My attendants were heavy with sleep. Seating Rebecca next me I called Euonymus into the coach and let mother, son, and daughter slumber1 at ease.
To the few persons we met I paraded my bonnet2 and curls. Some, in Southern fashion, I questioned. I was a widow who had sold her plantation3 in order to go and live with a widowed brother. Euonymus too I showed off, who, waking at every halt, presented a face that seemed any boy's rather than a runaway's. So natural to these Africans was the supernatural that I could be one of the men who plucked Lot from Sodom and yet a becurled widow.
When at noon, at a farmhouse4, we had fed horses and dined, I at the planter's board, my "slaves" under the house-grove trees, Euonymus took the lines, and for five hours Luke slept inside. Then they changed places again, and Euonymus and I, face to face, watched the long hot day wane5, and pass through gorgeous changes into twilight6. Often I saw questions in the young eyes that watched me so reverently7, but I dared not encourage them; dared not be a talkative angel. Also my brain had its questions. How was I to get out of the most perilous8 trap into which a sane9 man--if sane I was--ever thrust himself? There was no sign that we were being pursued, but it was a harrowing puzzle how, without drawing suspicion upon the runaways10, to get them once more separated from me and the coach while I should vanish as a lady and reappear as a gentleman.
"Euonymus, boy, if I should by and by dress as a man could you put these woman things on, over what you're wearing, and be a lady in my place?"
"Why, eh, y'--yass'm. Oh, yass'm, ef you say so, my--mistress; howsomever, you know what de good book say' 'bout11 de Ethiopium."
"Can't change--yes, I know; but this would be only for an hour or two and in the dark."
"It'd have to be pow'ful dahk," sighed Euonymus, and from Robelia's sunbonnet came--"Unh!"
Rebecca interposed: "An' still, o' co'se, we all gwine do ezac'ly what you say."
"Well," I responded, "maybe we won't do that." And we never did. I was still "Mrs. Southmayd," as we came into a small railway station. At the ticket-window I asked if any one had come up in the train of half an hour before, inquiring for a lady in a coach.
"No, ma'am, nobody got off that train. But there's another train at half past eight."
"Oh," I whined12, "he won't come on that; he's overrated my speed and gone on to the next station, making five miles more going for me!"
"Why, no, you can give three of your servants a pass to go on with the carriage, keep your maid and wait for the train."
"Ah, no! No lady can choose to travel by rail where she can go in her own coach!"
They said no more except to warn Luke of a bad piece of road about two miles on. Sure enough, in its very middle--crack!--we broke down. "De kingbolt done gone clean in two!" said Luke, and Robelia repeated the news explosively.
"We'll leave the coach," I announced. "Fold the lap-robes on the backs of the two horses, for Rebecca and me. You-all can walk beside us."
After a while, so going, we passed a large plantation house, its windows ruddy with home cheer. A second quarter-mile brought dimly to view a railroad water-tank and an empty flag-station house, and in the next bit of woods I spoke13 to Euonymus: "Have you that bundle? Ah, yes. Luke, this boy and I are going off here a step for me to change my dress. If any passer questions you, say I'll be right back."
"Yass, madam, but, er, eh--wouldn' you sooner take yo' maid, Robelia, instid?"
"No, for as to dress I'll be as much of a man, when I get back, as Euonymus."
"Is Euonymus gwine change dress too?"
"No, these things that I take off, your wife and Robelia may divide between them."
I started away but Luke lifted a hand. I thought he was going to claim every dud for Robelia. Not so.
"It hasn't got to be told me, Luke, if I----"
"Oh, no, madam, o' co'se. I 'uz on'y gwine say--a-concernin' Euonymus----"
I hurried off while the wife chided her good man: "Why don't you dess hide all dem thing' in yo' heart like dey used to do when d' angel 'pear' unto dem?"
Alone with Euonymus, as I whipped off my feminine garb15 and whirled into the other, I began to say that however suddenly I might leave the fugitives16 they must rest assured that I was not deserting them. To which----
"Oh, my Lawd," Euonymus replied, "us know dat!"
We reached the pike again. "Rebecca, dismount. Hand me your bridle17. Luke, for you-all's better safety I'm going back and return these horses. We may not see one another again----"
"Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy!" moaned Rebecca.
"In dis vain worl' you mean," Luke said.
"That's all. Come, don't waste time. You'd better walk on for a short way in the pike before taking to the woods. Now go all night for all you're worth. Good-by." I turned abruptly18. But my led horse was averse19 to abruptness20, and all the family except the torpid21 Robelia poured up their blessings22 and rained kisses on my very feet.
In my half-intelligent plan I intended first to stop at the house we had gone by, and had reached the gate of its front lane when I met one of its household, a lad of sixteen, on the pike.
"Yes, he had just seen the disabled coach."
I said that by business appointment with the lady who had just left the coach I had gone to the next railway station northward23 in order to meet her. That I had come down the turnpike on a hired horse and met her and her servants pushing forward to our appointment as best they could. Now, I said, our business, a law matter, was accomplished24 and she was gone on on my hired horse. This span I was taking back to the stable whence I had hired them for her in the morning.
The boy's graciousness shamed me through and through. "Why, certainly! He would have the coach drawn25 up to the house before sunrise and would keep it as long as I liked." He asked me in, but I went on to the little railway town, repeated my tarradiddle at its "hotel," and soon was asleep.
["'Tarradi'l','" said Mme. Castanado, "tha'z may be a species of paternoster, I suppose, eh?"
"No," said Scipion, "I think tha'z juz' a fashion of speech that he took a drink. I do that myself, going to bed."
Chester explained, but said that to admit one's untruthfulness by even a nickname implied some compunction. Whereat two or three put in:
"Ah! if he acknowledge' his compunction he's all right! But we are stopping the story."
It went on.]
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1
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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2
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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3
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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5
wane
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| n.衰微，亏缺，变弱；v.变小，亏缺，呈下弦 | |
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6
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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7
reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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8
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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9
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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runaways
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| （轻而易举的）胜利( runaway的名词复数 ) | |
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bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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12
whined
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| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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13
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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14
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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15
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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16
fugitives
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| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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18
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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19
averse
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| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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20
abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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21
torpid
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| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
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22
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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23
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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24
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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25
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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