On hearing this, Black Donald quickly comprehended that it was no time
to attempt the abduction of the maiden, with the least probability of
success. All would be risked and most probably lost in the endeavor.
He resolved, therefore, to wait until the house should be clear of
company, and the household fallen into their accustomed carelessness
and monotony.
He had to wait much longer than he had reckoned upon--through October
and through November, when he first heard of and laughed over Cap's
"duel" with Craven Le Noir, and congratulated himself upon the fact
that that rival was no longer to be feared. He had also to wait through
two-thirds of the month of December, because a party had come down to
enjoy a short season of fox-hunting. They went away just before
Christmas.
And then at last came Black Donald's opportunity! And a fine
opportunity it was! Had Satan himself engaged to furnish him with one
to order, it could not have been better!
The reader must know that throughout Virginia the Christmas week, from
the day after Christmas until the day after New-Year, is the negroes'
saturnalia! There are usually eight days of incessant dancing, feasting
and frolicking from quarter to quarter, and from barn to barn. Then the
banjo, the fiddle and the "bones" are heard from morning until night,
and from night until morning.
And nowhere was this annual octave of festivity held more sacred than
at Hurricane Hall. It was the will of Major Warfield that they should
have their full satisfaction out of their seven days' carnival. He
usually gave a dinner party on Christmas day, after which his people
were free until the third of January.
"Demmy, mum!" he would say to Mrs. Condiment, "they wait on us
fifty-one weeks in the year, and it's hard if we can't wait on
ourselves the fifty-second!"
Small thanks to Old Hurricane for his self-denial! He did nothing for
himself or others, and Mrs. Condiment and Capitola had a hot time of it
in serving him. Mrs. Condiment had to do all the cooking and housework.
And Cap had to perform most of the duties of Major Warfield's valet.
And that was the way in which Old Hurricane waited on himself.
It happened, therefore, that about the middle of the Christmas week,
being Wednesday, the twenty-eighth of December, all the house-servants
and farm laborers from Hurricane Hall went off in a body to a banjo
break-down given at a farm five miles across the country.
And Major Warfield, Mrs. Condiment and Capitola were the only living
beings left in the old house that night.