There being, evidently, no chance of a messenger, he had half a mind, as his impatience of the detention increased, to go himself in search of means of telephonic communication. But, apart from his spirit of leisure and his habit of ease, his prejudices were dainty, and he looked upon the miry richness of the Mississippi soil as if it were insurmountable. To be sure, now and again he affected a day of sylvan sport, when, with dog and gun, he cared as little as might be for mud, or rain, or sleet, or snow; but then, he was caparisoned as a Nimrod, and burrs and briers, stains and adhesive mire, were all the necessary accessories, and of no consideration. In his metropolitan attire to step out knee deep in a soil made up of river detritus, the depth and blackness of which are the boast and glory of the cotton belt, was scarcely to be contemplated if an alternative was possible.
Suddenly a cry smote the air with electrical effect. “A boat! A boat!”
The auspicious announcement came first from the balcony. Then the cry “A boat! A boat!” was taken up by the group on the portico, and echoed by those within, pouring out in eager expectation through the vestibule or the windows that opened to the floor. Floyd-Rosney experienced a moment of self-gratulation on his prudential hesitation. He might have otherwise been half a mile off, plunging through slough and switch-cane, or the sharp serrated blades of the growths of saw-grass that edged the lake, before he could gain the smooth ways of the turn-rows of the cotton fields. All knew that considerable time must needs elapse from the moment the boat was sighted, far up the river, before it could pass this point. But shawls were strapped, gloves, wraps, hats, gathered together, toilet articles tumbled hastily into Gladstone bags, trunks and suitcases. Mrs. Floyd-Rosney, with incomparable quickness, had shifted into a gown of taupe cloth, with a coat to match, and with a large hat, trimmed with ostrich plumes of the same shade, on her golden hair, in lieu of the rain-drenched traveling attire of yesterday.
After a few moments of this pandemonium of preparation all eyes were turned toward the river. Vacant it was, sunlit, a certain play of the swift current betokening the added impetus of the recent heavy rainfall and the influx of its swollen tributaries from the region to the northward. Not even a coil of smoke showed above the forest where the river curved.