Tramp! tramp! a famous beggar’s ride!  It was a picturesque scene, with food for laughter and tears in it, had we only been there with a lantern.  Fessenden’s, fantastic, astride of the African, staring forward into the darkness from under his ragged hat-brim, endeavoring to hold the wreck of an umbrella over them,—­the wind flapping and whirling it.  Tramp! tramp! past all those noble mansions, to the negro-hut beyond the village.  And, oh, to think of it! the rich citizens, the enlightened and white-skinned Levites, having left him out, one of their own race, to perish in the storm, this despised black man is found, alone of all the world, to show mercy unto him!

“How do you get on, Sir?” says the stout young Ethiop.  “Would you ride easier, if I should trot? or would you prefer a canter?  Tell ’em to bring on their two-forty nags now, if they want a race.”

Talking in this strain, to keep up his rider’s spirits, he brought him, not without sweat and toil, to the hut.  A kick on the door with the beggar’s foot, which he used for the purpose, caused it to be opened by a woolly-headed urchin; and in he staggered.

Little woolly-head clapped his hands and screamed.

“Oh, crackie, pappy! here comes Bill with the Devil on his back!”

Sensation in the hut.  There was an old negro woman in the corner, on one side of the stove, knitting; and a very old negro man in the opposite corner, napping; and a middle-aged man, with spectacles on his ebony nose, reading slowly aloud from an ancient grease-covered book opened before him on the old pine table; and a middle-aged woman patching a jacket; and a girl washing dishes, which another girl was wiping:  representatives of four generations:  and they all quitted their occupations at once, to see what sort of a devil Bill had brought home.

“Why, William! who have you got there, William?” said he of the spectacles, with mild wonder,—­removing those clerkly aids of vision, and laying them across the book.

“A chair!” panted Bill.  “Now ease him down, if you please,—­careful,—­and I’ll—­recite the circumstances,”—­puffing, but polite to the last.

Helpless and gasping, Fessenden’s was unfastened, and slipped down the African’s back upon a seat placed to receive him.  He still clung to the umbrella, which he endeavored to keep spread over him, while he stared around with stupid amazement at the dim room and the array of black faces.

And now the excited urchin began to caper and sing:—­

  “’Went down to river, couldn’t get across;
  Jumped upon a nigger’s back, thought it was a hoss!’

“Oh, crackie, Bill!”

“Father,” said William, with wounded dignity,—­for he was something of a gentleman in his way,—­“I wish you’d discipline that child, or else give me permission to chuck him.”

“Joseph!” said the father, with a stern shake of his big black head at the boy, “here’s a stranger in the house!  Walk straight, Joseph!”