"There's a stranger to see you, grandfather," called a girl's even voice from the house; "finish paying off the hands and come in at once.""Well, of all the impudence!" exclaimed the young man, with a saving dash of humour.Then, without so much as a parting word, he ran quickly down the steps and started rapidly in the direction of the darkening road, while the silk dress rustled upon the porch and at the garden gate as the latch was lifted.
"Go in, grandfather!" called the girl's voice from the garden, to which Fletcher responded as decisively.
"For Heaven's sake, let me manage my own affairs, Maria.You seem to have inherited your poor mother's pesky habit of meddling.""Well, I told you a gentleman was waiting," returned the girl stubbornly."You didn't let us know he was coming, either, and Lindy says there isn't a thing fit to eat for supper."Fletcher snorted, and then, before entering the house, stopped to haggle with an old Negro woman for a pair of spring chickens hanging dejectedly from her outstretched hand, their feet tied together with a strip of faded calico.
"How much you gwine gimme fer dese, marster?" she inquired anxiously, deftly twirling them about until they swung with heads aloft.
Rising to the huckster's instinct, Fletcher poked the offerings suspiciously beneath their flapping wings.
"Thirty cents for the pair--not a copper more," he responded promptly; "they're as poor as Job's turkey, both of 'em.""Lawdy, marster, you know better'n dat."
"They're skin and bones, I tell you; feel 'em yourself.Well, take it or leave it, thirty cents is all I'll give.""Go 'way f'om yere, suh; dese yer chickings ain' no po' w'ite trash--dey's been riz on de bes' er de lan', dey is--en de aigs dey wuz hatched right dar in de middle er de baid whar me en my ole man en de chillun sleep.De hull time dat black hen wuz a-settin', Cephus he was bleeged ter lay right spang on de bar'
flo' caze we'uz afeared de aigs 'ould addle.Lawd! Lawd! dey wuz plum three weeks a-hatchin', en de weather des freeze thoo en thoo.Cephus he's been crippled up wid de rheumatics ever sence.
Go 'way f'om yer, marster.I warn't bo'n yestiddy.Thirty cents!""Not a copper more, I tell you.Let me go, my good woman; I can't stand here all night.""Des a minute, marster.Dese yer chickings ain' never sot dey feet on de yearth, caze dey's been riz right in de cabin, en dey's done et dar vittles outer de same plate wid me en Cephus.
Ef'n dey spy a chice bit er bacon on de een er de knife hit 'uz moughty likely ter fin' hits way down dir throat instid er down me en Cephus'.""Let me go, I say--I don't want your blamed chickens; take 'em home again.""Hi! marster, I'se Mehitable.You ain't fergot how peart I use ter wuk w'en you wuz over me in ole marster's day.You know you ain' fergot Mehitable, suh.Ain't you recollect de time ole marster gimme a dollar wid his own han' caze I foun' de biggest wum in de hull 'baccy patch? Lawd! dey wuz times, sho's you bo'n.
I kin see ole marster now es plain es ef twuz yestiddy, so big en shiny like satin, wid his skin des es tight es a watermillion's.""Shut up, confound you!" cut in Fletcher sharply.
"If you don't stop your chatter I'll set the dogs on you.Shut up, I say!"He strode into the house, slamming the heavy door behind him, and a moment afterward Carraway heard him scolding brutally at the servants across the hall.
The old Negress had gone muttering from the porch with her unsold chickens, when the door softly opened again, and the girl, who had entered through the front with her basket of flowers, came out into the growing moonlight.
"Wait a moment, Aunt Mehitable," she said."I want to speak to you."Aunt Mehitable turned slowly, putting a feeble hand to her dazed eyes."You ain' ole miss come back agin, is you, honey?" she questioned doubtfully.
"I don't know who your old miss was," replied the girl, "but I am not she, whoever she may have been.I am Maria Fletcher.You don't remember me--yet you used to bake me ash-cakes when I was a little girl."The old woman shook her head."You ain' Marse Fletcher's chile?""His granddaughter--but I must go in to supper.Here is the money for your chickens--grandpa was only joking; you know he loves to joke.Take the chickens to the hen-house and get something hot to eat in the kitchen before you start out again."She ran hurriedly up the steps and entered the hall just as Fletcher was shaking hands with his guest.
CHAPTER III.Showing that a Little Culture Entails Great Care Carraway had risen to meet his host in a flutter that was almost one of dread.In the eight years since their last interview it seemed to him that his mental image of his great client had magnified in proportions--that Fletcher had "out-Fletchered"himself, as he felt inclined to put it.The old betrayal of his employer's dependence, which at first had been merely a suspicion in the lawyer's mind, had begun gradually, as time went on, to bristle with the points of significant details.In looking back, half-hinted things became clear to him at last, and he gathered, bit by bit, the whole clever, hopeless villainy of the scheme--the crime hedged about by law with all the prating protection of a virtue.He knew now that Fletcher--the old overseer of the Blake slaves--had defrauded the innocent as surely as if he had plunged his great red fist into the little pocket of a child, had defrauded, indeed, with so strong a blow that the very consciousness of his victim had been stunned.There had been about his act all the damning hypocrisy of a great theft--all the air of stern morality which makes for the popular triumph of the heroic swindler.
These things Carraway understood, yet as the man strode into the room with open palm and a general air of bluff hospitality--as if he had just been blown by some fresh strong wind across his tobacco fields--the lawyer experienced a relief so great that the breath he drew seemed a fit measure of his earlier foreboding.
