Leaving a note on her door to tell our landlady1 that business would keep me away an indefinite time, I got out at the front gate unobserved, and with a sweet dignity that charmed me with myself walked away under a bewitching parasol, well veiled.
I knew where to find my two sportsmen. A few hundred paces put the town and an open field at my back; a few more down a bushy lane brought me where a dense2 wood overhung both sides of the narrow way, and the damp air was full of the smell of penny-royal and of creek3 sands. From here I proposed to saunter down through the woods to the creek, locate my fishermen, and draw them my way by cries of distress4.
On their reaching my side my story, told through my veil and between meanings and clingings, was to be that while on a journey in my own coach, a part of its running-gear having broken, I had sent it on to be mended; that through love of trees and wild flowers I had ventured to stay alone meantime among them, and that a snake had bitten me on the ankle. I should describe a harmless one but insist I was poisoned, and yet refuse to show the wound or be borne back to the road, or to let either man stay with me alone while the other went for a doctor, or to drink their whiskey for a cure. On getting back to the road--with the two fellows for crutches--I should send both to town for my coach, keeping with me their tackle and fish. Then I should get myself and my spoils back to our dwelling5 as best I could and--await the issue. If this poor performance had so come off--but see what occurred instead!
I had shut my parasol and moved into hiding behind some wild vines to mop my face, when near by on the farther side of the way came slyly into view a negro and negress. They were in haste to cross the road yet quite as wishful to cross unseen. One, in home-spun gown and sunbonnet, was ungainly, shoeless, bird-heeled, fan-toed, ragged7, and would have been painfully ugly but for a grotesqueness8 almost winsome9.
"She's a field-hand," was my thought.
The other, in very clean shirt, trousers, and shoes, looking ten years younger and hardly full-grown, was shapely and handsome. "That boy," thought I, "is a house-servant. The two don't belong in the same harness. And yet I'd bet a new hat they're runaways11."
Now they gathered courage to come over. With a childish parade of unconcern and with all their glances up and down the road, they came, and were within seven steps of me before they knew I was near. I shall never forget the ludicrous horror that flashed white and black from the eyes in that sun-bonnet6, nor the snort with which its owner, like a frightened heifer, crashed off a dozen yards into the brush and as suddenly stopped.
"Good morning, boy," I said to the other, who had gulped12 with consternation13, yet stood still.
"Good mawnin', mist'ess."
The feminine title came luckily. I had forgotten my disguise, so disarmed14 was I by the refined dignity of the dark speaker's mellow15 voice and graceful16 modesty17. After all, my prejudices were Southern. I had rarely seen negroes, at worship, work, or play, without an inward groan18 for some way--righteous way--by which our land might be clean rid of them. But here, in my silly disguise, confronting this unmixed young African so manifestly superior to millions of our human swarm19 white or black, my unsympathetic generalizations20 were clear put to shame. The customary challenge, "Who' d'you belong to?" failed on my lips, and while those soft eyes passed over me from bonnet to mitts21 I gave my head as winsome a tilt22 as I could and inquired: "What is your name?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you; what is it?"
"I'm name', eh, Euonymus; yass'm."
"Oh, boy, where'd your mother get that name?"
"Why, mist'ess, ain't dat a Bible name?"
"Oh, yes," I said, remembering Onesimus. With my parasol I indicated the other figure, sunbonneted, motionless, gazing on us through the brush.
"Has she a Bible name too?"
"Yass'm; Robelia."
Robelia brought chin and shoulder together and sniggered. "Euonymus," I asked, "have you seen two young gentlemen, fishing, anywhere near here?"
"Yass'm, dey out 'pon a san'bar 'bout23 two hund'ed yards up de creek." The black finger that pointed24 was as clean as mine.
"You and this woman," thought I again, "are dodging25 those men." With a smile as of curiosity I looked my slim informant over once more. I had never seen slavery so flattered yet so condemned26.
All at once I said in my heart: "You, my lad, I'll help to escape!" But when I looked aga............