mammy and the coach were both ready, the passengers at the
tea-table down stairs were not; but the coach was not so very strictly
confined to time, and so it was a good quarter of an hour longer, and
Drusilla had ample leisure to put on her bonnet, and to pay her bill,
before she and her attendant were summoned to take their places.
The guard kindly and carefully assisted the delicate young matron into
her corner of the back seat, saying that he would warn the other
passengers who were coming in for the night that the whole of it
belonged to her.
She thanked him, and then called to her nurse to make haste and enter.
“Yes, honey, yes; I’m coming just as soon’s ever I catch my eyes on them
two little red morocky trunks, which I haven’t seen ’em since we left
Alexandry,” said mammy, who was behind the coach, engaged in a sharp
argument with both coachman and hostler.
“I tell you, woman,” said the former, “the blamed red trunks is all
right. They is inside of the boot, kivered over with the ile skin to
keep out the wet.”
“Yes, so you say; but I’d a heap rather see ’em with my own two looking
eyes. And believe you I won’t till I does,” snapped mammy.
“There then, blast you, look for yourself,” said the hostler, pulling
apart the leathern flaps of the boot.
Mammy peeped through the aperture, and seeing the treasure safe, she
smiled and said:
“Thank ye, sir. Sorry to give you trouble; but seeing is believing, and
nothing short of it aint.—Yes, honey; yes, honey, I’m coming now!” she
exclaimed, in answer to her lady’s repeated summonses.
Mammy tumbled up into the coach with even more than her usual blundering
awkwardness; for it was as dark as Tophet, and the guard did not seem to
consider it necessary to hold a light to such a refractory passenger.
And so mammy, after fumbling blindly about to find the seat she had
formerly occupied, turned and dropped herself heavily down upon a
gentleman’s lap. A simultaneous—
“Oh!”
A cry of pain from the victim and of surprise from the oppressor arose.
“Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure; but I’m a heavy ole ’oman, and you shouldn’t
a hit up agin me.”
“Hit up agin you! Oh!” exclaimed the injured party, in a tragi-comic
groan.
At the sound of his voice Drusilla started violently, and lowered her
veil; though in fact it was too dark either to see or to be seen; for
oh! with what a thrill of vague dread she recognized Dick Hammond’s
tones, although she could not discern his face!
“I wish you wouldn’t yowl out in that onyearthly way, sir; you’ll
disturb a deliky lady I has in my charge,” expostulated mammy.
“Oh, I’ll roar you softly an’ it were a sucking dove, and bear my
tortures with the patience of a slaughtered lamb,” laughed Dick, in a
lachrymose manner.
“I hope it aint as bad as all that, sir. Take a sup o’ brandy out of my
bottle,” said mammy, feeling about all the vacant seats with her big
hands.
At this instant the coach started so suddenly with such a violent lurch,
that mammy was jerked back, and precipitated upon the knees of the
unlucky Dick. And in scrambling upon her feet she laid hold of his hair
to help herself up by.
“Outch!” screeched the victim. “She’s finished me now. She has scalped
me and broken both my legs. I know they’ll have to be amputated!”
“Very sorry, sir, I’m sure,” said mammy, as she reeled about with the
swinging of the coach, and finally dropped into a vacant seat. “Very
sorry, but you _will_ keep a hitting up agin me. I hope you aint hurt
much?”
“Hurt much? I tell you you have crushed both my knees to a pulp, and I
know I shall have to get them taken off.”
“Very sorry, sir! but I can recommend you to a doctor as saws legs off
beautiful, and likewise to a upholster who sells elegant wooden ones,”
said mammy, sympathetically.
“Many thanks! But how about my head? You have pulled two great handfuls
of hair out by the roots, and I know I shall have to get the rest
shaved!” laughed and groaned Dick.
“Well, sir, I can direct you to a gentleman of the barbarous line of
business, who will shave your head as clean as a peeled potaty, and sell
you a lovely false wig.”
“A million of gratitudes! When I require your valuable guidance I will
seek it. But for the present, I begin to suspect that my limbs were not
quite crushed, but only benumbed; and instead of being scalped outright
I have only lost a handful of hair,” said Dick, as he settled himself
comfortably in his seat, and subsided into silence.
“How does you feel now, honey? Is you comformerble?” inquired mammy, in
a low tone, addressing her charge.
She received no answer.
“I do b’lieve how she’s sleep. How is you getting along, honey?”
repeated mammy. But with no better success.
“I do ’spose she _is_ ’sleep! But, Lor’, I daren’t go nearer to her to
see for fear I should fall on her, and mash her, which would be
dreadful. Tell me if you is asleep, honey; ’cause if you is I won’t wake
you up,” said mammy, raising her voice, and listening attentively.
But still she received no reply,
“Wonder what’s the matter with her?” muttered mammy, uneasily.
“She’s asleep,” answered Dick.
“Well, if she’s ’sleep, why couldn’t she tell me so when I axed her?”
“She has told you so,” replied Dick.
“Lor’! why she hasn’t said a single word!”
“No; but she has told you so in the only way a sleeper could,—by her
silence. If she had been awake, she would have spoken; wouldn’t she?”
“Sure enough; I never thought of that before. See what it is to have a
head-piece. But is you sartain sure she is asleep?”
“Certain sure,” answered Dick, bending forward, and listening to the
soft, low, regular breathing of his invisible fellow-passenger.
“Well, thank Goodness for that!” said mammy, as she settled herself to
rest.
The stage-coach had been thundering on its way at a tremendous rate for
several miles, but now it had to cross a broad but shallow stream and to
go slowly.
Suddenly, Dick yawned, and then, addressing his fat neighbor, inquired:
“Does your ladyship object to smoking?”
“Yes, sir,” replied mammy, sharply; “my ladyship _do_ very much so,
indeed; and so do my missus,—which, sleeping or ’waking, I believe it
would make her sick.”
“Oh, your missus! True? Well, let’s see what sort of weather it is
outside—though, in point of fact, I had rather bear the rain than
forbear my cigar,” said Dick, as he opened the window and looked forth
into the blackness of the night.
The rain had ceased and the clouds had parted as with the promise of
clearing off entirely. A few stars were shining out.
“Come; not so bad a night after all. I have been out in worse. And as
soon as we get upon dry land again, I think I will climb up on top and
take a smoke. Eh, what do you say, Aunty? Shall I help you up also? I
know you’d like your pipe!” said Dick.
“I scorn your insiniwations, sir, and I ’vises of you, if you is agoing
out in the damp night air, as you’d better take care and not get cold in
your ‘raw head and bloody bones,’ as you was a-complaining of.”
“Thanks for your caution, Aunty. I shall be sure to profit by it,”
laughed Dick.
And then as the coach was slowly crawling out of the mud that bordered
the shallow stream, he called the coachman to halt.
“I wish to get up on top,” said Dick.
And when the man complied with his wishes, Dick left his seat and went
up.
There now remained two other passengers besides Drusilla and her
attendant. These were two gentlemen that occupied the corners of the
front seat, with their backs to the horses. But they sat so quietly that
but for their breathing and an occasional cough or low-toned word, mammy
would have been unconscious of their presence.
And now Drusilla bent forward and cautiously touched the nurse, and
whispered:
“Mammy, come and sit by me. I have something to say to you. Don’t answer
me aloud, but do as I tell you.”
“Lor’, honey, is you waked up? It was that there man a-making of his
noise, getting outn’t his seat. Some people can’t never keep quiet. But,
honey, I’m afraid if I moves I might fall on you,” said mammy.
“No, you won’t; we have no jolts here. Guide yourself by the left side
of the seat, and I will give you my hand.”
“Yes, honey,” said the old woman, and slowly and carefully she changed
her “base,” and safely reached the haven beside her mistress.
“Nurse,” whispered Drusilla, “I have not been asleep.”
“My! haven’t you, honey? Why didn’t you answer me, then?”
“Because I did not wish to talk. That gentleman who got in just the
moment before you, is a passenger that was picked up at Drainsville, he
is the same person who brought me the bad news yesterday.”
“Don’t say!”
“Hush! speak very low; we are not alone, you know.”
“And to think I never knowed him agin.”
“That is not strange. It is quite too dark for you to have seen his
face. I only knew him by his voice.”
“Well, I heard his woice too; but I didn’t know it agin.”
“You heard it only in a moment of terror, and when its very sound was
unnatural. It is not strange that you should not have recognized it
again.”
“Well, I’m sure! Where’s he going?”
“I don’t know, nurse. Probably where _we_ are going. But I do not wish
him to recognize _me_, lest he should like me to talk; and I cannot talk
of my affairs. I say this to caution you. Be on you guard.”
“Yes, honey, I’ll be on my guard. And you may keep yourself dark during
the night; but I don’t see how you gwine to manage when it is daylight.”
“I must keep my veil down,” said Drusilla.
“Well, honey, I hope you will succeed.”