II

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To let the Black Captain have little Miss Jessamine, however, was
another matter. Her Aunt would not hear of it; and then, to crown all,
it appeared that the Captain's father did not think the young lady good
enough for his son. Never was any affair more clearly brought to a
conclusion. But those were "trying times;" and one moon-light night,
when the Grey Goose was sound asleep upon one leg, the Green was rudely
shaken under her by the thud of a horse's feet. "Ga, ga!" said she,
putting down the other leg, and running away.

By the time she returned to her place not a thing was to be seen or
heard. The horse had passed like a shot. But next day, there was
hurrying and skurrying and cackling at a very early hour, all about the
white house with the black beams, where Miss Jessamine lived. And when
the sun was so low, and the shadows so long on the grass that the Grey
Goose felt ready to run away at the sight of her own neck, little Miss
Jane Johnson, and her "particular friend" Clarinda, sat under the big
oak-tree on the Green, and Jane pinched Clarinda's little finger till
she found that she could keep a secret, and then she told her in
confidence that she had heard from Nurse and Jemima that Miss
Jessamine's niece had been a very naughty girl, and that that horrid
wicked officer had come for her on his black horse, and carried her
right away.