In an instant she came bounding back, saying, "Uncle, I will meet you at the fair; au revoir, au revoir!" and, kissing her hand, she dashed away and ran off to her room.
"She'll kill me; I know she will. If she don't do it one way she will in another. Whew! I'm perspiring at every pore. Wool! Wool, you scoundrel!" exclaimed the old man, jerking the bell-rope as if he would have broken the wires.
"Yes, sir; here I am, marse," exclaimed that worthy, hastening in in a state of perturbation, for he dreaded another storm.
"Wool, go down to the stables and tell every man there that if either of them allows a horse to be brought out for the use of Miss Black to-day. I'll flay them alive and break every bone in their skins. Away with you."
"Yes, sir," cried the shocked and terrified Wool, hurrying off to convey his panic to the stables.
Old Hurricane's carriage being ready, he entered it and drove off for the fair.
Next the house servants, with the exception of Pitapat, who was commanded to remain behind and wait upon her mistress, went off in a wagon.
When they were all gone, Capitola dressed herself in her riding-habit and sent Pitapat down to the stables to order one of the grooms to saddle Gyp and bring him up for her.
Now, when the little maid delivered this message, the unfortunate grooms were filled with dismay--they feared their tyrannical little mistress almost as much as their despotic old master, who, in the next change of his capricious temper, might punch all their heads for crossing the will of his favorite, even though in doing so they had followed his directions. An immediate private consultation was the consequence, and the result was that the head groom came to Pitapat, told her that he was sorry, but that Miss Black's pony had fallen lame.
The little maid went back with the answer.
When she was gone the head groom, calling to his fellows, said: "That young gal ain't a-gwine to be fooled either by ole marse or we. She'll be down here herself nex' minute and have the horse walked out. Now we must make him lame a little. Light a match here, Jem, and I'll burn his foot."
This was immediately done. And, sure enough, while poor Gyp was still smarting with his burn, Capitola came, holding up her riding train and hurrying to the scene, and asking indignantly: "Who dares to say that my horse is lame? Bring him out here this instant, that I may see him!"