Self-Raised; Or, From the DepthsSouthworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
General
Self-Raised; Or, From the Depths
Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
Fiction
And when all was ready on a bright Monday morning, the first of
October, Lord and Lady Vincent, with their servants and baggage,
departed from Tanglewood.
Judge Merlin, leaving his house to be shut up by the Middletons,
accompanied them to see them off in the steamer.
It was quite an imposing procession that left Tanglewood that
morning. There were two carriages and a van. In the first carriage
rode Lord and Lady Vincent and Judge Merlin. In the second my lord's
valet and my lady's three servants. And in the van was piled an
inconceivable amount of luggage.
This procession made a sensation, I assure you, as it lumbered along
the rough country roads. Every little isolated cabin along the way
turned out its ragged rout of girls and boys who threw up their arms
with a prolonged "Hooray!" as it passed--to the great disgust of the
Englishman and the transient amusement of the judge. As for Claudia,
she sat back with her eyes closed and cared for nothing.
The negroes came in for their share of notice.
"Hooray, Aunt Katie, is that you a-ridin' in a coach as bold as
brass?" some wayside laborer would shout.
"As bold as brass yourself!" would be the irate retort of the old
woman, nodding her head that was adorned with a red and yellow
bonnet, from the window.
"Hillo, Jim! that's never you, going to forring parts as large as
life?" would sing out another.
"Yes! Good-by! God bless you all as is left behind!" would be Jim's
compassionate reply.
"Lord bless my soul and body, what a barbarous country!" would be
Lord Vincent's muttered comment. And the judge would smile and
Claudia slumber, or seem to do so.
And this happened over and over again all along the turnpike road,
until they got to Shelton, where they embarked on the steamer
"Arrow" for Baltimore, where they arrived the next day at noon.
They made no stay in the Monumental City. Old Katie's dilated eyes
had not time to relieve themselves by one wink over the wonders of
the new world into which she was introduced, before, to her
"surprise and 'stonishment," as she afterwards expressed it, she
found herself "on board the cars, being whisked off somewhere else.
And if you would believe her racket, she had to hold the h'ar on her
head to keep it from being streamed off in the flight. And she was
no sooner set down comfortable in the cars at Baltimore than she had
to get up and get outen them at New York. And you better had believe
it, chillun, that's all."
Old Aunt Katie must have slept all the way through that night's
journey; for it is certain that the cars in which she traveled left
Baltimore at eight o'clock in the evening and arrived at New York at
six o'clock the next morning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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