By this time they had reached the gate spoken of by Mr. Edson. To Mr.
Wilmot's great surprise the horse walked tip to it and tried to open it
with his mouth! Mr. Wilmot was so much amused that he would not suffer Jim
to get down and open the gate, as he wished to see if the horse could do
it.
"Oh, yes, marster, he'll do it easy," said the negro; and sure enough, in
a moment the well-trained animal lifted the latch and pushed open the
gate! But it was a rickety old thing, and before Prince had got fairly
through it tumbled down, hitting his heels and causing him to jump
sideways, so as to leave Mr. Wilmot riding the gate and Jim Crow in quiet
possession of the saddle! With a great effort Jim forced down his desire
to scream and merely showed twenty-eight very large, white teeth.
Springing from the horse he offered to assist Mr. Wilmot to mount again,
but he had no inclination to do so. He preferred walking the rest of the
way, he said, and as he could now easily find the house, Jim could return
home. This was not what Jim wanted. He had anticipated a nice time in
relating his adventures to Mr. Middleton's negroes, but as Mr. Wilmot
slipped a quarter into his hand, he felt consoled for the loss of his
"yarn"; so mounting Prince again, he gave his old palm leaf three
flourishes round his head, and with a loud whoop, started the horse with a
tremendous speed down the road and was soon out of sight, leaving Mr.
Wilmot to find his way alone through the wood. This he found no difficulty
in doing, for he soon came in sight of a house, which he readily took for
Mr. Middleton's.
It was a large, old-fashioned stone building, with one chimney fallen
down, as Mr. Edson had said, and its companion looked likely to follow
suit at the first high wind. The windows of the upper story were
two-thirds of them destitute of glass, but its place was supplied by
shingles, which kept the cold out if they did not let the light in.
Scattered about the yard, which was very large, were corn cribs, hay
racks, pig troughs, carts, wagons, old plows, horses, mules, cows, hens,
chickens, turkeys, geese, negroes, and dogs, the latter of which rushed
ferociously at Mr. Wilmot, who was about to beat a retreat from so
uninviting quarters, when one of the negroes called out, "Ho, marster,
don't be feared, 'case I'll hold Tiger." So Wilmot advanced with some
misgivings toward the negro and dog.