among our aristocracy.


While this scene was going on at the tavern, Sam and Andy, in a state of
high felicitation, pursued their way home.

Sam was in the highest possible feather, and expressed his exultation by
all sorts of supernatural howls and ejaculations, by divers odd motions
and contortions of his whole system. Sometimes he would sit backward,
with his face to the horse's tail and sides, and then, with a whoop and
a somerset, come right side up in his place again, and, drawing on a
grave face, begin to lecture Andy in high-sounding tones for laughing
and playing the fool. Anon, slapping his sides with his arms, he would
burst forth in peals of laughter, that made the old woods ring as they
passed. With all these evolutions, he contrived to keep the horses up
to the top of their speed, until, between ten and eleven, their heels
resounded on the gravel at the end of the balcony. Mrs. Shelby flew to
the railings.

"Is that you, Sam? Where are they?"

"Mas'r Haley 's a-restin' at the tavern; he's drefful fatigued, Missis."

"And Eliza, Sam?"

"Wal, she's clar 'cross Jordan. As a body may say, in the land o'
Canaan."

"Why, Sam, what _do_ you mean?" said Mrs. Shelby, breathless, and almost
faint, as the possible meaning of these words came over her.