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diff --git a/19146.txt b/19146.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd7fb9f --- /dev/null +++ b/19146.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22220 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Entailed Hat, by George Alfred Townsend + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Entailed Hat + Or, Patty Cannon's Times + +Author: George Alfred Townsend + +Release Date: August 30, 2006 [EBook #19146] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENTAILED HAT *** + + + + +Produced by Bethanne M. Simms, Janet Blenkinship, Jeannie +Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE ENTAILED HAT + + OR + + _PATTY CANNON'S TIMES_ + + A Romance + + BY GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND + + "GATH" + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE + 1884 + + Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by + + HARPER & BROTHERS, + + In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. + + + _All rights reserved._ + + + TO + + JUDGE GEORGE P. FISHER + + OF DELAWARE + + AND + + HON. JOHN A. J. CRESWELL + + OF MARYLAND + + LOVERS OF OLD TIMES + + WELCOMERS OF THE NEW ERA + + +"Friends! trust not the heart of that man for whom Old Clothes are not +venerable."--CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_ + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Once the author awoke to a painful reflection that he knew no place +well, though his occupation had taken him to many, and that, after +twenty-five years of describing localities and society, he would be +identified with none. + +"Where shall I begin to rove within confines?" he asked, feeling the +vacant spaces in his nature: the want of all those birds, forest trees, +household habits, weeds, instincts of the brooks, and tints and tones of +the local species which lie in some neighborhood's compass, and complete +the pastoral mind. + +Numerous districts rose up and contended together, each attractive from +some striking scene, or bold contrast, or lovely face; and wiser policy +might have led his inclinations to one of these, redundant, perhaps, in +wealth or literary appreciation; yet the heart began to turn, as in +first love, or vagrancy almost as sweet, to the little, lowly region +where his short childhood was lived, and where the unknown generations +of his people darkened the sand--the peninsula between the Chesapeake +and the Delaware. + +Far down this peninsula lies the old town of Snow Hill, on the border of +Virginia; there the pilgrim entered the court-house, and asked to see an +early book of wills, and in it he turned to the name of a maternal +ancestor, of whom grand tales had been told him by an aged relative. His +breath was almost taken by finding the following provisions, dated +February 12, 1800: + +"I give and bequeath to my son, Ralph Milbourn, MY BEST HAT, TO HIM AND +HIS ASSIGNEES FOREVER, and no more of my estate. + +"I give to Thomas Milbourn my small iron kettle, my brandy still, all my +hand-irons, my pot-rack, and fifteen pounds bond that he gave to my +daughter, Grace Milbourn." + +The next day a doctor took the author on his rounds through "the +Forest," as a neighboring tract was almost too invidiously called, and +through a deserted iron-furnace; village almost of the date of these +wills. + +Everywhere he went the Entailed Hat seemed, to the stranger in the land +of his forefathers, to appear in the vistas, as if some odd, reverend, +avoided being was wearing it down the defiles of time. Now like Hester +Prynne wearing her Scarlet Letter, and now like Gaston in his Iron Mask, +this being took both sexes and different characters, as the author +weighed the probabilities of its existence. At last he began to know it, +and started to portray it in a little tale. + +The story broke from its confines as his own family generation had +broken from that forest, and sought a larger hemisphere; yet, wherever +the mystic Hat proceeded, his truant fancy had also been led by his +mother's hand. + +Often had she told him of old Patty Cannon and her kidnapper's den, and +her death in the jail of his native town. He found the legend of that +dreaded woman had strengthened instead of having faded with time, and +her haunts preserved, and eye-witnesses of her deeds to be still living. + +Hence, this romance has much local truth in it, and is not only the +narration of an episode, but the story of a large region comprehending +three state jurisdictions, and also of that period when modern life +arose upon the ruins of old colonial caste. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. TWO HAT WEARERS 1 + II. JUDGE AND DAUGHTER 6 + III. THE FORESTERS 15 + IV. DISCOVERY OF THE HEIRLOOM 19 + V. THE BOG-ORE TRACT 25 + VI. THE CUSTISES RUINED 32 + VII. JACK-O'-LANTERN IRON 40 + VIII. THE HAT FINDS A RACK 45 + IX. HA! HA! THE WOOING ON'T 69 + X. MASTER IN THE KITCHEN 83 + XI. DYING PRIDE 89 + XII. PRINCESS ANNE FOLKS 100 + XIII. SHADOW OF THE TILE 121 + XIV. MESHACH'S HOME 129 + XV. THE KIDNAPPER 154 + XVI. BELL-CROWN MAN 164 + XVII. SABBATH AND CANOE 179 + XVIII. UNDER AN OLD BONNET 192 + XIX. THE DUSKY LEVELS 210 + XX. CASTE WITHOUT TONE 218 + XXI. LONG SEPARATIONS 239 + XXII. NANTICOKE PEOPLE 261 + XXIII. TWIFORD'S ISLAND 269 + XXIV. OLD CHIMNEYS 285 + XXV. PATTY CANNON'S 298 + XXVI. VAN DORN 318 + XXVII. CANNON'S FERRY 335 + XXVIII. PACIFICATION 357 + XXIX. BEGINNING OF THE RAID 360 + XXX. AFRICA 365 + XXXI. PEACH BLUSH 373 + XXXII. GARTER-SNAKES 391 + XXXIII. HONEYMOON 405 + XXXIV. THE ORDEAL 411 + XXXV. COWGILL HOUSE 424 + XXXVI. TWO WHIGS 433 + XXXVII. SPIRIT OF THE PAST 441 + XXXVIII. VIRGIE'S FLIGHT 456 + XXXIX. VIRGIE'S FLIGHT--CONTINUED 468 + XL. HULDA BELEAGUERED 486 + XLI. AUNT PATTY'S LAST TRICK 496 + XLII. BEAKS 510 + XLIII. PLEASURE DRAINED 515 + XLIV. THE DEATH OF PATTY CANNON 524 + XLV. THE JUDGE REMARRIED 542 + XLVI. THE CURSE OF THE HAT 554 + XLVII. FAILURE AND RESTITUTION 558 + + * * * * * + + A picture of Joe Johnson's Kidnapper's Tavern, as it stood in the + year 1883, is given on the title-page. + + + + +THE ENTAILED HAT. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +TWO HAT WEARERS. + + +Princess Anne, as its royal name implies, is an old seat of justice, and +gentle-minded town on the Eastern Shore. The ancient county of Somerset +having been divided many years before the revolutionary war, and its +courts separated, the original court-house faded from the world, and the +forest pines have concealed its site. Two new towns arose, and flourish +yet, around the original records gathered into their plain brick +offices, and he would be a forgetful visitor in Princess Anne who would +not say it had the better society. He would get assurances of this from +"the best people" living there; and yet more solemn assurances from the +two venerable churches, Presbyterian and Episcopalian, whose +grave-stones, upright or recumbent, or in family rows, say, in epitaphs +Latinized, poetical, or pious, "_We_ belonged to the society of Princess +Anne." That, at least, is the impression left on the visitor as he +wanders amid their myrtle and creeper, or receives, on the wide, loamy +streets, the bows of the lawyers and their clients. + +There were but two eccentric men living in Princess Anne in the early +half of our century, and both of them were identified by their hats. + +The first was Jack Wonnell, a poor fellow of some remote origin who had +once attended an auction, and bought a quarter gross of beaver hats. +Although that happened years before our story opens, and the fashions +had changed, Jack produced a new hat from the stock no oftener than when +he had well worn its predecessor, and, at the rate of two hats a year, +was very slowly extinguishing the store. Like most people who frequent +auctions, he was not provident, except in hats, and presented a +startling appearance in his patched and shrunken raiment when he mounted +a bright, new tile, and took to the sidewalk. His name had become, in +all grades of society, "Bell-crown." + +The other eccentric citizen was the subject of a real mystery, and even +more burlesque. He wore a hat, apparently more than a century old, of a +tall, steeple crown, and stiff, wavy brim, and nearly twice as high as +the cylinders or high hats of these days. It had been rubbed and +recovered and cleaned and straightened, until its grotesque appearance +was infinitely increased. If the wearer had walked out of the court of +King James I. directly into our times and presence, he could not have +produced a more singular effect. He did not wear this hat on every +occasion, nor every day, but always on Sabbaths and holidays, on funeral +or corporate celebrations, on certain English church days, and whenever +he wore the remainder of his extra suit, which was likewise of the +genteel-shabby kind, and terminated by greenish gaiters, nearly the +counterpart, in color, of the hat. To daily business he wore a cheap, +common broadbrim, but sometimes, for several days, on freak or unknown +method, he wore this steeple hat, and strangers in the place generally +got an opportunity to see it. + +Meshach Milburn, or "Steeple-top," was a penurious, grasping, hardly +social man of neighborhood origin, but of a family generally +unsuccessful and undistinguished, which had been said to be dying out +for so many years that it seemed to be always a remnant, yet never +quite gone. He alone of the Milburns had lifted himself out of the +forest region of Somerset, and settled in the town, and, by silence, +frugality, hard bargaining, and, finally, by money-lending, had become a +person of unknown means--himself almost unknown. He was, ostensibly, a +merchant or storekeeper, and did deal in various kinds of things, +keeping no clerk or attendant but a negro named Samson, who knew as +little about his mind and affections as the rest of the town. Samson's +business was to clean and produce the mysterious hat, which he knew to +be required every time he saw his master shave. + +As soon as the lather-cup and hone were agitated, Samson, without +inquiry, went into a big green chest in the bedroom over the old wooden +store, and drew out of a leather hat-box the steeple-crown, where +Meshach Milburn himself always sacredly replaced it. Then "Samson Hat," +as the boys called him, exercised his brush vigorously, and put the +queer old head-gear in as formal shape as possible, and he silently +attended to its rehabilitation through the medium of the village hatter, +never leaving the shop until the tile had been repaired, and suffering +none whatever to handle it except the mechanic. In addition to this, +Samson cooked his master's food, and performed rough work around the +store, but had no other known qualification for a confidential servant +except his bodily power. + +He was now old, probably sixty, but still a most formidable pugilist; +and he had caught, running afoot, the last wild deer in the county. +Though not a drinking man Samson Hat never let a year pass without +having a personal battle with some young, willing, and powerful negro. +His physical and mental system seemed to require some such periodical +indulgence, and he measured every negro who came to town solely in the +light of his prowess. At the appearance of some Herculean or +clean-chested athlete, Samson's eye would kindle, his smile start up, +and his friendly salutation would be: "You're a _good_ man! 'Most as +good as me!" He was never whipped, rumor said, but by an inoffensive +black class-leader whom he challenged and compelled to fight. + +"Befo' God, man, I never see you befo'! I'se jined de church! I kint +fight! I never didn't do it!" + +"Can't help it, brother!" answered Samson. "You're too _good_ a man to +go froo Somerset County. Square off or you'll ketch it!" + +"Den if I must I must! de Lord forgive me!" and after a tremendous +battle the class-leader came off nearly conqueror. + +Whenever Samson indulged his gladiatorial propensities he disappeared +into the forest whence he came, and being a free man of mental +independence equal to his nerve, he merely waited in his lonely cabin +until Meshach Milburn sent him word to return. Then silently the old +negro resumed his place, looked contrition, took the few bitter, +overbearing words of his master silently, and brushed the ancient hat. + +Meshach kept him respectably dressed, but paid him no wages; the negro +had what he wanted, but wanted little; on more than one occasion the +court had imposed penalties on Samson's breaches of the peace, and he +lay in jail, unsolicitous and proud, until Meshach Milburn paid the +fine, which he did grudgingly; for money was Meshach's sole pursuit, and +he spent nothing upon himself. + +Without a vice, it appeared that Meshach Milburn had not an emotion, +hardly a virtue. He had neither pity nor curiosity, visitors nor +friends, professions nor apologies. Two or three times he had been +summoned on a jury, when he put on his best suit and his steeple-crown, +and formally went through his task. He attended the Episcopal worship +every Sunday and great holiday, wearing inevitably the ancient tile, +which often of itself drew audience more than the sermon. He gave a very +small sum of money and took a cheap pew, and read from his prayer-book +many admonitions he did not follow. + +He was not litigious, but there was no evading the perfectness of his +contracts. His searching and large hazel eyes, almost proud and quite +unkindly, and his Indian-like hair, were the leading elements of a face +not large, but appearing so, as if the buried will of some long +frivolous family had been restored and concentrated in this man and had +given a bilious power to his brows and jaws and glances. + +His eccentricity had no apparent harmony with anything else nor any +especial sensibility about it. The boys hooted his hat, and the little +girls often joined in, crying "Steeple-top! He's got it on! Meshach's +loose!" But he paid no attention to anybody, until once, at court time, +some carousing fellows hired Jack Wonnell to walk up to Meshach Milburn +and ask to swap a new bell-crown for the old decrepit steeple-top. +Looking at Wonnell sternly in the face, Meshach hissed, "You miserable +vagrant! Nature meant you to go bareheaded. Beware when you speak to me +again!" + +"I was afraid of him," said Jack Wonnell, afterwards. "He seemed to have +a loaded pistol in each eye." + +No other incident, beyond indiscriminate ridicule, was recorded of this +hat, except once, when a group of little children in front of Judge +Custis's house began to whisper and titter, and one, bolder than the +rest, the Judge's daughter, gravely walked up to the unsocial man; it +was the first of May, and he was in his best suit: + +"Sir," she said, "may I put a rose in your old hat?" + +The harsh man looked down at the little queenly child, standing straight +and slender, with an expression on her face of composure and courtesy. +Then he looked up and over the Judge's residence to see if any +mischievous or presuming person had prompted this act. No one was in +sight, and the other children had run away. + +"Why do you offer me a flower?" he said, but with no tenderness. + +"Because I thought such a very old hat might improve with a rose." + +He hesitated a minute. The little girl, as if well-born, received his +strong stare steadily. He took off the venerable old head-gear, and put +it in the pretty maid's hand. She fixed a white rose to it, and then he +placed the hat and rose again on his head and took a small piece of gold +from his pocket. + +"Will you take this?" + +"My father will not let me, sir!" + +Meshach Milburn replaced the coin and said nothing else, but walked down +the streets, amid more than the usual simpering, and the weather-beaten +door of the little rickety storehouse closed behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +JUDGE AND DAUGHTER. + + +Judge Custis was the most important man in the county. He belonged to +the oldest colonial family of distinction, the Custises of Northampton, +whose fortune, beginning with King Charles II. and his tavern credits in +Rotterdam, ended in endowing Colonel George Washington with a widow's +mite. The Judge at Princess Anne was the most handsome man, the father +of the finest family of sons and daughters, the best in estate, most +various in knowledge, and the most convivial of Custises. + +In that region of the Eastern Shore there is so little diversity of +productions, the ocean and the loam alone contributing to man, that +Judge Custis had an exaggerated reputation as a mineralogist. + +He had begun to manufacture iron out of the bog ores found in the +swamps and hummocks of a neighboring district, and, with the tastes of a +landholding and slaveholding family, had erected around his furnace a +considerable town, his own residence as proprietor conspicuous in the +midst. There he spent a large part of the time, and not always in the +company of his family, entertaining friends from the distant cities, +enjoying the luxuries of terrapin, duck, and wines, and, as rumor said +in the forest, all the pleasures of a Russian or German nobleman on a +secluded estate. + +He could lie down on the ground with the barefooted foresters, equal and +familiar with them, and carry off their suffrages for the State Senate +or the Assembly. In Princess Anne he was more discriminating, rising in +that society to his family stature, and surrounded by alliances which +demanded what is called "bearing." In short, he was the head of the +community, and his wealth, originally considerable, had been augmented +by marriage, while his credit extended to Philadelphia and Baltimore. + +Not long after the occurrence of his young daughter, Vesta, placing the +rose in Meshach Milburn's mysterious hat, Judge Custis said to his lady +at the breakfast-table: + +"That man has been allowed to shut himself in, like a dog, too long. He +owes something to this community. I'll go down to his kennel, under +pretence of wanting a loan--and I do need some money for the furnace!" + +He took his cane after breakfast and passed out of his large mansion, +and down the sidewalk of the level street. There were, as usually, some +negroes around Milburn's small, weather-stained store, and Samson Hat, +among them, shook hands with the Judge, not a particle disturbed at the +latter's condescension. + +"Judge," said Samson, looking that large, portly gentleman over, "you'se +a _good_ man yet. But de flesh is a little soft in yo' muscle, Judge." + +"Ah! Samson," answered Custis, "there's one old fellow that is wrastling +you." + +"Time?" said the negro; "we can't fight him, sho! Dat's a fack! But I'm +good as any man in Somerset now." + +"Except my daughter's boy, the class-leader from Talbot." + +"Is dat boy in yo' family," exclaimed Samson, kindling up. "I'll walk +dar if he'll give me another throw." + +The Judge passed into the wide-open door of Meshach Milburn's store. A +few negroes and poor whites were at the counter, and Meshach was +measuring whiskey out to them by the cheap dram in exchange for +coonskins and eggs. He looked up, just a trifle surprised at the +principal man's advent, and merely said, without nodding: + +"'Morning!" + +Judge Custis never flinched from anybody, but his intelligence +recognized in Meshach's eyes a kind of nature he had not yet met, though +he was of universal acquaintance. It was not hostility, nor welcome, nor +indifference. It was not exactly spirit. As nearly as the Judge could +formulate it, the expression was habitual self-reliance, and if not +habitual suspicion, the feeling most near it, which comes from conscious +unpopularity. + +"Mr. Milburn," said Judge Custis, "when you are at leisure let me have a +few words with you." + +The storekeeper turned to the poor folks in his little area and remarked +to them bluntly: + +"You can come back in ten minutes." + +They all went out without further command. Milburn closed the door. The +Judge moved a chair and sat down. + +"Milburn," he said, dropping the formal "mister," "they tell me you lend +money, and that you charge well for it. I am a borrower sometimes, and I +believe in keeping interest at home in our own community. Will you +discount my note at legal interest?" + +"Never," replied Meshach. + +"Then," said the Judge, smiling, "you'll put me to some inconvenience." + +"That's more than legal interest," answered Milburn, sturdily. "You'll +pay the legal interest where you go, and the inconvenience of going will +cost something too. If you add your expenses as liberally as you incur +them when you go to Baltimore, to legal interest, you are always paying +a good shave." + +"Where you have risks," suggested the Judge, "there is some reason for a +heavy discount, but my property will enrich this county and all the land +you hold mortgages on." + +"Bog ore!" muttered the money-lender. "I never lent money on that kind +of risk. I must read upon it! They say manufacturing requires mechanical +talent. How much do you want?" + +"Three thousand." + +"Secured upon the furnace?" + +"Yes." + +Meshach computed on a piece of paper, and the Judge, with easy +curiosity, studied his singular face and figure. + +He was rather short and chunky, not weighing more than one hundred and +thirty pounds, with long, fine fingers of such tracery and separate +action that every finger seemed to have a mind and function of its own. +Looking at his hands only, one would have said: "There is here a +pianist, a penman, a woman of definite skill, or a man of peculiar +delicacy." All the fingers were well produced, as if the hand instead of +the face was meant to be the mind's exponent and reveal its portrait +there. + +Yet the face of Meshach Milburn, if more repellent, was uncommon. + +The effects of one long diet and one climate, invariable, from +generation to generation, and both low and uninvigorating, had brought +to nearly aboriginal form and lines his cheek-bones, hair, and resinous +brown eyes. From the cheek-bones up he looked like an Indian, and +expressed a stolid power and swarthiness. Below, there dropped a large +face, in proportion, with nothing noticeable about it except the nose, +which was so straight, prominent, and complete, and its nostrils so +sensitive, that only the nose upon his face seemed to be good company +for his hands. When he confronted one, with his head thrown back a +little, his brown eyes staring inquiry, and his nose almost sentient, +the effect was that of a hostile savage just burst from the woods. + +That was his condition indeed. + +"Look at him in the eyes," said the town-bred, "he's all forester!" + +"But look at his hand," added some few observant ones. + +Ah! who had ever shaken that hand? + +It was now extended to the Judge and he took from its womanly fingers +the terms of the loan. Judge Custis was surprised at the moderation of +Meshach, and he looked up cheerfully into that ever sentinel face on +which might have been printed "_qui vive?_" + +"It's not the goodness of the security," said Meshach, "I make it low to +you, socially!" + +The Custis pride started with a flush to the Judge's eyes, to have this +ostracised and hooted Shylock intimate that their relations could be +more than a prince's to a pawnbroker. But the Judge was a politician, +with an adaptable mind and address. + +"Speaking of social things, Milburn," he said, carelessly, "our town is +not so large that we don't all see each other sometimes. Why do you wear +that forlorn, unsightly hat?" + +"Why do you wear the name _Custis?_" + +"Oh, I inherited that!" + +"And I inherited my hat." + +There was a pause for a minute, but before the Judge could tell whether +it was an angry or an awkward pause, the storekeeper said: + +"Judge Custis, I concede that you are the best bred man in Princess +Anne. Where did you get authority to question another person about any +decent article of his attire?" + +"I stand corrected, Milburn," said the Judge. "Good feeling for you more +than curiosity made me suggest it. And I may also remark to you, sir, +that when you lend me money you will always do it commercially and not +_socially_." + +"Very well," remarked Meshach Milburn, "and if I ever enter your door, I +will then take off my hat." + + * * * * * + +The next morning Meshach Milburn surprised Samson Hat by saying: "Boy, +when you have another fight and make yourself a barbarian again, +remember to bring back, from Nassawongo furnace, about a peck of the bog +ores!" + + * * * * * + +The years moved on without much change in Princess Anne. The little +Manokin river brought up oysters from the bay, and carried off the corn +and produce. The great brick academy at neighboring "Lower Trappe" +boarded and educated the brightest youths of the best families on the +Peninsula; and these perceived, as the annual summers brought their +fulness, what portion of their beauty remained with Vesta Custis. She +was like Helen of Troy, a subject of homage and dispute in childhood, +and became a woman, in men's consideration, almost imperceptibly. Sent +to Baltimore to be educated, her return was followed by suitors--not +youthful admirers only, but mature ones--and the young men of the +Peninsula remarked with chagrin: "None of us have a chance! Some great +city nabob will get her." + +But the academy boys and visitors, and the townspeople, had one common +opportunity to see her and to hear her--when she sang, every Sabbath and +church day, in the Episcopal church. + +Her voice was the natural expression of her beauty--sweet, powerful, +free, and easily trained. A divine bird seemed hidden in the old church +when this noble yet tender voice broke forth; but they who turned to see +the singer who had made such Paradise, looked almost on Eve herself. + +She was rather slight, tall, and growing fuller slowly every year, like +one in whom growth was early, yet long, and who would wholly mature not +until near middle life. Her head, however, was perfection, even in +girlhood, not less by its proportions than its carriage: her graceful +figure bore it like the slender setting, holding up the first splendor +of the peach; a head of vital and spiritual beauty, where purity and +luxuriance, woman and mind, dwelt in harmony and joy. As she seemed ever +to be ripening, so she seemed never to have been a child, but, with +faculties and sense clear and unintimidated, she was never wanting in +modesty, nor accused of want of self-possession. Judge Custis made her +his reliance and pride; she never reproved his errors, nor treated them +familiarly, but settled the household by a consent which all paid to her +character alone. More than once she had appeared at the furnace mansion +when the Judge's long absence had awakened some jealousy or distrust: + +"Father, please go home with me! I want you to drive me back." + +The easy, self-indulgent Judge would look a slight protest, but at the +soft, spirited command; "Come, sir! you can't stay here any more," +dismissed his companions, and took his place at the head of Princess +Anne society. + +Vesta was almost a brunette, with the rich colors of her type--eyebrows +like the raven's wing, ripe, red lips, and hair whose darkness and +length, released from the crown into which she wound it, might have spun +her garments. Her eyes were of a steel-blue, in which the lights had the +effect of black. She was dark with sky breaking through, like the rich +dusk and twilights over the Chesapeake. + +People wondered that, with such beauty, ease, and accomplishments she +was not proud; but her pride was too ethereal to be seen. It was not the +vain consciousness of gifts and endowments, but the serene sense of +worthiness, of unimpaired health, honor, and descent, which made her +kind and thoughtful to a degree only less than piety. Grateful for her +social rank and parentage, she adorned but did not forget them. The +suitors who came for her were weighed in this scale of perfect +desert--to be sons of such parents and associates of her married sisters +and sisters-in-law. Not one had survived the test, yet none knew where +he failed. + +"Vesta is too good for any of them," exclaimed the Judge, on more than +one occasion. "When I get the furnace in such shape that it will run +itself I will take my daughter to Europe and give her a musical +education." + +In truth, the Judge had expectations of his daughter; for the reputation +he had attained as a manufacturer was not without its drawbacks. He +maintained two establishments; he supported a large body of laborers and +dependents, some of whom he had brought from distant places under +contract; the experiment in which he had embarked was still an +experiment, and he was subject to the knowledge and judgment of his +manager, being himself rather the patron than the manufacturer at the +works. Many days, when he was supposed to be testing the percentage and +mixture of his ores, he was gunning off on the ocean bars, crabbing on +Whollop's Beach, or hunting up questionable company among the forest +girls, or around the oystermen's or wrecker's cabins. He had plenty of +property and family endorsers, however, and seldom failed to have a +satisfactory interview with Meshach Milburn, who was now assisting him, +at least once a quarter, to keep both principal and interest at home. + +The Judge had grown thicker with Meshach, but the storekeeper merely +listened and assented, and took no pains to incur another criticism on +his motives. Meshach wore his great hat, as ever, to church and on +festive days, and it was still derided, and held to be the town wonder. +Vesta Custis often saw the odd little man come into church while she was +singing, and she fancied that his large, coarse ears were turned to +receive the music she was making, and she faintly remembered that once +she had held in her hands that wonderful hat with its copper buckle in +the band, and stiff, wide brim, flowing in a wave. More than that she +knew nothing, except that the wearer was an humble-born, grasping +creature--a forester without social propensities, or, indeed, any human +attachments. The negro who abode under his roof was beloved, compared to +the sordid master, and all testimony concurred that Meshach Milburn +deserved neither commiseration, friendship, nor recognition. Her father, +however, indulgent in all things, said the money-lender had a good mind, +and was no serf. + +Milburn had ceased to deal with negroes or dispense drams. His wealth +was now known to be more than considerable. He had ceased, also, to lend +money on the surrounding farms, and rumors came across the bay that he +was a holder of stocks and mortgages on the Western Shore, and in +Baltimore and Pennsylvania. The little town of Princess Anne was full of +speculations about him, and even his age was uncertain; Jack Wonnell had +measured it by hats. Said Jack: + +"I bought my bell-crowns the year ole Milburn's daddy and mammy died. +They died of the bilious out yer in Nassawongo, within a few days of +each other. Now, I wear two bell-crowns a year. I come out every Fourth +of July and Christmas. 'Tother day I counted what was left, and I +reckoned that Meshach couldn't be forty-five at the wust." + +Vesta Custis was only twenty years old when the townsfolk thought she +must be twenty-five, so long had she been the beauty of Somerset. Her +mother had always looked with apprehension on the possible time when her +daughter would marry and leave her; for Judge Custis had long ceased to +have the full confidence of his lady, whose fortune he had embarked +without return on ventures still in doubt, and he always waived the +subject when it was broached, or remarked that no loss was possible in +his hands while Mrs. Custis lived. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE FORESTERS. + + +One Saturday afternoon in October Meshach Milburn drew out his razor, +cup, and hone, and prepared to shave, albeit his beard was never more +than harmless down. By a sort of capillary attraction Samson Hat divined +his purpose, and, opening the big green chest, brought out the +mysterious hat. + +"Put it down!" commanded the money-lender. "Go out and hire me a +carriage with two horses--_two_ horses, do you mind!" + +Samson dropped the hat in wonderment. + +"Make yourself decent," added Meshach; "I want you to drive. Go with me, +and keep with me: do you understand?" + +"Yes, marster." + +When the negro departed, Meshach himself took up the tall, green, +buckled hat, with the stiff, broad, piratical brim. He looked it over +long and hard. + +"Vanity, vanity!" he murmured, "vanity and habit! I dare not disown thee +now, because they give thee ridicule, and without thee they would give +me nothing but hate!" + +The people around the tavern and court-house saw, with surprise too +great for jeering, the note-shaver go past in a carriage, driven by his +negro, and with two horses! Jack Wonnell took off his shining beaver to +cheer. As the phenomenal team receded, the old cry ran, however, down +the stilly street: "Steeple-top! He's got it on! Meshach's loose!" + +The carriage proceeded out the forest road, and soon entered upon the +sandy, pine-slashed region called Hard-scrabble, or Hardship. + +Here the roads were sandy as the hummocks and hills in the rear of a sea +beach, and the low, lean pines covered the swells and ridges, while in +occasional level basins, where the stiff clay was exposed, some +forester's unpainted hut sat black and smoking on the slope, without a +window-pane, an ornament, or anything to relieve life from its monotony +and isolation. + +But where the rills ran off to the continuous swamps the leafage started +up in splendrous versatility. The maple stood revealed in all its fair, +light harmonies. The magnolia drooped its ivory tassels, and scented the +forest with perfume. The kalmia and the alder gave undergrowth and +brilliancy to the foliage. Hoary and green with precipitate old age, the +cypress-trees stood in moisture, and drooped their venerable beards from +angular branches, the bald cypress overhanging its evergreen kinsman, +and looking down upon the swamp-woods in autumn, like some hermit artist +on the rich pigments on his palette. + +But nothing looked so noble as the sweet gum, which rose like a giant +plume of yellow and orange, a chief in joyous finery, where the cypress +was only a faded philosopher. + +Beside such a tall gum-tree Samson Hat reined in, where a well-spring +shone at the bottom of a hollow cypress. He borrowed a bucket from the +hut across the road, and watered the horses. + +"Marster," ventured the negro, "dey say your gran'daddy sot dis spring." + +"Yes," said Milburn, "and built the cabin. Yonder he lies, on the knoll +by that stump, up in the field: he and more of our wasted race." + +"And yon woman is a Milburn," added the negro, socially. "I know her by +de hands." + +The barefoot woman living in the cabin--one room and a loft, and the +floor but a few inches above the ground--cried out, impudently: + +"If I could have two horses I'd buy a better hat!" + +Milburn did not answer, but marked the poor, small corn ears ungathered +on the fodderless stalks, the shrubs of peach-trees, of which the +largest grew on his ancestors' graves, the little cart for one horse or +ox, which was at once family carriage and farm wagon, and the few pigs +and chickens of stunted breeds around the woman's feet. + +"Drive on, boy," he exclaimed; "the worst of all is that these people +are happy!" + +"Dat's a fack, marster," laughed Samson Hat. "Dey wouldn't speak to you +in Princess Anne. Dey think everybody's proud and rich dar." + +"Here the sea once dashed its billows on a bar," said Meshach Milburn, +reflectively. "That geology book relates it! From the North the hummocks +recede in waves, where successive beaches were formed as the sea slowly +retreated. Hardly deeper than a human grave they strike water, below the +sand and gravel. Below the water they drink is nothing but black mud, +made of coarse, decayed grass. No lime is in the soil. Not a mineral +exists in all this low, wave-made peninsula, where my people were +shipwrecked--except the wonderful bog ores." + +The negro's genial, wondering nature broke out with comfortable +assurance. + +"Dat must be in de Bible," he said. "Marster, de Milburns been heah so +long, dey must hab got shipwrecked wid ole Noah!" + +"All families are shipwrecked," absently replied Meshach, "who cast +their lot upon an unrewarding land, and growing poorer, darker, down, +from generation to generation, can never leave it, and, at last, can +never desire to go." + +"Marster, dar is one got to go some ob dese days. It's me--pore ole +Samson!" + +"Ha! has some one set you on to demand your wages?" + +"No, marster, I am old. It's you dat I'm troubled about! Dar's none to +mend for you, cook for you, cure yo' sickness, or lay you in de grave." + +No more was said until they passed the settled part of the forest and +entered one of the many straight aisles of sky and sand among the pines, +which had been opened on the great furnace tract of Judge Custis. He had +here several thousand acres, and for miles the roadways were cleft +towards the horizon. The moon rose behind them as they entered the +furnace village, and they saw the lights twinkle through the open doors +of many cottages and the furnace flames dart over the forbidding +mill-pond, where in the depths grew the iron ore, like a vegetable +creation, and above the surface, on splayed and conical mud-washed +roots, the hundreds of strong cypresses towered from the water. Between +the steep banks of dark-colored pines, taller than the forest growth, +this furnace lake lay black and white and burning red as the shadows, or +moonrise, or flames struck upon it, and the stained water foamed through +the breast or dam where the ancient road crossed between pines, +cypresses and gum-trees of commanding stature. + +Tawny, slimy, chilly, and solemn, the pond repeated the forms of the +groves it submerged; the shaggy shadows added depth and dread to the +effect; some strange birds hooted as they dipped their wings in the +surface, and, flying upward, seemed also sinking down. As Meshach felt +the chill of that pond he drew down his hat and buttoned up his coat. + +"The earliest fools who turned up the bog ores for wealth," he said, +"released the miasmas which slew all the people roundabout. They killed +all my family, but set me free." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +DISCOVERY OF THE HEIRLOOM. + + +Judge Custis was in his bedroom, in the second story of the large, +inn-like mansion at the middle of the village, and he was just +recovering from the effects of a long wassail. In his peculiar nervous +condition he started at the sound of wheels, and, drawing his curtains, +looked out upon the long shadow of an advancing figure crowned with a +steeple hat. + +This human shadow strengthened and faded in the alternating light, until +it was defined against his storehouse, his warehouse, his cabins, and +the plain, and it seemed also against the wall of dense forest pines. +Then footsteps ascended the stairs. His door opened and Meshach Milburn, +with his holiday hat on his head, stood on the threshold; his eyes +vigilant and bold as ever, and all his Indian nature to the front. + +"My God, Milburn!" exclaimed the Judge, "odd as it is to see you here, I +am relieved. Old Nick, I thought, was coming." + +"Shall I come in?" asked Milburn. + +"Yes; I'm sleeping off a little care and business. Let your man stay +outside on the porch. Draw up a chair. It's money, I suppose, that +brings you here?" + +The money-lender carefully put his formidable hat upon a table, took a +distant chair, pushed his gaitered feet out in front, and laid a large +wallet or pocket-book on his lap. Then, addressing his whole attention +to the host, he appeared never to wink while he remained. + +"Judge Custis," he said, straightforwardly, "the first time you came to +borrow money from me, you said that Nassawongo furnace would enrich this +county and raise the value of my land." + +"Yes, Milburn. It was a slow enterprise, but it's coming all right. I +shipped a thousand tons last year." + +"Judge Custis," continued the money-lender, "I told you, when you made +the first loan, that I would investigate this ore. I did so years ago. +Specimens were sent by me to Baltimore and tested there. Not content +with that, I have studied the manufacture of iron for myself--the +society of Princess Anne not grudging me plenty of solitude!--and I know +that every ton of iron you make costs more than you get for it. The bog +ore is easy to smelt; but it is corrupted by phosphate of iron and is +barely marketable." + +The Judge was sitting with eyes wide open, and paler than before. + +"You have found that out?" he whispered. "I did not know it myself until +within this year--so help me God!" + +"I knew it before I made you the second loan." + +"Why did you not tell me?" + +"Because you forbade our relations to be anything but commercial. I was +not bound to betray my knowledge." + +"Why did you, then, from a commercial view, lend me large sums of money +again and again?" + +"Because," said the money-lender, coolly, "you had other security. You +have a daughter!" + +Judge Custis broke from the bed-covers and rushed upon Meshach Milburn. + +"Heathen and devil!" he shouted, taking the money-lender by the throat, +"do you dare to mention her as part of your mortgage?" + +They struggled together until a powerful pair of hands pinioned the +Judge, and bore him back to his bed. Samson Hat was the man. + +"Judge!" he exclaimed, gentle, but firm, "you is a _good_ man, but +not as good as me. Cool off, Judge!" + +"I expected this scene," said Meshach Milburn. "It could not have been +avoided. I was bound in conscience and in common-sense to make you the +only proposition which could save you from ruin. For, Judge Custis, you +are a ruined man!" + +Overcome with excitement and suspended stimulation, the old Judge fell +back on his pillow and began to sob. + +"Give him brandy," said Meshach Milburn, "here is the bottle! He needs +it now." + +The wretched gentleman eagerly drank the proffered draught from the +negro's hands. His fury did not revive, and he covered his face with his +palms and moaned piteously. + +"Judge Custis," remarked Meshach Milburn, "if the apparent social +distance between us could be lessened by any argument, I might make one. +For the difference is in appearance only. The healthy flesh which gives +you and yours stature and beauty is a matter of food alone. My stock has +survived five generations of such diet as has bent the spines of the +forest pigs and stunted the oxen. Money and family joy will give me +children comely again. My life has been hard but pure." + +The old Judge felt the last unconscious reflection. + +"Yes," he uttered, solemnly, "no doubt Heaven marked me for some such +degradation as this, when I yielded to low propensities, and sought my +pleasure and companions in the huts of the forest!" + +"You claim descent from the Stuart Restoration: I know the tale. A +creditor of the two exiled royal brothers for sundry tavern loans and +tipples drew for his obligation an office in far-off Virginia. Seizures, +confiscations, the slave-trade, marriages--in short, the long game of +advantage--built up the fortunes of the Custises, until they expired in +a certain Judge, whose notes of hand a hard man, forest-born, held over +the Judge's head on what seemed hard conditions, but conditions in which +was every quality of mercy, except consideration for your pride." + +The Judge made a laugh like a howl. + +"_Mercy?_" he exclaimed, "you do not know what it is! To ensnare my +innocent daughter in the damned meshes of your principal and interest! +Call it malignity--the visitation of your unsocial wrath on man and an +angel; but not mercy!" + +"Then we will call it compensation," continued Meshach Milburn: "for +twenty years I have denied myself everything; you denied yourself +nothing. Your substance is wasted; renew it from the abundance of my +thrift. It was not with an evil design that I made myself your creditor, +although, as the years have rolled onward and solitude chilled my heart, +that has always pined for human friendship, I could not but see the +kindling glory of your daughter's beauty. Like the schoolboys, the +married husbands--yes, like the slaves--I had to admire her. Then, +unknowing how deeply you were involved, I found offered to me for sale +the paper you had negotiated in Baltimore--paper, Judge Custis, +dishonorably negotiated!" + +The money-lender rose and walked to the sad man's bed, and held the +hand, full of these notes, boldly over him. + +"It was despair, Milburn!" moaned the Judge. + +"And so was my resolution. Said I: 'This lofty gentleman would cheat me, +his neighbor, who have suffered all the contumely of this _good +society_, and on starveling opportunity have slowly recovered +independence. Now he shall take my place in the forest, or I will wear +my hat at the head of his family table.'" + +"A dreadful revenge!" whispered Custis, with a shudder. "Such a hat is +worse than a cloven foot. In God's name! whence came that ominous hat?" + +Milburn took up the hat and held it before the lamplight, so that its +shadow stood gigantic against the wall. + +"Who would think," he said, sarcastically, "that a mere head-covering, +elegant in its day, could make more hostility than an idle head? I will +tell you the silly secret of it. When I came from the obscurity of the +forest, sensitive, and anxious to make my way, and slowly gathered +capital and knowledge, a person in New York directed a letter of inquiry +to me. It told how a certain Milburn, a Puritan or English Commonwealth +man, had risen to great distinction in that province, and had +revolutionized its government and suffered the penalty of high-treason." + +"True enough," said Judge Custis, pouring a second glass of brandy; +"Milburn and Leisler were executed in New York during the lifetime of +the first Custis. They anticipated the expulsion of James II., and were +entrapped by their provincial enemies and made political martyrs." + +"The inquirer," said Meshach, "who had obtained my address in the course +of business, related, that after Milburn's death his brethren and their +families had sailed to the Chesapeake, where the Protestants had +successfully revolutionized for King William, and, making choice of poor +lands, they had become obscure. He asked me if the court-house records +made any registry of their wills." + +"Of course you found them?" + +"Yes. It was a revelation to me, and gave me the honorable sense of some +origin and quality. I traced myself back to the earliest folios, at the +close of the seventeenth century." + +"Any property, Milburn?" asked the Judge, voluptuous and reanimated +again. + +"My great-grandfather had left his son nothing but a Hat." + +"Not uncommon!" exclaimed Judge Custis. "Our early wills contain little +but legacies of wearing apparel, household articles, bedding, pots and +kettles, and the elements of civilization." + +"The will on record said: '_I give to my eldest son, Meshach Milburn, my +best Hat, and no more of my estate._'" + +"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Judge, loudly. "Genteel to the last! A hat of +fashion, no doubt, made in London; quite too ceremonious and topgallant +for these colonies. He left it to his eldest son, en-_tiled_it, we may +say. Ho! ho!" + +"When my indignation was over, I took the same view you do, Judge +Custis, that it was a bequest of dignity, not of burlesque; and I made +some inquiries for that best Hat. It was a legend among my forest kin, +had been seen by very old people, was celebrated in its day, and worn by +my grandfather thankfully. He left it to my father, still a hat of +reputation--" + +"Still en-_tiled_ to the oldest son! Ha, ha! Milburn." + +"My father sold the hat to Charles Wilson Peale, who was native to our +peninsula, and knew the ancient things existing here that would help him +to form Peale's Museum during the last century. I found the hat in that +museum, covering the mock-figure of Guy Fawkes!" + +"Conspirator's hat; bravo!" exclaimed the Judge. + +"It had been used for the heads of George Calvert and Shakespeare, but +in time of religious excitements was proclaimed to be the true hat of +Guy Fawkes. I reclaimed it, and brought it to Princess Anne, and in a +vain moment put it on my head and walked into the street. It was +assailed with halloos and ribaldry." + +"It was another Shirt of Nessus, Milburn; it poisoned your life, eh?" + +"Perhaps so," replied Milburn, with intensity. "They say what is one +man's drink is another man's poison. You will accept that hat on the +head of your son-in-law, or no more _drink_ out of the Custis property!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE BOG-ORE TRACT. + + +Resolution of character and executive power had been trifled away by +Judge Custis. The trader had concluded their interview with a decision +and fierceness that left paralysis upon the gentleman's mind. He saw, in +sad fancy, the execution served upon his furniture, the amazement of his +wife, the pallor of his daughter, the indignation of his sons. He also +shrank before the impending failure of his furnace and abandonment of +the bog-ore tract, on which he had raised so much state and local fame; +people would say: "Custis was a fool, and deceived himself, while old +Steeple-top Milburn played upon the Custises' vanity, and turned them +into the street." + +"No doubt," thought the Judge, "that fellow, Milburn, can get anything +when he gets my house. The poor folks' vote he may command, because he +is of their class. He is a lender to many of the rich. Who could have +suspected his intelligence? His address, too? He handled me as if I were +a forester and he a judge. A very, very remarkable man!" finished Judge +Custis, taking the last of the brandy. + +He was interrupted by the entrance of Samson Hat. + +"Where's your master, boy?" asked the Judge. + +"He's gone up to de ole house, Judge, where his daddy and mammy died. +It's de place where I hides after my fights." + +"May the ague strike him there! Let the bilious sweat from the mill-pond +be strong to-night, that, like Judas of old, his bowels may drop out! +But, no," continued the irresolute man, "I have no right to hate him." + +"Judge," softly said the old negro, "my marster is a sick man. He ain't +happy like you an' me. He's 'bitious. He's lonely. Dat's enough to spile +angels. But a gooder man I never knowed, 'cept in de onpious sperrit. +He's proud as Lucifer. He's full of hate at Princess Anne and all de +people. Your darter may git a better man, not a pyorer one." + +"Purity goes a very little way," exclaimed the Judge, "on the male side +of marriage contracts. It's always assumed, and never expected. You need +not remember, Samson, that I expressed any anger at your master!" + +"My whole heart, judge, is to see him happy. Hard as he is, dat man has +power to make him loved. Your darter might go farder and fare wuss! I +wish her no harm, God knows!" + +The negro said an humble good-night, and the Judge lay down upon his bed +to think of the dread alternatives of the coming week; but, voluptuous +even in despair, he slept before he had come to any conclusion. + +Samson Hat walked up the side of the mill-pond on a sandy road, divided +from the water by a dense growth of pines. The bullfrogs and insects +serenaded the forest; the furnace chimney smoked lurid on the midnight. +At the distance of half a mile or more an old cabin, in decay, stood in +a sandy field near the road; it had no door in the hollow doorway, no +sash in the one gaping window; the step was broken leading to the sill, +and some of the weather-boarding had rotted from the skeleton. The old +end-chimney bore it toughly up, however, and the low brick props under +the corners stood plumb. Within lay a single room with open beams, a +sort of cupboard stairway projecting over the fireplace, and another +door and window were in the rear. Before this fireplace sat Meshach +Milburn on an old chair, fairly revealed by the light of some of the +burning weather-boarding he had thrown upon the hearth. On the hearth +was a little heap of the bog iron ore and a bottle. + +"Come in, Samson!" he called. "Don't think me turned drunkard because I +am taking this whiskey. I drink it to keep out the malaria, and partly +as a communion cup; for to-night the barefooted ghosts who have drooped +and withered here are with me in spirit." + +"Dey was all good Milburns who lived heah, marster," said the negro. +"Dey had hard times, but did no sin. Dey shook wid chills and fevers, +not wid conscience." + +"I shall shake with neither," said the money-lender. "Go up into the +loft, and sleep till you are called. I want the horses early for +Princess Anne!" + +The negro obeyed without remark, and disappeared behind the +cupboard-like door. Milburn sat before the fire, and looked into it +long, while a procession of thoughts and phantoms passed before it. + +He saw a poor family of independent Puritans setting sail at different +dates from English seaports. Some were indentured servants, hoping for a +career; others were avoiding the civil wars; others were small political +malefactors, noisy against the oppressions of their hero, Cromwell, and +conspirators against his power; and, thrown by him in English jails, +were only delivered to be sold into slavery, driven through the streets +of market-towns, placed on troop ships between the decks, among the +horses, and set up at auction in Barbadoes, like the blacks; whence they +in time continued onward westward. One, the fortunate possessor of some +competence, sailed his own ship across the Atlantic, and delivered up to +Massachusetts her governor and gentry. Another, incapable of being +suppressed, though a servant, seized the destinies of an aristocratic +colony, and held them for a while, until accumulating enemies bore him +down, and wedlock and the gibbet followed close together. Poverty would +not relinquish its gripe upon the race; they struggled up like clods +upon the ploughshare, and fell back again into the furrow. + +As Meshach Milburn thought of these things he took up a portion of the +bog ore from the hearth. + +"Here is iron," he said, thoughtfully, "true iron, which makes the blood +red, moulds into infinite forms, nails houses together, binds wheels, +and casts into cannon and ball. But this iron ran into a bog, formed low +combinations, and had no other mould than twigs and leaves afforded. Its +volcanic origin was forgotten when it ran with sand and gravel away from +the mountain vein and upland ore along the low, alluvial bar, till, like +an oyster, the iron is dredged from the stagnant pool, impure, +inefficacious, corrupted. So is it with man, whose magnetic spirit +follows the dull declivity to the barren sandbars of the world, and +lodges there. I am of the bog ores; but that exists which will flux with +me, clean me of rust, and transmit my better quality to posterity. O, +youth, beauty, and station--lovely Vesta! for thee I will be iron!" + +Milburn looked around the single room inquiringly. He placed his finger +upon the crevices in the weather-boarding; he opened the little closet +below the stairs, and a weasel dashed out and shot through the door; he +ascended the steep, short stairs, and with a torch examined the black +shingles, but nothing was there except a litter of young owls, whose +parents had gone poaching. Then, returning, he searched on every open +beam and rotting board, as if for writing. + +"They could not write!" he thought. "Nothing is left to me, not even a +sign, down a century and a half, to tell that I had parents!" + +As he spoke he felt an object move behind him, and, looking back, the +shadow of the Entailed Hat was dancing on the wall. As he threw his head +back, so did it; as he retired from it, the hat enlarged, until the +little room could hardly hold its shadow. Retiring again, he lifted it +from his head with bitter courtesy, and the shadow did the same. The man +and the shadow looked each at a peaked hat and stroked it. + +"This is everything," exclaimed Milburn. "The hundred humble heads are +at rest in the sand; one grave-stone would mock them all. But once the +family brain expanded to a hat, and that survived the race. I am the +Quaker who respects his hat, the Cardinal who is crowned with it; yes, +and the dunce who must wear it in his corner!" + +Then the picture of his parents arose upon his sight: a cheerful father, +with two or three old slaves, ploughing in the deep sand, to drop some +shrivelled grains of corn, or tinkering a disordered mill-wheel that +moved a blacksmith's saw. Ever full of confidence in nothing which could +increase, credulous and sanguine, tender and laborious, Milburn's sire +nursed his forest patches as if they were presently to be rich +plantations, and was ever "pricing" negroes, mules, tools, and +implements, in expectation of buying them. Nothing could diminish his +confidence but disease and old age. He heard of the great "improvement" +on the Furnace tract, and took his obedient wife and brood there. As the +laborers pulled out the tussocks and roots, encrusted with iron, from +the swamp and creek, fever and ague came forth and smote them both. + +How wretched that scene when, almost too haggard to move, father and +mother, in this one bare room where Meshach sat, groaning amid their +many offspring, saw death with weakness creep upon each other--death +without priest or doctor, without residue or cleanliness--the death the +million die in lowly huts, yet, oh, how hard! + +"Haste, sonny, _good_ boy," the frightened father had said, knowing not +how ill he was, in his dependence on his wife; "take the horse, and ride +into Snow Hill for the doctor. Poor mother is dreadful sick!" + +Then, leaping upon the lean old horse, bare-backed and with a rope +bridle, Meshach had pushed through the deep sand, bareheaded and +barefooted, and almost crazy with excitement, until he entered the +shining streets of the sandhilled town, and sensitively rushed into the +doctor's office, crying, "Daddy and mammy is sick, at the Furnace!" and +told his name, and wheeled, and fled. + +But, as the boy rode home, more slowly, past the river full of +splutter-docks, the yellow masts of vessels rising above the woods, the +flat fields of corn everywhere bounded by forest, and the small white +houses of the better farmers, and at last entered the murmurous, +complaining woods, he saw but one thing--his mother. + +Was she to disappear from the lonely clearing, and leave only the hut +and its orphans? she, who kept heaven here below, and was the saints, +the arts, the all-sufficient for her child? With her there could be no +poverty; without her riches would be only more sand. With a little +molasses she made Christmas kingly with a cake. She could name a little +chicken "Meshach," and every egg it laid was a new toy. A mocking-bird +caught in the swamp became one of the family by her kindness; would it +ever sing again? The religion they knew was all of her. The poor slaves +saw no difference in mistresses while she was theirs. In sickness she +was in her sphere--health itself had come. And once, the tenderest +thing in life, when his father and she had quarrelled, and the light of +love being out made the darkness of poverty for the only time visible, +Meshach saw her weeping, and he could not comfort her. + +Then, blinded by tears, he lashed his nag along, and entered the low +door. She was dead! + +"Sonny, mammy's gone!" the wretched father groaned; the little children, +huddling about the form, lifted their wail; the mocking-bird could find +no note for this, and was hushed. + +Milburn arose; the fire was low. He walked to the door, and there was a +sign of day; the all-surrounding woods of pine were still dark, but on +the sandy road and hummock-field some light was shining, like +hopefulness against hope; the farm was ploughed no more; the ungrateful +centuries were left behind and abandoned, like old wilderness +battle-fields, so sterile that their great events remain ever unvisited. + +"Ho! Samson, boy! It is time!" + +"Yes, marster!" answered the negro in the loft. + +As the negro gathered himself up and passed down the stairs, he saw +Meshach Milburn before the fire, stirring the coals. Passing out, Samson +stood a moment at the gate, and lounged up the road, not to lose his +master. As he stood there, flames burst out of the old hut and glistened +on the evergreen forest, lighting the tops of the mossy cypresses in the +mill-pond, and revealing the forms of the sandy fields. Before he could +start back Samson saw his master's figure go round and round the house, +lighting the weather-boarding from place to place with a torch; and then +the low figure, capped with the long hat, came up the road as if at +mighty strides, so lengthened by the fire. + +"No need of alarm, boy!" exclaimed the filial incendiary. "Henceforth my +only ancestral hall is _here_!" + +He held the ancient tile up in the light of the blaze. + +"Ah, marster!" said the negro, "yo' hat will never give comfort like a +home, fine as de hat may be, mean as de roof! De hat will never hold two +heads, and dat makes happiness." + +"The hat, at least," answered Milburn, bitterly, "will cover me where I +go. Such rotted roofs as that was make captives of bright souls." + +They looked on the fire in silence a few minutes. + +"You have burnt me out, boss," said old Samson, finally. "I ain't got no +place to go an' hide when I fights, now. It makes me feel solemn." + +"Peace!" replied Meshach Milburn. "Now for the horses and Princess +Anne!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE CUSTISES RUINED. + + +Vesta Custis, dressing in her chamber, heard early wheels upon the +morning air, and looking through the blinds saw a double team coming up +the road from Hardship. + +"Mother," she said, "is that father coming, yonder? No, it is not his +driver." + +"Why, Vesta!" exclaimed Mrs. Custis, "that is old Milburn's man." + +"Samson Hat? so it is. What is he doing with two horses?" + +Here Vesta laughed aloud, and began to skip about in her long, slender, +worked slippers, whose insteps would spare a mouse darting under. + +"Mamma, it is Milburn himself, in a hack and span. See there; the +steeple-top hat, copper buckle and all! Isn't he too funny for anything! +But, dear me! he is staring right up at this window. Let us duck!" + +Vesta's long, ivory-grained arms, divided from her beautiful shoulders +only by a spray of lace, pulled her mother down. + +"Don't be afraid, dear! he can see nothing but the blinds. Perhaps he is +looking for the Judge." + +Vesta rose again in her white morning-gown, like a stag rising from a +snow-drift. A long, trembling movement, the result of tittering, passed +down the graceful column of her back. + +"He sits there like an Indian riding past in a show, mamma! Did you ever +see such a hat?" + +"I think it must be buggy by this time," said the mother; and both of +them shook with laughter again. "Unless," added Mrs. Custis, "the bugs +are starved out." + +"Poor, lonely creature," said Vesta, "he can only wear such a hat from +want of understanding." + +"His _understanding_ is good enough, dear. He has the green gaiters on." + +They laughed again, and Vesta's hair, shaken down by her merriment, fell +nearly to her slipper, like the skin of some coal-black beast, that had +sprung down a poplar's trunk. + +"Ah! well," exclaimed Vesta, as her maid entered and proceeded to wind +up this satin cordage on her crown, "what men are in their minds, can +woman know? Old ladies, not unfrequently, wear their old coal-scuttle +bonnets long past the fashion, but it is from want. This man is his own +master and not poor. His companion is a negro, and his taste a mouldy +hat, old as America. How happy are we that it is not necessary to pry +into such minds! A little refinement is the next blessing to religion." + +"Your father's mind is a puzzle, too, Vesta. He has everything which +these foresters lack,--education, society, standing, and comforts. But +he returns to the forest, like an opossum, the moment your eye is off +him. He can't be traced up like this man, by his hat. I think it's a +shame on you, particularly. If he don't come home this day, I shall send +for my brother and force an account of my property from Judge Custis!" + +The wife sat down and began to cry. + +"I'll take the carriage after breakfast, mamma, and seek him at the +Furnace or wherever he may be. Those bog ores have given him a great +deal of trouble." + +"I wish I had never heard of bog ore," exclaimed Mrs. Custis. "When the +money was in bank, there was no ore about it. He goes to the forest +looking like a magistrate and a gentleman; he always comes back looking +like a bog-trotter and a drunkard. There must be _women_ in it!" + +Here, in an impulse of weak rage, the poor lady got up and walked to her +mirror and looked at her face. Apparently satisfied that such charms +were trampled on, she dried her tears altogether, and resumed: + +"Ginny, go out of the room! (to the neat mulatto lass). Vesta, my dear +daughter, I would not cast a stain upon you for the world; but flesh and +blood _will_ cry out. If your father don't do better I will separate +from him, and leave Princess Anne!" + +"Why, _mother_!" + +The daughter's bright eyes were large and startled now, and their +steel-blue tint grew plainer under her rich black eyebrows. + +"I will do it, if I die, unless he reforms!" + +"Why, mother!" + +Vesta stood with her lips parted, and her beautiful teeth just lacing +the coral of the lip. She could say no more for a long moment. Rising as +she spoke, with her head thrown back, and her mould the fuller and a +pallor in her cheeks, she looked the Eve first hearing the Creator's +rebuke. + +"A separation in this family?" whispered Vesta. "It would scandalize all +Maryland. It would break my heart." + +"Darling daughter, my heart must be considered sometimes. I was +something before I was a Custis. I am a woman, too." + +Vesta, still pale, crossed to her mother's side and kissed her. + +"Don't, don't, mamma, ever harbor a thought like that again. You, who +have been so brave and patient longer than I have lived!" + +"Ah, Vesta, it is the length of injury that wears us out! What if +something should happen to us? None are so unfit to bear poverty as we." + +"We cannot be poor," said the daughter, soothingly. "Don't you remember, +mother, where it says: 'As thy day, so shall thy strength be'?". + +"My child," Mrs. Custis replied, "your day is young. Life looks hopeful +to you. I am growing old, and where is the arm on which I should be +leaning? What are we but two women left? There is another passage on +which I often think when we sit so often alone: 'Two women shall be +grinding at the mill: the one shall be taken and the other left!' Is +that you, or is it I? Listen, my child! it is time that you should feel +the melancholy truth! Your father's habits have mastered him. He is +beyond reclamation!" + +Vesta was kneeling, and she slowly raised her head and looked at her +mother, with her nostrils dilated. Mrs. Custis felt uneasy before the +aroused mind of her child. + +"Don't look at me so, Vesta," the poor lady pleaded. "I thought you +ought to know it." + +"How dare you say that of my father? Of Judge Custis?" + +As they were in this suspense of feeling, wheels were heard. The +daughter went to the window and looked down, and then returned to her +mother's ear. + +"Hush, mother, it is papa. Now, wash your eyes at the toilet. Let us +meet him cheerfully. Never say again that he is beyond reclamation, +while we can try!" + +A kiss smoothed Mrs. Custis's countenance. Vesta was dressed for +breakfast in a few moments, and descended to the library and was +received in her father's arms. He held her there a long while, and held +her close, and by little fits renewed his embrace, but she felt that his +breath was feverish and his arms trembled. Looking up at him she saw, +indeed, that he was flushed, yet haggard and careworn. + +"Vessy," he spoke with a feeble attempt to smile, "I want a glass of +brandy. Mine gave out at the Furnace, and the morning ride has weakened +me. Where is the key?" + +She looked at him with a half-glance, so that he might not suspect, as +if to measure his need of stimulant. Then, without a word, she led the +way to the dining-room and unlocked the liquor closet, and turned her +back lest he might not drink his need from sensitiveness. + +"Naughty man," said Vesta, standing off and looking at him when he was +done. "I was going down for you to the Furnace after breakfast. We will +have no more of this truantry. Mamma and I have set our feet down! You +must come back from the Furnace every night, and go again in the +morning, like other business men. Be very kind to mamma this morning, +sir! She feels your neglect." + +Vesta had already rung for the Judge's valet, who now appeared, drew off +his boots, supplied his slippers and dressing-gown, and led the way to +his bath. In a quarter of an hour he reappeared, looking better, and he +irresolutely turned again towards the dining-room, smiling suggestively +at Vesta. + +"Not that way," spoke she. "Here is mamma, and we are ready for prayers. +Here is the place in the Bible." + +They all went to the family room, where the dressing-maids of Vesta and +her mother were waiting for the usual morning prayers. Vesta placed the +open Bible on her father's knee, and he began absently and stumblingly +to read. It was in the book of Samuel, and seemed to be some old Jewish +mythology. He suddenly came to a verse which arrested his sensibilities +by its pathos: + +"'And David sent messengers to Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, saying, Deliver +me my wife Michal.... And Ish-bosheth sent, and took her from her +husband, even from Phaltiel, the son of Laish. And her husband went with +her along weeping behind her.... Then said Abner unto him: Go, return. +And he returned.'" + +Judge Custis saw at once the picture this compact history aroused. The +inexorable David, perhaps, had married another's love. Occasion had +arisen to embitter her kin, and they took her back and gave her in +happiness to her pining lover. But, again, the man of correct habits +triumphed over the sons of the king, and despatched Abner to tear his +wife from her true husband's arms. Poor Phaltiel followed her weeping, +until ordered to go back--and back he went, forever desolate. + +The scene recalled the brutal demand of his creditor upon his child. The +Judge's eyes silently o'erflowed, and he could not see. + +Vesta had watched him closely, as her silent magistracy detected a great +anxiety or illness in her father. Lest her mother might also notice it, +she interposed in the lesson, as was her habit, by reading the Episcopal +form of prayer, in which they all bent their heads. Once or twice, as +she went on, she detected a suppressed sob, especially at the paragraph: +"Thou who knowest the weakness and corruption of our nature, and the +manifold temptations which we daily meet with, we humbly beseech thee to +have compassion on our infirmities and to give us the constant +assistance of thy Holy Spirit, that we may be effectually restrained +from sin and excited to our duty!" + +They went to the breakfast-table, and the Judge's countenance was down. +He bit off some toast and filled his mouth with tea, but could not +swallow. A hand softly touched his elbow, and, looking there, he saw a +wine-glass full of brandy softly glide to the spot. As he looked up and +saw the rich, yearning face of his dark-eyed daughter tenderly +consulting his weakness, his heart burst forth; he leaned his head upon +the table and cried, between drink and grief: + +"Darling, we are ruined!" + +Mrs. Custis at once arose, and looked frightenedly at the Judge. Vesta +as quickly turned to the servants and motioned them to go. + +"No, let them hear it!" raved Judge Custis, perceiving the motion. "They +are interested, like us. They must be sold, too. Faithful servants! +Perhaps it may warn them to escape in time!" + +The servants, bred like ladies, quietly left the room. + +Mrs. Custis, growing paler, exclaimed: + +"Daniel Custis, have you lost everything in that furnace?" + +"Everything!" + +"And my money, too?" + +"Yes." + +"Merciful God!" + +Before the weak lady could fall Vesta's arm was around her, and her +finger on the table-bell. Servants entered and Mrs. Custis was carried +out, her daughter following. + +When Vesta returned her father was walking up and down the floor with +his long silk handkerchief in both hands, weeping bitterly, and speaking +broken syllables. She looked at him a moment with all the might of a +daughter, first called on to act alone in a great crisis. The feeling +she was wont to hold towards him, of perfect pride, had received a blow +in her mother's expression: "Your father's habits have mastered him +beyond reclamation." + +Could this be true; that he, the grand, the kind, the gentleman, was +beneath the diver's reach, the plummet's sounding, where light could not +pierce, nor Hope overtake? _Her_ father, the first gentleman in +Somerset, a drunkard, going ever downward towards the gutter, and no ray +of heaven to beam upon his grave! + +She saw his danger now: it was written on his face, where the image of +God shone dim that had once been crowned there. Hair thinner, and very +gray; the rich, dark eyes intimidated, as if manly confidence was gone; +the skin no more the pure scroll of regular life written in the healthy +fluid of the heart, but faded, yet spotted with alcohol; on the nose and +lips signs of coarser sensuality; the large skeleton bent and the +nervous temperament shattered. This father had been until this moment +Vesta's angel. Now, there might not be an angel in the universe to fly +to his rescue. Deep, dreadful humility descended into the daughter's +spirit. + +"God forgive me!" she thought, "how blind and how proud and sinful I +have been!" + +She walked over to her father tenderly and kissed him, and then, drawing +his weaker inclination by hers, brought him to a sofa, placed a pillow +for him, and made him stretch his once proud form there. Procuring a +bowl of water, she washed his face free of tears with a napkin, and +bathed it in cologne. The voluptuous nature of the Judge yielded to the +perfume and the easy position, and he sobbed himself to sleep like an +exhausted child. + +Sitting by the sleeping bankrupt, watching his breast rise and fall, and +hearing his coarse snoring, as if fiends within were snarling in rivalry +for the possession of him, Vesta felt that the life which was +unconscious there was the fountain of her own, and, loving no man else, +she felt her heart like a goldfish of that fountain, go around and +around it throbbingly. + +Then first arose the wish, often in woman's life repeated, to have been +born a man and know how to help her father. That suggested that she had +brothers who ought to be summoned, and confer with their father; but now +it occurred to her that every one of them had leaned upon him; and, +though conscious that it was wicked, Vesta felt her pride rise against +the thought that any being outside of that house, even a brother, should +know of its disgrace. + +What could she do? She thought of all her jewels, her riding mare, her +watch, her father's own gifts, and then the thought perished that these +could help him. + +Could she not earn something by her voice, which had sung to such +praises? Alas! that voice had lost the ingredient of hope, and she +feared to unclose her lips lest it might come forth in agony, crying, +"God, have mercy!" + +"I have nothing," said Vesta to herself; "except love for these two +martyrs, my father and mother. No, nothing can be done until he awakens +and tells me the worst. Meantime it would be wicked for me to increase +the agitation already here, and where I must be the comforter." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +JACK-O'-LANTERN IRON. + + +Mrs. Custis was in no situation to give annoyance for that day, as a +sick-headache seized her and she kept her room. Infirm of will, purely +social in her marriage relations, and never aiming higher than +respectability, she missed the coarse mark of her husband who, with all +his moral defections, probably was her moral equal, his vital standard +higher, his tone a genial hypocrisy, and at bottom he was a democrat. + +Mrs. Custis had no insight nor variability of charity; her mind, bounded +by the municipal republic of Baltimore, which esteems itself the world, +particularly among its mercantile aristocracy, who live like the old +Venetian nobility among their flat lagoons, and do commerce chiefly with +the Turk in the more torrid and instinctive Indies and South. Amiable, +social, afraid of new ideas, frugal of money; if hospitable at the +table, with a certain spiritedness that is seldom intellectual, but a +beauty that powerfully attracts, till, by the limited sympathies beneath +it, the husband from the outer world discerns how hopelessly slavery and +caste sink into an old shipping society, the Baltimore that ruled the +Chesapeake had no more perfected product than Mrs. Custis. + +Her modesty and virtue were as natural as her prejudices; she believed +that marriage was the close of female ambition, and marrying her +children was the only innovation to be permitted. Certain +accomplishments she thought due to woman, but none of them must become +masculine in prosecution; a professional woman she shrank from as from +an infidel or an abolitionist; reading was meritorious up to an orthodox +point, but a passion for new books was dangerous, probably irreligious. +To lose one's money was a crime; to lose another's money the unforgiven +sin, because that was Baltimore public opinion, which she thought was +the only opinion entitled to consideration. The old Scotch and Irish +merchants there had made it the law that enterprise was only excusable +by success, and that success only branded an innovator. A good standard +of society, therefore, had barely permitted Judge Custis to take up the +bog-ore manufacture, and, failing in it, his wife thought he was no +better than a Jacobin. + +On the Eastern Shore, where society was formed before Glasgow and +Belfast had colonized upon the Chesapeake with their precise formulas of +life, a gentler benevolence rose and descended upon the ground every +day, like the evaporations of those prolific seas which manure the thin +soil unfailingly. Religion and benevolence were depositions rather than +dogmas there; moderate poverty was the not unwelcome expectation, wealth +a subject of apprehensive scruples, kindness the law, pride the +exception, and grinding avarice, like Meshach Milburn's, was the mark of +the devil entering into the neighbor and the fellow-man. + +Judge Custis was representative of his neighbors except in his Virginia +voluptuousness; his neighbors were neither prudes nor hypocrites, and he +respected them more than the arrogant race in the old land of Accomac +and in the Virginia peninsulas, whose traits he had almost lost. +Sometimes it seemed to him that the last of the cavalier stock was his +daughter, Vesta. From him it had nearly departed, and his sense of moral +shortcomings expanded his heart and made him tenderly pious to his kind, +if not to God. He admired new-comers, new business modes, and Northern +intruders and ideas, feeling that perhaps the last evidence of his +aristocracy from nature was a chivalric resignation. The pine-trees were +saying to him: "Ye shall go like the Indians, but be not inhospitable to +your successors, and leave them your benediction, that the great bay and +its rivers may be splendid with ships and men, though ye are perished +forever." A perception of the energy of his countrymen, and a pride in +it, without any mean reservation, though it might involve his personal +humiliation, was Judge Custis's only remaining claim to heaven's +magnanimity. Still, rich in human nature, he was beloved by his daughter +with all her soul. + +He awoke long after noon, in body refreshed, and a glass of milk and a +plover broiled on toast were ready for him to eat, with some sprigs of +new celery from the garden to feed his nerves. He made this small meal +silently, and Vesta said, as the tray was removed: + +"Now, papa, before we leave this room, you are to tell me the whole +injury you have suffered, and what all of us can do to assist you; for +if you had succeeded the reward would have been ours, and we must divide +the pains of your misfortune with you without any regret. Courage, papa! +and let me understand it." + +The Judge feebly looked at Vesta, then searched his mind with his eyes +downcast, and finally spoke: + +"My child, I am the victim of good intentions and self-enjoyment. I am +less than a scoundrel and worse than a fool. I am a fraud, and you must +be made to see it, for I fear you have been proud of me." + +"Oh, father, I have!" said Vesta, with an instant's convulsion. "You +were my God." + +"Let us throw away idolatry, my darling. It is the first of all the +sins. How loud speaks the first commandment to us this moment: 'Thou +shalt have no other gods before me'?" + +"I have broken it," sobbed Vesta, "I loved you more than my Creator." + +"Vesta," spoke the Judge, "you are the only thing of value in all my +house. The work of nature in you is all that survives the long edifice +of our pride. The treasure of your beauty and love still makes me rich +to thieves, who lie in ambush all around us. We are in danger, we are +pursued. O God! pity, pity the pure in heart!" + +As the Judge, under his strong earnestness, so rare in him of late, +threw wide his arms, and raised his brow in agony, Vesta felt her +idolatry come back. He was so grand, standing there in his unaffected +pain and helplessness, that he seemed to her some manly Prometheus, who +had worked with fire and iron, to the exasperation of the jealous gods. +Admiration dried her tears, and she forgot her father's references to +herself. + +"What is iron?" she asked. "Tell me why you wanted to make iron! If I +can enter into your mind and sympathize with the hopes you have had, it +will lift my soul from the ground. Papa, I should have asked for this +lesson long ago." + +The Judge strode up and down till she repeated the question, and had +brought him to his seat. He collected his thoughts, and resumed his +worldly tone as he proceeded, with his old cavalier volatility, to tell +the tale of iron. + +"I have duplicated loans," he said at last, "on the same properties, +incurring, I fear, a stigma upon my family and character; as well as the +ruin of our fortune." + +Vesta arose with pale lips and a sinking heart. + +"Oh, father," she whispered, in a frightened tone, "who knows this +terrible secret!" + +"Only one man," said the Judge, cowering down to the carpet, with his +courage and volatility immediately gone, "old Meshach Milburn knows it +all! He has purchased the duplicate notes of protest, and holds them +with his own. He has me in his power, and hates me. He will expose me, +unless I submit to an awful condition." + +"What is it, father?" + +The Judge looked up in terror, and, meeting Vesta's pale but steady +gaze, hid his face and groaned: + +"Oh! it is too disgraceful to tell. It will break your mother's heart." + +"Tell me at once!" exclaimed Vesta, in a low and hollow tone. "What +further disgrace can this monster inflict upon us than to expose our +dishonor? Can he kill us more than that?" + +"I know not how to tell you, Vessy. Spare me, my darling! My face I hide +for shame." + +There was a pause, while Vesta, with her mind expanded to touch every +point of suggestion, stood looking down at her father, yet hardly seeing +him. He did not move. + +Vesta stooped and raised her father's face to find some solution of his +mysterious evasion. He shut his eyes as if she burned him with her +wondering look. + +"Papa, look at me this instant! You shall not be a coward to me." + +He broke from her hands and retreated to a window, looking at her, but +with a timorous countenance. + +"I wish you to go this moment and find your creditor, Mr. Milburn, and +bring him to me. You must obey me, sir!" + +The father raised his hands as if to protest, but before he could speak +a shadow fell upon the window, and the figure of a small, swarthy man +covered with a steeple-crowned hat advanced up the front steps. + +"Saviour, have mercy!" murmured Judge Custis, "the wolf is at the door." + +Vesta took her father in her arms, and kissed him once assuringly. + +"Papa, go send a servant to open the door. Have Mr. Milburn shown into +this room to await me. Do you go and engage my mother affectionately, +and both of you remain in your chamber till I am ready to call you." + +The proximity of the dreadful creditor had almost paralyzed Judge +Custis, and he glided out like a ghost. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE HAT FINDS A RACK. + + +Meshach Milburn had locked the store after writing some letters, and had +taken the broad street for Judge Custis's gate. The news of his +disappearance towards the Furnace, with an extravagant livery team, had +spread among all the circle around the principal tavern, and they were +discussing the motive and probabilities of the act, with that deep inner +ignorance so characteristic of an instinctive society. Old Jimmy +Phoebus, a huge man, with a broad face and small forehead, was called +upon for his view. + +"It's nothin' but a splurge," said Jimmy; "sooner or later everybody +splurges--shows off! Meshach's jest spilin' with money and he must have +a splurge--two hosses and a nigger. If it ain't a splurge I can't tell +what ails him to save my life." + +A general chorus went up of "Dogged if I kin tell to save my life!" + +Levin Dennis, the terrapin-buyer, made a wild guess, as follows: + +"Meshach, I reckon, is a goin' into the hoss business. He's a ben in +everything else, and has tuk to hosses. If it tain't hosses, I can't +tell to save my life!" + +All the lesser intellects of the party executed a low chuckle, spun +around half-way on their boot-heels and back again, and muttered: "Not +to save my life!" + +Jack Wonnell, wearing one of the new bell-crowns, and barefooted, and +looking like a vagrant who had tried on a militia grenadier's imposing +bearskin hat, let off this irrelevant _addendum_: + +"Ole Milbun's gwyn to see a gal. Fust time a man changes his regler +course wilently, it's a gal. I went into my bell-crowns to git a gal. +Milbun's gwyn get a gal out yonda in forest. If that ain't it, can't +tell to save m' life!" + +The smaller fry, not being trained to suggestion, grinned, held their +mouths agape, executed the revolution upon; one heel, and echoed: +"Dogged ef a kin tell t' _save_ m' life!". + +"He's a comin', boys, whooep!" exclaimed Jimmy Phoebus. "Now we'll +all take off our hats an' do it polite, for, by smoke! thar's goin' to +be hokey-pokey of some kind or nuther in Prencess Anne!" + +The smallish man in the Guy Fawkes hat and the old, ultra-genteel, +greenish gaiters, walked towards them with his resinous bold eyes to the +front, his nose informing him of what was in the air like any silken +terrier's, and yet with a pallor of the skin as of a sick person's, and +less than his daily expression of hostility to Princess Anne. + +"He's got the ager," remarked Levin Dennis, "them's the shakes, comin' +on him by to-morrey, ef I know tarrapin bubbles!" + +The latter end only of the nearest approach to profanity current in that +land was again heard, fluttering around: "to _save_ my life!" + +Jimmy Phoebus had the name of being descended from a Greek pirate, or +patriot, who had settled on the Eastern Shore, and Phoebus looked it +yet, with his rich brown complexion, broad head, and Mediterranean eyes. +"Good-afternoon, Mr. Milburn!" spoke Jimmy, loud and careless. + +"Good-afternoon, Mr. Phoebus. Gentlemen, good-afternoon!" + +As he responded, with a voice hardly genial but placating, Milburn +lifted his ancient and formidable hat, and in an instant seemed to come +a century nearer to his neighbors. His stature was reduced, his +unsociableness seemed modified; he now looked to be a smallish, +friendless person, as if some ownerless dog had darted through the +street, and heard a kind chirp at the tavern door, where his reception +had been stones. His voice, with a little tremor in it, emboldened Levin +Dennis also to speak: + +"Look out for fevernager this month, Mr. Milburn!" + +Meshach bowed his head, gliding along as if bashfully anxious to pass. + +"Nice weather for drivin'!" added Jack Wonnell, having also taken off +his own tile of frivolity, to feel the effect; but this remark was +regarded by the group as too forward, and a low chorus ran round of +"Jack Wonnell can't help bein' a fool to save his life!" + +Milburn said to himself, passing on: "Are those voices kinder than +usually, or am I more timid? What is it in the air that makes everything +so acute, and my cheeks to tingle? Am I sick, or is it Love?" + +The word frightened him, and the sand under his feet seemed to crack; a +woodpecker in an old tree tapped as if it was the tree's old heart +quickened by something; the houses all around looked like live objects, +with their windows fixed upon his walk, like married folks' eyes. As he +came in sight of Judge Custis's residence, so expressive of old respect +and long intentions, the money-lender almost stopped, so mild and +peacefully it looked at him--so undisturbed, while he was palpitating. + +"Why this pain?" thought Milburn. "Am I afraid? That house is mine. Do I +fear to enter my own? And yet it does not fear me. It has been there so +long that it has no fears, and every window in it faces benignant to my +coming. The three gables survey yonder forest landscape like three old +magistrates on the bench, administering justice to a county where never +till now was there a ravisher!" + +The thought produced a moment's intellectual pride in him, like lawless +power's uneasy paroxysm. "It is the Forest these gentles have to fear +to-day!" he thought, resentfully, then stopped, with another image his +word aroused: + +"What has that forest ever felt of injury or hate, with every cabin-door +unlatched, no robber feared by any there, the blossoms on the negro's +peachtree, the ripe persimmons on the roadside, plenteous to every +forester's child, and humility and affection making all richer, without +a dollar in the world, than I, the richest upstart of the forest, +compelled to buy affection, like an indifferent slave!" + +A large dog at Custis's home, seeing him walk so slowly, came down the +path to the gate, also walking slow, and showed neither animosity nor +interest, except mechanically to walk behind him towards the door. + +"The dog knows me," thought the quickened heart of Meshach, "from +life-long seeing of me, but never wagged his tail at me in all that +time. Could I acquire the heart even of this dog, though I might buy +him? My debtor's step would still be most welcome to him, and he would +eat my food in strangeness and fear." + +Milburn walked up the steps, and sounded the substantial brass knocker. +It struck four times, loud and deep, and the stillness that followed was +louder yet, like the unknown thing, after sentence has been passed. He +seemed to be there a very long time with his heart quite vacant, as if +the debtor's knocker had scared every chatterer out of it, and yet his +temples and ears were ringing. He was thinking of sounding the knocker +again, when a lady's servant, partly white, rolled back the bolt, and +bowed to his question whether the Judge was in. + +He entered the broad hall of that distinguished residence, and taking +the Entailed Hat from his head, hung it up at last, where better +head-coverings had been wont to keep equal society, on a carved mahogany +rack of colonial times. The venerable object, once there, gave a common +look to everything, as Meshach thought, and deepened his personal sense +of unworthiness. He tried to feel angry, but apprehension was too strong +for passion even to be simulated. + +"O, discriminating God!" he felt, within, "is it not enough to create us +so unequal that we must also cringe in spirit, and acknowledge it! I +expected to feel triumphant when I lodged my despised hat in this man's +house, but I feel meaner than before." + +The room, whose door was opened by the lady's maid, was the library, +containing three cumbrous cases of books, and several portraits in oil, +with deep, gilded frames, a map of Virginia and its northeastern +environs, including all the peninsula south of the Choptank river and +Cape Henlopen; and near the door was a tall clock, that a giant might +stand in, solemnly cogging and waving time, and giving the monotony of +everlasting evening to the place, which was increased by the flickering +fire of wood on the tall brass fire-irons, before which some +high-backed, wide, comfortable leather chairs were drawn, all worn to +luxurious attitudes, as if each had been the skin of Judge Custis and +his companions, recently evacuated. + +A woman's rocking-chair was disposed among them, as though every other +chair deferred to it. This was the first article to arrest Milburn's +attention, so different, so suggestive, almost a thing of superstition, +poised, like a woman's instinct and will, upon nothing firm, yet, like +the sphere it moved upon, traversing a greater arc than a giant's seat +would fill. Purity and conquest, power and welcome, seemed to abide +within it, like the empty throne in Parliament. + +Milburn, being left alone, touched the fairy rocker with his foot. It +started so easily and so gracefully, that, when it died away, he pressed +his lips to the top of it, nearest where her neck would be, and +whispered aloud, with feeling, "God knows that kiss, at least, was +pure!" + +He looked at the portraits, and, though they were not inscribed, he +guessed at them all, right or wrong, from the insight of local lore or +envious interpretation. + +"Yon saucy, greedy, superserviceable rogue," thought Meshach, "with wine +and beef in his cheeks, and silver and harlotry in his eye, was the +Irish tavern-keeper of Rotterdam, who kept a heavy score against the +banished princes whom Cromwell's name ever made to swear and shiver, and +they paid him in a distant office in Accomac, where they might never +see him and his bills again, and there they let him steal most of the +revenue, and, of course, his loyalty was in proportion to his booty. +Many a time, no doubt, he was procurer for both royal brothers, Charles +and James, making his tavern their stew, with Betty Killigrew, or Lucy +Walters, or Katy Peg, or even Anne Hyde, the mother of a queen--of her +who was the Princess Anne, godmother of our worshipful town here. I have +not read in vain," concluded Meshach, "because my noble townsmen drove +me to my cell!" + +The next portrait was clothed in military uniform, with a higher type of +manhood, shrewd and vigilant, but magisterial. "That should be +Major-general John Custis," thought Milburn, looking at it, "son of John +the tapster, and a marrying, shifty fellow, who first began greatness as +a salt-boiler on these ocean islands, till his father's friend, Charles +II., in a merry mood, made Henry Bennet, the king's bastard son's +father-in-law, Earl of Arlington and lessee of Virginia. All the +province for forty shillings a year rent! Those were pure, economical +times, indeed, around the court. So salt-boiler John flunkeyed to +Arlington's overseers, named his farm 'Arlington,' hunted and informed +upon the followers of the Puritan rebel Bacon, then turned and fawned +upon King William, too. His grandchildren, all well provided for, spread +around this bay. So much for politics in a merchant's hands!" + +The tone of Meshach's comment had somewhat raised his courage, and a +sense of pleasurable interest in the warm room and genial surroundings +led him to pass the time, which was of considerable length, quite +contentedly, till Judge Custis was ready. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, the steeple-top hat was giving some silent astonishment to +the house-servants, assembled to gaze upon it from the foot of the hall. +The neat chamber-servant, Virgie, had carried the wondrous information +to the colonnade that the dreadful creditor had come, and Roxy, the +table waiter, had carried it from the colonnade to the kitchen, where +the common calamity immediately produced a revolution against good +manners. + +"Hab he got dat debbil hat on he head, chile?" inquired Aunt Hominy, +laying down the club with which she was beating biscuit-dough on the +block. + +"Yes, aunty, he's left it on the hat-rack. I'm afraid to go past it to +the do'." + +Aunt Hominy threw the club on the blistered bulk of dough, and retreated +towards the big black fireplace, with a face expressive of so much +fright and cunning humor together that it seemed about to turn white, +but only got as far as a pucker and twitches. + +"De Lord a massy!" exclaimed Aunt Hominy, "chillen, le's burn dat hat in +de fire! Maybe it'll liff de trouble off o' dis yer house. We got de hat +jess wha' we want it, chillen. Roxy, gal, you go fotch it to Aunt +Hominy!" + +The girl started as if she had been asked to take up a snake: "'Deed, +Aunt Hominy, I wouldn't touch it to save my life. Nobody but ole Samson +ever did that!" + +"Go' long, gal!" cried Aunt Hominy, "didn't Miss Vessy hole dat ar' hat +one time, an' pin a white rose in it? Didn't he, dat drefful Meshach +Milbun, offer Miss Vessy a gole dollar, an' she wouldn' have none of his +gole? Dat she did! Virgie, you go git dat hat, chile! Poke it off de +rack wid my pot-hook heah. 'Twon't hurt you, gal! I'll sprinkle ye fust +wid camomile an' witch-hazel dat I keep up on de chimney-jamb." + +Aunt Hominy turned towards the broadly notched chimney sides, where +fifty articles of negro pharmacy were kept--bunches of herbs, dried +peppers, bladders of seeds, and bottles of every mystic potency. + +"Aunty," answered Virgie, "if I wasn't afraid of that Bad Man, I would +be afraid to move that hat, because Miss Vessy would be mortified. +Think of her seeing me treating a visitor's things like that. Why, I'd +rather be sold!" + +"Dat hat," persisted Aunt Hominy, "is de ruin ob dis family. Dat hat, +gals, de debbil giv' ole Meshach, an' made him wear it fo' de gift ob +gittin' all de gole in Somerset County. Don't I know when he wore it +fust? Dat was when he begun to git all de gole. Fo' dat he had been po' +as a lizzer, sellin' to niggers, cookin' fo' heseff, an' no' count, +nohow. He sot up in de loft of his ole sto' readin' de Bible upside down +to git de debbil's frenship. De debbil come in one night, and says to +ole Meshach: 'Yer's my hat! Go, take it, honey, and measure land wid it, +and all de land you measure is yo's, honey!' An' Meshach's measured mos' +all dis county in. Jedge Custis's land is de last." + +The relation affected both girls considerably, and the group of little +colored boys and girls still more, who came up almost chilled with +terror, to listen; but it produced the greatest effect on Aunt Hominy +herself, whose imagination, widened in the effort, excited all her own +fears, and gave irresistible vividness to her legend. + +"How can his hat measure people's lands in, Aunty?" asked Virgie, +drawing Roxy to her by the waist for their mutual protection. + +"Why, chile, he measures land in by de great long shadows dat debbil's +hat throws. Meshach, he sots his eyes on a good farm. Says he, 'I'll +measure dat in!' So he gits out dar some sun-up or sundown, when de sun +jest sots a'mos' on de groun, an' ebery tree an' fence-pos' and standin' +thing goes away over de land, frowin' long crooked shadows. Dat's de +time Meshach stans up, wid dat hat de debbil gib him to make him longer, +jest a layin' on de fields like de shadow of a big church-steeple. He +walks along de road befo' de farm, and wherever dat hat makes a mark on +de ground all between it an' where he walks is ole Meshach's land. +Dat's what he calls his mortgage!" + +The children had their mouths wide open; the maids heard with faith only +less than fear. + +"But, Aunt Hominy," spoke Roxy, "he never measured in Judge Custis's +house, and all of us in it, that is to be sold." + +"Didn't I see him a doin' of it?" whispered Aunt Hominy, stooping as if +to creep, in the contraction of her own fears, and looking up into their +faces with her fists clinched. "He's a ben comin' along de fence on de +darkest, cloudiest nights dis long a time, like a man dat was goin' to +rob something, and peepin' up at Miss Vessy's window. He took de dark +nights, when de streets of Prencess Anne was clar ob folks, an' de dogs +was in deir cribs, an' nuffin' goin' aroun' but him an' wind an' cold +an' rain. One night, while he was watchin' Miss Vessy's window like a +black crow, from de shadow of de tree, I was a-watchin' of him from de +kitchen window. De moon, dat had been all hid, come right from behin' de +rain-clouds all at once, gals, an' scared him like. De moon was low on +de woods, chillen, an' as ole Meshach turned an' walked away, his +debbil's shadow swept dis house in. He measured it in dat night. It's +ben his ever since." + +"Well," exclaimed Roxy, after a pause, "I know I wouldn't take hold of +that hat now." + +"I am almost afraid to look at it," said Virgie, "but if Miss Vessy told +me to go bring it to her, I would do it." + +"Le's us all go together," ventured Aunt Hominy, "and take a peep at it. +Maybe it won't hurt us, if we all go." + +Aware that Judge Custis and his wife were not near, the little circle of +servants--Aunt Hominy, Virgie, Roxy, and the four children, from five to +fourteen years of age--filed softly from the kitchen through the covered +colonnade, and thence along the back passage to the end of the hall, +where they made a group, gazing with believing wonder at the King James +tile. + +* * * Vesta Custis, having changed her morning robe for a walking-suit, +and slightly rearranged her toilet, and knelt speechless awhile to +receive the unknown will of Heaven, came down the stairs at last, in +time to catch a glimpse of half-a-dozen servants staring at a strange +old hat on the hall rack. They hastily fled at her appearance, but the +idea of the hat was also conveyed to her own fancy by their unwonted +behavior. She looked up an instant at the queer, faded article hanging +among its betters, and with a reminiscence of childhood, and of having +held it in her hand, there descended along the intervening years upon +the association, the odor of a rose and the impression of a pair of +bold, startled eyes gazing into hers. She opened the library door, and +the same eyes were looking up from her father's easy-chair. + +"Mr. Milburn, I believe?" said Vesta, walking to the visitor, and +extending her hand with native sweetness. + +He arose and bowed, and hardly saw the hand in the earnest look he gave +her, as if she had surprised him, and he did not know how to express his +bashfulness. She did not withdraw the hand till he took it, and then he +did not let it go. His strong, rather than bold, look, continuing, she +dropped her eyes to the hand that mildly held her own, and then she +observed, all calm as she was, that his hand was a gentleman's, its +fingers long and almost delicate, the texture white, the palm warm, and, +as it seemed to her, of something like a brotherly pressure, respectful +and gentle too. + +As he did not speak immediately, Vesta returned to his face, far less +inviting, but peculiar--the black hair straight, the cheek-bones high, +no real beard upon him anywhere, the shape of the face broad and +powerful, and the chops long, while the yellowish-brown eyes, wide open +and intense, answered to the open, almost observant nostrils at the end +of his straight, fine nose. His complexion was dark and forester-like, +seeming to show a poor, unnutritious diet. He was hardly taller than +Vesta. His teeth were good, and the mouth rather small. She thought he +was uncertain what to say, or confused in his mind, though no sign of +fear was visible. Vesta came to his rescue, withdrawing her hand +naturally. + +"I have seen you many times, Mr. Milburn, but never here, I think." + +"No, miss, I have never been here." He hesitated. "Nor anywhere in +Princess Anne. You are the first lady here to speak to me." + +His words, but not his tone, intimated an inferiority or a slight. The +voice was a little stiff, appearing to be at want for some corresponding +inflection, like a man who had learned a language without having had the +use of it. + +"Will you sit, Mr. Milburn? You owe this visit so long that you will not +be in haste to-day. I hope you have not felt that we were inhospitable. +But little towns often encourage narrow circles, and make people more +selfish than they intend." + +"You could never be selfish, miss," said Milburn, without any of the +suavity of a compliment, still carrying that wild, regarding gaze, like +the eyes of a startled ox. + +Vesta faintly colored at the liberty he took. It was slightly +embarrassing to her, too, to meet that uninterpretable look of inquiry +and homage; but she felt her necessity as well as her good-breeding, and +made allowance for her visitor's want of sophistication. He was like an +Indian before a mirror, in a stolid excitement of apprehension and +delight. The most beautiful thing he ever saw was within the compass of +his full sight at last, and whether to detain it by force or persuasion +he did not know. + +Her dark hair, silky as the cleanest tassels of the corn, fell as +naturally upon her perfect head as her teeth, white as the milky +corn-rows, moved in the May cherries of her lips. The delicate arches +of her brows, shaded by blackbirds' wings, enriched the clear sky of her +harmonious eyes, where mercy and nobility kept company, as in heaven. + +"How could you know I was unselfish, Mr. Milburn?" + +"Because I have heard you sing." + +"Oh, yes! You hear me in our church, I remember." + +"I have heard you every Sunday that you sung there for years," said +Meshach, with hardly a change of expression. + +"Are you fond of music, Mr. Milburn?" + +"Yes, I like all I have ever heard--birds and you." + +"I will sing for you, then," said Vesta, taking the relief the talk +directed her to. A piano was in another room, but, to avoid changing the +scene, as well as to use a simpler accompaniment for an ignorant man's +ears, she brought her guitar, and, placing it in her lap, struck the +strings and the key, without waiting, to these tender words: + + "Oh, for some sadly dying note, + Upon this silent hour to float, + Where, from the bustling world remote, + The lyre might wake its melody! + One feeble strain is all can swell. + From mine almost deserted shell, + In mournful accents yet to tell + That slumbers not its minstrelsy. + + "There is an hour of deep repose, + That yet upon my heart shall close, + When all that nature dreads and knows + Shall burst upon me wondrously; + Oh, may I then awake, forever, + My harp to rapture's high endeavor; + And, as from earth's vain scene I sever, + Be lost in Immortality." + +Vesta ceased a few minutes, and, her visitor saying nothing, she +remarked, with emotion. + +"Those lines were written at my grandfather's house, in Accomac County, +by a young clergyman from New York, who was grandfather's rector, Rev. +James Eastburn. He was only twenty-two years old when he died, at sea, +of consumption. His is the only poetry I have ever heard of, Mr. +Milburn, written in our beautiful old country here." + +"I wondered if I should ever hear you sing for me," spoke Milburn, after +hesitation. "Now it is realized, I feel sceptical about it. You are +there, Miss Custis, are you not?" + +Vesta was puzzled. Under other circumstances she would have been amused, +since her humor could flow freely as her music. It faintly seemed to her +that the little odd man might be cracked in the head. + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Milburn. If it were a dream, I should have no +expression all this day but song. I think I never felt so sad to sing as +just now. Father is ill. Mamma is ill. I have become the business agent +of the family, and have heard within this hour that papa is deeply +involved. You are his creditor, are you not?" + +Meshach Milburn bowed. + +"What is the sum of papa's notes and mortgages? Is it more than he can +pay by the sacrifice of everything?" + +"Yes. He has nothing to sell at forced sale which will bring anything, +but the household servants here; these maids in the family are +marketable immediately. You would not like to sell them?" + +"Sell Virgie! She was brought up with me; what right have I to sell her +any more than she has to sell me?" + +"None," said Milburn, bluntly, "but there is law for it." + +"To sell Roxy, too, and old Aunt Hominy, and the young children! how +could I ever pray again if they were sold? Oh! Mr. Milburn, where was +your heart, to let papa waste his plentiful substance in such a +hopeless experiment? If my singing in the church has given you +happiness, why could it not move you to mercy? Think of the despair of +this family, my father's helpless generosity, my mother's marriage +settlement gone, too, and every other son and daughter parted from +them!" + +"I never encouraged one moment Judge Custis's expenditure," said +Meshach, "though I lent him money. The first time he came to me to +borrow, my mind was in a liberal disposition, for you had just entered +it with your innocent attentions. I supposed he wanted a temporary +accommodation, and I gave it to him at the lowest rate one Christian +would charge another." + +"You say that I influenced you to lend my father money? Why, sir, I was +a child. He has been borrowing from you since my earliest +recollections." + +The creditor took from his breast-pocket a large leather wallet, and, +arising, laid its contents on the table. He opened a piece of folded +paper, and drew from it two objects; one a lock of blue-black hair like +his own, and the other a pressed and faded rose. + +"This flower," said Milburn, with reverence, "Judge Custis's daughter +fastened in my derided hat. I kept it till it was dead, and laid it away +with my mother's hair, the two religious objects of my life. That faded +rose made me your father's creditor, Miss Custis." + +Vesta took the rose, and looked at him with surprise and inquiry. + +"Oh, why did not this flower speak for us?" she said; "to open your lips +after that, to save my father? Then you informed yourself, and knew that +he was hurrying to destruction, but still you gave him money at higher +interest." + +Milburn looked at her with diminished courage, but sincerity, and +answered: "Your voice sang between us, Miss Custis, every time he came. +I did not admit to myself what it was, but the feeling that I was being +drawn near you still opened my purse to your father, till he has drained +me of the profits of years, which I gave him with a lavish fatality, +though grasping every cent from every source but that. I did know, then, +he could not probably repay me, but every Sabbath at the church you +sang, and that seemed some compensation. I was bewitched; indistinct +visions of gratitude and recognition from you filled the preaching with +concourses of angels, all bearing your image, and hovering above me. The +price I paid for that unuttered and ever-repelled hope has been +princely, but never grudged, and it has been pure, I believe, or Heaven +would have punished me. The more I ruined myself for your father, the +more successful my ventures were in all other places; if you were my +temptation, it had the favor or forgiveness of the God in whose temple +it was born." + +Vesta arose also, with a frightened spirit. + +"Do I understand you?" she said, with her rich gray eyes wide open under +their startled lashes. "My father has spoken of a degrading condition? +Is it to love you?" + +For the first time Meshach Milburn dropped his eyes. + +"I never supposed it possible for you to love me," he said, bitterly. "I +thought God might permit me some day to love you." + +"Do you know what love is?" asked Vesta, with astonishment. + +"No." + +"How came you, then, to be interpreting my good acts so basely, carrying +even my childhood about in your evil imagination, and cursing my +father's sorrow with the threat of his daughter's slavery?" + +Milburn heard with perfect humility these hard imputations. + +"You have not loved, I think, Miss Custis?" he said, with a slight +flush. "I have believed you never did." + +He raised his eyes again to her face. + +"I loved my father above everything," faltered Vesta. "I saw no man, +besides, admiring my father." + +"Then I displaced no man's right, coveting your image. Sometimes it +seemed you were being kept free so long to reward my silent worship. I +do not know what love is, but I know the gifts of God, as they bloom in +nature, repel no man's devotion. The flowers, the birds, and the forest, +delighted my childhood; my youth was spent in the study of myself and +man; at last a beautiful child appeared to me, spoke her way to my soul, +and it could never expel her glorious presence. All things became +subordinate to her, even avarice and success. She kept me a Christian, +or I should have become utterly selfish; she kept me humble, for what +was my wealth when I could not enter her father's house! I am here by a +destiny now; the power that called you to this room, so unexpectedly to +me, has borne us onward to the secret I dreaded to speak to you. Dare I +go further?" + +She was trying to keep down her insulted feelings, and not say something +that should forever exasperate her father's creditor, but the +possibility of marrying him was too tremendous to reply. + +"This moment is a great one," continued Milburn, firmly, "for I feel +that it is to terminate my visions of happiness, and of kindness as +well. You have expressed yourself so indignantly, that I see no thought +of me has ever lodged in your mind. Why should it have ever done so? +Though I almost dreamed it had, because you filled my life so many years +with your rich image, I thought you might have felt me, like an +apparition, stealing around this dwelling often in the dark and rain, +content with the ray of light your window threw upon the deserted +street. Now I see that I was a weak dunce, whose passion nature lent no +nerve of hers to convey even to your notice. Better for me that I had +hugged the debasing reality of my gold, and lost my eyes to everything +but its comfort!" + +He looked towards the door. Vesta sat down in the fairy rocker, and +detained him. + +"You have told me the feeling you think you had, Mr. Milburn. Poor as we +Custises are now, it will not do to be proud. How did you ever think +that feeling could be returned by me? My youth, my connections, +everything, would forbid me, without haughtiness, to see a suitor in +you. Then, you took no means to turn my attention towards you. You could +have been neighborly, had you desired. You did not even wear the +commonest emblems of a lover--" + +She paused. Milburn said to himself: + +"Ah! that accursed Hat." + +The interruption ruffled his temper: + +"I have had reasons, also proud, Miss Custis, to be consistent with my +perpetual self here. I will put the substantial merits of my case to +you, since I see that I am not likely to make myself otherwise +attractive. This house is already mine. The law will, in a few weeks, +put me in possession of your father's entire property. I shall change +outward circumstances with him in Princess Anne. He is too old to adopt +my sacrifices, and recover his situation; he may find some shifting +refuge with his sons and daughters, but, even if his spirit could brook +that dependence, it would be very unnecessary, when, by marrying his +creditor, you can retain everything he now has to make his family +respectable. I offer you his estate as your marriage portion!" + +He took up from the table the notes her father had negotiated, and laid +them in her lap. + +Vesta sat rocking slowly, and deeply agitated. She had in her mouth the +comfort and honor of her parents, which she could confer in a single +word. It was a responsibility so mighty that it made her tremble. + +"Oh! what shall I say?" she thought. "It will be a sin to say 'Yes.' To +say 'No' would be a crime." + +"You shall retain every feature of your home--your servants, your +mother, and her undiminished portion; your liberty in the fullest sense. +I will contribute to send your father to the legislature or to congress, +to sustain his pride, and keep him well occupied. The Furnace he may +appear to have sold to me, and I will accept the unpopularity of closing +it. I ask only to serve you, and inhabit your daily life, like one of +these negroes you are kind to, and if I am ever harsh to you, Miss +Vesta, I swear to surrender you to your family, and depart forever." + +Vesta shook her head. + +"There is no separation but one," she said, "when Heaven has been called +down to the marriage solemnity. It is before that act that we must +consider everything. How could I make you happy? My own happiness I will +dismiss. Yours must then comprehend mine. Kindness might make me +grateful, but gratitude will not satisfy your love." + +"Yes," exclaimed Milburn, chasing up his advantage with tremulous ardor; +"the long famine of my heart will be thankful for a dry crust and a cup +of ice. Here at the fireside let me sit and warm, and hear the rustle of +your dress, and grow in heavenly sensibility. You will redeem a savage, +you will save a soul!" + +"It is not the price I must pay to do this, I would have you consider, +sir," Vesta replied, with her attention somewhat arrested by his +intensity; "it is the price you are paying--your self-respect, +perhaps--by the terms on which you obtain me. It may never be known out +of this family that I married you for the sake of my father and mother. +But how am I to prevent you from remembering it, especially when you say +that I am the sum of your purest wishes? If your interest would consume +after you obtained me, we might, at least, be indifferent; but if it +grew into real love, would you not often accuse yourself?" + +Meshach Milburn sat down, cast his large brown eyes upon the floor, and +listened in painful reflection. + +"You cannot conceive I have had any real love for you?" he exclaimed, +dubiously. + +"You have seen me, and desired me for your wife; that is all," said +Vesta, "that I can imagine. Lawless power could do that anywhere. To be +an obedient wife is the lot of woman; but love, such as you have some +glimmering of, is a mystic instinct so mutual, so gladdening, yet so +free, that the captivity you set me in to make me sing to you will +divide us like the wires of a cage." + +"There is no bird I ever caught," said Meshach Milburn, "that did not +learn to trust me. Your comparison does not, therefore, discourage me. +And you have already sung for me, the saddest day of your life!" + +A slight touch of nature in this revelation of her strange suitor called +Vesta's attention to the study of him again. With her intelligence and +sense of higher worth coming to her rescue, she thought: "Let me see all +that is of this Tartar, for, perhaps, there may be another way to his +mercy." + +As she recovered composure, however, she grew more beautiful in his +sight, her dark, peerless charms filling the room, her kindling eyes +conveying love, her skin like the wild plum's, and her raven brows and +crown of luxuriant hair rising upon a queenly presence worthy of an +empress's throne. Such beauty almost made Milburn afraid, but the +energies of his character were all concentrated to secure it. + +"Who _are_ you?" she asked, with a calm, searching look, cast from her +highest self-respect and alert intelligence. "Have you any relations or +connections fit to bring here--to this house, to me?" + +"Not one that I know," said the forester. "I am nothing but myself, and +what you will make of me." + +"Where were you born and reared?" + +"The house does not stand which witnessed that misery," spoke Milburn, +with a flush of obdurate pride; "it was burned last night, not far from +the furnace which swallowed your father's substance." + +"Why, I would be afraid of you, Mr. Milburn, if your errand here was not +so practical. Omens and wonders surround you. Birds forget their natural +life for you. Iron ceases to be occult when you take it up. Your +birthplace in this world disappears by fire the night before you +foreclose a mortgage upon a gentleman's daughter. Is all this sorcery +inseparable from that necromancer's Hat you wear in Princess Anne?" + +She had touched the sensitive topic by a skilful approach, yet he +changed color, as if the allusion piqued him. + +"Nature never rebuked my hat, Miss Vesta, and you are so like nature, it +will not occupy your thoughts. I recollect the day you decorated my old +hat; said I: 'perhaps this vagrant head-covering, after all its injuries +and wanderings, may some day find a peg beneath my own roof, and the +kind welcome of a lady like that little miss.' That was several years +ago, and to-day, for the first time, my hat is on the rack of your hall. +The long wish of the heart is not often denied. We are not responsible +for it. The only conspiracy I have plotted here, was that I did not +oppose most natural occurrences, all drawing towards this scene. My +magic was hope and humility. I dared to wear my ancestor's hat in the +face of a contemptuous and impertinent provincial public, and it gave me +the pride to persevere till I should bring it home to honors and to +noble shelter. If you despise my hat, you will despise me." + +"Oh, no; Mr. Milburn! I try never to despise anything. If you wore your +family hat from some filial respect, it was, in part, piety. But was +that, indeed, your motive in being so eccentric?" + +Milburn felt uneasy again. He hesitated, and said: + +"In perfect truth, I fear not. There may have been something of revenge +in my mind. I had been grossly insulted." + +"Is it not something of that revenge which instigates you here--even in +this profession of love?" exclaimed Vesta, judicially. + +Meshach looked up, and the shadows cleared from his face. + +"I can answer that truthfully, lady. Towards you, not an indignant +thought has ever harbored in my brain. It has been the opposite: +protection, worship, tender sensibility." + +"Has that exceptional charity extended to my father?" + +"No." + +Vesta would have been exasperated, but for his candor. + +"My father never insulted you, sir?" + +"No, he patronized me. He meant no harm, but that old hat has worn a +deep place in my brain through carrying it so long, and it is a subject +that galls me to mention it. Yet, I must be consistent with my only +eccentricity. Wherever I may go, there goes my hat; it makes my +identity, my inflexibility; it achieves my promise to myself, that men +shall respect my hat before I die." + +"Pardon me," said Vesta, not uninterested in his character, "I can +understand an eccentricity founded on family respect. We were +Virginians, and that is next to religion there. The negroes of our +family share it with us. You had a family, then?" + +Milburn shook his head. + +"No; not a family in the sense you mean. Generations of obscurity, a +parentage only virtuous; no tombstone anywhere, no crest nor motto, not +even a self-deluding lie of some former gentility, shaped from hand to +hand till it commits a larceny on history, and is brazen on a carriage +panel! We were foresters. We came forth and existed and perished, like +the families of ants upon the ant-hills of sand. We migrated no more +than the woodpeckers in your sycamore trees, and made no sound in events +more than their insectivorous tapping. Out yonder beyond Dividing Creek, +in the thickets of small oak and low pines, many a little farm, +scratched from the devouring forest, speckling the plains and wastes +with huts and with little barns of logs, once bore the name of Milburn +through all the localities of the Pocomoke to and beyond the great +Cypress Swamp. They are dying, but never dead. The few who live expect +no recognition from me, and, happy in their poverty, envy me nothing I +have accumulated. My name has grown hard to them, my hat is the subject +of their superstitions, my ambition and success have lost me their +sympathy without giving me any other social compensation. You behold a +desperate man, a merciless creditor, a tussock of ore from the bogs of +Nassawongo, yet one whose only crimes have been to adore you, and to +wear his forefathers' hat." + +"Is this pride, then, wholly insulted sensibility, Mr. Milburn?" + +"I cannot say, Miss Custis. You may smile, but I think it is +aristocracy." + +"I think so, too," exclaimed Vesta reflectively; "you are a proud man. +My father, who has had reason to be proud, is less an aristocrat, sir, +than you." + +Milburn's flush came and stayed a considerable while. He was not +displeased at Vesta's compliment, though it bore the nature of an +accusation. + +"You are aristocratic," explained Vesta, "because you adopted the +obsolete hat of your people. Whatever vanity led you to do it, it was +the satisfaction of some origin, I think." + +She checked herself, seeing that she was entering into his affairs with +too much freedom. + +"I suppose that somewhere, some time," spoke the strange visitor, "some +person of my race has been influential and prosperous. Indeed, I have +been told so. He was elevated to both the magistracy and the scaffold, +but my hat had even an older origin." + +"Tell me about that ancestor," said Vesta, the heartache from his +greater errand instigating her to defer it, while she was yet barely +conscious that the man was original, if not interesting. + +He told a singular tale, tracing his hat to Raleigh's times and through +Sir Henry Vane to America, till it became the property of Jacob +Milborne, the popular martyr who was executed in New York, and his +brethren driven into Maryland, bringing with them the harmless hat as +their only patrimony.[1] + +Before he began, Milburn drew up his compact little figure and opened +the door to the hall. The wind or air from some of the large, cold +apartments of the long house, coming in by some crack or open sash, gave +almost a shriek, and scattered the fire in the chimney. + +Vesta felt her blood chill a moment as her visitor re-entered with the +antediluvian hat, and placed it upon the table beneath the lamp. + +It had that look of gentility victorious over decay, which suggested the +mummy of some Pharaoh, brought into a drawing-room on a learned +society's night. Vesta repressed a smile, rising through her pain, at +the gravity of the forester guest, who was about to demonstrate his +aristocracy through this old hat. It seemed to her, also, that the +portraits of the Custises, on the wall, carried indignant noses in the +air at their apparently conscious knowledge of the presence of some +unburied pretender, as if, in Westminster Abbey, the effigies of the +Norman kings had slightly aroused to feel Oliver Cromwell lying among +them in state. + +The hat, Vesta perceived, was Flemish, such as was popular in England +while the Netherlands was her ally against the house of Spain, and, +stripped of its ornaments, was lengthened into the hat of the Puritans. + +Vesta attempted to exert her liberality and perceive some beauty in this +hat, but the utmost she could admit was the tyranny of fashion over the +mind--it seemed, over the soul itself, for this old hat, inoffensive as +it was, weighed down her spirits like a diving-bell. + +The man, without his hat, had somewhat redeemed himself from low +conversation and ideas, but now, that he brought this hat in and +associated his person with it, she shrank from him as if he had been a +triple-hatted Jew, peddling around the premises. + +The obnoxious hat also exercised some exciting influence over Meshach +Milburn, if his changed manner could be ascribed to that article, for he +resumed his strong, wild-man's stare, deepened and lowered his voice, +and without waiting for any query or expression of his listener, told +the tale. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +HA! HA! THE WOOING ON'T. + + +It was twilight when Meshach Milburn closed his story, and silence and +pallid eve drew together in the Custis sitting-room, resembling the two +people there, thinking on matrimony, the one grave as conscious +serpenthood could make him, the other fluttering like the charmed bird. +Vesta spoke first: + +"How intense must be your head to create so many objects around it +within the world of a hat! You have only brought the story down a little +way towards our times." + +"I began the tale of Raleigh out of proportion," said Milburn, "and it +grew upon the same scale, like the passion I conceived for you so +intensely at the outset, that in the climax of this night I am scarcely +begun." + +"Yet, like Raleigh, I see the scaffold," said Vesta, with an attempt at +humor that for the first time broke her down, and she raised her hands +to her face to hush the burst of anguish. It would not be repressed, and +one low cry, deep with the sense of desertion and captivity, sounded +through the deepening room and smote Milburn's innermost heart. He +obeyed an impulse he had not felt since his mother died, starting +towards Vesta and throwing his arms around her, and drawing her to his +breast. + +"Honey, honey," he whispered, kissing her like a child, "don't cry now, +honey. It will break my heart." + +The act of nature seldom is misinterpreted; Vesta, having labored so +long alone with this obdurate man, her young faculties of the head +strained by the first encounter beyond her strength, accepted the +friendship of his sympathy and contrition, as if he had been her father. +In a few moments the paroxysm of grief was past, and she disengaged his +arms. + +"You are not merciless," said Vesta. "Tell me what I must do! You have +broken my father down and he cannot come to my help. Take pity on my +inequality and advise me!" + +"Alas! child," said Milburn, "my advice must be in my own interest, +though I wish I could find your confidence. I am a poor creature, and do +not know how. It is you who must encourage the faith I feel starting +somewhere in this room, like a chimney swallow that would fain fly out. +Chirrup, chirrup to it, and it may come!" + +Standing a moment, trying to collect her thoughts and wholly failing, +Vesta accepted the confidence he held out to her with open arms. +Blushing as she had never blushed in her life, though he could not know +it in the evening dark, she walked to him and kissed him once. + +"Will that encourage you to advise me like a friend?" she said. + +"Alas! no," sighed Milburn fervently, "it makes me the more your unjust +lover. I cannot advise you away from me. Oh, let me plead for myself. I +love you!" + +"Then what shall I do," exclaimed Vesta, in low tones, "if you are +unable to rise to the height of my friend, and my father is your slave? +Do you think God can bless your prosperity, when you are so hard with +your debtor? On me the full sacrifice falls, though I never was in your +debt consciously, and I have never to my remembrance wished injury to +any one." + +"Would you accept your father's independence at the expense of the most +despised man in Princess Anne?" Milburn spoke without changing his kind +tone. "Would you let me give him the fruit of many years of hard toil +and careful saving, in order that I shall be disappointed in the only +motive of assisting him--the honorable wooing of his daughter?" + +She felt her pride rising. + +"Your father's debts to me are tens of thousands of dollars," continued +Milburn. "Do you ask me to present that sum to you, and retire to my +loneliness out of this bright light of home and family, warmth and +music, that you have made? That is the test you put my love to: +banishment from you. Will you ask it?" + +"I have not asked for your money, sir," said Vesta. "Yet I have heard of +Love doing as much as that, relieving the anguish of its object, and +finding sufficient joy in the self-denying deed." + +"I do not think you personally know of any such case, though you may +have read it in a novel or tract. Men have died, and left a fortune they +could no longer keep, to some cherished lady; or they have made a +considerable sacrifice for a beautiful and noble woman; but where did +you ever hear, Miss Vesta, of a famished lover, surrendering every +endowment that might win the peerless one, to be himself returned to his +sorrow, tortured still by love, and by his neighbors ridiculed? What +would Princess Anne say of me? That I had been made a fool of, and hurl +new epithets after my hat?" + +Vesta searched her mind, thinking she must alight upon some such example +there, but none suited the case. Meshach took advantage of her silence: + +"The gifts of a lover are everywhere steps to love, as I have +understood. He makes his impression with them; they are expected. +Nothing creates happiness like a gift, and it is an old saying that +blessings await him who gives, and also her who takes, and that to seek +and ask and knock are praiseworthy." + +"Oh," said Vesta, "but to be _bought_, Mr. Milburn? To be weighed +against a father's debts--is it not degrading?" + +"Not where such respect and cherishing as mine will be. Rather exalt +yourself as more valuable to a miser than his whole lendings, and +greater than all your father's losses as an equivalent, and even then +putting your husband in debt, being so much richer than his account." + +"Where will be my share of love in this world, married so?" asked Vesta. +"To love is the globe itself to a woman, her youth the mere atmosphere +thereof, her widowhood the perfume of that extinguished star; and all my +mind has been alert to discover the image I shall serve, the bright +youth ready for me, looking on one after another to see if it might be +he, and suddenly you hold between me and my faith a paper with my +father's obligations, and say: 'Here is your fate; this is your whole +romance; you are foreclosed upon!' How are you to take a withered heart +like that and find glad companionship in it? No, you will be +disappointed. It will recoil upon me that I sold myself." + +"The image you waited for may have come," said Milburn undauntedly, +"even in me; for love often springs from an ambush, nor can you prepare +the heart for it like a field. I recollect a fable I read of a god +loving a woman, and he burst upon her in a shower of gold; and what was +that but a rich man's wooing? We get gold to equalize nobility in women; +beauty is luxurious, and demands adornment and a rich setting; the +richest man in Princess Anne is not good enough for you, and the mere +boys your mind has been filled with are more unworthy of being your +husband than the humble creditor of your father. Such a creation as Miss +Vesta required a special sacrifice and success in the character of her +husband. The annual life of this peninsula could not match you, and a +monster had to be raised to carry you away." + +"You are not exactly a monster," Vesta remarked, with natural +compassion, "and you compliment me so warmly that it relieves the strain +of this encounter a little. Do not draw a woman's attention to your +defects, as she might otherwise be charmed by your voice." + +"That also is a part of my sacrifice," said Meshach, "like the money +which I have accumulated. Without a teacher, but love and hope, I have +educated myself to be fit to talk to you. It is all crude now, like a +crow that I have taught to speak, but encouragement will make me +confident and saucy, and you will forget my sable raiment--even my hat." + +A chilliness seemed to attend this conclusion, and Vesta touched her +bell. Virgie, entering, took her mistress's instructions: "Bring a tray +and tea, and lights, and place Mr. Milburn's hat upon the rack!" + +The girl glanced at the antique hat with a timid light in her eye, but +her mistress's head was turned as if to intimate that she must take it, +though it might be red-hot. Virgie obeyed, and soon brought in the tea. + +"It is good tea," spoke Milburn, drinking not from the cup, but the +saucer, while Vesta observed him oddly, "and it is chill this evening. +Let me start your fire!" + +He shivered a little as he stood up and walked across the room, and +poking the charred logs into a flame; and, setting on more wood, he made +the walls spring into yellow flashes, between which Vesta saw her +forefathers dart cold glances at her, in their gilt frames--yet how +helpless they were, with all their respectability, to take her body or +her father's honor out of pawn!--and she felt for the first time the +hollowness of family power, except in the ever-preserved mail of a +solvent posterity. She also made a long, careful survey of her suitor, +to see if there was any apology for him as a husband. + +His figure was short, but with strength and elasticity in it; better +clothes might fit him daintily, and Vesta re-dressed him in fancy with +lavender kids upon his small hands, a ring upon his long little finger, +a carnelian seal and a ribbon at his fob-pocket, and ruffles in his +shirt-bosom. In place of his dull cloth suit, she would give him a buff +vest and pearl buttons with eyelet rings, and white gaiters instead of +those shabby green things over his feet, and put upon his head a neat +silk hat with narrow brim to raise his height slenderly, and let a coat +of olive or dark-blue, and trousers of the same color, relieve his +ornaments. Thus transformed, Vesta could conceive a peculiar yet a +passable man, whom a lady might grow considerate towards by much praying +and striving, and she wondered, now, how this man had managed to soothe +her already to that degree that she had voluntarily kissed him. She +would be afraid to do it again, but it was as clearly on record as that +she had once put a flower in his hat; and Vesta said to herself: + +"He has power of some kind! That story, little as I heard of it, was +told with an opinionated confidence I wish my poor father had something +of. Could I ever be happy with this man, by study and piety? God might +open the way, but it seems closed to me now." + +"The night wears on, Miss Custis," spoke Meshach. "Its rewards are +already great to me. When may I return?" + +"I think we must determine what to do this night, Mr. Milburn," Vesta +said, with rising determination. "Not one point nearer have we come to +any solution of this obligation of my father. We have considered it up +to this time as my obligation, and that may have unduly encouraged you. +Sir, I can work for my living." + +"You _work_?" repeated Milburn. + +"Why not? I love my father. As other women who are left poor work for +their children or a sick husband, why should not I for him! Poverty has +no terrors but--but the loss of pride." + +"You hazard that, whatever happens," said her suitor, "but you will not +lose it by evading the lesser evil for the greater. I have heard of +women who fled to poverty from dissatisfaction with a husband, but pride +survived and made poverty dreadful. Pride in either case increased the +discontent. You should take the step which will let pride be absorbed in +duty, if not in love." + +"Duty?" thought Vesta. "That is a reposeful word, better than Love. Mr. +Milburn," she said aloud, "how is it my duty to do what you ask?" + +"I think I perceive that you have a loyal heart, a conscientiousness +that deceit cannot even approach. Something has already made you slow to +marriage, else, with your wonders, I would not have had the chance to +be now rejected by you. Marriage has become too formidable, perhaps, to +you, by the purity of your heart, the more so because you looked upon it +to be your destiny. It _is_ your fate, but you contend against it. Look +upon it, then, as a duty, such as you expect in others--in your slave +maid, for instance." + +"Alas!" Vesta said, "she may marry freely. I am the slave." + +"No, Miss Vesta, she has been free, but, sold among strangers with your +father's effects, will feel so perishing for sympathy and protection +that love, in whatever ugly form it comes, will be God's blessing to her +poor heart. What you repel in the revulsion of fortune--the yoke of a +husband--millions of women have bent to as if it was the very rainbow of +promise set in heaven." + +"How do you know so much of women's trials, Mr. Milburn? Have you had +sisters, or other ladies to woo?" + +"I have seen human nature in my little shop, not, like your rare nature, +refined by happy fortune and descent, but of moderate kind, and +struggling downward like a wounded eagle. They have come to me at first +for cheaper articles of necessity or smaller portions than other stores +would sell, looking on me with contempt. At last they have sacrificed +their last slave, their last pair of shoes, and, when it was too late, +their false pride has surrendered to shelter under a negro's hut, or +dance barefooted in my store for a cup of whiskey." + +"Sir," exclaimed Vesta indignantly, rising from her rocker, "do you set +this warning for me?" + +As she rose Meshach Milburn thought his wealth was merely pebbles and +shells to her perfection, now animated with a queen's spirit. + +"Miss Vesta," he said, "pardon me, but I have just issued from many +generations of forest poverty, and knowing how hard it is to break that +thraldom, I would stop you from taking the first step towards it. The +bloom upon your cheek, the mould you are the product of without flaw, +the chaste lady's tastes and thoughts, and inborn strength and joy, are +the work of God's favor to your family for generations. That favor he +continues in laying those family burdens on another's shoulders, to +spare you the toil and care, anxiety and slow decay, that this violent +change of circumstances means. It would be a sin to relapse from this +perfection to that penury." + +"I cannot see that honorable poverty would make me less a woman," +exclaimed Vesta. + +"You do not dread poverty because you do not know it," Milburn +continued. "It grows in this region like the old field-pines and little +oaks over a neglected farm. Once there was a court-house settlement on +Dividing Creek, where justice, eloquence, talent, wit, and heroism made +the social centre of two counties, but they moved the court-house and +the forest speedily choked the spot. Now not an echo lingers of that +former glory. You can save your house from being swallowed up in the +forest." + +"By marrying the forest hero?" Vesta said, though she immediately +regretted it. + +"Yes," Milburn uttered stubbornly, after a pause. "I have met the house +of Custis half-way. I am coming out of the woods as they are going in, +unless the sacrifice be mutual." + +"Let us not be personal," Vesta pleaded, with her grace of sorrow; "I +feel that you are a kind man, at least to me, but a poor girl must make +a struggle for herself." + +She saw the tears stand instantly in his eyes, and pressed her +advantage: + +"Your tears are like the springs we find here, so close under the flinty +sand that nobody would suspect them, but I have seen them trickle out. +Tell me, now, if I would not be happier to take up the burden of my +father and mother, and let us diminish and be frugal, instead of +cowardly flying into the protection of our creditor, by a union which +the world, at least, would pronounce mercenary. My father might come up +again, in some way." + +"No, Miss Vesta. Your father can hold no property while any portion of +his debts remains unpaid. The easier way is to show the world that our +union is not mercenary, by trying to love each other. Throughout the +earth marriage is the reparation of ruined families--the short path, and +the most natural one, too. Ruth was poor kin, but she turned from the +harvest stubble that made her beautiful feet bleed, to crawl to the feet +of old Boaz and find wifely rest, and her wisdom of choice we sing in +the psalms of King David, and hear in the proverbs of King Solomon, sons +of her sons." + +"I am not thinking of myself, God knows!" said Vesta. "Gladly could I +teach a little school, or be a governess somewhere, or, like our +connection, the mother of Washington, ride afield in my sun-bonnet and +straw hat and oversee the laborers." + +"That never made General Washington, Miss Vesta. It was marriage that +lent him to the world; first, his half-brother's marriage with the +Fairfaxes; next, his own with Custis's rich widow. Had they been looking +for natural parts only, some Daniel Morgan or Ethan Allen would have +been Washington's commander." + +"Why do you draw me to you by awakening the motive of my self-love?" +asked Vesta. "That is not the way to preserve my heart as you would have +it." + +"In every way I can draw you to me," spoke Milburn, again trembling with +earnestness, "I feel desperate to try. If it is wrong, it arises from my +sense of self-preservation. Without you I am a dismal failure, and my +labor in life is thrown away." + +"Do you really believe you love me? Is it not ambition of some kind; +perhaps a social ambition?" + +"To marry a Custis?" Milburn exclaimed. "No, it is to marry _you_. I +would rather you were not a Custis." + +"Ah! I see, sir;" Vesta's face flushed with some admiration for the man; +"you think your family name is quite as good. So you ought to do. Then +you love me from a passion?" + +"Partly that," answered Milburn. "I love you from my whole temperament, +whatever it is; from the glow of youth and the reflection of manhood, +from appreciation of you, and from worship, also; from the eye and the +mind. I love you in the vision of domestic settlement, in the +companionship of thought, in the partition of my ambition, in my +instinct for cultivation. I love you, too, with the ardor of a lover, +stronger than all, because I must possess you to possess myself; because +you kindle flame in me, and my humanity of pity is trampled down by my +humanity of desire; I cannot hear your appeal to escape! I am deaf to +sentiments of honor and courtesy, if they let you slip me! Give yourself +to me, and these better angels may prevail, being perhaps accessory to +the mighty instinct I obey at the command of the Creator!" + +As he proceeded, Vesta saw shine in Meshach Milburn's face the very +ecstacy of love. His dark, resinous eyes were like forest ponds flashing +at night under the torches of negro 'coon-hunters. His long lady's hands +trembled as he stretched them towards her to clasp her, and she saw upon +his brow and in his open nostril and firm mouth the presence of a will +that seldom fails, when exerted mightily, to reduce a woman's, and make +her recognize her lord. + +Yet, with this strong excitement of mental and animal love, which +generally animates man to eloquence, if not to beauty, a weary +something, nearly like pain, marked the bold intruder, and a quiver, not +like will and courage, went through his frame. It was this which touched +Vesta with the sense that perhaps she was not the only sufferer there, +and pity, which saves many a lover when his merits could not win, +brought the Judge's daughter to an impulsive determination. + +"Mr. Milburn," she said at last, pressing her hands to her head, "this +day's trials have been too much for my brain. Never, in all my life +together, have I had realities like these to contend with. I am worn +out. Nay, sir, do not touch me now!" He had tried to repeat his +sympathetic overture, and pet her in his arms. "Let us end this conflict +at once. You say you will marry me; when?" + +"It is yours to say when, Miss Custis. I am ready any day." + +"And you will give me every note and obligation of my father, so that my +mother's portion shall be returned to her in full, and this house, +servants, and demesnes be mine in my own right?" + +"Yes," said Milburn; "I have such confidence in your truth and virtue +that you shall keep these papers from this moment until the +marriage-day." + +"It will not be long, then," Vesta said, looking at Milburn with a will +and authority fully equal to his own. "Will you take me to-night?" + +"To-night?" he repeated. "Not to-night, surely?" + +"To-night, or probably never." + +He drew nearer, so as to look into her countenance by the strong +firelight. Calm courage, that would die, like Joan of Arc in the flames, +met his inquiry. + +"Yes," said Milburn, "at your command I will take you to-night, though +it is a surprise to me." + +He flinched a little, nevertheless, his conscience being uneasy, and the +same trembling Vesta had already observed went through his frame again. + +"What will the world say to your marriage after a single day's +acquaintance with me?" + +"Nothing," Vesta answered, "except that I am your wife. That will, at +least, silence advice and prevent intrusion. If I delay, these +forebodings may prevail, if not with me, with my family, some of whom +are to be feared." + +He seemed to have no curiosity on that subject, only saying: + +"It is you, dear child, I am thinking of--whether this haste will not be +repented, or become a subject of reproach to yourself. To me it cannot +be, having no world, no tribe--only myself and you!" + +Vesta came forward and lifted his hand, which was cold. + +"I believe that you love me," she said. "I believe this hand has the +lines of a gentleman. Now, I will trust to you a family confidence. The +troubles of this house are like a fire which there is no other way of +treating than to put it out at once. My father will not be disturbed, +beyond his secret pain, at the step I am to take, for he appreciates +your talents and success. It is for him I shall take this step, if I +take it at all, and I have yet an hour to reflect. But my mother will be +resentful, and her brothers and kindred in Baltimore will express a +savage rage, in the first place, at my father's losing her portion; next +to that, and I hope less bitterly, they will resent my marriage to you. +Exposed to their interference, I might be restrained from going to my +father's assistance; they might even force me away, and break our family +up, leaving father alone to encounter his miseries." + +"I see," said Milburn; "you would give me the legal right to meet your +mother's excited people." + +"Not that merely," Vesta said; "I would put it out of her power and +theirs to prevent the sacrifice I meditate making. My father's immediate +dread is my mother's upbraiding--that he has risked and lost her money. +It has sent her to bed already, sick and almost violent. I might as well +save the poor gentleman his whole distress, if I am to save him a +part." + +"Brave girl!" exclaimed Meshach Milburn, in admiration. "It is true, +then, that blood will tell. You intend to give your mother the money +which has been lost, and silence her complaint before she makes it?" + +"Just that, Mr. Milburn, and to say, 'It is my husband's gift, and a +peace-offering from us all.'" + +"Is it not your intention, honey," asked the creditor, "to take Mrs. +Custis into your confidence before this marriage?" + +She looked at him with the entreaty of one in doubt, who would be +resolved. "Advise me," she said. "I want to do the best for all, and +spare all bitter words, which rankle so long. Is it necessary to tell my +mother?" + +"No. You are a free woman. I know your age--though I shall forget it by +and by." This first gleam of humor rather became his strange face. "If +you tell your father, it is enough." + +"I hope I am doing right," Vesta said, "and now I shall take my hour to +my soul and my Saviour. Sir, do you ever pray?" + +Milburn recoiled a little. + +"I do not pray like you," he replied; "my prayers are dry things. I do +say a little rhyme over that my mother taught me in the forest." + +"Try to pray for me to do right," said Vesta, "that I may not make this +sacrifice, and leave a wounded conscience. And now, sir, farewell. At +nine o'clock go to our church and wait. If I resolve to come, there you +will find the rector, and all the arrangements made. If I do not come, I +think you will see me no more." + +"Oh, beautiful spirit," exclaimed her lover, "oppress me not with that +fear!" + +"If another way is made plain to me," Vesta said, "I shall go that way. +If my duty leads me to you again, you will be my master. Sir, though +your errand here was a severe one, I thank you for your sincerity and +the kind consideration you seem to have had for me so long. Farewell." + +"Angel! Vesta! Honey!" Milburn cried, "may I kiss you?" + +"Not now," she answered, cold as superiority, and interposing her hand. + +The door stood wide open, and the slave-girl, Virgie, in it, holding the +Entailed Hat. Milburn, with a shudder, took it, and covered himself, and +departed. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +MASTER IN THE KITCHEN. + + +The kitchen had been a scene of anything but culinary peace and savor +during the long visit of the owner of the hat. + +Aunt Hominy and the little darkeys had made three stolen visits to the +hall to peep at the dreadful thing hanging there, as if it were a trap +of some kind, liable to drop a spring and catch somebody, or to explode +like a mortar or torpedo. As hour after hour wore on, and Miss Vesta did +not reappear, and finally rang her bell for tea, Aunt Hominy was beside +herself with superstition. + +"Honey," she exclaimed to Virgie, "jess you take in dis yer dried lizzer +an' dis cammermile, an' drap de lizzer in dat ole hat, an' sprinkle de +flo' whar ole Meshach sots wi' de cammermile, an' say 'Shoo!' Maybe +it'll spile his measurin' of Miss Vessy in." + +"No, aunty, if old Meshach measured _me_ in, I wouldn't make the family +ashamed before him. Miss Vessy is powerful wise, and maybe she'll get +the better of that wicked hat." + +"Yes," said Roxy, "she's good, Aunt Hominy, an' says her prayers every +night and mornin'. I've heard tell that witches can't hear the Lord's +name, and stay, nohow. Maybe Miss Vessy'll say in Meshach's old hat: +'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless the bed that I lie on.' That'll +make the old devil jess fly up an' away." + +"No, gals," insisted Aunt Hominy, "cammermile is all dat'll keep him +from a-measurin' of us in. Don't ole Meshach go to church, too, and hab +a prayer-book an'--listen dar, honey! ef she ain't a singin' to him!" + +As Virgie answered the bell, Aunt Hominy took down her cherished +camomile and sprinkled the little children, and gave them each a glass +of sassafras beer to bless their insides. + +"Lord a bless 'em!" exclaimed the old lady, "ef de slave-buyer comes, +Aunt Hominy'll take 'em to de woods an' jess git los', an' live on +teaberries, slippery-ellum, haws, an' chincapins. We don't gwyn stay an' +let ole Meshach starve us like a lizzer." + +"Aunt Hominy," said Roxy, "maybe, old lady, ef you bake a nice loaf of +Federal bread, or a game-pie, or a persimmon custard, an' send it to ole +Meshach, he won't sell us to the slave-buyers. He never gets nothing +good to eat, an' don't know what it is. A little taste of it'll make him +want mo'." + +"Roxy, gal," said Aunt Hominy, "I'd jess like to make a dumplin'-bag out +o' dat steeple-hat he got. When I skinned de dumplin' de hat would be +bad spiled, chillen, an' den de Judge would git his lan' back dat +Meshach's measured in. For de Judge would say, 'Meshach, ye hain't +measured me fair. Wha's yer yard-stick, ole debbil?' Den Meshach he say, +'De hat I tuk it in wid, done gone burnt by dat ole Hominy, makin' of +her puddin's.' 'Den,' says de Judge, 'ye ain't measured me squar. I +won't play. Take it all back!' Chillen, we must git dat ar ole hat, or +de slave-buyers done take us all." + +They started to take another peep of cupidity and awe at the storied +hat, when Virgie emerged from the parlor door with the dreaded article +in her hand, and, hanging it on the peg, came with superstitious fear +and relief into the colonnade. Aunt Hominy hurried her to the kitchen, +strewed her with herb-dust, waved a rattle of snake's teeth in a pig's +weazen over her head, and ended by pushing a sweet piece of preserved +watermelon-rind down her throat. + +"Did it hurt ye, honey?" inquired Aunt Hominy, with her eyes full of +excitement, referring to the hat. + +"'Deed I don't know, aunty," Virgie answered; "all I saw was Miss Vessy, +looking away from me, as if she might be going to be ashamed of me, an' +I picked the thing up an' took it to the rack; an' all I know is, it +smelled old, like some of the old-clothes chests up in the garret, when +we lift the lid and peep in, an' it seems as if they were dead people's +clothes." + +The little negroes, Ned, Vince, and Phillis, heard this with shining +eyes, and dived their heads under Aunt Hominy's skirts and apron, while +the old woman exclaimed: + +"De Lord a massy!" and began to blow what she called "pow-pow" on the +girl's profaned fingers. + +"I don't believe it's anything, aunty, but an ugly, old, nasty, dead +folks' hat," exclaimed Virgie. "He just wears it to plague people. He +was drinking tea just like Miss Vessy, but I thought his teeth chattered +a little, as if he had smelt of the old hat, and it give him a chill." + +"Where did he get the hat, Aunt Hominy?" Roxy asked. "Did he dig it up +somewhere?" + +The question seemed to spur the cook's easy invention, and, after a +cunning yet credulous look up and down the large kitchen, where the pale +light at the windows was invisible in the stronger fire beneath the +great stack chimney, Aunt Hominy whispered: + +"He dug dat hat up in ole Rehoboff ruined churchyard. He foun' it in de +grave." + +"But you said this afternoon, aunty, that the Bad Man gave it to him." + +"De debbil met him right dar," insisted Aunt Hominy, "in dat ole +obergrown churchyard, whar de hymns ob God used to be raised befo' de +debbil got it. He says to Meshach: 'I make you de sexton hyar. Go git de +spade out yonder, whar de dead-house used to be, an' dig among de graves +under de myrtle-vines, an' fin' my hat. As long as ye keep de Lord an' +de singin' away from dis yer big forsaken church, you may keep dat hat +to measure in eberybody's lan'.' So nobody kin sing or pray in dat +church. Nobody but Meshach Milburn ever prays dar. He goes dar sometimes +wid his Chrismas-giff on he head, an' prays to de debbil." + +Thus does an unwonted fashion arouse unwonted visions, as if it brought +to the present day the phantoms which were laid at rest with itself, and +they walked into simple minds, and produced superstition there. + +Aunt Hominy never was stimulated to inventions of this kind, but she +immediately absorbed them, and they became religious beliefs with her. +Her manner, highly animated by her terror and belief, produced more and +more superstition in the minds of the girls and children, and the +conversation fell off,--the little negroes wandering hither and thither, +unable to sleep, yet unable to attract sufficient attention from any +one, till Judge Custis, who had been waiting for hours for his creditor +to go, slipped down the back stairs in his old slippers, and came to the +kitchen among the colored people for company's sake. + +His fine presence, and familiar, if superior, address, put a new +complexion at once on the African end of the house. + +He picked up all the children by twos or threes, woolled them, chased +them, tossed them, and drove the lurid images of Aunt Hominy's mind out +of their spirits, and then caught the two young girls, and set Roxy on +his shoulder, and caught Virgie by the waist, and finally piled them on +Aunt Hominy, who ran behind her biscuit-block, and he bunched all the +children upon the party. + +"De Lord a massy, Judge!" exclaimed Aunt Hominy, delighted, and showing +her white teeth, whichever side she revealed. "Go 'long, Judge, Missy +Custis ketch you! Miss Vessy's a-comin', befor' de Lawd!" + +The children were screaming, getting into the riot more, while +pretending to try to get out, invading the Judge's back, and rubbing +their clean wool into his whiskers, and the two neat servants, brought +up like white children in his family, were not unaccustomed to either +jovial handling or petting from their master, which he commonly +concluded by a present of some kind. + +"Old woman," said the Judge to Aunt Hominy, "can you give me a bit of +broiled something for my stomach? I want to eat it right here." + +"Ha! yah! Don't got nothin' but a young chicken, marster! Mebbe I kin +git ye a squab outen de pigeon-house in de gable-yend." + +"That's it, Hominy!" exclaimed Judge Custis; "a tender squab, a little +toast in cream, a glass of morning milk, and a bunch of fresh celery, +will just raise my pulse, and put courage into me. Get it, my faithful +old girl; it's the last I may ask of you, for old Samson Hat is going to +own you next." + +"Me? No, sah! I'll run away from Prencess Anne fust. De man dat cleans +ole Meshach Milburn's debbil hat sha'n't nebber hab me." + +"Well, it'll be one of you. If you don't take Samson, Roxy must, or +Virgie. The old fellow will be very influential with our new master, +and, Hominy, we're all depending on you to make him so comfortable that +he will just keep the family together." + +Sobriety came in on this attempted witticism, and the old cook saw a +film grow into the Judge's smiling eyes. + +"Old marster!" she exclaimed, raising her hands, "you's jess a-sottin' +dar, an' breakin' your poor heart. Don't I know when you is a-makin' +believe? Mebbe dis night is de las' we'll ever see you in your own warm, +nice kitchen, an' never mo', dear ole marster, kin Hominy brile you a +bird or season de soup you like. Bless God, dis time we'll git de squab +an' de celery an' de toast, befo' ole Meshach Milburn measures all we +got in!" + +While the children crawled around the Judge's knees, setting up a dismal +wail to see him sob, the two neat house girls, forgetting every +contingency to themselves, sobbed also, like his own daughters, to see +him unmanned; but Aunt Hominy only felt desperately energetic at the +chance to cook the last supper of the Custis household. + +She lighted a brand of pine in the fire, and started one of the stable +boys up a ladder by its light to ransack the pigeon-cote, and in a very +little while both a chicken and a bird were broiled and set upon the +kitchen-table upon a spotless cloth, and the plume of lily-white celery, +and the smoking toast in velvet cream, warmed the Judge's nostrils, and +dried his tears. + +Roxy stood behind him to wait upon his wishes; Virgie subdued every +expression of grief, and comforted the children, and poor Aunt Hominy, +with silent tears streaming down her cheeks to see him eat and suffer, +kept up a clatter of epicurean talk, lest he might turn and see her +miserable. As he finished his meal, and took out his gold tooth-pick, +and felt a comfortable joy of such misery and sympathy, Vesta opened the +door, and said: + +"Papa!" + +"My child?" + +"Let me speak with you." + +Judge Custis rose, and raised his hands to Aunt Hominy in speechless +recognition of her service; but not till the door closed behind him did +the old cook's cry burst through her quivering lips: + +"Oh! chillen, chillen, he'll never eat no mo' like dat again. Ole +Meshach's measured him in!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +DYING PRIDE. + + +At the termination of Milburn's long visit, Vesta had gone to her own +room, and read her passage in the Bible, and said her prayer, and tried +to think, but the day's application had been too great to leave her mind +its morning energy, when health, which is so much of decision, was +elastic in her veins and brain. + +She began to see her duty loom up like a prodigious thing on one side, +crowding every other consideration out of the way but one--her modesty; +and threatening that, which, like a little mouse, ran around and around +her mind, timorous, but helpless, and without a hole of escape. + +She would cease to be a maid within the circuit of the clock, or forsake +her family, and drive that great bloodhound of duty over the threshold +of her ruined home. + +In the one case lay outward devastation--the red eyes of parents and +servants who had not slept all night, and looked at her as their +obdurate hostage, and the prying constables lodged upon the premises to +see that nothing was smuggled out, the ring of the auctioneer's bell, +and the fingering of boors and old gossips over the cherished things of +the family, even to her heirlooms, jewelry, and hosiery; the vast old +house a hollow barn when these were done, and she and her mother +visitors at the jail where her poor father looked through the bars, and +bent his head in shame! + +Then the servants, one after another, mounted upon the court-house +block, the old gray servitors mocked, the little children parted, like +calves by the butcher, and the young girls feeling the desperate +apprehensions of abuse and violation, that were the other alternative to +herself, with whom purity was like the whiteness of the lily, prized +more than its beauty of form or its perfume. + +She glanced in her mirror by the light that flamed in her brazen grate, +and saw the blushes climb like flying virgins at the sack of towns, up +the white ramparts of her neck and temples. + +The form which had altered so little from childhood, supple and +straight, and moulded to perfection, was to fall like the young +hickory-tree in the August hurricane, twisted from its native grove. The +breath of the man she was to yield her life to, irresistible and hot as +that storm, she had felt already, when he held her for a moment in his +arms in the transport of passion, and heard his fearless avowal of +desire. + +To marry any man now seemed hard; to marry this one was inexpressible +shame, and at the thought of it she could not shed a tear, such +paralysis came over her. She had read of the recent Greek revolution, +where elegant ladies of Scio, and other isles of the AEgean Sea, educated +in the best seminaries of Europe, had been sold by thousands as common +slaves in the markets of Constantinople, and carried to their estates by +brutal Turks, with all the gloating anticipation of lust and tyranny. + +On this vivid episode started a procession of all the ages of women who +had been the sport of conquest since their common mother, Eve, lost +Paradise by her simplicity: the Jewish maidens carried to Babylon, the +Gothic virgins dragged at the horse-tails of the Moors, the daughters of +Palestine and Byzantium consigned to Arab sensualists, and made to +follow their nomadic tents, and the almond-eyed damsels of China +surrendered by their parents to the wild Kalmucks, to be beaten and +starved on every cold plain of Asia, till life was laid down with +neither hope nor fear. + +"I am happier than millions of my sex," Vesta said; "my captor does not +despise me, at least. Perhaps he will treat me kinder than I think, and +give me time to draw towards him without this deadly pain and shame." + +Then she almost repented of her hasty decision to marry this night, +instead of after longer acquaintance, which Mr. Milburn, no doubt, would +have granted, and his words were remembered with accusation: "What will +the world say to your marriage after a single day's acquaintance with +me?" "Will this haste not be repented, or become a subject of reproach +to you?" Was it too late to recall her words, and ask for delay? + +"No," thought Vesta, "I am to keep, at least, my mind maiden and chaste, +instead of playing the unstable coquette with that. I will not let him +begin to think me weak and changeful already." + +To see if there was the least glimmer of relief from this marriage Vesta +crossed to her mother's room, and found Mrs. Custis with her head +wrapped in handkerchiefs steeped in cologne, and a vial of laudanum in +her hand, and in a condition bordering on hysteria. + +"Mamma," said poor Vesta, "are you in pain?" + +"Oh!" screamed Mrs. Custis, "I am just dying here of cruelty and +brutality. Your father is a villain. I'll have that rascal, Milburn, +killed. Go get me ink and paper, daughter, and sit here and write me a +letter to my brother, Allan McLane, in Baltimore. He shall settle with +Judge Custis for this robbery, and take you and me back to Baltimore, +leaving your father to go to the almshouse or the jail, I don't care +which." + +"Mother," exclaimed Vesta, "what a sin! to abuse poor father now in all +his trouble!" + +"Trouble!" echoed Mrs. Custis, mockingly, "what trouble has he had, I +would like to know? Living in the woods like a Turk among his barefooted +forest concubines! Spending my money, raked and scraped by my poor +father in the sugar importation, to make puddle iron out of the swamp, +and be considered a smart man! The family is broken up. We are paupers, +and now 'it is save yourself.' I'll take care of you if I can, but your +father may starve for any aid I will give him." + +"Then he shall have the only aid in my power, mother," said Vesta, +decisively. + +"Your aid!" Mrs. Custis exclaimed. "What have you got? Your jewels, I +suppose? How long will they keep him? You had better keep your jewels, +girl, for your wedding, and have it come quickly, for marriage is now +your only salvation." + +"My last jewel shall go, then," Vesta said, with a pale resolution that +darted through her veins like ice. + +"Save your jewels," Mrs. Custis continued, "and choose a husband before +this thing is noised abroad! You have a good large list to select from. +There is your cousin, Chase McLane, crazy for you, and with an estate in +Kent. There is that young fool Carroll, with thousands of acres on the +western shore, and the widower Hynson of King George, Virginia, with +eighty slaves and his stables full of race-horses. You can marry any of +these Dennis boys, or take Captain Ringgold of Frederick, who lives in +elegance at West Point, or be mistress of Tench Purvience's mansion on +Monument Square in Baltimore. All you have to do is to write a letter, +saying: 'I expect you,' or, what is better, take to-morrow's steamer for +Baltimore and use your Uncle Allan's house and become engaged and +married there." + +"Mamma," Vesta spoke without rebuke, only with a sad, confirmed feeling +of her destiny, "I could be capable of deceiving any of those gentlemen +if I could so heartlessly leave my father." + +"Deceiving!" Mrs. Custis remarked, filling her palm and brow with the +cologne. "What is man's whole work with a woman but deceit? To court her +for her money, to kiss her into taking her money out of good mortgages +and putting it into bog iron ore? To tell her when past middle life that +she has nothing to live upon, except the charity of the public, or her +reluctant friends. All this for an experiment! The Custis family are all +knaves or fools. Your father is a monster." + +Vesta went to her mother's side and bathed her forehead. + +"Dear mamma," she said, "let you and I do something for ourselves, while +papa looks around and finds something to do. We can rent a house in +Princess Anne and open a seminary. I can teach French and music, you can +be the matron and do the correspondence and business, and if papa is at +a loss for larger occupation he can lecture on history and science. Our +friends will send their children to us, and we shall never be separated. +I will give up the thought of marriage and live for you two." + +Mrs. Custis made a gesture of impatience. + +"And be an old maid!" she blurted. "That is insufferable. What are all +these accomplishments and charms for but a husband, and what is he for +but to provide bread and clothes. Don't be as crazy as your unprincipled +father! Try no experiments! Drop philanthropy! Money is the foundation +of all respectability." + +Vesta thought to herself: "Can that be so? Does it not, then, justify +the man who solicits me in his means of getting money? Mother"--Vesta +spoke--"you would have me marry, then?" + +"There is no would about it," answered Mrs. Custis. "You _must_ marry!" + +"Marry immediately?" + +"Yes, the sooner the better, to a rich man. Have you picked out one?" + +"Give me your blessing, and I will try," Vesta said; "I think I know +such a one." + +Mrs. Custis kissed her daughter, and moaned about her poor head and lost +marriage portion, and Vesta set out to look for her father. + +She found him as described, in the luxury of tears and squab, as +comfortable among his negro servants as in the state legislature or at +the head of society, and they wrapped up in his condescension and +misfortunes. + +As Vesta saw the curious scene of such patriarchal democracy in the old +kitchen, she wondered if that voluptuous endowment of her father was not +the happy provision to make marriage unions tolerable, and social +revulsions philosophical. Something of regret that she had not more of +the animal faintly grew upon her sad smile when she considered that +wherever her father went he made welcome and warmth, as she already felt +at the picture of him, after parting with her apathetic mother. + +"Roxy," said Vesta, as she left the kitchen, "do you go up to my mother +and stay with her all this night. Make your spread there beside her bed. +Virgie, put on your hood and carry a letter for me,--I will write it in +the library." + +She sat before her father, he too undecided to speak, and seeing by her +fixed expression that it was no time for loquacity. She sealed the +letter with wax, and, Virgie coming in, her father heard the direction +she gave with curiosity greater than his embarrassment: + +"Take this to Rev. William Tilghman. Give it to him only, and see that +he reads it, Virgie, before you leave him. If he asks you any questions, +tell him please to do precisely what this note says, and, as he is my +friend, not to disappoint me." + +The girl's steps were hardly out of hearing when Vesta opened the drawer +of the library-table and took out a package of papers tied with a +string. She unloosed it, and her father recognized from where he sat his +notes of hand and mortgages. + +"Gracious God, my darling!" exclaimed Judge Custis, "how came you by +those papers?" + +"They are to be mine to-night, father--in one hour. The moment they +become mine they will be yours." + +"Why, Vessy," said the Judge, "if they are yours even to keep a minute, +the shortest way with them is up the chimney!" + +He made a stride forward to take them from her hand. She laid them in +her lap and looked at him so calmly that he stopped. + +"You may burn the house, papa," she said, "it is still your own. But +these papers you could only burn by a crime. It would be cheating an +honorable man." + +"Honorable! Who?" the Judge exclaimed. + +"He who is to be my husband." + +"You marry Meshach Milburn!" shouted the Judge, "O curse of God!--not +him?" + +"Yes, this night," answered Vesta; "I respect him. I hold these +obligations by his trust in me. They are my engagement ring." + +Judge Custis raised a loud howl like a man into whom a nail is driven, +and fell at his daughter's feet and clasped her knees. + +"This is to torture me," he cried; "he has not dared to ask you, Vesta?" + +"Yes, and my word is passed, father. Shall that word, the word of a +Custis, be less than a Milburn's faith. By the love he bore me, Mr. +Milburn gave me these debts for my dower--a rare faith in one so +prudent. If I do not marry him, they will be given back to him this +night." + +"Then give them back, my child, and save your soul and your purity, lest +I live to be cursed with the sight of my noble daughter's shame? This +marriage will be unholy, and the censure to follow it will be the +bankruptcy of more than our estate--of our simple fame and old family +respect. We have friends left who would help us. If you marry Milburn, +they will all despise and repudiate us." + +"I do not believe it," said Vesta. "The sense and courage of that +gentleman--he is a gentleman, for I have seen him, and a gentleman of +many gifts--will compel respect even where false pride and family +pretension appear to put him down. Who that underrates him will make any +considerable sacrifice to assist us? Your sons,--will they do it? Then +by what right do they decide my marriage choice? No, father, I only do +my part to support our house in its extremity, as these gentlemen and +others have done before." + +She pointed to the old portraits of Custises on the wall. If any of them +looked dissatisfied, he met a countenance haughty as his own. + +"Vesta," her father called, "you know you do not love this man?" + +Looking back a minute at the longing in his face, which now wore the +solicitude of personal affection, she melted under it. + +"No, father," she said, with a burst of tears. "I love you." + +She threw her arms around him and kissed him long and fondly, both +weeping together. He went into a fit of grief that admitted of no +conversation till it was partly spent, and at last lay with his gray +hairs folded to her heaving bosom, where the compensation of his love +made her sacrifice more precious. + +"I feel that I am doing right, father," she said tenderly "Till now I +have had my doubts. No other young heart is wronged by my taking this +step; I have never been engaged, and it now seems providential, as I +could not then have gone to your assistance without injuring myself and +another; and your debts are too great for any but this man to settle +them. Your life has been one long sacrifice for me, and not a cloud has +darkened above me till this day, giving me the first shower of sorrow, +which I trust will refresh my soul, and make its humility grow. Oh, +father, it would rejoice me so much if you could respond to my sacrifice +with a better life!" + +"God help me, I will!" he sobbed. + +"That is very comforting to me. I will not enumerate your omissions, +dear father, but if this important step in my life does not arrest some +sad tendencies I see in you, the disappointment may break me down. +Intemperance in you--a judge, a gentleman, a husband, and a father--is a +deformity worse than Mr. Milburn's honest, unfashionable hat. Do you not +feel happier that my husband is not to be a drunkard?" + +"He has not that vice, thank God!" admitted the Judge. + +"Be his better example, father, for I hope to see you influence him to +be kind to me, and the sight of you walking downward in his view will +degrade me more than bearing his name or sharing his eccentricities. Oh, +if you love me, let not your dear soul slide out of the knowledge of +God!" + +"Pray for me, dear child! My feet are slippery and my knees are weak." + +"Begin from this moment to lean on Heaven," said Vesta. "It is better +than this world's consideration. Oh, what would strengthen me now but +God's approval, though I go into a captivity I dreamed not of. Even +there I can take my harp beneath the willows, like them in Babylon, and +praise my Maker." + +She sat at her piano and sang the hymn the young consumptive, Rev. Mr. +Eastburn, composed in her grandmother's house, taking it from the +Episcopal collection: + + "O holy, holy, holy Lord! + Bright in Thy deeds and in Thy name, + Forever be Thy name adored, + Thy glories let the world proclaim! + + "O Jesus, Lamb once crucified + To take our load of sins away, + Thine be the hymn that rolls its tide + Along the realms of upper day! + + "O Holy Spirit from above, + In streams of light and glory given, + Thou source of ecstacy and love, + Thy praises ring through earth and heaven!" + +As her voice in almost supernatural clearness and sweetness filled the +two large rooms, and died away in melody, she rose and kissed her father +again, and said, "Courage, love! we shall be happy still." + +A knock at the door and there entered the young clergyman she had sent +for, a sandy-haired, large-blue-eyed, boyish person, with a fair skin +easily freckled, and a look of youthful chivalry under his sincere +Christian humility. + +"Good-evening, William," Vesta spoke; "I did not expect to see you till +we reached the church. But sit, and I will answer your questions. +Father, you are to go with me to the church--you and Virgie. Mr. +Tilghman is to marry us." + +"Now, Vesta," spoke the young man, as her father left the room, "whom +are you going to marry, cousin, in such haste as this?" + +"Did you have the church made ready, William, as I requested?" + +"I did. The sexton is there now, lighting the fire." + +"I thought you were loyal as ever, William, and depended upon you. +Thanks, dear friend! I am to marry Mr. Meshach Milburn at nine o'clock." + +A cloud came over the young man's serene face, though his features +retained their habitual sweetness. + +"I can marry you, cousin, even to Meshach Milburn," he said, "if that is +your wish. Why do you marry him?" + +"It is not loyal in you to ask, William, but I will give you this +answer: he has asked me. He is also devoted and rich. To avoid +excitement, possibly some opposition, though it would be vain, we are to +be married without further notice, and papa is to give me away." + +Silent for a moment, the young rector exclaimed: + +"Cousin Vesta, have I lived to see you a mercenary woman? Has this man's +asserted wealth found you cold enough to want it, when love has been so +generously offered you by almost every young man of station in this +region, and from abroad--even by me?" he said, after a pause. "The scar +is on my heart yet, cousin. No, I will not believe such a thing of you. +There is a reason back of the fact." + +"William, if you respected me as you once said you ever would, like your +sister, you would not add this night the weight of your doubt to my +other burdens, but take my hand with all the strength of yours, and lift +me onward." + +"I will," said the rector, swallowing a dry spot in his throat. "Though +it was a bitter time I had when you refused me, cousin, the pain led me +to my vows at the altar where I minister, and I have had the assistance +of your beautiful music there, like the angel I seem to have seen +reserved for me, in place of you, sitting at your side. And I know that +this marriage is, on your part, pure as my sister's. No further will I +inquire--what penalty you are paying for another, what mystery I cannot +pierce." + +He raised his hands above her head: "The peace of God that passeth +understanding, abide with you, dear sister, forever!" + +He went out with his eyes filled with tears, but hers were full of +heavenly light, feeling his benediction to be righteous. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +PRINCESS ANNE FOLKS. + + +The Washington Tavern, or, rather, the brick sidewalk which came up to +its doors, and was the lounging-place for all the grown loiterers in +Princess Anne, had been in the greatest activity all that Saturday +afternoon, since it was reported by Jack Wonnell, who set himself to be +a spy on Meshach's errand, that the steeple-hat had disappeared in the +broad mansion of Judge Daniel Custis. + +Jack Wonnell had a worn bell-crown on his head, exposed to all kinds of +weather, as he was in the habit of fishing in these beaver-hats, and +never owned an umbrella in his life. He lived near Meshach, in the old +part of Princess Anne, near the bridge, and was the subject of the +money-lender's scorn and contempt, as tending to make a mutual +eccentricity ridiculous. Milburn had been willing to be hated for his +hat, but Jack Wonnell made all unseasonable hats laughable, the more so +that he was nearly as old a wearer of his bell-crowns as Milburn of the +steeple-top. Although he had no such reasons of reverence and stern +consistency as his rich neighbor, he seemed to have, in his own mind, +and in plain people's, a better defence for violating the standard taste +of dress. + +The people said that Jack Wonnell, being a poor man, could not buy all +the fashions, and was merely wearing out a bargain; that he knew he was +ridiculous, and set no such conceit on his absurdity as that grim +Milburn; and they rather enjoyed his playing the Dromio to that +Antipholus, and turning into farce the comedy of Meshach's error. + +Jack Wonnell had partly embraced his bargain by the example of Meshach. +A frivolous, unambitious, childish fellow, amusing people, obliging +people, running errands, driving stage, gardening, fishing, playing with +the lads, courting poor white bound girls, incontinent, inoffensive, he +had been impelled to bid off his lot of old hats by Jimmy Phoebus +saying: + +"Jack, dirt cheap! Last you all your life! Better hats than old Meshach +Milburn's. You'll drive his'n out of town." + +To his infinite amusement and dignity, his appearance in the bell-crown +hats attracted the severe regard of Milburn, and set the little town on +a grin. The joke went on till Jimmy Phoebus, Judge Custis, and some +others prompted Jack Wonnell, with the promise of a gallon of whiskey, +to ask Meshach to trade the steeple-top for the bell-crown. The intense +look of outrage and hate, with the accompanying menace his townsman +returned, really frightened Jack, and he had prudently avoided Milburn +ever since, while keeping as close a watch upon his movements and +whereabouts as upon some incited bull-dog, liable to appear anywhere. + +In this way Jack Wonnell had followed Meshach to the court-house corner, +where stood Judge Custis's brick bank--which, of late, had done little +discounting--and, from the open space between it and the court-house in +its rear, he peeped after Milburn up the main cross street, called +Prince William Street, which stopped right at Judge Custis's gate. +There, in the quiet of early afternoon, he heard the knocker sound, saw +the door open, and beheld the Entailed Hat disappear in the great +doorway. Then, scarcely believing himself, Wonnell ran back to the +tavern, and exclaimed: + +"May I be struck stone dead ef ole Meshach ain't gwyn in to the +Jedge's!" + +"You're a liar!" said Jimmy Phoebus, promptly, catching Jack by the +back of the neck, and pushing his bell-crown down till it mashed over +his nose and eyes, "What do you mean by tellin' a splurge like that?" + +"I seen him, Jimmy," was the bell-crowned hero's smothered cry; "if I +didn't, hope I may die!" + +"What did he go there for?" + +"I can't tell, Jimmy, to save my life!" + +"Whoo-oo-p!" cried Phoebus, waving his old straw hat, itself nearly +out of season. "If this is a lie, Jack Wonnell, I'll make you eat a raw +fish. Levin"--to Levin Dennis--"you slip up by Custis's, and see if ole +Meshach hain't passed around the fence, or dropped along Church Street +and hid in the graveyard, where he sometimes goes. I'll stay yer, and +make Jack Wonnell account for sech lyin'!" + +Levin Dennis, a boyish, curly-haired, graceful-going orphan, walked up +the cross street, passing Church lane and the Back alley, and slowly +turned the long front of Teackle Hall, and went out the parallel street +towards the lower bridge on the Deil's Island road, till he could turn +and see the three great-chimneyed buildings of Teackle Hall lifting +their gables and lightning-rods to his sight in their reverse, the +partly stripped trees allowing that manorial pile to stand forth in much +of its length and imposing proportions. Lest he might not be suspected +of curiosity, Levin continued on to the bridge at Manokin landing, and +counted the geese come out of a lawn on a willowy cape there, and take +to water like a fleet of white schooners. He ascended the rise beyond +the bridge, and looked over to see if Meshach might have taken a walk +down the road. Then returning, he swept the back view of Princess Anne, +from the low bluff of cedars on another inhabited cape on the right, +which bordered the Manokin marshes, to the vale of the little river at +the left, as it descended between Meshach's storehouse and the ancient +Presbyterian church of the Head of Manokin, seated among its gravestones +between its hitching-stalls and its respectable parsonage manse. Nothing +was visible of the owner of the distinguishing hat. + +So Levin Dennis returned more slowly around the north wing of Teackle +Hall, looking at every window, as if Meshach might be there; but nothing +did he see except the dog, which, to Levin's eye, appeared uneasy, and +ran out of the gate to make friends with him. + +"So, Turk!" Dennis muttered, patting the dog's head, "no wonder you're +scared, boy, to see old Meshach Milburn come in." + +Teackle Hall, according to rumor, was built at the close of the +revolutionary war by an uncle, or grand-uncle, of Judge Custis, who came +from Virginia, somewhere between Accomac and Northampton counties, and +went into shipbuilding on the Manokin, adding some privateering and +banking, too, and once, going abroad, he brought back from some ducal +residence the plan of Teackle Hall, as Judge Custis found it on his +coming into the property. + +It was nearly two hundred feet in length, and would have made three +respectable churches, standing in line, with their sharp gables to the +front, the bold wings connected with the bolder centre by habitable +curtains or colonnades, in which panels of slate or grained stone made +an attic story above the lines of windows, and lintels and sills of the +same stone, with high keystones, capped every window in the many-sided +surface of the whole stately block, all built of brick brought over in +vessels from the western shore, or possibly from the North, or Europe, +and painted a gray stone color. + +Its central gable had deep carved eaves, and a pediment-base to shed +rain, and a large circular window in that pediment. The two mighty +chimneys of that centre were parallel with the ridge of the roof, and +rose nearly from the middle of the two opposite slopes, bespeaking four +great fireplaces below, and a flat, low-galleried observatory upon the +roof gave views of portions of the bay on clear days. + +The wings of Teackle Hall had similar, but lower, chimneys, astraddle of +their roofs, and forest trees--oak, gum, holly, and pine, with a great +willow, and some tawny cedars, and bushes of rose and lilac--dotted the +grassy lawn. The Virginia creeper and wild ivy climbed here and there to +the upper windows, and a tall, broad, panelled doorway, opening on a +low, open portico platform with steps, seemed to say to visitors: "Men +of port and consideration come in this way, but inferiors enter by some +of the smaller doors!" + +Levin Dennis, who had never sounded that knocker, though he had often +taken his terrapins to the kitchen, stared in concern at the door where +it was reported Meshach Milburn had gone in, and would hardly have been +surprised if that intruder had now appeared at one of the three deep +windows over the door with a firebrand in his hand. + +Levin muttered to himself: "Rich folks, I reckon, must make a trade. +Maybe it's hosses--maybe not. I know it ain't hats." + +He then turned down to the Episcopal Church, only a square from Teackle +Hall, and on a street between it and the main street, though in a +retired situation, its front turned from the town, and looking over the +fields and farms, like a good pastor who is warming at the fire with his +hands behind him. + +A single-storied, long, low edifice of British bricks, with its +semicircular choir next the street, and, adjoining the choir, a spire of +more modern brickwork built up to an open bell cupola, and open ribbed +dome, also of brick, tipped with a gilded cross, the ivy was greenly +matted all round the choir, and ran along the side of the church, where +Levin Dennis walked under four tall, round-topped windows of stained and +wired glass, till he came to the end gable or front of the church, +standing in unworldly contemplation of the graveyard and the back +fields. + +There, since the Stamp Act Congress, or when Princess Anne was not half +a century old, the old church had taken its stand, backed up to the +town, recluse from its gossip. Between its tall round doors, with little +window-panes like spectacles let into their panels, the ivy vine arose +in form like the print of The Crucified, reaching out its stems and +tendrils wide of the one glorified window in the gable, in whose red +dyes glimmered the triumph of a bloody countenance. The mossy walls, +often scraped, the mossified pavement, the greenish tombs of marble +under the maples and firs, showed the effect of shade, solitude, and +humidity upon all things of brick in this climate, where wood was +already rising into favor as building material, but to the detraction of +picturesqueness and all the appearance of antiquity. + +No sign of the unpopular townsman was to be seen anywhere, but, as Levin +Dennis peeked around the foliage in the yard he beheld a man he had +never observed before, and of a tall, bearded, suspicious, and ruffianly +exterior, lying flat on the top of a memorial vault, with his head and +feet half concealed in some cedar brambles. + +"Hallo!" Dennis shouted. + +"What do you hallo for?" spoke the man; "don't you never come to a +churchyard to git yer sins forgive?" + +"No," said the terrapin-finder, "not till I knows I has some sins." + +"What air you prowlin' about the church then fur, anyhow?" demanded the +stranger, standing up in his boots, into which his trousers were tucked; +and he stood such a straight, long-limbed, lithe giant of a man that +Levin saw he could never run away, even if the intruder meant to chew +him up right there. + +"I ain't a prowlin', friend," answered Levin Dennis. "I was jess a +lookin'." + +"Lookin' fur what, fur which, fur who?" said the man, taking a step +towards Dennis, who felt himself to be no bigger than one of the other's +long, ditch-leaping, good-for-wading legs. + +"Why, I was jess a follerin' a man--that is, friend, not 'zackly a man, +but a hat." + +"A hat?" The man walked up to Dennis this time, and stood over him like +a pine-tree over a sucker. "Yer's yer hat," pulling an old straw +article, over-worn, from Dennis's head. "No wind's a blowin' to blow +hats into graveyards. Or did you set yer hat under a hen in yere, by a +stiffy?" + +Dennis looked up, laughing, though not all at ease, but his amiable want +of either intelligence or fear, which belong near together, made his +most natural reply to the pertinacious intruder a disarming grin. + +"No, man," Dennis said, "it was a hat on a man's head--ole Meshach +Milburn's steeple-top. I was a follerin' of him." + +"Stow your wid!" the man clapped the hat back on Levin's head. "You're a +poor hobb, anyhow. Is thair any niggers to sell hereby?" + +"Oh, that's your trade, nigger buyin'? Well, there's mighty few niggers +to sell in Prencess Anne. Unless"--here a flash of intelligence shone in +Levin's eyes--"unless that's what's took ole Meshach Milburn to Jedge +Custis's. He goes nowhar unless there's trouble or money for _him_." + +"And where is Judge Custis's, you rum chub?" + +"Yander!" pointing to Teackle Hall. + +"Ha! that is a Judge's? And niggers? Broke, too! Well, it's no hank for +a napper bloke. So bingavast! Git! Whar's the tavern?" + +"I'm a-goin' right thair," answered Levin, much relieved. "You must be a +Yankee, or some other furriner, sir." + +"No, hobb! I'm workin' my lay back to Delaware from Norfolk, by pungy to +Somers's cove. Show me to the tavern and I'll sluice your gob. I'll +treat you to swig." + +At the prospect of a drink, of which he was too fond, Levin led the way +to the Washington Tavern, where there was a material addition to the +attendance since Jimmy Phoebus had called to every passer-by that +Meshach Milburn, on the testimony of Jack Wonnell, had actually been and +gone and disappeared in Judge Custis's doorway, and nearly a dozen +townsfolks were now discussing the why and wherefore, when, suddenly, +Levin Dennis came out of Church Street with a man over six feet high, of +a prodigious pair of legs, and arms nearly as long, with a cold, +challenging, yet restless pair of blue eyes, and with reddish-brown +beard and hair, coarse and stringy. The free negro, Samson Hat, being a +little way off, was observed to cast a beaming glance of admiration at +the athletic proportions of the stranger, who looked as if he might +shoulder an ox, or outrun a horse. + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Jimmy Phoebus, looking the stranger over boldly, +yet with indifference, at last. "You're cuttin' a splurge, Levin, too. +Where's Meshach?" + +"Can't see no sign of him, Jimmy. Guess Jack Wonnell hit it, an' he's +gone in the Jedge's. Mebbe he's buyin' of Jedge Custis's niggers. That's +this gentleman's business." + +Jimmy Phoebus, himself no slight specimen of a man, gave another +glance at the stranger from the black cherries of his eyes, and, +apparently no better satisfied with the inspection, made no sign of +acquaintance. + +"Whoever ain't too nice to drink with a nigger buyer," said the man, +independently, "can come in and set up his drink, with my redge, for I'm +rhino-fat and just rotten with flush." + +There was a pause for somebody to take the initiative, but Jimmy +Phoebus, turning his big, broad Greekish face and small forehead on +the stranger, remarked: + +"I never tuk a drink with a nigger buyer yit, and, by smoke! I reckon +I'm too old to begin." + +The man stopped and measured Jimmy up in his eye. + +"Humph!" he said with a sneer, "you look to be a little more than half +nigger yourself. If I was dead broke I'd run you to market an' git my +price for you." + +"No doubt of it whatever, as fur as you're concerned," said Jimmy, +unexcited, while the man pushed Levin Dennis in towards the bar. + +Either the new movement of Meshach Milburn, or the example of the +strange man, set Princess Anne in a tipsy condition that day. The +stranger was full of money, and treating indiscriminately, and the +pavement before the hotel was continually beset with the loiterers, and +the bar took money and spread mischief. So when, an hour after dark, the +unpopular townsman, avoiding the crowd, passed by on the opposite side +of the street, nearest his own lodging, one of the loudest and most +unanimous yells he had ever heard in his experience, rang out from the +Washington Tavern. + +"Steeple-top! Steeple-top! Old Meshach's loose. Whoo-o-op!" + +"Laugh on!" thought Meshach, "till now I never knew the meaning of 'let +them laugh who win.'" + +He felt confirmed in his idea to be married in the Raleigh tile, and +when he saw Samson Hat, Milburn said: "Boy, brush all my clothing well. +Then go back to the livery stable, and order a buggy to be ready for you +at ten o'clock. At that hour set out for Berlin; and bring back Rhody +Holland with you in the morning." + +"It's more dan thirty mile, marster, an' a sandy road." + +"No matter. Take it slow. I will write you a letter to carry. Samson, I +am going to be married to-night to the rose of Princess Anne." + +"Dar's on'y one," said Samson. "Not Miss Vesty Custis?" + +"Yes, Samson. Princess Anne may now have something to howl at. The poor +girl may be lonesome, as, no doubt, she will be dropped everywhere on my +account, and not a soul can I think of, to be my young lady's maid, +unless it is Rhody." + +"Yes, Marster, wid all your money you're pore in friends; in +women-friends you is starved." + +"You may go with me to the church," said Meshach, "I suppose you want to +see me married." + +"Yes, sir. Dat I do! Wouldn't miss dat fo' my Christmas gift. I 'spect +dat gal Virgie will come wid Miss Vesty to de cer'mony, marster." + +"Perhaps so. You are not thinking of love, too, Samson?" + +"Well, don't know, marster. Virgie's a fine gal, sho' I am a little old, +Marster Milburn, but I'll have to look out for myseff, I 'spec, now you +done burnt down my spreein' place. Dar's a wife comin' in yar now. So if +you don't speak a good word fur me wid some o' Miss Vesty's gals, I'm +aboot done." + +"Well, boy," Meshach said, "you have got the same chance I had: the +upper hand. I owe you a nice little sum in wages, and you may be able to +buy one of the Custis housemaids, and set her free, and marry her, or, +be her owner. You are a free man." + +Samson shook his head gravely. + +"Dat won't do among niggers," he said. "Niggers never kin play de upper +hand in love, like white people. Dey has to do it by love itseff: by +kindness, marster." + +Before nine o'clock Milburn and his negro left the old store by the town +bridge, and passing by the river lane called Front Street, into Church +Street, walked back of the hotel, avoiding its triflers, and reached the +church in a few minutes unobserved. The long windows shed some light, +however, but as it was Saturday night, this was attributed, by the few +who noticed it, to preparations for the next Sabbath morning. Before +setting out, Samson Hat, observing his employer to shake a trifle, asked +him if a dram of whiskey would not be proper. + +"No, boy; this is a wedding without wine. I shall need all my wits to +find my manners." + +He entered the church, and found it warmed, and the minister already +present in his surplice, kneeling alone at the altar. Mr. Tilghman +arose, with his youthful face very pale, and tears upon his cheeks, and +seeing his neglected parishioner and the serving-man, came down the +aisle. + +"Mr. Milburn," he said, extending his hand, "I hope to congratulate, +after this ceremony, a Christian-hearted bridegroom, and one who will +take the rare charge which has fallen to him, in tender keeping. My +endeavor shall be to love you, sir, if you will let me! Miss Vesta is +the priestess of Princess Anne, and if you take her from our sight and +hearing, even God's ministrations in this church will seem hollow, I +fear." + +"To me they would," said Milburn, "though from no disrespect to our +pastor." + +"You have been a faithful parishioner," resumed Tilghman, "during my +brief labor here, as in my boyhood, when I little dreamed I should fill +that desk. You know, perhaps, that it was from the hopeless love of my +cousin Custis, I fled to God for consolation, and he made me his humble +minister." + +"I have heard so," said Milburn; "or, rather, I have seen so." + +"Pardon my mentioning a subject so irrelevant to you, sir, but, though I +have surrendered every vain emotion for my cousin, her happiness is a +part of my religion, and this sudden conclusion of her marriage, about +which I have asked only one question, has urged me to throw myself upon +your sympathy." + +"What do you ask, William Tilghman? No matter--your request is granted." + +"How have I won your favor?" the young rector asked, somewhat surprised. + +Milburn mechanically picked his hat from a pew, and held it a little way +up. + +"You were the only boy in this village who never cried after this hat." + +"Then it was probably overlooked by me. I was like the other boys, +mischievous, before my spirits had been depressed by unhappy love, and I +did not know I was any exception to their habits." + +"It was grateful to see that exception," said Milburn; "hooted people +make fine distinctions." + +"Oh, Mr. Milburn, forgive the boys! They are made for laughter, and +little causes excite it, like dogs to bark, from health and +exercise--scarcely more than that. The request I make is to let me be +your friend, because I have been your wife's! Frankness becomes my +calling, and I think you need friendly, cordial surroundings to bring +out your usefulness, and give you the freedom that will take constraint +out of your family life, and, without diminishing your good +sensibilities, dispel any morbid ones. This will open a way for Vesta to +see her domestic career, which, otherwise, might become so rapidly +contracted as to disappoint you both. You have seen her the idol of her +wide circle, free as a bird, indulged by her kind, and by Providence +also, till joy and grace, beauty and health, faith and hope live +abundant in her, and you are the beneficiary of it all. Her society +hereafter you must control. May I become your friend, and let my love +for your wife recommend me to your confidence, as you to mine and to my +prayers?" + +"Have I another friend already?" exclaimed Milburn, his voice quivering. +"What wealth she brings me never known before! William, you will be ever +welcome to me." + +They clasped hands upon it, and old Samson Hat, sitting back, was heard +to chuckle aloud such a warming laugh, that Meshach's response to it, in +a sudden pallid shivering, seemed slightly out of keeping. He was +recalled, however, by the entrance of Judge Custis with his daughter, +and her maid, Virgie. + +Vesta was very pale, but neither shrinking nor negative. On the +contrary, she supported her father rather than received his support, and +Milburn saw the Judge's worn, helpless face, with the pride faded from +it, and pity for his daughter absorbing every other feeling of +depression. + +He wore his best cloth suit, with the coat tails falling to his knees +behind, the body cut square to the hips, and the collar raised high upon +his stock of white enamelled English leather. His low-buttoned vest +exposed his shirt-buttons of crystal and gilt, and a ruffle, ironed by +Roxy's slender hands with nimble touches, parted down the middle like +sea foam on shell, and similar ruffles at the wrists were clasped by +chain buttons of pearl and silver. His vest was of figured Marseilles +stuff, and gaiters of the same material partly covered his shoes; and +his heavy seal, with his coat of arms upon it, fell from a pale ribbon +at his fob. Debtor though he was, and answering at the bar of the church +to a heavy personal and family judgment, his large and flowing lines of +body, deeply cut chin, full eyes, and natural height and grace of +stature made him a marked and noble presence anywhere. + +Vesta Custis, dropping off a mantle of blue velvet at a touch of her +maid, stood in a party dress of white silk, the neck, shoulders, and +arms bare; and, as she halted a minute in the aisle, Virgie struck the +cloth sandals from her mistress's white slippers of silk, and, removing +her hood of home-embroidered cloth, a veil of white fell to her train. +The dingy light from the lamps of whale-oil gathered, like poor folks' +children's marvelling eyes, around the pair of diamonds in her +delicately moulded, but alert and generous ears. Her fine gold +watch-chain, twice dependent from her neck, disappeared in the snowy +mould of her bosom, on whose heaving drift swam a magnolia-bud and +blossom, each with a leaf. Her father's picture, in a careful miniature +set in pearls, lay higher on her breast, fastened by a pearl necklace. +Her hands were covered with white gloves, and her arms were without +ornament. Her hair, dropping in dark ringlets around her forehead and +temples, was combed upward farther back, and then gathered around a +pearl comb in high braids, and the plentiful loops drooped to her +shoulder. + +Milburn glanced at the treasures of her peerless bodily charms, never +till now revealed to his sight, and their splendor almost made him +afraid. + +Never had he been at a theatre, a ball, or anywhere from which he could +have foreseen a swan-like neck and bosom sculptured like these, and arms +as white as the limbs of the silver-maple, and warmed with bridal-life +and modesty. + +Her lips, parted and red, her great rich eyes a goddess might have +commanded through, with their eyebrows of raven-black, like entrances to +the caves of the Cumaean sibyl, her small head borne as easily upon her +neck as a dove upon a sprig--all flashed upon Milburn's thrilled yet +flinching soul, as the revelation of a divinity. + +As she stepped forward he spoke to her with that bold instinct or +ecstasy she had observed when she first addressed him in her father's +house, ten hours before. + +"You have dressed yourself for me?" he said. + +"Sir, such as I could command upon this necessity I thought to do you +honor with." + +"For _me_, to look so beautiful! what can I say? You are very lovely!" + +"It is gracious of you to praise me. Shall we wait, or are you ready?" + +He gave her his hand, unable to speak again, and she was calm enough to +notice that his hand was now hot, as if he had fever. Her father, at her +side, reached out also, and took the bridegroom's other hand: + +"Milburn," he said, huskily, "this is no work of mine. My daughter has +my consent only because it is her will." + +"The nobler to me for that," Milburn spoke, with his countenance +strangely flushed. "What shall we do, my lady?" + +"Give me your arm; not that one. This is right. Have you brought a ring, +sir?" + +"Yes." He drew from his vest pocket a little, lean gold ring, worth +hardly half a dollar. + +"It was my poor mother's," he said. + +Without another word she walked forward, her arm drawing him on, Virgie +following, and her father bringing up the rear. Samson Hat, feeling +uneasy at being awarded no part in the ceremony, slipped up the aisle as +far as the big, stiff-aproned stove in the middle of the church, behind +which he ducked his body, but kept his head and faculties in the centre +of the events. + +Mr. Tilghman had preceded them in his surplice, and taking his place at +the altar, with his countenance pale as death, he read the exordium in +an altered voice: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here, and in +the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in +holy matrimony." + +"What 'company' is here?" thought Vesta. "Not alone these poor negroes +and my father; no, I feel behind me, looking on, the generations of our +pride and helpless ease, the worthy younger suitors I have been too +exacting and particular to see the consideration and merits of, the +golden hours I might have improved my mind in, with brilliant +opportunities I was not jealous of, and which will be mine no more, +because I had not trimmed my virgin lamp; and so I slept away my +girlhood, till now I awaken at the cry, 'The bridegroom cometh,' and I +behold! Yes, I have been a foolish virgin, and am surprised when my fate +is here! Perhaps my guardian angel also stands behind me, the cross +advanced that I must take, my crown concealed; but somewhere, midway of +this journey of life, she may give it to me, and say, 'Well done!'" + +"This 'company,'" thought Milburn, with swimming head, "gathered to see +me marry! what company? I seem to feel, besides these negroes, my sole +spectators, the populous forest peering on, the barefoot generations, +the illiterate broods, the instinctive parents, the sandy graves. They +give forth my lost tribe, and all cry at me, 'Go, leave us, proud one! +despiser, go!' Yet there is one I see, pure as my bride, white as my +captive's bosom, her soul all in her believing eyes, and saying, 'Oh, my +son, it is a woman like me that has come into your life, and her heart +is very tender, and, by your mother's dying love! be kind to the poor +stranger you have bought.'" + +He answered, "I will!" aloud, and it seemed almost a miraculous +coincidence that it was a response to the minister's question, till he +heard the corresponding inquiry put to his bride in the clergyman's low, +but gentlest, tones: + +"Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him, in +sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto +him, so long as ye both shall live?" + +"I will!" spoke the Judge's daughter, clear as music, and the Judge drew +a long, deep sigh, saturated with tears, as if from the deepest wells of +grief. + +He could not distinctly answer, as he joined her hand to the minister's. +The minister lost his office and speech for a moment, joining her hand +to the bridegroom's. The slave-girl burst into a wail she could not +control, and only Vesta stood calm as her bridegroom, putting her cool, +moist hand in his palm of fire, and waited to repeat the Church's +deliberate language. + +When both had made this solemn promise, she reached for the little ring, +and gave it to her old lover, the minister, and Virgie loosed her glove. +Mr. Tilghman, his tears silently falling upon his book, passed the ring +to Meshach, and saw its tiny circle hoop her white finger round, no +bigger than a straw, yet formidable as the martyr's chain. His prayers +were said with deep feeling, and he pronounced them man and wife. Then, +shaking Meshach's hand, he said, with his boyish countenance bright as +faith could make it: + +"My friend, may I take my kiss?" + +Meshach nodded his head, but his face was like a ball of fire, and he +hardly knew what was asked. Mr. Tilghman kissed Vesta, saying, + +"Cousin, your husband is my friend, and love and friendship both +surround you now. May your happiness be, like your goodness, securest +when you surmount difficulties, like those birds that cannot float at +perfect grace till they have struggled above the clouds." + +"May I kiss you now?" Milburn said, gazing with a wild look upon her +rich eyes. + +As she obediently raised her lips, a strange, warm, husky breath, not +natural nor even passionate, came from his nostrils. The Judge, looking +at this--no pleasing scene to him, the fairest Custis in two hundred +years being devoured before his sight--exclaimed within his soul, + +"Is Meshach drinking? His eyes look fiery." + +So, after kissing his daughter also, and saying, "May God reward you +with triumphs and compensation beyond our fears!" the Judge said: + +"Milburn, I suppose, in the sudden conclusion of this union, you have +made no arrangements as to where you will go; so come, of course, to +Teackle Hall, and make it your home." + +"Is that your wish, my dear one?" + +Vesta replied, "Yes. But it is yours to choose, sir." + +"You have some business with your father for an hour," Milburn said; +"meantime, I require something at my warehouse, and, as it is yet early +in the night, may I leave you a little while?" + +She bowed her head again, and, while they proceeded towards the +church-door, lingering there, Samson took the opportunity to seize both +of Virgie's hands. + +"Virgie," he exclaimed, "is all dat kissin a gwyin on an' we black folks +git none of it? Come hyeah, purty gal, an' kiss yer ole gran'fadder!" + +Virgie consented without resistance, till Samson continued, "Oh, what +peach an' honey, Virgie! Gi me anoder one! I say, Virgie, sence my +marster an' your mistis have done gone an' leff us two orphans, sposen +we git Mr. Tilghman to pernounce us man an' wife, too?" Then Virgie drew +away. + +"Samson Hat," she said, "what's that you are talking about? You ought to +be ashamed of yourself. You are old enough to be my father!" + +"'Deed I ain't, my love. I'm good as four o' dese new kine o' Somoset +County beaux. I'm a free man. Maybe I'll sot you free too, Virgie--me +an' my marster yonder. He says we better git married. 'Deed he does." + +"You are just an impertinent old negro," the girl replied. "Do you +suppose any well-raised girl would have a man who got rich by cleaning +the Bad Man's hat? You're nothing but the devil's serving-man, sir." + +"Look out dat debbil don't ketch you, den," said Samson. "You pore, +foolish, believin' chile! Look out dem purty black eyes don't cry for +ole Samson yit. He's done bound to marry some spring chicken, ole Samson +is, an' I reckon you'll brile de tenderest, Virgie." + +Virgie, indignant, but fluttered at her first real proposal, and from +one of the richest men of her color in Princess Anne, hastened to tie on +her young mistress's walking-shoes, and, as they all stepped from the +happy old church, where Vesta's voice had so often pierced, in her +flights of harmony, to a bliss that seemed to carry her soul, like a +lark, to heaven's gate, that + + "singing, still dost soar, and, soaring, ever singest," + +she saw fall upon the pavement of the churchyard the long, preposterous, +moon-thrown hat of the bridegroom. + +"Oh, what will he do with that hat, now that he has married me?" Vesta +thought. "Will he continue to afflict me with it?" + +Her heart sank down, so that she felt relieved when he kissed her again +at the church-gate, and saying, "I will come soon, darling," went, with +his man, into Princess Anne. + +"Is your buggy ready harnessed, Samson?" his master asked, when they +turned the court-house corner. + +"Yes, marster." + +At this moment a large crowd of men, comprising all the idle population +in town, as well as many Saturday-night bacchanalians from the country +and coasts, some standing before the tavern, others on the opposite +sidewalks or gathered on the court-house corner, seeing the hatted +figure of Meshach rise against the moonlight, raised the scattering +cry, finally deepening into a yell, of: + +"Man with the hat loose! Steeple-top! Three cheers for old Meshach's +hat!" + +With a minute's irresolution, as if hesitating to go through the crowd, +Milburn turned into the main street, crossed it, and continued down the +opposite sidewalk, on the same side with his domicile, the jeers and +jests still continuing. + +"Dar's rum a workin' in dis town all arternoon, marster," his faithful +negro said, "eber sence dat long man come in from de churchyard wid +Levin Dennis. Look out, marster!" + +He had scarcely spoken, when three men were seen to bar the way, two of +them drunk, the third ugly with drink, emerging from a groggery that +stood across the street from the tavern, where further beverage had been +denied them. The first was Jack Wonnell. He hiccoughed, cried +"Steeple-top!" and slunk behind a mulberry-tree. The second man was +Levin Dennis, hardly able to stand, and he sat down on the groggery +step, smiling up idiotically. + +The third man, rising like a giant out of his boots, with his arms +swaying like loose grapevines, and his bearded face streaked with +tobacco drippings, looking insolence and contempt, brought the flat of +one hand fairly down on the crown of Milburn's surprising tile, with the +words: + +"Halloo! Yer's Goosecap! Hocus that cady, Old Gripefist!" + +The hat, age being against it, wilted down on Meshach's eyes, and the +heedless stroke, unconsciously powerful, staggered him. + +Samson, who had drunk in the giant's qualifications with an instant's +admiration, immediately drew off, seeing his master insulted, and struck +the tall stranger a blow with his fist. The man reeled, rallied, and +sought to grapple with Samson. That skilful pugilist bent his knees, +slided his shoulders back, and, avoiding the clutch, raised, and threw +his trunk forward, with the blow studied well, and planted his knuckles +in the white man's eyes. The tall ruffian went down as from a bolt of +lightning. + +Milburn saw all this happen in a minute of time, and his eye, looking +for something to defend himself, dropped on the brick pier under the +groggery steps, where Levin Dennis sat, stupefied by the scene. A brick +in the pier was loose, and Milburn stepped towards it. In this small +interval the hardy stranger had recovered himself and staggered to his +feet, and had drawn a dirk-knife. + +"The ruffian oly you!" he bellowed. "Knocked down! by a nigger, too! +Hell have you, then!" + +As he darted forward, he described a rapid circle backward and downward +with the knife, aiming to turn it through Samson's bowels, which he +would have done--that valorous servant being without defence, and not so +much as a pebble of stone lying on the bare plain of the soil to give +him aid--had not Meshach, wresting the loose brick from the pier, aimed +it at the corresponding exposed portion of the assassin's body, and +struck him full in the pit of the stomach. The man's eyes rolled, and he +fell, like one stone-dead, his dirk sticking in the sidewalk. + +"Let him lie there," said Meshach, contemptuously. "No danger of such a +dog dying! If there is time he shall mend in the jail. Take to your +buggy, boy, and keep out of the way." + +The negro needed no warning, as the impiety of striking a white man was +forbidden in a larger book than the Bible--the book of ignorance. He +disappeared through the houses and was a mile out of Princess Anne, +driving fast, before the new man had raised his head from the ground. + +"Where is the nigger?" he gasped, his paleface painted by his bloodshot +eyes. "What kind of coves are you to let a black bloke fight a white +man? I'll cut his heart out before I tip the town." + +He looked around on the crew which had crossed over from the tavern; +Meshach had vanished in his store at the descent of the road. Jimmy +Phoebus was the only one to speak. + +"Nigger buyer," he said, "if you are around this town from now till +midnight, or after midnight to-morrer, Sunday night, ole Meshach Milburn +will have you in that air jail till Spring. By smoke! he'll find out yer +aunty's cedents, whair you goin, whair you been, what's yer splurge, an +all yer hokey pokey. You've struck the Ark of the Lord this time--ole +Milburn's Entailed Hat! Take my advice an' travel!" + +The man washed his face at the tavern pump, turned the bank corner, and +disappeared in the night towards Teackle Hall. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +SHADOW OF THE TILE. + + +As Vesta and her father stepped over the sill of Teackle Hall, it seemed +very dear, yet somewhat dread to them, being reclaimed again, but at the +penalty of a new member of the family and he an intruder. To the library +Vesta and her father went, and he threw some wood upon the low fire, and +lighted the lamp and candles; then turning, he took his daughter in his +arms and sobbed bitterly, repeating over the words: "What shall I do! O +what shall I do!" She also yielded to the luxury of grief, but was +speechless till he said: + +"My darling, I have dreamed of your wedding-day many a time, but it was +not like this. Music and joy, free-heartedness, a handsome, youthful +bridegroom, our whole connection gathered here from the army and navy, +from South, West, and North, and all happy except poor Daniel Custis, +about to lose his child!" + +"Your child is not to go," Vesta whispered; "is not that a comfort?" + +"I do not know. Is it my pure, poor child? Had I seen you waste with +consumption, day by day, like a dying lilac-tree, with its clusters +fewer every year till it deadened to the root, I could have wept in +heavenly sympathy, and learned from you the way I have not walked. But, +in your flower to be a forester's plucking, stripped from my stem and +trodden in the sand, your pride reduced, your tastes unheeded, your +heart dragged into the wigwam of a savage and made to consult his +maudlin will---- Oh, what shall I do!" + +"I do not fear my husband like that," Vesta said, opening his arms. "My +mind, I think, he will rather raise to serious things, for which I have +some desire, though, I fear, no talent. Papa, something tells me that +this old life we have led, easy and happy, comfortable and independent, +is passing away. Our family race must learn the new lessons of the age +if we would not see it retired and obscure. Is that not so?" + +"I fear it is God's truth, my darling. The life we have led is only a +remnant of colonial, or, rather, of provincial dignity, to which the +nature of this republican government is hostile. Tobacco, which was once +our money, is disappearing from this shore, and wheat and corn we cannot +grow like the rich young West, which is pouring them out through the +canal the late Governor Clinton lived to open. Money is becoming a thing +and not merely a name, and it captures every other thing--land, +distinction, talent, family, even beauty and purity. The man you married +understands the art of money and we do not." + +"Then are we not impostors, papa, if we assume to be so much better than +our real superiors? Surely we must persevere in those things the age +demands, and excel in them, to sustain our pride." + +"Yes, if the breed is gamecock it will accept any challenge, not only +war and politics, but mechanics, shop-keeping, cattle-herding, +anything!" + +"Papa, if you can see these things that are to be, so clearly, why can +you not take the wise steps to plant your family on the safe side?" + +"Ah! we Virginians were always the best statesmen, but we died poor. +Having no manual craft, slight bookkeeping, and unlimited capacity for +office, we foresaw everything but the humiliation of ourselves, and that +we hardly admitted when it had come, so much were we flattered by our +philosophic intellects. Our newest amusement is to expound the +constitution to them who are doing too well under it, although our +fathers, who made it, like Jefferson and Madison, died only yesterday, +overwhelmed with debts, and poor Mr. Monroe is run away to New York, +they say, to dodge the Virginia bailiffs." + +"Well, papa, I have saved you from that fear. Here are your notes to Mr. +Milburn and others. Sit down and look them over carefully and see if +they are all here!" + +He took them up, with volatile relief laughing on his yet tear-marked +face, and said: + +"We'll burn them, Vessy." + +"Nay, sir, not till you have seen them all. A single note missing would +give you the same perplexity, and there is no daughter left to settle +it." + +He looked at her with a smile, yet annoyance. + +"You are not going to make a Meshach Milburn of me?" + +"Stop, sir!" Vesta said. "You might do worse than learn from my +husband." + +Something strange in her expression baffled the Judge. + +"Ha!" he interjected, "have I a rival already, daughter? Is his conquest +as complete as that?" + +"I promised to honor him a few moments ago, and I believe I can, papa. +All that you tell me adds to my respect for a man who seems to be only +what he is." + +"Perhaps you can love him, too?" the Judge said, watching her with an +apprehension a little like wonder, a little like jealousy. + +"Oh, I wish I could, papa! That also I promised to do, and I will try. +But my work will all be a failure if you do not become reconciled to Mr. +Milburn. It was for you I married him, and to save your name, your +peace, your independence, and the upbraiding we expected from mamma at +the loss of her dower. He is now your son-in-law, still in the prime of +life, with the business training you lament that you do not possess. +Begin this moment, papa, and learn his habits. Count and identify those +notes!" + +Judge Custis looked them over separately, ran the number of notes he had +given over in his mind, and said: + +"Yes, he has made fair restitution. There are none missing." + +"Restitution implies that he has robbed you, papa. A just man did not +speak there! Every penny in those debts is stamped with Mr. Milburn's +injuries and coined by his sacrifices. Have you spent his money +remembering that?" + +"No, my child, I suppose not." + +"Give me the notes, papa." + +She took them and sat thinking a few moments silently. + +"If I were a man, papa," she said at length, "I would try to learn +business sense. It must be so respectable to live with one's mind able +to help one's security and one's friends, and prepare for age or +sickness while strong and healthy. Now, I think I will not let you burn +these notes till you have paid the price of them! Please write a +transfer of this house, servants, and your manor to me, Vesta----yes, +Vesta Milburn!" + +She blushed as she spoke for the first time her new-worn name. + +"Alas!" sighed her father, "Vesta Custis no more. I begin to feel it. +Well, Mrs. Milburn--I will give you the title--for what must I make over +these old properties to you?" + +"In consideration of my repayment of the sum of my mother's estate to +you for her, for which you have given her no security whatever. It is +not provided for by these notes. I have only Mr. Meshach Milburn's +promise that he will pay her this money, risked and lost by you, father, +I fear very heedlessly. Is it restitution, also, for Mr. Milburn to +strip himself to pay your debts to mother?" + +"No," said the Judge, guiltily, "that he pays on account of his passion +for you. He may cheat you there." + +"I do not believe it, because he has been faithful to me so many years +before I knew he loved me. A man who keeps himself pure for a woman he +has no vows to, will pay her father's debts of honor when he has +promised." + +Judge Custis found the issue quite too warm for his convenience, and +blushing as much as Vesta, he sat down and drew up a conveyance of his +property to Vesta Milburn, in her own right, and in consideration of +twenty-five thousand dollars, paid to Mrs. Lucy Custis on account of +judgment confessed to her by Daniel Custis. + +"There, my dear," he said, passing it over, "what do you want with it? +Are you not sure of a home here as long as you live, even with me as the +proprietor?" + +"No. The tragedy nearly finished here may be repeated, papa, and all of +us be homeless if you can go in debt again. I shall not do that--not +even for my husband, and here will stand Teackle Hall to protect you +all from the cold if bad times ever come again." + +"You have paid a greater price for it, my child, than it is worth, and +you are entitled to it." + +"Besides, dear father, if Mr. Milburn needs any reminder of his promise +to repay mamma's dowry, this will give it. He intended his gift to be my +marriage dower, and were I to convey it to you I should first ask his +consent; not in law, perhaps, but in delicacy." + +"Oh, yes," the Judge said carelessly, "I am glad you have such good +reasons. Yet, my beautiful, my last child,--pride of my race! I hate to +see you so ready for this business--this calculation and foresight. It +is not like the Custises. I fear this man, Milburn, in a single day has +thrown his net around your nature, and annexed you to his sordid +existence. At this moment the redeeming thing about you is that you +cannot love him." + +"Dear father, thoughts like that beset me, too--the pride of +aristocracy, the remembrance of what has been; but I want to be honest +and not to cheat my heart or any person. We have fallen from our height; +he has raised himself from his condition; and there is no deception in +my conduct. He knows I do not love him. Instead of standing upon an +obdurate heart, I pray God to melt my nature and mould it to his +affection!" + +Regarding her a moment with increasing interest, Judge Custis came +forward and kissed her forehead. + +"Amen, then!" he said. "May you love your husband! I will do all I can +to love him, too." + +"That is spoken like a true man," Vesta said. "And now, father, +good-night! Be ready here for Mr. Milburn's arrival. Ring for a decanter +and some cake. It will not hurt you, after your fast, to drink a glass +of sherry with the bridegroom." + +He kissed her and felt her trembling in his arms. As she started to go, +she returned and clung to him again. Her face was pale with fear. + +"Oh, dreadful God!" he muttered, "to visit my many sins upon this +spotless angel! Where shall I fly?" + +A step was upon the porch, and Vesta flashed up the stairway. + +Judge Custis went to his door apprehensive and in tears. A strange man +stood there, with his eye bruised and blood dripping down to his coarse, +rope-like beard. He was in liquor, but so pale that it was apparent by +the starlight. + +"Good-evening," said the man; "you don't know me, Judge Custis? No +matter, I'm Joe Johnson." + +The Judge, whose tears had taken him far from things of trivial memory, +looked at the man and repeated "_Joe_ Johnson. Not Joe Johnson of +Dorchester?" + +"Yes, Judge, Joe Johnson, the slave-dealer. I've bought many a nigger +from a Custis when it was impolite to sell 'em, Judge, so they let me +run' em off, and cussed me for it to the public. An' that's made me +onpopular, Judge Custis, and that's my fix to-night." + +"You have been fighting, Johnson, I think," said the Judge, with +suppressed dislike. + +"I've been knocked down by a nigger," said the man, with a glare of +ferocity, removing his hand from the wounded eye, as if it inflamed his +recollection of the blow to see the drops of blood drip from his beard +to the porch. "This town is too nice to abide a dealer in the +constitutional article, and so they set on me, when I was a little +jingle-brained with lush, an' while the nigger klemmed me in the peep, a +little white villain with a steeple bonnet hit me in the bread-bag with +a stone. I've come yer, Judge, to lie up in the kitchen, an' sleep warm +over Sunday, for the cops threaten to take me, if they catch me before +midnight." + +"I suppose you know, Johnson, that I am a magistrate, and the proper +harborage I give to breakers of the peace is the jail." + +"I'm not afraid of that limbo, Judge Custis, when I come to you. Old +Patty Cannon has done you many a good turn with Joe Johnson's gang about +election times in the upper destreeks of Somerset. Patty always said +Judge Custis was a game gentleman that returned a favor." + +The Judge's countenance, an instant blank, lighted up with all a +vote-getter's smile, and he said: + +"Joe, you're a terrible fellow, but dear old Aunt Patty did always take +my part! I suspect, Joe, that you have run afoul of Samson, the hired +man of Meshach Milburn, who is a boxer, though I wonder that he could +get away with your youth and size. Of course, I won't let you come to +harm. You haven't been playing your tricks on anybody's negroes, Joe?" + +"No, upon my word, Judge! You see, I took a load of Egypt down the +Nanticoke to Norfolk, and shipped 'em to Orleens. Says I: 'I'll go back +Eastern Shore way, and see if there's any niggers to git.' So I tramped +it from Somers's Cove to Princess Anne, an' sluiced my gob at Kingston +and the Trappe till I felt noddy with the booze, and lay down in the +churchyard to snooze it off. Bein' awaked before my nod was out, I felt +evil an' chiveyish, and the tavern blokes, an' the nigger, an' the +feller with the steeple shap, all clecked me at once." + +"Well, Joe, for Aunt Patty's sake, I'll take care of you. Go to the +kitchen door, and I'll step through the house and tell our Aunt Hominy +to give you supper and breakfast, and a place to get some sleep. But you +must keep out of the way, and slip off quietly on Sunday, for we have +had a wedding in the family to-day, Joe, and though I cannot understand +your peculiar slang, I suspect the bridegroom to be the man who knocked +the breath out of you with the stone." + +The stranger lifted his hand from his bloody eye again, and counted the +red drops splashing down from his beard. Judge Custis marked his scowl. + +"Tut, tut!" said the Judge, "you will never get your revenge out of that +man. He is too strong. I don't wonder that he disabled you, and don't +you ever get into his clutches, Joe; for if he knows you are here, I +shall be forced to send you to jail this very night. Keep out of the +hands of Meshach Milburn! He has knocked the breath out of you, Mr. +Johnson, but there are some whose hearts he has twisted out of their +bodies." + +"I'll meet him somewhere," Joe Johnson muttered, "but not in Princess +Anne;" and he pulled down his slouched hat to cover his eyes, and +stalked away to find the kitchen. + +"Oh, what a day can bring forth," Judge Custis thought, raising his +hands to the October stars: "Meshach of the ominous hat the host in my +parlor: Joe Johnson, the son-in-law of Patty Cannon, the guest of my +kitchen!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +MESHACH'S HOME. + + +Vesta had slept she hardly knew how long, but it was day, and slowly her +eyes turned towards the remainder of her bed to see if it was occupied. + +The bridegroom was not there. + +She reached her foot into her slipper at the bedside, and at one swift +step passed before her mirror, whispering: + +"I have dreamed it all!" + +The fresh, flushing skin, and radiant contrasts of hair and eyes seemed +so welcome to her in their perfect assurance of health, that she +whispered again: + +"Have I dreamed it? He is not here. Oh, am I free?" + +Then a feeling of reproval came to her as the minutest memory of that +wonderful yesterday rose to her mind, and the vow she had made to honor +and obey seemed to have been too easily repented. She looked upon her +hand, and the little, thin, pathetic thread of gold reaffirmed her +memory of the wedding-ring, and at the next suggestion a blush coursed +through her being like a redbird in the apple-blossoms: perhaps he had +stolen from her chamber stealthily as he came, while she, drowned in +deep slumber, wotted not. + +A glance into the mirror again revealed those blushes repeating each +other, like the Aurora in the northern dawn, till, with a searching +consciousness, and her voice raised above the whisper, she said, + +"Be still, silly _girl_!" + +Opening the door, she found Virgie lying on the rug without, warmly +wrapped in her mistress's blanket-shawl, but wide awake. + +"Virgie, no one has passed?" asked Vesta. + +"No, Miss Vessy. Nobody could have stepped over me, for my mind has been +too awake, if I did sleep a little. Maybe _he_ ain't a-coming, Miss +Vessy. Maybe he's ashamed!" + +"Hush, Virgie," Vesta said, "you are speaking of your master." + +Throwing her morning-robe around her shoulders, the maiden bride tripped +noiselessly to her mother's apartment; the door was open, the night +taper floating in its vase, and Mrs. Custis lay asleep with her +bank-book under her pillow. + +"Shall I awake her?" Vesta thought. "Yes, if I do not need her +experience, I do want her confidence, and not to give her mine would +seem deceit now." + +Vesta kissed her mother softly, and placed her cheek beside that lady's +thin, respectable profile as she awoke, and said: + +"Daughter, mercy! why, what has become of you? It seems to me I have +seen nobody for days, and I wanted to express my indignation even in my +dreams. Where have you been?" + +"Oh, mamma," Vesta said, taking Mrs. Custis's head in her arms, "I have +been finding your lost fortune, which troubled us all so much. It is to +be given back to you, dearest--my husband has promised to do so." + +"Your husband? Whom have you selected, that he is so free with his +money? How could you hear from Baltimore so soon? Now, don't tell me a +parcel of stuff, thinking to comfort me. Your father is a villain, and +my connections shall know it." + +Mrs. Custis drew her bank-book from under her head, and began to cry, as +she took a single look at its former total. + +"Darling mamma," Vesta said, "seeing you so miserable yesterday on +account of papa's failure, and your portion gone with it, I accepted an +offer of marriage, and have a rich man's promise that, first of all, +your part shall be paid to you. This house, and our manor, and +everything as it is--the servants, the stable, and the movables--belong +to me, in my own name, paid for in papa's notes, and by him transferred +to me to be our home forever, so that a revulsion like yesterday may not +again cross the sill of our door. Does not that deserve a kiss, mamma?" + +"I don't believe a word of it," said Mrs. Custis. "This is another trick +to deceive me. I don't accuse you of it, Vesta, but you are the victim +of somebody and your father. Now, who can this man be, so free with his +ready money? It's not the style in Baltimore to promise so liberally as +all that. Have you accepted young Carroll?" + +"No, nor thought of him, mamma." + +"Then it must be that widower fool, Hynson, ready to sell his negroes +for a second wife like you." + +"He has neither been here in body or mind," Vesta said; "never in my +mind." + +"That would be a marriage to make a talk: it wouldn't be like you to +bestow so much beauty on a widower. I think there is a certain vulgarity +about an elegant girl marrying a widower. She is so refined, and he is +generally so sleek and sensual. Did you hear from Charles McLane?" + +"Nothing, mamma; let me ease your mind by telling you that my husband +lives here in Princess Anne. He was father's creditor, Mr. Meshach +Milburn. He has loved me unknown for years. I saw a way to stop all +scandal and recrimination by marrying him at once, that the society we +know would have but one, and not two, subjects of curiosity. Papa saw me +married last night to Mr. Milburn, and I bear his name this Sabbath +day." + +"His wife? Meshach Milburn? The vulgarian in the play-actor's hat? That +man! Daughter, you play with my poor head. It is going again. Oh-h-h!" + +"Mother, it is true. I am Mrs. Milburn. My husband is your benefactor." + +It was unnecessary to say more, for Mrs. Custis had really fainted. + +"Poor mother!" thought Vesta, "I am confirmed in my fear that, if she +had been told of my purpose, she would have opposed it bitterly." + +Roxy was summoned to assist Vesta, and after Mrs. Custis had become +conscious, and sighed and cried hysterically, her daughter, sitting in +her lady's rocker, spoke out plainly: + +"Mother, I appreciate your disappointment in my marriage, though I +should be the one to make complaint and receive sympathy, instead of +discouragement; but I do not desire it; indeed, I will not permit any +person to disparage my husband, or draw odious comparisons between my +poverty and his exertions. If there are in my body, or my society, any +merits to please a man, they have fallen to him under the law of +Providence, that he that hath shall receive. I pity your illness, dear +mamma, but I fear Mr. Milburn is ill, too, for he has not been here all +night, though he left me at the church-gate." + +"I hope the viper is dead!" Mrs. Custis said, with great clearness, and +energized it by sitting up in bed. Roxy left the room. + +"I hope he has been murdered," said Mrs. Custis, "and that the murderer +will never be discovered. If there is any spirit of the McLanes left in +my brothers and nephews, they will wipe out, in blood, the insult of +this marriage between my daughter and the man who set a trap upon the +honor of a respectable family." + +Vesta arose with a pale, troubled face, yet with some of her mother's +prejudice flashing back. + +"He can defend himself, mamma. I shall go to seek him now, since he is +so much hated for me." + +She returned to her room, and put on a walking-suit, and made her +toilet. In the library Vesta found her father dozing in a large chair, +with his feet upon a leather sofa, and a silk handkerchief drawn across +his crown, under which were the dry beds of tears that had coursed down +his cheeks. She saw, with a touch of joy, that the sherry in the +decanter was untouched, and the two glasses were still clean: he had not +relapsed into his habits, even while making an all-night vigil to wait +for the unwelcome son-in-law. He started as she entered, and then stared +at her between his dazed wits and a mute inquiry that she could +understand. + +"He has not come, papa. And mamma--oh! she is severe." + +Vesta, trembling at the throat a moment, rushed into her father's +wide-open arms, and buried the sob in his breast. + +"Poor soul! Poor lamb! Poor thing!" he said, over and over, while his +temper slowly rose, that seldom rose of recent years, since pleasure and +carelessness had taken its masculine sting away, but Vesta felt his +tones change while he petted her, and at last heard him say, hoarsely: + +"By God!" + +"Sh--h!" she whispered, raising her hand to his mouth. + +"I will kill somebody," he went on, finishing his sentence, and as she +drew away he strode across the room and back again, a noble exhibition +of passion that had a noble origin, in fatherly pity. + +"Don't lose your true pride, papa, after you have persevered so long," +Vesta said. "It is Sunday. Do you think he will come? What can have +happened?" + +"He will either come or fight me," Judge Custis remarked. "I have tried +to be a peaceable man and Christian magistrate, albeit a poor hypocrite +in some, things, but I am pushed too far. My wife's smallness is worse +than insanity and wickedness put together. Between her and this +money-broking fiend, and my neglected child entrapped into such a +marriage, by God! I will clean my old duelling arms, and appeal to +injustice itself to set me even." + +If he had been fine-looking in his sincere grief, he was thrice more +attractive in his sincere high spirit. Vesta, admiring him in spite of +her cares, did not like to see him in this unnatural recklessness. + +"Dear father," she said, soothingly, "you have no cause of quarrel." + +"I have every cause," he cried; "the proposal to marry you was an +insult, for which I should have challenged him, and shot him if he +declined. Now he has married you and absconded, using you and the Custis +honor with contempt. In my day I was the best shot in Eastern Virginia. +I can kill a man in this cause as easily as I have broken either of a +man's arms, at choice, in my courting days. Public opinion will clear me +under this provocation, and I can acquit my own conscience, abhorrent +as duelling is to me. My sons-in-law would leap to take the quarrel up, +and rid the world of Meshach Milburn." + +"That is mamma's idea, to kill the debtor who has been specially kind to +her. She says she will send for Uncle Allan McLane, and is more +unreasonable than ever. Papa, your feelings are unjust. Something we do +not know of has happened to Mr. Milburn. He was not himself all the +while at the church. Now that I recollect, he was not ardent for the +marriage to be so soon. It was I who hastened the hour. Let us be right +in everything, having progressed so far with the recovery of our +fortunes, and let us await the fulfilment of events hopefully." + +"Milburn was drunk at the ceremony, I saw that," Judge Custis said, "but +it was no excuse. In fact, what good can come of this violent alliance? +It seems to me that we have leaped from the frying-pan into the fire. I +feel ugly, my daughter, and there is no concealing it." + +"Then you are in the mood to talk to mother this morning," Vesta said, +"while you have some unusual will and spirit. This resentful sullenness +she is showing I fear more than your passing emotion, papa. Be firm, yet +kind, with her, and I will go to find my husband. Yes, that is my place. +He may be more justly complaining of my absence now, than we of his +neglect." + +"You don't mean that you are going to visit him at his den?" + +"I shall go there first. It would have been my home last night if he had +required it. To tell the truth," Vesta said, blushing, "the poor man was +so kind to me yesterday, in spite of his object, and so quaint, and, as +it seemed, dependent on me, that my charity is enlisted for him, and I +could almost have married him from pity." + +The Judge's temper fell a little in the study of his daughter's +blushing. + +"Wonderful! wonderful!" he thought to himself; "that poor corn-bred +fellow has already made more impression on this girl's pride than a +hundred cavalier gallants. Truly, we are a republic, Vesta," he +continued aloud, "and you lay down the Custis character as easily as our +old connection, Lord Fairfax, accepted the democracy of his hired +surveyor, Mr. Washington, before he died." + +"I laid down the Custis name yesterday," Vesta said, "though not their +better character, I hope. Papa, there is only one law of marriage; it is +where the wife follows the husband." + +She looked a little archly at him, wiping her eyes of recent tears, and +though she may not have meant it, he was reminded of his own fear of his +wife. + +Aunt Hominy now came in, having been told by Virgie to prepare coffee, +and she followed Roxy, who brought it into the library. The old cook had +a strange look, as of one who had been up all night at a fire, or a +"protracted meeting," and she poked her head in as if afraid to come +farther, till Vesta went out and kissed her kindly. + +"Poor Aunty Hominy! did you think I was sold, or abused, because I had +been married? Dear old aunty, I shall never leave you!" + +Aunt Hominy had a countenance of profound, almost vacant, melancholy, +mixed with a fear that, the Judge remarked, "he had seen on the faces of +niggers that had stolen something." + +"Miss Vessy," she stammered, at last, "is you measured in by ole +Meshach? Is he got you, honey? Dat he has, chile! He's gwyn to bury you +under dat pizen hat. Po' little girl! Po' Miss Vessy!" + +"Oh, Aunt Hominy," Vesta said, "he will be a kind master in spite of his +queer hat, and take good care of you and all the children; for he is my +husband, and will love you all for me." + +A dumb, terrified look adhered to the old black woman's face. + +"No, he won't be kind to nobody," she gasped. "You has gwyn been lost, +Miss Vessy. You is measured in. De good Lord try an' bress you! Hominy +ain't measured in yit. Hominy's kivered herseff wid cammermile, an' +drunk biled lizzer tea. Hominy's gone an' got Quaker." + +"What's _Quaker_, Aunt Hominy?" + +"Quaker," the old woman repeated, backing out and looking down, +"Quaker's what keeps him from a measurin' of me in!" + +Then, as Vesta drew on her bonnet and shawl, having taken her coffee and +toast, the old servant, gliding back in the depths of Teackle Hall, +raised a wild African croon, as over the dead, giving her voice a +musical inflection like the jingle of Juba rhyme: + +"Good-bye, Miss Vessy! Good-bye, Aunt Hominy's baby! Good-bye, dear +young missis! Good-bye, my darlin' chile, furever, furever, an' O +furever, little Vessy Custis, O chile, farewell!" + +The tears raining upon her cheeks, her wild, wringing hands and upflung +arms and shape convulsed, Vesta remembered long, and thought, as she +left Teackle Hall with Virgie, that some African superstition had, by +the aid of dreams, drawn into a passing excitement the faithful +servant's brain. + +At the corner of old Front Street, and extending almost out upon the +little Manokin bridge, stood Meshach Milburn's two-story house and +store, with a door upon both streets. Though planted low, in a hollow, +it stood forward like Milburn's challenging countenance, unsupported by +any neighbors. + +"Don't it look like a witch's, Missy?" Virgie said, as Vesta took in its +not unpicturesque outlines and crude plank carpentry, the weather-rotted +roof, the decrepit chimney at the far end, the one garret window in the +sharp gable, the scant little windows above stairs, and the doors low to +the sand. + +"It may have been the pride of the town fifty years ago, Virgie. I have +passed it many a day, looking with mischievous curiosity for the +steeple-hat, to show that to some city friend, little thinking I must +ever enter the house. But hear that wilful bird singing so loud! Where +is it?" + +"I can't tell to save my life. It ain't in the tree yonder. It's the +first bird up this mornin', Miss Vessy, sho'!" + +"Is not that larger door standing ajar, the one with the four panels in +it?" Vesta asked. "Yes, it is unfastened and partly open." + +The blood left Vesta's heart a moment, as the thought ran through her +mind: "He has been watched, followed home, and murdered!" + +The idea seemed to explain his absence on his marriage night, and, like +a sudden flame first seen upon a burning ship, lighting up the wide +ocean with its bright terrors, Vesta saw the infinite relations of such +a crime: her almost secret marriage, her custody of her father's notes, +the record of them upon her husband's books, his last word at the church +gate: "I will come soon, darling," and now, this silent abode, with its +door ajar on Sunday dawn, before the town was up--they might bear the +suspicion of a dreadful crime by the ruined debtor house of Custis +against their friendless creditor. + +This thought, personal to her father, was immediately dismissed in the +feeling for a possibly murdered husband. If the idea barely touched her +sense of self, that her tremendous sacrifice had been arrested by +Heaven, and her purity saved between the altar and the nuptials by the +bloodshed of her purchaser at the hands of some meaner avenger, though +not until she had redeemed her father from Milburn's clutch, this idea +never passed beyond the portal of her mind; she repulsed it, entering, +and began to think of the easy prey her husband might have been, hated +by so many, defended by none, known to be very rich, no loss to the +community, as it might think, in its financial ignorance, and his only +guard a stalwart negro notorious for fighting. + +Believing Milburn to deserve better than his present fame, Vesta +advanced towards the door of the old wooden store with a spirit of +commiseration and awe, and still the wild bird from somewhere poured out +a shriek, a chuckle, a hurrah, enough to turn her blood to ice. + +As Vesta pushed open the old, seasoned door it dragged along the floor, +and the loose iron bar and padlock, dropping down, made a ring that +brought an echo like a tomb's out of the hollow interior. + +"'Deed, Miss Vessy, I'm 'fraid to go in there," Virgie said. + +"You are not to come in till I call you. But hear that bird rioting in +song! Does Mr. Milburn keep birds?" + +"I can't tell, Miss Vessy. That bird's a Mocker. It must be in there +somewhere. Oh, don't go in, Miss Vessy; something will catch you, dear +Missy, sho'." + +But Vesta was already gone, following the piercing sound of the native +bird, that seemed to be in the loft. + +She saw a little counter of pine, and a pine desk built into it, and +bundles of skins, some cord-wood, a pile of lumber and boxes, a few +barrels of oil or spirits, and dust and cobwebs thick on everything; and +a little way in from the door the light and darkness made weird effects +upon each other, increasing the apparent distances, and changing the +forms; and the sun, now risen, made turning cylinders of gold-dust at +certain knot-holes in the eastern gable, across whose film she saw two +lean mice stand upon the floor unalarmed, and tamely watch her come. + +The screaming of the bird was conveyed through the thin floor from above +with loud distinctness, and every note of singing things seemed to be +imitated by it, from the hawk's gloating cry to the swallow's twittering +alarm, with the most rapid versatility, and even hurry, as if the +creature was trying over every bird language, with the hope of finding +one mankind could understand. It was idle to expect to be heard amid +such clamor, and Vesta, having pounded on the floor a few times, made +her way to a sort of cupboard, that might turn out to be a stairway, +and, sure enough, a door opened on its dark side, and light from above +flickered down. + +At this moment the bird's notes abruptly ceased, and a voice, unlike +anything she had ever heard in her life, yet human, spoke in response to +a more natural human voice, both issuing from above. + +The second voice seemed to be Milburn's; the first voice was something +like it, yet not like anything from the throat of man, and the +superstition she had been rebuking in her servant came with a thrilling +influence upon her entire nature. She was about to fly, but called out +one word as she arrested herself: + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" + +The loud, unclassifiable voice above immediately answered: + +"Gent! Gent-gent-gent-en! t-chee, t-chee! Gents, tss-tss-tss! Ha! ha! +Gentlemen!" + +"May I come up?" Vesta cried. + +"Come, p-chee! Come chee! come tsee! See me! see me! see me! Come +p-chee! come see! come see me!" + +The last accentuation, in spite of the bird's interference, was +sufficiently distinct to amount to an invitation, and with a raising of +her eyelids once dependently to heaven, Vesta went up the stairs. + +She put her head into a large, long room, which took up the whole +contents of the second story, and was lighted on three sides by the +small windows she had seen without. It had no carpet or floor-covering +of any kind; the fire was gone out upon the chimney-hearth in the end, +and the atmosphere, a little chill, was melting before the sunshine +which now streamed in at both sides of the fireplace and clearly +revealed every object in the apartment,--some clothes-pegs, a wooden +table with a blue plate, a blue cup and saucer and a saucepan upon it, +and a coarse knife and fork; a large green chest, and a leather hat-box; +an old hair trunk fifty years old, and nearly falling to pieces; black +silhouettes, in little round ebony frames, of a woman and a man hung +over the mantel, and between them a silhouette of a face she had no +difficulty in recognizing to be intended for her own. + +Stretched upon a low child's bed, of the sort called trundle-bed in +those days, which could be wheeled under the high-legged bed of the +parents, lay the bridegroom, in his wedding-dress and gaitered shoes, +with his steeple-crowned hat upon the faded calico quilt beside him, and +his face as red as burning fever could make it. + +Vesta only verified the particulars of the inventory of Milburn's lodge +afterwards, her instant attention being drawn to the motionless form of +her husband, whose flushed face seemed to indicate a death by +strangulation or apoplexy. She went forward and put her hand upon him. + +"Mr. Milburn!" she spoke. + +"Milburn!" echoed a voice of piercing strength, though ill articulated. +She looked around in astonishment, and saw nobody. + +"Husband!" Vesta spoke, louder, stooping over him. + +"S'band! s'band! See! see!" shouted the wanton voice, almost at her +elbow. + +Vesta, with one hand on the helpless man's brow, turned again, almost +indignantly, for the tone seemed to address some sense of neglect or +shame in her, which she had not been guilty of. Still, nothing was to be +seen. + +At the far corner of the room was a step-ladder leading to a hole in the +loft above; but this was not the place of the interruption, for she +heard the voice now come as from the chimney at the opposite end of the +room, nearer the bed, and accompanied with a fluttering and scratching, +as if some spirit of evil, with the talons of a rat or a bat, was trying +to break in where the prostrate man lay on the bed of oblivion. + +"Meshach! Meshach!" rang the half-human cry, "Hoo! hoo! Vesty! Vesty! +Sweet! sweet! sweet! Ha, ha! See me! See me! Meshach, he! Vesty, she! +She! she! she! Hoot! hoot! ha!" + +Rapidly changing her view, with her ears no less than her heart tingling +at the use of her own name, Vesta saw on the dusty wooden mantel a +common bird of a gray color, with dashes of brown and black upon his +wings, and a whitish breast, and he was greatly agitated, as if he meant +to fly upon her or upon some other intruder she could not see. + +His eyes, of black pupils upon yellowish eyeballs, sparkled with nervous +activity. He flung himself into the air above her head, uttering sounds +of such mellow richness and such infinite fecundity of modulation, that +the old hovel almost burst with intoxicated song, combining gladness, +welcome, fear, defiance, superstition, horror, and epithalamium all +together, like Orpheus gone mad, and losing the continuity of his golden +notes. + +The bird's upper bill was beaked like a hawk's, his lower was sharp as a +lance, and between them issued that infuriated melody and cadence and +epithet that old Patrick Henry's spirit might have migrated into from +his grave in the Virginia woods. He suddenly flung himself from his +vortex of song upon the bed of the sick man, with a twitching hop and +rapid opening and shutting of the tail, like the fan of a disturbed +beauty, and thence perched upon Milburn's peaked hat, and with a +convulsive struggle of his throat and body, as if he were in superhuman +labor, brought out, distinct as man could speak, the words, + +"'Sband! 'sband! Vesty! Vesty! Sweet! sweet! Come see! come see!" + +Vesta, by a quick, expert movement, grasped the bird, and smoothed it +against her bosom, and soothed its excitement. + +She had heard verified what Audubon avowed, and had but recently +published in the beautiful edition of his works her father was a +subscriber to, that some said the American mocking-bird could imitate +the human voice, though the naturalist remarked that he himself had +never heard the bird do it. + +The present verification, Vesta thought, of the mocking-bird's supremest +power, might have issued from its excitement at the silent and helpless +condition of its master--that master who had told Vesta that no bird in +the woods ever resisted his seductions and mystic influence. + +"If that be true," Vesta said to herself, "there is no danger of this +vociferous pet making his escape if I put him out of the window till I +can see if his master speaks or lives." + +So she raised the window, and flung the mocking-bird up into the air, +and it came down and dropped into the old willow-tree beneath, and there +set up a concert the Sabbath morning might have been proud of, when, in +the corn-fields, the free-footed Saviour went plucking the milky ears. +Vesta could but stop a minute and listen. + +The liquid notes chased each other around in circles of dizzy harmony, +as if angels were at hide-and-seek on the blue branches of the air, +eluding each other in pure-heartedness, chasing each other with eager +love, sighing praise and happiness as their supernal hearts emitted +music in the glow of ecstasy, and carrying upward the loveliest emotions +of the earth in yearning sympathy for nature. No language, now, that +Vesta could identify, was woven into that maze of morning song, which +challenged, with its fulness and golden weight, the floods of sunshine, +matching light with sound, spontaneous both, and rivals for the favors +of the soft atmosphere. Singing with all its heart, outdoing all it +knew, forgetting imitation in wild improvisation, watching her window as +it danced upon the twigs and fluttered into the air, conscious of her +listening as it purled and warbled towards her, and sounded every pipe +and trumpet, virginal and clarion, hautboy and castanet, in the +orchestra of its rustic bosom, the mocking-bird's ode seemed almost +supernatural this morn to Vesta, and she thought to herself: + +"Oh, what wedding music in the cathedral at Baltimore could equal that? +and this poor man receives it for his epithalamium, without cost, as +truly as if nature were greeting my coming to him in the old poet's +spirit: + + "'Now all is done; bring home the bride againe; + Bring home the triumph of our victory; + Bring home with you the glory of her gaine, + With joyance bring her and with jollity: + Sing, ye sweet angels, Alleluia sing, + That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.'" + +Relieved from the agitation of the mocking-bird, Vesta now gave her +whole attention to her husband; and the high heat of his brain and +circulation, and his muttering, like delirium, seemed to indicate that +he had an intense attack of intermittent fever. She heard the words +several times repeated by him: "I will come soon, darling!" and the +simplicity of his devotion to her, unloved as he was, had such flavor of +pathos in it that the tears started to Vesta's eyes. + +"Poor soul!" she said, "it will be long before I can love him. _There_, +his hunger must be enduring. But my duty is not the less clear to stay +by his side and nurse him, as his wife." + +At this conclusion she looked Milburn over carefully, to see if any +wound or sign of violence, whether by accident or an enemy, appeared +upon him, and finding none, and he all the time wandering in his sleep, +she climbed the ladder and peeped into the garret, to see if his servant +might be there. Samson's bed, as she supposed it was, had not been +disturbed, and so, descending, she raised the window over the larger +door she had entered by, and beckoned Virgie to come up. + +"Take this tin cup," she said to the quadroon, "and go to the spring, +near here, and bring it to me full of water." + +Then, as the girl tripped away, Vesta found a piece of paper, and wrote +her father a note, telling him to come to her; and to the girl, when she +returned, her mistress said: + +"I want you to get a roll of new rag-carpet at Teackle Hall, and have it +brought here, to spread upon this floor. Send me, too, a pair of our +brass andirons, and pack in a basket some glass, table-ware, and linen. +Tell papa to bring one of his own night-shirts, and to take down my +picture in the sewing-room, and wrap it up, and have it sent. I must +have mamma's medicine-box and a wheelbarrow of ice; and let Hominy make +some strong tea and hot-water toast. Virgie, do not forget that this +sick gentleman is my husband, and a part of our own family!" + +"The girl's face preserved its respect with difficulty as she heard the +last part of the sentence, but she replied to What she understood to be +a warning by saying: + +"Miss Vessy, I never tell anybody tales." + +"No, dear, you do not. I only feared you might forget the very different +view we must take of Mr. Milburn from his former life here." + +Being again left alone, Vesta took the tin cup of spring-water, and, +raising the disturbed man's head, she gave him a drink, and, as he +opened his eyes to see whom it was, she heard him say, with an +articulate sigh: + +"Heaven." + +With the remainder of the water and her handkerchief she washed his hot +skin and kept it moist, and fitful murmurs, as "Darling!" "Angel!" +"Beautiful lady!" came from his roving brain as perception and poison +contended for his mind. The inborn sense in woman of happiness after +doing good offices and being appreciated was attended with a certain +intellectual elation, and even amusement, at having witnessed what was +altogether new to her,--the life of the meaner class of white people. +She looked at the dexterous silhouette of herself, cut, probably, from +memory, long ago, by the man, no doubt, who never knew her until +yesterday, and, guessing the companion profiles to be his mother and +father, she exclaimed, mentally: + +"I cannot see anything insincere about this man's statement to me. Here +are all the proofs of his deep attachment to me long before he forced my +name upon papa with such apparent insolence. If papa could see these +proofs with a woman's interest, he would have a full apology in them. +Here, too, is the bird that sings my name. What strength of +prepossession the master must have had to make the feathered pupil +repeat the sound of 'Vesta,' and call me 'sweet!' What resources, too, +without the use of money or social aids! He knows the story of our +English beginning, while we make it an idle boast; but to him Cromwell +and Milton, Raleigh and Vane, are men of to-day. Ah!" Vesta thought, "I +think I see now one of those Puritans in my husband, of whom I have +heard as sprinkled through Virginia. We are the Cavaliers. There is the +Roundhead, even to the King James hat." + +As she was led onward in these probabilities, Vesta took up the demure +old Hat and looked it over without any superstition, and reflected: + +"Do we not exaggerate trifles? Why should this man be so derided because +he covers his head with an old hat? What of it? Suppose it shows some +vanity or eccentricity, why is there more merit in covering that up than +in expressing it in the dress? The styles we wear to-day are the +derision even of the current journals, and what will be thought of them +fifty years hence, when the fashion magazines show me as I look,--the +envy of my moment, the fright of my grandchildren?" + +With rising color, she put the hat in the leather hat-box, and shut it +up. + +Judge Custis made his way up the dark stairs in a little while, and, as +soon as he looked at Milburn, exclaimed, + +"Curses come home to roost! It was only night before last that I said, +in the presence of Meshach's negro, 'May the ague strike him and the +bilious sweat from Nassawongo mill-pond!' He slept by it that night, +while I was tossing in misery. The next night it was his turn. Daughter, +he has the bilious intermittent fever, the legacy of all his fathers. He +exposed himself, I suppose, extraordinarily that night, and I hear that +he burned the old cabin in the morning. Now he will burn, in memory of +it, for the next ten weeks; for he has, I suspect, from the time of day +the burning and delirium came, what is called the double quotidian type +of the fever, with two attacks in the twenty-four hours." + +"Poor man!" exclaimed Vesta. + +"Now I can account for his appearance at the marriage ceremony last +night. The fever was on him, but he went through it by hard grit, and, +probably, returning here to get some relief, he just fell over on that +bed, and his head left him for some hours. The paroxysm goes away during +sleep, and returns in the morning; so, before he could get abroad +to-day, even if he could walk, to report himself at Teackle Hall, +another fever came, and a furious one, too, and he will have good luck +to survive forty days of fever, with probably eighty sweats in that +time." + +"He must be doctored at once, papa." + +"Well, I am good enough doctor for the bilious fever. He wants plenty of +cold lemonade, cold sponging, and ice to suck when the fever is on him. +When the chills intervene he wants blanketing, hot bottles at his feet, +and hot tea, or something stronger. In the rest between the attacks of +fever and chill, he wants calomel and Peruvian bark, and if these +delirious spells go on, he may want both bleeding and opium." + +"Here are some of the things he immediately needs, then," Vesta said, as +a tall white man she had never seen before came up the stairs with +Virgie, bringing some Susquehanna ice in a blanket, and a roll of +carpet, and other articles she had sent for. The man's face wore a large +bruise that heightened his savage appearance. + +"Judge," exclaimed the stranger, "I'm doin' a little work to pay fur my +board. Who's your whiffler? He'll know me when he sees me next time." + +Following the stranger's eyes, Vesta and her father saw Meshach Milburn, +half raised up from the low trundle-bed, staring at Joe Johnson as if +trying to get at him. His lips moved, he partly articulated: + +"Catch the--scoundre--_him_!" + +"Joe," said the Judge, "slip away! He recognizes you as the assailant +yesterday. Don't hesitate: see how he glares at you!" + +"Oh, it's the billy-noodle with the steeple nab-cheat, him that settled +me with the brick," said the stranger, in a low voice. "So I have piped +him. Ah! that's plumby!" + +As the tall man started to go Milburn's countenance relaxed, he wandered +again in his head, and fell back upon the bed. + +"I told you he was a hard hater, Mr. Johnson," the Judge remarked. + +"Them shakes is the equivvy for the bruise he give me,--that is, till we +both heal up. He's painted the ensigns of all nations on my stummick, +Judge. But a blow is cured by a blow!" + +With a look of admiring computation upon the girl Virgie, Joe Johnson +drew his long figure down the stairs, like a pole. + +"What a brutal giant," Vesta said; "and how came he to be doing our +errands?" + +"Why, Aunt Hominy hadn't nobody to bring the wheelbarrow load, and this +man said he'd come, and he would come, Miss Vesty, so I couldn't say +anything." + +"He's a man of a good deal of influence," said the Judge, uneasily, "in +the upper part of our county, and in Delaware. Last night, after the +wedding, he slapped Meshach's hat, and old Samson knocked him down for +it, and he would have killed Samson, I hear, but for your bridegroom, +who felled him with a timely brick. It's a hard team to pass on a narrow +road,--Meshach and Samson; hey, Virgie?" + +"I'm glad old Samson beat him, anyway," the pretty quadroon said, +showing her white teeth. + +"Oh, what troubles will not that hat bring upon us!" Vesta thought; and +then spoke: "If Mr. Milburn was strong, I think he would hardly let that +man get out of the county before night." + +"Well, daughter, what are you going to do with these articles he has +brought?" + +"They are to make this room comfortable. See, he has my picture here, +cut by his own hands: I want to put a better one before him: help me +hang it, papa!" + +In a few minutes the bright oil portrait, but recently painted by Mr. +Rembrandt Peale, was taking the sunlight upon its warm brunette cheeks, +in full sight of the bridegroom, and the thick rag carpet warmed the +floor, and Virgie had made a second errand to Teackle Hall, and brought +back the lady's rocking-chair that Milburn so much affected, and toilet +articles, and some dark cloth to hide the bare boards in places, and the +old loft soon wore a reasonable appearance of habitable life. Virgie +made up the fire, and the brass andirons took the cheerful flame upon +them, while Vesta sweetened the lemonade after her father had cut and +squeezed the lemons, and added some magnesia to make the drink foam. + +"Really," said Judge Custis, "this miserable den takes the rudimentary +form of a home. I suppose there are now more comforts in his sight than +Meshach's whole race ever collected. What is your next move, Vesta?" + +"To stay right here, darling papa, till it is safe and convenient to +carry Mr. Milburn home." + +"Oh, folly! it will excite scandal, and be repulsive to my feelings. +This loft over a former groggery is no place for you: the news will +spread from Chincoteague to Arlington. Every Custis that lives will +censure me and outlaw you." + +"I think you had best see Mr. Tilghman before the service, papa, and +have the marriage announced from the desk this morning: that will settle +the excitement before night. As for staying here, my home, you know, is +where he needs me. At his will I should have to stay here altogether. +But I wish to do this, dear father. It is of the greatest necessity to +my nature to improve my intercourse with my husband while he is sick, +that the hasty marriage we made may still have its period of +acquaintance and good understanding. I want to sound the possibilities +of my happiness. He will be less my master now than in his strength and +possession. Perhaps--" Vesta's voice fell, and she turned to gaze upon +the bridegroom, whose fever still consumed his wits--"perhaps I can +influence his dress,--his appearance." + +"You mean the steeple top!" Judge Custis exclaimed, petulantly. + +At the loud sound of this familiar word, the feverish man's ears were +pierced as through some ever-open ventricle, like an old wound. + +"Steeple-top! Who cried 'steeple-top'?" he muttered. "Oh, can't you see +I'm married. _She_ hears it. Oh, spare and pity her!" + +He wandered into the miasmatic world again, leaving them all touched, +yet oppressed. + +"How the very flint-stone will wear away before the water-drop," Judge +Custis finally said; "his obdurate heart has been bruised by that +nickname. In public he never appeared to flinch before it; but you see +it inflicted a never-healing wound. Who has not his vulture?" + +"And how unjust to pursue this man with such frivolous inhospitality so +many years," Vesta exclaimed, her splendid eyes flashing. "No account +has been made of his private reasons, his family piety, or his stern +taste, perhaps; for he must have a reason for his wardrobe, that being, +it would seem, the only thing there can be no independence about. Did +you hear, papa, his feeling for me but this moment? Strangely enough, my +own mind was thinking of that hat. It seems to be bigger than the very +steeples of the churches: it rises between the people and worship, yes, +between us and Charity, and Faith,--I had almost said Hope, too." + +"The colored people all say that hat he has to wear, because the devil +makes him," the trim, fawn-footed Virgie said; "Aunt Hominy says the Bad +Man wouldn't let him make no mo' money if he didn't go to church in that +hat. Some of the white people says so, too." + +"You don't believe such foolish tales as that, Virgie?" Vesta asked. + +"'Deed, I don't believe anything you say is a story, Miss Vessy. Hominy +believes it. She's 'most scared out of her life about Mr. Milburn coming +to the house, an' she's got all the little ones a' most crazy with +fear." + +"Poor, dark, ignorant soul!" Vesta said; "she is, however, more +excusable than these grown men, whose prejudices against an article of +dress are as heathen in character as her fetish superstition." + +"If he is a good man to you, Miss Vessy," the slave girl said, "I'll +think the Bad Man hasn't got anything to do with him. If he treats you +bad, I'll think the Bad Man has." + +"Sometimes I feel as if men ought to have been left wild, like the +animals," the Judge said, rinsing out Milburn's mouth with a piece of +ice, "for the obstacles to liberty raised by fashion and civilization +are Asiatic in their despotism. Think of the taxes we pay to fashion +when we refused less to kings. Think of the aristocracy based upon +dress, after we have formally extirpated it by statute! Think of the +influence the boot-makers and mantua-makers of Europe, proceeding from +the courts we have renounced, exert upon our Presidents and Senators, +and, through the women of this country, upon all the men in the land! A +million women who do not know that there are two houses of Congress, +know just what bonnet the Duchess d'Angouleme is wearing, and how +Charles X. in Paris ties his cravat. So the devil always gets a worm in +every apple. The French Revolution abolished feudality, titles, great +landed property, and only omitted to abolish fashion, and that worm--a +silkworm it is--is devastating republican government everywhere, using +the women to infect us." + +"Yet, in the nature of woman," said Vesta, "is the love of dress as +strongly as the love of woman is in man. Some righteous purpose is in +it, papa,--to ornament ourselves like the birds, and let art be born." + +"God knows his own mysteries," Judge Custis said. "But Vesta, go home +with me to your own comfortable home, and let Virgie stay here to keep +watch." + +"Master, I'm afraid to stay here," the girl exclaimed, sidling towards +her young mistress. + +"Then I will stay, and be nurse," the Judge said. "Fear not! I will give +him only wholesome medicine, whatever poison he has given me and mine. +You stay in Teackle Hall, my precious child! Indeed, I must command it." + +Vesta smiled sadly and pointed to her husband. + +"He commands me now, papa. You were too indulgent a master, and spoiled +me. No, Virgie and I will both remain, and you conciliate mamma. All is +going well. Really, I am happy and grateful to my Heavenly Father that +he is smoothing the way so gently, that I thought would be so hard." + +"Oh, the conditions of this disease are repulsive, my child. You are a +lady." + +"No, I am a woman," said Vesta; "that man and I must see one or the +other die. You do not know how easy it is for a woman to nurse a man. +Though love might make the task more grateful, yet gratitude will do +much to sweeten it. He has loved me and taken the shadow from your old +age for me. Shall I leave him here to feel that I despise him? No." + +She kissed her father, and gave him his cane. + +"Come back this afternoon, my love," she said to him. + +"Nothing on earth is like you!" exclaimed the old man. "I fear you are +not mine." + +"Yes," Vesta said, "you are full of good, wherever you may have +strayed." + +As the sound of his feet passed from the doorway below, the sick man, +with a sigh as from burning fire, opened his eyes and looked around. +They fell upon her picture. + +"What is that?" he murmured; "I dreamed nothing like that, just now." + +"It is my picture. I am here," Vesta said, bending over him. "Don't you +know me?" + +"Who are you, dear lady?" he breathed, with fever-weakened eye-sockets, +and mind struggling up to his distended orbs, "do I know you?" + +"Yes, I am Vesta--Vesta Custis, I was. I am your wife." + +His eyes opened wide, as if hearing some wonderful news. + +"Wife? what is that? My wife? No." + +"Yes, I am Vesta Milburn, your wife." + +He seemed to remember, and, with compassion for him, she stooped and +kissed him. + +"God bless you!" he sighed, and passed away into the Upas shades again. + +At that minute the mocking-bird flew in the open window and fluttered +above the lowly bed, and perched upon the headboard and began to sing: + +"'Sband! 'sband! see! see! Vesty, sweet! Vesty, sweet! Ha, ha! hurrah!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE KIDNAPPER. + + +It seemed to Judge Daniel Custis as he walked abroad into the Sunday +sunshine, that he had never seen a more perfect day. The leaves were +turning on the great sycamore-trees, and the maples along the rise in +the road wore their most delicate garments of nankeen, while some young +hickories, loaded with nuts, and a high gum-tree, splendid in finery, +beckoned him out their way, across the Manokin bridge to the opposite +hill, where the Presbyterian church overlooked the town. + +The Judge, whose eyes were filled with happy tears, partly at the real +relief to his circumstances accomplished by Vesta's great sacrifice, and +partly by the scene just closed, of her natural honor and fidelity to +the man who had forced her wedding vows from her, took the northern +course and crossed the little bridge, and as he went up the hill the +environs of the town and the town itself spread out behind him in the +stillness of the Sabbath, and the quails and fall birds piped and +cackled low in the corn and the grain stubble. Some wild-geese in the +south flew over the low gray woods towards the bay; a pack of hounds +somewhere bayed like distant music; he heard the turkeys gobble, at one +of the adjacent farms on the swells in the marshy landscape, where +abundance, not otherwise denoted, showed in the fat poultry that roosted +in the trees like living fruit and spoke apoplectically. + +While he drank in the wine of autumn on the air, that had a bare taste +of frost, like the first acid in the sweet cider, he saw a carriage or +two come over the level roads towards Princess Anne, and the church-bell +told their errand as it dropped into the serenity its fruity twang, like +a pippin rolling from the bough. So easily, so musically, so regularly +it rang, like the voice of something pure, that was steady even in its +joys, that the Judge took off his broad white fur hat, as if to a lady, +and listened with something between courtesy and piety. + +As the bell continued other carriages came towards town, and some passed +him, their inmates all bowing, and often stealing a look back to see +Judge Custis again, the first man in the county. + +They looked upon an humbled heart, a gladdened soul, which the sharp +hand of affliction had made to bleed, while an unforeseen Providence in +his darling child had kissed the wound to sleep and sucked the poison +from it. + +Raising his brow towards the bright blue sky, as if he could not raise +it high enough to feel more of that heavenly rest encinctured there, the +Judge sighed forth a happy wish, like the kiss of love after a quarrel, +when doubt is all dispelled or wrong forgiven: + +"O make me as a little child! Wash out my stains! Lead me in the path my +child has walked, or I shall never see her in the life to come!" + +His lips trembled and his breast heaved convulsively. In that idea of +being unfit to enter where his child would go, in the more abundant life +beyond the present, he received a distinct sermon from the long-empty +pulpit of nature and conscience, and revelations from within clearer +than Holy Scriptures; for he felt the justice of the final separation of +the impure from the pure, and the faith of perseverance in good to draw +onward towards holiness itself, and perseverance in sensuality and +selfishness to detain the spirit in its husk of swine. His agony +increased. + +"Where shall I drift if I go on," he said, "playing the sleek magistrate +and family head, and loving to slip away in the dark, like negroes +hunting coons by night? What is escaping discovery to the increasing +degradation of my own sanctuary, my created spirit? Can I find the way I +have wandered down and retrace my steps? There is but little of life +left me to do it in, but by God's help I will try! Yes, this golden +Sabbath I will do something to begin. What shall it be?" + +He put on his hat, and said to himself: "I will go to the Methodist +meeting-house: they work directly upon the conscience, deepen the sense +of sin, and preach a quick cleansing as by light shining in. There I may +grovel in the sight of men and women and arise redeemed. But, no. It is +the Sabbath my daughter's marriage is to be announced in our own church, +and it would be cowardly, not to say unseemly, to fly from one worship +to another now. If I go to church this morning it must be to our own. Is +there any excuse but cowardice for not going?" + +He looked into his debtor nature, to see what he owed to anybody, that +might be owned and settled this day. + +Slowly and almost to his dislike there arose an obligation to his +wife--the obligation of love he was defrauding her of, if, indeed, he +loved her at all with the ardor of old times. + +She had fretted his passion away in little sticklings for little +proprieties, and narrowing understanding, and subservience to effeminate +social traditions. She jarred upon the health of his intellect with her +unsympathetic refinements and pitiful uncharities, and fear of all +catholicity. She was gentility itself, without the spark of nature, and +believing that she inhabited the castle towers of exclusiveness and +social righteousness, she had made his home the donjon-keep of his +knighthood, at once the loftiest domestic apartment and the prison. + +Nevertheless, she was his wife, and something of her nature must be in +Vesta, though the Judge had not found it. He reflected that his +waywardness might have sharpened her peculiarities and spread the +distance between their minds, till, deprived of a husband's guidance, +her fluttered woman's nature had quit the pasturage of the fields and +air, and perched upon her nest and vegetated there. + +"I have gone away from her," he said, "and complain that she has not +grown. I have myself abounded in village dignity and pretension, and set +her the example of respecting nothing else. I have been a fraud, and +wonder that she is not wordly-wise." + +He found his infirm will very obdurate against making love to his wife +again, but the request he had just made of Heaven, to lead him into the +right steps, prevailed upon him to make his worship at home this +morning. + +"Yes," he said, "I will start right. She is sick and alone, and Vesta +taken from her. I will send a note to the rector to announce the +marriage, as Vesta requested, and do my worship at Teackle Hall this +day." + +The Manokin, spreading wider as it flowed farther from the town, and +widening from a brook to a creek, till it moistened fringes of marsh and +cut low bluffs into the fields, never seemed to invite him so much to +wander along its sluices as this morn. + +"If my wife would only walk with me into the country," he said, +restlessly, "how more companionable we would have been to each other! +But she cannot walk at all; all masculine intercourse ceased between us +years ago, and the dull, small range of household talk, and the dynastic +gossip of the good families, wear down my spirits. But I have been a +truant husband, and my tongue is parched by dusty rovings in prodigal +ways. Let me woo her again with all my might!" + +He walked through Princess Anne, worship now having commenced in all the +churches, and saw nobody upon the street except a divided group before +the tavern. There he heard Jimmy Phoebus speak to Levin Dennis +sharply: + +"Levin, what you doin' with that nigger buyer? Ain't you got no Dennis +pride left in you?" + +The Judge saw that Joe Johnson, safe from civil process on Sunday, even +if his enemy had not been helpless in bed, was washing Levin Dennis's +brandy-sickened head under the street pump, plying the pump-handle and +shampooing him with alternate hands. + +"Jimmy," answered Levin, when he was free from the spout, "this +gentleman's give me a job. I'm goin' to take him out for tarrapin on the +Sound. He's goin' to pay me for it." + +"Tarrapin-catchin' on a Sunday ain't no respectable job for a Dennis, +nohow," cried Jimmy Phoebus, bluntly; "an' doin' it with a nigger +buyer is a fine splurge fur you, by smoke! I can't see where your pride +is, Levin, to save my life." + +Jack Wonnell, wearing a bell-crown, looked on with timid enjoyment of +this plain talk, opening his mouth to grin, shutting it to shudder. + +The big stranger, dropping Levin Dennis, strode in his long jack-boots, +in which his coarse trousers were stuffed, right to the front of Jimmy +Phoebus, and glared at him through his inflamed and unsightly eye. +Jimmy met his scowl with a mildness almost amounting to contempt. + +"Hark ye!" spoke the stranger, "you have been a picking a quarrel with +me all yisterday, an' to-day air a beginnin' of it agin. Do you want to +fight?" + +"No," said Jimmy, whittling a stick; "I ain't fond of fighting, and I +never do it of a Sunday. I wouldn't be guilty of fightin' you, by +smoke!" + +"I have tuk a bigger nug than you and nicked his kicks into the bottom +of his gizzard till his liver-lights fell into my mauleys. So it's nish +or knife betwixt us, my bene cove!" + +He put his hand upon his hip, where he carried a sheath-knife. + +"Raise that hand," said Jimmy Phoebus, with a quick pass of his +whittling knife to the giant's throat. "Raise it or, by smoke! yer goes +yer jugler." + +As Phoebus spoke he lifted one foot, of a prodigious size, as deftly +as an elephant hoisting his trunk, and kicked the man's hand from the +hip pocket without moving either his own body or countenance. It was +done so automatically that the other turned fiercely to see who kicked +him, and his sheath-knife, partly raised, was flung by the force of the +kick several yards away. + +"Pick up his knife, Levin," Jimmy said, "or he'll hurt hisself with it." + +At this moment Judge Custis came up and pushed the two powerful men +apart. + +"Fighting on Sunday in our public street," he exclaimed; "Phoebus, I +wouldn't have thought it of you!" + +"This yer bully, Judge," Jimmy said coolly, "started to take Prencess +Anne the fust day, an' ole Meshach's Samson knocked him a sprawlin', an' +Meshach hisself finished him. To-day he starts in to lead off yon poor +imbecile, Levin Dennis, and, as I expresses my opinion of it, he draws +his knife on me; so I takes my foot, Judge, that you have seen me untie +a knot with, and I spiles his wrist with it. Take care of his knife, +Levin,--he's a pore creetur without it." + +"We'll have this out, nope for nope, or may I take the morning-drop!" +growled the strange man. + +"That kind of language ain't understood in honest company," Jimmy +Phoebus said; "I s'pose it's thieves' lingo, used among your friends, +or, maybe, big words you bully strangers with, when you want to cut a +splurge. Now, as you've been licked by a nigger and kicked by a white +man, maybe you can understand my language! Hark you, too, nigger buyer! +Do you know where I saw you first?" + +For the first time a flash of fire came from the pungy captain's black +cherries of eyes, and his huge broad face of swarthy color expressed its +full Oriental character: + +"The last time I saw you, Joe Johnson, was not a-lurking in Judge +Custis's kitchen fur no good, nor a-insultin' of the Judge's t'other +visitor, Milburn of the steeple-top: it was a-huggin' the whippin'-post +on the public green of Georgetown, State of Delaware, an' the sheriff +a-layin' of it over your back; an' after he sot you up in the pillory I +took the rottenest egg I could git, an' I bust it right on the eye where +that nigger bruised you yisterday!" + +The oppressive silence, as Joe Johnson slunk back, desperate with rage, +yet unable to deny, was broken by Jack Wonnell's unthinking +interjection: + +"Whoop, Jimmy! Hooraw for Prencess Anne!" + +"An' why did I git that egg an' make you smell it, Joe Johnson? Because, +by smoke! you was a stinkin' kidnapper, robbing of the pore free +niggers of their liberty, knowin' that they didn't carry no arms and +couldn't make no good defense! That's your trade, an' it's the meanest +an' most cowardly in the world. It's doin' what the Algerynes does in +fair fighting. You're a fine American citizen, ain't you? I know your +gang, and a bloody one it is, but you can't look a white man in the eye, +because you're a thief and a coward!" + +The Hellenic nature of the bay captain had never displayed itself to the +Judge with this fulness, and he felt some natural admiration as he took +Phoebus by the arm. + +"Well, well!" said the Judge, "let him go now, Phoebus! Mr. Johnson, +don't let me see you in Princess Anne again to-day. Continue your +journey and disturb us no more, or I shall put criminal process upon +you, and you see we have stout constables in Somerset." + +As he led Phoebus around the corner of the bank, the Judge said: + +"James, my wife is so sick that I must keep house with her this morning, +and I want a little note left at the church for Mr. Tilghman. Will you +take it?" + +"Why, with pleasure, Judge," the nonchalant villager replied. "I don't +look very handsome in the 'piscopal church, but I'll do a' arrand." + +As the Judge wrote the note with his gold pencil on a leaf of his +memorandum book, he said: + +"James, did you identify that man yesterday?" + +"Yes, I knowed him as soon as he come to the tavern. This mornin', +seein' of him around town, I was afear'd Samson Hat would stumble on +him, and the nigger buyer would kill him for yisterday's blow. Thinks I: +'Samson is too white a nigger to be killed that way, by smoke!' but the +prejudice agin a nigger hittin' a white man is sich in this state that +Joe Johnson, bloody as he is, would never have stretched hemp for Samson +Hat; so I picked a quarrel with the nigger buyer to take the fight out +of him before Samson should come. He won't fight nobody now in this +town. _His_ hokey-pokey is done _yer_." + +"You took a great risk, Phoebus. He is such an evil fellow in his +resentments, that I let him hide and eat in my quarters for fear of some +ill requital if I refused. That gang of Patty Cannon's is the curse of +the Eastern Shore." + +"And if you'll pardon a younger and a porer man, Judge, it's jest sich +gentlemen as you that lets it go on. You politicians give them people +'munity, an' let 'em alone because they fight fur you in 'lection times +an' air popular with foresters an' pore trash, because they persecutes +niggers an' treats to liquor. You know the laws is agin their actions on +both sides of the Delaware line, but in Maryland they're a dead letter." + +"You speak plain truth, James Phoebus, brave as your conduct. But the +poor men must make a sentiment against these kidnappers, because among +the ignorant poor they find their defenders and equals." + +"Judge," the pungy captain said, "they'se a-makin' a pangymonum of all +the destreak about Patty Cannon's. By smoke! it's a shame to liberty. In +open day they lead free niggers, men, wimmin, an' little children, too, +to be sold, who's free as my mommy and your daughter." + +Judge Custis thought painfully of the scant freedom his daughter now +enjoyed. Jimmy Phoebus continued: + +"Now yer, we're raising hokey-pokey about the Algerynes and the +Trypollytins capturin' of a few Christian people an' sellin' of 'em to +Turkey, an' about the Turkey people makin' slaves of the Christian Greek +folks. Henry Clay is cuttin' a big splurge about it. Money is bein' +raised all over the country to send it to 'em. Commodo' Decatur was a +big man for a-breakin' of it up. By smoke! they're sellin' more free +people to death and hell along Mason and Dixon's line, than up the whole +buzzum of the Mediterranean Sea." + +The brown-skinned speaker was more excited now than he had been during +all the collision with Joe Johnson. + +"Indeed, Phoebus, they have kidnapped several thousand people, the +Philadelphia abolitionists say, but the reports must be exaggerated. The +demand for negroes is so great, since the cotton-gin and the foreign +markets have made cotton a great staple, and the direct importation of +slaves from Africa has been stopped, that there is a great run for +border-state negroes, and free colored people seldom are righted when +they have been pulled across the line." + +"They never are righted, Judge Custis! I'm ashamed of my native state. +Only a few years ago, when I was a boy, people around yer was a-freein' +of their niggers, and it was understood that slavery would a-die out, +an' everybody said, 'Let the evil thing go.' But niggers began to go up +high; they got to be wuth eight hunderd dollars whair they wasn't wuth +two hunderd; and all the politicians begun to say: 'Niggers is not fit +to be free. Niggers is the bulrush, or the bulwork, or bull-something of +our nation.' And then kidnapping of free niggers started, and the next +thing they'll kidnap free American citizens!" + +"Tut! tut! James! it will never go that far." + +"Won't it? What did Joe Johnson say to me last night before the +Washington Tavern? He said: 'I've sold whiter niggers than you, myself. +I kin run you to market an' git my price for you!'" + +The bay sailor took off his hat. + +"Look at me!" he continued; "by smoke! look on my brown skin and black +eyes an' coal black hair. Whair did they come from? They come from +Greece, whair Leonidas an' Marky Bozarris and all them fellers came +from: that's what my daddy said. He know'd better than me. I'm nothin' +but a pore Eastern Shore man sailing my little vessel, but I'm a +free-born man, and I tell you, Judge, it's a dangerous time when nothing +but his shade of color protects a free man." + +"James Phoebus," the Judge said, gravely, "I hope you believe me when +I say that I think all these things outrages, and they grow out of the +greater outrage of slavery itself. We are being governed by new states, +hatched in the Southwest from the alligator eggs of old slavery, that +had grown into political and moral disrepute with us in Maryland and +Virginia." + +"There's no nigger in me," Phoebus said, putting on his hat, "but I +have taken these hints about my looking like a nigger to heart, and I'll +take a nigger's part when he is imposed on, as if he was some of the +body and blood of my Lord Jesus. Now you hear it!" + +"And brave enough you are to mean it, my honest fellow. So do my errand, +and good-morning, James." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +BELL-CROWN MAN. + + +As the Judge and Phoebus had turned the corner of the bank Samson Hat +appeared, driving down Princess Anne's broad main street a young white +girl. + +"There's the nigger that set my peep in limbo," muttered the negro +dealer, "but even he shall go past to-day. This accursed town is packed +agin me." + +He took a long look at Samson, however, who mildly returned it in the +most respectful manner, as if he had never seen the strange gentleman +before. "And now, my pals," Joe Johnson said, turning to Levin Dennis +and Jack Wonnell, "we will all three go down to the bay and I'll pervide +the lush, and pay the soap while you ketch the tarrapin, an' let me +sleep my nazy off." + +"I'll go an' no mistake!" cried Jack Wonnell, who had been taking a +drink of pump-water out of his bell-crown. "So will you, Levin." + +Levin Dennis hesitated; "I want to tell my mother first," he said, +"maybe she won't like me fur to go of a Sunday. She'll send Jimmy +Phoebus after me." + +Joe Johnson took a bag of gold from inside his waist-band, hanging by a +loop there, and held up a piece of five before the boy's bright eyes: + +"Yer, kid! That's yourn if you don't have no mother about it. Pike away +with me, pig widgeon, an' find your boat, and I pay you this pash at +sundown." + +Levin's credulous eyes shone, and with one reluctant look towards his +mother's cottage he led the way into the country. + +Little was said as they walked an hour or more towards the west, the +stranger apparently brooding upon his indignities, and twice passing +around the jug of brandy which Jack Wonnell was made to carry, and +before noon they came to a considerable creek, out in which was anchored +a small vessel bearing on her stern in illiterate, often inverted, +letters the name: _Ellenora Dennis_. + +"What's that glibe on yonder?" asked Johnson, pointing to the letters. + +"That's his mother's name, boss," Jack Wonnell said, hitching at the +stranger's breeches, "she's a widder, an' purty as a peach." + +"Ain't you got no daddy, pore pap-lap?" Johnson asked coarsely. + +"He's gone sence I was a baby," Levin answered; "he went on Judge +Custis's uncle's privateer that never was heard of no mo'. We don't know +if the British tuk him an' hanged him, or if the _Idy_ sunk somewhair +an' drowned him, or if she's a-sailin' away off. I has to take care of +mother." + +"Humph!" growled Joe Johnson; "son of a gander and a gilflirt: purty +kid, too--got the ole families into him. No better loll for me!" + +Drawing a punt concealed under some marsh brush, young Levin pushed off +to his vessel, made her tidy by a few changes, pulled up the jib, and +brought her in to the bank. + +"Mr. Johnson, I never ketched tarrapin of a Sunday befo', but I reckon +tain't no harm." + +"Harm? what's that?" Joe Johnson sneered. "Hark ye, boy, no funking with +me now! When I begin with a kinchin cove I starts squar. If ye think +it's wicked to ketch tarrapin, why, I want 'em caught. If you _don't_ +keer, you kin jest stick up yer sail an' pint for Deil's Island, an' +we'll make it a woyige!" + +Not quite clear as to his instructions, Levin took the tiller, and Jack +Wonnell superserviceably got the terrapin tongs, and stood in the bow +while the cat-boat skimmed down Monie Creek before a good breeze and a +lee tide. The chain dredge for terrapin was thrown over the side, but +the boat made too much sail for Wonnell to take more than one or two +tardy animals with his tongs, as they hovered around the transparent +bottoms making ready for their winter descent into the mud. + +"Take up your dredge," Johnson commanded in a few minutes. "It makes us +go slow." + +Jack Wonnell obediently made a few turns on the windlass, and as the bag +came up, two terrapin of the then common diamond-back variety rolled on +the deck, and a skilpot. + +"That's enough tarrapins," Johnson said, "unless you're afraid it's +doin' wrong, Levin. Say, spooney! is it wicked now?" + +The boy laughed, a little pale of face, and Johnson closed his remark +with: + +"Nawthin' ain't wicked! Sunday is dustman's day to be broke by heroes. +D'ye s'pose yer daddy on the privateer wouldn't lick the British of a +Sunday? The way to git rich, sonny, is to break all the commandments at +the post, an' pick 'em up agin at the score!" + +"That's the way, sho' as you're born. Whoop! Johnson, you got it right!" +chuckled Jack Wonnell, not clear as to what was said. + +Levin Dennis felt a little shudder pass through him, but he gave the +stranger the helm, and by Wonnell's aid raised the main-sheet, and the +light boat went winging across Monie Bay, starting the water-fowl as it +tacked through them. + +"Here's another swig all round," Joe Johnson exclaimed, "and then I'll +go below to lollop an hour, for I'm bloody lush." + +Levin drank again, and it took the shuddering instinct out of him, and +Joe Johnson cried, as he disappeared into the little cabin: + +"Ree-collect! You pint her for Deil's Island thoroughfare, and wake me, +pals, at the old camp-ground, fur to dine." + +The two Princess Anne neighbors felt relieved of the long man's company, +and Jack Wonnell lay on his back astern and grinned at Levin as if there +was a great unknown joke or coincidence between them, finally +whispering: + +"Where does he git all his gold?" + +Levin shook his head: + +"Can't tell, Jack, to save my life. Nigger tradin', I reckon. It must be +payin' business, Jack." + +"Best business in the world. Wish I had a little of his money, Levin. +Hu-ue-oo!" giving a low shout, "then wouldn't I git my gal!" + +"Who's yo' gal, Jack, for this winter?" + +"You won't tell nobody, Levin?" + +"No, hope I may die!" + +Jack put his bell-crown up to the side of his mouth, executed another +grin, winked one eye knowingly, and whispered: + +"Purty yaller Roxy, Jedge Custis's gal." + +"She won't have nothin' to do with you, Jack; she's too well raised." + +"She ain't had yit, Levin, but I'm follerin' of her aroun'. There ain't +no white gal in Princess Anne purty as them two house gals of Jedge +Custis's." + +"Well, what kin you do with a nigger, Jack? You never kin marry her." + +"Maybe I kin buy her, Levin." + +"She ain't fur sale, Jack. Jedge Custis never sells no niggers. You +can't buy a nigger to save your life. When some of Jedge Custis's +niggers in Accomac run away he wouldn't let people hunt for 'em." + +Jack Wonnell put his bell-crown to the side of his mouth again, grinned +hideously, and whispered: + +"Kin you keep a secret?" + +Levin nodded, yes. + +"Hope a may die?" + +"Hope I may die, Jack."' + +"Jedge Custis is gwyn to be sold out by Meshach Milburn." + +"What a lie, Jack!" + +Levin let the tiller half go, and the _Ellenora Dennis_ swung round and +flapped her sails as if such news had driven all the wind out of them. + +"Jack," Levin exclaimed, "Jimmy Phoebus says you've turned out a +reg'lar liar. Now I believe it, too." + +"Hope I may die!" Jack Wonnell protested, "I never does lie: it's too +hard to find lies for things when people comes an' tells you, or you kin +see fur yourseff. Jimmy called me a liar fur sayin' Meshach Milburn was +gone into the Jedge's front do', but we saw him come out of it, didn't +we?" + +"Yes, that was so; but this yer one is an awful lie." + +"Well, Levin, purty yaller Roxy, she told me, an' she's too purty to +tell lies. I loves that gal like peach-an'-honey, Levin, an' I don't +keer whether she's white or no. She's mos' as white as me, an' a good +deal better." + +"So you do talk to Roxy some?" + +"Levin, I'll tell you all about it, an' you won't tell nobody. Well, I +picks magnoleys an' wild roses an' sich purty things fur Roxy to give +her missis, an' Roxy gives me cake, an' chicken, an' coffee at the back +door, knowin' I ain't got much to buy 'em with. Lord bless her! she +don't half know I don't think as much of them cakes an' snacks an' warm +rich coffee, as I do of her purty eyes. She's a white angel with a +little coffee in her blood, but it's ole Goverment Javey an' more than +half cream!" + +Here Levin laughed loudly, and said that Jack must have learned that out +of a book. + +"Oh," said Jack, shutting one eye hard and joining in the grin, "sence I +ben in love I kin say lots o' smart things like that. I have seen purty +little Roxy grow up from a chile, an' as she begin to round up and git +tall, says I: 'Nigger or no nigger, she's angel!' The white gals they +all throwed off on me, caze I wasn't earnin' nothin', an' I sot my eyes +on Roxy Custis an' I says: 'What kin I do fur to make her shine to me?' +So I kept a-follerin' of her everywhere, an' I see her one day comin' +along the road a-pickin' of the wild blossoms an' with her han' full of +'em, an' I says: 'Roxy, what you doin' of with them flowers?' 'They're +fur my missis, Miss Vesty,' says she; 'she lives on wild flowers, an' +they're all I has to give her, an' I want her to love me as much as +Virgie.' You see Levin, the t'other gal, Virgie, waits on Miss Custis, +an' Roxy she was a little jealous. Then I says: 'Roxy, I kin git you +flowers for your missis. I know whair the magnoleys is bloomin' the +whitest an' a-scentin' the whole day long.' 'Do you?' says she, 'Oh, +Mr. Wonnell, I would like to have a bunch of magnoleys to put on Miss +Vesty's toilet every day.' 'I'll git 'em fur you, Roxy,' says I, 'becaze +I allus thought you was a little beauty.' Says she: 'I'd give most +anything to surprise Miss Vesty with flowers every day,--rale wild +ones!' 'Then,' says I, 'Roxy, I'll git' em fur you for a kiss!' An' she +most a-blushed blood-red an' ran away." + +"That's what I told you, Jack, she's raised too well to be talkin' to +white fellers." + +"Nobody's raised too well," rejoined Jack Wonnell, "to be deef to love +and kindness. Says I to myself: 'Jack, you skeert that gal. Now say +nothin' mo' about the kiss, an' go git her the flowers every day, an' +she'll think mo' of you!' So away I went to King's Creek an' pulled the +magnoleys, an' I come to the do' an' asked ole Hominy to bring down Roxy +for a minute. Roxy she come, an' was gwyn to run away till she saw my +flowers, an' she stopped a minute an' says I: 'I jest got 'em for you, +Roxy, becaze I see you when you was a little chile.' She tuk 'em an' +says: 'It was very kind of you, sir,' an' kercheyed an' melted away. +Next day I was thar agin, Levin, an' I says, to make it seem like a +trade: 'Roxy, kin ye give me a cup of coffee?' 'Law, yes!' she says, +forgittin' her blushin' right away. So I kept shady on love an' put it +on the groun's of coffee, an', Levin, I everlastin'ly fotched the wild +flowers till that gal got to be a-lookin' fur me at the do' every day, +an' I'd hide an' see her come to the window an' peep fur me. One day she +says, as I was drinkin' of the coffee: 'Mr. Wonnell, what do you put +yourself at sech pains fur to 'blige a pore slave girl that ain't but +half white?' I thought a minute, so as to say something that wouldn't +skeer her off, an' I says: 'Roxy, it's becaze I'm sech a pore, worthless +feller that the white gals won't look at me!' The tears come right to +her eyes, an' she says: 'Mr. Wonnell, if I was white I would look at +you.' 'I believe you would,' says I, 'becaze you've got a white heart, +Roxy.'" + +"Jack, you're a dog-gone smart lover," said Levin. "I didn't think you +had no kind of sense." + +"Love-makin' is the best sense of all," said Jack, "it's that sense that +keeps the woods a-full of music, where the birds an' bees is twitterin' +and hummin' an' a-matin'. Love is the last sense to come, after you can +see, an' hear, an' feel, an' they're give to people to find out +something purty to love. Love was the whole day's work in the garding of +Eden befo' man got too industrious, an' it's all the work I do, an' I +hope I do it well." + +"Now what did Roxy tell you about Meshach Milburn and Judge Custis?" + +"You see, Levin, as I kept up the flower-givin', I could see a little +love start up in purty Roxy, but she didn't understand it, an' I was as +keerful not to skeer it as if it had been a snow-bird hoppin' to a crumb +of bread. She would talk to me about her little troubles, an' I listened +keerful as her mammy, becaze little things is what wimmin lives on, an' +a lady's man is only a feller patient with their little talk. The more I +listened the more she liked to tell me, an' I saw that Roxy was +a-thinkin' a great deal of me, Levin, without she or me lettin' of it +on. + +"This mornin' she came to the door with her eyes jest wiped from +a-cryin'. Says I, 'Roxy, little dear, what ails you?' 'Oh, nothin',' +says she, 'I can't tell you if thair is.' 'Here's your wild flowers for +Miss Vesty,' says I, 'beautiful to see!' 'Oh,' says Roxy, 'Miss Vesty +won't need 'em now.' Says I: 'Roxy, air you goin' to have all that +trouble on your mind an' not let me carry some of it?' 'Oh, my friend,' +she says, 'I must tell you, fur you have been so kind to me: don't +whisper it! But my master is in debt to Meshach Milburn, an' _he's_ +married Miss Vesty, an' we think we're all gwyn to be sold or made to +live with that man that wears the bad man's hat.' Says I: 'Roxy, +darling, maybe I kin buy you.' 'Oh, I wish you was my master,' Roxy +said. An' jest at that minute, love bein' oncommon strong over me this +mornin', I took the first kiss from Roxy's mouth, an' she didn't say +nothin' agin it." + +Here Jack Wonnell kissed the atmosphere several times with deep unction, +and ended by a low whoop and whistle, and looked at Levin Dennis with +one eye shut, as if to get Levin's opinion of all this. + +"Well," Levin said, "I never ain't been in love yet. I 'spect I ought to +be. But mother is all I kin take keer of, and, pore soul! she's in so +much trouble over me that she can't love nobody else. I git drunk, an' +go off sailin' so long, an' spend my money so keerless, that if the Lord +didn't look out for her maybe she'd starve." + +"Yes, Levin, you likes brandy as much as I likes the gals. You go off +for tarrapin, an' taters, an' oysters, an' peddles 'em aroun' Prencess +Anne, an' then somebody pulls you in the grog-shops an' away goes your +money, an' your mother ain't got no tea and coffee." + +"Jack," said Levin, abruptly, "do you believe in ghosts?" + +"I don't know, Levin. If I saw one maybe I would, but I'm too trashy for +ghosts to see me." + +"Well, now," Levin said, "there's a ghost, or something, that looks out +for mother when I'm drunk or gone, an' it leaves tea and coffee in the +window for her." + +"Sho'! why, Levin, that's Jimmy Phoebus! He's ben in love with your +mother for years an' she won't have him, but he keep's a hangin' on. +He's your mother's ghost." + +"No, Jack. I thought it was till Jimmy come to me an' asked me who I +guessed it was. He was a little jealous, I reckon. I said: 'It's you, +of course, Jimmy!' 'No,' says he, 'by smoke! I don't do any hokey-pokey +like that. What I give, I go and give with no sneakin' about it or +prying into Ellanory's poverty.' He was right down mad, but he couldn't +find nothing out. So I think it may be the ghost of father, drowned at +sea, bringing tea and coffee, and sometimes a dress, and a pair of +shoes, too, to keep mother warm." + +Levin Dennis, standing against the tiller, seemed to Jack Wonnell to be +fair and spiritual as a woman, as his comely brow and large eyes grew +serious with this relation of his father's mysterious fate. His dark +auburn hair, in short ringlets parted in the middle, gave his sunburnt +countenance a likeness to some of the old gentle families with which he +was allied, his father having been a son of younger sons, in a date when +primogeniture prevailed in all this bay region; and therefore, +possessing nothing, he went into the war against England as a sailor, +and his family influence obtained for him command of the new privateer +launched on the Manokin, the _Ida_, which set sail with a good crew and +superior armament, amid the acclaims of all Somerset, and, sailing past +the Capes into the ocean with all her bunting flying, slid down the +farther world to everlasting silence and the vapors of mystery. + +His widow waited long and patiently with this only boy, Levin, a +scarcely lisping child, and stories of every kind were current; that the +captain had been captured and hanged by the enemy, and the ship burned +or condemned; that he had hoisted the black flag and become a pirate and +quit the western world for the East India waters; and finally, that the +_Ida_ foundered off Guiana and every soul was drowned. + +The widow, a beautiful woman, neglected by her husband's connection, who +were sullen at the loss of their investment and their expected profits +from the vessel, lived in the little house she had owned before her +marriage, and sank into the plainer class of people, almost losing her +identity with the ruling families to which her son was kin, but in her +humbler class highly respected and solicited in marriage. + +She was still young and fair, and Jimmy Phoebus, a hale bachelor, and +captain of a trading schooner, had endeavored to marry her for years, +and held on to his hope patiently, exercising many kind offices for her, +though his means were limited, and he had poor kin looking to him for +help. She feared the absent lover might be alive and return to find her +another's wife. + +So her son, growing up without a father's discipline, and being too +respectable, it was supposed, to put to a trade or be indentured, lived +by fugitive pursuits on land and water, hauling and peddling vegetables +and provisions at times; and now, by the gift of Jimmy Phoebus, he +sailed his little sloop or cat-boat chiefly to carry terrapin to +Baltimore. Rough sailor acquaintances, exposure, a credulous, easily led +nature, and almost total neglect of school at a time when education was +a high privilege, had made him wayward and often intemperate, but +without developing any selfish or cruel characteristics, and being of an +agreeable exterior and affable disposition, he fell a prey to any +strangers who might be in town--gunners, negro buyers, idle planters, +and spreeing overseers, many of whom hired his company and vessel to +take their excursions; and, while loving his mother, and being her only +reliance, she saw him slipping further and further into manhood without +steadiness or education or fixed principles, or any female influence to +draw him to domestic constraints. + +His slender, supple figure, and marks of gentility in his limbs, and +shapely brow and large, gentle eyes, poorly consorted with ragged +clothes, bare feet, and absolute dependence on chance employment, the +latter becoming more precarious as his age and stature made more +demands for money through his false appetites. + +"Jack," said Levin Dennis, "what do you mean by gittin' money to buy +Roxy Custis? You never git no money." + +"Won't he give it to me? Him?" Jack Wonnell indicated the hatchway down +which Joe Johnson had gone. "He's got bags of it." + +"Him? Why, Jack, how much money do you s'pose a beautiful servant like +Roxy will fetch?" + +"Won't that piece _he's_ gwyn to give you buy her?" + +"Five dollars? Why, you poor fool, she will bring five hundred +dollars--maybe thousands. This nigger trader, with all his gold, would +be hard pushed, I 'spect, to buy Roxy." + +Jack looked downcast, and failed to wink or whistle. + +"Gals like her," said Levin, "goes for mistresses to rich men, an' +sometimes they eddicates 'em, I've hearn tell, to know music, an' +writin', an' grammar, an' them things." + +"And a pore man who wouldn't abuse a gal most white like that, but would +respect her an' marry her, too, Levin, they makes laws agin him! Maybe I +kin steal Roxy?" + +Here Jack whistled low, shut one eye with deep knowingness, and grinned +behind his bell-crown. + +"Oh, you simpleton!" Levin said. "Where could you take her to?" + +"Pennsylvany, Cannydy, Turkey, or some of them Abolition states up +thar"--Jack Wonnell indicated the North with his finger. "Ain't there no +place where a white man kin treat a bright-skinned slave like that as if +they both was a Christian?" + +"No," answered Levin, "not in this world." + +The hero of the bell-crowns was much affected, and Levin thought he +really was whimpering, though his vacant grin was a poor frame for +grief. + +"Jack," said Levin, "if what Roxy Custis told is true, the gal is the +slave of your pertickler enemy, Meshach Milburn." + +The wearer of the rival species of hat was "badly sobered," as Levin +mentally expressed it, at this dismal solution of his gentle dreams of +love. He arose and walked to the bow of the boat, and looked down into +the flying waves over which the cat-boat skipped, as if he might seek +the solution of his own disconnected yet harmless life in the bottom of +the sound, among the oyster rocks. + +The water was now speckled with canoes and periaugers (pirogues), and +little sail-boats coming from Deil's Island preaching, and before them +rose out of the bay the low woody islands and capes which, with white +straits between, enclose from the long blue nave of the Chesapeake the +scalloped aisle called Tangier Sound. Like pigeons and wrens around some +cathedral, the wild-fowl flew in these involuted, almost fantastic, +architectures of archipelago and peninsula, which, lying flat to the +water, yet took ragged perspective there, as if some Gothic builder had +laid his foundations, but had not bent the tall pines together, that +grew above in palm-like groves, to make the groined roofs and arches of +his design. + +Here could be seen the ospreys, sailing in graceful pairs above the +herrings' or the old wives' shoals, taking with elegance and +conscientiousness the daily animal food that even man demands, with all +his sentiments and gospels. There the canvas-back duck, in a little +flock, broke the Sabbath to dive for the wild celery that grows beneath +the sound. In yonder tree the bald eagle was starting out upon his +Algerine work of vehemence and piety, to intercept the hawk and steal +his cargo. The wild swan might be those faint, far birds flying so high +over Kedge's Straits, in the south, and the black loon, spreading his +wings like a demon, disappears close to the cat-boat, and rises no more +till memory has forgotten him. + +Levin Dennis steered close to a point where he had been wont to scatter +food for the black ducks, and draw them to the gunner's ambush. +Sheldrakes and goosanders, coots and gulls, whifflers and dippers, made +the best of Sunday, and bathed and wrote their winged penmanship on the +white sheet of water. + +Poor Jack Wonnell returning, with something on his face between a grin +and a tear, said: + +"Levin, didn't I never harm nobody?" + +"Not as I ever heard about, Jack. They say you ain't got no sense, but +you never fight nobody. Everybody kin git along with you, Jack!" + +"No they can't, Levin. Meshach Milburn hates the ground I tread on. If +he know'd I was in love with little Roxy he'd marry her to a nigger." + +"What makes him hate you so, Jack?" + +"Becaze I wears my bell-crowns, and he wears the steeple-top hat. He +thinks I'm a-mockin' of him. Levin, I ain't got no other kind of hat to +wear. Meshach Milburn needn't wear that air hat, but if I don't wear a +bell-crown I must go bareheaded. I bought that lot of hats with the only +dollar or two I ever had, as they say a fool an' his money is soon +parted. The boys said they was dirt cheap. Now there wouldn't be nothin' +to see wrong in my bell-crowns, ef all the people wasn't pintin' at ole +Milburn's Entail Hat, as they call it. Why can't he, rich as a Jew, go +buy a new hat, or buy me one? I don't want to mock him. I'm afeard of +him! He looks at me with them loaded pistols of eyes an' it mos' makes +me cry, becaze I ain't done nothin'. I'm as pore as them trash ducks," +pointing to a brace of dippers, which were of no value in the market, +"but I ain't got no malice." + +"No, Jack. That trader could give you that bag of gold to keep and it +would be safe, becaze it wasn't your own." + +"I 'spect I will have to go to the pore-house some day, Levin; my ole +aunt, who takes keer of me, can't live long, an' I ain't good fur +nothin'. I can't git no jobs and I run arrands for everybody fur +nothin', but the first money I git I'm gwyn to buy a new hat with. Ever +sence I wore these bell-crowns Meshach hates me, an' I hope he's the +only man that does hate me, Levin. I don't think Meshach kin be a bad +man." + +"How kin he be good, Jack?" + +"Why, I have seen him in the woods when he didn't see me, calling up the +birds. Danged if they didn't come and git on him! Now birds ain't gwyn +to hop on a man that's a devil, Levin. Do you believe he deals with the +devil?" + +"I do," said Levin; "I see sich quare things I believe in most anything +quare. These yer tarrapins has got sense, and they're no more like it +than a stone. One night when we hadn't nothin' to eat at home, mother +and me, an' she was a sittin' there with tears in her eyes wonderin' +what we'd do next day, I ree-collected, Levin, that there was four +tarrapins down in the cellar,--black tarrapin, that had been put there +six months before. I said to mother: 'I 'spect them ole tarrapins is +dead an' starved, but I'll go see.' + +"I found 'em under the wood-pile, an' they didn't smell nor nothin', so +I took 'em all four up to mother an' put 'em on the kitchen table befo' +the fire, an' I devilled 'em every way to wake up, an' crawl, and show +some signs of life. No, they was stone dead! + +"'Well, mother,' says I, 'put on your bilin' water an' we'll see if dead +tarrapin is fit fur to eat!' She smiled through her cryin', and put the +water on, an' when it began to bubble in the pot, I lifted up one of +them tarrapins an' dropped him in the bilin' water, an' Jack, I'll be +dog-goned if them other three tarrapins didn't run right off the table +an' drop on to the flo' an' skeet for that cellar door! + +"I caught 'em an' biled 'em, an' as we sat there eatin' stewed tarrapin +without no salt, or sherry wine, or coffee, or even corn-bread, we heard +somethin' like paper scratchin' on the window, an' mother fell back and +clasped her hands, an' said, 'There, do you hear the ghost?' + +"I rushed to the door an' hopped into the yard, an' not a livin' +creature did I see; but there on the window-shelf was packages of salt, +coffee, tea, and flour, and a half a dollar in silver! I run back in the +house, white as a ghost myself, an' I cried out, 'Mother, it's father's +sperrit come again!' + +"She made me git on my knees an' pray with her to give poor father's +spirit comfort in his home or in heaven!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +SABBATH AND CANOE. + + +They now approached an island with low bluffs, on which appeared a +considerable village, shining whitely amid the straight brown trunks of +a grove of pine-trees; but no people seemed moving about it, and they +saw but a single vessel at anchor in the thoroughfare or strait they +steered into--a canoe, which revealed on her bow, as they rounded to +beside her, a word neither Levin nor Jack could read, except by hearsay: +_The Methodist_. + +"Jack," said Levin, "that was a big pine-tree the parson hewed his canoe +outen. She fell like cannon, going off inter the swamp. She's a'most +five fathom long, an' a man can lie down acrost her. She's to carry the +Methodis' preachers out to the islands." + +"Hadn't we better wake _him_ up now?" said Jack Wonnell; "I 'spect you +want a drink, Levin?" + +"Yes; I got a thirst on me like fire," Levin exclaimed. "I could do +somethin' wicked now, I 'spect, for a drink of that brandy." + +Mooring against the shore, Levin went to his passenger, who was still in +deep sleep stretched upon the bare floor of the hold or cabin--a brawny, +wiry man, with strong chin and long jaws, and his reddish, dark beard +matted with the blood that had spilled from his disfigured eye, and now +disguised nearly one half his face, and gave him a wild, bandit look. + +"Cap'n! mister! boss! wake up! We have come to Deil's Island." + +The long man, lying on his back, seemed unable to turn over upon his +side, though he muttered in his stirred sleep such words as Levin could +not understand: + +"The darbies, Patty! Make haste with them darbies! Put the nippers on +her wrists an' twist 'em. Ha! the mort is dying. Well, to the garden +with her!" + +At this he awoke, and turned his cold, light eyes on Levin, and leaped +to his feet. + +"Did you hear me?" he cried. "It was only nums, kid, and jabber of a +nazy man. Some day this sleep-talk will grow my neck-weed. Don't mind +me, Levin! Come, lush and cock an organ with me, my bene cove!" + +"If you mean brandy," Levin said, "I must have some or I'll jump out of +my skin. I feel like the man with the poker was a-comin'." + +Joe Johnson gave him the jug and held it up, and the boy drank like one +desperate. + +"How the young jagger lushes his jockey," the tall man muttered. "He's +in Job's dock to-day. I'll take no more. A bloody fool I was all +yesterday, an' oaring with my picture-frame. What place is this?" + +"Deil's Island, sir." + +"Ha! so it is. 'Twas Devil's Island once, till the Methodies changed it +fur politeness. This is the camp-meetin', then? Yer, Wonnell, take this +piece of money, an' go to some house an' fetch us a bite of dinner. +We'll wait fur you." + +The tall man led the way to the heart of the grove of pines, where the +seeming town was found--a deserted religious encampment of durable +wooden shells, or huts, in concentric circles of horseshoe shape, and at +the open end of the circle was the preaching-stand, a shed elevated +above the empty benches and pegs of removed benches, and which had a +wide shelf running across the whole front for the preacher's Bible, and +to receive his thwacks as he walked up and down his platform. + +It looked a little mysterious now, with the many evidences of a large +human occupation in the recent summer, to see this naked town and hollow +pulpit lying so suggestively under the long moan of the pine-trees, +conferring together like dread angels in council, and expressing at +every rising breeze their impatience with the sins of men. + +At times the great branches paused awhile, scarcely murmuring, as if +they were brooding on some question propounded in their council, or +listening to human witnesses below; and then they would gravely +converse, as the regular zephyrs moved in and out among them, and pause +again, as if their decision was almost dreaded by themselves. At +intervals, a stern spirit in the pines would rise and thunder and shake +the shafts of the trees, and others would answer him, and patience would +have a season again. And so, with scarcely ever a silence that remained +more than a moment, this council went on all day, continued all night, +was resumed as the sun arose to comfort the world again, ceased not when +the rainbow hung out its perennial assurance upon the storm, and +typified to trembling worshippers the great synod of the Creator, in +everlasting session, ready to smite the world with fire, but suspending +sentence in the evergreen pity of God. + +In one of the deserted shells, or "tents," of pine, with neatly shingled +roof, facing the preaching-booth, Joe Johnson and Levin Dennis found +benches, and, at the tall man's example, Levin also lighted a pipe, and +looked out between the escapes of smoke at Tangier Sound, deserted as +this camp-ground on the Sabbath, since the worshippers had reached home +from church in their canoes. He thought of his lonely mother in the town +of Princess Anne, wondering where he was, and of the Sundays fast +speeding by and bringing him to manhood, with no change in their +condition for the better, but penury and disappointment, a vague +expectation of the dead to return, and deeper intemperance of the dead +man's son and widow's only hope. He would have cried out with a sense of +misery contagious from the music of those pines above him, perhaps, if +the brandy had not begun to creep along his veins and shine bold in his +large, girlish eyes. + +"Levin," said Joe Johnson, "don't you like me?" + +"Yes, Mr. Johnson, I think I does, 'cept when you use them quare words I +can't understan'." + +"I'm dead struck with you, Levin," Joe Johnson said. "I want to fix you +an' your mother comfortable. You're blood stock, an' ought to be stabled +on gold oats." + +He drew the canvas bag of eagles and half-eagles out of his trousers, +and held its mouth open for Levin to feast his eyes. + +"Thar," said he, "I told you, Levin, I was a-goin' to give you one of +them purties. I've changed my mind; I'm a-goin' to give you five of +'em!" + +"My Lord!" exclaimed Levin; "that's twenty-five dollars, ain't it, sir?" + +"Oll korrect, Levin. Five of them finniffs makes a quarter of a hundred +dollars--more posh, Levin, I 'spect, than ever you see." + +"I never had but ten, sir, at a time, an' that I put in this boat, and +Jimmy Phoebus put ten to it, an' that paid for her." + +"What a stingy pam he was to give you only ten!" Joe Johnson exclaimed, +with disgust. "Ain't I a better friend to ye? Yer, take the money +_now_!" + +He pressed the gold pieces ostentatiously upon the boy, who looked at +them with fear, yet fascination. + +"What am I to do to earn all this, Mr. Johnson?" + +"You comes with me fur a week,--you an' yer boat. I charters you at that +figger!" + +"But--mother?" + +"Well, when we discharge pigwidgeon, your friend with the bell +shape--Jack Sheep yer--all you got to do, Levin, is to send the hard +cole to your mother by him, sayin', 'Bless you, marm; my wages will +excoos my face!'" + +"Oh, yes, that will do. Mother will know by the money that I have got a +long job, and not be a 'spectin' of me. When do we sail, cap'n?" + +"How fur is it to Prencess Anne? What time to-night kin you make it?" + +Levin stepped out of the shanty and looked at the wind and water, his +pulses all a-flutter between the strong brandy and the wonderful gold in +his pocket; and as he watched the veering of the pine-boughs to see +which way they moved, their moaning seemed to be the voice of his +widowed mother by her kitchen fire that day, saying, "He is in trouble. +Where is my son? Why stays he, O my Levin?" + +"The tide is on the stand, cap'n, an' will turn in half an hour. It will +take us up the Manokin with this wind by dark, ef we can get water +enough in the thoroughfare without going around by Little Deil's." + +Johnson came out and made the same observations on wind and flood. + +"I reckon it's eighteen miles to the head of deep water on Manokin, +Levin?" + +"Not quite, sir, through the thoroughfare; it's nigh eighteen. We've got +four hours and a half of daylight yet." + +"Then stand for the head of Manokin an' obey all my orders like a +'listed man, an' I'll git ye and yer mother a plantation, an' stock it +with niggers for you. Come, brace up again!" + +He offered the brandy-jug, and encouraged the boy to drink heartily, and +affected to do the same himself, though it was but a feint. + +While they stood in the shelter of the camp cottage going through this +pastime, a voice from near at hand resounded through the woods, and made +their blood stop to circulate for an instant on the arrested heart. + +It was a voice making a prayer at a high pitch, as if intended to cover +all the camp-ground and be heard to the outermost bounds. The sincerity +of the sound made Levin Dennis feel that the camp might still be +inhabited by some spiritual congregation which the eyes of profane +visitors could not see--the remainder of the saints, the souls of the +converted, or an ethereal host from above the solemn organ of the pines. + +The idea had scarcely seized upon him when a fluttering of wings was +heard, and on the old camp-ground alighted a flock of white wild-geese. + +They balanced their large deacon and elder-like bodies upon the empty +seats, and there set up as grave a squawking as if they were singing a +hymn, with that indifferent knowledge of harmony possessed by +camp-meeting choristers. + +The accident of their coming--no unusual thing on these exposed +islands--might have made untroubled people only laugh, but it produced +the contrary effect on both our visitors. Levin felt a superstitious +fear seize upon him, and, turning to Joe Johnson, he saw that person +with a face so pale that it showed his blood-gathered eye yet darker and +more hideous, like a brand upon his countenance, gazing upon the late +empty preaching-booth. + +There Levin, turning his eyes, observed a solitary man kneeling, of a +plain appearance and dress, and with locks of womanly hair falling +carelessly upon a large and almost noble forehead, his arms raised to +heaven and his voice flowing out in a mellow stream of supplication, in +the intervals of which the geese could be heard quacking aloud and +paddling their wings as they balanced and hopped over the camp-meeting +arena. + +"Who's he a prayin' to?" Levin asked of Joe Johnson. + +"Quemar!" muttered Johnson, as if he were terrified at something; "his +potato-trap is swallerin' ghosts! Curse on the swaddler? The kid will +whindle directly. Come, boy, come!" + +At this, seizing Levin's hand, partly in persuasion, partly as if he +wanted the lad's protection, Johnson, fairly trembling, ran for the +boat. + +Levin was frightened too; the more that he saw the stronger man's fear. +As they dashed across the camp-ground the wild-geese took alarm, and, +some running, some flying, scudded towards the Sound. A voice from the +pulpit cried after the retreating men, but only to increase their fears, +and when they leaped on board the _Ellenora_, Joe Johnson was livid with +terror. He ran partly down the companion-way and stopped to look back: +the wild-geese were now spreading their wings like a fleet of fleecy +sails, and fluttering down the sound in gallant convoy. + +"What did you run for?" Levin said; "the jug of brandy is left. It was +only Parson Thomas!" + +"You run first," the man replied, gasping for breath, and a little +ashamed. "What did he preach at me fur?" + +"That's the parson of the islands," Levin said; "he started Deil's +Island camp-meetin' last year, an' his favo-rite preacher dyin' jess as +he got it done, ole Pap Thomas, who lives yer, comes out to the +preachin'-stand sometimes alone, an' has a cry and a prayer. The geese +scared _me_, cap'n." + +"Push off!" ordered Joe Johnson; "my teeth are most a-chatterin' with +the chill that mace cove give me." + +He pulled up the anchor, hoisted the jib, and showed such nervous +apprehension that Levin subsided to managing the helm, and steered down +the thoroughfare, or strait, which, for some distance, wound around the +camp-meeting grove. + +"Yer's Jack Wonnell comin' with the jug and the dinner. Sha'n't we wait +fur him?" + +"He's got the kingdom-come cove with him! No; stop for nothing." + +But the boat had to stop, as her keel scraped the mud in the almost dry +thoroughfare, and a plain island man of benevolent, nearly credulous, +face, hailed them, saying, stutteringly: + +"Ne-ne-neighbors, do-don't be sc-scared that a-way. We ain't +he-eee-thens yer. Br-br-brother Wonnell's bringin' your taters and +pone." + +"Come on, an' be damned to you?" Johnson cried to Wonnell. "What do we +want with this tolabon sauce?" + +"Sw-w-wear not a-a-at all!" cried the parson of the islands. "'Twon't +l-l-lift ye over l-l-low tide, brother. Stay an' eat, an' t-t-talk a +little with us. Why, I have seen that f-f-face before!" + +"Never in a gospel-ken before," the slave-dealer muttered, with an oath. + +"B-but it can't be him," spoke the island parson, with solemnity. "Ole +Ebenezer Johnson died s-s-several year ago." + +"Who was he?" cried the slave-dealer, with a little respectful interest. + +"Ebenez-z-zer Johnson," Parson Thomas replied, with a mild and credulous +countenance, "was the wickedest man on the Eastern Sho' for twenty year. +P-pardon me, brother, fur a likin' ye to him, but somethin' in ye +y-y-yur," passing his hand upon his skull, "p-puts me in mind of him. It +was hyur he was shot"--still keeping his hand upon the skull--"through +an' through, an' died the death of the sinner. I have p-p-put my +f-finger through the two holes where the b-bullet come an' went, an' rid +this w-world of a d-d-demon!" + +The story appeared to have a fascination for the slave-buyer, Levin +Dennis thought, and Johnson exclaimed: + +"Well, hod, did he ever run afoul of _you_?" + +"O y-y-yes," answered the genial island exhorter, with obliging +loquacity; "it was tw-w-enty-s-seven year ago that I see ole Eben-nezer +Johnson come on the camp-ground of P-p-pungoteague with a mob of +p-p-pirates to break up the f-f-fust Methodies camp-meetin' ever held +about these sounds. He was en-c-couraged by ole King Custis, f-f-father +of our Daniel Custis, of Prencess Anne, who was a b-b-big man fur the +Establish Church an' d-dispised the Methodies. It was a cowardly thing +to do, but while King C-C-Custis laughed and talked a' durin' of the +p-p-preachin', Eb-b-b-benezer Johnson started a fight. The preacher +c-c-cut his eye and saw who was a w-w-winkin' at the interference. He +was a l-l-lion of the L-l-lord, and bore the c-c-commission of Immanuel. +He knowed he was outen the s-s-state of Maryland and over in the +V-v-vergeenia county of Ac-c-comack, an' that if the l-l-aws was a +little more t-t-tolerant sence the Revolutionary war the ar-r-ristocracy +there was b-bitter as ever towards the people of the Lord. He t-t-urned +from his preachin' at last, right on King Custis, an' he pinted his +f-finger at him straight. The p-preacher was L-l-lorenzo Dow." + +"Wheoo!" Jack Wonnell exclaimed, with a coinciding grin; "I've hearn of +him: a Yankee-faced feller, like a woman, with long braids an' curls of +hair fallin' around of his breast an' back, and a ole straw hat, rain or +shine." + +"That was L-l-lorenzo Dow," the parson of the islands said. "He turned +on K-k-king Custis and screamed, 'W-who art thou? The L-lord shall smite +thee, w-whited sepulchre, and m-mock thee in thy ch-h-hildren's +children, thou A-a-a-hab and thy J-j-jezebel!' It was King Custis's wife +he pinted at, too, the greatest lady and heiress in V-v-virgeenia. +Sh-h-e f-f-ainted in f-fear or r-rage to hear the prophecy and insult of +her. Then, turning on Eb-b-benezer Johnson, Lorenzo Dow cried out, 'The +dogs shall lie buried safer than his bones. Lay hold of him, brethren!' +And s-something in Lorenzo Dow's t-trumpet-blast made every M-methodis' +a giant. They s-swept on Ebenezer Johnson, the bully of thr-ree states, +an' beat him to the ground, an' raced his band to their boats, an' then +they th-hrew him into a little j-j-jail they had on the camp-ground, +f-for safe keeping." + +"What did King Custis do then, Pappy Thomas?" asked Levin. + +"Why, brethren, what did he do but use his f-f-family influence to g-git +out a warrant for the preacher and his m-managers, on the ground of +f-false imprisonment and s-slander! Lorenzo Dow got over into Maryland +s-safe from the warrant, but our p-presiding elder was p-put in jail +till he could p-pay two thousand dollars fine. It almost beggared the +poor Methodies of that day to raise so much money, but g-glory be to +G-god! we can raise it now any day in the year, and in the next +g-generation we can buy our p-persecutors." + +"So Ebenezer Johnson, accordin' to the autum bawler's patter, got +popped in the mazzard, my brother of the surplice? But he didn't climb +no ladder, did he?" + +The stuttering host seemed not to comprehend this sneering exclamation, +and Levin Dennis said: + +"King Custis wasn't killed, was he, Pappy Thomas?" + +"It was his children's children his p-p-punishment was promised to," the +island parson said, "and to the Lord a thousand y-years are but as +d-days." + +"The tide is fuller, Levin," Joe Johnson cried, "your keel is clear. Now +pint her for Manokin. So bingavast, my benen cove, and may you chant all +by yourself when I am gone!" + +"God bless the boys!" the islander cried, "an' k-keep them from the +f-fire everlasting that is burning in your jug. And s-s-stranger, +remember the end of Eb-b-benezer Johnson, an' repent!" + +The old man, barefooted, stoop-shouldered, stuttering, yet with a chord +of natural rhetoric in his high fiddle-string of a windpipe, stood +looking after them till they passed down the thoroughfare under the +jib-sail, and Joe Johnson did not say a word till some marsh brush +intervened between them, he being apparently under a remnant of that +panic which had seized him on the camp-ground. + +"That's a good man," Levin Dennis said, giving the tiller to Jack +Wonnell and raising the sail; "he preached to the Britishers when they +sailed from Tangiers Islands to take Baltimore, and told 'em they would +be beat an' their gineral killed. He's made the oystermen all round yer +jine the island churches an' keep Sunday. That stutterin' leaves him +when he preaches, and when he leads the shout in meetin' it's piercin' +as a horn." + +"He's a bloody Romany rogue," Joe Johnson muttered, "to tell me such a +tale! But, kirjalis! he cursed not me!" + +"What language is that, Mr. Johnson? Is it Dutch or Porteygee?" + +"It's what we call the gypsy; some calls it the Quaker. It's convenient, +Levin, when you go to Philadelfey, or Washinton, or New York, or some o' +them big cities, an' wants to talk to men of enterprise without the +quails a-pipin' of you. Some day I'll larn it to you if you're a good +boy." + +They now sailed out of the thoroughfare into the broad mouth of the +Manokin, where a calm fell upon air and water for a little while, and +they could hear smothered music, as of drum-fish beneath the water, +beating, "thum! thum!" and crabs and alewives rose to the surface around +them, chased by the tailor-fish. The cat-boat drifted into the mouth of +a creek where rock and perch were running on the top of the water, and +with the tongs Jack Wonnell raised half a bushel of oysters in a few +dips, and opened them for the party. Along the shores wild haws and wild +plums still adhered to the bushes, and the stiff-branched +persimmon-trees bore thousands of their tomato-like fruit. The +partridges were chirping in the corn, the crow blackbirds held a funeral +feast around the fodder, some old-time bayside mansions stretched their +long sides and speckled negro quarters along the inlets, half hidden by +the nut-trees, and in the air soared the turkey-buzzard, like a +voluptuary politician, taking beauty from nothing but his lofty station. + +"The ole Eastern Sho'," Jack Wonnell said, with his animated vacancy, +"is jess stuffed with good things, Cap'n Johnsin. You kin fall ovaboard +most anywhair an' git a full meal. You kin catch a bucket of crabs with +a piece of a candle befo' breakfast, an' shoot a wild-duck mos' with +your eyes shet." + +"This country's good for nothin'," Joe Johnson said. "Floredey is the +land! Wot kin a nigger earn for yer? Corn, taters, melons: faugh! +Tobacco is a givin' out, cotton won't live yer. But Floredey is the +hell-dorader of the yearth." + +"What's the hell-dorader?" asked Levin. + +"That's Spanish or Porteygee for cheap niggers an' cotton," cried the +trader. "Cotton's the bird!" + +"I thought cotton was a wool," Levin said. + +"No, boy, cotton is a plant, growin' like a raspberry on a bush, havin' +pushed the blossoms off an' burst the pods below 'em, an' thar it is fur +niggers to pick it. Thar's a Yankee in Georgey made a cotton-gin to gin +it clean, an' now all the world wants some of it." + +"Some of the gin?" asked the irrelevant Wonnell. + +"No, some of the cotton, Doctor Green! They can't git enough of it. +Eurip is crazy about it, but there ain't niggers enough to pick it all. +So I'm in the nigger trade an' tryin' to be useful to my country, an' +wot does I git fur it? I git looked down on, an' a nigger's pertected +fur a-topperin' of me! But never mind, I'll be a big skull yet, an' keep +my kerrige--in Floredey." + +"What's Floredey good fur?" Levin asked. + +"It's full of nigger Injins, Simminoles, every one of 'em goin' to be +caught an' branded, an' put at cotton an' tobakker plantin', an' hog an' +cow herdin'. More niggers will be run in from Cubey, an' all the free +niggers in Delaware and up North will be sold, an' you an' me, Levin, is +gwyn to own a drove of 'em an' have a orchard of oranges an' a thousand +acres of cotton in bloom. We'll hold our heads up. Your mother shall be +switched to a nabob. My wife will be a shakester in diamonds. We'll +dispise Cambridge an' Princess Anne, an' there sha'n't be a free nigger +left on the face of the earth. We'll swig to it!" + +The sick-headed yet fancy-ridden Levin drank again, and listened to the +dealer's marvellous tales of golden fruit on coasts of indigo, and palms +that sheltered parrots calling to the wild deer. Jack Wonnell took the +helm when Levin lay down to sleep in the little cabin, still lulled by +tales of wealth and lawless daring, and there he slept the deep sleep +of the castaway, when the vessel grounded at dusk, in the sound of +evening church-bells, at Princess Anne. + +"Let him sleep," Joe Johnson spoke; "yer, Wonnell, I give you tray of +his strangers to take to his mommy," handing out three gold pieces. +"Don't you forgit it! Yer's a syebuck fur you," giving Jack a sixpence. +"You an' me will part company at Prencess Anne." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +UNDER AN OLD BONNET. + + +Vesta had been sitting half an hour beside her unconscious husband, +listening to his broken speech, and thinking upon the rapidity of events +once started on their course, like eaglets scarcely taught to fly before +they attack and kill, when the sound of carriage-wheels, arrested at the +door, called her to the window, and Tom, the mocking-bird, which had +been comparatively quiet since he found his master snugly cared for, now +began to hop about, fly in the air, and sing again: + +"Sweet--sweet--sweetie! come see! come see!" + +Vesta saw Meshach's wiry, deliberate colored man step down and turn the +horses' heads, and there dropped from the carriage, without using the +carriage-step, at a leap and a skip, a young female object whose head +was invisible in an enormous coal-scuttle bonnet of figured blue chintz. +However quick she executed the leap, Vesta observed that the arrival had +forgotten to put on her stockings. + +Before Vesta could turn from the window this singular object had darted +up the dark stairs of the old storehouse and thrown herself on the +delirious man's bed: + +"Uncle, Uncle Meshach! air you dead, uncle? Wake up and kiss your +Rhudy!" + +She had kissed her uncle plentifully while awaiting the same of him, and +the attack a little excited him, without recalling his mind to any +sustained remembrance, though Vesta heard the words "dear child," before +he turned his head and chased the wild poppies again. Then the young +female, ejaculating, + +"Lord sakes! Uncle don't know his Rhudy!" pulled her black apron over +her head and had a silent cry--a little convulsion of the neck and not +an audible sigh besides. + +"She weeps with some refinement," Vesta thought; and also observed that +the visitor was a tall, long-fingered, rather sightly girl of, probably, +seventeen, with clothing the mantuamaker was guiltless of, and a hoop +bonnet, such as old people continued to make in remembrance of the +high-decked vessels which had brought the last styles to them when their +ancestors emigrated with their all, and forever, from a land of _modes_. +The bonnet was a remarkable object to Vesta, though she had seen some +such at a distance, coining in upon the heads of the forest people to +the Methodist church. It resembled the high-pooped ship of Columbus, +which he had built so high on purpose, the girls at the seminary said, +so as to have the advantage of spying the New World first; but it also +resembled the long, hollow, bow-shaped Conestoga wagons of which Vesta +had seen so many going past her boarding-school at Ellicott's Mills +before the late new railroad had quite reached there. As she had often +peered into those vast, blue-bodied wagons to see what creatures might +be passengers in their depths, so she took the first opportunity of the +blue scuttle being jolted up by the mourner to discern the face within. + +It was a pretty face, with a pair of feeling and also mischievous brown +eyes, set in the attitude of wonder the moment they observed another +woman in the room. The skin was pale, the mouth generous, the nose long, +like Milburn's, but not so emphatic, and the neck, brow, and form of the +face longish, and with something fine amid the wild, cow-like stare she +fixed on Vesta, exclaiming, in a whisper, + +"Lord sakes! a lady's yer!" + +Then she threw her apron over the Conestoga bonnet again, and held it up +there with her long fingers, and long, plump, weather-stained wrists. + +Vesta looked on with the first symptoms of amusement she had felt since +the morning she and her mother laughed at the steeple-crown hat, as they +looked down from the windows of Teackle Hall upon the man already her +husband. That morning seemed a year ago; it was but yesterday. + +"Old hats and bonnets," Vesta thought, "will be no novelties to me by +and by. This family of the Milburns is full of them." + +Then, addressing the new arrival, Vesta said, + +"This is your uncle, then? Where do you live?" + +"I live at Nu _Ark_," answered the miss, taking down the black apron and +looking from the depths of the bonnet, like a guinea-pig from his hole. + +"If she had said 'the Ark' without the 'New,'" Vesta thought, "it would +have seemed natural." + +"Your uncle has a high fever," Vesta said, kindly; "he is not in danger, +we think. It was right of you to come, however. Now take off your +bonnet. What is your name?" + +"Rhudy--I'm Rhudy Hullin, ma'am." + +"Rhoda--Rhoda Holland, I think you say." + +"Yes'm, Rhudy Hullin. I live crost the Pookamuke, on the Oushin side, +out thar by Sinepuxin. I don't live in a great big town like Princess +Anne; I live in Nu Ark." + +At this the girl carefully extricated her head from the Conestoga +scuttle, looked all over the bonnet with pride and anxiety, and then +carefully laid it on the top of her uncle's hat-box. + +"Uncle Meshach give it to me," she said, with a sly inclination towards +the sick bed. "Misc Somers made it. Uncle, he bought all the stuff; Misc +Somers draw'd it. Did you ever see anything like it?" + +"Never," said Vesta. + +"Well, some folks out Sinepuxin said it was a sin and a shame--sech +extravagins; but Misc Somers she said Uncle Meshach was rich an' hadn't +but one Rhudy. It ain't quite as big as Misc Somers's bonnet, but it's +draw'd mour." + +Here Rhoda gave a repetition of what Vesta had twice before observed--an +inaudible sniffle, and, being caught in it, wiped her nose on her apron. + +"Take my handkerchief," Vesta said, "you are cold," and passed over her +cambric with a lace border. + +"What's it fur?" Rhoda asked, looking at it superstitiously. "You don't +wipe your nuse on it, do you? Lord sakes! ain't it a piece of your neck +fixin'?" + +Vesta felt in a good humor to see this weed of nature turn the +handkerchief over and hold it by the thumb and finger, as if she might +become accountable for anything that might happen to it. + +"I got two of these yer," she said; "Misc Somers made 'em outen a frock. +They ain't got this starch on 'em; they're great big things. I always +forgit 'em. My nuse wipes itself." + +"Now come near the fire and warm your feet," said Vesta; "for your ride +from the oceanside, this cold morning, through the forests of the +Pocomoke, must have chilled you through. Lay off your blanket shawl." + +Rhoda laid the huge black and green shawl, that reached to her feet, on +the green chest, and smoothed it with evident pride. + +"Uncle Meshach bought that in Wilminton," she said; "ain't it beautiful! +I never wear it but when I come over yer or go to Snow Hill. Snow Hill's +sech a proud place!" + +She had a way of laughing, by merely indenting her cheeks, without a +sound, just as she expressed the sense of pain; the only difference +being in the beaming of her eyes; and Vesta thought it had something +contagious in it. She would laugh broadly and in silence, as if she had +been put on behavior in church, and there had adopted a grimace to make +the other girls laugh and save herself the suspicion. + +As she pulled her skirts down to her feet, Vesta's observation was +confirmed that Rhoda had no stockings on, and she could not help +exclaiming, + +"My dear child, what possessed you to ride this October morning only +half dressed? You might catch your death." + +Rhoda caught her nose on the half sniffle, raised and dimpled her cheeks +in a sly laugh, and cried, + +"Lord sakes! you mean my legs? Why, I ain't got but two pairs of +stockings, an' Misc Somers is a wearin' one of' em, and the ould pair's +in the wash. It's so tejus to knit stockings, and sech fun to go +barefoot, that I don't wear' em unless Misc Somers finds it out. Why, +the boys can't see me!" + +She grimaced again so naturally and engagingly that Vesta had to laugh +quite aloud, and saw meantime that the young woman's oft-cobbled shoes +covered a slender foot a lady might have envied. + +"Now, Rhoda," Vesta said, almost indignantly, "why did you not ask your +wealthy uncle for some good yarn stockings?" + +"Him? Why, ma'am, he's got so many pore kin, if he begin to give' em all +stockings, he'd go barefoot himself." + +"Has he other nieces like you?" + +"No." The girl quietly grimaced, with her brown eyes full of laughter. +"There's plenty of others, but none like Rhudy; the woods is full of +them others." + +"So you are the favorite? Now, what was your uncle going to do with all +his money?" + +"Lord sakes!" Rhoda said; "he was going to marry Miss Vesty with it. +That's what Misc Somers said." + +The mocking-bird had been striking up once or twice in the conversation, +and now pealed his note loud: + +"Vesta, she! she! she! she-ee-ee!" + +A tingle of that superstition she had felt more than once already, in +her brief knowledge of this forest family, went through Vesta's veins +and nerves, and she silently remarked, + +"How little a young girl knows of men around her--what satyrs are taking +her image to their arms! These people knew he loved me, when I knew not +that he ever saw me." + +She addressed the niece again: + +"Rhoda, did your uncle say he loved Miss Vesta?" + +"No'm. He never said he luved nothing; but I heard Tom, the +mocking-bird, shout 'Vesty,' and saw a lady's picture yonder between +grandpar and grandmem, and told Misc Somers, and she says, 'Your Uncle +Meshach's in luve!' Oh, I was right glad of it, because he was so sad +and lonesome!" + +The fountain of sympathy burst up again in Vesta's heart, and she felt +that there were compensations riches and station knew not of in humble +alliances like hers. + +"Rhoda," she said, going to the young girl and putting her hand upon her +soft brown hair, "you have not noticed the new picture of a lady hanging +up here, have you?" + +"No'm, not yet. Everything is so quare in this room sence I saw it last, +I hain't seen nothin' in it but you. Now I see the carpet, an' the +brass andirons, an' the chiney, an'--Lord sakes! is that a picture? Why, +I thought it was you." + +"It is, Rhoda. I am Vesta; I am your new aunt." + +The girl made one of her engaging, dimpled, silent laughs, as if by +stealth again, changed it into a silent cry by a revulsion as natural, +and rose to her feet and took Vesta in her arms. + +"I'm so glad, I will cry a little," Rhoda simpered, her eyes all dewy; +"oh, how Misc Somers will say, 'I found it out first!'" + +Tom kept up a whistling, self-gratulating little cry, as if he had his +own thoughts: + +"Sweety! sweety! sweet! Vesty, see! see! see!" + +Vesta felt a chain of happy thoughts arise in her mind, which she +expressed as frankly as the girl of forest product had spoken, that she +might not retard the welcome of these homely friendships: + +"Yes, Rhoda, I am thankful to find a social life open to me where there +seemed no way, and brooks and playmates where everything looked dry. You +come here like a sunbeam, God bless you! I can hear you talk, and teach +you what little I know, and we will relieve each other, watching him." + +She felt a slight modification of her joy at this reminder, but the bird +seemed to teach her patience, as he suggested, hopping and flying in the +air, + +"Come see! come see! come see!" + +"Yes," thought Vesta, "_come and see!_ It is good counsel. I begin to +feel the breaking of a new sense,--curiosity about the poor and lowly. +My education seems to have closed my observation on people of my own +race, who daily trode almost upon my skirts, and whom I never saw--whom +it was considered respectable not to see--while even my colored servants +enjoyed my whole confidence because they were my slaves. Yet, in +misfortune, to these plain white people I must have dropped; and then +Roxy and Virgie, sold to some temporary rich man, would have been above +me, slaves as they would continue! How false, how fatal, both slavery +and proud riches to the republicans we pretend to be! Compelled 'to see' +at last, I shall not close my eyes nor harden my heart." + +The maid from Newark had meantime quietly inspected the rag carpet, the +cloth hangings, the fairy rocker, and all the acquisitions of her +uncle's abode, and Vesta again observed that she was of slender and +willowy shape and motion, unaffected in anything, not forward nor +excited, and with the shrewd look so near ready wit that she could make +Vesta laugh almost at will. Vesta showed her how to administer cool +drink and the sponging to the sufferer, and he saw them together with a +look of inquiry which the febrile action soon drove away. + +"Are your parents living, Rhoda?" + +"No'm; they're both dead. My mother was Uncle Meshach's sister, and she +married a rich man, who biled salt and had vessels an' kept tavern. +Father Hullin died of the pilmonary; mar died next. Misc Somers brought +me up whar the tavern used to be. It ain't a stand no more. Uncle +Meshach owns it." + +"Is it a nice place?" + +"Now it ain't as nice as it use to be, Aunt Vesty"--the girl glided +easily over what Vesta thought might be a hard word--"sence the shews +don't stop thar no mour." + +"The shoes? What is that?" + +"The wax figgers and glass-blowers, and the strongis' man in the world. +Did you ever see him?" + +Vesta said, "No, dear." + +"I saw him," Rhoda said, with a compression of her mouth and a gleam of +her eyes. "He bruke a stone with his fist and Misc Somers kep the +stone, and what do you think it was?" + +"Marble?" + +"No'm; chork! He jest washed the chork over with a little shell or +varnish or something, and, of course, it bruke right easy; so he wasn't +the strongest man in the world at all, and if Misc Somers ever see him, +she'll tell him so." + +"Is it a little or a large house, Rhoda?" + +"Oh, it's a magnificins house, twice as big as this, with the roof bent +like an elefin's back, an' three windows in it--rale dormant windows, +that looks like three eyes outen a crab, and a gabil end three rows of +windows high, and four high chimneys. The rope-walker said it was fit to +be a rueyal palace. Then thar's the kitchen an' colonnade built on to +it. It's the biggest house, I reckon, about Sinepuxin. That +rope-walker's a mountin-bank." + +"A mountain bank? You mean a mountebank--an impostor?" + +"Yes'm,"--the mouth shut and the eyes flashed again. "He allowed he'd +break the rupe after he'd walked on it, and he said it wasn't stretched +tight enough, and went along a feeling of it; and Misc Somers found out +every time he teched of it he put on some bluestone water or somethin' +else to rot it, so, of course, he bruke it easy. But Misc Somers's going +to tell him, if he comes agin, he's a mountin-bank. Lord sakes! she +ain't afraid." + +"So, since it has ceased to be a tavern, dear, you see no more +jugglers?" + +"The last shew there," Rhoda said, "was the canninbils and the +missionary. The missionary had converted of 'em, and they didn't eat no +more; but he tuld how they used to eat people; and they stouled a pony +outen the stables an' run to the Cypress swamp, and thar they turned out +to be some shingle sawyers he'd just a stained up. Misc Somers is +a-waitin' for him. Lord sakes! she don't keer." + +"And so you were an orphan, brought up at the old roadside stage-house +at Newark? And who is Mrs. Somers?" + +"Misc Somers, she's a ole aunt of Par Hullin. She an' me live together +sence par and mar died of the pilmonary. Oh, I have a passel of beaus +that takes me over to the Oushin on Sinepuxin beach, outen the way of +the skeeters, an' thar we wades and sails, and biles salt and roasts +mammynoes. Aunt Vesty, I can cut out most any girl from her beau; but, +Lord sakes! I ain't found no man I love yet." + +"I'm glad of that," said Vesta, "because you will then be satisfied with +Princess Anne. They say your uncle will be sick here several weeks, and +we can help each other to make him well. Now he is waking." + +Milburn opened his eyes and sighed, and saw them together, and Rhoda +held back considerately while the young wife approached the bed. He +looked at her with a bewildered doubt. + +"I thought they said you had gone forever," he murmured. + +"No, I am come forever, or until you wish me gone." + +"I told them so," he sighed; "I said, 'She has high principle, though +she can't love me.'" + +"Uncle Meshach, give Auntie time!" cried Rhoda, with a quick divination +of something unsettled or misunderstood. "Don't you know your Rhudy? +Even I was afraid of you till I was tuke sick and you thought it was the +pilmonary and nursed me." + +"You have a good niece," Vesta said, as her husband kissed the stranger; +"and we shall love each other, I hope, and improve each other." + +"Yes, that will be noble," he replied. "Teach her something; I have +never had the time. Oh, I am very ill; at a time like this, too!" + +"Be composed, Mr. Milburn," the bride said; "it is only Nature taking +the time you would not give her, and which she means for us to improve +our almost violent acquaintance. I shall be very happy sitting here, and +wish you would let your niece be with me; I desire it." + +He tried to smile, though the strong sweat succeeding the fever broke +upon him from his hands to his face. + +"She is yours," he said; "the best of my poor kin. Do not despise us!" + +Vesta drew her arm around Rhoda and kissed her, that he might see it. + +"What goodness!" he sighed, and the opening of his pores, as it let the +fever escape, gave him a feeling of drowsy relief which Vesta +understood. + +"Now let us turn the covers under the edges, Rhoda," she said, "and put +your blanket-shawl over him, and he will get some natural sleep." + +He turned once, as if to see if she was there, and closed his eyes +peacefully as a child. + +"Now, Rhoda," said Vesta, in a few minutes, "I hear papa's carriage at +the door, and, while he comes up, I shall ride back to see my mother and +get a few things at home." + +"Who is your poppy, Aunt Vesty?" + +"Don't you know him?--Judge Custis, who lives in Princess Anne." + +"Jedge Custis! Why, Lord sakes! he ain't your par, is he? Aunt Vesty, +he's one of my old beaus." + +The Judge brought with him Reverend William Tilghman, and Vesta, as she +was retiring, introduced Rhoda to both of them: + +"This is Miss Rhoda--Mr. Milburn's niece." + +Judge Custis, a trifle blushing, took both of Rhoda's hands: + +"Ha, my pretty partner and dancing pupil! How are our friends at St. +Martin's Bay and Sinepuxent? Many a sail and clam-bake we have had, +Rhoda." + +"You're a deceiver," Rhoda cried, with a dimpling somewhere between glee +and accusation. "I'm goin' to plosecute you, Jedge, fur not tellin' of +me you was a married man. My heart's bruke." + +"Who could remember what he was, Rhoda, sitting all that evening beside +you at--where was it?" + +"The Blohemian glass-blowers," Rhoda cried; "the only ones that ever +visited the Western Himisfure. Jedge," with sudden impetuosity, "that +little one, with the copper rings in his years, wasn't a Blohemian at +all. He lived up at Cape Hinlupen, an' Misc Somers see him thar when she +was a buyin' of herring thar. She's goin' to tell him, when she catches +him at Nu-ark." + +The young rector observed the flash of those bright eyes following the +pleasing dimples, and the slips of orthography seemed to him never less +culpable coming from such lips and teeth. + +"William," said Vesta, "come around this afternoon, and let us have our +usual Sunday reading-circle. Mr. Milburn will be awake and appreciate +it, as he is one of your most regular parishioners. Rhoda, you can +read?" + +"Oh, yes'm. Misc Somers, she's a good reader. She reads the Old +Testamins. The names thar is mos' too long for me, but I reads the +Psalms an' the Ploverbs right well." + +"Very well, then, we will read verse about, so that Mr. Milburn can hear +both our voices and his favorite minister's, too. You'll come, papa?" + +"Yes, if I can. We have had a love-feast at Teackle Hall this morning, +and your sister from Talbot is down, but I think I can get off." + +"Lord sakes!" Rhoda said, looking at Mr. Tilghman candidly; "you ain't a +minister now? Not a minister of the Gospil?" + +"Unworthily so, Miss Rhoda." + +"Well, I don't see how you was old enough to be convicted and learn it +all, unless you was a speretual merikle. Misc Somers see one of 'em at +Jinkotig. They called him the enfant phrenomeny. He exhorted at five +year old, and at seven give his experyins." + +"Rare, Miss Rhoda," the rector said, hardly able to keep his reverence +in amusement at her impetuosity. + +"Oh, he made a wild excitemins, Aunt Vesty. The women give each other +their babies to hold while they tuk turns a-shouting. 'Yer, Becky, hold +my baby while I shout!' says one. 'Now, Nancy, hold mine while I shout!' +To see that little boy up thar tellin' of his experyins was meriklus, +an' made an excitemins like the high tides on Jinkotig that drowns' em +out. But, Aunt Vesty, that little phrenomeny was a dwarf, twenty year +old, an' Misc Somers found it out and told about it." + +"I'll be bound Mrs. Somers knows!" exclaimed the Judge. + +"That she do," continued Rhoda, earnestly, with a slight sniffle of a +well-modelled nose and a dimpling that argued to Vesta something to +come. "Misc Somers says you held one of them babies, Jedge, to let its +mother shout, and pretended to be under a conviction; an' that you +backslid right thar and was a-whisperin' to the other mother. Lord +sakes! Misc Somers finds it all out." + +"Well," said the Judge, finding the laugh against him, "I never did +better electioneering than that day. By holding that baby five minutes I +made a vote, and the mother will hold it twenty years before she will +make a vote." + +"Misc Somers says, Jedge, you hold the women longer than thar babies; +but I told her you was in sech conviction you didn't know one from the +other. 'Oh,' she says, 'he's sly and safe when he gits over yer on the +Worcester side.' Misc Somers, she's dreadful plain." + +William Tilghman, during the continuation of this colloquy, looked with +interest on the two young ladies: Vesta, the elder by two or three +years, and richly endowed with the lights of both beauty and +accomplishments; the maid from the ocean side, plainer, and with no +ornament within or without; but he could foresee, under Vesta's +fostering, a graceful woman, with coquetry and fascination not wholly +latent there; and, as his eyes met Rhoda's, he interpreted the look that +at a certain time of life almost every maiden casts on meeting a young +man--"Is he single?" She shot this look so archly, yet so strong, that +the arrow wounded him a very little as it glanced off. He smiled, but +the consciousness was restored a moment that he was a young man still, +as well as a priest. Love, which had closed a door like the portal of a +tomb against him, began to come forth like a glow-worm and wink its lamp +athwart the dark. + +"She must come to Sunday-school," he thought, "if she stays in Princess +Anne. We will polish her." + +The mocking-bird, not being satisfied with any lull in the conversation, +"pearted up," as he saw Vesta withdraw, and cried, + +"'Sband! 'Sband! Meee--shack! Mee-ee-ee-shack! See me! see me! Gents! +gents! gents! genten! Sweet! sweetie! sweetie! Hoo! hoo! See! see! +Vesty, she! Ha! ha!" + +He flew in the air over his stirring master, as if doubting that all was +well since the strange lady, who had been so quiet all the morning, was +gone. + +"That bird almost speaks," said William Tilghman; "I have spent many an +hour teaching them, but never could make one talk like that." + +"Maybe you had too much to teach to it," Rhoda Holland said; "it ain't +often they can speak, and they mustn't have much company to learn well. +Uncle Meshach haint had no company but that bird for years. I reckon +the bird got mad and lonesome, and jest hooted words at him." + +"What is it saying now?" Tilghman asked. "See! it is almost convulsive +in its attempts to say something." + +The gray bird, as impressive as a poor poet, seemed nearly in a state of +epilepsy to bring up some burden of oppressive sound, and, as they +watched it, almost tipsy with the intoxicant of speech, fluttering, +driving, and striking in the air, it suddenly brought out a note liquid +as gurgling snow from a bird-cote spout: + +"L-l-lo-love! love! love! Ha! ha! L-l-love!" + +"Well done, old bachelor!" Judge Custis remarked, in spite of his fagged +face, for good resolution and yesterday's unbracing had left him +somewhat limp and haggard still. "He brings out 'love' as if he had made +a vow against it, but the confession had to come. Many a monk would sing +the same if instinct could find a daring word in his chorals. These +mockers of Maryland were celebrated in the British magazines a hundred +years ago, and I recall some lines about them." + +He then recited: + + "'His breast whose plumes a cheerful white display, + His quivering wings are dressed in sober gray, + Sure all the Muses this their bird inspire, + And he alone is equal to a choir. + Oh, sweet musician! thou dost far excel + The soothing song of pleasing Philomel: + Sweet is her song, but in few notes confined, + But thine, thou mimic of the feathery kind! + Runs thro' all notes: thou only know'st them all, + At once the copy and th' original!'" + +"That's magnificins!" Rhoda exclaimed, with quiet delight; "who is +'fellow Mil,' Jedge?" + +"Oh, that's the British nightingale. These American mocking-birds +surpass them as one of our Eastern Shore clippers outsails all the naval +powers of Europe." + +"I've hearn 'The British Nightingale,'" Rhoda said, with a flash of her +eyes; "he was a blind man with green specticklers that sang at Nu-ark, +''ome, sweet 'ome'--that's the way he plonounced it--an' it affected of +him so, he had to drink a whole tumbler of water, an' Misc Somers, +spying around to see if he was the rale nightingale, she found it was +gin in that glass, and told about it." + +Rhoda made even the minister laugh, as she indented her cheeks and cast +a sheep's glance at him and the Judge. He marvelled that such forest +English could be resented so little by his mind, but he thought, + +"Never mind, she may have had no more lessons than the bird, whose +difficulty is even beautiful. But see! Mr. Milburn is wide awake. My +friend, how do you feel?" + +"Better, better!" murmured Milburn. "I cannot lie here any more. There +is money, _money_, gentlemen, dependent on my getting about." + +He started up with the greatest resolution and confidence, and fell upon +his head before he had left the coverlets. + +"No, no!" said the Judge, as he and Tilghman picked Milburn up and +arranged him as before. "Your will is matched this time, my brave +son-in-law! You are back in the hut you have consumed, among the fires +thereof, and the avenging blast of Nassawongo furnace burns in your +veins and cools you in the mill-pond alternately. Lie there and repent +for the injury you have done a spotless one!" + +If Meshach heard this it was never known, but the unconscious or +impulsive utterance strengthened the impression with Tilghman and Rhoda +that Vesta's marriage was not altogether voluntary, and produced on both +a feeling of deeper sympathy and respect for her. + +"Judge," the young minister said, "do good for evil, if evil there has +been! I have given him my hand sincerely; perhaps you can relieve his +mind of some business care." + +"Mr. Milburn," the Judge said, when he saw the resinous eyes roll +towards him again out of that swarthy face, now pale with weakness, "I +am out of a job now, and can work cheap. Let me do any errand for you." + +A look of petulance, followed by one of inquiry, came up from Milburn's +eyes, and he pressed his head between his wrists, as if to bring back +the blood that might propel his judgment. They heard him mutter, + +"No business prudence--yet plausible, persuasive--might do it well." + +The Judge spoke now, with some firmness: + +"Milburn, there is no use of your rebelling. Here you are and here you +will lie till nature does her restoration, assisted by this medicine I +have brought you. You must undergo calomel, and this quinine must set on +its work of several weeks to break up the regularity of these chills. In +the meantime, as your interests are also Vesta's, and Vesta's are mine, +let me serve her, if not you." + +The positive tone influenced the weakened system of the patient. He +looked at all three of the observers, and said to Tilghman, "William, I +might send you but for your calling; leave me with the Judge a little +while, both you and Rhoda." + +Rhoda took the Conestoga bonnet from the top of the Entailed Hat box, +and arrayed herself in it, to the rector's exceeding wonder. + +"Let's you and me go take a little walk," she said, putting her hand in +his arm with a quiet confidence in which was a spark of Meshach's will. +"I ain't afraid of Princess Anne people, if they are proud. Mise Somers +says King Solomons was no better than a lily outen the pond, and said so +himself." + +The young man, sincere as his humility was, blushed a little at the idea +of walking through his native town with that bonnet at his side, he +being of one of the self-conscious, high-viewing families of the old +peninsula--his grand-uncle the staff-officer of Washington, and +messenger from Yorktown to Congress with the news, "Cornwallis has +fallen;" but it was his chivalric sense, and not his piety, which +immediately dispelled the last touch of coxcombry, when he felt that a +lady had requested him. + +"With happiness, Miss Holland;" and he did not feel one shrinking +thought again as he ran the gantlet of the idle fellows of the town, +many of them his former vagrant playmates. Rhoda was perfectly happy. He +would have taken her to his grandmother's, with whom he kept house, but +that aristocratic old dowager might say something, he considered, to +destroy Rhoda's confidence in her elegant appearance and easy +vocabulary; and they walked past Teackle Hall, where Vesta saw them, and +opened the door and made them come in and eat a little. Rhoda at first +showed some uneasiness under this great pile of habitation, but Vesta +was so natural and gracious that the shyness wore off, and, at a fitting +moment, the bride said: + +"Rhoda, my dear, there is a bonnet up-stairs I expect to wear this +winter, and I want to try it on you, whom I think it will particularly +become." + +Rhoda's quiet eyes flashed as she saw the new article and heard Vesta +praise it, upon her head. The old bonnet had received a cruel blow, in +spite of Mrs. Somers. + +Tilghman, too, accused himself that he felt a little relieved when he +escorted Rhoda back to Meshach's in another bonnet, and Vesta followed, +with her great shaggy dog, Turk; she not unconscious--though serene and +thoughtfully polite to all she knew--of people peering at her in wonder +and excitement from every door and window of the town. The news was +working in every household, from the servants in the kitchens to the +aged people helped to their food with bib and spoon, that the famed +daughter of Daniel Custis was the prize of the junk dealer and usurer +in "old town" by the bridge, who had enslaved a wife at last. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE DUSKY LEVELS. + + +The new son-in-law, left alone with Judge Custis, asked to be propped up +in bed, and nothing was visible that would support his pillow but the +aged leather hat-box that Custis, with a wry face, brought to do duty. + +"My illness is unfortunate," he gasped; "not only to me, but to the new +ties I have formed; to the mutual interest my wife and I have in making +up your losses on Nassawongo furnace, which we are all the poorer by to +that amount; and to a suitor whose cause I have taken up. I have bought +an interest in a great lawsuit." + +"Then the day of reckoning of your enemies has come, Milburn." + +"Not yet," said the sick man, with a proud flash of his eyes, "unless I +am no merchant and you are no lawyer, and the first I will not concede." + +"Nor I the second," exclaimed the Judge, with some pride and temper. + +"You were once a good lawyer, if visionary," resumed the money-lender, +with scant ceremony. "Had we been able to respect each other we might +have been confederated in things valuable to ourselves and to our time +and place. But that is past, and you do not possess my confidence as my +legal agent, my attorney. I wish you to get another advocate for me." + +"I am willing to be useful, even without your compliments," the Judge +said, remembering his Christian resolution. "We will not quarrel, if I +can serve you." + +"I do not wish to hurt your feelings, but my strength is not great +enough for unmeaning flattery. This marriage was so dear to my heart +that I have put it before a very large interest about which I have no +time to lose, and still am helpless upon this bed. I will trust you to +do my errand. Go to that chest, Judge Custis, and you will find a +package of papers in the cedar till at the end. Bring them here." + +As the Judge opened the old chest a musty smell, as of mummies wrapped +in herbs, ascended into his nose, and he saw some faded clothes, as +those of poor people deceased, male and female, lying within. The +mocking-bird piped a noisy warning as he raised the lid of the till and +saw the desired papers among a parcel of spotted and striped bird-eggs: + +"Come see! come see! Meshach! he! he! sweet!" + +"Now open the window yonder," said Meshach, taking the papers, "and let +Tom fly out. He starts my nerves. Wh-oo-t, whi-it, Tom!" + +The mocking-bird, spreading its wings and tail, and striking obstinately +towards its master a minute, as he whistled, flew out of the window and +settled in the old willow below, and had a Sunday-afternoon concert, +calling the passing dogs by name, whistling to them, and deceiving cats +and chickens with invitations they familiarly heard, to eat, to shoo, to +scat, and to roost. + +"If he regulates his wife like that bird," the Judge spoke to himself, +"she will fly to heaven soon." + +Milburn opened the papers, counted them, and handed them to his +father-in-law. + +"The papers will be plain to you, Judge Custis, after I have made a few +words of explanation. You well know that the canal between the Delaware +and Chesapeake is finished, and vessels are now passing through it from +bay to bay. It is taking one hundred dollars a day tolls, and twenty +vessels already go past between sun and sun, though the size of the +shipping of the cities it connects has not yet been adapted to its +proportions. It has been a cheap and quick work, costing something above +two millions of dollars, taking only five years of time; and yet it has +begun its mercantile life by a cheat upon a man to whom it is indebted +as a promoter and contractor, and to whom I have advanced the means to +compel justice and damages." + +"Well, well, Milburn; I must pay tribute to your enterprise. The era of +these great carrying corporations has barely begun, and you stake your +little fortune against one of them that is backed by the great city of +Philadelphia!" + +"The canal passes through the state of Delaware, in which is three +quarters of its little length of only fourteen miles, and there a suit +will be free, to some extent, from the corruptions they might exercise +in Pennsylvania; and, if successful there, we can more easily attach the +tolls of the canal. I have no more faith in the Legislature of Delaware +than of any other state; kidnappers sit in its responsible seats, and it +licenses lotteries to make prizes of its own honor. But we shall try our +case before a simple jury, which will be flax in the hands of one lawyer +in that state, if we can secure him; but hitherto he has refused my +contractor, and will not take the case." + +"Why," said the Judge, "you must mean Clayton, the new senator." + +"That is the man," Milburn continued, stopping for strength and breath. +"He is finely educated, I hear, at the colleges and law schools, and +possesses a remarkable power over the agricultural and mixed races of +that small state, whom he thoroughly understands by sympathy and +acquaintance. I heard him once in court, at Georgetown, wither and +confound the confederated kidnapping influences of the whole peninsula, +and, against the will and intention of the jury, prevail upon their +fears and sensibilities to find a bold rogue guilty of stealing free +men; of color--a rogue who was in this room, unless it is a delusion of +my fever, this very day, and with whom I fancied I had been in collision +somewhere." + +"You only knocked him down with a brick, after Samson had done it with +his fist, and then the fellow came to me for shelter, afraid you would +pursue him at law, and I suppose he did an errand for my servants to +this abode." + +The Judge looked around upon the abode as if he had used the most +respectable word he could possibly apply to it. + +"I will compromise with such scoundrels as that one," Milburn spoke, +"only when I am afraid of them. But, to conclude my statement; for +reasons of timidity, or doubts of success, or political +ambition--something I cannot fathom--Mr. Clayton will not hearken to my +debtor, and I have not disclosed my own interest in the suit. He is at +home from Washington, and an appointment has been made with him at his +office in Dover to-morrow. You see I am unable to keep it, and I have no +one else to send, and information reaches me that the canal company, +discovering my money in the contractor's bank account, intends to retain +Clayton forthwith. If you set out this afternoon, you can reach +Laureltown for bedtime. It is at least forty miles thence to Dover, and +you might ride it to-morrow by noon, with push, and in that case you +have a chance to beat the Philadelphia emissary several hours. I have +five thousand dollars at stake already; I believe I shall get damages of +forty times five if I can retain that man." + +"I am ready to start at once," said the Judge, rising up; "I can read +these papers on the way. The saddle was my cradle, and I have a good +horse. My valise can follow me on the stage to-morrow." + +"Unless you see the best reasons for it, my name is not to be mentioned +to any one as a party to this suit; I am not popular with juries." + +"Then good-bye, Milburn," said the Judge, but did not extend his hand. +"As you treat my daughter, may God treat you!" + +"Amen," exclaimed the money-lender, as the Judge's feet passed over the +door-sill below, and he sank back to the bed, exhausted again. + + * * * * * + +While the proceedings described occupied the white people, the servants, +Roxy and Virgie, in their clean Sunday suits, loitered around the bridge +behind the store, or strayed a little way up the Manokin brook, hearing +the mocking-bird rend his breast in all the ventriloquy of genius. + +"Virgie," said Samson Hat, meeting them under the willow-tree, "when I +carries you off and marries you, I s'pect you'll be climbin' up in my +loft, too, makin' it comf'able fo' me." + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you old, black, impertinent +servant of darkness!" Virgie said. "Indeed, when I look at a man, he +must be almost white--not all white, though, like Roxy's beau." + +"Who's he, Roxy?" Samson asked. + +Roxie blushed, and said she had no beau, and never wanted one. + +"Roxy's beau," says Virgie, "is that poor, helpless Mr. Jack Wonnell. He +comes to see her every day. He's devotion itself. Indeed, Samson, if you +are going to marry me, and Roxy marry all those bell-crown hats, we +shall cure the town of its two greatest afflictions." + +"Bad ole hats?" asks Samson. + +"Roxy'll burn all the bell-crowns for her beau, and I'll bury the +steeple-hat and you that cleans it, and the people will be so glad +they'll set me free and I can go North." + +"Look out, Virgie; I'll put dat high-crown hat on you like Marster +Milburn put de bell on de buzzard. He went up to dat buzzard one day +wid a little tea-bell in his hand an' says, 'Buzzard, how do ye like +music?' Says de buzzard, tickled wid de compliment, 'I'm so larnid in +dat music, I disdains to sing; I criticises de birds dat does.' 'Den,' +says Mars Milburn, 'I needn't say to ye, P'ofessor Buzzard, dat dis +little bell will be very pleasin' to yo' refine taste.' Wid dat he takes +a little piece o' wire an' fastens de tea-bell to de bird's foot an' +says, 'Buzzard, let me hear ye play!' De buzzard flew and de bell +tinkled, an' all de other buzzards hear some'in' like de cowbell on de +dead cow dey picked yisterday, an' dey says, 'Who's dat a flyin' heah? +Maybe it's a cow's ghose!' So dey up, all scart, an' cross'd de bay; an' +de buzzard wid a bell haint had no company sence, becoz he stole a +talent he didn't have, and it made everybody oncomfitable." + +"I've heard about Meshach belling a buzzard," said Roxy, "but they say +he's got something on his foot, too, like a hoof--a clove foot. Did you +ever see it, Samson?" + +"He never tuk his foot off," said the negro, warily, "to let me see it. +Dat bell on de buzzard, gals, is like white beauty in a colored skin; it +draws white men and black men, like quare music in de air, but it makes +de pale gal lonesome. She can't marry ary white man; she despises black +ones." + +The shrewd lover had touched a chord of young pain in the hearts of both +those delicate quadroons. Both were so nearly white that the slight +corruption increased their beauty, rounded their graceful limbs, +plumpened their willowy figures, gave a softness like mild night to +their expressive eyes, and blackened the silken tassels of their elegant +long hair. No tutor had taught them how to walk,--they who moved on +health like skylarks on the air. Faithful, pure-minded, modest, natural, +they were still slaves, and their place in matrimony, which nature +would have set among the worthiest--superior in love, superior in +maternity, superior in length of days and enjoyment--was, by the freak +of man's _caste_, as doubtful as the mermaid's. + +Roxy was a little the shorter and fuller of shape, the milder and more +pathetic; in Virgie the white race had left its leaner lines and greater +unrelenting. She said to Samson, with the pique her reflections +inspired, + +"I never thought the first man to make love to me would be as black as +you." + +"De white corn years," says Samson, "de rale sugar-corn, de blackbird +gits. None of dem white gulls and pigeons gits dat corn. A white feller +wouldn't suit you, Virgie." + +"Why?" says Roxy, "Virgie was raised among white children; so was I. We +didn't know any difference till we grew up." + +"Dat was what spiled ye," Samson said; "de colored man is de best +husban'. He ain't thinkin' 'bout business while he makin' love, like +Marster Milburn. The black man thinks his sweetheart is business enough, +long as she likes him. He works fur her, to love her, not to be makin' a +fool of her, and put his own head full of hambition, as dey calls it. +You couldn't git along wid one o' dem pale, mutterin' white men, Virgie. +Now, Roxy's white man, he's most as keerless as a nigger; he kin't do +nothin' but make love, nohow. Dat's what she likes him fur." + +"He's as kind a hearted man as there is in Princess Anne," Roxy spoke +up. "I never thought about him except as a friend. I know I sha'n't look +down on him because he likes a yellow girl, for then I would be looking +down on myself." + +"Virgie," said Samson, "I reckon I'm a little ole, but you kin't fine +out whar it is. Ye ought to seen me fetch dat white hickory of a feller +in de eye yisterday, and he jest outen his teens. I know it's a kine of +impedent to be a courtin' of you, Virgie, dat's purtier dan Miss Vesty +herself--" + +"Nobody can be as pretty as Miss Vesta," Virgie cried, delighted with +the compliment; "she's perfection." + +"As I was gwyn to say," dryly added Samson, "I never just knowed what I +was a lettin' Marster Milburn keep my wages fur, till he married Miss +Vesty, and then I sot my eyes on Miss Vesty's friend an' maid, and I +says, 'Gracious goodness! dat's de loveliest gal in de world. I'll git +my money and buy her and set her free, and maybe she'll hab me, ole as I +am.'" + +"She will, too, Samson, if you do that, I believe," Roxy cried; "see how +she's a-smiling and coloring about it." + +Virgie's throat was sending up its tremors to her long-lashed eyes, and +a wild, speculative something throbbed in her slender wrists and beat in +the little jacket that was moulded to her swelling form: the first sight +of freedom in the wild doe--freedom, and a mate. + +"My soul!" Roxy added, "if poor Mr. Wonnell could set me free, I think I +might pity him enough to be his wife." + +Samson used his opportunity to stretch out his hand and take Virgie's, +while she indulged the wild dream. + +"Dis han' is too purty," he said, "to be worn by a slave. Let me make it +free." + +She turned away, but the negro had been a wise lover, and his plea +pierced home, and it struck the Caucasian fatherhood of the bright +quadroon. + +"Freedom is mos' all I got," the negro continued; "it's wuth everything +but love, Virgie. Dat you got. Maybe we can swap' em and let me be yo' +slave." + +"Don't, don't!" pleaded Virgie, pulling her hand very gently. "I'm +afeard of you; you clean the Bad Man's hat." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +CASTE WITHOUT TONE. + + +Judge Custis was well out of town, riding to the north, when the little +reading-circle assembled, without his patronage, over the old store, and +the young minister directed it. In the warm afternoon the windows were +raised till Milburn's chill began to set in again, and they could hear +the mocking-bird, in his tree, tantalizing the great shaggy dog Turk by +whistling to him, + +"Wsht! wsht! Come, sir! come, sir! Sic 'em! sic 'em! wh-i-it! sic 'em, +Turk! wsht! wh-i-i-t! Sirrah! Ha! ha!" + +Turk would run a little way, run back, see nobody, watch all the windows +of the store, and finally he seemed to think the spot was haunted, or +unreliable in some way; for he would next run to the open store door, +and bark, run back, and, from a distance, watch the hollow dark within, +as if a vague enemy lived there, mocking his obedient nature and keeping +his mistress captive. Turk was a setter with mastiff mixing, worth a +little for the hunt and more for the watch, but as an ornament and +friend worth more than all; he was so impartial in his favors as to like +Aunt Hominy and Vesta about equally, and often slept in the kitchen +before the great chimney fire. + +"Do we worry you, Mr. Milburn, by reading here?" Vesta asked. + +"No, my darling. It is so kind of you to bring music to my poor loft." + +William Tilghman opened his Bible at a place marked by a little +ribbon-backed bristol card, inscribed in Vesta's childhood by her +learning fingers, "Watch with me." He thought of his cousin, now +fluttering between her betrayal to this Pilate and her crucifixion, and +caught her eyes looking at the Bible-marker, as if saying to him and to +the forest maiden, "Watch with me." + +Tilghman started the reading, Vesta followed, and Rhoda had to do her +part, also; but she required to labor hard to keep up, as the chapter +was in the Acts, descriptive of Paul's voyage towards Rome, and had +plenty of hard words and geography in it. At one verse, Rhoda's reading +was like this: + +"And--when--we--had--sailed--slowl--li--many-days--and--scare--scare--skar +--skurse--I declar', Aunt Vesty, this print is blombinable!--scace--Oh, +yes, scacely--scarce--were--come--over--against--Ceni--Snide--Snid--Mr. +Tilghman, what is this crab-kine of word? Cnidus? Well, I declar'! a dog +couldn't spell that; it looks like Snyder spelled by his hired +man--against Cnidus--the--wind--not--snuffers--no, snuffering (here +Rhoda executed the double sniffle)--yes, didn't I say snuffering? I mean +suffering--suffering--us--we--sailed--under--I can't spell that nohow; +nobody kin!" + +"'Sailed under Crete,' dear," assisted Vesta. + +"Sailed under--Crety--over--against--Sal--Sal--Salm--oh, yes, psalms! +No: Sal Money." + +"Salmone," explained the rector, not daring to look up; "we sailed under +Crete over against Salmone; and, hardly passing it, came unto a place +which is called the Fair Havens, nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea.'" + +"Lord sakes!" exclaimed Rhoda, putting out her crescent foot, on which +was Vesta's worked stocking, "did they have Fair Havens in them days? +Was it this one over yer on the Wes'n Shu?" + +"No," answered Tilghman; "Fair Havens was always a ready name for +sailors finding a good port in trouble." + +"Thar ain't no good port out thar on the Oushin side now but Monroe's +Inlet, outen Jinkotig. The rest of 'em gits filled up, an' kadgin's the +on'y way to kadge through of 'em, Misc Somers says." + +"She means warping, or pulling over a shoal inlet by a rope to an +anchor, as the water lifts the vessel." + +"Yes, you know, Mr. Tilghman," Rhoda cried, delighted; "that's +kadgin'--pullin' over the bar by the anchor line. You're all agroun', +can't git nowhar, air a-bumpin' on the bar, an' the breakers is comin' +dreadful in your side: you'll break all up if you stay thar. So you git +the little anchor--the little one is better than ary too big a one--an' +put it in the yawl an' paddle acrost the bar an' sot her, an' them +aboard pulls as the billers lifts ye, and so they keep her headed in, +and, kadging, kadging, bumpety-bump, at las' you go clar of the bar an' +come home to smooth haven in Sinepuxin." + +"Yes, my sisters," appended the young minister, "we need often to kedge +home, to warp over the bars of life, and Hope, in ever so little an +anchor, helps a little, if we do not lose the line. Little hopes are +often better than great ones, for o'er-great hopes swamp little vessels. +Even hope must be artfully shaped and skilfully dropped to take hold of +the unseen bottoms of opportunity. All of us have entertained burdensome +hopes, heavy anchors, and they would not hold us against the breakers; +but there may be little hopes, carried in advance of us, that will draw +us into pleasant sounds and bays." + +"We owe to you, Rhoda, this comforting hope," said Vesta, "and, while +you are with us, we shall teach you to read more confidently." + +Vesta then sang Charles Wesley's hymn: + + "'Jesus, in us thyself reveal! + The winds are hushed, the sea is still, + If in the ship Thou art. + Oh, manifest Thy power divine; + Enter this sinking church of Thine, + And dwell in every heart.'" + +The sounds of her singing reached the people, rambling curiously around +on Sunday afternoon to see the principals in the surprising marriage +they had but lately heard of, and, as she ended, Mr. Milburn called her, +saying, + +"It is time for you to leave me till to-morrow." + +"Is that your desire?" + +"It is, kind lady. I have a servant-man, Samson, used to all my work, +and you can hear of my condition through your slave girls, going and +coming. I want you to feel free as ever, though my wife at last. I did +not seek you to cloud your morning, but to share your sunshine. Go to +Teackle Hall, and there I will come when I am stronger. At no time do I +ever wish you to sleep in this old stable." + +"May I come and sit with you to-morrow, sir?" + +"Oh, do so! I must see you a little day by day." + +"May I take Rhoda with me?" + +"Yes, if you will do it. She is a poor girl, but that is not her fault." + +Vesta bent and touched his forehead with her lips, and, as she drew +back, he raised his cold hand and put a piece of paper in hers. + +"Present my love to your mother," he said, in a chill; "and return her +the losses Judge Custis has named to me as her portion in Nassawongo +furnace. The amount is in this check, which I give you, although it is +Sunday, because it represents no business among any of us, but an act of +peace." + +"You are an honorable man," Vesta said; "I have cost you dearly." + +"It is the bumping of a few years on the bar," Meshach answered, trying +to smile; "be you my anchor out in calm water, and I will try to draw to +you some day. It is not the price I pay that troubles me; it is the +price you are paying." + +"I am deeply interested in you," Vesta said; "if I should say more than +that, it would not now be true." + +"Thank you for that much," Milburn said; "even your pity is a treasure, +and I thank God that I have made so much progress. Before you go, let my +bird come in, and then shut the window, to keep the night-hawks and owls +from finding him." + +He managed, between his rising paroxysms of the chill, to whistle a note +or two, and Tom flew in the window and fluttered viciously around his +head, as if to be revenged for exile, and then, leaping on the old +hat-box, set up a show performance, in which were all the menagerie of +town and field, and, stopping a little while to hear the bird sing her +name again, Vesta and her friends withdrew. + +Mrs. Custis was found in her bedroom, much improved in spirits, but +highly nervous. + +"Oh, my poor, martyred, murdered idol!" she screamed, as Vesta came in; +"are you alive? Is the beast dead? Don't tell me he dares to live." + +"Yes, mamma, here are his teeth," Vesta said, when she had kissed her +mother warmly. "He has sent you a check for all your lost money, and his +love, and me to live here with you in Teackle Hall. Liberty, +restitution, as you name it, and his affection to both of us: is he not +a gentleman now?" + +Mrs. Custis eagerly took the check. + +"Do you believe it is good, precious? Maybe he sent it to deceive me +while he could take advantage of your gratitude. Oh, these foresters are +devils! I wish I had the money for it." + +"It is good for everything he has, mamma. Not to pay it would make him a +bankrupt. He gave it to me almost with gallantry. Indeed, he is the most +singular man I ever knew." + +"That is the case with all pirates," said Mrs. Custis; "something in +the female nature attracts us to lawless men, who take what they +want--ourselves included. We were, I suppose, originally, just seized +and appropriated, and are looking out for the appropriator to this day. +But you, Vesta, with the Baltimore blood in you, do not expect to play +the Sabine bride tamely like that--to defend your spoiler and reconcile +him to your brethren?" + +"I was thinking it was the Baltimore blood that made me appreciate Mr. +Milburn, mamma. The Custises were not traders." + +"Pshaw! the Custises were libertines, unless history belies them; they +had else no popularity in the scamp court of Charley-over-the-water. He +thought the daughter of any gentleman in his following was made for his +mistress, and a large percentage of the said damsels thought he was +right." + +"Mr. Milburn is no Cavalier, I can see that," Vesta said; "I am +attracted to him by elements of such strength and simplicity that I +fancy he is a Puritan." + +"Puritan fiddlestick!" Mrs. Custis said, putting Milburn's check in her +bosom and pinning it in there, and looking vigilantly at the pin +afterwards. "Now, my great comfort, my only McLane! do not idealize this +forester as of any beginning whatsoever. It is all wrong. Thousands of +convicts were exported to Chesapeake Bay from the slums of London, +Bristol, Glasgow, and other places, and propagated here like the +pokeweed. With instincts of larceny, and, possibly, a little rebellion +in it, your man has robbed this house of your person; if he should also +take your heart, the shame would be upon us." + +"Oh, mother, you are unforgiving!" + +"Of course I am; I am Scotch." + +"You have not one son-in-law but this who would give you back the large +amount your husband has misspent--not one who could do it but at a +sacrifice you would not permit. For you and papa, to restore your faith +in each other, I married our stranger creditor, forcing him to the altar +rather than he me; and he has already proved himself of more delicacy +than you, if I am to believe you are in your right mind. No, I am no +McLane." + +"You are not, if you do not use their Scotch-Irish perseverance to get +the better of Meshach Milburn. You have obtained a marriage settlement +with him, now have it confirmed, and sue out your divorce before the +Legislature! Publicly as you have been profaned, ask the State of +Maryland for reparation. The McLanes, the Custises, and all their +connections, from the Christine River to the James, will storm +Annapolis, make your cause, if necessary, a political issue, and the +courts of this county will give you damages out of this beast's +unpopular wealth." + +Vesta looked at her mother with astonishment. + +"What would become of my self-respect, my maiden name, if I made that +show of my private griefs, mother?" + +"Why, you would be a heroine. Every old lover, of whom there are so many +eligible ones, would feel his zeal return. A romance would attend your +name wherever the Baltimore newspapers are taken, and you would be as +great a heroine as Betty Patterson." + +"That disobedient girl?" Vesta, still in astonishment, exclaimed. + +"I saw her when the bride of Jerome Bonaparte. She was not half as +lovely as you! If Jerome had seen you--you were not born, then, and I +was in society--he would never have looked at Betty. But, you see, she +forced a settlement out of the Emperor, husbanded the income of it, and +she is rich, and freer to-day than if she had become a French +Bonaparte." + +"Weak as they may be in many things, I am a Custis," Vesta spoke, with +pale scorn. "I would not drag my name through the tobacco-stained +lobbies of Annapolis to wear the crown of Josephine. The word I gave, +in pity of my parents, to the man who is now my husband, to become his +wife, I would not take back to my dying day, unless he first denied his +word. I believe there is such a thing as honor yet. Mother, you fret my +father by such principles." + +"They are the principles of your uncle, Allan McLane." + +"A man I shrink from," Vesta said, "although he is your brother. His +unfeeling respectability, his unchangeableness, his want of every +impulse but hate, his appropriation of our family honor, as if he was +our lawgiver and high-sheriff, his secretiveness, formal religion, and +mysterious prosperity, I do not appreciate, much as I have tried to be +charitable to him. I do not like Baltimore as I do the Eastern Shore; it +is fierce, hard, and suspicious." + +"You shall not run down Baltimore before me," Mrs. Custis cried, hotly. +"It is a paradise to this region; and comparing Meshach Milburn to your +uncle is blasphemy." + +"I have on my finger, mother, his mother's ring." + +"A pretty object it is," said Mrs. Custis, taking a peep at it and +another at her check; "it requires a microscope to find it. The next +thing you will be walking through Baltimore on your bridal tour, +followed by a mob of small boys, to see Meshach's old steeple-top hat. +Then I shall feel for you, Vesta." + +The cruel blow struck home. Vesta's reception, so unexpected, so +acrimonious, affected her with a sense of gross ingratitude, and with a +greater disappointment--she had failed to restore joy to her parents by +her desperate sacrifice. + +She began to feel that she might have done wrong. The broad sight of her +act, looking back upon it from this momentary revulsion, seemed a +frightful flood, like the mouth of one of the little Eastern Shore +rivers that expands to a gulf in the progress of a brook. Last night she +saw in an instant the misunderstandings and ruin she could prevent by +her ready decision; now she saw the misunderstandings she never could +correct, the prejudices stronger than parental sympathy, the wide +separation her marriage had effected between two classes of her duty--to +think with her husband's affection and her mother's interests at the +same time. + +It also occurred to her that her father, the darling of her thought, had +seemed slow to appreciate her marriage sacrifice, and was testy at her +willingness to loosen her heart with her vestal zone towards her +husband. + +The whole day had passed with such relief, such satisfaction, that she +expected to end it in the tranquillity of Teackle Hall, like some young +eagle returned to her nest with abundant prey for the old birds there, +worn out with storm and time. In place of love and healing nature, Vesta +had found worldliness, resentment, intrigue, and aspersion, concluding +with a reference to the one object she feared and shrank from--the hat +of dark entail, the shadow upon her future life. Her eyes filled up, she +lisped aloud, + +"I wish I had stayed with my husband!" + +"Has he become so necessary to you already?" asked Mrs. Custis. + +"He does appreciate my sacrifice," Vesta said, and her low sobs filled +the room. In a moment Virgie entered, alert to her playmate's pains, and +threw her arms around her mistress and kissed her like a child. + +"Oh, missy," she spoke to Mrs. Custis, "to make her cry after what she +has done for all of us--to save your home, to save me from being sold!" + +No scruples of race made Vesta reject this sympathy, precious to her +parched breast despite the quadroon taint as the golden sand in the +brooks of Africa, giving at once wealth and cooling. The slave girl's +long white arms, scarcely less pale than ivory--for she had slipped in +at the sign of sorrow, while making her simple toilet--drew Vesta into +her lap and laid her head upon the fair maiden shoulder, as if it was a +babe's. On such a shoulder, only a shadow darker, Vesta had often lain +in infancy, and sucked the milk that was sweet as Eve's--the common +fount of white and black--at the breast of Virgie's mother. That +faithful nurse was gone; the wild plum-tree grew upon her grave; but +Virgie inherited the motherly instinct and added the sisterly sympathy, +and her rich hair, half unbound, streamed down on Vesta's temples among +the dark ringlets there, while she looked into her own spirit for a word +to check those tears, and found it: + +"People will say you have been crying, dear missy. The Lord knows you +did right. Don't let anybody make you lose your faith till your master, +your husband, does wrong to you; he wouldn't like to have you cry." + +There was a nervous chord somewhere in the slave's throat that trembled +on the key of the heroic, and her nostrils, slightly rounded, her head, +free of carriage as the wild colt's, and a light from her soft eyes that +seemed to be reflected on their long, silken lashes, bore out a spirit +tamed by servitude, which still could kindle to everything that +concerned woman in her birthright. + +Vesta kissed Virgie, and ceased to sob; she rose and kissed her mother +also. + +"It was very wrong in me to say what I did not wish to say, about Uncle +Allan, mamma. I hope papa was kind to you to-day." + +"Dear me!" Mrs. Custis cried; "everything is turned upside down by that +bog iron ore. A new element has come into the family to disturb it. +Nobody believes anything respectable any more. Your father is an +infidel, or a radical, or something perverse; you are defending those +wild foresters! What will become of the Christian religion and society +and good principles?" + +"What did papa say before he left home?" + +"He acted in the strangest manner, Vesta. He came right in and kissed +me, like a great booby, and sat down and wanted to talk about our +courting days. I thought at first he was drunk again, or that the +Methodists had got hold of him and fed him on camp-meeting straw. How do +you account for it?" + +Virgie had slipped out as soon as the talk became confidential. + +"He wants to do better, dear mamma. Do respond to his contrition and +affection! If we could all humble our hearts, it would be so easy to +start life better, and turn this accident to joy and comfort. I have +found new engagements and reliefs already. There is a young girl, Mr. +Milburn's niece, whom I shall bring home this evening and occupy myself +teaching her. She is an orphan, without a mother's knowledge, barely +able to read, but pretty and quaint." + +"Bring a forester in here?" Mrs. Custis exclaimed, fairly shivering. +"What will Allan McLane's daughters say? Your sister from Talbot has +been here all this day, and you have scarcely given her an hour. Between +this fatal marriage and your neglect, she left, with her husband, +positively pale with horror. I do not know what is to follow this +marriage. I have posted a letter already to my brother Allan, telling +him of your betrayal by your father and this bridegroom. All our +connection will be up in arms." + +Vesta's heart sank again, but she felt no fears of her husband's ability +to meet mere family opposition, secured by law and form in his rights. +She only feared hostility might rouse in him severity and defiance which +would neutralize her present influence upon him, and change his +accommodating, almost gentle, disposition as a husband. + +For, blacker than any object in her future path, she saw a little, +trivial thing, like a wild boar closing her hitherto adventurous +excursion into the forest where her husband grew--the hat that had +covered his head! + +Her mother's thoughtless mention of that object made it formidable to +her fears as some iron mask locked round her husband's countenance, +making day hideous and the world a dungeon to all who must walk with +him. + +She discerned that his combative spirit would start to the defence of +his hat if it should become the subject of family rancor, because no man +forgives an insult to his personal appearance; and this article of wear +had ringed his brain with gangrene, and war made upon it would be met by +war, while Vesta had expected to induce forgetfulness of the rusty old +tile, to charm away the remembrance of it, and to have it laid forever +aside. + +"I am not the daughter of Uncle McLane," Vesta protested. "I am, +besides, a woman, free of my minority. Mr. Milburn is hardly the man to +submit to any trespass. I warn you, mamma, to put my uncle at no +disadvantage; for my husband has already beaten papa, and he will smile +at your brother when he knows that I do not support any of his +pretensions." + +"The first thing," answered Mrs. Custis, stubbornly, "is to see that he +pays this check. Oh, my dear money!"--she pressed it to her heart--"how +delightful it is to see you again. Science, love, glory, ideas: how +vulgar they are without money. With this check paid, I think I shall +never read a book again; and as for the bog ores, why, I shall scream if +there is an iron article in the house. Vesta, this house, I believe, is +yours now? I had forgotten. Well, no wonder you defend the man who took +your father's roof from over his head and gave it to you!" + +"That is unkind, mamma. I value it only as a sure home for you and papa. +If I gave it to him it might be in risk again." + +"But suppose you continue to defend this monster of a Milburn, he and +you may require the whole house. I am too well-bred to be converted to +any of his impious ideas. I am a Baltimorean, and stand by my colors." + +"Let us speak of that no more," Vesta said, almost in despair, "but talk +of dear papa. I know he loves you." + +"It is too late," Mrs. Custis remarked, solemnly, with another fondling +of her check; "he has neglected me too long. I expect his attention and +respect, and that he shall behave himself; but no lovey and no honey for +me now. Life has passed the noon and the early afternoon for him and me, +and I live to be respectable, to appreciate my security, to keep +upstarts at arm's-length, to enjoy my life in its appointed circle, +taking care of my income, and never--no, never!--giving any human being +the opportunity to make me a beggar again." + +"Oh, mamma," Vesta said, "think of Judge Custis! Have you not made home +cold to him by this formalism? We must study men, and please them +according to their tastes, and therein lies our joy; else we are false +to the companionship God gave us to man for. Yield to your husband's +boyish-heartedness; fly with him, like the mate by the bird! He has +repented; welcome him to your love again, and stay his feet from truant +going, or he may dash down the precipice this sorrow has arrested him +before, of everlasting dissipation and the death of his noble soul!" + +Vesta stood above her mother, deeply moved, deeply earnest. Her mother +stole another look at the bank check. + +"Well, daughter, I will be humbugged by him if you desire it," she said, +but with slight answering emotion. "If I had my life to go over again I +would marry a business man, and let the aristocracy go. There is the +second knock at the front-door. I believe I will dress myself and go +down-stairs too." + +There were two ladies in the parlor when Vesta went there--Grandmother +Tilghman and the Widow Dennis. + +"Good-evening, Vesta," said the old lady, who was stone-blind, but +easily knew Vesta's footstep. "William thought you would not go to +evening service on account of Mr. Milburn's illness, so I came around to +sit till church was over, when he will take me home. But what is that I +hear in this parlor, like somebody sniffling?" + +"It's me, Aunt Vesty," said the voice of Rhoda Holland from the +background. + +"This is Mr. Milburn's niece, who has come here to stay with me," Vesta +said. + +"Ah! then it is no Custis. The last sniffle I heard was at the ball to +Lafayette in the spring of 1781. The marquis had marched from Head of +Elk to the Bald Friars' ferry up the Susquehanna and inland among the +hills to Baltimore, and we gave him a ball which, at his request, was +turned into a clothing-party. He snuffed so much that he kept up a +sniffle all the evening, like--" + +Here Rhoda's sniffle was heard again. + +"Yes, that's a good imitation," said Grandmother Tilghman, "but I don't +like it." + +"Did the gineral dance at the ball?" asked Rhoda. "What did he do with +his swurd? Did he dance with it outen his scibburd?" + +"He danced like a gentleman," Mrs. Tilghman replied, as if she would +rather not, "and led me out in the first set. You danced with him, +Vesta, at the ball in '24, forty-three years afterwards. Does he sniffle +yet?" + +"I don't recollect, grand-aunt. I was a little girl, and so much +flattered that I thought everything he did was perfect." + +"Ah me!" exclaimed Mrs. Tilghman, pulling the feather of her turban up, +and looking as much like an old belle as possible at eighty years of +age; "you danced before Lafayette with my grandson Bill. Bill hardly +remembers Lafayette at all, thinking of you that night, so wonderful in +your girl's charms. I told him Vesta would never marry him, as he was +too plain and poor. But I never thought you would marry that--" + +Here Rhoda sniffled warningly. + +"Yes," exclaimed the old lady, catching the sniffle; "I never thought +you would marry _that_! But Bill is as dear a fool as ever. He says now +that Meshach Milburn is a good man, too. I never thought he was above +a--" + +Rhoda sniffled earnestly. + +"Precisely that," exclaimed the old lady; "that was my estimate of the +stock. Bill says he is a financial genius. I don't see what is to become +of girls in this generation. Here is Ellenora, too good to marry +Phoebus, the sailor man, too poor to marry anybody else; now, if +Milburn had married her and taken her son Levin into his business, it +would have been reasonable; but to take you and pervert your happiness, +almost makes me--" + +Sniffle from Rhoda. + +"Yes," said the old lady, snappishly; "almost! But I never did do it +yet." + +"Did you ever see Gineral Washin'ton, mem?" Rhoda asked. "I thought, +maybe, you was old enough. Misc Somers, she see him up yer to Kint River +a-crossin' to 'Napolis. He was a-swarin' at the cappen of the piriauger +and a dammin' of the Eas'n Shu, and he said they wan't no good rudes in +Marylan' nohow; that the Wes'n Shu was all red mud, an' the Eas'n Shu +yaller mud, an' the bay was jus' pizen. Misc Somers say she don't think +it was Gineral Washin'ton, caze he cuss so. She goin' to find out when +she kin git a book an' somebody to read outen it to her, caze she +dreffle smart." + +"Grand-aunt Tilghman," Vesta interposed to the blank silence of the +room, "knew General Washington intimately." + +"Do tell us!" cried Rhoda. "You kin be a right interestin' ole woman, I +reckon, ef you air so quar." + +In the midst of a smile, in which the blind old lady herself joined, and +Mrs. Custis at the same time entered the room, Mrs. Tilghman spoke as +follows: + +"I went to visit Cousin Martha Washington several years before the +Revolution, at Mount Vernon. I had seen her while she was the widow of +Cousin Custis, and we occasionally corresponded. In those days we +visited by vessel, so a schooner of Robert Morris's father set me ashore +at Mount Vernon. Colonel Washington was then having his first portrait +painted by Wilson Peale, and he was forty years old. Peale and +Washington used to pitch the bar, play quoits, and fox-hunt, while +Cousin Martha, who was only three months younger than the colonel, +knitted and cut out sewing for her colored girls, and heard her +daughter, Martha Custis, play the harpsichord. Poor Martha had the +consumption; she was dark as an Indian; Washington often carried her +along the piazza and into the beautiful woodlands near the house; but +she died, leaving him all her money--nearly twenty thousand dollars. We +Custises rather looked down on Colonel Washington in those days; he was +not of the old gentry; his poor mother could barely read and write, and +once, when we went to Fredericksburg to see her, she was riding out in +the field among her few negroes as her own overseer, wearing an old +sun-bonnet, and sunburned like a forester." + +"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Custis. "I should think she was a great +impediment to Washington." + +"I reckon that's the way her son got big," exclaimed Rhoda; "if his mar +had laid down in bed all day, he couldn't have killed King George so +easy with his swurd." + +"I often said to Cousin Martha, 'What did you see in this big horse of a +man?' 'Oh,' she replied, 'he's the best overseer in Virginia. He looks +after my property as no other man could.'" + +"Then," said Mrs. Custis, emphatically, "he was one man out of a +thousand." + +"That's the kind of man you married, Vesta," spoke up Mrs. Dennis. + +"_Her_ husband," said Mrs. Custis, "looked after her father's property, +I am sure, for he got it all." + +"And returned it all," exclaimed Vesta. + +Mrs. Custis remarked that Washington certainly was a blue-blooded man. + +"Is thar people with blue blood comin' outen of 'em?" asked Rhoda +Holland. "Lord sakes! I should think it would make 'em cold." + +"I wonder if men are ever great?" asked Vesta; "or whether it is not +great occasion and trial that project them. A crisis comes in our lives, +and, finding what we can endure, we incur greater risks, and finally +delight in such adventure." + +"That is the way with my poor boy, Levin," said Mrs. Dennis, quietly, to +Vesta. She was a pretty woman, somewhat past thirty, with rosy cheeks, +blue eyes, neat but rather poor attire, and a simple, artless manner, +and might have passed for the sister of her son. + +"Is Levin coming for you to-night?" Vesta asked. + +"No," blushed the widow; "James Phoebus will see me home. Levin has +gone off in his boat, and I have been worried about him all day. Some +time, I am afraid, he will go and never return. Oh, Cousin Vesta, this +waiting for a husband neither alive nor dead is very trying." + +Overhearing the remark, Mrs. Custis remarked, "Norah, you ought to be +ashamed to keep that faithful fellow waiting on you, when you could give +yourself a good husband and reward him so easily." + +"I think you had better look out for old age," Mrs. Tilghman also said, +"while you have youth and good looks to obtain the provision. Oden +Dennis is probably dead; if not dead, he does not mean to return, for I +can think of no circumstances in this age which would forcibly detain a +man from his wife fifteen years. Even if he was in a prison, he would be +allowed to write to you. He may not be dead, Norah, but he is not coming +back. Get a father for your son; you cannot manage Levin." + +"Maybe he has been stoled by Injins," exclaimed Rhoda, with great +fervor; "thar was a Injin captive in a shew at Nu-ark, that had been +kept nineteen years. He forgot his language, and whooped dreffle. Misc +Somers say he was an imploster, an' worked on the Brekwater up to +Lewistown. She's always lookin' behind the shew to find out somethin'." +(Slight sniffle.) + +"Do get that girl a pocket-handkerchief, and show her how to use it," +exclaimed Mrs. Tilghman, breaking out. "Ah! girls, I have been a widow +thirty years. I never gave up the expectation of marrying again till I +lost my eyesight; and even after that, at sixty-five, I had an offer of +marriage; but I said to my gallant old beau, 'I will not take a man I +cannot compliment by seeing him and admiring him every day. I love you, +but my blindness would give you too much pain.' In our quiet towns, all +the life worth living is domestic joy. Do not lose it, Ellenora; do not +put it off too long!" + +"I could love Mr. Phoebus, plain as he is," the widow spoke, "if I +could persuade myself that Oden is dead. But that I cannot do. A real +person--spirit or man--is watching over me closely. My very shoes I wear +to-night came from that mysterious agent. It is not my son; it is not +James Phoebus. No other stranger would so secretly assist me. I am +bound up in the fear and wonder that it is my husband." + +"That does beat conjecture," said old Mrs. Tilghman. "Have you no friend +you might suspect?" + +"None," the widow answered. "None who have not worn out their means of +giving long ago. Can I marry, with this ghostly visitation coming so +regularly? Should I not have faith in a husband's living if I receive a +wife's care from an unseen hand?" + +"Oden Dennis," Mrs. Custis remarked, "was hardly a man to do charity and +not be seen. He was rather self-indulgent, demonstrative, and restless. +I cannot think of his nocturnal visits in the body. Besides, he would +not supply you in that way, Norah, if he meant to come back; and if he +cannot himself come to you, neither could he send." + +Not altogether relishing Mrs. Tilghman's reproof, Rhoda was again heard +from, saying: + +"Lord sakes! all the women has to talk about when they is gone is the +men. When the men comes, they talks as if they never missed of 'em. Misc +Somers, she never had no man, an' she talks mos' about the women that +has got one. I think Aunt Vesty has got the best man in Prencess Anne. +He's the richest. He's the freest. He never courted no other gal. He +ain't got no quar old women runnin' of him down--caze Misc Somers is +dreffle afraid of him!" This last remark seemed apologetic and an +afterthought. + +"I am beginning to think my fortune is better than I deserve," Vesta +replied, to soften the application, as wine, tea, and cake were brought +in. "Now, dear friends, as I am Mr. Milburn's wife, let us all be +Christians this Sunday night, and drink his health and happy recovery, +and that he may never repent his marriage." + +They drank with some hesitation, except the bride, Rhoda, and Mrs. +Dennis. Mrs. Tilghman needed the wine too much to wait long, and Mrs. +Custis, finding she was observed, took a sip from her glass also, +excusing herself on the ground of a recent headache from drinking +heartily. + +As the conversation proceeded, now by general participation, again by +couples apart, and Vesta found herself more and more a subject of +sympathy, with no little curiosity interwoven in it, she also imagined +that an undertone of belief was abroad that she had made a mercenary +marriage. + +Old Mrs. Tilghman--in her prime a most caustic belle, and worldly as +three marriages, all shrewdly contracted, could make her--seemed +determined to hold that Vesta had rejected her grandson for the +money-lender on the consideration of wealth. Vesta's own mother, too, +who should have known her well, had twice hinted the same. Even the +inoffensive Ellenora had accepted that idea, or another kin to it, and +Rhoda Holland had remembered that her uncle was the richest of +bridegrooms in Princess Anne. Vesta felt the injustice, but said to +herself: + +"I must make the sacrifice complete, and incur any harsh judgment it may +bear. I see that I shall be driven for sympathy to the last place in the +world I anticipated: to my husband's heart. Yes, there is something +besides love in marriage: if I cannot love him, he can understand me." + +Vesta had come to a place all come to who volunteer an act of great +sacrifice--to have it put upon a low motive from the lower plane of +sacrifice in many otherwise kind people. We give our money to an +institution of charity, and it is said that it was for notoriety, or +self-seeking, or at the expense of our kin. We lead a forlorn hope in +politics, or some other arena, to establish a cause or assist a +principle, with the certain result of defeat, and we are said to be +jealous or malignant. Perhaps we make a book to illustrate some old +region off the highways of observation, drawn to it by kindred strings +or early patterings, and the politician there regards it as an attack, +the old family fossil as an intrusion, the very youth as if it were a +queer and gratuitous thing from such an outer source. So we wince a +little, but feel that it was necessary to be misunderstood to complete +the sacrifice. + +The feeling of despondency increased after the little company separated, +and Vesta went to her room and laid herself upon her still maiden bed. +She had said her prayer and asked the approval of God, but her nervous +system, under the tension of almost two days' excitement and events such +as she had never known, was alert and could not fall to slumber. Old +passages of Testament lore haunted her soul, such as: "Thy desire shall +be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;" "A man shall leave his +father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife." She began to see +that marriage was not merely the solution of a family trouble, and the +giving of her body as a hostage for a pecuniary debt, but that it was a +rendition of all her liberty, even the liberty of sympathy and of +sorrow, to the man to whom she must cleave. + +In marrying him she had left friendship, father and mother, everything, +at a greater distance than she ever dreamed; and they resented the +desertion to the degree that they now confounded her with her new +interest, let go their claim upon her, and could scarce conceive of her +except in the dual relation of a woman subject to her husband, and +selfish as himself. + +"I wonder if he will grow weary of me, too," she thought, with anguish, +"after his possession is established and I shall have no other source of +confidence? What did I know of this world only yesterday? Then every way +seemed clear and open for me, my friends abundant, and love profuse; +to-day I am in awful doubts, and yet I must not lose my will and drift +with every passing fear and confusion into the fickleness which makes +woman contemptible after she has given her hand. I will never give up +two persons--my father, and my husband!" + +As she turned down the lamp, it being nearly midnight, a short, fierce +cry, quickly stifled, as if some wild animal had howled once in +nightmare and fallen asleep in his kennel again, seized on her ears and +chilled her blood. + +Vesta started up in bed and listened. It seemed to her that there were +footsteps, but they passed away, and she listened in vain for any other +sounds, till sleep fell deep and dreamless upon her, like black Lethe +winding through a desert wedding-day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +LONG SEPARATIONS. + + +Vesta was awakened by Roxy, Virgie, and her mother all standing around +her bed at once, exclaiming something unintelligible together. It was +late morning, the whole family having slept long, after the several +experiences of two such days, and the sun was shining through the great +trees before Teackle Hall and burnishing the windows, so that Vesta +could hardly see. + +"The kitchen servants have run away," Mrs. Custis shrieked, on Vesta's +request that her mother only should talk. "Old Hominy is gone, and has +taken all her herbs and witcheries with her; and all the young children +bred in the kitchen, Ned and Vince, the boys, and little Phillis, the +baby, they, too, are gone." + +"I heard a strange cry or howl last night, as I dropped to sleep," Vesta +exclaimed, rubbing her eyes. + +"Dear missy," cried Virgie, falling upon the pillow, "it was your poor +dog Turk; his throat has been cut upon the lawn." + +"Yes, missy," Roxy blubbered, "poor Turk lies in his blood. There is +nobody to get breakfast but Virgie and me. Indeed, we did not know about +it." + +"That is not very likely," said the suspicious Mrs. Custis. + +"I know you did not, girls," Vesta said, "you have too much intelligence +and principle, I am sure; nor could Hominy have been so inhuman to my +poor dog." + +Vesta at once rose up and threw on her morning-gown. + +"The first thing to be done is to have breakfast. Roxy, do you go at +once to Mr. Milburn's and bring his man Samson here, and awake Miss +Holland to take Samson's place by her uncle. Tell Samson to make the +fire, and you and he get the breakfast. No person is to speak of this +incident of the kitchen servants leaving us on any pretence." + +"Won't you give the alarm the first thing?" cried Mrs. Custis, not very +well pleased to see Vesta keep her temper. "They may be overtaken before +they get far away, daughter. Those four negroes are worth twelve hundred +dollars!" + +"They are not worth one dollar, mamma, if they have run away from us; +because I should never either sell them or keep them again if they had +behaved so treacherously." + +"I say, sell them and get the money," Mrs. Custis cried; "are they not +ours?" + +"No, mamma, they are mine. Mr. Milburn and papa are to be consulted +before any steps are taken. Papa deeded them to me only last Saturday; +why should they have deserted at the moment I had redeemed them? Virgie, +can you guess?" + +Virgie hesitated, only a moment. + +"Miss Vesty, I think I can see what made Hominy go. She was afraid of +Meshach Milburn and his queer hat. She believed the devil give it to +him. She thought he had bought her by marrying you, and was going to +christen her to the Bad Man, or do something dreadful with her and the +little children." + +"That's it, Miss Vessy," plump little Roxy added. "Hominy loved the +little children dearly; she thought they was to become Meshach's, and +she must save them." + +"Poor, superstitious creature!" Vesta exclaimed. + +"More misery brought about by that fool's hat!" cried Mrs. Custis. "If I +ever lay hands on it, it shall end in the fire." + +"No wonder," Vesta said, "that this poor, ignorant woman should do +herself such an injury on account of an article of dress that disturbs +liberal and enlightened minds! Now I recollect that Hominy said +something about having 'got Quaker.' What did it mean?" + +The two slave girls looked at each other significantly, and Virgie +answered, + +"Don't the Quakers help slaves to get off to a free state? Maybe she +meant that." + +"Do you suppose the abolitionists would tamper with a poor old woman +like that, whose liberty would neither be a credit to them nor a comfort +to her? I cannot think so meanly of them," Vesta reflected. "Besides, +could she have killed my dog?" + +"A gross, ignorant, fetich-worshipping negro would kill a dog, or a +child, or anything, when she is possessed with a devil," Mrs. Custis +insisted. + +"I don't believe she killed Turk," Roxy remarked, as she left the room. +"There was a white man in the kitchen last Saturday night: I think he +slept there; master gave him leave." + +"Yes, missy," Virgie continued, after Roxy had gone to obey her orders; +"he was a dreadful man, and looked at me so coarse and familiar that I +have dreamed of him since. It was the man Mr. Milburn knocked down for +mashing his hat; he was afraid Mr. Milburn would throw him into jail, so +he asked master to hide in the kitchen. But Hominy was almost crazy with +fear of Mr. Milburn before that." + +Vesta held up her beautiful arms with a look of despair. + +"What has not that poor old hat brought upon every body?" she cried. +"Oh, who dares contest the sunshine with the tailor and hatter? They are +the despots that never will abdicate or die." + +"The idea of your father letting a tramp like that sleep in the kitchen +among the slaves!" cried Mrs. Custis. "What obligation had he incurred +there, too, I should like to know? Teackle Hall is become a cave of owls +and foxes; it is time for me to leave it. Here is my husband gone, +riding fifty miles for his worst enemy, leaving us without a cook and +without a man's assistance to discover where ours is gone. I know what I +shall do: I will start this day for Cambridge, to meet my brother, and +visit the Goldsboroughs there till some order is brought out of this +attempt to plant wheat and tares together." + +Vesta stopped a moment and kissed her mother: "That is just the thing, +dear mother," she said. "Let me straighten out the difficulties here; +go, and come back when all is done, and you can be yourself again." + +"I shall do it, Vesta. Brother Allan gets to Cambridge to-morrow +afternoon; I will go as far as Salisbury this day, and either meet him +on the road to-morrow or find him at Cambridge. Oh, what a house is +Teackle Hall--full of male and female foresters, abolitionists, +runaways, and radicals! All made crazy by the bog ores and the fool's +hat!" + +Descending to the yard, Vesta found Turk lying in his blood, his mastiff +jaws and shaggy sides clotted red, and, as it seemed, the howl in which +he died still lingering in the air. The Virginia spirit rose in Vesta's +eyes: + +"Whoever killed this dog only wanted the courage to kill men!" she +exclaimed. "James Phoebus, look here!" + +The pungy captain had been abroad for hours, and the masts of his +vessel were just visible across the marshy neck in the rear of Teackle +Hall. He touched his hat and came in. + +"Early mornin', Miss Vesty! Hallo! Turk dead? By smoke, yer's +pangymonum!" + +"He's stabbed, Jimmy!" Samson Hat remarked, coming out of the kitchen; +"see whar de dagger struck him right over de heart! Dat made him howl +and fall dead. His froat was not cut dat sudden; it's gashed as if wid +somethin' blunt." + +"Right you are, nigger! The throat-cuttin' was a make believe; the stab +will tell the tale. But who's this yer, lurkin' aroun' the kitchen do'; +if it ain't Jack Wonnell, I hope I may die! Sic!" + +With this, active as the dog had been but yesterday, Jimmy rushed on +Jack Wonnell, chased him to the fence, and brought him back by the neck. +Wonnell wore a bell-crown, and his hand was full of fall blossoms. As +Wonnell observed the dead dog, pretty little Roxy came out of the +kitchen, and stood blushing, yet frightened, to see him. + +"What yo' doin' with them rosy-posies?" Jimmy demanded. "Who're they +fur? What air you sneakin' aroun' Teackle Hall fur so bright of a +mornin', lazy as I know you is, Jack Wonnell?" + +"They are flowers he brings every morning for me," Roxy spoke up, coming +forward with a pretty simper. + +"For you?" exclaimed Vesta. "You are not receiving the attentions of +white men, Roxy?" + +"He offered, himself, to get flowers for me, so I might give you as +pretty ones as Virgie, missy. I let him bring them. He's a poor, kind +man." + +"I jess got 'em, Jimmy," interjected Jack Wonnell, with his peculiar +wink and leer, "caze Roxy's the belle of Prencess Anne, and I'm the +bell-crown. She's my little queen, and I ain't ashamed of her." + +"Courtin' niggers, air you!" Jimmy exclaimed, collaring Jack again. "Now +whar did you go all day Sunday with Levin Dennis and the nigger buyer? +What hokey-pokey wair you up to?" + +"Mr. Wonnell," Roxy had the presence of mind to say, "take care you tell +the truth, for my sake! Aunt Hominy is gone, with all the kitchen +children, and Mr. Phoebus suspects you!" + +"Great lightnin' bugs!" Jimmy Phoebus cried. "The niggers stole, an' +the dog dead, too?" + +"I 'spect Jedge Custis sold 'em, Jimmy," Jack Wonnell pleaded, twisting +out of the bay captain's hands. "He's gwyn to be sold out by Meshach +Milburn. Maybe he jess sold 'em and skipped." + +"Where is Judge Custis, Miss Vesty?" Phoebus asked. + +"He has gone to Delaware, to be absent several days." + +"Is what this bell-crowned fool says, true, Miss Vesty?" + +"No. There was some fear among the kitchen servants of being sold; there +was no such necessity when they ran away, as it had been settled." + +"It is unfortunate that your father is gone. He has been seen with a +negro trader. That trader and he disappear the same evening. The trader +lives about Delaware, too, Miss Vesty." + +Vesta's countenance fell, as she thought of the suspicion that might +attach to her father. The great old trees around Teackle Hall seemed +moaning together in the air, as if to say, "Ancestors, this is strange +to hear!" + +"Who told you, Jack Wonnell," spoke the bay sailor, "that Judge Custis +was to be sold out?" + +"I won't tell you, Jimmy." + +"I told him," Roxy cried, after an instant's hesitation, while Jimmy +Phoebus was grinding the stiff bell-crown hat down on Wonnell's +suffocating muzzle. "I did think we was all going to be sold, and had +nobody to pity me but that poor white man, and I told him as a friend." + +"And I never told anybody in the world but Levin Dennis yisterday," Jack +cried out, when he was able to get his breath. + +"Whar did you go, Jack, wid the long man and Levin all day yisterday?" +Samson asked. + +"Yes, whar was you?" Jimmy Phoebus shouted, with one of his Greek +paroxysms of temper on, as his dark skin and black-cherry eyes flamed +volcanic. "Whar did you leave Ellenora's boy and that infernal +soul-buyer? Speak, or I'll throttle you like this dog!" + +"You let him alone, sir!" little Roxy cried, hotly, "he won't deceive +anybody; he's going to tell all he knows." + +"Let go, Jimmy," Samson said; "don't you see Miss Vesty heah?" + +"Don't scare the man, Mr. Phoebus," Vesta added; "but I command him to +tell all that he knows, or papa shall commit him to jail." + +Jack Wonnell, taking his place some steps away from Phoebus, and +wiping his eyes on his sleeve, whimpering a few minutes, to Roxy's great +agitation, finally told his tale. + +"I'm sorry, Jimmy, you accused me before this beautiful lady an' my +purty leetle Roxy--bless her soul!--of stealing Jedge Custis's niggers. +Thair's on'y one I ever looked sheep's eyes at, an' she's a-standin' +here, listenin' to every true word I says. I'm pore trash, an' I reckon +the jail's as good as the pore-house for me, ef they want to send me +thair, fur it's in town, and Roxy kin come an' look through the bars at +me every day." + +Roxy was so much affected that she threw her apron up to her face, and +Vesta and Phoebus had to smile, while Samson Hat, looking indulgently +on, exclaimed, + +"Dar's love all froo de woods. Doves an' crows can't help it. It's +deeper down dan fedders an' claws." + +"That nigger trader," continued Jack Wonnell, bell-crown in hand, "hired +me an' Levin to take him a tarrapinin'. He had a bag of gold that +big"--measuring with his hand in the crown of the hat--"an' he give +Levin some of it, an' I took it to Levin's mother las' night, an' told +her Levin wouldn't be back fur a week, maybe. I thought Mr. Johnson was +gwyn to give me some gold too, so I could buy Roxy, but yer's all he +give me. Everybody disappints me, Jimmy!" + +Jack Wonnell showed an old silver fi'penny bit, and his countenance was +so lugubrious that the sailor exclaimed, + +"Jack, he paid you too well for all the sense you got. Now, whar has +Levin gone with the _Ellenora Dennis?_" + +"I don't know, Jimmy. He made Levin sail her up to the landin' down yer +below town, whair Levin's father, Cap'n Dennis, launched the _Idy_ +fifteen year ago. I left Levin thar, and he said, 'Jack, I'm goin' off +with the nigger trader to git some of his money fur mother!'" + +"Poor miserable boy!" Phoebus exclaimed; "he's led off easy as his +pore daddy. The man he's gone with, Miss Vesty, is black as hell. Joe +Johnson is known to every thief on the bay, every gypsy on the shore. He +steals free niggers when he can't buy slave ones, outen Delaware state. +He sometimes runs away Maryland slaves to oblige their hypocritical +masters that can't sell 'em publicly, an' Johnson and the bereaved owner +divides the price. Go in the house, yaller gal!" Jimmy Phoebus turned +to Roxy, who obeyed instantly. "Jack Wonnell, you go too; I'm done with +you!" (Jack slipped around the house and made his peace with Roxy before +he started.) "You needn't to go, Samson; I know you're true as steel!" + +"I must go an' git de breakfast, Jimmy," the negro said, going in. + +"Now, Miss Vesty"--Phoebus turned to the mistress of Teackle +Hall--"Joe Johnson has got old Hominy and the little niggers, by smoke! +That part of this hokey pokey is purty sure! Did he steal them an' +decoy them, or wair they sold to him by Judge Custis or by Meshach +Milburn?" + +"By neither, I will risk my life. Mr. Milburn was taken to his bed +Saturday evening, and on Sunday father went to Delaware on legal +business for my husband." + +"That is Meshach Milburn, I hear," the bay sailor remarked, with a +penetrating look. "Shall I go and see him on this nigger business?" + +"No," Vesta replied; "he is too sick, and it is a delicate subject to +name to him. My girls, Virgie and Roxy, think old Hominy ran away from a +superstitious fear she had of Mr. Milburn, who had become the master of +Teackle Hall by marriage." + +"Yes, by smoke! every nigger in town, big and little, is afraid of +Milburn's hat." + +"He has no ownership in those servants, nor has my father now. I will +tell you, James--relying on your prudence--that Hominy belonged to me, +and so did those three children, having passed from my father to my +husband and thence to me and back to my father, and from him to me again +in the very hour of my marriage. I fear they have been persuaded away, +to be abused and sold out of Maryland." + +Jimmy Phoebus looked up at the sighing trees and over the wide facade +of Teackle Hall, and exclaimed "by smoke!" several times before he made +his conclusions. + +"Miss Vesty," he said, finally, "send for your father to come home +immediately. People will not understand how Joe Johnson, outlaw as he +is, dared to rob a Maryland judge of his house servants, Johnson himself +bein' a Marylander, unless they had some understanding. Your sudden +marriage, an' your pappy's embarrassments, will be put together, by +smoke! an' thar is some blunt enough to say that when Jedge Custis is +hard up, he'll git money anyhow!" + +The charge, made with an honest man's want of skill, battered down all +explanations. + +"I confess it," said Vesta. "Papa's going away on a Sunday, and these +people disappearing on Sunday night, might excite idle comment. It might +be said that he endeavored to sell some of his property before his +creditor could seize it." + +"I have seen you about yer since you was a baby, Vesty, an' Ellenora +says you're better game an' heart than these 'ristocrats, fur who I +never keered! That's why I take the liberty of calling you Vesty. Now, +let me tell you about your niggers. If they was a-gwyn to freedom in a +white man's keer, I wouldn't stop 'em to be cap'n of a man-of-war. But +Joe Johnson, supposin' that he's got of 'em, is a demon. Do you see the +stab on that dog? well, it's done with one of the bagnet pistols them +kidnappers carries--hoss pistols, with a spring dagger on the muzzle; +and, when they come to close quarters, they stab with 'em. Johnson +killed your dog; I know his marks. He sails this whole bay, and maybe +he's run them niggers to Washin'ton, or to Norfolk, an' sold 'em south. +It ain' no use to foller him to either of them places, if he has, with +the wind an' start he's got, and your pappy's influence lost to us by +his absence. But thar is one chance to overhaul the thief." + +"What is that, James?" said Vesta, earnestly. "I do want to save those +poor people from the abuse of a man who could kill my poor, fond dog." + +"Joe Johnson keeps a hell-trap--a reg'lar Pangymonum, up near the head +of Nanticoke River. It's the headquarters of his band, and a black band +they air. He has had good wind"--the pungy captain looked up and noted +the breeze--"to get him out of Manokin last night, and into the Sound; +but he must beat up the Nanticoke all day, and we kin head him off by +land, if that's his destination, before he gits to Vienna, an' make him +show his cargo. Then, with a messenger to follow Jedge Custis an' turn +him back, we can swear these niggers on Johnson--and, you see, we can't +make no such oath till we git the evidence--an' then, by smoke! we'll +bring ole Hominy an' the pore chillen back to Teackle Hall." + +"Here is one you love to serve, James," said Vesta, as the Widow Dennis +came in the gate. + +"I came to meet you at the landing, James," said the blue-eyed, +sweet-voiced widow, with the timid step and ready blush. "Levin is gone +for a week with a negro trader; he sends me so much money, I fear he is +under an unusual temptation, and Wonnell says the trader is giving him +liquor. What shall I do?" + +"Make me his father, Ellenory, and that'll give me an interest over him, +and you will command me. You want a first mate in your crew. Levin kin +make a fool of me if I go chase him now, and I can't measure money with +a nigger trader, by smoke!" + +"Oh! James," the widow spoke, "you know my heart would be yours if I +could control it. When my way is clear you will have but to ask. Do go +and find Levin!" + +"Norah, we suspect the same trader of having taken off Hominy, our cook, +and the kitchen children, in Levin's boat." + +The widow listened to Vesta, and burst into tears. "He will be accessory +to the crime," she sobbed. "Oh, this is what I have ever feared. James +Phoebus, you have always had the best influence over Levin. If you +love me, arrest him before the law takes cognizance of this wild deed. +Where has he gone?" + +Virgie appeared upon the lawn to say that Mrs. Custis wanted to know who +should drive her as far as Salisbury, where she could get a slave of her +son-in-law to continue on with her to Cambridge. + +"I have been thinking all the morning where I can find a reliable man to +go and bring back papa," Vesta answered; "there are a few slaves at the +Furnace, but time is precious." + +"Here is Samson," Virgie said, "and he has got a mule he rides all over +the county. Let him go." + +"Go whar, my love?" asked Samson. + +"To Dover, in Delaware," Vesta answered. "You can ride to Laurel by +dark, Samson, and get to Dover to-morrow afternoon." + +"And I can ride with him as far as Salisbury," Jimmy Phoebus said, +"and get out to the Nanticoke some way; fur I see Ellenora will cry till +I go." + +"You can do better than that, James," Vesta said, rapidly thinking. +"Samson can take you to Spring Hill Church or Barren Creek Springs, by a +little deviation, and at the Springs you will be only three miles from +the Nanticoke. Even mamma might go on with the carriage to-night as far +as the Springs, or to Vienna." + +"If two of them are going," Virgie exclaimed, "one can drive Missy +Custis and the other ride the mule." + +Samson shook his head. + +"Dey say a free nigger man gits cotched up in dat ar Delawaw state. +Merrylin's good enough fur me. I likes de Merrylin light gals de best," +looking at Virgie. + +"Go now, Samson, to oblige Miss Vesty," Virgie said, "and I'll try to +love you a little, black and bad as you are." + +"I'se afraid of Delawaw state," Samson repeated, laughing slowly. "Joe +Johnson, dat I put dat head on, will git me whar he lives if I go dar, +mebbe." + +"No," Phoebus put in, "I'll be a lookin' after him on the banks of the +Nanticoke, Samson, while you keep right in the high-road from Laurel to +Georgetown, and on to Dover. Joe Johnson's been whipped at the post, and +banished from Delaware for life, and dussn't go thar no more." + +"If you go, Samson," little Roxy put in, having reappeared, "Virgie'll +feel complimented. Anything that obliges Miss Vesty counts with Virgie." + +"If you are a free man," Virgie herself exclaimed, her slight, nervous, +willowy figure expanding, "are you afraid to go into a freer state than +Maryland? If I was free I would want to go to the freest state of all. +Behave like a free man, Samson Hat, or what is freedom worth to you?" + +"It's wuth so much, pretty gal, dat I don't want to be a-losin' of it, +mind, I tell you, 'sept to my wife when she'll hab me." + +Samson watched the quadroon's delicate, high-bred features, her skin +almost paler than her young mistress's, her figure like the clove's +after a hard winter--the more active that a little meagre--her head +small, and its tresses soft as the crow blackbird's plumage, and the +loyalty that lay in her large eyes, like strong passion, for her +mistress, was turned to pride, and nearly scorn, when they listened to +him. + +"A slave, Miss Vesty says"--Virgie spoke with almost fierceness--"is not +one that's owned, half as much as one that sells himself--to hard drink, +or to selfishness, or to fear. You're not a free man, Samson, if you're +afraid, and are like these low slave negroes who dare nothing if they +can only get a little low pleasure. All that can make a black man white, +in my eyes, is a white man's enterprise." + +Vesta felt, as she often had done, the capable soul of her servant, and +did not resent her spirit as unbecoming a slave, but rather felt +responsive chords in her own nature, as if, indeed, Virgie was the more +imperious of the two. Coming now into full womanhood, her race elements +finding their composition, her character unrestrained by any one in +Teackle Hall, Virgie was her young mistress's shield-bearer, like David +to the princely Jonathan. + +"Why, Virgie," Samson answered, with humility, "I never meant not to go, +lady gal, after marster's wife asked me, I only wanted you to beg me +hard, an' mebbe I'd git a kiss befo' I started." + +"Wait till you come back, and see if you do your errand well," Virgie +spoke again. "I shall not kiss you now." + +"I will," cried little Roxy, to the amusement of them all, giving Samson +a hearty smack from her little pouting mouth; "and now you've got it, +think it's Virgie's kiss, and get your breakfast and start!" + +As they went to their abodes to make ready, Jimmy Phoebus found Jack +Wonnell playing marbles with the boys at the court-house corner. + +"Jack," he said, "I'm a-going to find Levin an' that nigger trader. I +may git in a peck of trouble up yonder on the Nanticoke. Tell all the +pungy men whair I'm a-goin', an' what fur." + +"Can't I do somethin' fur you, Jimmy? Can't I give you one o' my +bell-crowns; thair's a-plenty of 'em left." + +"Take my advice, Jack, an' tie a stone to all them hats and sink' em in +the Manokin. Ole Meshach's hat has made more hokey-pokey than the Bank +of Somerset. Pore an' foolish as you air, maybe your ole bell-crowns +will ruin you." + +The road to Salisbury--laid out in 1667, when "Cecil, Lord of Maryland +and Avalon," erected a county "in honor of our dear sister, the Lady +Mary Somerset"--followed the beaver-dams across the little river-heads, +and pierced the flat pine-woods and open farms, and passed through two +little hamlets, before our travellers saw the broad mill-ponds and +poplar and mulberry lined streets of the most active town--albeit +without a court-house--in the lower peninsula. Jimmy Phoebus, driving +the two horses and the family carriage, and Samson, following on his +mule, descended into the hollow of Salisbury at the dinner-hour, and +stopped at the hotel. The snore of grist-mills, the rasp of mill-saws, +the flow of pine-colored breast-water into the gorge of the village, the +forest cypress-trees impudently intruding into the obliquely-radiating +streets, and humidity of ivy and creeper over many of the old, +gable-chimneyed houses, the long lumber-yards reflected in the swampy +harbor among the canoes, pungies, and sharpies moored there, the small +houses sidewise to the sandy streets, the larger ones rising up the +sandy hills, the old box-bush in the silvery gardens, the bridges close +together, and the smell of tar and sawdust pleasantly inhaled upon the +lungs, made a combination like a caravan around some pool in the Desert +of the Nile. + +"If there is any chance to catch my negroes," Mrs. Custis said, "I will +go right on after dinner. Samson, send Dave, my daughter's boy, to me +immediately; he is working in this hotel." + +Samson found Dave to be none other than the black class-leader he had +failed to overcome at the beginning of our narrative, but changes were +visible in that individual Samson had not expected. From having a clean, +godly, modest countenance, becoming his professions, Dave now wore a +sour, evil look; his eyes were blood-shotten, and his straight, manly +shoulders and chest, which had once exacted Samson's admiration and +envy, were stooped to conform with a cough he ever and anon made from +deep in his frame. + +"Dave," said Samson, "your missis's modder wants you, boy, to drive her +to Vienny. What ails you, Dave, sence I larned you to box?" + +"Is you de man?" Dave exclaimed, hoarsely; "den may de Lord forgive you, +fur _I_ never kin. Dat lickin' I mos' give you, made me a po', wicked, +backslidin' fool." + +"Why, Dave, I jess saw you was a _good_ man; I didn't mean you no harm, +boy." + +"You ruined me, free nigger," repeated the huge slave, with a scowl, +partly of revenge and partly remorse. "You set up my conceit dat I could +box. I had never struck a chile till dat day; after dat I went aroun' +pickin' quarrels wid bigger niggers, an' low white men backed me to +fight. I was turned out o' my church; I turned my back on de Lord; +whiskey tuk hold o' me, Samson. De debbil has entered into Class-leader +Dave." + +"Oh, brudder, wake up an' do better. Yer, I give you a dollar, an' want +to be your friend, Davy, boy." + +"I'll git drink wid it," Dave muttered, going; and, as he passed out of +the stable-door he looked back at Samson fiercely, and exclaimed, "May +Satan burn your body as he will burn my soul. I hate you, man, long as +you live!" + +Jimmy Phoebus remarked, a few moments afterwards, that Dave, dividing +a pint of spirits with a lean little mulatto boy, put a piece of money +in the boy's hands, who then rode rapidly out of the tavern-yard upon a +fleet Chincoteague pony. + +At two o'clock they again set forward, the man Dave driving the carriage +and Jimmy Phoebus sitting beside him, while Samson easily kept +alongside upon his old roan mule, the road becoming more sandy as they +ascended the plateau between the Wicomico and Nanticoke, and the +carriage drawing hard. + +"If it is too late to keep on beyond Vienna to-night," said Mrs. Custis, +"I will stop there with my friends, the Turpins, and start again, after +coffee, in the morning, and reach Cambridge for breakfast." + +"I will turn off at Spring Hill," Samson spoke, "and I kin feed my mule +at sundown in Laurel an' go to sleep." + +In an hour they came in sight of old Spring Hill church, a venerable +relic of the colonial Established Church, at the sources of a creek +called Rewastico; and before they crossed the creek the driver, Dave, +called "Ho, ho!" in such an unnecessarily loud voice that Mrs. Custis +reproved him sharply. Dave jumped down from the seat and appeared to be +examining some part of the breeching, though Samson assured him that it +was all right. As Dave finished his examination, he raised both hands +above his head twice, and stretched to the height of his figure as he +stood on the brow of a little hill. + +"Missy Custis," he apologized, as he turned back, "I is tired mighty bad +dis a'ternoon. Dat stable keeps me up half de night." + +"Liquor tires you more, David," Mrs. Custis spoke, sharply; "and that +tavern is no place to hire you to with your appetite for drink, as I +shall tell your master." + +At this moment Jimmy Phoebus observed the lean little mulatto boy who +had left the hotel come up out of the swampy place in the road and +exchange a look of intelligence with Dave as he rode past on the pony. + +"Boy," cried Samson, "is dat de road to Laurel?" + +The boy made no answer, but, looking back once, timidly, ground his +heels into the pony's flank and darted into the brush towards Salisbury. + +"Samson," spoke Dave, "you see dat ole woman in de cart yonder?"--he +pointed to a figure ascending the rise in the ground beyond the +brook--"I know her, an' she's gwyn right to Laurel. She lives dar. It's +ten miles from dis yer turn-off, an' she knows all dese yer +woods-roads." + +"Good-bye, den, an' may you find Aunt Hominy an' de little chillen, +Jimmy, an' bring dem all home to Prencess Anne from dat ar Joe Johnson!" +cried Samson, and trotted his mule through the swamp and away. Jimmy +Phoebus saw him overtake the old woman in the cart and begin to speak +with her as the scrubby woods swallowed them in. + +"What's dat he said about Joe Johnson?" observed Dave, after a bad +spell of coughing, as they cleared the old church and entered the sandy +pine-woods. + +Mrs. Custis spoke up more promptly than Jimmy Phoebus desired, and +told the negro about the escape of Hominy and the children, and the hope +of Mr. Phoebus to head the party off as they ascended the Nanticoke +towards the Delaware state-line. + +"You don't want to git among Joe Johnson's men, boss?" said the red-eyed +negro; "dey bosses all dis country heah, on boff sides o' de state-line. +All dat ain't in wid dem is afraid o' dem." + +"How fur is it from this road to Delaware, Dave?" asked Phoebus. + +"We're right off de corner-stone o' Delawaw state dis very minute. It's +hardly a mile from whar we air. De corner's squar as de stone dat sots +on it, an' is cut wid a pictur o' de king's crown." + +"Mason and Dixon's line they call it," interpreted Mrs. Custis. + +"Do you know Joe Johnson, Dave?" + +"Yes, Marster Phoebus, you bet I does. He's at Salisbury, he's at +Vienna, he's up yer to Crotcher's Ferry, he's all ober de country, but +he don't go to Delawaw any more in de daylight. He was whipped dar, an' +banished from de state on pain o' de gallows. But he lives jess on dis +side o' de Delawaw line, so dey can't git him in Delawaw. He calls his +place Johnson's Cross-roads: ole Patty Cannon lives dar, too. She's +afraid to stay in Delawaw now." + +"Why, what is the occupation of those terrible people at present?" asked +Mrs. Custis. + +No answer was made for a minute, and then Dave said, in a low, +frightened voice, as he stole a glance at both of his companions out of +his fiery, scarred eyes: + +"Kidnappin', I 'spect." + +"It's everything that makes Pangymonum," Jimmy Phoebus explained; +"that old woman, Patty Cannon, has spent the whole of a wicked life, by +smoke!--or ever sence she came to Delaware from Cannady, as the bride of +pore Alonzo Cannon--a-makin' robbers an' bloodhounds out of the young +men she could git hold of. Some of' em she sets to robbin' the mails, +some to makin' an' passin' of counterfeit money, but most of 'em she +sets at stealin' free niggers outen the State of Delaware; and, when +it's safe, they steal slaves too. She fust made a tool of Ebenezer +Johnson, the pirate of Broad Creek, an' he died in his tracks a-fightin +fur her. Then she took hold of his sons, Joe Johnson an' young Ebenezer, +an' made 'em both outlaws an' kidnappers, an' Joe she married to her +daughter, when Bruington, her first son-in-law, had been hanged. When +Samson Hat, who is the whitest nigger I ever found, knocked Joe Johnson +down in Princess Anne, the night before last, he struck the worst man in +our peninsula." + +Dave listened to this recital with such a deep interest that his breath, +strong with apple whiskey, came short and hot, and his hands trembled as +he guided the horses. At the last words, he exclaimed: + +"Samson knocked Joe Johnson down? Den de debbil has got him, and means +to pay him back!" + +"What's that?" cried Jimmy Phoebus. + +The sweat stood on the big slave's forehead, as if his imagination was +terribly possessed, but before he could explain Mrs. Custis interrupted: + +"I think it was said that old Patty Cannon corrupted Jake Purnell, who +cut his throat at Snow Hill five years ago. He was a free negro who +engaged slaves to steal other slaves and bring them to him, and he +delivered them up to the white kidnappers for money; and nobody could +account for his prosperity till a negro who had been beaten to death was +found in the Pocomoke River, and three slaves who had been seen in his +company were arrested for the murder. They confessed that they had +stolen the dead negro and he had escaped from them, and was so beaten +with clubs, to make him tractable, that when they gave him to Purnell +his life was all gone. Then he was thrown in the river, but his body +came up after sinking, and the confession of the wretched tools +explained to the slave-owners where all their missing negroes had gone. +They marched and surrounded Purnell's hut, and he was discovered +burrowed beneath it. They brought the dogs, and fire to drive him out, +and as he came out he cut his throat with desperate slashes from ear to +ear." + +During this narrative the man Dave had listened with rising nervous +excitement, rolling his eyes as if in strong inward torment, till the +concluding words inspired such terror in him that he dropped the reins, +threw back his head, and shouted, with large beads of sweat all round +his brow: + +"Mercy! mercy! Have mercy! Save me, oh, my Lord!" + +"He's got a fit, I reckon," cried Jimmy Phoebus, promptly grasping the +reins as the horses started at the cry, and with his leg pinning Dave to +the carriage-seat. At that moment the road descended into the hollow of +Barren Creek, and, leaping down at the old Mineral Springs Hotel, a +health resort of those days, Phoebus humanely procured water and +freshened up the gasping negro's face. + +"I declare, I am almost afraid to trust myself to this man," Mrs. Custis +observed, with more distaste than trepidation. + +"Every nigger in this region," exclaimed Jimmy Phoebus, "thinks +Pangymonum's comin' down at the dreaded name of Patty Cannon; an' this +nigger's gone most to ruin, any way." + +"Oh, marster," exclaimed the slave, recovering his speech and glaring +wildly around, "I hain't been always the pore sinner rum an' fightin' +has made of me. I served the Lord all my youth; I praised his name an' +kept the road to heaven; an' thinkin' of the shipwreck I'se made of a +good conscience, an' hearin' missis tell of the end of Jake Purnell, it +made me yell to de good Lord for mercy, mercy, oh, my soul!" + +His frightful agitation increased, and Jimmy Phoebus soothed him, +good-naturedly saying: + +"Mrs. Custis, I reckon you'd better let him come in the tavern and take +a little sperits; it'll strengthen his nerves an' make him drive +better." + +As they drank at the old summer-resort bar, at that time in the height +of its celebrity, and the only _spa_ on the peninsula, south of the +Brandywine Springs, Phoebus spoke low to the negro: + +"Dave, somethin' not squar and fair is a-workin' yer, by smoke! I've got +my eye on you, nigger, an' sure as hokey-pokey thair it'll stay. You +know my arrand yer, Dave: to save a pore, ignorant, deluded black woman +from Joe Johnson's band. Now, you've been a-cryin 'Mercy!' I want you to +show mercy by a-tellin' of me whar I'm to overtake an' sarch Levin +Dennis's cat-boat if it comes up the Nanticoke to-night with them people +and Joe Johnson aboard!" + +Having swallowed his liquor greedily, the colored man replied, with his +former lowering countenance and evasive eyes: + +"You can't do nothin' as low down de river as Vienny, 'case de Nanticoke +is too wide dar, and if you cross it at Vienny ferry, den you got de +Norfwest Fork between you and Johnson's Cross-roads, wid one ferry over +dat, at Crotcher's, an' Joe Johnson owns all dat place. But you kin keep +up dis side o' de Nanticoke, Marster Phoebus, de same distance as from +yer to Vienny, to de pint whar de Norfwest Fork come in. Sometimes Joe +Johnson sails up dat big fork to get to his cross-roads. In gineral he +keeps straight up de oder fork to Betty Twiford's wharf, right on de +boundary line." + +"How far is that?" + +"It's five miles from yer to Vienny, and five miles from yer to a +landin' opposite de Norfwest Fork. Four miles furder on you're at +Sharptown, an' dar you can see Betty Twiford's house on de bank two +miles acrost de Nanticoke." + +"Nine miles, then, to Sharptown! He's had the tide agin him since he +entered the Nanticoke, and it's not turned yit. By smoke! I'll look for +a conveyance!" + +"You can ride with me to the first landing," spoke up a noble-looking +man, whip in hand; "and after delaying a little there, I shall go on the +Sharptown ferry and cross the river." + +Phoebus accepted the invitation immediately, and cautioning Mrs. +Custis to speak with less freedom in that part of the country, he bade +her adieu, and took the vacant seat in the stranger's buggy. + +When Mrs. Custis came to Vienna ferry, and the horses and carriage went +on board the scow to be rowed to the little, old, shipping settlement of +that name, the negro Dave, standing at the horses' heads, exchanged a +few sentences with the ferry-keeper. + +"Dave," called Mrs. Custis, a little later on, "you have no love, I see, +for old Samson." + +"He made a boxer outen me an' a bad man, missis." + +"Do you know the man he works for--Meshach Milburn?" + +"No, missis. I never see him." + +"He wears a peculiar hat--nothing like gentlemen's hats nowadays: it is +a hat out of a thousand." + +"I never did see it, missis." + +"You cannot mistake it for any other hat in the world. Now, Samson is +the only servant and watchman at Mr. Milburn's store, and he attends to +that disgraceful hat. If you can ever get it from him, Dave, and destroy +it, you will be doing a useful act, and I will reward you well." + +The moody negro looked up from his remorseful, brutalized orbs, and +said: + +"Steal it?" + +"Oh, no, I do not advise a theft, David--though such a wretched hat can +have no legal value. It is an affliction to my daughter and Judge Custis +and all of us, and you might find some way to destroy it--that is all." + +"I'll git it some day," the negro muttered; and drove into the old +tobacco-port of Vienna. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +NANTICOKE PEOPLE. + + +A map would be out of place in a story, yet there are probably some who +perceive that this is a story with a reality; and if such will take any +atlas and open it at the "Middle States" of the American republic, they +will see that the little State of Delaware is fitted as nicely into a +square niche of Maryland as if it were a lamp, or piece of statuary, +standing on a mantelpiece. It stands there on a mantelshelf about forty +miles wide, and rises to more than three times that height, making a +perfectly straight north and south line at right angles with its base. +Thus mortised into Maryland, its ragged eastern line is formed of the +Atlantic Ocean and the broad Delaware Bay. + +The only considerable river within this narrow strip or _Hermes_ of a +state is the Nanticoke, which, like a crack in the wall,--and the same +blow fractured the image on the mantel,--flows with breadth and tidal +ebb and flow from the Chesapeake Bay through the Eastern Shore of +Maryland into Delaware, and is there formed of two tidal sources, the +one to the north continuing to be called the Nanticoke, and that to the +south--nearly as imposing a stream--named Broad Creek. + +Nature, therefore, as if anticipating some foolish political boundaries +on the part of man, prepared one drain and channel of ingress at the +southwestern corner of Delaware to the splendid bay of Virginia. + +Around that corner of the little Delaware commonwealth, in a flat, poor, +sandy, pine-grown soil, Jimmy Phoebus rode by the stranger in the +afternoon of October, with the sun, an hour high in the west, shining +upon his dark, Greekish cheeks and neck, and he hearing the fall birds +whistle and cackle in the mellowing stubble and golden thickets. + +The meadow-lark, the boy's delight, was picking seed, gravel, and +insects' eggs in the fields--large and partridge-like, with breast +washed yellow from the bill to the very knees, except at the throat, +where hangs a brilliant reticule of blackish brown; his head and back +are of hawkish colors--umber, brown, and gray--and in his carriage is +something of the gamecock. He flies high, sometimes alone, sometimes in +the flock, and is our winter visitor, loving the old fields improvidence +has abandoned, and uttering, as he feeds, the loud sounds of challenge, +as if to cry, "Abandoned by man; pre-empted by me!" + +Jimmy Phoebus also heard the bold, bantering woodpecker, with his red +head, whose schoolmaster is the squirrel, and whose tactics of keeping a +tree between him and his enemy the Indian fighters adopted. He mimics +the tree-frog's cry, and migrates after October, like other +voluptuaries, who must have the round year warm, and fruit and eggs +always in market. Dressed in his speckled black swallow-tail coat, with +his long pen in his mouth and his shirt-bosom faultlessly white, the +woodpecker works like some Balzac in his garret, making the tree-top +lively as he spars with his fellow-Bohemians; and being sure himself of +a tree, and clinging to it with both tail and talons, he esteems +everything else that lives upon it to be an insect at which he may run +his bill or spit his tongue--that tongue which is rooted in the brain +itself. + +In the hollow golden bowl of echoing evening the sailor noted, too, the +flicker, in golden pencilled wings and back of speckled umber and +mottled white breast, with coal-black collar and neck and head of +cinnamon. His golden tail droops far below his perch, and, running +downward along the tree-trunk, it flashes in the air like a sceptre over +the wood-lice he devours with his pickaxe bill. "Go to the ant, thou +sluggard!" was an instigation to murder in the flicker, who loves young +ants as much as wild-cherries or Indian corn, and is capable of taking +any such satire seriously upon things to eat. Not so elfin and devilish +as the small black woodpecker, he is full of bolder play. + +The redbird, like the unclaimed blood of Abel, flew to the little trees +that grew low, as if to cover Abel's altar; the jack-snipe chirped in +the swampy spots, like a divinity student, on his clean, long legs, +probing with his bill and critical eye the Scriptures of the fields; the +quail piped like an old bachelor with family cares at last, as he led +his mate where the wild seeds were best; and through the air darted +voices of birds forsaken or on doctor's errands, crying "Phoebe? +Phoebe?" or "Killed he! killed he!" + +"Are you a dealer?" asked the gentleman of Jimmy Phoebus. + +"Just a little that way," said Jimmy, warily, "when I kin git somethin' +cheap." + +The stranger had a pair of keen, dancing eyes, and a long, eloquent, +silver-gray face that might have suited a great general, so fine was +its command, and yet too narrowly dancing in the eyes, like spiders in a +well, disturbing the mirror there. + +"Ha!" chuckled the man, as if his eyes had chuckled, so poorly did that +sound represent his lordly stature and look of high spirit--"ha! that's +what brings them all to my neighbor Johnson: a fair quotient!" + +"Quotient?" repeated Jimmy. + +"Johnson's a great factor hereabout," continued the military-looking +man, bending his handsome eyes on the bay captain, as if there was a +business secret between them, and peering at once mischievously and +nobly; "he makes the quotient to suit. He leaves the suttle large and +never stints the cloff." + +"He don't narry a feller down to the cloth he's got, sir?" assented +Jimmy, dubiously. + +"Why should he? His equation is simple: I suppose you know what it is." + +"Not ezackly," answered Phoebus, pricking up his ears to learn. + +"Well, it is force and class sympathy against a dead quantity: laws +which have no consignees, cattle which have no lawyer and no tongue, +rights which have lapsed by their assertion being suspended, till demand +and supply, like a pair of bulldogs, tear what is left to pieces. Armed +with his _ca. sa._, my neighbor Johnson offsets everybody's _fi. fa._, +serves his writ the first, and makes to gentlemen like you a +satisfactory quotient. But he cuts no capers with Isaac and Jacob +Cannon!" + +"I expect now that you are Jacob Cannon?" remarked the tawny sailor, not +having understood a word of what preceded. "If that's the case, I'm glad +to know your name, and thank you for givin' me this lift." + +By a bare nod, just intelligible, Mr. Cannon signified that the guess +would do; and still meditating aloud in his small, grand way, +continued: + +"We let neighbor Johnson and his somewhat peculiar mother-in-law make +such commerce as suits him, provided he studies to give us no +inconvenience. That is his equation; with his quotient we have no +concern other than our slight interest in his wastage, as when Madame +Cannon rides down to change a bill and leaves an order for +supplies--rum, chiefly, I believe. Gentlemen like you come into this +country to deal, replevin, or what not, and we say to you all, 'Don't +tread on us--that is all.' We shall not look into your parcels, nor lie +awake of nights to hear alarms; but harm Isaac and Jacob Cannon one +ha'pence and _levari facias, fi. fa.!_" + +"And fee-fo-fum," ejaculated Jimmy, cheerfully; "I've hearn it before." + +Looking again with some curiosity at his companion, Phoebus saw that +he was not beyond fifty years of age, of a spare, lofty figure--at least +six feet four high--sitting straight and graceful as an Indian, his +clothes well-tailored, his countenance and features both stern and +refined; every feature perfected, and all keen without being hard or +angular--and yet Jimmy did not like him. There seemed to have been made +a commodore or a general--some one designed for deeds of chivalry and +great philanthropy; and yet around and between the dancing eyes spider +lines were drawn, as if the fine high brain of Jacob Cannon had put +aside matters that matched it and meddled with nothing that ascended +higher above the world than the long white bridge of his nose. His +sentiments apparently fell no further towards his heart than that; his +brain belonged to the bridge of his nose. + +"Another Meshach Milburn, by smoke!" concluded Jimmy. + +After a little pause Phoebus inquired into the character of the people +in this apparently new region of country. + +"The quotient of much misplanting and lawyering is the lands on the +Nanticoke," spoke the gray-nosed Apollo; "the piece of country directly +before us, in the rear of my neighbor Johnson's cross-roads, was an old +Indian reservation for seventy years, and so were three thousand acres +to our right, on Broad Creek. The Indian is a bad factor to civilize his +white neighbors; he does not know the luxury of the law, that grand +contrivance to make the equation between the business man and the herd. +Ha, ha!" + +Mr. Cannon chuckled as if he, at least, appreciated the law, and turned +the fine horsy bridge of his nose, all gray with dancing eyelight, +enjoyingly upon Mr. Phoebus. + +"The Indians were long imposed upon, and when they went away, at the +brink of the Revolutionary War, they left a demoralized white race; and +others who moved in upon the deserted lands of the Nanticokes were, if +possible, more Indian than the Indians. This peninsula never produced a +great Indian, but when Ebenezer Johnson settled on Broad Creek it +possessed a greater savage than Tecumseh. He took what he wanted and +appealed to nature, like the Indian. He stole nothing; he merely took +it. He served, with anything convenient, from his fists to a +blunderbuss, his _fi. fa._ and his _ca. sa._ upon wondering but +submissive mankind. Need I say that this was before the perfect day of +Isaac and Jacob Cannon?" + +"They would have socked it to him, I reckon," Jimmy exclaimed, +consonantly. + +Mr. Jacob Cannon gave a tender smile, such as the gray horse emits at +the prospect of oats, and continued: + +"Such was the multiplicand to make the future race. Here, too, raged the +boundary-line debate between Penns and Calverts, with occasional raids +and broken heads, and a noble suit in chancery of fifty years, till no +man's title was known, and, instead of improving their lands, our +voluptuous predecessors improved chiefly their opportunities. You cut +sundry cords of wood and hauled it to the landing, and Ebenezer Johnson +coolly scowed it over to his paradise at the mouth of Broad Creek. You +had a little parcel of negroes, but the British war-ships, in two +successive wars, lay in the river mouth and beckoned them off. Having no +interest in any certain property, the foresters of the Nanticoke would +rather trade with the enemy than fight for foolish ideas; and so this +region was more than half Tory, and is still half passive, the other +half predatory. To neither half of such a quotient belongs the house of +Isaac and Jacob Cannon!" + +His nostrils swelled a trifle with military spirit, and he raised the +bridge of his nose delicately, turning to observe his instinctive +companion. + +"If it's any harm I won't ask it," the easy-going mariner spoke, "but +air you two Cannons ary kin to ole Patty Cannon?" + +Mr. Cannon smiled. + +"In Adam all sinned--there we may have been connected," he said. "The +question you ask may one day be actionable, sir. The Cannons are a +numerous people in our region, of fair substance, such as we have, but +they showed nothing to vary the equation of subsistence here till there +arose the mother of Isaac and Jacob Cannon. She was a remarkable woman; +unassisted, she procured the charter for Cannon's Ferry, and made the +port settlement of that name by the importance her ferry acquired; and +when she died there were found in her house nine hundred dollars in +silver--for she never would take any paper money--the earnings of that +sequestered ferry, to start her sons on their career. She knew the +peculiar character of some of her neighbors--how lightly _meum_ and +_tuum_ sat upon their fears or consciences--but she kept no guard except +her own good gray eyes and dauntless heart over that accumulating pile +of little sixpences, for there was but one spirit as bold as she in all +this region of the world--" + +"And that, I reckon," observed Jimmy Phoebus, "was ole Patty Cannon +herself." + +Mr. Jacob Cannon slightly bowed his head, and spoke aloud from an inner +communion: + +"Forgive me, mother, that I make the comparison! Thy frugal oil, that +burned with pure and lonely widow's flame at Cannon's Ferry window, the +traveller hailed with comfort in his heart, and blessed the enterprise. +But to compound the equation another unknown quantity of female force +arose beside my mother's lamp. A certain young Cannon, distantly of our +stock, must needs go see the world, and he returned with a fair demon of +a bride, and settled, too, at Cannon's Ferry. He lived to see the +wondrous serpent he had warmed in his arms, and died, they say, of the +sting. But she lived on, and, shrinking back into the woods to a little +farm my mother's sons rented to her, she lighted there a +Jack-o'-the-lantern many a traveller has pursued who never returned to +tell. With Ebenezer Johnson's progeny and her own siren sisters, who +followed Madame Cannon to the Nanticoke, the nucleus of a settlement +began, and has existed for twenty years, that only the Almighty's +_venire facias_ can explore."[2] + +"That's my arrand, Jacob Cannon," quietly remarked Jimmy Phoebus. "I'm +a pore man from Prencess Anne. If you took me for a nigger-dealer you +did me as pore a compliment as when I asked if you was Patty Cannon's +kin. But I have got just one gal to love and just one life to lose, an' +if God takes me thar, I'm a-goin' to Johnson's Cross-roads." + +Mr. Jacob Cannon turned and examined his companion with some twinkling +care, but showed no personal concern. + +"Every man must be his own security, my dark-skinned friend, till he can +find a bailsman. That place I never take--neither the debtor's nor the +security. The firm of Isaac and Jacob Cannon allows no trespass, and +further concern themselves not. But we are at the Nanticoke." + +"I'm obliged to you for the lift, Mr. Jacob Cannon," said Jimmy, +springing down, "and hope you may never find it inconvenient to have let +such a pack of wolves use your neighborhood to trespass on human natur." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +TWIFORD'S ISLAND. + + +Some piles of wood and an old wharf were at the river-side, and a little +scow, half filled with water, and with only a broken piece of paddle in +it, was the only boat the pungy captain could find. The merchant's buggy +was soon out of sight, and the wide, gray Nanticoke, several hundred +yards wide, and made wider by a broad river that flowed into it through +low bluffs and levels immediately opposite, was receiving the strong +shadows of approaching night, and the tide was running up it violent and +deep. + +Long lines of melancholy woods shut both these rivers in; an osprey +suddenly struck the surface of the water, like a drowning man, and rose +as if it had escaped from some demon in the flood; the silence +following his plunge was deeper than ever, till a goatsucker, +noiselessly making his zigzag chase, cried, as if out of eternal gloom, +his solemn command to "_Whip_ poor Will." Those notes repeated--as by +some slave ordering his brother to be lashed or one sympathetic soul in +perdition made the time-caller to another's misery--floated on the +evening light as if the oars of Charon echoed on the Styx, and broken +hearts were crossing over. + +Alone, unintimidated, but not altogether comfortable, Jimmy Phoebus +proceeded to bail out the old scow, and wished he had accepted one of +Jack Wonnell's hats to do the task, and, when he had finished it, the +stars and clouds were manoeuvring around each other in the sky, with +the clouds the more aggressive, and finally some drops of rain punctured +the long, bare muscles of the inflowing tide, making a reticule of +little pittings, like a net of beads on drifting women's tresses. As +night advanced, a puffing something ascended the broad, black aisle of +this forest river, and slowly the Norfolk steamboat rumbled past, with +passengers for the Philadelphia stage. Then silence drew a sheet of fog +around herself and passed into a cold torpor of repose, affected only by +the waves that licked the shores with intermittent thirst. + +The waterman, regretting a little that he had not taken his stand at +Vienna, where human assistance might have been procured, and thinking +that the poison airs might also afflict him with Meshach Milburn's +complaints, fought sleep away till midnight, straining his eyes and ears +ever and anon for signs of some sail; but nothing drew near, and he had +insensibly closed his lids and might have soon been in deep sleep, but +that he suddenly heard, between his dreams and this world, something +like a little baby moaning in the night. + +He sat up in the damp scow, where he had been lying, and listened with +all his senses wide open, and once again the cry was wafted upon the +river zephyrs, and before it died away the sailor's paddle was in the +water, and his frail, awkward vessel was darting across the tide. + +He saw, in the black night, what none but a sailor's eyes would have +seen, a thing not visible, but divined, coming along on the bosom of the +river; and his ears saw it the clearer as that little cry continued--now +stopped, now stifled, now rising, now nearly piercing; and then there +was a growl, momentary and loud, and a rattle as of feet over wood, and +a stroke or thud, or heavy concussion, and then a white thing rose up +against the universal ink and rushed on the little scow, sucking water +as it came--the cat-boat under full sail. + +Phoebus had paddled for the opposite shore of the river to prevent the +object of his quest escaping up the Northwest Fork, yet to be in its +path if it beat up the main fork, and, by a piece of instinctive +calculation, he had run nearly under the cat-boat bows. + +"Ahoy, there!" cried Jimmy, standing up in his tipsy little skiff; "ahoy +the _Ellenory Dennis!_ I'm a-comin' aboard." + +And with this, the paddle still in his hand, and his knees and feet +nearly sentient in their providence of uses, the sailor threw himself +upon the low gunwale, and let it glide through his palms till he could +see the man at the helm. + +There was no light to be called so, but the helmsman was yet perceived +by the sailor's experienced eyes, and he grappled the gunwale firmer, +and, preparing to swing himself on board, shouted hoarsely, + +"You Levin Dennis, I see you, by smoke! You know Jimmy Phoebus is your +friend, an' come out of this Pangymonum an' stop a-breakin' of your +mother's heart! Oh, I see you, my son!" + +If he did see Levin Dennis, Levin did not see Jimmy Phoebus, nor +apparently hear him, but stood motionless at the helm as a frozen man, +looking straight on in the night. The rigging made a little flapping, +the rudder creaked on its hooks, but every human sound was still as the +grave now, and the boy at the helm seemed petrified and deaf and blind. + +The pungy captain's temper rose, his superstition not being equal to +that of most people, and he cried again, + +"You're a disgrace to the woman that bore you. Hell's a-waitin' for your +pore tender body an' soul. Heave ahoy an' let drop that gaff, an' take +me aboard, Levin!" + +Still silent and passive as a stone, the youthful figure at the helm did +not seem to breathe, and the cat-boat cut the water like a fish-hawk. + +A flash of bright fire lighted up the vessel's side, a loud pistol-shot +rang out, and the sailor's hands loosened from the gunwale and clutched +at the air, and he felt the black night fall on him as if he had pulled +down its ebony columns upon his head. + +He knew no more for hours, till he felt himself lying in cold water and +saw the gray morning coming through tree-boughs over his head. He had a +thirsty feeling and pain somewhere, and for a few minutes did not move, +but lay there on his shoulder, holding to something and guessing what it +might be, and where he might be making his bed in this chilly autumn +dawn. + +His hand was clutching the a-stern plank of the old scow, and was so +stiff he could not for some time open it. The scow was aground upon a +marshy shore, in which some large trees grew, and were the fringes of a +woods that deepened farther back. + +"By smoke!" muttered Jimmy, "if yer ain't hokey-pokey. But I reckon I +ain't dead, nohow." + +With this he lifted the other hand, that had been stretched beneath his +head, and was also numb with cramp and cold, and it was full of blood. + +"Well," said Jimmy, "that feller did hit me; but, if he'll lend me his +pistol, I'll fire a straighter slug than his'n. I wonder where it is." + +Feeling around his head, the captain came to a raw spot, the touch of +which gave him acute pain, and made the blood flow freshly as he +withdrew his hand, and he could just speak the words, "Water, or I'll--" +when he swooned away. + +The sun was up and shining cheerily in the tree-tops as Phoebus, who +was its name-bearer, recovered his senses again, and he bathed his face, +still lying down, and tore a piece of his raiment off for a bandage, +and, by the mirror of a still, green pool of water, examined his wound, +which was in the fleshy part of his cheek--a little groove or gutter, +now choked with almost dried blood, where the ball had ploughed a line. +It had probably struck a bone, but had not broken it, and this had +stunned him. + +"I was so ugly before that Ellenory wouldn't more than half look at me," +Jimmy mused, "an' now, I 'spect, she'll never kiss that air cheek." + +He then bandaged his cheek roughly, sitting up, and took a survey of the +scenery. + +The river was here a full quarter of a mile wide, on the opposite shore +bluffy, and in places bold, but, on the side where Phoebus had drifted +with the tide, clutching his old scow with mortal grip, there extended a +point of level woods and marsh or "cripple," as if by the action of some +back-water, and this low ground appeared to have a considerable area, +and was nowhere tilled or fenced, or gave any signs of being visited. + +But the opposite or northern shore was quite otherwise; there the river +had a wide bend or hollow to receive two considerable creeks, and +changed its course almost abruptly from west to southwest, giving a +grand view of its wide bosom for the distance of more than two miles +into Maryland; and the prospect was closed in that direction by a +whitish-looking something, like lime or shell piles, standing against +the background of pale blue woods and bluffs. + +Right opposite the spot where Phoebus had been stranded, a cleared +farm came out to the Nanticoke, affording a front of only a single +field, on the crest of a considerable sand-bluff--elevations looking +magnified here, where nature is so level; and at one end of this field, +which was planted in corn that was now clinging dry to the naked stalks, +an old lane descended to a shell-paved wharf of a stumpy, square form; +and almost at the other, or western, end of the clearing stood a +respectable farm-house of considerable age, with a hipped roof and three +queer dormer windows slipping down the steeper half below, and two +chimneys, not built outside of the house, as was the general fashion, +but naturally rising out of the old English-brick gables. All between +the gables was built of wood; a porch of one story occupied nearly half +the centre of that side of the house facing the river; and to the right, +against the house and behind it, were kitchen, smoke-house, corn-cribs, +and other low tenements, in picturesque medley; while to the left +crouched an old, low building on the water's edge, looking like a +brandy-still or a small warehouse. The road from the wharf and lane +passed along a beach, and partly through the river water, to enter a +gate between this shed and the dwelling; and from the garden or lawn, on +the bluff before the latter, arose two tall and elegant trees, a +honey-locust and a stalwart mulberry. + +"Now, I never been by this place before," Jimmy Phoebus muttered, +"but, by smoke! yon house looks to me like Betty Twiford's wharf, an', +to save my life, I can't help thinkin' yon white spots down this side of +the river air Sharptown. If that's the case, which state am I in?" + +He rose to his feet, bailed the scow, which was nearly full of water, +and began to paddle along the shore, and, seeing something white, he +landed and parted the bushes, and found it to be a stone of a bluish +marble, bearing on one side the letter M, and on the other the letter P, +and a royal crown was also carved upon it. + +"Yer's one o' Lord Baltimore's boundary stones," Phoebus exclaimed. +"Now see the rascality o' them kidnappers! Yon house, I know, is +Twiford's, because it's a'most on the state-line, but, I'm ashamed to +say, it's a leetle in Maryland. And that lane, coming down to the wharf, +is my way to Joe Johnson's Pangymonum at his cross-roads." + +A sound, as of some one singing, seemed to come from the woods near by, +and Phoebus, listening, concluded that it was farther along the water, +so he paddled softly forward till a small cove or pool led up into the +swamp, and its shores nowhere offered a dry landing; yet there were +recent foot-marks deeply trodden in the bog, and disclosed up the slope +into the woods, and from their direction seemed to come the mysterious +chanting. + +"My head's bloody and I'm wet as a musk-rat, so I reckon I ain't afraid +of gittin' a little muddy," and with this the navigator stepped from the +scow in swamp nearly to his middle, and pulled himself up the slope by +main strength. + +"I believe my soul this yer is a island," Jimmy remarked; "a island +surrounded with mud, that's wuss to git to than a water island." + +The tall trees increased in size as he went on and entered a noble grove +of pines, through whose roar, like an organ accompanied by a human +voice, the singing was heard nearer and nearer, and, following the track +of previous feet, which had almost made a path, Phoebus came to a +space where an axe had laid the smaller bushes low around a large +loblolly pine that spread its branches like a roof only a few feet from +the ground; and there, fastened by a chain to the trunk, which allowed +her to go around and around the tree, and tread a nearly bare place in +the pine droppings or "shats," sat a black woman, singing in a long, +weary, throat-sore wail. Jimmy listened to a few lines: + + "Deep-en de woun' dy han's have made + In dis weak, helpless soul, + Till mercy wid its mighty aid + De-scen to make me whole; + Yes, Lord! + De-scen to make me whole." + +A little negro child, perhaps three years old, was lying asleep on the +ground at the woman's feet, in an old tattered gray blanket that might +have been discarded from a stable. Near the child was a wooden box, in +which were a coarse loaf of corn-bread and some strips of bacon, and a +wooden trough, hollowed out of a log, contained water. The woman's face +was scratched and bruised, and, as she came to some dental sounds in her +chant, her teeth were revealed, with several freshly missing in front, +and her lips were swollen and the gums blistered and raw. + +She glanced up as Phoebus came in sight, looked at him a minute in +blank curiosity, as if she did not know what kind of animal he was, and +then continued her song, wearily, as if she had been singing it for +days, and her mind had gone into it and was out of her control. As she +moved her feet from time to time, the chain rattled upon her ankles. + +"Well," said Jimmy, "if this ain't Pangymonum, I reckon I'll find it at +Johnson's Cross-roads! Git up thar, gal, an' let me see what ails you." + +The woman rose mechanically, still singing in the shrill, cracked, weary +drone, and, as she rose, the baby awoke and began to cry, and she +stooped and took it up, and, patting it with her hands, sang on, as if +she would fall asleep singing, but could not. + +The chain, strong and rusty, had been very recently welded to her feet +by a blacksmith; the fresh rivet attested that, and there were also +pieces of charcoal in the pine strewings, as if fire had been brought +there for smith's uses. Jimmy Phoebus took hold of the chain and +examined it link by link till it depended from a powerful staple driven +to the heart of the pine-tree; though rusty, it was perfect in every +part, and the condition of the staple showed that it was permanently +retained in its position, as if to secure various and successive +persons, while the staple itself had been driven above the reach of the +hands, as by a man standing on some platform or on another's shoulders. + +Phoebus took the chain in his short, powerful arms, and, giving a +little run from the root of the tree, threw all the strength of his +compact, heavy body into a jerk, and let his weight fall upon it, but +did not produce the slightest impression. + +"There's jess two people can unfasten this chain," exclaimed Jimmy, +blowing hard and kneading his palms, after two such exertions, "one of +em's a blacksmith and t'other's a woodchopper. Gal, how did you git +yer?" + +The woman, a young and once comely person of about twenty-eight years of +age, sang on a moment as if she did not understand the question, till +Phoebus repeated it with a kinder tone: + +"Pore, abused creatur, tell me as your friend! I ain't none of these +kidnappers. Git your pore, scattered wits together an tell a friend of +all women an' little childern how he kin help you, fur time's worth a +dollar a second, an' bloody vultures are nigh by. Speak, Mary!" + +The universal name seemed timely to this woman; she stopped her chanting +and burst into tears. + +"My husband brought me here," she said, between her long sobs. "He sold +me. I give him everything I had and loved him, too, and he sold me--me +and my baby." + +"I reckon you don't belong fur down this way, Mary? You don't talk like +it." + +"No, sir; I belong to Philadelphia. I was a free woman and a widow; my +husband left me a little money and a little house and this child; +another man come and courted me, a han'some mulatto man, almost as white +as you. He told me he had a farm in Delaware, and wanted me to be his +wife; he promised me so much and was so anxious about it, that I +listened to him. Oh, he was a beautiful talker, and I was lonesome and +wanted love. I let him sell my house and give him the money, and started +a week ago to come to my new home. Oh, he did deceive me so; he said he +loved me dearly." + +She began to cry again, and her mind seemed to wander, for the next +sentence was disconnected. Jimmy took the baby in his arms and kissed it +without any scruples, and the child's large, black eyes looked into his +as if he might be its own father, while he dandled it tenderly. + +"The foxes has come an' barked at me two nights," said the woman; "they +wanted the bacon, I 'spect. The water-snakes has crawled around here in +the daytime, and the buzzards flew right down before me and looked up, +as if they thought I ought to be dead. But I wasn't afraid: that man I +give my love to was so much worse than them, that I just sung and let +them look at me." + +"You say he sold you, Mary?" + +The woman rubbed her weary eyes and slowly recollected where she had +left off. + +"We moved our things on a vessel to Delaware, and come up a creek to a +little town in the marshes, and there we started for my husband's farm. +He said we had come to it in the night. I couldn't tell, but I saw a +house in the woods, and was so tired I went to sleep with my baby there, +and in the night I found men in the room, and one of them, a white man, +was tying my feet." + +A crow cawed with a sound of awe in the pine tops, and squirrels were +running tamely all round about as she hesitated. + +"I thought then of the kidnappers of Delaware, for I had heard about +them, and I jumped out of bed and fought for my life. They knocked me +down and the rope around my feet tripped me up; but I fought with my +teeth after my hands was tied, too, and I bit that white man's knees, +and then he picked up a fire-shovel, or something of iron, and knocked +my teeth out. My last hope was almost gone when I saw my husband coming +in, and I cried to him, 'Save me! save me, darling!' He had a rope in +his hand, and, before I could understand it, he had slipped it over my +neck and choked me." + +"Your own husband? I can't believe it, to save my life!" + +"I didn't believe it, neither, till I heard him say, when they loosened +the slipknot that had strangled me--the voice was his I had trusted so +much; I never could forget it!--'Eben,' he said, 'I've took down every +mole and spot on her body and can swear to' em, for I've learned 'em by +heart, and you won't have no trouble a-sellin' her, as she can't +testify." + +"The imp of Pangymonum!" Jimmy cried. "He had married you to note down +your marks, and by' em swear you to be a slave!" + +"The white man tried to sell me to a farmer, and then I told what I had +heard them say. He believed me, and told them the mayor of Philadelphia +had a reward out for them, for kidnappin' free people, already. Then +they talked together--a little scared they was--and tied me again, and +brought me on a cart through the woods to the river and fetched me here, +and chained me, and told me if I ever said I was free, to another man, +they meant to sell my baby and to drown me in the river." + +She finished with a chilly tremor and a low wail like an infant, but the +sailor passed her baby into her arms to engage her, and said: + +"The Lord is still a-countin' of his sparrows, or I wouldn't have been +on this arrand, by smoke! To drift yer, hangin' senseless to that ole +scow, must have been to save you, Mary. This is a island where they +chains up property, I reckon, that is bein' follered up too close. +Time's very precious, Mary, but I've got a sailor's knife yer, an' I'll +stay to cut the staple out o' this ole pine if they come an' kill me. +You take an' wash my face off outen that water-trough while I bite a bit +of the bacon." + +He took the child again and amused it while the woman carefully cleaned +his wound and rebandaged it so that he could breathe and see and eat, +though the cotton folds wrapped in much of his face like a mask. He then +examined the chain again, especially where it was rivetted at the feet, +and lifted a large iron ball weighing several pounds, which was also +affixed to her ankle, so that she could not climb the tree. Her ankle he +found blistered by the red-hot rivet being smithed so barbarously close +to the flesh. + +"Don't leave me, oh! don't leave me here to die," the woman pleaded, as +he started into the woods. + +"I'll stay by you an' we'll die together, if we must; but it's not my +idee to die at all, Mary. I'm goin' to bring that air scow ashore while +I cut a hickory, if I can find one, to break this yer chain." + +Plunging again into the mud nearly to his waist, Phoebus pulled the +scow up into the woods, and had barely concealed himself when he saw +come out of the creek below Twiford's house a cat-boat like the +_Ellenora Dennis_, and stand towards the island in the cripple. + +"The tide's agin' em, an' they must make a tack to get yer," Jimmy +muttered; "but I'm afraid this knife will have to go to the heart of +some son of Pangymonum in ten minutes, or Ellenory Dennis never agin be +pestered by her ugly lover." + +He was seized with a certain frenzy of strength and discernment at the +danger he was in, and, as he carried the scow onward and across the +woodland island, heavy as it was, he also noted a single small hickory +tree on that farther margin, and threw himself against it and bent it +down, and plunged his knife into the straining fibres so that it +crackled and splintered in his hand. He leaped to the tree and scaled it +as he had often climbed a mast, and he thrust the sapling under the +staple, trimming the point down with the knife as he clutched the tree +by his knees, and then, catching the young hickory like a lever, he +dropped down the pine trunk and got his shoulder under the sapling and +brought the weight of his body desperately against it. The staple bent +upward in the tree, but did not loosen. + +At that instant the scraping of a boat upon the mud was heard, and the +black woman fell upon her knees. + +"Pray, but do it soft," Jimmy whispered; "an' not a cry from the child, +or there'll be a murder!" + +He had rapidly trimmed the hickory stem of its branches while he spoke, +so that it could penetrate the arborage of the tree from above, and +climbing higher, like a cat, he worked the point of the lever downwards +into the now crooked staple, and threw himself out of the tree against +the sapling, which bent like a bow nearly double, but would not break, +and, as the staple yielded and flew out, the chain and the deliverer +fell together on the soft pine litter. + +"Hark!" exclaimed a voice through the woods. + +"What was it?" asked another voice. + +"Come!" Phoebus murmured, and gathered together the woman, the child, +and the chain and ball, and stepped, long and silent as a rabbit's +leaps, through the awe-hushed pines, carrying the whole burden on his +shoulders. + +He sat them in the scow, which sank to the edges, and, covered by a +protruding point of woods, pushed off into the deep river, yet guiding +the frail vessel in to the sides of the stream, away from the influence +of the out-running tide. As the scow turned the first crease or elbow in +the river, it began to sink. + +"If you make a sound you are a slave fur life," whispered the waterman, +as he slipped overboard and began to swim, with his hand upon the stern. +As he did this, straining every muscle of his countenance to keep +afloat, the wound in his cheek began to bleed again, and he felt his +strength going. Down, down he began to settle, till the water reached +his nostrils, and the woman heard him sigh as he was sinking: + +"I'd do it--an' die--agin--fur--Ellenory. God bless her!" + +The scow, now full of water, turned upside down, and threw mother and +child into the stream, and the child was gone beneath the surface before +the woman could catch herself upon a sunken branch of an imbedded tree; +and, as she gasped there, the body of the pungy captain swept past her +and she caught him by the hair, and he clutched her with the drowning +instinct, and down they went together, like husband and wife, in +nature's contempt of distinctions between living worms. + +They went down to the very bottom, but not to drown; for the old tree, +having fallen where it grew in other years, was sustained upon its +limbs, and made an invisible yet sure pathway to the shore. The long +chain and the iron ball fettered to the colored woman's foot, however, +deprived her for a few moments of all power to step along the slippery, +submerged trunk, and, with her soul full of agony for her child, which +she no longer saw, she was about to let go of her deliverer's body and +throw herself also into the river, to die with them, when the old scow, +having emptied itself of the water, reappeared at the surface and struck +the woman a buoyant blow that altered the course of her thought. + +"Pore, brave man," the woman gasped. "He's got a wife, maybe. He said, +'God bless her,' an' he give his life for a poor creature like me. God +has took my baby. I can't do nothing for it now, but maybe I can save +this man's life before I die." + +Indifferent to her personal fate, she drew intelligence from her spirit +of sacrifice, which is the only thing better than learning. She pushed +the scow down and under Phoebus with her remaining hand, till it +relieved her of a portion of the weight of his body, and rose up, +half-bearing the bronze-faced sailor's form, and animating her generous +purpose with the honest and happy smile he wore upon his face, even in +the vestibule of the eternal palace. Then, gathering the long meshes of +the iron chain up from its termination at her feet, she threw the longer +portion of it into the scow, so that it no longer became entangled in +the cross-branches and knots below, and she could lift also the iron +ball sufficiently to glide her feet along the tree. + +With pain and difficulty, lessened by self-forgetfulness, she pushed the +scow and the body to the foot of the tree, and, feeling around its old +roots for further support, the red-eyed terrapins arose and swam around +her, disturbed in their possessions; but she feared no reptiles any +more, since Death, the mighty crocodile, had eaten the babe that she had +nursed but this morning. + +She had intelligent remembrance enough to think of all the precautions +her deliverer had taken, and, when she had dragged his body on the shore +into the dense, scrubby woods, she also drew out the little scow and +heaped some dead brush upon it, and had scarcely concealed herself when +she heard voices from the river, and the report of a sail swung around +upon its boom, and of feet upon a deck. The voices said: + +"If she's got off to Delaware, Joe Johnson won't have long to stay on +his visit; for all the beaks will gather fur him an' be started by John +M. Clayton." + +"I'm sorry fur Joe," answered another voice; "he hoped to make one more +big scoop this trip, an' quit the Corners fur good." + +"Let us sail by ole Ebenezer Johnson's roost at Broad Creek mouth, an' +peep up both forks of the river," said the other voice, receding; "it's +only a mile and a half. If we discover nothin', we'll run down the river +and inquire at the landings as fur as Vienny." + +The colored woman now worked with all her strength to revive the +insensible sailor, rolling him, rubbing his body till her elbows seemed +almost to be dropping off, and then rubbing his great, broad breast with +her head and face and neck. She breathed into his mouth the breath +heaven vouchsafed to Hagar as bountifully as to Sarah, and, wringing out +portions of her garments and hanging them at sunny exposures to dry, she +substituted them, in her exhausted intervals, for the wet clothing of +the man; and as she worked, with a hollow, desolate heart, she sobbed: + +"Lord, gi' me this man's life! O Lord, that took my chile, I will have +this life back!" + +Crying and weeping, fainting and laboring, the moments, it seemed the +very hours, ran by and still he did not waken; and still, with all that +noble strength that makes the fields of white men grow and blossom under +the negro's unthanked toil, the widow and childless one fought on for +this cold lump of brother nature. + +He warmed, he breathed, he groaned, he spoke! + +His voice was like a happy sigh, as of one disturbed near the end of a +comforting morning nap in summer: + +"You thar, Mary?" + +He stared around with difficulty, his wounded face now clotted and +stained with blood, and his eyes next looked an inquiry so kind and +apprehensive that she answered it, to save him breath: + +"Baby's drowned. God does best!" + +He reached his hand to hers--she was almost naked to the waist, having +sacrificed all she had, the greatest of which was modesty, to bring back +that life in him which came naked and unashamed into the world--and he +put his little strength into the grasp. + +"Mary," he exhaled, "why didn't you ketch the baby and leave me go?" + +"Oh, dearly as I loved it," the woman answered, "I'm glad you come up +under my hands instead. You can do good: you're a white man. Baby would +have only been a poor slave, or a free negro nobody would care for." + +"I mean to do good, if the Lord lets me," sighed the sailor; "I mean to +go and die agin for human natur at Johnson's Cross-roads." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +OLD CHIMNEYS. + + +The day was far advanced when Jimmy Phoebus was strong enough to rise +and walk, and leave the refuge in the woods. He advised the colored +woman to crawl through the pine-trees along the margin, while he paddled +in the old scow in the shadow of the forest, which now lay strong upon +the river's breast. + +At the distance of about a mile, Broad Creek, like a tributary river, +flowed into the Nanticoke from the east, fully a quarter of a mile wide, +and half a mile up this stream an old, low, extended, weather-blackened +house faced the river, and seemed to grin out of its broken ribs and +hollow window-sockets like a traitor's skull discolored upon a gibbet. +It was falling to pieces, and along its roof-ridge a line of crows +balanced and croaked, as if they had fine stories to tell and weird +opinions to pass upon the former inhabitants of the tenement. + +"There, I have hearn tell," said Jimmy, as he drew in to the bank, and +took the woman into the scow and began to tow her along the beach, +wading in the water, "_there_, I have hearn tell, lived the pirate of +Broad Creek, ole Ebenezer Johnson, who was shot soon after the war of +'12 at Twiford's house down yonder." + +"For kidnapping free people?" asked the woman, without interest, the +question coming from her desolate heart. + +"In them days they didn't kidnap much; it was jest a-beginnin'. The war +of '12 busted everything on the bay, burned half a dozen towns, kept the +white men layin' out an' watchin', and made loafers of half of 'em, an' +brought bad volunteers an' militia yer to trifle with the porer gals, +an' some of them strangers stuck yer after the war was done. I don't +know whar ole Ebenezer come from; some says this, an' some that. All we +know is, that he an' the Hanlen gals, one of 'em Patty Cannon, was the +head devils in an' after the war." + +"It's a bad-lookin' ole house, sir. See, yonder's a coon runnin' out of +the door. Oh! I hear my child cryin' everywhere I look." + +"The British begun to run the black people off in the war. The black +people wanted to go to 'em. The British filled the islands in Tangier +yer with nigger camps; they was a goin' to take this whole peninsuly, +an' collect an' drill a nigger army on it to put down Amerikey. When the +war was done, the British sailed away from Chesapeake Bay with thousands +of them colored folks, an' then the people yer begun to hate the free +niggers." + +"For lovin' liberty?" the woman sighed, looking at the ball, which had +galled her ankle bloody. + +"They hated free niggers as if they was all Tories an' didn't love +Amerikey. So, seein' the free niggers hadn't no friends, these Johnsons +an' Patty Cannon begun to steal 'em, by smoke! There was only a million +niggers in the whole country; Louisiana was a-roarin' for 'em; every +nigger was wuth twenty horses or thirty yokes of oxen, or two good farms +around yer, an' these kidnappers made money like smoke, bought the +lawyers, went into polytics, an' got sech a high hand that they tried a +murderin' of the nigger traders from Georgey an' down thar, comin' yer +full of gold to buy free people. That give 'em a back-set, an' they hung +some of Patty's band--some at Georgetown, some at Cambridge." + +"If my baby's made white in heaven, I'm afraid I won't know him," the +woman said, nodding, and wandering in her mind. + +"At last the Delawareans marched on Johnson's Cross-roads an' cleaned +his Pangymonum thar out, an' guarded him, and sixteen pore niggers in +chains he'd kidnapped, to Georgetown jail. Young John M. Clayton was +paid by the Phildelfy Quakers to git him convicted. Johnson was strong +in the county--we're in it now, Sussex--an' if Clayton hadn't skeered +the jury almost to death, it would have disagreed. He held 'em over +bilin' hell, an' dipped 'em thar till the court-room was like a +Methodis' revival meetin', with half that jury cryin' 'Save me, save me, +Lord!' while some of 'em had Joe Johnson's money in their pockets. Joe +was licked at the post, banished from the state, an' so skeered that he +laid low awhile, goin' off somewhar--to Missoury, or Floridey, or +Allybamy. But Patty Cannon never flinched; she trained the young boys +around yer to be her sleuth-hounds an' go stealin' for her; an', till +she dies, it's safer to be a chicken than a free nigger. They stole you, +pore creatur' from Phildelfy, an' they steal 'em in Jersey and away into +North Carliney; fur Joe Johnson's a smart feller fur enterprise, and +Patty Cannon's deep as death an' the grave." + +Phoebus looked at the woman sitting in the scow, and he saw that she +was fast asleep; his tale having no power to startle her senses, now +worn-out by every infliction. + +"I must git that ball an' chain off," the sailor said; "but iron, in +these ole sandy parts, is scarce as gold." + +He lifted her out of the scow and laid her in the shade, and began to +explore the old house. To his joy, he found the iron crane still hanging +in the chimney, and signs of recent fire. + +"These yer ole cranes was valleyble once," Jimmy said, "an' in the wills +they left 'em to their children like farms, an' lawsuits was had over +the bilin' pots an' the biggest kittles. It broke a woman's heart to git +a little kittle left her, an' the big-kittled gal was jest pestered with +beaux. But, by smoke! we're a-makin' iron now in Amerikey! Kittles is +cheap, and that's why this crane is left by robbers an' gypsies after +they used it." + +He twisted the crane out of the bricks on which it was hinged, and some +of the mantel jamb fell down. + +"Hallo!" cried Jimmy, "what's this a rollin' yer? A shillin', by George! +I say, by George, this time caze ole George the Third's picter's on it. +Maybe thar's more of 'em." + +He pulled a few bricks out of the jamb, and raked the hollow space +inside with his hand, and brought forth a steel purse of English +manufacture, filled with shillings at one end, and fifteen golden +guineas at the other; they rolled out through the decayed filigree, +rusted, probably, by the rain percolating through the chimney, and the +purse crumbled to iron-mould in his hand. + +"'The Lord is my shepherd,'" said the sailor, reverently; "'I shall not +want. He leadeth me by the still waters.' How beautiful Ellenory says +it. Look thar at the waters of the Nanticoke, beautiful as silver. Lord, +make 'em pure waters an' free, to every pore creatur!" + +"To who! to who!" screamed a voice out of the hollow chimney. + +"Well," answered Jimmy, hardly excited, "I ain't partickler. Ha! I +thought I knew you, Barney," he continued, as an owl fluttered out and +hopped up a ruined stairway. + +"Now, British money ain't coined by Uncle Sam; what is the date? I can +make figgers out easy: Eighteen hundred and fifteen!' I was about to do +Ebenezer Johnson the onjustice of saying that he'd sold his country out +to ole Admiral Cockburn, but the war was done when this money was +coined. Whose was it?" + +He removed more carefully some of the bricks, to put his hand in the +hollow depository left there, and, feeling around and higher up, brought +out the bronze hilt of a sword, on which was a name. + +"Who would have thought this was a house of learnin'?" Jimmy said, +dubiously. "I can't read it. By smoke! maybe they've murdered somebody +yer. I reckon he was British. Ellenory kin read it, if I live to see her +agin." + +There was nothing more, and, as he left the rotting old house, a crash +and a cloud of smoke rose up behind him, and the chimney fell into the +middle of the floor. + +With the crane's sharp wrought-iron point and long leverage the pungy +captain succeeded, after tedious efforts, in breaking the links of the +chain and also in removing the linked cannon-ball from the woman's foot, +but he could not remove the iron band and link around her ankle. + +"God bless you!" exclaimed the woman. "It's a sin to say so, but I feel +as if I could fly since that dreadful weight is off. Oh, I want to fly, +for I dreamed of my baby, an' he smiled at me from heaven as if he said, +'I'm happy, mamma!'" + +"You don't owe me nothin', Mary. I love a widder, as you air, an' she +begged me to come yer. When you git to Prencess Anne, whar I want you to +go, find Ellenory Dennis, an' tell her I've seen her boy, an' I'll bring +him back if I kin." + +"Princess Anne? where is it?" + +"It's maybe, forty mile from yer, Mary; half-way between sunrise and +sunset." + +"Right south, sir?" + +"That's it. Now I'll tell you how to git thar. Take this old woods road +along Broad Creek and walk to Laurel, five miles; it's a little town on +the creek. Keep in under the woods, but don't lose the road, fur every +foot of it's dangerous to niggers. You kin git thar, maybe, by dark. I +don't know nobody thar, Mary, an' I can't write, fur I never learned +how. But you go right to the house of some preacher of the Gospel, and +tell him a lie." + +Mary opened her eyes. + +"I wouldn't have you tell a lie to anybody but a good man," continued +Phoebus, "fur then it's so close to the Lord it won't git fur an' +pizen many, as lies always does. You must tell that preacher that you're +the runaway slave of Judge Custis of Prencess Anne, an' you're sorry you +run away, an' want to go home." + +"Oh, sir, you are not like my wicked husband, trying to sell me too?" + +"No, Mary, bad as you've been used, faith's your only sure friend. If +you was to tell the preacher you had been kidnapped, he'd, maybe, be +afraid to help you. They're a timid set down yer on any subject +concernin' niggers; these preachers will help save black folks' souls, +but never rescue their pore broken bodies. When you tell him you are the +slave of a rich man like Judge Custis, he'll jump at the chance to do +the Judge a favor, an' tell you that you do right to go back to your +master. That's whair he's a liar, Mary--so he'll scratch _your_ lie +off." + +"They'll turn me back at Princess Anne, and wont know me, maybe." + +"Not if you do this, Mary. Make them take you to Judge Custis's +daughter--the one that's just been married. Tell her you want to speak +to her privately. Then tell her the nigger-skinned man--I'm him--that +she sent away with her mother, found you whar you was chained in the +woods. Take this link of the chain to show her. Tell her you want to be +her cook till the one that run away is found." + +"I'll do it, sir. I've got no home to go to, now." + +"Tell her all you remember. Tell her not to tell Ellenory any of my +troubles. Tell her I'm a-startin' for Pangymonum, an', if I die, it's +nothin' but a bachelor keepin' his own solitary company. Yer's a gold +piece an' three silver pieces I found, Mary, to pay your way. Good-bye." + +"Won't you give me your knife?" asked the woman. + +"What fur, Mary?" + +"To kill myself if they kidnap me again." + +"I have nothin' else to fight for my life with," said Phoebus. "No, +you must not do that. Keep in the woods to Laurel." + +She fell on the ground and kissed his knees, and bathed them with her +tears. + +"I do have faith, master," she said, "faith enough to be your slave." + +"I'd cry a little, too," said Jimmy, twitching his eyes, as the woman +disappeared in the forest, "if I knowed how to do it; but, by smoke! the +wind on the bay's dried up my tear ponds. I'll bury these curiosities +right yer, with this chain and ball, and put some old bricks around' em +outen the chimney they come from." + +He dug a hole with his knife, carefully cutting out a piece of the sod, +and restoring it over the buried articles; and, after notching some +trees to mark the place, he pushed in the scow again into Broad Creek, +and descended the Nanticoke on the falling tide to Twiford's wharf. + +Dragging the scow up the bed of a creek to conceal it, he discovered +another boundary stone. A beach led under the cover of a sandy bluff to +the river gate of Twiford's comfortable house, and he boldly entered the +lane and lawn, saying to himself: + +"I reckon a feller can ask to buy one squar meal a day in a free +country, fur I'm hungry." + +Even in that day the house was probably seventy years old, roofed by an +artistic shingler in lines like old lace-work, the short roofs over the +three pretty dormers like laced bib-aprons, the window-casements in +small checkers of dark glass, the roof capacious as an armadillo's back +or land-turtle's; but half of it was almost as straight as the walls, +and the small, foreign bricks in the gables, glazed black and dark-red +alternately, were laid by conscientious workmen, and bade fair to stand +another hundred years, as they smoked their tidy chimney pipes from +hearty stomachs of fireplaces below. + +Standing beneath the honey-locust tree at the lawn-gate, the sailor +beheld an extensive prospect of the river Nanticoke, bending in a +beautiful curve, like the rim of a silver salver, towards the south, the +blue perspective of the surrounding woods fading into the azure bluffs +on the farther shore, where, as he now identified it, the hamlet of +Sharptown assumed the mystery and similitude of a city by the +enchantment of distance. A large brig was riding up the river under the +afternoon breeze, carrying the English flag at her spanker. The +wild-fowl, flying in V-formed lines, like Hyads astray, flickered on the +salver of the river like house-flies. Some fishermen distantly appeared, +human, yet nearly stationary, as if to enliven a dream, and the bees in +a row of hives kept murmuring near by, increasing the restful sense in +the heart and the ears. + +"Why cannot human natur be happy yer, pertickler with its gal--some one +like Ellenory?" Phoebus thought; "why must it git cruel an' desperate +for money, lookin' out on this dancin' water, an' want to turn this +trance into a Pangymonum?" + +He crossed the lane to a squatty old structure of brick by the +water-side, and peeped in. + +"A still, by smoke!" he said. "If it ain't apple brandy may I forgit my +compass! No, it's peach brandy. Well, anyway, it's hot enough; an' this, +I 'spect, is what started the Pangymonum." + +He took a stout drink, and it revived his weakened system, and he bathed +his head in its strong alcohol. He then returned to the lawn and walked +around the house, peeping into the lower rooms--of which there were two +in the main building, the kitchen being an appendage--but saw nobody. +The porch in the rear extended the full width of the house, unlike the +smaller shed in front, which only covered two doors, standing curiously +side by side. + +Completely sheltered by the longer porch, Phoebus, looking into a +window, there saw a table already set with a clean cloth, and bread and +cold chicken, and a pitcher of creamy milk, with a piece of ice floating +in it. On either side of a large fireplace at the table-side was a door, +one open, and leading by a small winding stair to the floor above. A bed +was also in the room, which looked out by one window upon the lawn and +the river, and by the other at the farm, the corn-cribs, and the small +barns and pound-yard. + +With a sailor's quiet, sliding feet, Jimmy walked into the low hall, and +a cat-bird, in a cage there, immediately started such a shrill series of +cries that his steps were unheard by himself. + +"Nobody bein' yer," thought Jimmy, "an' the flies gittin 'at the +victuals, I reckon I'll do as I would be done by." + +So he began to eat, and soon he heard a female voice, very close by, +sound down the stairs, as if reciting to another person. + +"Aunt Patty says Aunt Betty's first husband, Captain Twiford, was a +sea-captain and a widower, and she was one of the beautiful Hanley +girls, brought up by old Ebenezer Johnson at his house across on Broad +Creek; and there Captain Twiford courted her, and brought her here to +live. He died early--all my aunties' husbands died early--and is buried +in the vault out here behind the pound, where you can go in and see him +in his shroud, lying by Aunt Betty. Her next husband, John Gillis, left +her, and then she lived with William Russell, a negro-trader. Aunt Patty +governed all her sisters and the Johnson boys, too. Oh, how I fear her +when she looks at me sometimes with her bold, black eyes: I can't help +it." + +Another voice, not a woman's, yet almost as gentle, now seemed to ask a +question; but the cat-bird, behaving like a detective and a tale-bearer, +made such a furious screaming at seeing a stranger drinking the milk, +that Phoebus could not hear it well. The pleasant female voice spoke +again: + +"Yes, he was killed in the room under this, before I was born, Aunt +Patty says; and sometimes she likes to tell such dark and bloody tales, +and laughs with joy to see me frightened at them. Aunt Betty got in +debt, and this house and farm were sold under executions and bought by a +Maryland man, who stole an opportunity when the men were away, and set +his goods in the house and set Aunt Betty's goods outside upon the lawn. +It's only a mile, or a little more, from here to Ebenezer Johnson's, and +the news of the seizure was sent there." + +Jimmy tore off a piece of chicken with his teeth, listening voraciously. + +"Did you hear anything?" continued the voice; "I thought I did. The dogs +are chained up in the smoke-house, and bad people are often coming here; +I will go turn the dogs loose." + +"Be dogged if you do!" Jimmy reflected. "That's the meanest cat-bird +ever I see, fur now it's shut up a-purpose." + +There sounded something familiar to the uninvited guest in the voice +which seemed to delay this intention; but the cat-bird, with his +unaccommodating mood, broke right in again. Then the female continued: + +"While the men--who had come armed, expecting trouble--were removing +Aunt Betty's goods out of the room, throwing many of them out of the +windows, so as to be themselves in sole possession, a sound was heard in +the room below, where your meal is now ready, like a panther skipping +and lashing his tail; and, before the men could breathe, old Ebenezer +Johnson was up the stairs and laying about him. His eyes were full of +murder. One man jumped right through that window and rolled off the +porch; another he pitched down the stairs; the third was a boy, Joe +King, barely grown--he lives not far from this house now--and Ebenezer +Johnson dashed him down the stairs, too, and started after him. All his +life the boy had been taught to dread that terrible man, and now he was +in his hands, or flying before him; and, as he reeled through the room +below, out of the door that opens on the back porch, the boy's eyes, in +the agony of the fear of death, beheld a rifle leaning there." + +"Mighty good thing if it was thar now!" Jimmy inwardly remarked, +finishing the chicken, and still hungry. + +"Oh, there _is_ a noise somewhere in this house," the voice exclaimed; +"I never tell this story but it makes me startled at every sound. The +boy, as he whirled past, grasped the long rifle, drew it to his +shoulder, and, with a young volunteer's skill--for he had been drilling +to fight the British--he put the two balls in that old man's brain. Both +balls entered over the left eyebrow, and one passed through the head and +was found in the wall; the other never was found.[3] The lawless giant +gave a trembling motion through his frame, his eyes glazed, and he sank +dead upon the floor without a sound--the wicked had ceased from +troubling! Aunt Betty, Aunt Patty, and Aunt Jane, three sisters shaped +by him in soul, fell on his body and wept and almost prayed, but it was +too late. They buried him near Aunt Betty, in the field behind the +pound." + +Undertaking to rise from his chair, Jimmy Phoebus made a loud scraping +on the floor, and the table-knife fell with a ringing sound. + +"Who's there?" cried a voice, and added, "I knew the dogs ought to be +loose." + +"Who's there?" also asked the other voice, with something very familiar +to Phoebus in its sounds. + +"E-b-e-n-e-z-e-r John-son!" answered Jimmy, in his deepest bass tones, +mentally considering that a ghost might carry more terror than a robber, +after that tale. + +A little scream followed, and a whispered consultation, and then a +girl's bare feet, beautifully moulded, slowly descended the steep +stairway, and next a slender, graceful body came into view, and finally +a face, delicious as a ripe peach, looked once at the intruder below, +and all the pink and bright color faded from it to see, standing there, +where Ebenezer Johnson had given up the ghost, a stalwart effigy, +bandaged in white all round the head, and over the left eye and cheek, +where the dead river-pirate had received his double bullet, the blood +was hideously matted and not wholly stanched even yet. She sank slowly +down upon the steps and saw no more. + +"Now, if I don't git out, the dogs will be set loose," muttered Jimmy, +as he disappeared up the farm-house lane and put the barn and pound +between him and the house; and scarcely had he done so when Levin Dennis +appeared coming down the stairs, all unconscious of the apparition, and, +finding the beautiful girl insensible, he raised her in his arms and +stole a kiss. + +Paying for his one act of deceit by losing the principal object of his +quest, Jimmy Phoebus stopped a minute by Ebenezer Johnson's grave. + +In a level field of deep sand--the soil here being the poorest in the +region--and between the cattle-pound and the pines, which were +everywhere jealous of their other indigenous brother, the Indian corn, +an old family burial-lot lay under some low cedar-trees, with wild berry +bushes growing all around. There were several little stones over +Twifords that had died early, and a large heap of sand, planted with +some flowers, that might have covered a favorite horse, but which +Phoebus believed was the resting-place of the river buccaneer; and +there was also a vault of brick and plaster, with the little door ajar, +where prurient visitors, themselves with Saul's own selfish curiosity to +raise the dead, had poked and peeped about until the coffin lids had +been drawn back and the dead pair exposed to the dry peninsular air. + +The bay captain looked in and beheld his predecessor, Captain Twiford, +who also sailed the bay, lying in his shroud--not in full clothing, as +men are buried now, for clothing was too valuable in the scanty-peopled +country to feed it to the worms. Twiford lay shrivelled up, shroud and +flesh making but one skin, the face of a walnut color, the hair +complete, the teeth sound, and severe dignity unrelaxed by the exposure +he was condemned to for his evil alliance with Betty Hanley. + +She also lay exposed, who had lived so shamelessly, respecting not the +mould of beauty God had given her, till now men leered to look upon her +nearly kiln-dried bosom glued into its winding-sheet, and the glory of +her hair, that had been handled by bantering outlaws, and in a rippling +wave of unbleached coal covered the grinning coquetry of her skull. + +"Them that mocks God shall be mocked of him," said Jimmy Phoebus, +closing the door and putting some of the scattered bricks of the vault +against it. "Now, I reckon, I kin git to the cross-roads by a leetle +after dark." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +PATTY CANNON'S. + + +Phoebus passed along the side of a large, black, cypress-shaded +mill-pond, and found the boundary stone again, and took the angle from +its northern face as a compass-point, and, proceeding in that direction, +soon fell in with a sort of blind path hardly feasible for wheels, which +ran almost on the line between the states of Maryland and Delaware, +passing in sight of several of these old boundary stones. Not a dwelling +was visible as he proceeded, not even a clearing, not a stream except +one mere gutter in the sand, not a man, hardly an animal or a bird; the +monotonous sand-pines, too low to moan, too thick to expand, too dry to +give shade, yet grew and grew, like poor folks' sandy-headed children, +and kept company only with some scrubby oaks that had strayed that way, +till pine-cone and acorn seemed to have bred upon each other, and the +wild hogs disdained the progeny. + +"Maybe I'll git killed up yer in this Pangymonum," Jimmy reflected; "an' +though I 'spose it don't make no difference whair you plant your bones, +I don't want to grow up into ole pines. Good, big, preachin' kind of +pines, that's a little above the world, an' says 'Holy, rolley, +melancho-ly, mind your soul-y'--I could go into their sap and shats +fust-rate. But to die yer an' never be found in these desert wastes is +pore salvage for a man that's lived among the white sails of the bay, +an' loved a woman elegant as Ellenory." + +It was dark, and he could hardly see his way in half an hour. Sometimes +a crow would caw, to hear strange sounds go past, like an old +watchman's rattle moved one cog. The stars became bright, however, and +the moon was new, and when Phoebus came to a large cleared opening in +the pines, the lambent heavens broke forth and bathed the sandy fields +with silver, and showed a large, high house at the middle of the +clearing, with outside chimneys, one thicker than the other, and a porch +of two stories facing the east. + +Though not a large dwelling, it was large for those days and for that +unfrequented region, and its roof seemed to Phoebus remarkably steep +and long, and yet, while enclosing so much space, had not a single +dormer window in it. The southern gable was turned towards the intruder, +and in it were two small windows at the top, crowded between the thick +chimney and the roof slope. The two main stories were well lighted, +however, and the porch was enclosed at the farther end, making a double +outside room there. No sheds, kitchens, or stables were attached to the +premises, but an old pole-well, like some catapult, reared its long pole +at half an angle between the crotch of another tree. Roads, marked by +tall worm fences, crossed at the level vista where this tall house +presided, and a quarter of a mile beyond the cross-roads, to the +northeast, was another house, much smaller, and hip-gabled, like +Twiford's, standing up a lane and surrounded by small stables, cribs, +orchard, and garden. + +"I never 'spected to come yer," Jimmy Phoebus observed, "but I've +hearn tell of this place considabul. The big barn-roofed house is Joe +Johnston's tavern for the entertainment of Georgey nigger-traders that +comes to git his stolen goods. It's at the cross-roads, three miles from +Cannon's Ferry, whar the passengers from below crosses the Nanticoke fur +Easton and the north, an' the stages from Cambridge by the King's road +meets 'em yonder at the tavern. The tavern stands in Dorchester County, +with a tongue of Caroline reaching down in front of it, an' Delaware +state hardly twenty yards from the porch. Thar ain't a court-house +within twenty miles, nor a town in ten, except Crotcher's Ferry, whar +every Sunday mornin' the people goin' to church kin pick up a basketful +of ears, eyes, noses, fingers, an' hair bit off a-fightin' on Saturday +afternoon. They call the country around Crotcher's, Wire Neck, caze no +neck is left thar that kin be twisted off; the country in lower Car'line +they calls 'Puckem,' caze the crops is so puckered up. They say Joe's a +great man among his neighbors, an' kin go to the Legislater. The t'other +house out in the fields is Patty Cannon's own, whar she did all her +dev'lishness fur twenty years, till Joe got rich enough to build his +palace." + +With the rapid execution of a man who only plans with his feet and +hands, the bay sailor observed that there was a grove of good high +timber--oaks and pines--only a few rods from the cross-roads and to the +right, under cover of which he could draw near the tavern. As he +proceeded to gain its shade, he heard extraordinary sounds of turbulence +from the front of the tavern, the yelling of men, the baying of hounds, +oaths and laughter, and, listening as he crossed the intervening space, +he fell into a ditch inadvertently, almost at the edge of the timber. + +"Hallo!" cried Jimmy, lying quite still to draw his breath, since the +ditch was now perfectly dry, "this ditch seems to me to pint right for +that tavern." + +He therefore crawled along its dry bed till it crossed under a road by a +wooden culvert or little bridge of a few planks. + +The noise at the tavern was now like a fight, and, as Phoebus +continued to crawl forward, he heard twenty voices, crying, + +"Gouge him, Owen Daw!" "Hit him agin, Cyrus James!" "Chaw him right up!" +"Give' em room, boys!" + +Having crawled to what he judged the nearest point of concealed +approach, Phoebus lost the moment to take a single glance only, and, +drawing his old slouched hat down on his face to hide the bandaging, he +muttered, "Now's jess my time," and crept up to the back of the crowd, +which was all facing inwards in a circle, and did not perceive him. + +A fully grown man, as it seemed, was having a fight with a boy hardly +fifteen years old; but the boy was the more reckless and courageous of +the two, while the man, with three times the boy's strength, lacked the +stomach or confidence to avail himself of it; and, having had the boy +down, was now being turned by the latter, amid shouts of "Three to two +on Owen Daw!" "Bite his nose off, Owen Daw!" "Five to two that Cyrus +James gits gouged by Owen Daw!" + +The boy with a Celtic face and supple body was full of zeal to merit +favor and inflict injury, and, as the circle of vagrants and outlaws of +all ages reeled and swayed to and fro, Phoebus, unobserved by anybody, +put his head down among the rest and searched the faces for those of +Levin Dennis or Joe Johnson. + +Neither was there, and the only face which arrested his attention was a +woman's, standing in the door of the enclosed space at the end of the +porch, at right angles to the central door of the tavern, and just +beside it. The whole building was without paint, and weather-stained, +but the room on the porch was manifestly newer, as if it had been an +afterthought, and its two windows revealed some of the crude appendages +of a liquor bar, as a fire somewhere within flashed up and lighted it. + +By this fire the woman's face was also revealed, and she was so much +interested in the fight that she turned all parts of her countenance +into the firelight, slapping her hands together, laughing like a man, +dropping her oaths at the right places, and crying: + +"I bet my money on little Owen Daw! Cy James ain't no good, by God! +Yer's whiskey a-plenty for Owen Daw if he gouges him. Give it to him, +Owen Daw! Shame on ye, Cy James!" + +There was occasional servility and deference to this woman from members +of the crowd, however they were absorbed in the fight. She was what is +called a "chunky" woman, short and thick, with a rosy skin, low but +pleasing forehead, coal-black hair, a rolling way of swaying and moving +herself, a pair of large black eyes, at once daring, furtive, and +familiar, and a large neck and large breast, uniting the bull-dog and +the dam, cruelty and full womanhood. + +Behind this woman, whom Phoebus thought to be Patty Cannon herself, +the moonlight from the rear came through the door in the older and main +building, shining quite through the house, and Phoebus saw that the +rear door was also open and was unguarded. + +He took the first chance, therefore, of dodging around the corner of the +bar, intending to pass around the north gable of the house and dart up +the stairs by the unwatched door; but he had barely got out of sight +when a loud hurrah burst from the crowd as a feeble voice was heard +crying "Enough, enough!" followed by jeers rapidly approaching. + +The large outside chimney, where Phoebus now was, had an arched cavity +in it large enough to contain a man, being the chimney of two different +rooms within, whose smoke, uniting higher up, ascended through one stem. +Into this cavity Phoebus dodged, in time to avoid the beaten party to +the fight, the grown man, who staggered blindly by towards a well, his +face dripping blood, and he was sobbing babyishly; but the concealed +sailor heard him say, in a whining tone: + +"She set him on me; I'll make her pay for it." + +Several of the partisans or tormentors of this craven followed after +him, and Jimmy himself fell in at the rear, and, instead of going with +the rest towards the well, where the loser was bathing his face, +Phoebus softly stepped over the low sill of the back door, the woman's +back being turned to him, and, as he had anticipated, a stairway +ascended there out of a large room, which answered the purposes of +parlor and hall, dining and gambling room, as Jimmy drank in at one +glance, from seeing tables, dishes and cards, bottles and whips, arms +and saddles. This stairway had no baluster, and was not safe in the dark +for strangers to the house. + +Satisfying himself by an interior observation, as he had suspected +exteriorly, that there was no cellar under Johnson's tavern, the sailor +slipped up the stairs, intent to find where Judge Custis's property and +Ellenora's wayward son had been concealed. The second story had a hall, +which opened only at the front of the house and upon the upper piazza, +and four doors upon this hall indicated four bedrooms. One of them was +ajar, and, peeping through, Phoebus saw, extended on a bed, oblivious +to all the righting and din outside, Joe Johnson the negro-trader, his +form revealed by a lamp and the open fire. + +An impulse, immediately repressed, came on the sailor to draw his knife +and stab Johnson to the heart, as probably the villain who had shot him +from the cat-boat. The negro-trader wearily turned his long length in +the bed, and Phoebus slipped back along the hall to the only door +besides that was not closed fast, leading into the room at the rear +southern corner of the house. + +This door creaked loudly as it was opened, and a man of a bandit form +and dress, who was lying on a pallet within, revealed by the bright +moonlight streaming in at two windows, half roused himself as Jimmy +crouched at the door, where a partition, as of a very large +clothes-press, taking up fully half the room, rose between the intruder +and the occupant. + +"Who's there?" exclaimed a voice, with a slight lisp in it. + +Jimmy discovered that there was a low trap or door near the floor, +opening into this remarkable closet, and he slipped inside and drew his +knife again. The man was heard moving about the narrow room, and he +finally seemed to walk out into the hall and down the stairs. + +Feeling around his closet, which was pitch dark, Phoebus found a deep +indentation in it, as of a smaller closet, and the sound of crooning +voices came from above. + +"By smoke!" Jimmy mentally exclaimed, "this big closet is nothin' but a +blind fur a stairway in the little closet to climb up to the dungeon +under the big roof." + +He stole out again and found the moonlight now streaming upon an empty +pallet and the burly watchman gone, and streaming, too, upon a larger +door in the closet opposite the indentation he had felt, this door +secured by a padlock through a staple fastening an iron bar. The key was +in the padlock, and Jimmy turned it back, drew off the lock and dropped +the bar. + +The moment he opened the door an almost insupportable smell came down a +shallow hatchway within, up which leaned a rough step-ladder, movable, +and of stout construction. + +"That smell," said Phoebus, entering, and pulling the door close +behind him, "might be wool, or camel, or a moral menagerie from the +royal gardings of Europe, but I guess it's Nigger." + +He went up the steep steps with some difficulty, as they were made to +pass only one person, and at the top he entered a large garret, divided +into two by a heavy partition of yellow pine, with a door at the middle +of it, and from beyond this partition came the sounds of crooning and +babbling he had heard. + +The bright night, shining through a small gable window, revealed this +outer half of the garret empty, and not furniture or other appurtenance +than the hole in the floor up which he had come, and the door into the +place of wailing beyond, which was fastened by a long iron spike +dropping into a staple that overshot a heavy wooden bar. As he slipped +up the spike and took the bar off, Phoebus heard some person in the +room below mutter, and lock the great padlock upon the other door, +effectually barring his escape by that egress. + +"We must take things as they come," thought Jimmy, grimly, "partickler +in Pangymonum, whar I am now." + +He also reflected that the arrangements of this kidnappers' pen, simple +as they seemed, were quite sufficient. If authority should demand to +search the house, the double clothes-press below, with the ladder pulled +up into the loft, became a harmless closet hung with wardrobe matters, +and the inner closet a storeroom for articles of bulk; and no human +being could either go up or come down without passing two inhabited +floors and three different doors, besides the door to the slave-pen. + +This last door Phoebus now threw open and walked into the pen itself, +stooping his head to avoid the low entrance. + +For some minutes he could not see the contents at all in the total +darkness that prevailed, as there was no window whatever in this pen or +den, but he heard various voices, and inhaled the strong, close air of +many African breaths exhausting the supply of oxygen, and knew that +chains and irons were being moved against the boards of the floor. + +"Thair ain't nothin' to do yer," Jimmy remarked, softly, "but jess squat +down an' git a-climated, as they say about strangers to our bilious +shore, an' git your eyeballs tuned to the dark. But I should say that +this was both hokey-pokey an' Pangymonum, by smoke!" + +A man in some part of the den was praying in a highly nervous, excited +way, slobbering out his agonizing sentences, and dwelling hard upon his +more open vowels, and keeping several other inmates in sympathy or equal +misery, as they piped in answer to his apostrophes: + +"Lawd, de-_scen'! De_-scen', O my Lawd. I will not let dee go; no, oh my +Lawd! Come, save me! Yes, my Lawd! Come walkin' on de waters! Come outen +Lazarus's tomb! Come on de chario'f fire! Come in de power! De-scen' +now, O my Lawd!" + +Phoebus's entrance made no excitement, and he crouched down to await +the strengthening of his eyes to see around him. The place appeared to +be nearly twenty-five feet square, and was cross-boarded both the gable +way and under the sloping roof, whose eaves were planked up a foot or +two above the floor; in the middle any man could stand upright and +scarcely touch the ridge beam with his hands, but along the sloping +sides could barely sit upright. + +The man still continuing to express his absolute subjection of spirit in +a frenzy of words, and several little children crying and shouting +responsively, Phoebus ordered the man to cease, after asking him +kindly to do so several times; and the command being disobeyed, he +slapped the praying one with his open hand, and the poor wretch rolled +over in a kind of feeble fit. + +A little child somewhere continuing to cry, Phoebus took it in his +arms and held between it and the starlight, at the half-open door, one +of the shillings he had obtained from the old cabin on Broad Creek a few +hours before. The child, seeing something shine, seized it and held +fast, and Phoebus next passed his hand over the face of a sleeping +man, who was snoring calmly and strenuously on the floor beside him. He +made room for the faint light to shine upon the sleeper's black face, +and exclaimed, in a moment: + +"If it ain't Samson Hat I hope I may be swallered by a whale!" + +Calling his name, "Samson! Samson!" Phoebus observed a most dejected +mulatto person, who had been lying back in the shadows, crawl forward, +rattling his manacles. This man, when spoken to, replied with such +refinement and accuracy, however his face betokened great inward misery, +that the sailor took as careful a survey of him as the moonlight +permitted, coming in by that one lean attic window. He was a man who had +shaved himself only recently, and his dark, curling side-whiskers and +clean lips, and the tuft of goatee in the hollow of his chin, and +intelligent, high forehead, seemed altogether out of place in this +darksome eyrie of the sad and friendless. + +"Is he your friend, sir?" asked this man, turning towards Samson. "He +must have a good conscience if he is, for he slept soon after he was +brought here, and has never uttered a single complaint." + +"And you have, I reckon?" said the waterman. + +"Oh, yes, sir; I have been treated with such ingratitude. It would break +any gentleman's heart to hear my tale. Who is your friend, sir?" + +"Samson, wake up, old bruiser!" cried Phoebus, shaking the sleeper +soundly; "you didn't give in to one or two, by smoke!" + +"Is it you, Jimmy?" the old negro finally said, with a sheepish +expression; "why, neighbor, I'm glad to see you, but I'm sorry, too. A +black man dey don't want to kill yer, caze dey kin sell him, but a white +man like you dey don't want to keep, and dey dassn't let him go." + +"A _white_ man here?" exclaimed the superior-looking person; "what can +they mean?" + +"I'm ironed so heavy, Jimmy," continued Samson, "dat I can't set up +much. My han's is tied togedder wid cord, my feet's in an iron clevis, +and a ball's chained to de clevis." + +"Give me your hands," exclaimed Jimmy; "I'll settle them cords, by +smoke!" + +In a minute he had severed the cords at the wrist, and the intelligent +yellow man pleaded that a similar favor be done for him, to which the +sailor acceded ungrudgingly. + +"Jimmy," said Samson, "if it's ever known in Prencess Anne--as I 'spect +it never will be, fur we're in bad hands, neighbor--dar'll be a laugh +instid of a cry, fur ole boxin' Samson, dat was kidnapped an' fetched to +jail by a woman!" + +"You licked by a woman, Samson?" + +"Yes, Jimmy, a woman all by herseff frowed me down, tied my hands an' +feet, an' brought me to dis garret. I hain't seen nobody but her an' +dese yer people, sence I was tuk." + +"Ha!" exclaimed the dejected mulatto, "that's a favorite feat of Patty +Cannon. She is the only woman ever seen at a threshing-floor who can +stand in a half-bushel measure and lift five bushels of grain at once +upon her shoulders, weighing three hundred pounds." + +"I ain't half dat," Samson smiled, quietly, "an' she handled me, shore +enough. You remember, Jimmy, when I leff you by ole Spring Hill church, +to go an' git a woman on a little wagon to show me de way to Laurel?" + +"Why, it was only yisterday, Samson!" + +"Dat was de woman, Jimmy. She was a chunky, heavy-sot woman, right purty +to look at, an' maybe fifty year ole. She was de nicest woman mos' ever +I see. She made me git off my mule an' ride in de wagon by her, an' take +a drink of her own applejack--she said she 'stilled it on her farm. She +said she knowed Judge Custis, an' asked me questions about Prencess +Anne, an' wanted me to work fur her some way. We was goin froo a pore, +pine country, a heap wuss dan Hardship, whar Marster Milburn come outen, +an' hadn't seen nobody on de road till we come to a run she said was +named de Tussocky branch, whar she got out of de wagon to water her +hoss. At dat place she come up to me an' says, 'Samson, I'll wrastle +you!' 'Go long,' says I, 'I kin't wrastle no woman like you.' 'You got +to,' she says, swearin' like a man, an' takin' holt of me jess like a +man wrastles. I felt ashamed, an' didn't know what to do, and, befo' I +could wink, Jimmy, dat woman had give me de trip an' shoved me wid a +blow like de kick of an ox, and was a-top of my back wid a knee like +iron pinnin' of me down." + +"The awful huzzy of Pangymonum!" + +"De fust idee I had was dat she was a man dressed up like a woman. I +started like lightnin' to jump up, an' my legs caught each oder; she had +carried de cord to tie me under her gown, an' clued it aroun' me in a +minute. As I run at her an' fell hard, she drew de runnin' knot tight +an' danced aroun' me like a fat witch, windin' me all up in de rope. De +sweat started from my head, I yelled an' fought an' fell agin, an', as I +laid with my tongue out like a calf in de butcher's cart, she whispered +to me, 'Maybe you're de las' nigger ole Patty Cannon'll ever tie!' + +"At dat name I jess prayed to de Lord, but it was too late. She put me +in de cart an' gagged me so I couldn't say a word, and blood came outen +my mouth. I heard her talkin' to people as we passed by a town an' over +a bridge. Nobody looked in de cart whar I laid kivered over, till we +come to a ferry in de night, an' dar we passed over, and I heard her +talkin' to a man on dis side of de ferry. He come to de side of de wagon +an' peeped at me, layin' helpless dar, my eyes jess a-prayin' to +him--and he had an elegant eye in his head, Jimmy. He says softly to +hisself, 'Dis is no consignment, manifes'ly, to Isaac an' Jacob Cannon,' +an' he kivered me up again, an' the woman fetched me yer, put on de +irons, and shoved me into dis hole in de garret." + +"I reckon that was Isaac Cannon, t'other Levite that never sees anything +that ain't in his quoshint." + +"How's the purty gals, Jimmy? I shall see' em in my dreams, I' spect, if +I _am_ sold Souf. I ain't got long to stay, nohow, Jimmy, fur I'm mos' +sixty. If you ever git out, tell my marster to buy dat gal Virgie, an' +make her free. She ain't fit to be a slave." + +"Gals has their place," said Phoebus, "but not whair men has to fight +for liberty. How many fighting men are we here?" + +"I 'spect you's de only one, Jimmy; we's all chained up; dese +nigger-dealers is all blacksmifs an' keeps balls, hobbles, gripes, an' +clevises, an' loads us wid iron." + +"Who is that woman back yonder so quare an' still?" + +"Why, Jimmy, don't you know Aunt Hominy, Jedge Custis's ole cook? Dey +brought her in dis mornin' wi' two little children outen Teackle Hall +kitchen; one of dem you give dat silver to--little Ned. Hominy ain't +said a word sence she come." + +Jimmy Phoebus went back to the corner of the den where the old woman +cowered, and called her name in many different accents and with kind +assurances: + +"Hominy, ole woman, don't you know Ellenory's Jimmy? Jedge Custis is +comin' for you, aunty. I'm yer to take you home." + +She did not speak at all, and Phoebus lifted her without resistance +nearer to the moonlight. Her lips mumbled unintelligibly, her eyes were +dull, she did not seem to know them. + +Samson crawled forward, and also called her name kindly: + +"Aunt Hominy, Miss Vesty's sent fur you. Dis yer is Jimmy Phoebus." + +The little boy Ned now spoke up: + +"Aunt Hominy ain't spoke sence dat Quaker man killed little Phillis." + +"Jimmy," solemnly whispered Samson, "Aunt Hominy's lost her mind." + +"Yes," spoke up the dejected and elegant mulatto prisoner, "she's become +an idiot. They sometimes take it that way." + +Phoebus bent his face close down to the poor old creature's, sitting +there in her checkered turban and silver earrings, clean and tidy as +servants of the olden time, and he studied her vacant countenance, her +tenantless eyes, her lips moving without connection or relevance, and +felt that cruelty had inflicted its last miraculous injury--whipped out +her mind from its venerable residence, and left her body yet to suffer +the pains of life without the understanding of them. + +"Oh, shame! shame!" cried the sailor, tears finally falling from his +eyes, "to deceive and steal this pore, believin' intelleck! To rob the +cook of the little tin cup full o' brains she uses to git food fur bad +an' fur good folks! Why, the devils in Pangymonum wouldn't treat that a +way the kind heart that briled fur 'em." + +"De long man said he was Quaker man," exclaimed Vince, the larger boy, +"an' he come to take Hominy to de free country. Hominy was sold, she +said, an' must go. De long man had a boat--Mars Dennis's boat--an' in de +night little Phillis woke up an' cried. Nobody couldn't stop her. De +long man picked little Phillis up by de leg an' mashed her skull in agin +de flo'. Aunt Hominy ain't never spoke no mo'." + +"Did you hear the long man speak after that, Vince?" + +"Yes, mars'r. I heerd de long man tell Mars Dennis dat if he didn't +steer de boat an' shet his mouf, he'd shoot him. I heerd de pistol go +off, but Mars Dennis wasn't killed, fur I saw him steerin' afterwards." + +"Thank God!" spoke the sailor, kissing the child. "Ellenory's boy was +innocent, by smoke! That nigger-trader shot me an' threatened Levin's +life if he listened to me hailing of him. The noise I heard was the +murder of the baby, whose cries betrayed the coming of the vessel. +Samson, thar's been treachery ever sence we left Salisbury, an' that +nigger Dave's a part of it." + +"He said he hated me caze I larned him to box. Maybe my fightin's been +my punishment, Jimmy, but I never struck a man a foul blow." + +"And what was _your_ hokey-pokey?" the pungy captain cried to the man +who had been making so much religious din. "Did they sell you fur never +knowin' whar to stop a good thing?" + +The man hoarsely explained, himself interested by the disclosures and +fraternity around him: + +"I was slave to a local preacher in Delaware, an' de sexton of de +church. It was ole Barrett's chapel, up yer between Dover an' +Murderkill--de church whar Bishop Coke an' Francis Asbury fust met on de +pulpit stairs. My marster an' me was boff members of it, but he loved +money bad, an' I was to be free when I got to be twenty-five years ole, +accordin' to de will of his Quaker fader, dat left me to him. Las' +Sunday night dey had a long class-meetin' dar, an' when nobody was leff +in de church but my marster an' me, he says to me, 'Rodney, le's you an' +me have one more prayer togedder befo' you put out dat las' lamp. You +pray, Rodney!' I knelt an' prayed for marster after I must leave him to +be free next year, an', while I was prayin' loud, people crept in de +church an' tied me, and marster was gone." + +"He sold you fur life to them kidnappers, boy, becaze you was goin' to +be free next year. Don't your Bible tell you to watch _an'_ pray?" + +"Yes, marster." + +"Well, then, boys, it's all watch to-night and no more praying," cried +Jimmy Phoebus, cheerily. "Here are four men, loving liberty, bound to +have it or die. Thar's one of' em with a knife, an' the first kidnapper +that crosses that sill, man or woman--fur we'll trust no more women, +Samson--gits the knife to the hilt! The blessed light that shone onto +Calvary an' Bunker Hill is a gleamin' on the blade. Work off your irons, +if you kin; I'll git you rafters outen this roof to jab with if you +can't do no better. Are you all with me?" + +"I am, Jimmy," answered Samson, quietly. + +"I'll die with ye, too," exclaimed the praying man, with rekindled +spirit. + +"We will all be murdered, gentlemen," protested the dejected mulatto. "I +know these desperate people." + +"Then you crawl over in the corner," Phoebus commanded, "and see three +men fight fur you. We don't want any fine buck nigger to spile his +beauty for us." + +The man crawled back into the blackness of the den again, and Phoebus +began to search the open half of the garret for implements of war. He +found two long pieces of chain, with which determined men might beat out +an adversary's brains. + +"Now, boys," Jimmy delivered himself, "I hain't lost my head yisterday +nor to-day neither, by smoke! I'm goin' to kill the first person that +comes yer, an' git the keys of this den from him, an' lock all of you in +fast, an' the dead kidnapper, too. Then they won't git at you to ship +you off till I kin git to Seaford, over yer in Delaware--it's not more +than six mile--whar I know three captains of pungies, and all of' em's +in port thar now--all friends of Jimmy Phoebus, all well armed, and +their crews enough to handle Pangymonum!" + +A noise was heard at the lock of the lower door, and Phoebus slipped +into the enclosed den and took his station just within the door. + +"Remember," he whispered, "I open the fight." + +The lock snapped at the door below the step-ladder, the bolt fell, and +the light of a lamp flashed up the hatchway and upon the naked roof, and +through the cracks of the boarded garret pen. + +The sailor's knife was in his belt-pouch, where he carried it over the +hip. As he leaned down to look through a crack in the low door, he felt +a hand from the gloom behind touch him. + +Instinctively he felt for his knife, and it was gone. + +"Captain," cried the voice of the dejected mulatto, as the door of the +pen flew open and the bandit-looking stranger appeared with the lamp, +"there's a white man here going to kill you. I've taken his knife from +him and saved your life. It's a rebellion, captain!" + +"Help! Patty! Joe!" cried the man, with a loud voice, as Jimmy Phoebus +threw himself upon him and extinguished the lamp, and the two powerful +men rolled on the floor together in a grip of mortal combat. + +Phoebus was a man of great power, but his antagonist was strong and +slippery, too, and a spirited rough-and-tumble fighter. + +The pungy captain was on top, the bandit man locked him fast in his arms +and legs, and tried to stab him in the side, as Phoebus felt the +handle of a clasp-knife, which seemed slow to obey its spring, strike +him repeatedly all round the groin, in strokes that would have killed, +inflicted by the blade. + +Phoebus attempted to drag the man to the hatchway and force him down +it, while the two negro assistants of Phoebus beat down the negro +traitor with their chains, and searched him vainly for the knife he had +filched. + +At last Phoebus prevailed, and his antagonist rolled down the open +hatchway, seven feet or more, still keeping his desperate hold on +Phoebus, and dragging him along; and both might have cracked their +skulls but for a woman just in the act of hurrying up the ladder, +against whom their two bodies pitched and were cushioned upon her. + +The shock, however, stunned both of them, and when Phoebus recollected +himself he was tied hand and foot and lying on the garret floor again, +and over him stood Joe Johnson, flourishing a cowhide. + +The bandages had again been torn from Phoebus's face, and he was +bleeding at the flesh-wound in his cheek, and breathless from his +conflict. A woman had dashed a vessel of water into his face, and this +had revived him. + +The other man, called "captain," had, meantime, by the aid of this +woman--the same Phoebus had seen down-stairs--subdued and tied the +black insurgents, and both of them were flourishing their whips over the +backs and heads of the prisoners, big and little, so that the garret was +no slight reflection of the place of eternal torment, as the shadows of +the monsters, under the weak light, whipped and danced against the beams +and shingles, and shrieks and shouts of "Mercy!" blended in hideous +dissonance. + +The woman now turned her lamp on the sailor's rough, swarthy, injured +countenance, and looked him over out of her dark, bold eyes: + +"Joe, this is a nigger, by God!" + +Johnson and the captain also examined him carefully, and, uttering an +oath, the former kicked the prostrate man with his heavy boot. + +"I popped this bloke last night," he said, "and thought the scold's cure +had him. He's a sea-crab playin' the setter fur niggers. He sang beef to +me in Princess Anne. I told him thar he'd pass for a nigger, Patty, and +we'll sell him fur one to Georgey!" + +"All's fish that comes to our net, Joe," the woman chuckled; "he'll sell +high, too." + +"That white man," spoke the voice of Samson, within the pen, his chains +rattling, "has hunderds of friends a-lookin' fur him, an' you'll ketch +it if you don't let him off." + +"What latitat chants there?" Joe Johnson demanded of Patty Cannon. + +"That's my nigger, Joe," the woman answered. + +"Fetch him to the light." + +The captain propped Samson up, and Joe Johnson glared into his face, and +then struck him down with the handle of his heavy whip. + +"Patty," he growled, "that nigger's scienced; he's the champion scrapper +of Somerset. He knocked me down, and I marked him fur it; and now, by +God! I'm a-goin' to burn him alive on Twiford's island." + +He swore an oath, half blasphemous, half blackguard, and the captain +murmured, with a lisp: + +"The white man is the only _witness_. Make sure of him!" + +Irons were produced, and the captain speedily fastened Phoebus's hands +in a clevis, and hobbled his feet, and placed him, without brutality, in +the pen, and, further, chained him there to a ring in the joist below. +As the door was closed and bolted, a voice from the darkness of the pen +cried out: + +"Aunt Patty, let me out: I saved the captain's life; I took the white +man's knife. I'll serve you faithfully if you only let me go." + +"He blowed the gab," said Joe Johnson, "but it won't serve him." + +"Zeke," cried the woman, "it's no use. You go to Georgey with the next +gang--you an' the white nigger thar." + +The man threw himself upon the floor and moaned and prayed, as the +lamplight disappeared and the hatchway slid echoingly over the stairs, +and the lower bolts were drawn. As he lay there in horror and amid +contempt, a voice arrested his ears near by, singing, with musical and +easy spirit, so low that it seemed a hymn, from the roads and fields far +down beneath: + + "Deep-en de woun' dy hands have made + In dis weak, helpless soul." + +The man listened with awe and silence, as if a spirit hummed the tune, +and forgot his doom of slavery a moment in the deeper anguish of a +treacherous heart that simple hymn bestirred. It was only Jimmy +Phoebus, thinking what he could say to punish this double traitor +most, who had turned his back upon his race and upon gratitude, and +Jimmy had remembered the poor woman chained to the tree on Twiford's +island, and her oft-reiterated hymn; and the conclusion was flashed upon +his mind that the mulatto wretch who decoyed her away and sold her was +none other than his renegade fellow-prisoner, in turn made merchandise +of because too dangerous to set at large in the probable hue-and-cry for +her. + +"Poor Mary!" Phoebus slowly spoke, in his deepest tones, with solemn +cadence. + +The wretched man listened and trembled. + +"Mary's sperrit's callin' 'Zeke!'" Phoebus continued, awful in his +inflection. + +The miserable procurer's heart stopped at the words, and his eyeballs +turned in torment. + +"Come, Zeke! poor Mary's a-waitin' for ye!" cried the sailor, suddenly, +in a voice of thunder, and as suddenly relapsed into the low singing of +the quiet hymn again: + + "Deep-en de woun' dy hands have made + In dis weak, helpless soul, + Till mercy, wid its mighty aid + De-scen to make me whole; + Yes, Lord! + De-scen to make me whole." + +The elegant Iscariot, at the thunder of the invocation, had reached into +a place between two of the cypress shingles in the roof, where he had +hidden the sailor's knife, the blade being pressed out of sight, and +only the handle within his grasp. It had been overlooked in the exciting +scenes of the previous few minutes, and now recurred to his mind, as +superstitious passions rolled like dreadful meteors across the black and +hopeless chasm of his despairing soul. + +When the low drone of the hymn he had heard his victim sing to her baby, +when her faith in him was pure and childlike, crossed his maddened ears +again, he raised one shriek of "Mercy!" to which no answer fell, and +drew the blade across his throat and fell dead in the kidnappers' den. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +VAN DORN. + + +A thin fur of frost was on the level farm-lands, and the saffron and +orange leaves were falling almost audibly from the trees, as Levin +Dennis awoke on Wednesday, in the long, low house standing back in the +fields from Johnson's cross-roads, and drank in the cool, stimulating +morn, the sun already having made his first relay, and his postilion +horn was blowing from the old tavern that reared its form so broadly and +yet so steeply in plain sight. + +Levin had been brought up from Twiford's wharf the night before by the +pretty maid whom Jimmy Phoebus had so much frightened, and this was +his first day of restful feeling, having slept off the liquor fumes of +Sunday, the exciting watches of Monday, and the mingled pleasure and +pain, illness and interest, love and remorse, of Tuesday. + +He had felt already the earliest twinges of youthful fondness for the +young girl he had spent the day with at Twiford's, while lying sick +there from a disordered stomach and nervous system, and her amiability +and charms, more than the temptation of unhallowed money, had changed +his purpose to escape at Twiford's and give information of the injury +inflicted upon Judge Custis's property. + +It hardly seemed real that he had been an accessory to a felony and a +witness to a murder--the stealing of a gentleman's domestic slaves and +the braining of the smallest and most helpless of them, nearly in his +sight; yet so it had happened, and he felt the danger he was in, but +hesitated how to act. He had accepted the money of the trader, and +passed his mother's noblest friend on the river without recognition, +while a dastardly ball had probably ended poor Phoebus's career. To +all these deeds he was the only white witness, the only one on whose +testimony redress could be meted out. + +He felt, therefore, that he was a prisoner, and his life dependent on +his cordial relations with the bloody negro-dealer and his band; and +Johnson had reiterated his promise that if Levin joined them in equal +fraternity he should make money fast and become a plantation proprietor. + +This night coming, a raid on free negroes in Delaware was to be made by +the band in force, and Levin had been told that he must be one of the +kidnappers, and his frank co-operation that night would forever relieve +him of any suspicions of defection and bad faith. + +"Steal one nigger, Levin," Joe Johnson had said, "and then if ever +caught in the hock you never can snickle!" + +Levin interpreted this thieves' language to mean that he must do a crime +to get the kidnappers' confidence. + +The power of this band he had divined a little of when, at points along +the river, especially about Vienna, there had been mysterious +intercourse between Joe Johnson and people on the shore, carried on in +imitations of animal sounds; and the negro ferryman at that old +Dorchester village had spoken with Johnson only half an hour before the +trader's encounter with Jimmy Phoebus in mid-stream, whereupon the +grim passenger had produced his pistol and notified Levin: + +"Now, my feller prig, honor's what I expect from you, and, to remind you +of it, Levin, I'm a-goin' to pint this barking-iron at your mummer, so +that if you patter a cackle, a blue plum will go right down your +throat." + +He had then tried to evade some one expected on the river, and, in a fit +of rage at the awakening and wailing of the child, had hushed it +forever, and then had shot Phoebus down. + +Poor Hominy had sincerely believed that Johnson's peculiar slang was the +language of the good Quakers, followers of Elias Hicks, who sheltered +runaway slaves and spoke a "thee" and "thou" and "verily," and that +strange misapprehension in her ignorant mind the keen dealer had made +use of to decoy her into Levin's vessel and waft her into a distant +country. + +"We didn't steal her, Levin," Johnson said; "she wanted to mizzle from a +good master, an' we jess sells the crooked moke an' makes it squar." + +When Aunt Hominy, having under her protecting care the little children, +came on board the _Ellenora Dennis_ at Manokin Landing, Levin had been +asleep, and knew nothing of the theft till it was too late to protest, +and Johnson himself had sailed the cat-boat into broad water. Then, +bearing through Kedge's Strait, he had cruised up the open bay, out of +sight of the Somerset shore, and entered the Nanticoke towards night by +way of Harper's Strait, and run up on the night flood; but the instinct +of Jimmy Phoebus had cut him off at the forks of the Nanticoke, and +propelled another crime to Johnson's old suspected record. He had never +been indicted yet for murder, though murder was thought to be none too +formidable a crime for him. + +There was a zest of adventure in this guilty errand, which, but for its +crime, would have pleased Levin moderately well, the roving drop in his +blood expanding to this wild association; and he knew but little +comparatively of the Delaware kidnappers, reading nothing, and in those +days little was printed about Patty Cannon's band except in the distant +journals like _Niles's Register_ or _Lundy's Genius of Emancipation_. +Levin had never sailed up the Nanticoke region before, and its scenery +was agreeable to his sight, while his heart was just fluttering in the +first flight of sentiment towards the interesting creature he had so +unexpectedly and, as he thought, so strangely discovered there. + +Arriving at Twiford's in the night, Johnson had sent him to bed there, +and pushed on himself with the negro property to Johnson's Cross-roads; +and, when he awakened late the next day, Levin had found a beautiful +wildflower of a young woman sitting by his pallet, looking into his +large soft eyes with her own long-lashed orbs of humid gray, and +brushing his dark auburn ringlets with her hand. As he had looked up +wonderingly, she had said to him: + +"I have never seen a man before with his hair parted in the middle, but +I think I have dreamed of one." + +"Who air you?" Levin asked. + +"Me! Oh, I'm Hulda. I'm Patty Cannon's granddaughter." + +"That wicked woman!" Levin exclaimed. "Oh, I can't believe that!" + +"Nor can I sometimes, till the sinful truth comes to me from her own +bold lips. Oh, sir, I am not as wicked as she!" + +"How kin you be wicked at all," Levin asked, "when you look so good? I +would trust your face in jail." + +"Would you? How happy that makes me, to be trusted by some one! Nobody +seems to trust me here. My mother was never kind to me. Captain Van Dorn +is kind, but too kind; I shrink from him." + +"Where is your mother now?" + +"She has gone south with her husband, to live in Florida for all the +rest of her life, and we are all going there after father gets one more +drove of slaves. You are one of father's men, I suppose?" + +"Who is your father?" + +"Joe Johnson." + +"That man," murmured Levin. "Oh, no, it is too horrible." + +"Do not hate me. Be a little kind, if you do, for I have watched you +here hours, almost hoping you never might wake up, so beautiful and pure +you looked asleep." + +"And you--that's the way you look, Huldy. How kin you look so an' be his +daughter." + +"I am not his child, thank God! He is my stepfather." + +"What is your name, then, besides Huldy?" + +The girl blushed deeply and hesitated. Her fine gray eyes were turned +upon her beautiful bare feet, white as the river that flashed beneath +the window. + +"Hulda Bruinton," she said, swallowing a sigh. + +"Bruinton--where did I hear that name?" Levin asked; "some tale has been +told me, I reckon, about him?" + +"Yes, everybody knows it," Hulda said, in a voice of pain; "he was +hanged for murder at Georgetown when I was a little child." + +Levin could not speak for astonishment. + +"I might as well tell you," she said, "for others will, if I conceal it. +I can hardly remember my father. My mother soon married Joe and +neglected me, and Aunt Patty, my grandmother, brought me up. She was +kind to me, but, oh, how cruel she can be to others!" + +"You talk as if you kin read, Huldy," said Levin, wishing to change so +harsh a topic; "kin you?" + +"Yes, I can read and write as well as if I had been to school. Some one +taught me the letters around the tavern--some of the negro-dealers: I +think it was Colonel McLane; and I had a gift for it, I think, because I +began to read very soon, and then Aunt Patty made me read books to +her--oh, such dreadful books!" + +"What wair they, Huldy?" + +"The lives of pirates and the trials of murderers--about Murrell's band +and the poisonings of Lucretia Chapman, the execution of Thistlewood, +and Captain Kidd's voyages; the last I read her was the story of Burke +and Hare, who smothered people to death in the Canongate of Edinburgh +last year to sell their bodies to the doctors." + +"Must you read such things to her?" + +"I think that is the only influence I have over her. Sometimes she looks +so horribly at me, and mutters such threats, that I fear she is going to +kill me, and so I hasten to get her favorite books and read to her the +dark crimes of desperate men and women, and she laughs and listens like +one hearing pleasant tales. My soul grows sick, but I see she is +fascinated, and I read on, trying to close my mind to the cruel +narrative." + +"Huldy, air you a purty devil drawin' me outen my heart to ruin me?" + +"No, no; oh, do not believe that! I suppose all men are cruel, and all I +ever knew were negro-traders, or I should believe you too gentle to live +by that brutal work. I looked at you lying in this bed, and pity and +love came over me to see you, so young and fair, entering upon this life +of treachery and sin." + +Levin gazed at her intently, and then raised up and looked around him, +and peered down through the old dormers into the green yard, and the +floody river hastening by with such nobility. + +"Air we watched?" he inquired. + +"By none in this house. All the men are away, making ready for the hunt +to-morrow night. The river is watched, and you would not be let escape +very far, but in this house I am your jailer. Joe told me he would sell +me if I let you get away." + +Levin listened and looked once more ardently and wonderingly at her, and +fell upon his knees at her uncovered feet. + +"Then, Huldy, hear me, lady with such purty eyes,--I must believe in +'em, wicked as all you look at has been! I never stole anything in my +life, nor trampled on a worm if I could git out of his path,--so help me +my poor mother's prayers! Huldy, how shall I save myself from these +wicked men and the laws I never broke till Sunday? Oh, tell me what to +do!" + +"Do anything but commit their crimes," she answered. "Promise me you +will never do that! Let us begin, and be the friends I wished we might +be, before I ever heard you speak. What is your name?" + +"Levin--Levin Dennis. My father's lost to me, and mother, too." + +"Then Heaven has answered my many prayers, Levin, to give me something +to cherish and protect. I am almost a woman: oh, what is my dreadful +doom?--to become a woman here among these wolves of men, who meet around +my stepfather's tavern to buy the blood and souls of people born free. +Joe Johnson sells everything; he has often threatened to sell me to some +trader whose bold and wicked eyes stared at me so coarsely, and I have +heard them talk of a price, as if I was the merchandise to be +transferred--I, in whose veins every drop of blood is a white woman's."? + +"I want you to watch over me, Huldy: I'm a poor drunken boy, my boat +chartered to Joe Johnson fur a week an' paid fur. Tell me what to do, +an' I'll do it." + +"First," she said, "you must eat something and drink milk--nothing +stronger. Their brandy, which they 'still themselves, sets people on +fire. I will set the table for you." + +It was after the table had been set that Jimmy Phoebus slipped in and +devoured the milk and meat, overhearing the continuance of the +conversation just given; and when his awkward motions had disturbed +these new young friends, Hulda fainted on the stairs before the +apparition Levin did not see, and he snatched the kiss that was like +plucking a pale-red blossom from some dragon's garden. + +That night two horses without saddles came to bring them both to +Johnson's Cross-roads, and Levin awoke at Patty Cannon's old residence +on the neighboring farm. + +He looked out of the small window in the low roof Upon a little garden, +where a short, stout, powerfully made woman, barefooted, was taking up +some flowers from their beds to put them into boxes of earth. + +"Yer, Huldy," exclaimed this woman, "sot 'em all under the glass kivers, +honey, so grandmother will have some flowers for her hat next winter. +They wouldn't know ole Patty down at Cannon's Ferry ef she didn't come +with flowers in her hat." + +A mischievous blue-jay was in a large cherry-tree, apparently +domesticated there, and he occupied himself mimicking over the woman's +head the alternate cries of a little bird in terror and a hawk's scream +of victory. + +"Shet up, you thief!" spoke the woman, looking up. "Them blue-jays, gal, +the niggers is afeard of, and kills 'em, as Ole Nick's eavesdroppers and +tale-carriers. That's why I keeps 'em round me. They's better than a +watch-dog to bark at strangers, and, caze they steals all their life, I +love' em. Blue-jay, by Ged! is ole Pat Cannon's bird." + +"Grandma," Hulda said, "I wish you had a large, elegant garden. You love +flowers." + +"Purty things I always _would_ have," exclaimed the bulldog-bodied +woman, with an oath; "bright things I loved when I was a gal, and traded +what I had away fur 'em. Direckly I got big, I traded ugly things fur +'em, like niggers. I'd give a shipload of niggers fur an apern full of +roses." + +"Florida, they say, is beautiful, grandma, and flowers are everywhere +there." + +"Yes, gal, they says so; but I don't never expect to go thar. +Margaretty, your mommy, likes it thar. Delaware's my home; some of 'em +hates me yer, and the darned lawyers tries to indict me, but I'll live +on the line till they shoves me over it, whar I've been cock of the walk +sence I was a gal." + +As Hulda, also barefooted, but moulded like the flowers, so that her +feet seemed natural as the naked roots, carried the boxes around to the +glass beds encircling a chimney--dahlias, autumnal crocuses or saffrons, +tri-colored chrysanthemums or gold-flowers, and the orange-colored +marigolds--the elder woman, resting on her hoe, smelled the turpentine +of a row of tall sunflowers and twisted one off and put it in her +wide-brimmed Leghorn hat. + +"When I hornpipe it on the tight rope," Levin heard her chuckle, "one of +these yer big flowers must die with me." + +She disappeared into the peach orchard, which tinted the garden with its +pinkish boughs, and Levin improved the chance to look over the cottage +and the landscape. + +It was a mere farm, level as a floor, part of a larger clearing in the +primeval woods, where only fire or age had preyed since man was come; +and, although there seemed more land than belonged to this property, no +other house could Levin see over all the prospect except the bold and +tarnished form of Johnson's castle, sliding its long porch forward at +the base of that tall, blank, inexpressive roof which seemed suspended +like the drab curtain of a theatre between the solemn chimney towers; +the northern chimney broad and huge, and bottomed on an arch; the +southern chimney leaner, but erect as a perpetual sentry on the King's +road. + +The house where Levin Dennis now looked out was a three-roomed, frame, +double cabin, with beds in every room but the kitchen, and the hip-roof +gave considerable bed accommodation in the attic besides, the rooms +being all small, as was general in that day. Around the house extended a +pretty garden, with some cherry and plum trees and wild peach along its +boundaries, and the fields around contained many stumps, showing that +the clearing had been made not many years before, while here and there +some heaps of brush had been allowed to accumulate instead of being +burned. + +As Levin looked at one of those brush-heaps in a low place, a pair of +buzzards slowly and clumsily circled up from it, and, flying low, went +round and round as if they might be rearing their young there and hated +to go far; and, for long afterwards, Levin saw them hovering high above +the spot in parental mindfulness. + +He drew his head in the dormer casement, and was making ready to go down +to the breakfast he smelled cooking below, when his own name was +pronounced in the garden, and he stopped and listened. + +"You lie!" exclaimed the old woman's voice. "I'll mash you to the +ground!" + +"He said so, grandma, indeed he did." + +Levin had a peep from the depths of the garret, and he saw that Mrs. +Cannon was standing with the hoe she had been using raised over Hulda's +head, while a demoniac expression of rage distorted her not unpleasing +features. + +Levin walked at once to the window and whistled, as if to the bird in +the tree. The older woman immediately dropped her hoe, and cried out to +Levin: + +"Heigh, son! ain't you most a-starved fur yer breakfast? It's all ready +fur ye, an' Huldy's waitin' fur ye to come down." + +Levin at once went down the short, winding stairs to a table spread in +the kitchen end, and the old woman blew a tin horn towards Johnson's +Cross-roads, as if summoning other boarders, and then she said to Levin, +with a very pleasing countenance: + +"Son, these yer no-count people will be askin' you questions to bother +you, and I don't want no harm to come to you, Levin; so you tell +everybody you see yer that Levin Cannon is your name, and they'll think +you's juss one o' my people, and won't ask you no more." + +Hulda slightly raised her eyes, which Levin took to mean assent, and he +said: + +"Cannon's good enough for a body pore as me." + +"You're a-goin' with Joe to-night, ain't you?" + +"Yes'm, I b'leeves so." + +"That's right, cousin. You'll git rich an' keep your chariot, yit. +Captain Van Dorn's gwyn to head the party. As Levin Cannon, ole Patty's +pore cousin, he'll look out fur you, son. Now have some o' my slappers, +an' jowl with eggs, an' the best coffee from Cannon's Ferry. Huldy, gal, +help yer Cousin Levin! He won't be your sweetheart ef you don't feed him +good." + +The breakfast was brought in by a white man with a face scratched and +bitten, and one eye full of congested blood. + +"Cy," Patty Cannon cried, "them slappers, I 'spect, you had hard work to +turn with that red eye Owen Daw give you." + +"I'll brown both sides of him yit, when I git the griddle ready for +him," the man exclaimed, half snivelling. + +"Before you raise gizzard enough for that, little Owen'll peck outen yer +eyes, Cy, like a crow; he's game enough to tackle the gallows. You may +git even with him thar, Cy." + +The man turned his cowardly, serving countenance on Levin inquisitively, +and looked sullen and ashamed at Hulda, who observed: + +"Cyrus, you are not fit for the rude boys around father's tavern, who +always impose on you. Please don't go there again." + +"Where else kin he go?" inquired Patty Cannon, severely; "thar ain't no +church left nigh yer, sence Chapel Branch went to rot for want of +parsons' pay. Let him go to the tavern and learn to fight like a man, +an' if the boys licks him, let him kill some of 'em. Then Joe and the +Captain kin make somethin' of Cy James, an' people around yer'll respect +him. Why, Captain, honey, ain't ye hungry?" + +This was addressed to a man with several bruises on his forehead, and an +enormous flaxen mustache, as soft in texture as a child's hair--a man +wearing delicate boots with high Flemish leggings, that curled over and +showed full women's hose of red, over which were buckled trousers of +buff corduroy, covering his thighs only, and fastened above his hips by +a belt of hide. His shirt was of blue figured stuff, and his loose, +unbuttoned coat was a kind of sailor's jacket of tarnished black velvet. +He hung a broad slouched hat of a yellowish-drab color, soft, like all +his clothing, upon a peg in the wall, and bowed to Hulda first with a +smile of welcome, to Madame Cannon cavalierly, and to Levin with a +graceful reserve that attracted the boy's attention from the notorious +woman at he head of the table, and held him interested during all the +meal. + +"Pretty Hulda, I salute you! Patty, _buenos dias!_ I hope I see you +well, friend!"--the last to Levin. + +As he took up his knife and fork Levin observed a ring, with a pure +white diamond in it, flash upon the Captain's hand. He was a blue-eyed +man, with a blush and a lisp at once, as of one shy, but at times he +would look straight and bold at some one of the group, and then he +seemed to lose his delicacy and become coarse and cold. One such look he +gave at Hulda, who bowed her eyes before it, and looked at him but +little again. + +To Levin this man had the greatest fascination, partly from his +extraordinary dress--like costumes Levin had seen at the theatre in +Baltimore, where the pirates on the stage wore a jacket and open shirt +and belt similar in cut though not in material--and partly from his +countenance, in which was something very familiar to the boy, though he +racked his memory in vain for the time and place. The stranger was +hardly more than forty to forty-five years of age, but the mistress of +the house treated him with all the blandishments of a husband. + +"Dear Captain! pore honey!" she said; "to have his beautiful yaller hair +tored out by the nigger hawk! Honey, he fell onto me, and I thought a +bull had butted me in the stummick." + +"He broke no limbs, Patty," the captain lisped, feeding himself in a +dainty way--and Levin observed that his fork was silver, and his knife +was a clasp-knife with a silver handle, that he had taken from his +pocket--"_Chis! chis!_ if he had snapped my arm, the caravan must have +gone without me to-night. I am sore, though, for Senor was a valiant +wrestler." + +"He'll git his pay, honey, when they sot him to work in Georgey an' flog +him right smart, an' we spend the price of him fur punch. He, he! lovey +lad!" + +"I took this from him to-day when I searched him carefully," the captain +said, handing Patty Cannon a piece of silver coin. + +The woman, though she looked to be little more than fifty years of age, +drew out spectacles of silver from an old leather case, and putting them +on, spelled out the coin: + +"George--three--eighteen--eighteen hunderd-and-fifteen!" + +She threw up her head so quickly that the spectacles dropped from her +nose, and Hulda caught them, and then Mrs. Cannon turned on Hulda with a +ferocious expression and snatched the spectacles from her hand. + +"Whar did the devil git it?" Patty Cannon asked. + +"Ah! who knows?" the Captain lisped with pale nonchalance, giving one of +those strong, piercing looks he sometimes afforded, right into the +hostess's eyes. "It might be a coincidence: _chis! chito!_ A shilling of +a certain year is no rare thing. But, Madame Cannon, it becomes slightly +curious when six such shillings, all numbered with that significant +year, came out of the same pocket!" + +With this he passed five shillings of the same appearance over to the +hostess, and she put on her spectacles again and looked at them all, and +dropped them in her lap with a weary yet frightened expression, and +muttered: + +"Van Dorn, who kin he be?" + +"That is of less consequence, my dear, than whether we can afford to +sell him." + +The Captain was now looking at Hulda with the same strong intentness, +but her eyes were in her plate; and, though Madame Cannon looked at her, +too, with both interest and dislike, Hulda quietly ate on, unconscious +of their regard. + +"Shoo!" the woman said; "people kin scare theirselves every day if they +mind to. We've got him, and, if he knows anything, it's all in that +nigger noddle. So eat and be derned!" + +"My guardian angel," the Captain remarked, with a blush and a stronger +lisp, "you may not have observed that I have never ceased to eat, while +you immediately lost your appetite. What will you do with the +shillings?" + +Mrs. Cannon took them from her lap, and rose as if she meant to throw +them out of the window, her angry face bearing that interpretation. + +"Stop, remarkable woman," the Captain said, pulling his soft, flaxen +mustache with the diamond-flashing hand, "let your fecund resources stop +and counsel, for I am only looking to your happiness, that has so +abundantly blessed my life and banished every superstition from my heart +till I believe in neither ghosts, nor God, nor devil, while you believe +in all of them, and give yourself many such unnecessary friends and +intruders. _Chito! chito!_ as the Cubans say, and hear my suggestion +before you throw away those shillings!" + +"Take care how you mock me!" cried Patty Cannon, with her dark, bold +eyes furtive, like one both angered and troubled, and her ruddy cheeks +full of cloudy blood. + +"Sit down! Give the shillings to pretty Hulda there." + +"To her?" + +"_Ya, ya!_ to pleasing Hulda; for what will trouble us then, her sinless +bosom being their safe depository, and her long-lashed eyes melting our +ghosts to gray air?" + +With a look of strong dislike, the woman gave Hulda the shillings, +saying: + +"If you ever show one of 'em to me, gal, I'll make you swaller it." + +Hulda took the silver pieces and looked at them a moment with girlish +delight: + +"Oh, grandma, how kind you are! Why do you speak so mad at me when you +give me these pretty things? They seem almost warm in my bosom as I put +them there, like things with life. Let me kiss you for them!" + +She rose from the chair and approached the mistress of the house, who +sat in a strange terror, not forbidding the embrace, yet almost +shuddering as Hulda stooped and pressed her pure young lips to the +blanched and dissipated face of Patty Cannon. + +The Captain looked at the kiss with his peculiar strong, cold look, and +smiled at Hulda graciously and said: + +"There, ladies, repose in each other's confidence! A few shillings for +such a kiss is shameful pay, Aunt Patty. Do you remember as well as I +do, Madame Cannon, that once you missed some money, and thought your +mother had stolen it, and hunted everywhere for it, and it never came to +light?" + +"Yes," cried Patty Cannon, "I do," and swore a man's oath. + +"Has the Senor been in that direction, do you think? I think he has, for +Melson and Milman are up from Twiford's with the news that Zeke's last +hide has burst her chain and fled, and all the lower Nanticoke gives no +trace of her, and Zeke has passed the heavenly gates." + +The Captain drew the back of his silver clasp-knife across his throat, +smilingly, and placed on the table a sailor's sheath-knife. + +"Zeke only was untied; it was a too generous omission," he said. "The +Philadelphia woman the Senor says he set free, and that she has gone to +start an alarm against us. The Senor is a cool man: he told me that, and +laughed and roared, and says he will live to see us all in a +picture-frame. _Ayme, ayme_, Patty!" + +With her face growing longer and longer, the woman heard these scarcely +intelligible sentences--wholly unintelligible to the younger people--and +to Levin it seemed that she grew suddenly old and yet older, till her +cheeks, but lately blooming, seemed dead and wrinkled, and, from +maintaining the appearance of hardly fifty, and fair at that, she now +looked to be more than sixty years of age, and sad and helpless. + +"Van Dorn, I'm dying," she muttered, as her eyes glazed, and she settled +down in her chair like a lump of dough. + +"_Ha! O hala hala_! hands off, fair Hulda," the Captain cried, +joyfully, as Hulda had been moved to relieve the poor old woman; "no one +shall assist at these ceremonies of expiation but Van Dorn himself, +whose rights in Mistress Cannon are of priority. She's dropsical, and +hastening to perdition too soon, which I must arrest and let her comfort +me still more. Sweet comforter! Young gentleman, you shall help me." + +Levin took hold of Patty Cannon's feet and found that she seemed made of +bone, so tough were her sinews, and Van Dorn easily lifted her broad +shoulders, and so she was laid on a bed in the next room, where the +elegant Captain was seen rubbing her limbs, and even handling a bottle +of leeches, one of which he allowed to crawl over the hand that wore the +diamond, making it look like a ruby melting or in living motion. As this +voracious blood-lover took his fill around the straight ankles of the +hostess, the dainty Captain held her in his arms like an ardent lover. + +"Honey," sighed the woman, "my rent is due, and Jake Cannon never waits. +Take Huldy and this yer new recruit, my cousin Levin Cannon, an' drive +'em to the ferry,--an' watch that boy, Van Dorn: I want him broke in! +Give him a pistol and a knife, an' have him cut somebody. Put the +blood-mark on him and he's ours." + +"Great woman!" the Captain lisped, prolific of his kisses, "Maria +Theresa! Semiramis! Agrippina! Cleopatra! ever fecund in great ideas and +growing youthful by nightshade, _alto! quedo!_ but I love thee!" + +"Am I young a little yit, honey?" asked Patty Cannon. "Oh, don't deceive +me, Van Dorn! Can my eyes look love an' hate, like old times?" + +"_Si! quiza!_ More and more, dark angel, entering into black age like +torches in a cave, I see your deep eyes flame; but never do they please +me, Patty, as when they flash on some new wicked idea, like this of +marking the boy for life. Who is he?" + +"He's a Cannon, one of the stock that my Delaware man belonged to. His +mother looked down on me fur coming in their family: I have remembered +her." + +"You want your young cousin made a felon, then?" + +"Yes, honey, I want him scorched, so the devil will know him fur his +own." + +The Captain reached down to the lady's feet and pulled off the leech and +held it up against his hollow palm, gorged with the blood of the fair +patient. + +"See, Patty! The boy shall drink blood like this, till, drunk with it, +he can hold on no more, and drops into our fate as in this vial." + +As he spoke he let the leech fall in the bottle, where its reflection in +the glass seemed to splash blood. + +"Ha, ha! Van Dorn, I love you!" the woman cried, and smothered him with +caresses. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +CANNON'S FERRY. + + +When it was announced to Levin and Hulda, who had meantime been talking +in the garden, dangerously near the subject of love, that they were to +be given a ride to Cannon's Ferry with Captain Van Dorn, at the especial +desire of Aunt Patty Cannon--who also sent them a handful of half-cents +to spend--they were both delighted, though Hulda said: + +"Dear Levin, if it was only ourselves going for good, how happy we might +be! I could live with your beautiful mother and work for her, and, +knowing me to be always there, you would bring your money home instead +of wasting it." + +"Can't we do so some way?" asked Levin. "Oh, I wish I had some sense! I +wish Jimmy Phoebus was yer, Huldy, to take me out thair in the garden +an' whip me like my father. But, if I hadn't come yer, how could I have +seen you, Huldy?" + +"How could I have spent such a heavenly night of peace and hope if you +had not come, dear? The Good Being must have led you to me." + +"Huldy," said Levin, after thinking to the range of his knowledge, +"maybe thar's a post-office at Cannon's Ferry, an' you kin write a +letter to Jack Wonnell fur me." + +"Why not to your mother, Levin?" + +"Oh, I am ashamed to tell her; it would kill her." + +"If we should be found out, Levin, Aunt Patty would kill me. There is no +paper here, no ink that I can get, the postage on a letter is almost +nineteen cents, and, look! these half-cents are short of the sum by just +two." + +"I have gold," cried Levin, thinking of the residue of Joe Johnson's +bounty. + +He put his hand into his pocket, but the money was no longer there. + +"Hush!" cried Hulda, "you have been robbed. Everybody is robbed who +sleeps here. Grandma can smell gold like the rat that finds yellow +cheese." + +The individual who had served the breakfast was seen coming towards +them, a man in size, with a low forehead, no chin to speak of, a long, +crane neck, and a badly scratched and festered face. + +"Mister," he said to Levin, "come help me hitch the horses; I'm beat so +I can't see how." + +Levin started at once, suggesting to Hulda to make search for his +missing money, and, when they were in the little stable, the man +observed, in a whisper, to Levin: + +"By smoke!" + +Levin went on putting the bridles and breeching on the horses, when the +man said again, with an insinuating grin: + +"By smoke!" + +"Heigh?" exclaimed Levin. + +"By smoke!" the man remarked again, with a very ardent emphasis. + +"You must have been in Prencess Anne," Levin said, "to swar 'by smoke.'" + +The ill-raised man, with such an inferior head and cranish neck, now +slipped around to the front of Levin and looked down on him, and +whispered: + +"Hokey-pokey!" + +The idea crossed Levin's mind that the scullion of Patty Cannon must +have gone crazy. + +"Whair did you pick up them words, Cy?" Levin asked. + +"Hokey-pokey!" answered Cy James, with a more mysterious and impressive +sufflation; "Hokey-pokey! By smoke! and Pangymonum, too!" + +"Why, Cy! what do you mean? Jimmy Phoebus never swars but in them air +words. Do you know Jimmy Phoebus?" + +"Pangymonum, too!" hissed Cy James, with every animation. "Hokey-pokey, +three! an' By smoke, one!" + +He put his long arms on his knees, and bent down like a great goose, and +stared into Levin's eyes. + +"I never had sense enough," Levin said, "to guess a riddle, Cy Jeems. +Them words I have hearn a good man--my mother's friend--use so often +that they scare me. My mind's been a-thinkin' on him night an' day. Oh, +is he dead?" + +"By smoke! Hokey-pokey! an' Pangymonum, too!" the long, lean, excited +fellow whispered, with the greatest solemnity. + +"They're Jimmy Phoebus's daily words, dear Cyrus. He was killed on the +river night before last; I saw him fall; it is my sin and misery." + +"He ain't dead," Cy James whispered, very low and carefully. "I won't +tell you whar he is till you make Huldy _like_ me." + +"How kin I do that, Cy?" + +"She thinks I'm a coward and gits whipped by Owen Daw. Tell her I ain't +no coward. Tell her I'm goin' to fry all these people on my griddle--all +but Huldy. Tell her I'm only playin' coward till I gets 'em all in +batter an' the griddle greased, an' then I'll be the bully of the +Cross-roads!" + +"Do you hate _me_, Cy Jeems? I ain't done nothin' to you. I'm a +prisoner here till I kin git my boat back from Joe an' go to Prencess +Anne." + +"I won't hate you if you kin make Huldy love me," Cy James replied. +"Tell her I ain't no coward; that I'm goin' to be free, an' rich too." +He dropped his palms to his knees again, and whispered, "fur I know whar +ole Patty buries her gole an' silver!" + +"Come with those horses, you idle lads," the lisping voice of the +Captain was heard to call. "_Ya, ya!_ there, _luego!_ the morning passes +on." + +"All ready," Cy James replied, and as they left the stable door he +whispered once again, and looked significantly towards Johnson's +Cross-roads: + +"By smoke! Hokey-pokey! an' Pangymonum, too!" + +The Captain, looking like a gentleman of the knightly ages misplaced in +this forest lair, held the reins standing on the ground, and handed +Hulda in to the seat beside his own with a grace and a blush and a +lisping laugh that, Levin thought, were very fascinating. + +"Now, Master Cannon, take your place in the tail of the vehicle," the +Captain said, bowing to Levin, and darting one of those cold, coarse +looks at him that he vouchsafed but for a moment, like a soft cat that +has all the nature of the rabbit except the tiger's glare. + +The vehicle was an old wagon without springs, and Levin's seat was a +piece of board, while Hulda's had a back to it, and the Captain had +padded it with a bear's-skin robe. He looked with the most delicate +attention at Hulda, blushed when she looked at him, and, scarcely +noticing the horses, yet having them under nearly automatic control, he +drove out of Patty Cannon's lane and turned into the woods. + +Levin cast one long, prying look at Johnson's tavern, wishing he might +have the gift to see through its weather-stained planking and tall blank +roof, and then he watched the road, of hard sand or piney litter, with +here and there a mud-hole or long, puddly rut in it, unravel like a +ribbon behind the wheels among the thick pines. + +He also observed the skill with which the Captain threw his long cowhide +whip, a mere strip of rawhide fastened to a stick, awkward in other +hands; but Van Dorn could brush a fly from either of the short, shaggy +Delaware horses with it, and hardly look where he struck or disturb the +horse, and he could deliver a blow with it by mere sleight that made the +animal stagger and tremble with the abrupt pain. + +At a little sandy rill, the only one they crossed, a long water-snake +endeavored to escape before the rapid wagon could strike it, but the +Captain rose to his feet quick and cat-like, and projected the long lash +into the roadside, and the snake writhed and bounded in the air almost +cut in two. Then, sitting again and bending so close to Hulda that his +long, downy mustache of gold touched her cheek, Van Dorn said, softly: + +"_Que hermoso!_ Young wild-flower, let me take a snake out of your path +also?" + +"Which one, Captain?" + +"It does not matter. Name any one." + +"Alas!" said Hulda, "I am of them; how can I wish harm to my stepfather +and my grand-dame? They are not what I wish, but I am commanded to honor +them." + +"By whom, fair Hulda?" + +"By God. I read it in the Book after I heard it from a slave." + +"_Donde esta!_ What slave that we know was so God-read?" + +"Poor drunken Dave. He was a good man before he knew us. He told me all +the Commandments for a drink of brandy, and I wrote them down and +afterwards I found them in a book." + +"_Chis! chito!_ how graceful is your mind, Hulda! It comes out of the +absolute blank of your condition and discovers things, as the young +osprey, untaught before, knows where to dive for fish. Who that ever +comes to Johnson's Cross-roads brings the Bible?" + +"Colonel McLane." + +"He? the self-righteous crocodile! he gave you the Book?" + +"Yes. He told me Joe and grandma were good people--'conservative good +people,' I think he called it; but he said you believed nothing, and +there was no basis, I think he called it, for 'conservative good' in +you." + +"_O hala hala!_ But this is good," the Captain softly remarked, stroking +his golden mustache with the hand that carried the lustrous ring. "Patty +Cannon may be saved; I must be damned; and Allan McLane will sit in +judgment. No, I believe nothing, because such as they believe!" + +"That is why nobody likes you," Hulda frankly observed, "agreeable as +you are." + +"And can you believe in anything after the surroundings of your +childhood, touching crime like the pond-lily that grows among the +water-snakes?" + +"The lily cannot help it, and is just as white as if it grew under +glass, because--" + +"Because the lily has none of the blood of the snake?" the captain +lisped. "Do you enter that claim?" + +"No," said Hulda; "I know I am born from wicked parents, a daughter of +crime, my father hanged, my mother of dreadful origin, but never have I +felt that God held me accountable for their works if I kept my heart +humble and my hands from sin; and never have I been tempted yet from +within my own nature to enjoy a single moment of such hideous +selfishness. And I thank my kind Maker that something to love and +believe in, though unhappy as myself, has come down the sad pathway I +looked along so many years, and found me waiting for him." + +Without reply, the Captain kept his own thoughts for several minutes, +and finally sighed: + +"I know one thing in which I might believe, pretty child." + +"Oh, then embrace it," Hulda said, "and give your faith a single straw +to cling to." + +Van Dorn's hand slipped around her waist, and his florid cheeks and blue +eyes bent beneath her Leghorn hat: + +"I find it here, perhaps, Hulda. Shall I embrace your youth with my +strong passion? I fear I love you." + +"Yes," she answered, looking up with her long-lashed eyes of such +entrancing gray; "kiss me if it will give you hope!" + +The blush and high color went out of his face as he stared into those +passive, large gray orbs, wide open beneath his pouting, rich, +effeminate lips, and, as he hesitated, Hulda repeated: + +"Kiss me, if it will make you hope!" + +"No, no," he answered; "of all places I am most hopeless _there_." + +"I knew you would not kiss me," Hulda said, with a tone above him, "if I +gave you the right for any pure object. The kiss _you_ would give me +does not see its mate in my soul." + +"You hate me, then?" said Van Dorn. + +"No, I pity you; I pray for you, too." + +"For me? What interest have you in me?" + +"I do not know," said Hulda. "I have often wondered what made me think +of you so often and, yet, never with admiration. You are the only person +here who appears to have lost something by being here; some portion of +you seems to have disappeared; I have felt that you might have been a +gentleman, though you can never be again. I shrink from you, and still I +pity you. But, with all your handsome ways, I would never love you, +while the poor boy who is riding with us I loved as soon as he came." + +"_Chis! chito!_ You can shrink from me and not from a Cannon, too? Why, +girl, you have put him in my power." + +"I have been in your power for a long time, Captain Van Dorn, and you +have looked at me with bold and evil eyes many a time, but never came +nearer. When I gaze at you as I did just now, you fly from me. That boy +I love is as safe as I am, in your hands." + +"Why, dear presumer? Tell me." + +"Because I love him, and you require my pity. As long as you protect +that poor orphan boy I shall carry your name to God for pardon; if you +ever do him harm, my prayers for you will be dumb forever." + +"_Oh! ayme! ayme!_" softly laughed Van Dorn, his blush not coming now; +"you forget, Hulda, that I believe in nothing." + +They had hardly gone four miles when a little, low-pitched town of small +square houses, strewn about like toy-blocks between pairs of red outside +chimneys, sat, in the soft, humid October morning, along the rim of a +marshy creek that, skirting the hamlet, flowed into the Nanticoke River +a few miles, by its course, above Twiford's wharf. Two streets, formed +by two roads, ended in a third street along the sandy, flattish river +shore, and there stood four or five larger dwellings, like their +humbler neighbors, built of wood, but with bolder, greater chimneys, +rising into the air as if in rivalry of four large ships and brigs that +lay at anchor or beside the two wharves, and threw their masts and spars +into the sailing clouds, making the low forest that closed river and +village in, stoop to its humility. But the beautiful river, with +frequent bluffs of sand and woods, flowing two hundred yards wide in +stately tide, and bearing up to Cannon's Ferry fish-boats and pungies, +Yankee schooners and woodscows, and the signs of life, however lowly, +that floated in blue smoke from many hearths, or sounded in oars, +rigging, and lading, seemed to Hulda human joy and power, and she cried +to Levin: + +"Levin, oh, look! Did you ever see as big a place as this? Yonder is the +road to Seaford, just as far as we have come! The big ships are taking +corn for West Indies, and bringing sugar and molasses. That is the ferry +scow, and on the other side it is only five miles to Laurel." + +"Do you like to travel that road?" asked the Captain, with his pleasing +lisp and blush returned again. + +"It makes me sad," replied Hulda; "but I do not mutter when I go past +the spot, like grandma." + +"What spot?" asked Levin. + +"Where father killed the traveller," Hulda said. "He died shamefully for +it. You could almost see the place but for yonder woods, where the road +to Laurel climbs the sandy hill." + +"What's this?" said Van Dorn, seeing a little crowd around one of the +single-story cabins, and turning his team into the parallel street. + +A very tall, grand-looking man towered above the rest, and seemed unable +to stand upright in the low cottage, with his proportions, so that he +took his place on the grassy sand without and gave his directions to +some one within: + +"Levy on the spinning-wheel! Simplify the equation! Stand by your _fi. +fa.!_ Don't be chicken-hearted, constable--she's had the equivalent; now +she sees the quotient, too." + +Van Dorn looked on and saw a spinning-wheel come out of the door, and a +little wool in a bag after it. Jacob Cannon put his foot on the wheel +and poked his head in the door. + +"I see an axe and a coffee-mill there, constable: levy onto 'em with +your _distringas. Experientia docet stultos!_ Pass out that pair of +shoes!" + +A voice of a woman crying was heard, and Van Dorn and Levin both leaped +out to look. + +Hulda also stepped down and disappeared. + +A woman, barely able to stand up, and white as illness and anguish could +make her, had staggered to the door to beg that her shoes be given back, +and pointed to her naked feet. + +"Now she's off the bed, levy on that!" cried the military figure with +the long, eloquent face and twinkling eyes; "shove it out the window. +Mind your _fi. fa._ and I'll take care of the quotient." + +"Have mercy!" cried the woman; "my child was only born last week." + +"Fling out that good chair there, constable. Levy on the green chest! +Don't you see a whole quilt or blanket anywhere! Allow neither tret nor +suttle when you serve a writ for Isaac and Jacob Cannon!" + +"Where shall I lie with my babe?" cried the poor woman, looking around +on the naked cabin, where neither bed, nor blanket, nor chair, nor +chest, nor spinning-wheel remained. + +"_Li-vari facias!_ and _fi-eri facias!_ If there's a mistake a replevin +lies, but no mistakes are made by Isaac and Jacob Cannon. Constable, I +think I see an iron pot on that crane!" + +"It's got meat in it, sir--meat a-bilin'," answered the constable. + +"Turn out the meat! Levy on the pot! Make the quotient accurate! +Eliminate the pot from the equation!" + +Out came the pot, as the material boiling in it put out the October +fire, and it was thrown in the miscellaneous heap at Jacob Cannon's +feet. + +"Now take the cradle, hard-hearted man," the woman cried, "and turn the +baby into the fire, too, since I can cook nothing to make its milk in my +breasts." + +"Is the cradle worth anything, constable?" asked the magnificent-looking +man with the gray silvery lights around his horsy nose; "if it's worth +taking, I want it. People who can't pay their debts must live single +like Jacob Cannon, and not be distrained." + +A boy, with his face scratched, and dissipation settled in it, bounded +suddenly into the aghast group of spectators, and made a vicious dive to +recover the effects around Jacob Cannon's feet, but that mighty worthy +took him by the collar and, holding him up, dropped him over a fence +like a bug: + +"Owen Daw, here be witnesses to an assault _insultus_, actionable as a +trespass _vi_, the quotient whereof is damages or the equivalent in +Georgetown jail. Take heed, good citizens, and especially I note you, +Captain Van Dorn." + +"I'll kill him," shouted the young bully of Johnson's Cross-roads, and +late distrainer on the profile of Cyrus James, Esquire, seizing an ugly +stick. + +"Justifiable as _son assault demesne_," remarked the creditor, +carelessly, as he wrenched the bobbin from the spinning-wheel and +knocked the boy down with it. + +His commanding manner and the ready hand operated to abash the latter, +and, deeply pained with the scene, Levin Dennis fervently and +impulsively cried to Van Dorn: + +"Oh, Captain! can't you pay her debts! I'll give all Joe's going to give +me, to pay you back. See how she lays on the bare floor! Hear her child +crying for her! Oh! I think I hear my mother's voice a-callin' of me +home as I listen to it." + +Van Dorn, feeling Levin's hands grasp his own with simple confidence, +heard and did not turn his head, while blushes like roses bloomed +successively upon his fresh, effeminate cheeks. He did not repel the +boy's hands, however, but looked at the scene with worldly and unpitying +curiosity. + +"To pay the distraints of Isaac and Jacob Cannon," he murmured, softly, +"would keep a poor slaver poor. You must grow accustomed to such cries: +I had to do so. Learn to love money like that merchant and me, and you +will think them music." + +"Oh, when we cry to God for mercy, captain, maybe our cries will sound +like that! I can't bear to hear it." + +"You told mother, Jake Cannon, when she rented this ole house," the boy, +Owen Daw, exclaimed, "that she needn't pay the rent, if she didn't want +to, till the day of judgment." + +"I've got the judgment," Jacob Cannon answered, his whitish eyes seeming +to chuckle to the bridge of his nose, "and this is the day it's due. All +legal days are 'judgment days' to Isaac and Jacob Cannon." + +"My son, my son," the woman's voice wailed out to Owen Daw, "I see the +end of your going to Patty Cannon's: my baby to the grave, myself to the +almshouse, and you to the gallows." + +"Captain, Captain," Levin cried, "oh, pay the debt for me! Mother's +never been poor as this. Pay it, and I will work fur you anywhair, dear +captain." + +"How much is the debt," asked Van Dorn, lispingly. + +"Ten dollars," spoke the constable, also moved to shame. + +"Cannon, will you take me for it?" + +"I'll take your judgment-bond or the cash, Captain Van Dorn, nothing +less." + +"Put back her stuff," the captain said, slightly pressing Levin's hand, +as if to say, "This is for you"--"put back her stuff and I'll settle it +with Isaac Cannon." + +"God bless you!" cried the woman, taking her babe from the cradle and +hushing its hunger at her breast; "they call you a wicked man, but +blessings on you for all the good you do!" + +"_Chito! chito!_" smiled Van Dorn. "I did it for this foolish boy; I pity +none." + +Hulda had resorted to the strand, or river street of Cannon's Ferry, +where there were two storehouses, and she had borrowed quill and ink, +and written a letter addressed to "Mrs. Ellenora Dennis, Princess Anne, +Somerset County, Maryland," saying: + +"_Madam, Levin, your son, is near this place against his will, among +dangerous men and in great temptation, but he has found a friend. In one +week this friend will try to write again, and, if not heard from, seek +Levin Dennis at Johnson's Cross-roads_." + +This letter, written with all her unproficient speed, had just been +folded, wafered, and endorsed, and she had put down one of the shillings +of 1815 to pay the postage, when a shadow fell upon the store counter, +and the letter was withdrawn from her hand; Van Dorn stood by her side. + +"_Chis! chito! Es posible?_ A spy, perhaps. Now you will love Van Dorn, +or Grandma Cannon shall hear your letter read!" + +"Give it to me, Captain," Hulda pleaded; "she will kill me if she reads +it." + +"If it were sent, _pomarosa_, we all might die. No, you are too +dangerous." + +He looked, without his blush, at the shilling she was putting back in +her bosom, and his eye was cold and fierce. Hulda's heart sank down. + +"Brother Isaac," cried Jacob Cannon, to a man of fine, lean height, who +was at the desk--a man a little shorter than Jacob, and not so much of a +king in appearance but with the same whitish eyes dancing around the +bridge of his nose, and a more covert and thoughtful brow--"Brother +Isaac, Captain Van Dorn is chicken-hearted, and wants to settle the debt +of the Widow O'Day, otherwise Daw." + +"By cash or judgment-note, captain?" + +"Cash," answered Van Dorn, modestly; "take it out of this double-eagle, +with Madam Cannon's rent for your farm." + +"There's a tree--a bee-tree, Brother Jacob, I think you said--cut down +from Mrs. Cannon's field?" + +"Yes, actionable under statute made and provided, wilfully to spoil or +destroy any timber or other trees, roots, shrubs, or plants; value of +said bee-tree three dollars; _levari facias!_ The quotient is +unsatisfactory to Isaac and Jacob Cannon." + +The eyes of the elder and smaller brother endeavored to have an +introduction to each other through the bridge of his nose. + +"Oh, Brother Jacob," he chuckled, "what an executive help you air! +Captain, isn't he a perfect Marius?" + +"Madam Cannon," observed the captain, "throws up the farm with this +payment, gentlemen. She has already moved her effects across the line to +son-in-law Johnson's. The bee-tree I know nothing about." + +"Brother Jacob," spoke Isaac Cannon, "Moore takes the farm! Let him be +notified that his rent commences without day." + +"Execution made, Brother Isaac," answered the Marius of the family. +"This morning, perceiving Patty Cannon about to move her effects, my +bailiff seized on her plough as security for the aforesaid bee-tree +spoiled, maimed, and destroyed, and Moore is ploughing to put in his +wheat with it already. Time is money to Isaac and Jacob Cannon." + +"Ha, ha! what an executive comfort! Brother Jacob never adds an item to +profit and loss." + +"Gentlemen," said Van Dorn, "I recommend you not to be charging +bee-trees to tenants in the vicinity of Johnson's Cross-roads. It's an +unusual item, and we are raising young men there who may not understand +it." + +"Captain," said the elder Cannon, chuckling as if still in admiration of +Marius's subtlety, "I recollect now that our ferryman brought over a man +from Laurel this morning with some news. A woman with a broken shackle +reported there last night, and said she was the slave of Daniel Custis +of Princess Anne: she came from Broad Creek." + +"Where did she go?" + +"A Methodist preacher put her in his buggy and started to her master's +with her." + +"Then she'll beat the wind," said Van Dorn; "these preachers are all +horse-jockeys, and can outswap the devil. _Hola! ya, ya!_ I must see to +this." + +He strode out, with a cold eye glanced at Hulda. + +"Come, young people," spoke the grand head of Jacob Cannon to Levin and +Hulda; "I will show you my museum." + +He led the way to a warehouse overhanging the river and unlocked a door, +and told them to walk carefully till they could see in the dark of the +interior. + +Levin kept Hulda's hand in his as they slowly saw emerge from the +shadows a great variety of dissimilar things heaped together, till the +house could hardly hold the vast aggregate of pots and kettles, +spinning-wheels and cradles, bedsteads and beds, harrows and ploughs, +chairs and gridirons, rakes and hoes, silhouettes and picture-frames, +hand-made quilts of calico and pillows of home-plucked geese feathers, +fishermen's nets and oars--whatever made the substance of living in an +old country without minerals and manufactures, in the early part of the +nineteenth century. + +"Whare did you git' em, sir?" Levin asked. + +"Executed of 'em," said the warrior head and stature of Jacob Cannon; +"pounced on 'em; satisfied judgments upon 'em. _Fi. fa.!_ We call +this Peale's Museum Number Two, or the Variegated Quotient." + +"All these things taken from the poor?" asked Hulda. "How many miseries +they tell!" + +"Mr. Cannon," said Levin, "what kin you do with 'em? People won't buy +'em. They're just a-rottin' to pieces." + +"We keep' em to show all them who trespass on Isaac and Jacob Cannon," +answered Marius, with easy grandeur, "that there is a judgment-day!" + +Hulda's long-lashed gray eyes, with a look of more than childish +contempt, accompanied her words: + +"I should think you would fear that day, Mr. Cannon, when you say the +prayer, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass +against us.'" + +The wind from the river seemed to bend the old warehouse, and the noise +it made through the chinks and around the corners, slightly stirring the +loosely disposed pile of cottage and hut comforts, seemed to arouse low +wails among these as when they were torn from the chimney side and the +family. + +"Where is my baby?" the cradle seemed to say, "that I received and +rocked warm from the womb of pain? Oh, I am hungry for his little +smile!" + +"Why do I rest my busy wheel?" the spinner seemed to creak, "when I know +my children are without stockings? Who keeps me here idle while Mother +asks for me?" + +"Where is the old gray head," sighed the feathers, sifting in the breeze +from a broken pillow-case, "that every night and in the afternoons dozed +on our bag of down, and picked us over once a year, and said her prayers +in us? Oh, is she sleeping on the cold, bare floor, and we so useless!" + +The pot seethed to the kettle, "It is dinner-time, and the little boys +are crying for food, and still there is no one to lift me on the crane +and start the fire beneath me! What will they think of me, they gathered +around so many years and watched me boil, and poked their little fingers +in to taste the stewing meat? I want to go! I want to go!" + +The kettle answered to the pot: "I never sung since the constable forced +me from grandmother's hand, and robbed her of the cup of tea." + +The old quilt of many squares fluttered in the draught: "Take me to the +young wife who sewed me together and showed me so proudly, for I fear +she is a-cold since her young husband died!" + +These household sounds the thrilled young lovers, standing so poor and +on the brink of what they knew not, seemed to hear in awe, and drew +closer to each other, like young Eve and Adam in the great wreck of +Paradise and at the voice of God. + +Hand in hand they stepped forth into the bright light of day, and walked +along the sandy street beneath the tall locust, maple, and ailanthus +trees that grew in line along the front yards of the Cannon brothers. +Four large houses stood sidewise, end to end, here: first, Cannon's +business house; next, Isaac Cannon's comfortable home, where he dwelt, a +married man; and, third, the elegant frame mansion, with tall, airy +chimneys, of Jacob Cannon the bachelor, whose house, built for a bride, +had never yet been warmed by a fire; finally, the old, bow-roofed, low +dwelling of the mother of the Cannons, opposite which was the ferry +wharf, and Van Dorn talking to the negro ferryman. + +"Levin," said pretty Hulda, not sad, but very grave, "this noble house +is like that noble-looking Mr. Cannon, hollow and cold. He lives with +his brother Isaac, and keeps his own dwelling empty and locked up, +because he loved money too much to find a wife." + +"Let us love each other, Huldy," Levin said; "it is all we've got." + +"It is all there is to get, my love," Hulda answered. "Yes, I do love +you, Levin. I will try to save you, if I can, because I love you, though +suffering may come to me." + +"No," cried Levin, "I cannot leave you, dear. If I could now cross in +the ferry-boat, I wouldn't do it; I must go back with you." + +As Captain Van Dorn came up from the wharf, blushing like a school-boy, +and tapping his white teeth together under the long flax of his +mustache, his attention was arrested by a proclamation pasted on a post: + + + "_Five Hundred Dollars Reward, for_ + + JOSEPH MOORE JOHNSON, KIDNAPPER. + + "_The above reward will be paid by me to any person or + persons--and they will be exempted from detention--who + will deliver to me the body of the above-named miscreant, that + he may be brought to trial in Pennsylvania_. + + "JOSEPH WATSON, _Mayor of Philadelphia_." + + +"_Chis! he!_" Van Dorn sighed; "the end must soon be near. Now, young +people, come!" + +As they passed Cannon's place, going out of town, the familiar voice of +Jacob was heard to cry: + +"Owen Daw's escaped, Brother Isaac; but we'll clap it to him on a _de +bonis non_. I'll never take my eye off him till I die." + +"Brother Jacob, what an executive help you air!" + +As Van Dorn drove the horses up the slight ascent in the rear of the +ferry, past an ancient double puncheon house there, with an arch in the +centre, young Hulda--who now wore shoes and stockings, and a presentable +dress of English goods, and looked quite the woman out of her sincere +and sometimes proud and eloquent eyes--said to him, as she pointed back: + +"Captain, it was there my father killed the traveller, where we see the +road beyond the ferry enter the pines." + +"Yes," said Van Dorn, giving her a cold look; "we might see the place +but for the woods. It is at a hill, a short mile from the Nanticoke." + +"Tell Levin about it, captain." + +"_Quedo, quedo!_ It would not be pleasant." + +"Yes," said Hulda; "if it was true, I can hear it: I want Levin to hear +it, too, so that no deceit shall be between us." + +Her smooth, moist hair, gray, humid eyes, complexion born between the +rose and dew, and straight, lithe figure, and air of dignity and truth, +impressed Van Dorn curiously: + +"How bold you grow, wild-flower! Cannot you stoop to re-create me? I, +too, would live without deceit. But I will not tell you that story." + +"You are afraid," spoke Hulda, feeling that nothing but this man and +three miles of level road separated her from the vengeance of Patty +Cannon, and that she must assert herself strongly over him. + +"_Ya, ya!_ Are you not harsh? Remember, you may be whipped by your +grandma." + +"No, you will whip me, or kill me, if it is to be done. You dare not +give me to her to punish." + +"Dare not, again? Why?" + +"Because you are my guardian. Between us is an instinct different from +love, but strong; I feel it. I lean towards you, but not on you. What is +it?" + +"_O Dios!_" lisped Van Dorn, his blush suspended and his warm blue eyes +fascinated by her. "Is this a child or Echo?" + +"Tell me of my father's crime. I want Levin to know the wretched thing +he has affection for." + +"_Ayme! ah!_ Well, listen, young lovers; and see what grisly things walk +in these pines! There was a man named Brereton; they call him Bruington +here, where their noses are twisted and their chins weak. He came from +old Lewes, off to the east by Cape Henlopen, and of a stout family, in +which was a grain of evil ever smoking through the blood. Do you +sometimes feel it, Hulda?" + +"No, not evil like that." + +"He was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and held the iron while the master +struck. One day a man came in the shop, whose horse had thrown a shoe, +to have a shoeing, and, when he paid for it, he took a handful of money +from his pocket, and one piece--a dollar--fell in the soft soot of the +shop, unperceived but by the boy: _chis!_ he covered it with his foot." + +Van Dorn's whip-lash firmly covered a huge fly on the horse's ear, and +laid it dead. + +"When the man departed, the boy raised his foot and uncovered the +dollar; his master said, 'Smart boy!' They divided the stolen dollar." + +"Jimmy Phoebus says the fust step is half of a journey," Levin noted. + +"The blacksmith's boy looked avariciously on travellers ever after, who +might possess a dollar. He took the empty shop of Patty Cannon's first +husband, years after that saint died, and worked on hobbles, clevises, +and chains to hold the kidnapped articles of commerce. Naturally he +kidnapped, too, and, while she was yet a child, Patty's daughter became +Brereton's wife, bestowed by the fond, appreciative mother. Master +Levin, if you fall into his path, Brereton's daughter may be bestowed on +you. _Hola!_ behold her in Hulda." + +"I can't see any of that sin in Hulda, Captain; she ain't even ashamed." + +"No," affirmed Hulda, looking sincerely at Van Dorn; "it is too true to +make me ashamed. I feel as if God's hand covered me like the silver +dollar under my father's foot, because he let me survive such parents." + +As she spoke she took one of the silver shillings of 1815 and covered it +with her hand in Van Dorn's sight. Van Dorn spoke on rapidly: + +"There were two brothers named Griffin from about Cambridge, in +Maryland; spoiled boys who had taken to the flesh trade, and they stole +men and gambled the proceeds away, and Brereton was their leader. One +day a traveller came by from Carolina, hunting contraband slaves, and he +was of your boastful sort, and dropped the hint that he had fifteen +thousand dollars on his body to be invested. No later had he spoken than +he felt his folly, from the burning eyes around him and watering mouths +telling him to sleep there and slaves would be fetched; so he started in +a fright for Laurel, by way of Cannon's Ferry, intending to deposit his +money or make them deal with him there. The word was passed to Brereton +by his wife or mother-in-law, and by Brereton to the Griffins, to mount +and intercept the gold. Some say," lisped Van Dorn, "that Mistress +Cannon, dressed in man's clothes, commanded the band." + +A deep, chuckling interest, like the sound of a hidden brook, attended +Van Dorn's recital, and he was blushing like a girl. + +"At Slabtown, a nondescript spot a mile above Cannon's, the +light-marching band crossed in a row-boat; they piled brush and bent +down saplings in the traveller's road, where he should almost reach the +brow of the hill in his buggy, and when the fleshmonger halted at the +obstacle, _chis, hola!_ they let him have it on both sides, and sent +icicles to his heart. He drew a pistol, but in a dying hand. 'Away!' +cried the assassins; 'he is not dead.' His horse, in fright at bursting +firearms in the evening shades, leaped the brushy barriers and galloped +to Laurel, and delivered there an ashy-visaged effigy, down whose beard +the red dye of his life dripped audibly, as he sat stiff in death in the +buggy. His name was only guessed; how happy he in that!" + +"And what was the fate of the murderers?" Hulda asked, with less horror +than Levin showed. + +"Three of them were arrested; one of the Griffins exposed his brother +and Captain Brereton; these two died on the gallows at Georgetown, young +Brereton exerting himself under the noose to prevent his injudicious +comrade saying too much on peerless Patty Cannon and her fair sisters, +and thinking on their interests more than on this living child. Ha! +Hulda _Brereton?_" + +"The other Griffin also suffered death?" suggested Hulda, with a pale, +unevasive countenance. + +"Yes, your fond grandma, then in her blazing charms, drew him to her +band again with the lure of Widow Brereton's hand; he killed a constable +to recommend himself the better, and died on the gallows at his native +Cambridge. _Hala hala!_ she gave your mother, wild-flower Hulda, to Joe +Johnson next to wife." + +"It is an awful story," Levin said, "but Hulda never saw it." + +"I can remember my father," said Hulda; "a large, strong man, with a +slow, heavy face, but he never smiled on me." + +"Well, here is the cross-roads," said Van Dorn. "What shall I do with +this letter, bad wild-flower?" + +"Read it, if you will, or take this English shilling and post it." + +Van Dorn shrank back, rejecting the money. + +"Will you not buy it back, Hulda," he whispered, "with love?" + +"Never." + +"You may pay for this letter this night with your life or modesty!" + +"You dare not kill me," Hulda said. + +"You will see," said Van Dorn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +PACIFICATION. + + +Princess Anne had missed for several days some conspicuous citizens, +such as Daniel Custis and wife, Captain Phoebus, Levin Dennis, and the +free negro Samson--large components of a small town; but it had also +gained what everybody admitted to be the most beautiful woman in the +place except Mrs. Vesta Milburn--the brown-eyed, tall, roguish niece of +Meshach Milburn, whom Vesta had made a lady of in externals, corrected +some of her faults, such as the sniffle, and was daily teaching her the +mysteries of grammar and address, aided by the rector of the parish, +whose heart was roused to partial animation again by the young visitor. + +Loyally William Tilghman had pressed his friendship on Vesta's +semi-social husband, determined to like him, and finding small +resistance there, and, happily, no suspicion; and this was so grateful +to Vesta that she indulged the hope that her cousin and late lover would +find compensation for her loss in Rhoda Holland. + +Love came easily on as a topic of talk where Rhoda, with her +unconventional preference for that subject, introduced it. + +"Mr. William"--she had got that far towards the inevitable +"William"--said Rhoda, one evening at Teackle Hall, as they sat in the +library, "do preachers love jus' like other folks? Misc Somers say they +is drea'fle sly-boots. She say thar was a preacher down yer to Girdle +Tree Hill that preached the Meal-an-the-Yum was a-goin' to happen right +off." + +"Millennium," suggested Tilghman. + +"Maybe so. Misc Somers call it 'the Meal-an-the-Yum,' I thought. Anyway, +they was all goin' to rise, right off, an' he with 'em. Lord sakes! they +had frills put on thar night-gowns to rise in. An' the night before they +was a-goin' up, that ar scamp run away with a widder an' her darter, +jilted the widder an' married the darter; an' they couldn't rise at +Girdle Tree Hill caze the preacher wa'n't thar, an' they didn't know +when." + +"And I suppose Mrs. Somers tells it on him?" William Tilghman added. + +"That she do. Now, was you ever in love, Mr. William?" + +"I have been thinking, Rhoda, that when you are a good scholar, and +grandmother and you grow to like each other, as I believe you will, I +might fall in love with you." + +"Lord sakes! Me loved by a preacher? Couldn't I never stay home from the +preachin'? But then, to hear your own ole man a-barkin' away at the +other gals, I think it would be right good!" + +The subject had now gone to that length that in a few days, to +Grandmother Tilghman's slight indignation, Rhoda called the rector +"William," and he answered her, "Dear Rhoda." + +The triple widow, however, had one lane to her consideration, up which +the artful Rhoda strayed as soon as she saw the gate ajar. + +"Misc Tilghman," she said one day, "I been a-lookin' at you. I 'spect +you was a real beauty. If you wasn't a little quar, nobody would see you +was a ole woman now." + +"I was a belle," spoke the blind old lady, emphatically. "General John +Eager Howard said he would rather talk with me than hear an oration from +Fisher Ames. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, proposed to me when I was +old enough to be your grandmother, and after Susan Decatur, the +commodore's widow, had tried in vain to get an offer from him. Said I, +'Carroll, is this another Declaration of Independence? No,' said I, +'Carroll, I won't reduce the last signer, it may be, to obedience on a +wife going blind. That would be worse slavery than George the Third's!' +He said I was a Spartan widow." + +"Every widow I ever see was a sparkin' widow," Rhoda naively concluded, +at which Mrs. Tilghman had to join in the laughter, and there was no +evil feeling. + +Jack Wonnell now held the temporary post of cook and woodchopper at +Teackle Hall, and Roxy saw him every day, sewed his tattered clothing +up, put the germs of self-respect in him, and caused Vesta to say to her +husband, as they were sitting in his storehouse parlor one afternoon, in +the intermission of his chill and sweat: + +"Such rapid changes have taken place here, Mr. Milburn, that they have +disturbed my judgment, and now I hardly know whether my oldest prejudice +is assured, as I see that white man the happy domestic servant of my +pure slave girl. She seems to have no greater affection than pity and +interest for him, while he is made more of a man by his undisguised +devotion to her. No man could work better than he does now." + +"Love is so great, so occult," the husband said, his brown eyes +searching his wife's face over, "that its combinations have centuries +left to run before they shall beat every prejudice down, and prove, in +spite of sin and dispersion, that of one blood are all the nations +made."[4] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +BEGINNING OF THE RAID. + + +The raid into Delaware was all organized when Levin and Hulda were +driven to Johnson's tavern, and the arrival of Van Dorn called forth +cheers and yells, as that blushing worthy threw his trim, athletic +figure out of the wagon and bowed to Joe Johnson, on the tavern porch: + +"_O hala hala!_ do you go, son-in-law?" + +"I'll ride with ye, Captain, a split of the Maryland way, but sprat for +that Delaware! I'll go in it no more. I'll stand whack with you, +however, fur the madges I give you and fur my stalling ken." + +"_Quedito!_" lisped Van Dorn; "we never leave your interests out, +son-in-law. How is Aunt Patty?" + +"She's made a punch fur the population, an' calls fur young Levin thar +to lush with her." + +"I'll take mine along," Levin cried, "an' drink it in the chill o' the +night." + +"No," commanded the voice of Patty Cannon; "it's a-waitin' fur you, son: +a good stiff bowl of apple and sugar. Him as misses his drinks yer we +sets no account on." + +As Van Dorn and Levin pushed through the motley crowd on the little +porch into the bar, where Mrs. Cannon administered, she set before them +two fiery bowls, and cried: + +"Come in yer, Colonel McLane, an' jine my nug an' my young cousin +Levin." + +"No, Patty," answered a voice from the next room within; "I've drunk my +share. There's nothing like a conservative course." + +As Patty put her head into this inner room, Levin Dennis, seeing a +window open at his elbow, threw the whole of his liquor over his +shoulder into the yard and smacked his lips heartily, saying, + +"Good!" + +"Ha!" exclaimed Van Dorn, evidently noticing Levin's deceit; "smart +people are around us, Patty. Beware!" + +He took from his pocket the fateful letter and glanced at its +endorsement, and, as he did so, Levin heard an exclamation in the yard +from a man who had received the whole of the apple brandy and sugar in +his face, and was furious; but as soon as he seemed to recognize the +thrower he muttered, apologetically: + +"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! and Pangymonum, too!" + +When Levin looked at Van Dorn again, the blush was on his face, but the +letter had disappeared. + +"Beware of the conservative course, Colonel," lisped Van Dorn, "except +when generous Patty makes the punch; for she holds such measure of it +that she does not see our infirmities." + +"Honey," cried Patty Cannon to Levin, giving him an affectionate hug, +"have ye swallered yer liquor so smart as that? Why, I love to see a +nice boy drink." + +"But no more for him now, _cajela_," the Captain protested; "two such +will make him fall off his horse. _Bebamos_, Patty! _Esta +excelente!_"--drinking. + +"How purty the Captain says them things," the madam cried to the +gentleman within. "Maybe he's a mockin' his ole sweetheart. Oh, Van +Dorn, if I thought you could forget me I would kill you!" + +Levin noticed the rapid temper and demoniac face of this not unengaging +lady as she spoke, her whole nature turning its course like a wheeling +bat, and from plausibility to an instant's jealousy, and then to a dark +tide of awful rage, took but a thought. + +"_Que disparate! hala o he!_" Van Dorn lisped, sweetly, chucking the +hostess under the chin; "but I do love to see thee so, thou charmer of +my life. Never will I desert thee, Patty, whilst thou can suffer." + +Her dark clouds slowly passed away as Levin turned from the place, but +her small head and abundant raven hair showed the blood troubled to the +roots, and the eyes, once rich with midnight depths, now glazing in the +course of time, like old window panes, by age, searched the bandit's +face with a strange fear: + +"Van Dorn, time and pleasure cannot kill you: how well you look to-day. +I think you are a boy, to be ruined again every time you love me, you +blush so modestly. Where is that pot of color you paint your cheeks with +even before _me_, whose blushes none can recollect? Why do you love me?" + +"_O dios!_" said Van Dorn; "I love thee for these spells of splendor, +dark night and noonday passion, the alternations of earth and hell that +eclipse heaven altogether. I love to see thee fear, though fearing +nothing here, because I see nothing that you fear beyond the grave. You +hate this boy?" + +"I hate him worse than wrinkles. Let him not come to me a child +to-morrow; let him see ghosts long as he lives." + +"How are the prisoners, Patty?" + +"Why, the white nigger, dovey, is sick to-day; blood-loss and blisters +have give him fever. My nigger, that I tied--ha! ha! a good job for +Patty Cannon, at her age!--says t'other's a pore coaster named Jimmy +Phoebus." + +"Joe must be ready for a quick departure," the Captain exclaimed, "when +we come back from Dover: it is a bold undertaking, and the whole of the +little state will be aroused like a black snake uncoiling in one's +pocket." + +The woman pointed from her shoulder towards the inner room, and spoke +even lower than before: + +"Van Dorn, I have a customer." + +"For negroes?" + +"No, for Huldy. He shall have her." + + * * * * * + +As Levin Dennis stood at the cross-roads without, he saw a strange man +ploughing in the farm so recently deserted by his hostess for the gayer +cross-roads. The afternoon light fell on the sandy fields and struck a +polish from the ploughshare, and, as the ploughman passed the brambly +spot again, the buzzards slowly circled up, as if to protest that he +came too near their young. + +The long, lean servant, who had waited on the breakfast-table, came out +to Levin and watched his eyes. + +"Ploughin', ploughin'," he said. "Levin, I kin show you how to plough: I +can't do it, but you're the man." + +"Cyrus, Huldy don't hate you. She says you're the nighest to a friend +she's got." + +"Oh, I love her like sugar-cane," the lean, cymlin-headed servant said. +"Tell her I'm goin' to be a great man. I'm goin' to spile the game. They +lick me, but Cy Jeems has courage, Levin." + +"Cyrus, tell Huldy all that's goin' on agin her. We don't know nothin'. +You kin go and come an' nobody watches you. Huldy will be grateful fur +it." + +Putting his long arms on his knees and bending down, the scullion stared +close to Levin's eyes and whispered, looking towards the field: + +"Ploughin'! ploughin'!" + +Then, turning partly, and gazing over the old tavern with a look of +wisdom, Cy James whispered again: + +"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! an' Pangymonum, too!" + +"I reckon he's crazy," Levin thought, as the queer fellow turned and +fled. + +It was about three o'clock when the cavalcade was reviewed by Captain +Van Dorn from the porch of the hotel, and it consisted of about twenty +persons, white and black; some riding mules, some horses, and there was +one wagon in the line--the same that had been driven to Cannon's +Ferry--intended for Levin, Joe Johnson, and the Captain. Van Dorn stood +blushing, pulling his long mustache of flax, and resting on his cowhide +whip. + +"Dave," he called to a powerful negro, "get down from that mule; you're +too drunk to go. Jump up in his place, Owen Daw!" + +The widow's son gladly vaulted on the animal. + +"Sorden," continued Van Dorn, "you know all the roads: lead the way! +Whitecar, go with him! We rendezvous at Punch Hall at eight o'clock. The +order of march is in pairs, a quarter to half a mile apart. If any man +acts in anything without orders, or halloos upon the road, he may get +this lash or he may get my knife." + +"Captain, where do we feed?" asked a small, wiry mulatto. + +"Water at Federalsburg," answered Van Dorn; "feed at the Punch Hall." + +They rode off in pairs at intervals of ten minutes; Van Dorn's vehicle +went last. A moment before he departed, Cy James touched the Captain's +sleeve and whispered, "Huldy." Turning to see if he was unobserved, Van +Dorn followed to the deep-arched chimney at the northern gable, and +dismissed his guide with a look. + +"Captain Van Dorn," Hulda said, her large gray eyes strained in +tenderness and nervous courage, "do that boy Levin no harm: I love him! +God forgive all your sins, many as they are, if you disobey +grandmother's wicked commands about my darling!" + +"Ha! wild-flower, you have been listening?" + +"No, I have only looked: I know Aunt Patty's petting ways when she means +to ruin, and watch her black flashes of cunning between: she is no +cousin of Levin; he is Joe's gentle prisoner; his very name she made him +hide when she saw you coming this morning." + +"_Creo que si_: Hulda, let me kiss you!" + +"Yes, if you dare." + +She gave him that pure, soul-driven, child's strong look again, exerting +all the influence she had ever felt she exercised over him. + +Nevertheless he kissed her for the first time: + +"To-day, _bonito_, I dare to kiss thee. Believe me, my kiss is a tender +one." + +"Yes, sir. There is something like a father in it. Oh, my father, art +thou in heaven?" + +"If there be such a place, wild-flower, I think he is." + +"Oh, thank you, Captain Van Dorn. There may you also be and find the +faith I feel in my one day's love on earth. I pray for you every day." + +"_Ayme_, poor weakling! Pray now for thyself: if thou canst save thyself +sinless a brief day or two, it may be well for thee and Levin. Thy +grandmother is dreadful in her joys this night." + +"I can die," said Hulda, "if Levin be saved." + +He kissed her again, and something wet dropped down his blushes. + +"Eternal love!" he sighed; "I've lost it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +AFRICA. + + +The Captain took his place at the reins, his picturesque velvet jacket, +wide hat, bright hair, and gay shirt, thighings, belt, and boots, +deserving all Patty Cannon's encomiums as he made a polite adieu and +threw his whip like a thunderbolt, and a cheer rose from the discarded +volunteers loitering about the tavern as he drove Joe Johnson and Levin +away. + +The road was nearly dead level for five miles, but, being the old +travelled road from Laurel and the south to Easton, and pointing towards +Baltimore, numerous farms and clearings were seen, and tobacco-fields +alternated with the dry corn and new-ploughed wheat patches. Here and +there, like a measure of gold poured upon the ground, the yellow ears +lay in the gaunt corn-rows, to become the ground meal of the slave and +the cattle's winter substance. Joe Johnson's popularity was everywhere +apparent, and many a shout was given of, "Good luck to ye, Joe!" "Tote +us a nigger back from Delaway, Joe!" "Don't be too hard on them ar black +Blue Hen's chickens, Joe!" + +Van Dorn was too far above the comprehension of his neighbors, or, +indeed, of anybody, to be familiarly addressed, but "Patty Cannon's man" +was the term of injured inferiority towards him after he had passed. + +At Federalsburg they crossed the branch of the Nanticoke piercing to the +centre of Delaware state, and saw one large brick house of colonial +appearance dominating the little wooden hamlet, and here, as generally +within the Maryland line, hunting negroes was the "lark" or the serious +occupation of many an idle or enterprising fellow, who trained his negro +scouts like a setter, or more often like a spaniel, and crossed the line +on appointed nights as ardently and warily as the white trader in Africa +takes to the trails of the interior for human prey. + +"Joe," said Van Dorn, "what is to be your disposition of the prisoners +we have?" + +"All goes with me to Norfolk but one,--the nigger boxer; I burn him +alive on Twiford's island. If the white chap is too pickle to sell, I'll +throw him overboard; he ain't safe." + +"_Ea! sus!_ it is boyish to burn the old lad. I have had many a blow +from a black, and stab, too. A dog will bite you if you lasso him." + +"No nigger can knock me down and git off with selling." + +"Then you are a bad trader. The negro's price is all the negro is; why +make him your equal by hating him?" + +"I am a Delaware boy," Joe Johnson said, "and it's the pride with me to +give no nigger a chance. In Maryland you pets 'em, like ole Colonel Ned +Lloyd over yer on the Wye; he's give his nigger coachman a gole watch +an' chain because he's his son! What a nimenog! Some day he'll raise a +nigger that'll be makin' politikle speeches, an' then I don't want to +live no more."[5] + +"_Chito!_ Since the Delaware lawyer sent you to the post, son-in-law, +you're morose. I have had to eat with negro princes, dance with their +queens, and be ceremonious as if they had been angels." + +"It would be the reign of Queen Dick for me! I couldn't do it, nohow." + +"And, by the way, Joseph, I may see your friend, the lawyer Clayton, at +Dover, to-night: he may send me to the post, too; and I fear no Delaware +governor will take off the cropping of my ears, as was done for you in +state patriotism." + +"Beware of that imp of Tolobon!" Joe Johnson muttered. "How I wish you +could kill him, Van Dorn. He's got to be a senator; some day he'll be +chief-justice of Delaware: then, what'll niggers be wuth thar?" + +"I fancy, Joseph, you might be a legislator in Delaware if your +inclinations ran that way?" + +"Easy enough, but I makes legislators. My wife, Margaretta--her first +husband's sister is the wife of the chancellor." + +"Hola! oh! How came that great alliance?" + +"She was housekeeper; he was a close old bachelor and must break a leg. +'Well,' she says, 'you're a daddy; justice is your trade, and I must +have it.' So, from bein' his peculiar, she becomes the madam; but she +inwented the kid." + +"I have never been in Dover; how shall I tell where Lawyer Clayton +dwells?" + +"It's on the green a-middle of the town, a-standin' by the +state-house--a long, roughcast house in the corner, three stories high, +with two doors; the door next the state-house is his office. Go past the +state-house, which has a cupelo onto it, an' you see the jug an' +whippin'-post. He's got 'em handy fur you." + +Levin listened with all his ears. The liquor was now well out of his +system, and he thanked God he had refused Patty Cannon's burning dram, +else he might be this night--he thought it with remorse--the reckless +mate for Owen Daw, whose own mother had predicted the gallows for him. + +"And now, Van Dorn, I turn back," Joe Johnson said; "I have a job to do +down the Peninsuly. McLane has become the owner of a gal thar, an' wants +her sneaked. I takes black Dave with me, an' when I'm back, my boat will +be ready an' my cargo packed. Then hey fur Floridey!" + +He unhaltered his horse at the tail of the wagon, mounted him, and rode +back across the stream. Van Dorn touched his horses and entered the +dense woods in a byway to the north. + +"Get up here, Master Levin, and ride by me," the Captain said, very +soon, and he lifted Levin's old hat from his head and looked at his +bright hair parted in the middle, his fine, large eyes, needing the +light of knowledge, and his soft complexion and marks of good +extraction. + +"Where is thy father, Levin, to let thee go so ragged, with such +graceful limbs and feet as these?" + +"Shipwrecked," said Levin; "gone down, I 'spect, on the privateer." + +"A sailor, was he? Well, he should be home to clothe thee and see that +thou dost not cheat. I marked how Madam Cannon's punch was tossed out of +the window." + +"I thought you would not want me drunk beside you all night, sir, and +then I might enjoy your company. I don't want to drink no more liquor." + +"You like my company?" + +"Yes, sir." + +The Captain blushed, and asked, + +"Why do you like me?" + +"Not fur nothin' you do, sir. I like you fur somethin' in your ways; I +reckon you're a smart man." + +"_Si, senor_, that I am. I have gained the whole world and lost two." + +"Two worlds, sir?" + +"Yes, two immortal worlds; that is to say, two unaccountable worlds. I +am no Christian." + +"Maybe you're Chinee or Mahometan, then, sir; I 'spect everybody's got a +religion." + +"I was a Mahometan for business ends," Van Dorn said. "Having become a +slaver, it was nothing to be a renegade. Stealing a man's soul every +day, I put no value on mine. Yes, Mahomet is the prophet of God: so are +you." + +"You have been in Afrikey, I 'spect," suggested Levin. + +"A few years only, but long enough to be rich and to be ruined. I know +the negro coast from the Gambia to Cape Palmas, and inland to Timbo. I +have had an African queen and the African fever: I went to conquer +Africa and became a slave." + +"In Africa, I 'spect, Captain," Levin remarked, without inference, "a +nigger-trader is respectable." + +Van Dorn shook his head. + +"I doubt if that trade is respectable anywhere on this globe, unless it +be _here_. No, I will say for these people, too, that while they do it +low lip homage, they look down on it. I was once the greatest guest in +Timbo, housed with its absolute prince, attended by my suite, looking +like an ambassador, and he called me 'his son' and drew me to his +breast. Proclamations were made that I should be respected as such, yet +every human object fled before me. As I rode out alone to see the +gardens and cassava fields, the roaming goats and oxen, and the rich +mountain prospects, and saw the sloe-eyed girls bathing in the brooks, +the cry went round, 'Flesh-buyer is coming,' and huts were deserted, +fields forsaken, the gray patriarchs and the little children ran, and I +was left alone with the dumb animals, despised, abhorred." + +"Don't they have slavery thair, sir?" + +"Yes, slavery immemorial, yet the slave-buyer is no more respectable +than the procurer. The coin of Africa, its only medium, was the slave. +He paid the debt of war, of luxury, and of business. Yet the soul of +man, in the familiar study of such universal slavery, grovels with it, +and points to bright destiny no more with the head erect: I died in +Africa." + +"Ain't you in the business now, sir?" + +"Now I am a mere forest thief and bushman, Levin. He who begins a base +trade rises early to its fulness, and in subsequent life must be a poor +wolf rejected from the pack, stealing where he can sneak in. Such is the +kidnapper eking out the decayed days of the slaver; such is the ruined +voluptuary, living at last on the earnings of some shameless woman; such +am I: behold me!" + +Van Dorn's eyes turned on Levin in their cold, heartless light, and yet +he blushed, as usual. + +"You ought to be a gentleman, Captain. What made you break the laws so +and be a bad man?" + +"_Ayme! ayme_!" mused Van Dorn, "shall I tell you? It was Africa. I was +a high-minded youth, cool and bold, and with a thread of pleasure in me. +I went to sea in a manly trade, and, fortune being slow, they whispered +to me, in the West Indies, that my clipper was just the thing for the +slave-trade, and I made the first venture out of virtue, which is all +the voyage. In Africa I fell a prey to the voluptuous life a white man +leads there, to which the very missionaries are not always exceptions. +Young, pale, gentle, graceful, brave, my blushes instant as my passions, +the ceaseless intrigue of that hot climate circled around me like a +dance in the harem around the young intruder: I forgot my native land +and every obligation in it; I was enslaved by Africa to its swooning +joys; I went there like the serpent and was stung by the woman." + +"Ain't they all right black and ugly in Africa, Captain?" + +"The world has not the equals of Senegambia for beauty," said Van Dorn. +"The Fullah beauties are often almost white, and the black admixture is +no more than varnish on the maple-tree. And even here, my lad, where +civilization builds a wall of social fire around the slave, you often +mark the idolatry of the white head to captive Africa." + +"Did you make money?" + +"For some years I did, plenty of it; but degradation in the midst of +pleasure weighed down my spirits. The thing called honor had flown from +over me like the heavenly dove, and in its place a hundred painted birds +flocked joyfully, the dazzling creatures of that thoughtless world. Oh, +that I could have been born there or never have seen it! At last I +started home, but the world had adopted a new commandment, 'Thou shalt +not trade in man.' They took my ship and all its black cargo, and I came +home naked. Then my heart was broke, and I turned kidnapper." + +"Home is the best place," said Levin; "I 'spect it is, even if folks is +pore. When Jimmy Phoebus give me a boat I thought I was rich as a +Jew." + +"What is that name?" asked Van Dorn. + +"James Phoebus: he's mother's sweetheart." + +"_Ce ce ce!_" the Captain mused; "your mother lives, then?" + +"Yes, sir. She's pore, but Jimmy loves her, and the ghost of father +feeds her." + +"_Quedo!_ a ghost? what kind of thing is that? Aunt Patty sees them: I +never do." + +"It comes an' puts sugar an' coffee in the window, an' sometimes a pair +of shoes an' a dress. Mother says it's father: I guess it is." + +"_O Dios!_" lisped Van Dorn. "This Phoebus, is he a good man?" + +"Brave as a lion, sir; pore as any pungy captain; the best friend I ever +had. I hoped mother would marry him, he's been a-waitin' fur her so +long. She's afraid father ain't dead." + +"_O hala, hala!_ women are such waiters; but this man can wait too. Is +he strong?" + +"He come mighty nigh givin' Joe Johnson a lickin' last Sunday, sir, in +Princess Anne. He hates a nigger-trader. Him an' Samson Hat, a black +feller, thinks as much of each other as two brothers." + +"And he gave you a boat?" + +"Yes, sir: Joe Johnson hired it of me, but I didn't know he was goin' to +run away niggers. He's got my boat an' ruined my credit, I 'spect, in +Princess Anne, an' what will mother do when I go to jail?" + +"Why, this other man, Phoebus, is there to marry her or look after +her." + +"Oh, Captain," sobbed Levin, putting his hands on Van Dorn's knees, and +laying his orphan head there too, "pore Jimmy's dead: Joe Johnson shot +him." + +The Captain did not move or speak. + +"I've been a drunkard, Captain," Levin sobbed again, in the confidence +of a child; "that's whair all our misery comes from. I've got nothin' +but my boat, an' people hires it to go gunnin' an' fishin' and +spreein', and they takes liquor with 'em, an' I drinks. God help me; I +never will agin, but die first!" + +"Are you not afraid to lean on me?" lisped Van Dorn. + +"No, sir." + +"I have killed people, too." + +"The Lord forgive you, sir; I know you won't kill _me_." + +A sigh broke from the bandit's lips, in place of his usual soft lisp, +and was followed by a warm drop of water, as from the forest leaves now +bathed in night, that plashed on Levin's neck. + +"O God," a soft voice said, "may I not die?" + +Then Levin felt the same warm drops fall many times upon him, and his +nature opened like the plants to rain. + +"I have found a friend, Captain," the boy spoke, after several minutes, +but not looking up; "I feel you cry." + +"_Chito! chito!_" lisped Van Dorn; "here is Punch Hall." + +Levin raised his head, and saw nothing but an old house standing in the +trees, with a little faint light streaming from the door, and heard the +low hilarity of drinking men. The whole band poured out to receive Van +Dorn's commands. + +"One hour here to feed and rest!" Van Dorn exclaimed. "Let those sleep +who can. Let any straggle or riot who dare!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +PEACH BLUSH. + + +Judge Custis, whom we left riding out of Princess Anne on Sunday +afternoon, kept straight north, crossed the bottom of Delaware in the +early evening, and went to bed at Laurel, on Broad Creek, a few miles +south of Cannon's Ferry. + +At daylight he was ahorse again, scarcely stiff from his exertion, and +feeling the rising joys of a stomach and brain becoming clearer than for +years, of all the forms of alcohol. His mind had been bathed in sleep +and temperance, the two great physicians, and wiped dry, like the feet +of the Prince of sufferers, with women's hairs. Exercise, natural to a +Virginian, awakened his flowing spirits again, and he fancied the air +grew purer as he advanced into the north, though there was hardly any +perceptible change of elevation. The country grew drier, however, as he +turned the head springs of the great cypress swamp--the counterbalance +of the Dismal Swamp of Virginia--receded from the Chesapeake waters, and +approached the tributaries of the Atlantic. At nine o'clock he entered +the court-house cluster of Georgetown, a little place of a few hundred +people, pitched nearly at the centre of the county one generation +before, or about ten years after the independence of the country. + +It was a level place of shingle-boarded houses, assembled around a sandy +square, in which were both elm and Italian poplar trees; and a +double-storied wooden court-house was on the farther side, surrounded by +little cabins for the county officers, pitched here and there, and in +the rear was a jail of two stories, with family apartments below, and +the dungeon window, the debtors' room, and a family bedroom above; and +near the jail and court-house stood the whipping-post, like a dismantled +pump, with a pillory floor some feet above the ground. + +Young maples, mulberry and tulip trees, and ailanthuses grew bravely to +make shade along the two streets which pierced the square, and the four +streets which were parallel to its sides--pretty lanes being inserted +between, to which the loamy gardens ran; and, as the Judge stopped at +the tavern near the court, he was told it was "returning day," and the +place would soon be filled with constituents assembling to hear how +"she'd gone"--_she_, as the Judge knew well, meaning Sussex County, and +"gone" intimating her decision expressed at the polls. + +"She's gone for Adams an' Clayton, ain't she, Jonathan Torbert?" asked +the innkeeper. + +"Yes," spoke a plain, religious-looking man, the teller of the bank; +"Johnny Clayton's kept Sussex and Kent in line for Adams; Jeems Bayard +and the McLanes have captured Newcastle: Clayton goes to the senate, +Louis McLane to the cabinet, the country to the alligators." + +"Hurrah for Jackson!" answered the host; "he suits me ever since he +whipped the British." + +At breakfast Judge Custis recognized a gentleman opposite, wearing +smallclothes, and with his hair in a queue, who spoke without other than +a passively kind expression: + +"Judge." + +"Ah! Chancellor!" + +The Chancellor was nearly seventy years old, wearing an humble, +meditative, yet gracious look, as one whose relations to this world were +those of stewardship, and whose nearly obsolete dress was the badge, not +of worldly pride, but of perished joys and contemporaries. His +unaffected countenance seemed to say: "I wear it because it is useless +to put off what no one else will wear, when presently I shall need +nothing but a shroud." + +Judge Custis looked at the meek old gentleman closely, sitting at his +plate like a lay brother in some monastery or infirmary, indifferent to +talk or news or affairs; and the remembrance of what he had been--keen, +accumulative, with youthful passions long retained, and the man buoyant +under the judge's guard--impressed the Virginian to say to himself: + +"What, then, is man! At last old age asserts itself, and bends the +brazen temple of his countenance, like Samson, in almost pious remorse. +There sits twenty-five years of equity administration; behind it, thirty +years of jocund and various life. No newspaper shall ever record it, +because none are printed here; he is indifferent to that forgetfulness +and to all others, because the springs of life are dry in his body, and +he no more enjoys." + +"Are you travelling north, Judge Custis?" the old man asked, for +politeness' sake. + +"Yes, to Dover." + +"There is a seat in my carriage; you are welcome to it." + +"I will take it a part of the way, at least, to feel the privilege of +your society, Chancellor." + +The old man gave a slow, sidewise shake of his head. + +"Too late, too late," he said, "to flatter me. I was fond of it once. I +have been a flatterer, too." + +The Chancellor's black boy was put on the Judge's horse, and the two +men, in a plain, country-made, light, square vehicle, turned the +court-house corner for the north. As they passed the door they heard the +sheriff knock off two slaves to a purchaser, crying: + +"Your property, sir, till they are twenty-five years of age." + +"Ha, ha!" laughed, in a great horse laugh, a nearly chinless villager; +"say till ole Patty Cannon can git 'em!" + +The purchaser gave a cunning, self-convicted smile at the passing +chancellor, whose look of resignation only deepened and grew more +humble. The Judge had some vague recollection which moved him to change +the subject. + +"We see each other but little, Chancellor, though we divide the same +little heritage of land. I suppose your people are all proud of +Delaware." + +"Yes," said the old man; "being such a little adventurer, a mere +foundling in the band of states, our people have the pride of their +independence. The laws are administered, some more farms are opened in +the forest every year, blossoms come, and old men die and are buried on +their farms, and their bones respected a few years. Our history is so +pastoral that we must show some temper when it is assailed, or we might +let out our ignorance of it." + +They rode in silence some hours through an older settled and more open +country, with some large mill-ponds and a better class of farm +improvements, and the sense of some large water near at hand was +mystically felt. + +The Judge followed the old man's eyes at one place, seeing that they +were raised with an expression of tranquil satisfaction, like aged +piety, and a beautiful landscape of soft green marsh lay under their +gaze from a slight elevation they had reached, showing cattle and sheep +roving in it, tall groves where cows and horses found midday shade, and +winding creeks, carrying sails of hidden boats, as if in a magical +cruise upon the velvet verdure. Haystacks and farm settlements stood out +in the long levels, and sailing birds speckled the air. In the far +distance lay something like more marsh, yet also like the clouds. + +"It is the Delaware Bay," the Chancellor said. + +They soon entered a well-built little town on a navigable creek, with a +large mill-pond, sawmills, several vessels building on the stocks, and +an air of superior vitality to anything Judge Custis had seen in +Delaware. Here the Chancellor pointed out the late home of Senator +Clayton's father, and, after the horses had been fed, they continued +still northward, passing another small town on a creek near the marshes, +and, a little beyond it, came to a venerable brick church, a little from +the road, in a grove of oaks and forest trees. + +"Here is Barrett's chapel," said the Chancellor; "celebrated for the +plotting of the campaign between Wesley's native and English preachers +for the conquest of America as soon as the crown had lost it." + +They looked up over the broad-gabled, Quakerly edifice, with its broad, +low door, high roof, double stories of windows, and a higher window in +the gable, trim rows of arch-bricks over door and windows, and belt +masonry; and heard the tall trees hush it to sleep like a baby left to +them. Nearly fifty feet square, and probably fifty years old, it looked +to be good for another hundred years. + +"My family in Accomac was harsh with the Methodists through a mistaken +conservatism," Judge Custis said. "They are a good people; they seem to +suit this peninsula like the peachtree." + +A small funeral procession was turning into Barrett's chapel, and the +Chancellor interrogated one of the more indifferent followers as to the +dead person. Having mentioned the name, the citizen said: + +"His death was mysterious. He was a Methodist and a good man, but it +seems that avarice was gnawing his principles away. A slave boy, soon to +become free by law, disappeared from his possession, and he gave it out +that the boy had run away. But suddenly our neighbor began to drink and +to display money, and they say he had the boy kidnapped. He died like +one with an attack of despair." + +As they turned again northward, in the genial afternoon, Judge Custis +said: + +"What a stigma on both sides, Chancellor, is this kidnapping!" + +The old man meekly looked down and did not reply. Judge Custis, feeling +that there was some sensitiveness on this and kindred subjects, yet why +he could not recollect, continued, under the impulse of his feelings: + +"The night before I left Princess Anne, Joe Johnson, one of your worst +kidnappers, boldly came to my house for lodging. Why I let him stay +there is a subject of wonder and contempt to myself. But there he was, +perhaps when I came away." + +"Not a prudent thing to permit," the old man groaned. + +"I knew his wife was the widow of a gallows' bird, one Brereton--the +name is Yankee. He was hanged for highway robbery." + +A muffled sound escaped the sober old gentleman of Delaware. + +"_You_ should remember the murder, Chancellor. It happened in this +state. This Brereton killed a slave-buyer for what he brought here upon +his person to buy the kidnapped free people and apprentice-slaves. +Brereton was the son-in-law of Patty Cannon, that infamous pander +between Delaware and the South." + +The old Chancellor looked up. + +"I wish to anticipate you," he said, "in what you might further say with +truth, but perhaps do not fully know. The murderer, Brereton, was the +son-in-law of Patty Cannon, it is true; but he was also the +brother-in-law of myself." + +"Impossible!" Judge Custis said. + +"Yes, sir; I married his sister." + +The old Chancellor again turned his eyes to the ground. + +"Great heavens!" exclaimed the Judge; "how many curious things can be in +such a little state!" + +It was in the middle of the afternoon that Judge Daniel Custis rode into +a small town on an undulating plain, around two sides of which, at +hardly half a mile distance, ran a creek through a pretty wooded valley, +and a third side was bounded by a branch of the same creek, all winding +through copse, splutter-dock, lotus-flower, and marsh to the Delaware +Bay. + +At the centre of the town, on the swell or crest of alluvial soil, of a +light sandy loam foundation, an oblong public square, divided by a north +and south street, contained the principal dwellings of the place, one of +which was the Delaware State Capitol, a red-brick building, a little +older than the American Constitution, with a bell-crowned cupola above +its centre, and thence could be seen the Delaware Bay. + +Near the state-house stood the whipping-post in the corner, humble as a +hitching-post, and the brick jail hid out of the way there also, like an +unpresentable servant ever cringing near his master's company. Various +buildings, generally antique, surrounded this prim, Quakerly square, +some brick, and with low portals, others smart, and remodelled to suit +the times; some were mere wooden offices or huts, with long dormers +falling from the roof-ridge nearly to the eaves, like a dingy feather +from a hat-crown, with a jewel in the end; and one was an old +steep-roofed hotel, painted yellow, with a long, lounging side. + +At diagonal corners of this square, as far apart as its space would +permit, two venerable doctors' homes still stood, which had given more +repute to Delaware's little capital than its jurists or statesmen,--the +former residence of Sykes the surgeon and Miller the pathologist and +writer. + +It was at the former of these houses, a many-windowed, tall, +side-fronting house of plastered brick, with side office and centre +door, that Judge Custis stopped and hitched his horse to a rack near the +state-house adjoining. The sound of twittering birds fell from the large +elms, willows, and maples on the square, and Custis could see the robins +running in the grass. + +From the door of the two-storied side office the sound of a violin came +tenderly, and the Judge waited until the tune was done, when loud +exclamations of pleasure, the clapping of hands, and the stamping of +feet, showed that the fiddler was not alone. + +Presenting himself at the door, Judge Custis was immediately confronted +by a large, tall man, fully six feet high, with a strong countenance and +sandy hair, who carried the fiddle and bow in his hand, and with the +other hand seized Judge Custis almost affectionately, and drew him in, +crying: + +"Why, how is my old friend? Goy! how does he do? Who could have expected +you on this simple occasion? Sit down there and take my own chair! Not +that little one--no, the big easy-chair for my old friend! Goy!" + +As Judge Custis cast his eye around, to note the company, the +demonstrative host, with a flash of his gray-blue eyes, whispered, + +"Who is he? who is he?" + +"A Custis," whispered a person hardly the better off for his drams; "I +reckon he is, by the lips and skin." + +"Goy!" rapidly spoke the fiddler. "Friend Custis--I know my heart does +not deceive me!--let me introduce you to the very essence of grand old +little Delaware: here is Bob Frame, the ardent spirit of our bar; this +is James Bayard, our misguided Democratic favorite; here is Charley +Marim and Secretary Harrington, and my esteemed friend Senator Ridgely, +and my cousin, Chief-justice Clayton. We are all here, and all honored +by such a rare guest. Goy!" + +As the Judge went through the hand-shaking process, the tall, well-fed +host stooped to the convivial person again, and, with his hand to the +side of his mouth, and an air of solemn cunning, whispered: + +"Where from?" + +"Accomac, or Somerset, I reckon," muttered the other. + +"Now," exclaimed the host, taking both of Judge Custis's hands, "how do +our dear friends all get along in Somerset and Accomac? Where _do_ you +call home now, Friend Custis? How are our old friends Spence and +Upshur, and Polk and Franklin and Harry Wise? Goy! how I love our +neighbors below." + +There was a strength of articulation and physical emphasis in the +speaker that the Judge noted at once, and it was attended with a beaming +of the eyes and a fine fortitude of the large jaws that made him nearly +magnetic. + +"And this is John M. Clayton?" said the Judge. "We are not so far off +that we have not fully heard of you. And now, since I belong to a +numerous family, let me identify myself, Clayton, as Daniel Custis, late +Judge on the Eastern Shore." + +"Judge Custis! Daniel Custis! Friends," looking around, "what an honor! +Think of it! The eminent American manufacturer! The creator of our +industries! The friend of Mr. Clay and the home policy! Bayard, you need +not shake your head! Ridgely, pardon my patriotic enthusiasm! Look at _a +man_, my friends, at last! Goy!" + +As the Judge listened to various affirmations of welcome, Mr. Clayton, +with one eye winked and the other resting on Lawyer Frame, the ardent +spirit of the bar, made the motion with his lips: + +"Cambridge?" + +"No; Princess Anne." + +"And dear old Princess Anne, how does she fare?"--he had again turned to +the Judge--"how is the little river Wicomico--no, I mean Manokin--how +does it flow? Does it flow benevolently? Does it abound in the best +oysters I ever tasted? in _tar_rapin, too? How is she now? Goy!" + +"Are you on your way north, Brother Custis, or going home?" the keen, +black-eyed Chief-justice asked. + +"No, my journey is ended. I came to Dover to be acquainted with Mr. +Clayton." + +"_Aunt Braner. Hyo! Come yer, Aunt Braner_!" the host cried loudly, and +an old colored woman came in, closely followed by some of her +grandchildren, who stood, gazing, at the door. "Take this gentleman and +give him the best room in my house. The best ain't good enough for him! +Take him right up and give him water and make your son bresh him, and +we'll send him the best julep in Kent County. Goy!" + +"De bes' room was Miss Sally's, Mr. Clayton," the old woman answered. + +A sudden change came over the highly prompt and sanguine face of the +host; he hesitated, wandered in the eyes, and caught himself on the +words: + +"No, give him the Speaker Chew room: that'll suit him best." + +As the Judge followed the servant out, the young Senator emptied his +mouth of a large piece of tobacco into a monster spittoon that a blind +man could hardly miss, and, with a face still long and silent, and much +at variance with his previous spontaneity, he absently inquired: + +"What can he want? what can he want?" + +One of the small negro children had meantime toddled in at the door, +and, with large, liquid eyes in its solemn, desirous face, laid hands on +the fiddle and looked up at Mr. Clayton. + +"Bless the little child!" he suddenly said. "Wants a tune? Well!" + +Placing himself in a large chair, the young Senator tilted it back till +his hard, squarish head rested against the mantel, and he felt along the +strings almost purposelessly, till the plaintive air came forth: + + "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon! + How can ye bloom so fair? + How can ye chant, ye little birds, + And I so full of care? + + Thou'lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird, + That sings beside thy mate; + For so I sat, and so I sang, + And wist not of my fate." + +He closed his eyes on the strains, and a thickening at his throat, and +movement of his broad, athletic chest, as he continued the air, showed +that he was inwardly laboring with some strong emotion. + +His cousin, the Chief-justice, made a signal with his hat, and one by +one the sitters stole out into the square noiselessly, and went their +ways, leaving the young man playing on, with the negro child at his +knee, leaning there as if to spy out the living voice in his violin. + +Other children came to the door--white children from the square, black +children from the garden--and some ventured a little way in to hear the +tender wooing of the sympathetic strings. He moved his bow mechanically, +but the music sprang forth as if it knew its sister, Grief, was waiting +on the chords. At last a bolder child than the rest came and pushed his +elbow and said, + +"Papa!" + +"My boy, my dear boy!" the fiddler cried, as tears streamed down his +cheeks, and he lifted the lad to his heart and kissed him. + +Judge Custis, though no word passed upon the subject, saw the solitary +canker at the Senator's heart--his wife's dead form in the old +Presbyterian kirk-yard. + +It was soon apparent to Judge Custis, from this and other silent things, +that a light-hearted, affectionate, strong, yet womanly, engine of +energy constituted the young Delaware lawyer-politician. Keen, cunning, +impulsive, hopeful, his feet provincial, his head among the birds, he +combined facility and earnestness in almost mercurial relations to each +other, and the Judge saw that these must constitute a remarkable jury +lawyer. + +His face was shaven smooth; his throat and chin showed an early tendency +to flesh; the poise of his head and thoughtful darting of his eyes and +slight aqualinity of his nose indicated one who loved mental action and +competition, yet drew that love from a great, healthy body that had to +be watched lest it relapse into indolence. The loss of his wife so soon +after marriage had been followed by nearly complete indifference to +women, and he had made politics his only consolation and mistress, +harnessing her like a young mare with his old roadster of the law, and +driving them together in the slender confines of his principality, and +then locking the law up among his office students to drive politics into +the national arena at Washington. + +"You require to be very neighborly, Clayton, in a small bailiwick like +this?" the Judge inquired, as they strolled along the square in the soft +evening. + +"We have the best people in the world in Delaware, friend Custis: few +traders, little law, scarcely any violence, and they are easy to please; +but it is a high offence in this state not to be what is called 'a +clever man.' You must stop, whatever be your errand, and smile and +inquire of every man at his gate for every individual member of his +household. The time lost in such kind, trifling intercourse is in the +aggregate immense. But, Goy! I do love these people." + +"It seems to me that you encourage that exaction." + +"Well, I do. As an electioneerer, I can get away with any of 'em. Goy! +Why, Jim Whitecar, Lord bless your dear soul!"--this addressed to a +thick-set, sandy, uncertain-looking man who was about retreating into +the Capitol Tavern--"what brings you to town, Jim?" + +"It's a free country, I reckon," exclaimed the suspicious-looking man. + +"Goy! that's so, Jimmy. We're all glad to see you in Dover behaving of +yourself, Jim. Now don't give me any trouble this year, friend Jimmy. +Behave yourself, and be an honor to your good parents that I think so +much of. Oblige me, now!" + +As they turned to cross the middle of the square, Clayton said: + +"I'll have him at that whipping-post, hugging of it, one of these days." + +"What is he?" + +"A kidnapper down here in Sockum, and a bad one: a dangerous fellow, +too. I hear he says if I ever push him to the extremity of his +co-laborer, Joe Johnson--whom I sent to the post and then saved from +cropping--that he'll kill me. Goy!"--Mr. Clayton looked around a trifle +apprehensively--"I'm ready for him." + +"Delaware kidnapping is a great institution," Custis said. + +"It has an antiquity and extent you would hardly believe, friend Custis. +Long before our independence, in the year 1760, the statutes of Delaware +had to provide against it. Our laws have never permitted the domestic +slave-trade with other states." + +The little place seemed to have a good society, and the beauty of the +young girls sitting at the doors or walking in the evening showed +something of the florid North Europe skins, Batavian eyes, and rotund +Dutch or Quaker figures. + +As they returned to the public square, a room in the tavern, almost +brilliantly lighted for that day of candles, displayed its windows to +the gaze of Clayton, who exclaimed: + +"Goy! that is surely John Randel, Junior." + +"That distinguished engineer?" observed his visitor, who had been +waiting all the evening to broach the subject of his errand. "I have the +greatest admiration of him. Shall we call on him?" + +"Why, yes, yes," answered Clayton, dubiously; "I'm not afraid of him. +I--goy! I owe him nothing. He is such a litigious fellow, though; so +persistent with it; _barratry_, _champetry_, mad incorrigibility: +he's the wildest man of genius alive. But come on!" + +Knocking at a door on the second floor, a sharp, prompt reply came out: + +"Come!" + +A middle-sized man, with a large head and broad shoulders, and cloth +leggings, buttoned to above his knee, sat in a nearly naked, carpetless +room, writing, his table surrounded by burning wax candles, and his +countenance was proud and intense. Mr. Clayton rushed upon him and +seized his hand: + +"How is my friend Randel? The indefatigable litigant, the brilliant +engineer, to whom ideas, goy! are like persimmons on the tree, abundant, +but seldom ripe, and only good when frosted. How is he now and what is +he at?" + +"Stand there," spoke the engineer, "and look at me while I read the +sentence I was finishing upon John Middleton Clayton of Delaware." + +"Go it, Randel! Now, Custis, he'll put a wick in me and just set me +afire. Goy!" + +"'It is the curse of lawyers,'" the unrelaxing stranger read, "'to let +their judgment for hire, from early manhood, to easy clients, or to +suppress it in the cringing necessities of popular politics: hence that +residue and fruit of all talents, the honest conviction of a man's +bravest sagacity, perishes in lawyers' souls ere half their powers are +fledged: they become the registers of other men, they think no more than +wax.'" + +Here Mr. Randel blew out one of the candles. The illustration was +cogent. Mr. Clayton lighted it again with another candle. + +"There's method in his madness, Custis," he said, with a wink. "Let me +introduce my great friend to you, Randel?" + +"Stop there," the engineer repeated, sternly, "till I have read my +sentence. 'Seldom it is that a lawyer of useful parts, in a community as +detached and pastoral as the State of Delaware, has a cause appealing to +his manliness, his genius, and his avarice, like this of John Randel, +Junior, civil engineer! No equal public work will probably be built in +the State of Delaware during the lifetime of the said Clayton. No fee he +can earn in his native state will ever have been the reward of a lawyer +there like his who shall be successful with the suit of John Randel, +Junior, against the Canal Company. No principle is better worth a great +lawyer's vindication than that these corporations, in their infancy, +shall not trample upon the private rights of a gentleman, and treat his +scholarship and services like the labor of a slave.'" + +"Well said and highly thought," interposed Judge Custis. + +"'The said Clayton,'" continued John Randel, still reading, "'refuses +the aid of his abilities to a stranger and a gentleman inhospitably +treated in the State of Delaware.'" + +"No, no," cried Clayton; "that is a charge against me I will not +permit." + +"'The said Clayton,'" read Randel, inflexibly, "'with the possibilities +of light, riches, and honor for himself, and justice for a fellow-man, +chooses cowardice, mediocrity--and darkness. He extinguishes my hopes +and his.'" + +With this, Mr. Randel, by a singular fanning of his hands and waft of +his breath, put out all the candles at once and left the whole room in +darkness. + +Judge Custis was the first to speak after this extraordinary +illustration: + +"Clayton, I believe he has a good case." + +"That is not the point now," Mr. Clayton said, with rising spirit and +emphasis. "The point now is, 'Am I guilty of inhospitality?' Goy! that +touches me as a Delawarean, and is a high offence in this little state. +It is true that this suitor is a stranger. He comes to me with an +introduction from my brilliant young friend, Mr. Seward, of New York, +who vouches for him. But the corporation he menaces is also entitled to +hospitality: it is, in the main, Philadelphia capital. Girard himself, +that frugal yet useful citizen, is one of its promoters. My own state, +and Maryland, too, have interests in this work. Is it the part of +hospitality to be taking advantage of our small interposing geography, +and laying by the heels, through our local courts, a young, struggling, +and, indeed, national undertaking?" + +"Let the courts of your state, which are pure, decide between us," said +John Randel, Junior, relighting the candles with his tinder-box. + +"No lawyer ought to refuse the trial of such a public cause because of +any state scruples," Judge Custis put in, in his grandest way. "That is +not national; it is not Whig, Brother Clayton." The Judge here gave his +entire family power to his facial energy, and expressed the Virginian +and patrician in his treatment of the Delaware _bourgeois_ and plebeian. +"Granted that this corporation is young and untried: let it be +disciplined in time, that it may avoid more expensive mistakes in the +future. No cause, to a true lawyer, is like a human cause; the time may +come when the talent of the American bar will be the parasite of +corporations and monopolists, but it is too early for that degradation +for you and me, Senator Clayton. The rights of a man involve all +progress; progress, indeed, is for man, not man for progress. As a son +of Maryland, if he came helpless and penniless to me, I would not let +this gentleman be sacrificed." + +"If I were a rich man, Clayton would take my case," the engineer said; +"my poverty is my disqualification in his eyes." + +He again essayed, in a dramatic way, to fan out the candles, but his +breath failed him; his hands became limp, and then hastily covered his +eyes, and he sank to the table with a groan, and put his head upon it +convulsively. + +"Gentlemen," he uttered, in a voice touching by its distress, "oh! +gentlemen, professional life--my art--is, indeed, a tragedy." + +The easy sensibilities of Judge Custis were at once moved. Senator +Clayton, looking from one to the other in nervous indecision, seeing +Custis's dewy eyes, and Randel's proud breaking down, was himself +carried away, and shouted: + +"I goy! This is a conspiracy. But, Randel, I'll take your case; I can't +see a man cry. Goy!" + +As they all arose sympathetically and shook hands, a knock came on the +door, and there was a call for Mr. Clayton. He returned in a few +minutes, with a rather grim countenance, and said: + +"Randel, I have just declined a big round retaining-fee to defend the +very suit your tears and Brother Custis's have persuaded me to +prosecute. But, goy! a tear always robbed me of a dollar." + +"This sympathy to-day will make you an independent man for life," +exclaimed the engineer. + +"I have done Milburn's first errand right," Judge Custis thought; "five +minutes' delay would have been fatal." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +GARTER-SNAKES. + + +At Princess Anne Vesta had moved her husband to Teackle Hall, and he +occupied her father's room and seemed to be growing better, though the +doctor said that he had best be sent to the hills somewhere. + +The free woman, Mary, whom Jimmy Phoebus sent to Vesta, had arrived +very opportunely, and took Aunt Hominy's place in the kitchen, where all +the children's echoes were gone, the poor woman's own bereavement +thrilling the ears of Virgie, Roxy, and Vesta herself; but, alas! her +tale was not legal testimony, because she was a little black. + +Jack Wonnell had found unexpected favor in Meshach Milburn's eyes, and +was appointed to sleep in the store and watch it; and there Roxy came +down in the twilights, and, with pity more than affection, heard him +weave the illusion of his love for her, willing to be amused by it, +because it was so sincere with him; for Jack was all lover, and meek and +artful, bold and domestic, soft and outlawed, as the houseless Thomas +cat that makes highways of the fences, and wooes the demurest kitten +forth by the magic of his purring. + +"Roxy," said Jack, "I'm a-goin' to git you free, gal, fur I 'spect +Meshach Milburn will give me a pile o' money fur a-watchin' of the sto'. +Then we'll go to Canaday, whar, I hearn tell, color ain't no pizen, an' +we'll love like the white doves an' the brown, that both makes the same +coo, so happy they is." + +"Jack," said the soft-eyed, pitying maid, "you're a pore foolish fellow, +but I like to hear you talk. I reckon there is no harm in you. Virgie is +in love, too, with a white man, but you mustn't breathe it." + +"Never," said Jack, making solemn motions with his eyes, and cuddling +closer in dead earnest of sympathy. "Hope I may die! Can't tell, to save +my life! Who-oop! Tell me, Roxy!" + +"Pore sister Virgie, she was made to love, and, though it's hopeless, I +think she loves Mr. Tilghman, our minister, because he loved Miss Vesty +once, and Virgie worships Miss Vesty like her sister." + + * * * * * + +Vesta told the story of Mary, the free woman, to her husband, who +listened closely and said: + +"I know of but one thing, my darling, that will make such ignorance and +cruelty fade out in the forests of this peninsula: an iron road. A new +thing, called the railroad-engine, has just been made by an Englishman, +one George Stephenson, and a specimen of it has been sent to New York, +where I have had it examined. The errand your father went to do for me, +he has done well. I shall send him to Annapolis next, to get a charter +for a railroad up this peninsula that will pass inside the line of +Maryland, and penetrate every kidnapping settlement hidden there, and +light, intercourse, and law shall exterminate such barracoons as +Johnson's." + +Vesta was glad to hear her father praised by her husband, and hopes +rekindled of some happier family reunion, when she should feel the +heartache die within her that now raged intermittently during her vestal +honeymoon. A letter came on the fourth day which dashed these hopes to +the ground, and it was as follows: + + + "DORCHESTER COUNTY, MD., _October--, 1829_. + + "_Darling Niece_,--Idol of my heart, let me begin by entreating you + to take a conservative course when I break the sad intelligence to + you of the death of my dear sister, Lucy, at Cambridge, yesterday, + of the heart disease. She was the star of the house of McLane. She + is gone. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, and I shall take a + conservative though _consistent_ course on the parties who have + inflicted this injury upon you, my dear niece, and upon your calm + and collected, if stricken, uncle. + + "'The Lord moves in a _mysterious_ way, his wonders to perform,' + and his humble instruments require only to be _inflexible and + conservative_ to do all things well. Be assured that + _righteousness_ shall be done upon the adversaries of our family, + and _that_ right speedily. My own grief is composed in the + satisfaction I shall take, and the assurance that your sainted + mother is where the wicked cease from troubling. + + "The financial arrangements of my dear sister were of the most + conservative and high-toned character, as was to have been expected + of her. + + "You may be desirous, my outraged, but, I hope, still _spirited_, + idol, to hear the particulars of Lucy's death. She did not reach + Cambridge till near midnight, having made the long journey from + Princess Anne without fitting companions, and, in the excited state + of her feelings, after she left Vienna in the evening, a depression + of the spirits, accompanied by a fluttering of the heart, came on, + and rapidly increased, and, by the time she arrived at our + relatives', she was nearly dead with nervous apprehension and + weakness. On seeing me, she revived sufficiently to make her will + in the most _sisterly_ and conservative manner. + + "A physician was procured, but he pronounced her system so + debilitated and detoned as hardly probable to outride the shock, + the nervous centres being depressed and atrophy setting in. + + "She talked incessantly about the _Entailed Hat_, and said it was a + permanent shadow and weight upon your heart, and made me promise to + _mash_ it, if it could conservatively be done. + + "I read to my dear sister from _the Book of Books_, and tried to + compose her feelings, but she broke out ever and anon, 'Oh, Brother + Allan! to think I have raised children to be bought and sold, and + married to foresters and trash.' She was deeply sensitive as to + what would be said about it in Baltimore. + + "Just before she died, she said, 'Do not bury me at Princess Anne, + where that fiend can come near me with his frightful Hat! Take me + to Baltimore, where there are no bog-ores, nor old family chattels, + to disturb the respectability of death. Apologize for my daughter, + _and do her justice_.' + + "And so this grand woman died, in the confidence of a blessed + immortality, leaving us to vindicate her motives and continue her + conservative course, and to meet at her funeral next Friday, at our + church in Baltimore, where Rev. John Breckenridge will preach the + funeral sermon over this murdered saint. + + "With conservative, yet proud, grief, + "Affectionately, your uncle, + "ALLAN McLANE." + + +"Oh, sir!" Vesta exclaimed, turning blindly towards her husband; "mother +is dead. Where can I turn?" + +"Where but to me, poor soul!" Milburn replied, knowing nothing of Mrs. +Custis's late feelings against him. "Your father shall be notified, and +I am able to attend the funeral with you." + +"It is in Baltimore," Vesta sobbed. + +"Well, honey, there I am ordered by the doctor to go, and get above the +line of malaria, in the hills. I can make the effort now." + +Her grief and loneliness deprived her of the will to refuse him. Roxy +was selected to be her mistress's maid upon the journey, and William +Tilghman and Rhoda Holland were to take them in the family carriage down +to Whitehaven landing for the evening steamer. + +Jack Wonnell, in officious zeal to be useful, gathered flowers, and hung +around Teackle Hall to run errands; and, in order not to exasperate +Vesta's husband, appeared bareheaded as the party set off, Milburn's +hat-box being one of the articles of travel, and Milburn vouchsafing +these words to Jack: + +"There is a dollar for you, Mr. Wonnell. I rely upon you to watch my old +store and conduct yourself like a man." + +"I'll do it," answered Jack, grinning and blushing; "hope I may die! +Good-bye, Miss Vesty. Purty Roxy, don't you forgit me 'way off thair in +Balt'mer. I'll teach Tom to sing your name befo' you ever see me agin." + +He waved his arms, with real tears dimming his vision, and Roxy affected +to shed some tears also, as she waved good-bye to Virgie, whose eyes +were turned with wistful pain upon the beautiful face of her mistress +receding down the vista. Vesta threw her a kiss and reclined her head +upon her husband's shoulder. + +That evening, an hour before the carriage was to return, Virgie and the +free woman, Mary, walked together down to Milburn's store, to see if +Jack Wonnell was on the watch. As they trode in the soft grass and sand +under the old storehouse they saw the bell-crowned hat--a new one, +brought from the ancient stock that very day--shining glossily on +Wonnell's high, eccentric head, as he sat in the hollow window of the +old storehouse and talked to the mocking-bird, which he was feeding with +a clam-shell full of boiled potato and egg, and some blue haws. + +"Tom, say 'Roxy,' an' I'll give ye some, Tommy! Now, boy! 'Roxy, Roxy, +purty Roxy! _purty_ Roxy! Poor ole Jack! poor ole Jack!'" + +The bird flew around Wonnell's head, biting at the hat which stood in +such elegant irrelevance to the remainder of his dress, and cried, +"Meshach, he! he! he! Vesty, she! Vesty, Meshach! Vesty, Meshach!" but +said nothing the village vagrant would teach it. He showed the patience +idleness can well afford, and, feeding it a little, or withholding the +food awhile, continued to plead and teach: + +"'Roxy, Roxy, purty Roxy! Poor, pore Jack! pore Jack!' Now, Tom, say +'Roxy, Roxy, pore Jack!'" + +The bird flew and struck, and sang a little, very niggardly, and so, as +the lights in the west sank and faded, the shiftless lover continued in +vain to seek to give the bird one note more than the magician, his +master, had taught. + +The stars modestly appeared in the soft heavens, and Princess Anne +gathered its roofs together like a camp of camels in the desert, and, +with an occasional bleat or bark or human sound, seemed dozing out the +soft fall night, absorbed, perhaps, in the spreading news of Mrs. +Custis's death and Vesta's wedding-journey, that had to be taken at +last. + +"Miss Virgie," said the woman Mary--ten years her senior, but comely +still--"have you ever loved like me? Oh, I had a kind husband, and, +helpless as I was, I tried to love once more. Maybe it was a sin." + +"I love my mistress as if she was myself," Virgie said; "I feel as if, +in heaven, before we came here, I was with her, Mary! I love her father, +too, as if he was not my master, but my friend. Oh, how I love them all! +But what can I do to show my love--poor naked slave that I am? They say +they will soon set me free. Mary, how do people feel when they are +free?" + +"They don't appreciate it," sighed Mary. "They go and put themselves in +captivity again, like selfish things: they falls in love." + +"But to love and be free!" Virgie said, her bosom glowing in the thought +till her rich eyes seemed to shed warmth and starlight on her +companion's face; "to give your own free love to some one and feel him +grateful for it: what a gift and what a joy is that! He might be +thankful for it, and, seeing how pure it was, he might respect me." + +"Who is it, Virgie?" Mary said. + +"Whoever would love me like a white girl!" the ardent slave softly +exclaimed. "It must be some one who does not despise me. I hear Miss +Vesta's beau, Master William, read the beautiful service, with his +sweet, submissive face, and I think to myself, 'How freely he might have +my heart to comfort his if he would take it like a gentleman!' I would +be his slave to make him happy, if he could love me purely, like my +mother! Oh, my mother, whose name I do not know! where is the tie that +fastens me to heaven? Did my father love me?" + +"Pore Jack! pore Jack! Sing 'Roxy, Roxy, Roxy,' Tom!" coaxed Wonnell +above to the sleepy bird. + +"Whoever was your father, Virgie, your mother's love for you was pure. +God makes the wickedest love their children, because he is the Father to +all the fatherless." + +"Oh! could my own father have brought me into the world and hated me?" +Virgie said. "They say I am almost beautiful. Will he who gave me life +never call me his, and say, 'My daughter, come to my respect, rest on my +heart, and take my name'?" + +"Poor Virgie!" sighed Mary; "remember we are black! We hardly ever have +fathers: they is for white people." + +"Dog my hide!" mumbled Wonnell, above, "ef a bird ain't a perwerse +critter. Purty Roxy won't think I'm smart a bit ef I can't make Tom say +'Roxy, Roxy, Roxy! Pore Jack!'" + +"I am almost white," Virgie continued; "I want to be all white. Why +can't I be so? The Lord knows my heart is white, and full of holy, +unselfish love." + +"Pore chile!" Mary said; "we shall all be washed and made white in the +Lamb's blood, Virgie. That's where your soul pints you to, dear young +lady. I know it ain't pride and rebellion in you: it's like I'm looking +at my baby, white as snow to me and God now." + +"Hush!" said Virgie, trembling, "what voice is that?" + +There was an old willow-tree in a recessed spot at the end of the store, +and by it were two sheds or small buildings, now disused, into one of +which, with a door low to the ground, Mary drew Virgie, and they +listened to a low voice saying, + +"Dave, air your pops well slugged?" + +"Yes, Mars Joe." + +"Allan McLane pays fur the job?" + +"Yes, Mars Joe." + +"You can't mistake him, Dave. No shap is worn like that nowadays. Look +only fur his headpiece, and aim well!" + +"Yes, Mars Joe." + +"Fur me," continued the other voice, "I'll go right to the tavern an' +prove an _alibi_. My lay is to take the house gal that old Gripefist's +young wife thinks so much of. I'll snake her out to-night. She's the +property of Allan McLane, left him in his sister's will. They found on +her body the paper giving the gal to the dead woman only two days +before. She's Allan's to-morrow, but to-night she's mine!" + +A sensual, sucking, chuckling sound, like a kiss made upon the back of +his own hand, followed this significant threat; and Mary, placing her +hand over the sinking slave girl's mouth, held her motionless. + +"Tommy, Tommy! sing 'Roxy, Roxy, Roxy! Pore Jack! Pore Jack!' Sing, +Tommy, sing!" + +"_There_," whispered the white man, softly, and was gone. + +Mary breathed only the words to Virgie, "_Kidnappers_--come!" and they +glided from the old tenement unobserved, and entered the copse along the +stream. + +"Pore Jack! Pore Jack! His leetle Roxy's gone away. Pore Jack! Roxy! +Roxy! Roxy!" the mourner at the window above chattered sleepily to the +nodding bird. + +The negro at the corner of the old warehouse, half covered by the +willow's shade, peered up with blood-shotten eyes to distinguish the +covering on the bird-tamer's head. + +He saw Jack Wonnell sitting backward on the window-frame, swaying in and +out, as he lazily tempted the mocking-bird to sing, and once the +bell-crown hat, so singular to view, came in full relief against the +gray sky. + +"It's ole Meshach," said the negro, silently, with desperate eyes. "I +hoped it wasn't. Dar is de hat, sho!" + +He cocked his huge horse-pistol, and took aim directly from below. + +"Pore Jack! Pore Jack! I reckon Roxy won't have pore Jack, caze Tommy +won't sing. Sing, Tommy, little Roxy's pet: 'Pore Jack! Pore--'" + +The great horse-pistol boomed on the night, and in the smoke the negro +rushed into the bush and sought the fields. + +Down from his seat in the window-sill the witless villager came +backward, all bestrewn, measuring his body in the sand, where he lay, +silent as the other shadows, with his arms extended in the frenzy of +death, and his mouth wide open and flowing blood. + +Jack Wonnell had paid the penalty of being out of fashion. + +The mocking-bird, aroused by the loud report, leaped into the empty +window-sill to seek his tutor, and set up the lesson he had learned too +late: + +"Poor Jack! Poor Jack! Roxy! Roxy! Roxy!" came screaming on the night, +and all was still. + + * * * * * + +William Tilghman was driving back from Whitehaven in the melancholy +thoughts inspired by the departure of his cousin, whom he had at last +seen go into the great wilderness of the world the passive companion of +her husband, like the wife of Cain, driven forth with him, when the +carriage was arrested at the ancient Presbyterian church--which +overlooked Princess Anne from the opposite bank of the little river--by +a woman almost throwing herself under the wheels. + +"Why, Lord sakes! it's our Virgie!" cried Rhoda Holland. + +The girl, with all the energy of dread, sprang into the carriage by +William Tilghman's side and threw her arms around him: + +"Save me! Save me!" + +"What ails you, Virgie?" cried the young man, assuringly. "You are in no +danger, child!" + +"I am sold," the girl gasped, with terror on her tongue and in her wild +eyeballs. "Miss Vesty's sold me to her Uncle Allan. He's sent the +kidnappers after me. They're yonder, in Princess Anne. Oh, drive me to +the North, to the swamps, anywhere but there!" + +"I know your mistress made you over to her mother, Virgie, for a +precaution, fearing you might not be safe in her own hands. She told me +so, and asked if the death of her mother could possibly affect you." + +"Oh, it has!" the girl whispered. "Mary knows the kidnapper that's come +for me. He is the same that stole Hominy and the children. He kept her +chained on an island. He says he'll have me to-night, to do as he +pleases. Master McLane lets him have me!" + +The girl, in her terror, as the carriage had descended the hill already +and crossed the Manokin, seized the reins in Tilghman's hands and drew +them with such frenzy that the horses, as they came to Meshach Milburn's +store, were pulled into the open area before it, where something in +their surprise or lying on the ground gave them immediate fright, and +they dashed at a gallop into Front Street, the wheels passing over an +object by the old storehouse that nearly upset the carriage. + +The street they took for their run crossed a small arm of the Manokin, +and led up to a gentleman's gate; but before this brook was crossed +Tilghman, an experienced horseman and driver, had reined the flying +animals into a nearly unoccupied street, called Back Alley, parallel +with the main street of Princess Anne, but hidden from it by houses and +gardens, and almost in a moment of time the whole town had been cleared, +with hardly a person in it aware of such a vehicle going past. + +It was a real runaway, but Tilghman, in a cool, gentle voice, like a +brook's music, told the girls to sit perfectly still, as they had a +clear, level road; and, seeing that he could not stop the animals by any +mere exercise of strength, without danger to his harness, he waited for +their power to wear out, or their fears to subside. + +Rhoda Holland was ashamed to scream, if her pride was not too well +aroused already in the presence of the muscular young minister, sitting +there like an artillery teamster driving into battle, and his nostrils +and jaws delineated in the gray air, expressed almost the joy he had +long put by of following the hounds in the autumn fox-hunts, where Judge +Custis said he had been the perfect pattern of a rider. + +As for Virgie, she felt no fear of wild horses, since they were leaving +behind the bloody hunters of men and women, and she almost wished it was +herself alone, dashing at that frightful pace to destruction, until the +young man, mindful, perhaps, of his mistress, torn from his sight to +inhabit another's arms, and feeling that this poor quadroon was dear as +a sister to Vesta's heart, bent down in the midst of his apprehensions +and kissed the slave girl pityingly. + +Then, with an instant's greater torrent of tears, a sense of rest and +man's respect fell upon Virgie's soul, and she paid no heed to time or +dangers till the carriage came to a stop in the deep forest sands +several miles east of Princess Anne. + +"William," said Rhoda Holland, "what air we to do to save Virgie? Uncle +Meshach's gone. Jedge Custis is nobody knows whar, now. This yer Allan +McLane, Aunt Vesty says, is dreffle snifflin' an' severe. I think it's a +conspliracy to steal Virgie when they's all away. Misc Somers would take +keer of her, but I'm afraid she'd tell somebody." + +"Are you sure that you saw and heard truly?" the minister said to +Virgie. + +"Oh, yes. I saw the same man at Mr. Milburn's the day he was taken sick. +He looked at me a low, familiar look, and muttered something evil. Mary +knew him too well. Oh, do not take me back to Princess Anne. I will +never go there again." + +"It may be true," Tilghman reflected. "It probably _is_ true. Vesta has +no faith in Allan McLane. She says he makes money in the negro trade, +with all his religious formality. He is the trustee already of Mrs. +Custis's estate; no doubt, the administrator by will. He may have sent +Joe Johnson to kidnap Virgie, under color of his right, and Johnson +would abuse anybody. Vesta will never forgive us if we let Virgie go to +him." + +"But I am a slave," Virgie sobbed. "Oh, my Lord! to think I am not Miss +Vesta's, but a strange man's, slave. How could she give me away!" + +"It was an error of judgment," Tilghman replied. "She could not +anticipate her mother's immediate death. Yet there, where she thought +you safest, you were most in peril." + +They had now crossed the Dividing creek into Worcester County, and +halted to cool the horses off at the same old spring, under the +gum-tree, where Meshach Milburn stopped, the evening he went to the +Furnace village. + +"William," Rhoda Holland spoke, "if Virgie is McLane's slave you can't +keep him from a-takin' her. She can't go back to Prencess Anne at all." + +"I don't mean that she shall, Rhoda. I know you are a brave woman, and +we will drive her to-night to Snow Hill, and leave her there with a +nurse, a free woman, once belonging to my family, and this nurse has a +husband who is said to be a conductor on what is called the Underground +Road to the free states." + +"Lord sakes! a Abolitionist?" + +"I hope so," Tilghman said. "I know Vesta wants to set this girl free, +and there is no way to do it, and respect her womanhood, but by giving +her a wild beast's chance to run." + +"My, my! And you a minister of the Gospil, William!" + +"Yes, of the Gospel that tells me how to be a neighbor to my neighbor." +The young man's eyes flashed. "I never felt so humiliated for my cloth +and for my country as now. To think how many men preach the Gospel of +God all their lives long, and have never set a living soul free. I will +do one such Christian felony, by the help of Christ." + +As he spoke, the sound of a corn-stalk fiddle, and of foresters' naked +feet dancing on the floor of the old Milburn cabin, came crooning out in +the night. + +In another hour they were at the Furnace village, its blast gone out, +its lines of huts deserted, no human soul to be seen; and the mill-pond, +lying like a parchment under the funereal cypress-trees, seemed stained +with the blood of the bog-ores that oozed upward from the depths like +the corpse of murdered Enterprise, suffocated in Meshach Milburn's +foreclosure. + +A sense of desolation filled them all; but what was it, in either of the +white twain, to the bursting ties of that lovely quadroon, raised like a +lily in the household heat of kindness and the breath of purity, to be +cast forth like a witch, on a moment's information, and consigned to the +ponds and night-damps? + +The horses toiled through the sand till an open country of farms gave +better roads, and at ten o'clock at night they crossed the Pocomoke at +Snow Hill, and stopped at a gate before a neat, whitewashed, one-story +house, with a large stack-chimney over the centre, and two doors and a +single window in the front. It stood in a short street leading to the +river, whose splutter-docks and reeds were seen near by among the masts +of vessels and the mounds of sawdust. + +Virgie kissed Rhoda good-night, and descended with Mr. Tilghman, who +opened a gate, and, going up some steps, knocked at a vine-environed +door. A window opened and there was a parley, and the door soon +afterwards unclosed softly and admitted them. + +"Oh, may God let you know some night the pure bed and sleep you have +brought me to!" Virgie whispered. "God bless you for the kiss you gave +me, my dear white playmate, that you are not ashamed of! Oh, my heart +is bursting: what can I say?" + +"The people here will hide you, or slip you forward to-morrow night," +the young minister said. "Here is money, Virgie, to pay your way. You +can write, and write to your young mistress wherever you go." + +"Tell her," said the runaway girl, "that I loved her dearly. Oh, dear +old Teackle Hall! shall I ever see you again? William, I shall get my +freedom, or die on the road to it." + +"That is the spirit," the minister said; "we will buy it for you if we +can, but get it for yourself if you can do it." + +He kissed her again, with the instinct of a father to a child, and +hastened to his horses and the hotel. + +As Tilghman and Rhoda, at the earliest dawn, started for Princess Anne, +the young girl suddenly turned and kissed her minister. + +"Thar!" she said, "I think you just looked magnificens last night, +sittin' behine them critters, like Death on the plale horse, an' lovin' +Aunt Vesty, though she's gone away an' quit you, enough to fight for her +pore, bright-skinned gal. I wish somebody would love _me_ like that!" + +"So you could quit him, too, Rhoda?" + +"Well, William, I likes beaus that's couragelis! You're splendid +a-preachin', but I like you better drivin' and showin' your excitemins." + +"You are a beautiful girl," the clergyman said; "suppose you try to like +me better." + +The great question, being thus opened, was not disposed of when they +reached Princess Anne, and quietly stabled the horses. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +HONEYMOON. + + +Meanwhile the steamer was taking Vesta and her husband across the +Chesapeake Bay in the night--that greatest, gentlest indentation in the +coast of the United States; at once river and sound, fiord and sea, +smooth as the mill-pond, and full of life as the nutritious milk of the +mother, and on whose breast a brood of rivers lay and suckled without +rivalry--the long Susquehanna, James, and Potomac; the short, thick +Choptank, Chester, and Patapsco; and, to the flying wild-swan, its +arborage looked like a vast pine-tree, with boughs of snow, climbing two +hundred miles from its roots in the land of corn and cotton into the +golden cloud of Northern grain and hay. + +Upon one broken horn of this fruitful bay hung Baltimore, like an +eagle's nest upon the pine, seizing the point of indentation that +brought it nearest to the fertile upland and the valley outlets of the +North and West, where the toil-loving Germans burnished their farms with +women's hands, and sent their long bowed teams to market on as many +turnpikes as the Chesapeake had rivers. + +At morning Vesta looked upon the fleet of little sail lying in the basin +of the city, among larger ships and arks and barges, and saw Federal +Hill's red clay rising a hundred feet above the piers, and the spotless +monument to Washington resting its base as high above the tide, on a +nearly naked bluff. The rich sunrise fell on the streaked flag of the +republic at the mast on Fort McHenry, and the garrison band was playing +the very anthem that lawyer Key had written in the elation of victory, +though a prisoner in the enemy's hands. Alas! how many a prisoner in +the enemy's hands was doing tribute to that flag from cotton-field and +rice-swamp, tobacco land and corn-row, pouring the poetry of his loyalty +and toil to the very emblem of his degradation! + +Vesta heard, with both satisfaction and sorrow, at Barnum's Hotel that +her husband was too ill to attend the funeral, and must keep his room +and fire; she needed his comfort and devotion in her sorrow, but upon +her dead mother's bier seemed to stand the injunction against that +fateful hat he had brought with him; and yet she pitied him that he must +stay alone, unknown, unrelated, chattering with the chill or burning +without complaint. + +"God send you sympathy from the angels like you, my darling!" Milburn +said. "I know what it is to lose a mother." + +Escorts in plenty waited on Vesta, but she wished she could find some +kinsman of her husband, if ever so poor, to take his arm to the church +and burial-ground; and at the news that her uncle Allan McLane had not +arrived, and would not, probably, now be present, she felt another +blending of relief and apprehension, because her husband might not +to-day be exasperated by him, yet his relations to her mother's property +would still remain unknown,--and Vesta feared for Virgie. + +In the same impulse which had made her retain Teackle Hall, to secure it +against her father's careless business methods, she had made Virgie over +to her mother, to place her, apparently, farther from danger, never +supposing that in those prudent hands the enemy might insinuate; but +Death, the deathless enemy, was filching everywhere, and though she +could not see why Virgie could be persecuted, Vesta now wished she had +set her free. + +The girl belonged to her mother's estate: suppose Allan McLane was the +administrator of it? Suppose, indeed, he was the heir? Vesta's heart +fell, as she considered that a woman had best let business alone. + +The young bride-mourner was an object of mingled admiration and sympathy +as she leaned on the arm of a kinsman and entered the Presbyterian kirk. +She was considered one of the great beauties of Maryland, and the young +Robert Breckenridge, fresh from Kentucky, on a visit to his brother, the +pastor, thought he had never seen Vesta's equal even in Kentucky; and, +as he gazed through her mourning veil, the pastor's Delaware wife heard +him whisper, "Divinity itself!" + +The clear olive skin, eyes of gray twilight, eyebrows like midnight's +own arches, and luxuriant hair, were touched by grief as if a goddess +suffered; and, in her deep mourning robes, Vesta seemed a monarch's +daughter about to pass through some convent to her sainthood. + +She had the height to give dignity to this beauty, and the grace to lift +pathos above weakness. + +The minister's musical tones were wrought to consonance with this noble +human model, and he spoke of that ideal motherhood which, to every child +at the bier, seems real as the dripping bucket at the fairy's well--of +mother's love, trials, weakness, and immortality; of the absence of her +sympathy making the first great bereavement in life's progress; of her +nature abiding in us and her spirit hovering over, while we live. + +Painted in the soft hues of personal experience, prescribed to her needs +with a physician's art, doing all that funeral talk can do to raise the +final tears from among the heartstrings and pour them in oblation upon +the corpse, the pastor's consolation had the effect of some mesmeric +hand that weakens our systems while it sublimates our feelings, and +Vesta's female nature was almost broken down. + +Where could she lean for the close sympathy befitting such grief? Her +father was not here, and she had none but her husband--the husband of +less than a week, but still the nearest to her need. + +On him she allowed herself to rest that solemn evening after her +mother's body had sought the ground. He was well again, for the time. + +For the first time she was alone with him, and, as the shadows narrowed +their chamber, and they sat with no other light than a little wood +smouldering in the grate, he came to her and began to talk of childhood +and his own mother, of the little sorrows his mother had shared with +him, of domestic disagreements and happy love-making anew; how men feel +when the partner of life is taken away, and children know not the +meaning of Death, that has done so awful a thing upon the inoffensive +one; but above all is shining, Meshach said, the star of motherhood, +faintly lighting our way, mellowing our souls, and basking on the +waters. + +As he continued, and she could not see him, but only hear the +plaintiveness of his voice, it became comfortable to hear him speak, and +she grew more passive, a sense of resignation fell upon her heart, and +of gratitude to him that could divine her loss so touchingly; and, like +a child, she rested upon his side, upon his knee, and in his arms at +last. Not fond nor yet infatuated, but subsiding and consenting, +accepting her destiny like a myriad of women that are neither oppressed +nor tender, but with reluctance, yield, she passed out of grief to +wifedom, like one tired and in a dream. + +Visits of consolation were made by a few old friends for a day or two +succeeding. The Rev. Henry Lyon Davis, late president of the college at +Annapolis, came, bringing his handsome boy of twelve, Master Harry +Winter Davis. The attorney-general of Maryland, Mr. Roger Taney, came +with Mr. George Brown, the banker. Commodore Decatur's widow sent a +mourning token, and the Honorable William Wirt brought Mr. Robert +Smith, once the secretary of state at Washington. + +These and others, looking at Meshach Milburn a little oddly, found him, +on acquaintance, a man of sense; but the McLanes who called were either +supercilious or studiously avoided the groom. + +An invitation came from Arlington House to Vesta, to bring Mr. Milburn +there; and, as they proceeded out the Washington road in a private +carriage, they observed Mr. Ross Winans's friction-wheel car, with +nearly forty people in it, making its trial trip behind a horse at a +gallop. At the Relay House, where the horses on the railroad were +changed, Milburn remarked, gazing up the Patapsco valley: + +"My wife, we are here at the birth of this little iron highway. If our +vision was great enough, we might see the mighty things that may happen +upon it: servile insurrection, sectional war, great armies riding to +great battles, thousands of emigrants drawn to the West. We shall die, +but generations after us this road will grow and continue, like a vein +of iron, whose length and uses no man can measure." + +The road to Washington was in places good, and often turned in among the +pines. At Riverdale they saw the deer of Mr. George Calvert, a +descendant of one of the Lords Baltimore, browsing in his park, and his +great four-in-hand carriage was going in the lodge-gates from a state +visit to the Custises. Passing direct to Georgetown from Bladensburg, +they encountered General Jackson, taking his evening ride on horseback, +and saw the chasm of the new canal being dug along the Potomac, and +then, crossing Mason's ferry, they were set down at Arlington House an +hour after dark. + +The hospitable, harmless proprietor welcomed them into the huge edifice, +half temple, half barn, among his elaborate daubs of pictures, and +furniture and relics of Custis and Washingtonian times. He was nearly +fifty years of age, of Indian features, but rather weak face, like one +whose only substantiality was in his ancestors, and Vesta, placing him +beside her husband, reflected that a similar inbreeding had produced a +similarity in the two men, both of a sallow and bilious attenuation; but +Milburn, beside her kinsman Custis, was like a bold wolf beside a +vacant-visaged sheep. + +Yet these men liked each other immediately, Milburn's intelligence and +money, and real reverence for the great man who had adopted Mr. Custis, +giving him admittance to the latter's fancy. + +They strolled through those beautiful woods, one day to become a grove +of sepulture for an army of dead, while Vesta, in the dwelling, talked +with her cousins, and with the graceful Lieutenant Lee, who was courting +Mary Custis. + +It was a happy domestic life, and in the host's veins ran the blood of +the Calverts, though not of the legitimate line. + +It was suggested to go to the Capitol, and Mr. Milburn, growing daily +better in the hill region, went also, and wore his steeple hat, greatly +to the edification of Mr. Custis, who revelled in such antiquities. +Vesta heard the ladies whispering, when they returned, that a parcel of +boys and negroes had followed the hat, laughing and jeering, and had +finally driven the party to their carriage. This, and her husband's +impatience to return to his business, hastened their departure from +Arlington. + +They took the steamer down the Potomac, and, as they came off the mouth +of St. Mary's River, Milburn donned his Raleigh's hat again, and stood +on deck, looking at the lights about the old Priest's House, where the +capital of Lord Baltimore lay, a naked plain and a few starveling +mementoes, within the bight of a sandy point that faced the archipelago +of the Eastern Shore. + +"My hat," said Milburn to himself, "is old as yonder town, and better +preserved. The Calverts and Milburns have married into Mrs. Washington's +kin. Does my wife love me?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +THE ORDEAL. + + +When Levin Dennis awoke in the bottom of the old wagon it was being +rapidly driven, and Van Dorn's voice from the driver's seat was heard to +say, without its usual lisp and Spanish interjection: + +"Whitecar, is your brother at Dover sure of his game?" + +"Cock sure, Cap'n. Got 'em tree'd! Best domestic stock in the town thar, +an' the purtiest yaller gals: I know that suits _you_, Cap'n!" + +"Have they arms?" + +"Not a trigger. We trap 'em at one of their 'festibals.' No, sir, +niggers won't scrimmage." + +"We assemble at Devil Jim Clark's," said Van Dorn, and passed by with a +crack of his whip. + +Levin, whom some friendly hand had wrapped in a bearskin coat--he had +seen one like it upon Van Dorn--next heard the slaver speak to another +party he had overtaken: + +"Melson?" + +"Ay yi!" + +"Milman?" + +"Ah! boy." + +"You get your orders at Devil Jim Clark's!" + +The stars were out, yet the night was rich in large, fleecy clouds, +as if heaven were hurrying onward too. Levin lay on his back, jostled +by the rough wagon, but, being perfectly sober now, he was more +reasoning and courageous, and his new-found love impelled him to +self-preservation. He might have rolled out of the vehicle and into the +woods, and at least saved himself from committing further crime, but how +would he see Hulda any more--Hulda, in danger, perhaps? Thus, even to +ignorance, love brings understanding, and Levin began to ask himself the +cause of his own misery. He knew it was liquor, yet what made him drink +if not a disposition too easily led? Even now he was under almost +voluntary subjection to the bandit in the wagon, whose voice he heard +blandly command again to some pair he had caught up to: + +"Tindel?" + +"Tackle 'em, Cap'n Van! Tackle 'em!" + +"You are not to be in peril to-night, so keep your spirits. I expect you +to look out for the cords, gags, and fastenings generally!" + +"Tackle 'em, Captin; oh, tackle 'em!" + +"You and Buck Ransom there--" + +"Politely, Captain; politely, sir!" exclaimed an insinuating voice from +a negro rider. + +"Are to meet us all at Devil Jim's!" + +"Tackle 'em, Captin!" + +"Politely, Captain!" + +As Van Dorn urged his way to the head of the line, Levin looked out +silently upon the flat country of forest and a few poor farms, drained +imperfectly by some ditches of the Choptank. He supposed it might be +almost midnight, from the position of those brilliant constellations +which shone down equally upon his mother and himself--she in her +innocence and he in his anxiety--and shone, also, perhaps, upon his poor +father's grave in isle or ocean. + +Within an hour blood was to be shed, no doubt, and rapine done, and he +knew not the road to escape by nor the hole to hide in. Yet in that hour +he had to make his choice,--to fight for liberty, or go to the jail, +the whipping-post, or, perhaps, the gallows. + +Levin considered ruefully his vagrant past, and how little could be said +in extenuation of him in a court of justice, except by his mother's +faith, which was no more evidence than a negro's oath. + +Once it arose in his mind to surprise Van Dorn, overcome him, cast him +out in a ditch, and drive to some one of the little farmhouses and rest, +till day should give him his whereabouts and remedy. + +Levin was not a coward, and his muscles were hard, and his feet could +cling to a smooth plank like a bird's to a bough; but his heart relented +to the fierce, soft man so unsuspectingly sitting with his back to him, +when Levin reflected that he must, perhaps, put an end to Van Dorn's +life with his sailor's knife, if they grappled at all, and this day +expiring Van Dorn had paid a debt for him to the widow whose son was +next overtaken, and who cried, forwardly, without being addressed: + +"Van Dorn, what you goin' to give me if I git a nigger?" + +"This!" said Van Dorn, without a pause, reaching the boy a measured blow +with his whip-lash on the shoulder that made him literally fall from the +mule and grovel with pain. + +"Discipline is what your mother failed to give you, _reprobo_. Manners I +shall teach you. Fall in the rear!" + +Owen Daw crawled desperately on his mule and obeyed without parley, but +his audacity soon recovered enough to force his animal up to the wagon +tail and open whispered communications with Levin there. + +Nothing had passed them for hours that Levin had seen, when suddenly a +horseman at a rapid lope stopped the wagon, and a hoarse negro voice +muttered: + +"How de do, now? See me! see me!" + +"Derrick Molleston?" spoke Van Dorn. + +"See me! see me!" + +"Get down and ride with me. Levin, are you awake?" + +"Yes, Captain." + +"Take this man's horse and ride him. John Sorden is ahead. It will +stretch your chilled limbs." + +"May I go with him?" asked Owen Daw, in his Celtic accent, quite +cringing now. + +"Not unless he wants you." + +"Come, then," Levin obligingly said. + +While the two youths were still lingering by the wagon they heard these +words: + +"Have you arranged everything with Whitecar and Devil Jim?" + +"See me! see me!"--apparently meaning, "Rely upon me." + +"Is Greenley ready to make the diversion if any attack be made upon us?" + +"See me! see me! His gallus is up and he'd burn de world." + +"This Lawyer Clayton?" + +"See me! see me! He gives a big party, Aunt Braner tole me. A judge is +dar from Prencess Anne, an' liquor a-plenty. See me! see me!" + +"The white people absolutely gone from Cowgill House?" + +"See me! It's nigh half a mile outen de town. Dar's forty tousand +dollars, if dar's a cent, at dat festibal: gals more'n half white, men +dat can read an' preach: de cream of Kent County. See me! see me!" + +"And not a suspicion of our coming?" + +"See me! O see me!" hoarsely said the negro; "innercent as de unborn. +To-night's deir las' night!" + +Levin trembled as these merciless words reached his ears, but Owen Daw +seemed to forget his affront at the tidings, and chuckled to Levin as +they trotted away: + +"Bet you I git a better nigger nor you!" + +"Oh, shame, Owen Daw! Your mother was saved to-day from bein' turned out +of doors by my pity. Think of robbin' these niggers of their freedom! +What have they done?" + +"Been niggers!" exclaimed Owen Daw. "That's enough!" + +"What will you do, Owen, to help your poor mother?" + +"Wait till I git big enough, bedad, an' kill ole Jake Cannon for this +day's work." + +As they rode on they came to the man called Sorden, riding as the guide +to the invading column, a person of more genteel address than any +beneath Van Dorn, and young, pliable, and frolicking. + +"My skin!" he said. "Now, boys, Van Dorn oughtn't had to brung you. +You're too sniptious for this rough work. I love the Captain better than +I ever loved A male, but he oughtn't to spile boys." + +"Van Dorn told me to come," Owen Daw cried. "I'm big enough to buck a +nigger." + +"I love him better than I ever loved A male," said Sorden, +apologetically. "Who is t'other young offender?" + +"I'm a stranger to your parts," Levin replied. "Mrs. Cannon made me +come. I didn't want to." + +"Are you afear'd?" + +"Yes," Levin said. + +"Well, I love the Captain better than I ever loved A male. But boys is +boys, and I hate to see 'em spiled. If you was nigger boys I wouldn't +keer a cent; but white's my color, and I don't want to trade in it." + +They halted at a small, sharp-gabled brick house, of one story and a +kitchen and garret, at the left of the road, to which the corner of a +piece of oak and hickory woods came up shelteringly, while in the rear +several small barns and cribs enclosed the triangle of a field. A door +in the middle, towards Maryland, seemed very high-silled, and low +grated windows were at the cellar on each side of the steps. + +The place had a suspicious appearance, and a pack of hounds in full cry +rushed from the kitchen, and, while in the act of leaping the stile and +palings, were arrested almost in mid air by a chuffy voice crying from +within: + +"Hya! Down! Spitch!" + +The whole pack meekly sneaked back to the house, whining low, and a few +blows of a switch and short howls within completed the excitement. + +"What place is this?" asked Owen Daw. + +"Devil Jim Clark's," said Sorden. + +The dwelling stood about forty yards back from the road, drawing nearly +into the cover of the woods, and its little yard was made cavernous by +thick-planted paper-mulberry and maple trees, while a line of +cherry-trees and an old pole-well rose along the road and hedge. As they +rode to the rear of the house a little dormer window, like a snail, +crawled low along the roof, and a light was shining from it. + +"Devil Jim's business-office," nodded Sorden. + +"What's his business?" asked Levin, freshly. + +"Niggers. He keeps 'em up thar between the garret and the +roof--sometimes in the cellar." + +"Does he want a business-office for that?" + +"He's a contractor on the canawl, too, Jim is--raises race-horses, farms +it, gambles a little, but nigger-runnin' is his best game. My skin! Yer +comes Captain Van Dorn. I love him as I never loved A male." + +"Van Dorn," spoke a voice from the house, "remember my family is +particular. Your men must go to the barn. Come in!" + +"Spiced brandy at the barn!"--a quiet remark from somewhere--was +sufficient to lead the herd away, and, giving the order to "water and +fodder," Van Dorn passed into the kitchen, thence through a bedroom to +the chief room of the house, and up a small winding-stair to a scrap of +hallway or corridor hardly two feet wide. + +The man who led pointed to a trap above one end of this hall, and +exclaimed, "Niggers there! family yonder!"--the last reference to a door +closing the little passage. + +He then opened a wicket at the side of the hall, admitting Van Dorn to +an exceedingly small closet or garret room, barely large enough for the +men to sit, and lighted by a lamp in the little dormer window seen from +below. + +"Drink!" said the man, uncorking a bottle of champagne; "I had it ready +for you." + +He poured the foaming wine and set the bottle on a sort of secretary or +desk, and then looked anxiety and avarice together out of his liquid +black eyes and broad, heavy face. + +"_Buena suerte, senor!_" Van Dorn lisped, as they drank together. + +"Hya! spitch!" nervously muttered Clark, cutting his own top-boots with +a dog-whip. "I wish I was out of the business: the risk is too great. My +wife is religious--praying, mebbe, now, in there. My daughters is at the +seminaries, spendin' money like the Canawl Company on the lawyers. +Nothin' pays like nigger-stealin', but it's beneath you and me, Van +Dorn." + +"_A la verdad!_ This is my last incursion, Don Clark. Pleasure has kept +me poor for life. To-day I did a little sacrifice, and it grows upon +me." + +"If they should ketch me and set me in the pillory, Van Dorn, for what +you do to-night, hya! spitch!"--he slashed his knees--"it would break +Mrs. Clark's heart." + +"I want this money to-night," said Van Dorn, "to make two young people +happy. They shall take my portion, and take me with them out of the +plains of Puckem." + +"Oh, it is nervous business"--Clark's eyes of rich jelly made the pallor +on his large face like a winding-sheet--"hya! spitch! The Quakers are +a-watchin' me. Ole Zekiel Jinkins over yer, ole Warner Mifflin down to +the mill, these durned Hunns at the Wildcat--they look me through every +time they ketch me on the road. But the canawl contract don't pay like +niggers; my folks must hold their heads up in the world; Sam Ogg won't +let me keep out of temptation." + +"Do you fear me, Devil Jim?" + +"Hya! spitch! No. If all in the trade was like you, I could sleep in +trust. If you go out of it, so will I." + +"Then to-night, _penitente!_ we make our few thousand and quit. Give up +your cards and I my _doncellitas_, and we can at least live." + +They shook hands and drank another glass, and then Van Dorn said: + +"Send up to me, _hermano!_ the lad who will reply to the name of Levin. +With him I would speak while you give the directions! Poor coward!" Van +Dorn said, after his host had descended the stairs, "he can never be +less than a thief with that irksomeness under such fair competence." + +At that moment a beautiful maid or woman, in her white night-robe, stood +in the little doorway, with eyes so like the richness of his just gone +that it must have been his daughter. She fled as she recognized a +stranger, and Van Dorn pursued till a door was closed in his face. + +"Poor fool!" he said, sinking into his chair again; "I will never be +more honest than any woman can make me!" + +As Levin entered the little hallway Van Dorn smiled: + +"Here is a glass of real wine to inspire you, _junco_." + +"No, Captain. I would rather die than drink it." + +"Do you repent coming with me?" + +"Oh, bitterly, Captain. I don't want to steal poor, helpless people if +they is black." + +"Now, listen, lad!"--Van Dorn's face ceased to blush and the coarse +look came into his blue eyes--"this night's excursion is for your +profit. I like your gentle inclination for me, and the good acts you +have solicited from me, and the confidence you have shown me as to your +love for pretty Hulda. Join me in this work willingly, and I will give +her, for your marriage settlement, all my share." + +"Never," Levin exclaimed. + +Van Dorn drew his knife and rose to his feet. + +"Levin," he lisped, "I promised Patty Cannon that I would bring you back +spotted with crime or dead. Now choose which it shall be." + +"To die, then," cried Levin, with one hand drawing the long, silken hair +from his eyes and with the other drawing his own knife; "but I will +fight for my life." + +Van Dorn seized Levin's wrist in a vise-like grip, but, as he did so, +threw his own knife upon the floor. + +"Oh! _huerfano_, waif," Van Dorn murmured, while his blush returned, +"take heed thou ever sayest 'No' with courage like that, when cowardice +or weak acquiescence would extort thy 'Yes.' This moment, if thou hadst +consented, thy heart would be on my knife, young Levin!" + +He drew the knife from Levin's hand and put it in his ragged coat again, +and set the boy on his knee as if he had been a little child. + +"Oh, God be thanked I did not kill you, sir," sobbed Levin, his tears +quickly following his courage; "twice I have thought of doin' it +to-day." + +"I never would have put you to that test, my poor lad, but that I saw +your conscience at work all this day under the stimulation of virtuous +love. Think nothing of me. Build your own character upon some good +example, and, sweet as life is, fight for it on the very frontiers of +your character. _Die_ young, but surrender only when you are old." + +"Captain," Levin said, "how kin I git character? My father is dead. +Everybody twists me around his fingers." + +"Then think of some plain, strong, faithful man you may know and refer +every act of your character to him. Ask yourself what he would do in +your predicament, then go and do the same." + +"I do know such a man," Levin said, in another moment; "It is Jimmy +Phoebus, my poor, beautiful mother's beau." + +"_El rayo ha caido!_" Van Dorn spoke, low and calm; "yes, Levin, any man +worthy of your mother will do." + +"Captain, turn back with me! Is it too late?" + +"Too late these many years, young _senor_. I shall lead the war on +Africa to-night again at Cowgill House." + +He rose and finished the wine. + +"Clark shall give you a horse, Levin. I present it to you. Ride on with +Sorden at the lead, and a mile from here, at Camden town, take your own +way. Good-night!" + +Taking a single look at the miserable band of whites and blacks +collected in the barn, and revealed by a lantern's light in the +excitement of drink and avarice, or the familiarity of fear and +vice--some inspecting gags of corn-cob and bucks of hickory, others +trimming clubs of blackjack with the roots attached; others loading +their horse-pistols and greasing the dagger-slides thereon; some +whetting their hog-killing knives upon harness, others cutting rope and +cord into the lengths to bind men's feet--Levin was set on the loping +horse he had been already riding, by Clark, the host, and soon met +Sorden on the road. + +"Where is Van Dorn?" Sorden asked; "I love him as I never loved A male." + +"He sends me to Camden of an errand," Levin answered; "is it far?" + +"About a mile. Three miles, then, to Dover. My skin! how fresh your +critter is; ain't it Dirck Molleston's? I thought so. Then he'll be +wantin' to turn in at Cooper's Corners." + +"Does Derrick live there?" + +"Yes. That's whar he holds the Forks of both roads from below, and +watches the law in Dover. I hope Van Dorn will git away with the loot +and not git ketched, fur I love him as I never loved A male." + +Levin's horse, at his easy gait, soon left Sorden far behind, and the +strange events of the night, and his wonder what to do next, kept +Levin's brain whirling till he saw the form of a few houses rise among +the trees, and a line of arborage indicate a main road from north to +south. The scent as of cold, wide waters and marshes filled the night. + +"Here is Camden," Levin thought; "where shall I go? If I turn south I +shall get no bed nor food all night, and be picked up in the mornin' fur +a kidnapper. I can't go back. The big river or the ocean, I reckon, is +before me. What would Jimmy Phoebus do?" + +He held the animal in as he asked this question, and paused at the +crossing of the great State road. + +The idea slowly spread upon his whole existence that James Phoebus +would, in Levin's place, ride instantly to Dover and give the alarm. + +Levin tried to construct Phoebus in a mood to give some other advice, +but, as the resolute pungy captain's form seemed to bestride the young +man's mind, it rose more and more stalwart, and appeared to lead towards +Dover, where so many poor souls, in the joys of intercourse and freedom, +were like little birds unconscious of the hawks above them, and no man +in the world but Levin Dennis could save them from death or bondage. + +Would James Phoebus, with his lion nature, ever hesitate in the duty +of a citizen and a Christian under such circumstances, or forgive +another man for withholding information that might be life and liberty +and mercy? + +Yet there was Van Dorn to be betrayed. What would Van Dorn do in Levin's +place? + +The words of Van Dorn, not a quarter of an hour old, spoke aloud in +Levin's echoing consciousness: "Think nothing of me. Refer every act to +some faithful man and go and do the same!" + +Levin looked up, and the very clouds, now swollen dark in spite of +starshine, seemed hurrying on Dover. The night-birds were crying "Mercy! +mercy!" the lizards and tree-frogs seemed to cross each other's voices, +piping "Time! time! time!" + +"_Huldy!_" Levin whispered, and let the reins fall loose, and his animal +darted through Camden town to the north. + +He had gone by the small frame houses, the Quaker meeting, the stores, +the outskirt residences, when suddenly his horse turned out to pass a +large, dark object in the road ahead, and a horseman rode right across +Levin's course, forcing his animal back on its haunches. + +"High doings, friend!" a man's voice raspingly spoke; "I'm concerned for +thee!" + +"Git out of my way or I'll stab you!" Levin cried, between his new ardor +to do his duty and the idea that he had already been intercepted by +Patty Cannon's band. + +"Ha, friend! I'm less concerned for myself than thee. Thou wilt not stab +a citizen of Camden town at his own door?" + +"For Heaven's sake, let me go, then!" Levin pleaded. "The kidnappers is +coming to Dover in a few minutes. I want to tell Lawyer Clayton!" + +Immediately the other person, a tall, lean man, wheeled and dashed after +the dark object ahead, which Levin, following also hard, found to be a +large covered wagon--something between the dearborn or farmer's and the +family carriage. + +"Bill," the Quaker called to the driver, "spare not thy whip till Dover +be well past. Here is one who says kidnappers are raiding even the +capital of Delaware. I'm concerned for thee!" + +The driver began to whip his horses into a gallop, and cries, as of +several persons, came out of the close-curtained vehicle. + +"What's in there?" Levin asked the Quaker, who had rejoined him; +"niggers?" + +"No, friend," the Quaker crisply answered, "only Christians." + +They crossed a mill-stream, and soon afterwards a smaller run, without +speaking, and came to a little log-and-frame cabin in a fork of the +road, where Levin's horse tried to run in. + +"Ha, friend! Is it not Derrick Molleston's loper thee has--the same that +he gets from Devil Jim Clark? What art thou, then? I feel concerned for +thee." + +"A Christian, too, I hope," answered Levin, forcing his nag up the road. + +"Then thee is better than a youth in this dwelling we next pass," the +Quaker said, pointing to a brick house on the left; "for there lived a +judge whose son bucked a poor negro fiddler in his father's cellar, and +delivered him to Derrick Molleston to be sold in slavery. I hear the +poor man tells it in his distant house of bondage." + +"What's this?" Levin inquired, seeing a strange structure of beams on a +cape or swell to the right, in sight of the dark forms of a town on the +next crest beyond. + +"A gallows," said the Quaker, "on which a horse-thief will be hanged +to-morrow. To steal a horse is death; to steal a fellow-man is nothing." + +As he spoke, the mysterious carriage turned down a cross street of Dover +and stole into the obscurity of the town. + +"Ha! ha!" exclaimed the Quaker; "if Joe Johnson had not stopped to feed +at Devil Jim's, he might have overtaken my brother's wagon full of +escaping slaves. I tell thee, friend, because I'm scarce concerned for +thee now." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +COWGILL HOUSE. + + +Long after midnight, Dover was in bed, except at one large house on the +Capitol green, where light shone through the chinks and cracks of +curtains and shutters, and some watch-dog, perhaps, ran along curiously +to see why. + +The stars and clouds in the somewhat troubled sky looked down through +the leafless trees upon the pretty town and St. Jones's Creek circling +past it, and hardly noticed a long band of creeping men and animals +steal up from the Meeting House branch, past the tannery and the +academy, and plunge into the back streets of the place, avoiding the +public square. + +One file turned down to the creek and crossed it, to return farther +above, cutting off all escape by the northern road, while a second file +slipped silently through and around the compact little hamlet and waited +for the other to arrive, when both encompassed an old brick dwelling +standing back from the roadside in a green and venerable yard, nearly +half a mile from the settled parts of Dover. + +This house was brilliantly lighted, and the rose-bushes and shade trees +were all defined as they stood above the swells of green verdure and the +ornamental paths and flower-beds. + +One majestic tulip-tree extended its long branches nearly to the portal +of the quaint dwelling, and a luxuriant growth of ivy, starting between +the cellar windows, clambered to the corniced carpentry of the eaves, +and made almost solid panels of vine of the spaces between the four +large, keystoned windows in two stories, which stood to the right of the +broad, dumpy door. + +This door, at the top of a flight of steps, was placed so near the gable +angle of the house that it gave the impression of but one wing of a +mansion originally designed to be twice its length and size. + +Between this gable--which faced the road, and had four lines of windows +in it, besides a basement row--and the back or town door, as described, +was one squarish, roomy window, out of relation to all the rest, and +perhaps twelve feet above the ground. This, as might be guessed, was on +the landing of the stairs within; for the great door and front of the +residence being at the opposite side, the whole of the space at the +townward gable, to the width of seventeen feet, was a noble hall about +forty feet long, lofty, and with pilasters in architectural style, and +lighted by two great windows in the gable and the square window on the +stairway. + +The stairway itself was a beautiful piece of work and proportion, rising +from the floor in ten railed steps to the landing at the square window, +where a space several feet square commanded both the great front door +and the windows in the gable, and also the yard behind; thence, at right +angles, the flight of steps rose along the back wall to a second landing +over the dumpy back-door, and, by a third leap, returned at right +angles, to the floor above, making what is called the well of the +stairway to be exceedingly spacious, and it opened to the garret floor. + +No doubt this cool, great hall was designed to be the centre of a large +mansion, yet it had lost nothing in agreeableness by becoming, instead, +the largest room in the house, receiving abundant daylight, and it was +large enough for either a feast or public worship, and such was its +frequent use. + +Built by a tyrannical, eccentric man at the beginning of the century, +it had passed through several families until a Quaker named Cowgill, who +afterwards became a Methodist, and who held no slaves and was kind to +black people, made it his property, and superintended a tannery and mill +within sight of it. + +He was frequently absent for weeks, especially in the bilious autumn +season, and allowed his domestics to assemble their friends and the +general race, at odd times, in the great hallway, for such rational +enjoyments as they might select. + +In truth, the owner of the house desired it to get a more cheerful +reputation; for the negroes, in particular, considered it haunted. + +The first owner, it was said, had amused himself in the great hall-room +by making his own children stand on their toes, switching their feet +with a whip when they dropped upon their soles from pain or fatigue; and +his own son finally shot at him through the great northern door with a +rifle or pistol, leaving the mark to this day, to be seen by a small +panel set in the original pine. The third owner, a lawyer, often +entertained travelling clergymen here; and, on one occasion, the +eccentric Reverend Lorenzo Dow met on the stairs a stranger and bowed to +him, and afterwards frightened the host's family by telling it, since +they were not aware of any stranger in the house. The room over the +great door had always been considered the haunt of peculiar people, who +molested nobody living, but appeared there in some quiet avocation, and +vanished when pressed upon. + +This main door itself had a church-like character, and was battened or +built in half, so that the upper part could be thrown open like a +window, and yet the lock on this upper part was a foot and a half long, +and the key weighed a pound. + +This ponderous door, in elaborate carpentry, opened upon a flight of +steps and on a flower-yard surrounded by elms, firs, and Paulownia +trees, the latter of a beany odor and nature. A lower servants' part of +the dwelling, in two stories, stretched to the fields, and had a +veranda-covered rear. + +Van Dorn called to a negro: + +"Buck Ransom!" + +"Politely, Captain," the negro's insinuating voice answered. + +"Go to the front door and knock. As you enter, see that it is clear to +fly open. Then, as you pass along the hall, throw the windows up." + +"Politely, Captain;" the negro bowed and departed. + +"Owen Daw!" + +"Yer honor!" + +"Climb into the big tulip-tree softly and take this musket I shall reach +you. Train it on the staircase window, and fire only if you see +resistance there." + +The boy went up the tree with all his vicious instincts full of fight. + +"Melson!" + +"Ay yi!" + +"Milman!" + +"Ah! boy." + +"Get yourselves beneath the two large windows on the hall and serve as +mounting-blocks to Sorden's party. I shall storm the main door. As we +enter there, Sorden, order your men right over Melson and Milman into +the windows Ransom has lifted." + +"I love him," muttered Sorden, admiringly, "as I never loved A male," +and collected his party. + +"Whitecar, you and your brother hold the back door with your staves. If +it is forced, Miles Tindel--" + +"Tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!" + +"Will throw his red-pepper dust into the eyes of any that come out." + +"Oh, tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!" + +"Derrick Molleston!" + +"See me, O see me!" the powerful negro muttered. + +"Take Herron and Vincent, and two more, and guard the kitchen and the +front of the main dwelling. Knock any creature stiff, except--_ayme! +ay!_--the young damsels, whose fears will soon trip them to the ground." + +"See me, see me!" the negro hoarsely said. + +"As we enter the door, I shall cry, 'Patty Cannon has come!' Then spring +in the windows and beat opposition down. _Relampaguea!_ Ransom is slow." + +The knocker on the great door sounded, and it sprang open and quickly +slammed again, and a stifled, strange sound followed, as of a scuffle. + +Van Dorn, agile as a panther, sprang on Milman's back and looked into a +window in the gable, drawing his face away, so as to be unseen in the +night. + +The bright interior was full of people, sitting back against the +wainscoting, as if listening to a sermon, while down the middle of the +stately hall stretched a table lighted by whale-oil lamps and many +little candles, and filled with the remnants of a feast. The stairway in +the corner Van Dorn could not see, and there the dusky audience was all +facing, as if towards the preacher. There seemed a something out of the +common in the kind of attention the inmates were paying, but Van Dorn's +eyes were absorbed in the sight of several drooping and yet almost +startled dove-eyed quadroon maids, and he only noticed that the spy, +Ransom, could not be seen. + +"Sorden," Van Dorn said, slipping down, "can Ransom have betrayed us? +_Chis!_ they all look as if a death-warrant was being read." + +"My skin! No, Captain. Air they all there?" + +"All," said Van Dorn; "I see thirty thousand dollars of flesh in sight." + +"And niggers won't scrimmage nohow," spoke Whitecar. "Let's beat 'em +mos' to death." + +"Come on then," said Van Dorn, softly; "if the windows are not lifted, +break them in." + +He twisted, by main strength, a panel out of the palings near the house, +and led the way to the great front door. A dozen desperate hands seized +the heavy panel and ran with it. The door flew open, but at that moment +every light in Cowgill House went out. + +"Dar's ghosts in dar," the hoarse voice of Derrick Molleston was heard +to say, and the negro element stopped and shrank. + +"Tindel, your torch!" Van Dorn exclaimed, and, after a moment's +delay--the old house and shady yard meantime illumined by lightning, and +sounds of thunder rolling in the sky--a blazing pine-knot, all prepared, +was procured, and Van Dorn, holding it in his left hand, and with +nothing but his rude whip in his right, bounded in the door, shouting: + +"Patty Cannon has come!" + +At that dreaded name there were a few suppressed shrieks, and the great +windows at the gable side fell inwards with a crash as the kidnappers +came pouring over. + +Van Dorn's quick eye took in the situation as he waved his torch, and it +lighted ceiling and pilaster, the close-fastened doors on the left and +the great stairway-well beyond, filled with black forms in the attitude +of defence. + +"Patty Cannon has come!" he shouted again; "follow me!" + +An instant only brought him to the base of the staircase, and the +lightning flashing in the gaping windows and fallen door revealed him to +his followers, with his yellow hair waving, and his long, silken +mustache like golden flame. + +A mighty yell rose from the emboldened gang as they formed behind him, +with bludgeons and iron knuckles, billies and slings, and whatever would +disable but fail to kill. + +Van Dorn, far ahead, made three murderous slashes of his whip across the +human objects above, and, with a toss of that formidable weapon, clubbed +it and darted on. + +At the moment loud explosions and smoke and cries filled the echoing +place, as a volley of firearms burst from the landing, sweeping the line +of the windows and raking the hall. The band on the floor below stopped, +and some were down, groaning and cursing. + +"They're armed; it's treachery," a voice, in panic, cried, and the +cowardly assailants ran to places of refuge, some crawling out at the +portal, some dropping from the windows, and others getting behind the +stairway, out of fire, and seeking desperately to draw the bolts of the +smaller door there. + +"Patty Cannon has come!" Van Dorn repeated, throwing himself into the +body of the defenders, who, terrified at his bravery, began to retreat +upward around the angles of the stairs. + +One man, however, did not retreat, neither did he strike, but wrapped +Van Dorn around the body in a pair of long and powerful arms, and lifted +him from the landing by main strength, saying: + +"High doings, friend! I'm concerned for thee." + +Van Dorn felt at the grip that he was overcome. He tried to reach for +his knife, but his arms were enclosed in the unknown stranger's, who, +having seized him from behind, sought to push him through the square +window on the landing into the grass yard below, where the rain was +falling and the lightning making brilliant play among the herbs and +ferns. + +As the kidnapper prepared himself to fall, with all his joints and +muscles relaxed, the boy, Owen Daw, lying bloodthirstily along the limb +of the old tulip-tree, aimed his musket, according to Van Dorn's +instructions, at the forms contending there, and greedily pulled the +trigger. + +The Quaker's arms, as they enclosed Van Dorn, presented, upon the cuff +of his coat, a large steel or metal button, and the ball from the tree, +striking this, glanced, and entered Van Dorn's throat. + +"_Ayme Guay!_" Van Dorn muttered, and was thrown out of the window to +the earth, all limp and huddled together, till John Sorden bore him off, +muttering, + +"I loved him as I never loved A male." + +The desperate party beneath the stairs at last broke open the back door +there and rushed forth, only to receive handfuls of red pepper dust +thrown by Miles Tindel, as he cried, + +"Tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!" + +They screamed with anguish, and rolled in the wet grass, and yet, with +fears stronger than pain, sought the road in blindness, and some way to +leave the town. + +Young Owen O'Day, or Daw, crept down the tree, and, seeing Van Dorn in +Sorden's arms at the wagon, contemptuously said, as he mounted his mule +and vanished: + +"I reckon he'll never discipline me no mo'." + +Derrick Molleston, regretting the loss of his loping horse, bore out to +the wagon an object he had found striving to escape from the veranda at +the kitchen side, though with a gag in his mouth, and a skewer between +his elbows and his back. + +"See me, see me!" the negro kidnapper spoke, hoarsely. "He's mine an' +Devil Jim Clark's. I tuk him." + +"Why, it's Buck Ransom," Sorden said. + +"An' I'm gwyn to sell him, too," the negro muttered, seizing the reins. +"You see me now! Maybe he cheated us. Any way, he's tuk." + +The old wagon started at a run through the driving rain, the black +victim lying helpless on his back, and Van Dorn bleeding in Sorden's +arms, who continued to moan, + +"I loved him as I never loved A male!" + +Van Dorn made several efforts to talk, and often coughed painfully, and +finally, as they reached a lane gate, he articulated:' + +"The Chancellor's?" + +"Yes, dis is it," Derrick Molleston said. "See me, Cap'n Van. I's all +heah." + +As they advanced up a shady lane, fire from somewhere began to make a +certain illumination in spite of the loud storm. + +"It's Bill Greenley. He's set de jail afire," the negro exclaimed. "See +me, O see me!" + +The conflagration gave a vapory red light to a secluded dwelling they +now approached, upon a bowery lawn, and Sorden saw a woman of a severe +aspect looking out of a window at the fire. + +"What is the meaning of this trespass so late at night?" she called. +"Are you robbers? My aged husband is asleep." + +"Madam," answered Sorden, "here is the husband of Mrs. Patty Cannon. She +was your brother's mother-in-law. I love this man as I never loved A +male. He is wounded, and we want him taken in till he can have a +doctor." + +"Take him to the jail, then, if that is not it burning yonder," the +woman exclaimed, scornfully. "Shall I make the home of the Chancellor of +Delaware a hospital for Patty Cannon's men as a reward for her sending +my brother to the gallows?" + +She closed the window and the blind, and left them alone in the storm. + +"Drive, Derrick, to your den at Cooper's Corners, quick, then," Sorden +said. + +As they left the lane a flash of lightning, so near, so white, that they +seemed to be within the volume and crater of it, enveloped the wagon. +One horse sank down on his haunches, and the other reared back and tore +from his harness, while the wagon was overset. + +The negro picked up his helpless fellow-African and lifted him on his +back, starting off in mingled avarice and terror, and saying, + +"Derrick's gwyn home, sho'. See me, see me!" + +Van Dorn put his finger at his throat, where blood was all the while +trickling, and, with a gentle cough, extorted the sounds: + +"Leave me--under a bush--to--die." + +"No," cried Sorden, raising Van Dorn also upon his back; "I love him as +I never loved A male." + +The fire of the burning jail lighted their return into the outskirts of +Dover and to the gallows' hill, where stood the scaffold, split with the +lightning from cross-beam to the death-trap. As they halted opposite it +to rest, a horse and rider came stumbling past, and Molleston, dropping +his burden, shouted: + +"Bill Greenley, dat's our hoss. We want it." + +"His is the hoss that's on him," cried the escaped horse-thief, looking +scornfully up at his own gallows as he lashed his blinded animal along +in the rain. + +"Cheer up, Captain Van," John Sorden said, soaked through with the rain; +"'t'ain't fur now to Cooper's Corners." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +TWO WHIGS. + + +"Goy! Look at the trees, friend Custis," said John M. Clayton, standing +before his office as the rising sun innocently struck the tree-tops in +the public square of Dover. + +Judge Custis, sitting at an upper window, observed that many noble elms +and locusts had been riven by lightning, or torn by wind and wind-driven +floods of rain. + +"What a night!" Custis exclaimed; "the jail burned, the lightning +appalling, and I thought I heard firearms, too." + +Judge Custis heard Clayton say, as he entered the room: + +"So ole Derrick Molleston, Aunt Braner, asked you about my dinner, did +he? And it's Bill Greenley that burned the jail? Goy! And the black +people licked the kidnappers at Cowgill House?" + +"Dat dey did, praise de Lord!" ejaculated Aunt Braner, fervently. + +Clayton turned to a young man at the table, now dressed in a good clean +suit of clothes, and said, as the old cook left the room: + +"Now, friend Dennis, tell your tale. Goy!" + +The boy, whom the Judge was startled to recognize, at once began: + +"Jedge Custis, the kidnapper man you left in the kitchen has stole Aunt +Hominy and your little niggers. They was at Johnson's Cross-roads last +night. Maybe they's gone before this. My boat was hired to take 'em off, +and I had to come along, but I run away from the band and give warnin' +last night to Mr. Clayton yer." + +Before the Judge could reply, Clayton exclaimed, + +"Now, Brother Custis, permit me now! Let my noble old constituent and +fellow-Whig, Jonathan Hunn, resume!" + +"Friend," spoke out a wiry, lean, healthy-skinned man, "this young man +surprised me last night with intelligence that thy Maryland friends were +marching on the very capital of Delaware, to steal men. I was out in the +road at that late hour for another Christian purpose, and the Lord +rewarded me with this good one: I brought friend Dennis to John +Clayton's back door, and he lent us all his firearms. At the little +brick grocery of William Parke, just beyond the Cowgill House--where I +am told he sells ardent liquors to negroes contrary to law, and so takes +the name among them of 'Kind Parke'--I found several of our free +Delaware negroes, I fear on no good errand. So I remarked, 'If William +Parke, contrary to law, has been selling thee brandy out of an eggshell, +as if he knew not the contents, I shall pay him to repeat the vile +enticement quickly, for ye who are of the world must fight this night.'" + +"Goy!" said Clayton, warming up; "Quakers will set other people on, +won't they? Goy!" + +"Other gunpowder arms were there procured, and we barricaded Cowgill +House so as to make it at once a decoy and a hornet's nest. I despise +war and men of war so much that I have somewhat studied their campaigns, +and I suggested, friend Clayton, that the stairway was a good tactical +defensive position--is that the vain term?--to send a volley out the +main door, and a flank fire on every door and window on the sides of +Cowgill's hall. It also commanded the back yard by a window on the +staircase. A door beneath the staircase was barricaded. There was a +festival, or feast, given that night, by absent friend Cowgill's +permission, by these Dover folks of color. I would not wonder if it was +designed or discovered by these scoundrels on thy line of states, friend +Custis. I told the men-at-arms to leave their huzzies all below in the +feasting-hall till the attack began, and then to let them escape up the +stairway, and to defend that stair like sinful men. But first a negro +spy knocked on the door, and a loop was thrown over his neck, and two of +the black boys gagged him. Then the attack was made, and, at my order, +all the lights were put out." + +"Oh, Jedge," Levin Dennis broke in, "it was short and dreadful! Captain +Van Dorn had got to the bottom of the stairs, when the niggers half-way +up fired over his head and shot mos' everything down. The Quaker man yer +then pinioned the captain an' dropped him, wounded, out of the high +window. I pity Van Dorn, but _he_ says that he's in a bad business. I +hope he ain't dead." + +"Who is this Van Dorn?" asked Judge Custis. "I've heard of such a +dare-devil, but he has never pestered Princess Anne." + +"I ran and hid in the deep eaves of the garret story," Levin continued, +"which is built in like closets, and the wasps there, coming in to suck +the blossoms on the vines that has growed up through the eaves from +outside, flew around in the dark among the yaller gals that was a-hidin' +and a-prayin', and never feelin' the wasps sting em', thinkin' about +them kidnappers. I reckon, gen'lemen, the kidnappers will never come to +Dover no more." + +"Two things surprise me," Clayton said; "that Joe Johnson would venture +to raid Dover itself after the licking I got him; and that free darkeys +could make such a defence." + +"Ah! John Clayton," spoke Jonathan Hunn, "there was a white witness +there, to affirm that they only defended their lives." + +"It was Captain Van Dorn that raided Dover," Levin spoke; "Joe Johnson +is a coward." + +"Judge Custis," said Mr. Clayton, "you and I can save this peninsula, at +least, from the sectional excitements that are coming. You must +surrender to Delaware old Patty Cannon and her household. She now lives +on your side of the line. Come over to the Governor's office with me, +and I will get a requisition for her on the business of last night. +Young Dennis here knows the band; friend Hunn saw the attack." + +Judge Custis's face grew suddenly troubled. + +"Clayton," he said, "I would rather not appear in this matter. Indeed, +you must excuse me." + +"What!" said Clayton; "hesitate to do a little thing like this, after +the free opinions you have expressed?" + +There was a long, awkward pause. The Quaker arose, and, looking well at +Judge Custis, said: + +"None but Almighty God knows the secrets of a slave-holder's mind. No +son of Adam is fit to be absolute over any human creature." + +"Amen!" Judge Custis said, meekly. + + * * * * * + +The news from Princess Anne confirmed the loss of Vesta Custis's slaves. +Judge Custis was told to come home and take steps for their recovery, +but he was strangely apathetic. The day after the raid Levin Dennis +disappeared, Clayton only saying: + +"Who would have thought that soft-eyed boy was already fascinated by +these kidnappers? He has taken his horse and gone back to Patty +Cannon's." + +The suit against the Canal Company required a great deal of research, as +law-books were then scarce, and precedents for breaches of contract +against corporations were not many; this form of legal life being +comparatively modern in that day, like the dawn of the floral age, or +before megatheriums grazed above the trees or iguanodons swam in the +canals. Clayton and Custis walked and ate and lay down together, +comparing knowledge and suggestions, and the litigious mind of John +Randel, Junior, was rather irritating to both of them, so that, to be +rid of his society in Dover, the two lawyers, meantime supplied with +money by Meshach Milburn's draft, resolved to visit the canal, which was +distant about thirty miles. + +The three men started together in a carriage, after breakfast, on a soft +yet frosty morning, such as often gives to this region a winter sparkle +and mildness like the Florida climate. They passed several tidal creeks, +as the Duck and the Little Duck, the Blackbird and the Apoquinimink, +and, as they advanced, the barns became larger, the hedges more tasteful +and trimmed like those in the French Netherlands, the leafless peach +orchards stretched out like the tea-plants in China. Two or three little +towns studded the roadside, the woods gave way altogether to smaller +farms, and, at a steep bottom called the Fiddler's Bridge, they turned +across the fields to an old four-chimneyed, galleried mansion, at the +end of a long lane, and near a great stagnant pond, where John Randel, +Junior, as he fully named himself on every occasion, had a fine dinner +spread. + +After dinner they launched upon the stream in a row and sail boat, to +Mr. Clayton's trepidation, and bore out through acres of splutter-docks, +and muskrats and terrapins unnumbered, and many wild-fowl, to the +Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which extended for several miles through +a mighty pond or feeder, like a ditch within a bayou. + +The negro rower tied their boat behind a passing vessel, which towed +them out to the locks at the Delaware River, at a point opposite a +willowy island, and where an embryo "city" had been started in the +marshes, and there they waited for the packet from Philadelphia. Mr. +Randel took his negro man, a person of sorrowful yet inexpressive +countenance, to be a kind of piano or model on which to play his fierce +gestures. + +"Clayton," said he, sitting on a stone lock in the evening gloaming, "I +ought to have been a lawyer. Not that I am not the greatest theoretical +engineer in the country, but my legal genius interposes, and I sue the +villains who employ me." + +Here he gave the melancholy negro a violent shaking, who took it as +stolidly as a bottle of medicine shaken by the doctor. + +"Yes, you sued Judge Ben Wright and he nonsuited you." + +"I tell you a new axiom, Clayton," the earnest engineer cried, putting +the negro down on his hams and sitting on him; "whoever employs genius +has to be a scoundrel. In the nature of their relations it is so. He +deflects genius from its full expression, absorbs the virtue from it, +and is a fraud." + +Here he kicked the negro underneath him, who hardly protested. + +"Well, then," spoke Judge Custis, "as Clayton is a man of genius, and +you employ him--" + +"I'm a scoundrel, of course," Randel exclaimed. "His sense of law and +right must yield to my ideas. Now look at this canal! Had I not been +obliged to defer to the soulless corporation which employed me, I would +have dug it to the depth that the tides of the two bays would have +filled it, instead of damming up the creeks for feeders, and pumping +water into it by steam-pumps. Then the war-vessels of the country could +go through, and the channel would be purged by every tide." + +He stood up and put his foot on the negro, to the amusement of the boys +gathering around. + +"John Fitch, the engineer," said John M. Clayton, "left a curious will; +it begins, 'To William Rowan, my trusty friend, I bequeath my Beaver +Hat.'" + +Judge Custis's countenance fell, thinking of another hat which had +entered his family. + +The barge on which they embarked had numerous passengers, and soon came +to a small lock-town and turn-bridge, and, a few miles beyond, entered +upon a serious piece of work, leaving the trough of a creek, of which +the canal had previously availed itself, and cutting through the low +ridge of the peninsula, which, to Judge Custis, seemed almost +mountainous. He was of that patriotic opulence, just short of +imagination, which rejoiced in public works, and this little canal, only +fourteen miles long, was, with two or three exceptions, the only +achieved work in the Union, turnpikes and bridges omitted. Built by the +national government, by three of the states it connected, and by private +subscription, it had involved two and a quarter million dollars of +expense--no light burden when the population was, by the previous +census, less than eight million whites in all the land. + +Judge Custis's family troubles faded from his mind as he looked up at +the deep cutting, nearly seventy feet in height of banks, with sands of +yellow and green, and stains of iron and strata of marl, some of which +had fallen back into the excavation and threatened the navigation again; +and, when he saw a bridge, called the Buck, leap the chasm ninety feet +overhead, by a span that then seemed sublimity itself, he touched +Clayton and said: + +"Never mind my failures! Thank God, I'm a Whig." + +"Goy! there's nothing like it," said Clayton. + +Not far from this point the canal passed an old church and graveyard at +a bridge where Mr. Clayton said his namesake, the revolutionary Governor +of Delaware, was buried. Here Randel's plain conveyance took them in, +and in the moonlight they drove a few miles to Mr. Randel's estate, near +the banks of a river, under a long table-mountain of barren clay and +iron stain, on the farther shore. + +"Here," said Randel, "is my future estate of Randalia. Here I shall see +all the commerce of the canal passing by, and garnishee every vessel +that pays my tolls to the Canal Company." + +"Randel," asked Mr. Clayton, "what were those stakes I saw some distance +back, running north and south across the fields?" + +"A railroad survey." + +"Who is making it?" + +"They say Meshach Milburn, of Princess Anne." + +"Goy!" exclaimed Clayton, "I'll beat him." + + * * * * * + +For two or three days the three men, still studying the canal suit, +drove over a picturesque country, visiting the old manor of the +Labadists and their Bohemian patron, Augustine Herman, the homestead of +the late treaty minister, Bayard, and the ancient Welsh Baptist churches +among the hills of the Elk and Christiana, where some of Cromwell's +warriors lay. It was the favorite land of Whitefield, and in the +neighborhood was an iron furnace Judge Custis examined with melancholy +interest, as one of the investments of General Washington's father more +than a hundred years before, when the Indians made the iron. They also +went to Turkey Point, where the British army was disembarked to capture +Philadelphia, and Knyphausen's division obliterated the history of +Delaware by carrying her records away from Newcastle. Returning from one +of these pleasant journeys, two messages from different points seared +Judge Custis's eyeballs: + +"Your wife died at Cambridge." "Your daughter is very ill at +Wilmington." + +"To Wilmington!" cried Judge Custis, staggering up. "Oh, my daughter! I +have killed her." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +SPIRITS OF THE PAST. + + +"What do they say, William, about Jack Wonnell's being found shot dead?" + +"It is generally said that he was killed by the negroes for gallantries +to their color. Some talk of arresting little Roxy Custis." + +"What do you say, William Tilghman?" + +"I can say nothing. The night I drove Virgie to Snow Hill I drove over +poor Wonnell's body. A strange negro was seen here--an enemy of your +servant, Samson. The new cook at Teackle Hall thinks he fired the shot." + +The young rector felt the searching look of those resinous forester's +eyes staring him through. + +"That shot was meant for me, William Tilghman." + +"Perhaps so." + +"It was the shot of a hired murderer, who mistook Wonnell's unusual +hats for mine, that was not well described to him, or the description of +which his drunken and excited memory did not retain." + +"Mr. Milburn, please save Vesta this suspicion." + +"Oh! that pure soul could not know it," Milburn continued, with a +moment's gentleness; "but some of her proud kin, to whom I am less than +a dog, did send the assassin. I think I guess the man." + +"Do not rush to a conclusion! Remember, Vesta has suffered so much for +others' errors." + +"He was killed in this room, where Wonnell never came before. The wound +shows the shot to have come from a point below, where nothing but +Wonnell's hat, and not his features, could be seen. The mistake of +bell-crown for steeple-top shows that it was a stranger's job: the poor +fool died for me. Now where did the bungler who killed me by proxy come +from?" + +"I will be frank with you, sir. Joe Johnson, the kidnapper, was also +here: Mary says so. To save Virgie from him, I helped her away." + +"Now," said Milburn, "what enemy of mine delegated the kidnapper to +procure a murderer?" + +He waited a moment without response, and answered, in a low tone of +voice, his own question: + +"The man is at Johnson's Cross Roads: letters from Cambridge tell me so. +It was the deceased Mrs. Custis's brother, Allan McLane." + +"Again I ask you to think of Vesta and her many sacrifices!" + +"I do. I have promised her that she shall never receive a cruel word +from me. But I shall not spare my assassins. To them I shall be as one +they have killed, and whose blood smokes, for vengeance. I possess the +only warrant that can drive them from Maryland." + +He laid a roll of bank-notes on the table suggestively. + +"No wealth is accumulated in vain," said Meshach Milburn, his delicate +nostrils distended and his fine hand pointing to the bank-bills. "Now, +_war_ on Johnson's Cross Roads!" + +He crossed the old room over the store, and, opening the green chest, +brought out the Entailed Hat, and took it in his hand with a grim smile. + +"Here is something I thought to lay aside on my wife's account," he +spoke. "Her people compel me to wear it! I thought all malice to this +poor hat would be done with my social triumph here. But I am not a man +to be frightened. Let them kill me, but it shall be under my ancestral +brim." + +"Oh! hear your mocking-bird sing again as it did: +'Vesta--Meshach--Love!' Where is the bird?" + +Meshach Milburn shook his head and put the Entailed Hat upon it. "Tom +left me," he said, "when they began to fire bullets at my Hat." + + * * * * * + +Vesta's female instinct had already found the explanation of Wonnell's +death. + +From the moment of knowing her husband, his fatal hat had been the +shadow across her life's path. His person had never been offensive to +her, and something attractive or modifying in him had led her, when a +child, to offer a flower to his hat, to give it consonance with himself, +that seemed to deserve less evil. + +A fancied insult to his hat had made him quarrel with her father, a +quarrel which involved her conquest, not by wooing, but by the treaty of +war. The same hat had inspired the superstition which led her kitchen +servants to leave their comfortable home, and had been the insuperable +obstacle to her mother's consent to her marriage. It had caused the only +bitter words that ever passed between her and her father. At last it had +spilled blood, and her uncle, she well knew, from his implacable +nature, had set the ruffians on, and she knew as well that her husband +had found him out. + +His intelligence, which would have been otherwise a matter of pride to +her, became a subject of fear, involved with his hat. + +Then, the loss of Virgie was hardly less severe to Vesta than her own +mother's. + +It was true that Roxy, pretty and loving, now poured all her devotion at +her mistress's feet, but there had been something in Virgie that Roxy +could never rise to--a dignity and self-reliance hardly less than a +white woman's. Vesta shed bitter tears at the news of that dear +comforter's flight, and on her knees, praying for the delicate young +wanderer, she felt God's conviction of the sins of slavery. Alas! +thousands felt the same who would not admit the conviction, and gave +excuses that welded into one nation, at last, the sensitive millions who +could not agree to a lesser sacrifice, but were willing to give war. + +A little note from Snow Hill told Vesta that her maid had already +departed, and would only write again from free soil. + +So the upbraided hat was worn more often than before, and Vesta had to +suffer much humiliation for it. Her husband now moved actively to +organize his railroad, and visited the Maryland towns of the peninsula, +taking her along, and wearing on the journey his King James tile, now +swathed in mourning crape. + +At Cambridge, which basked upon the waters like an English Venice, he +applied the sinews of war to a listless public sentiment, and the county +press began to call for Joe Johnson's expulsion, and Patty Cannon's +rendition to the State of Delaware. At Easton, lying between the waters +on her treasures of marl, like a pearl oyster, the people turned out to +see the little man in the peaked hat, with the beautiful lady at his +side; and Vesta was more pained for her husband than herself, to feel +that his _outre_ dress was prejudicing his railroad, as business, no +less than beauty, revolts from any outward affectation. At the old +aristocratic homes on the Wye River, more scowls than smiles were +bestowed on the eccentric _parvenu_; and at Chestertown, where +originated the Peales who drew this hat into their museum, the boys +burned tar-barrels on the market space, and marched, in hats of brown +loaf-sugar wrappers, like Meshach's, before the dwelling of Vesta's +host. + +The greater the opposition, the more indomitable Milburn grew to live it +down. He wrote to her father to go to Annapolis and work for a railroad +charter and state aid, and began grading for his line in the vicinity of +his old store at Princess Anne, throwing the first shovelful of earth +himself, with the immemorial hat upon his sconce. This time there were +no shouts, and he almost regretted it, seeming to feel that jeers carry +no deep malice, while silence is hate. + +Loyal to her least of vows, and wishing to love and obey him in spirit +fully, Vesta felt that his own good-nature was being darkened again by +his obstinacy upon this single point of an obsolete hat. + +He looked, in their evening circle at Teackle Hall, like a younger and +knightlier person, in a modern suit of clothes, and slippers of Vesta's +gift. His delicate hand well became the ring she put upon it, and, when +he talked high enthusiasm and sense, and stood ready to back them with +courage and money, Vesta thought her husband lacked but one thing to +make him the equal of his supposititious kinsman, the democratic martyr +in the seventeenth century, and that was another head-dress. She almost +feared to broach the subject, knowing that an old sore is ever the most +sensitive, and being too direct and frank to insinuate or practise any +arts upon him. + +She was embroidering an evening-cap of velvet for him one day when Mrs. +Tilghman sent a hat-box, and in it was a fine new hat of the current +style. He answered her letter politely, and put the new hat upon the +rack of Teackle Hall, and never touched it again. + +Next, Rhoda Holland, his niece, procuring, from some country beau, a +beaver-skin--and beavers were growing scarce and dear in that +peninsula--had him an elegant cap made of it for the cold weather now +coming; but he only kissed her and put it on the rack, and there it +tempted the moth. + +His chills and fever continued at broken times, but more regular became +the dislike and opposition of the old class of society as he undertook +to become the promoter of his region. They regarded it as audacity worse +than crime: he had outstripped them in wealth, and now was undermining +their importance. Many avowed that they would never ride on a railroad +built by such a man; others hoped it would break him; some took open +ground against his work, and wrote letters to Annapolis to prejudice him +with the Legislature, where the Baltimore interest was already crying +loudly that an Eastern Shore railroad meant to take Maryland trade and +money to Philadelphia. Meshach fiercely responded that, unless the +railway took the line of the Maryland counties, Delaware state would +build it and carry it off to Newcastle instead of to Elkton, where +Meshach meant to unite with a projected Baltimore system. Prudently +estimating the sparseness of his fortune to execute a hundred miles of +embankment and railroad, Milburn yet kept up a display of surveyors and +graders in several counties, and his local patriotism had at least the +appreciation of Vesta's little circle. + +In the meantime the continued absence of Samson surprised him, and Judge +Custis's letters were irregular and long coming as he went farther +north, while two letters received by the Widow Dennis were as mystical +as they were assuring: one, in a female hand, told her that her son +Levin was being tenderly watched, and another, in man's writing, +enclosed some money, and said her son would soon be home. Mrs. Dennis +was far from happy in this indefinite state of mind, and her heart told +her, also, that the absence of James Phoebus was a different strain. +She loved that absentee already too well to forgive his silence. + +One day, before November, Vesta said to her husband: + +"The air and sky are warm and sparkling yet, and the roses are out. You +work too hard between your canal case and your railroad. Let us fill the +two carriages and drive to old Rehoboth, and eat our dinner there." + +He consented, and they took with them Grandmother Tilghman and William, +Rhoda Holland, Roxy, and Mrs. Dennis, and also the poor free woman, +Mary, whom Jimmy Phoebus had released from her chains. + +The road passed in sight of the birthplace of the lion of independence +in Maryland, Samuel Chase, who forced that hesitating state, by +threatenings and even riots, to declare for permanent separation from +England, as Henry Winter Davis, by the same means, eighty-five years +afterwards, forced her rebels against the Union to show their hands. + +Near Chase's birthplace, on the glebe, rose the old Washington Academy, +out in a field, raised in that early republican day when a generous +fever for education, following the act of tolerance, made some noble +school-houses that the growth of towns ultimately discouraged. With four +great chimneys above its conical roof, and pediments and cupola, and two +wide stories, and high basement, all made in staid, dark brick, the +academy yet had a mournful and neglected look, as if, like man, it was +ruminating upon the more brutalized times and lessening enlightenment +false systems ever require. + +"Ah!" said Vesta's husband, "how many a poor boy thou hast sent from +yonder mutilated for life, honey, like the lovers of the queen bee." + +"How is that?" Vesta inquired. + +"You never heard of the queen bee? Women, when they die, may turn to +bees, and reverse their hard conditions in this life. The queen bee has +no rival in the hive; all other females there are immature, and all the +males are dying for the queen. She has five hundred lovers, so lovesick +for her that they never work, and forty times as many maids, like +Penelope's, all embroidering comb and wax." + +"How was that proved?" + +"By putting the bees in a glass house and watching them. To God all +mankind may be in a glass hive, too, and every buzzer's secret biography +be kept." + +"And the queen bee's honeymoon?" + +"From her that word is taken. She flies high into the air and meets a +lover by chance; she has so many that one is sure to be met; she kisses +him in that crystal eddy of sunshine, and, in the transport, he is +wounded to the heart. How many young drones from the academy have seen +thee once and swooned for life!" + +"But the queen bee also has a fate some time, sir?" + +"Yes. She leaves the ancient hive at last, and settles on an unsightly +forest-tree somewhere, and all that love her follow: the long-neglected +herb becomes busy with music and sweetness, and the flashing of silver +wings, till into some gum-tree cone the farmer gathers the swarm, and it +is their home." + +Vesta looked up at the poetical illustration, and saw her husband's +conical hat, into which she had been hived, and her eyes fell to her +mourning weeds. + +"Oh, my father!" she thought; "has he kept his good resolutions! It is +all I have left to hope for." + +They travelled down the aisles of the level forest, sometimes the +holly-trees, in their green leafage and red fruit, sometimes the cleanly +pine-tree's green, enriching the brown concavity of oaks; and at the +scattered settlement of Kingston, the Jackson candidate for governor, +Mr. Carroll, bowed from his door. Crossing Morumsco Creek, they bore to +the east, and soon saw, on a plain, the still animate ecclesiastical +hamlet of Rehoboth, extending its two ancient churches across the +vision. + +The road ran to the bank of the River Pocomoke, where a ferry was still +maintained to the opposite shore and the Virginia land of Accomac, and +the cold tide, without a sail, went winding to an oystery estuary of the +bay, where the mud at the bottom was so soft that vessels aground in it +could still continue sailing, as on the muggy globe that Noah came to +shore in. + +Close by were oyster-shells high as a natural bluff, made by the Indian +gourmands before John Smith's voyage of navigation. + +Vesta was set out at the great, ruined Episcopal church that, like a +castle of brick, made the gateway of Rehoboth; while William Tilghman +and Rhoda strolled into the open door of the brick Presbyterian church +farther on, and Milburn put up the horses at the tavern. + +"William," Rhoda asked, "was this the first Presbyterian church ever +made yer?" + +"The first in America, Rhoda. This was Rev. Francis Makemie's church. He +lived in Virginia, not far from here, where no other worship was +permitted but ours, so he came over the Pocomoke and reared a church of +logs at this point, and this is the third or fourth church-building upon +the spot. Rehoboth then came to be such a point for worship that the +Established Church put up yonder noble old edifice, as if to overawe +this Calvinistic one, in 1735." + +"It's a quare old house," said Rhoda. "The little doors that opens from +the vestiblulete into the side galleries sent a draught right down the +preacher's back at the fur end, and when he give out the hymn, 'Blow ye +the trumpet, blow,' he always blowed his nose twice. So they boarded up +the galleries and let the ceiling down flat, and if we go up thar we can +see the other old round ceiling, William." + +So they went up the narrow stairs from the door, and came into the tubes +of galleries all closed from the congregation, and there, sitting down +in the obscurity, the preacher passed his arm around Rhoda's waist. + +"Take keer," she said; "maybe you was predestined to be lost yer. I'm +skeered to be up yer half in the dark, even with a good man." + +Nevertheless, she came a little closer to him, and looked into his eyes +with her arch, demure ones. The young rector suddenly kissed her. + +"You've brought it on yourself, Rhoda, by looking so pretty in this +stern old place of creeds and catechisms. Could you love me if I asked +you?" + +"You couldn't love me true, William. Your heart is in t'other old church +among the bats and foxes, where Aunt Vesty sits this minute." + +"No, my sorrow is there, Rhoda. I am trying to build a nest for my +heart. We all must love." + +"William, I don't think a young man in love can remember so much history +when he's sittin' in the dark by his gal." + +"Love among the ruins is always melancholy, Rhoda." + +"Yes, William, and your love comes out of 'em: the ruins of your old +first love. I couldn't make you happy." + +"Try," said William; "my fancy wavers towards you. You are a beautiful +girl." + +"Yes," said Rhoda, practically, "it's time I was gittin' married. I +think I'll take you on trial, and watch Aunt Vesty to see if she is +jealous of me." + +All differences of education passed away, when, standing for a moment +with this tall, willowy girl in his arms, her ardent nature in the blush +of uncertainty, her very coquetry languishing, like health taking +religion captive, the rector of Princess Anne felt that there is no +medicine for love but love. + +They walked together around the square old edifice, among the graves of +Tilghmans, Drydens, Revells, and Beauchamps, and saw the round-capped +windows and double doors in arched brick, and, passing back along the +road, entered the enclosure of the grand old Episcopal church, which was +nearly eighty feet long, and presented its broadside of blackish brick, +and double tier of spacious windows, to the absolute desertion of this +forest place. + +The churchyard was a copse of gum-tree and poplar suckers, and berry +bushes, with apple-trees and cedars and wild cherry-trees next above, +and higher still the damp sycamores and maples, growing out of myrtle +nearly knee-deep upon the waves of old graves. + +In beautiful carpentry, the thirteen windows on this massive side upheld +in their hand-worked sashes more than four hundred panes of dim glass, +and two great windows in the gable had fifty panes each, and stood firm, +though the wall between them, fifty feet in width, had fallen in, and +been replaced with poorer workmanship. In the opposite gable was another +door that had been forced open, and, as they stepped across the sill, a +crack, like ice first stepped upon, went splitting the long and lofty +vacancy with warning rumbles. + +Now the whole interior, in fine perspective, stood exposed, at least +seventy-five by fifty feet, like a majestic hall unbroken by any +side-galleries, and with double stories of windows shedding a hazy +light, and, at the distant end, a low pulpit, with spacious altar. The +walls of this neglected temple were two feet thick, and its high ceiling +was kept from falling down by ten rude wooden props of recent rough +carpentry; the pews were stately, high-fenced things, numbered in white +letters on a black ground, and each four-sided, to contain ten persons; +the rotting damask cushions in many of them told of a former +aristocracy, while now all the congregation could be assembled in a +single pew, and worship was unknown but once a year, when the bishop +came to read his liturgy to dust and desolation. + +So, on the opposite western cape of the Chesapeake, shivered the Roman +priests of Calvert's foundation, in the waste of old St. Mary's; the +folds had left the shepherds, and fifty people only came to worship in +the kirk of the earliest Presbyterians. + +Two tall, once considered elegant, stoves were nearly midway up the +cracking church-floor; and Mary, the free woman, had made a fire in one +of them, and the pine wood was roaring, and the long height of pipe was +smoking. Startled by the fire, a venerable opossum came out of one of +the pews, and waggled down the aisle, like a gray devotee who had said +his prayers, and feared no man. + +Vesta was reading her prayer-book aloud near the stove to the pretty +widow and Grandmother Tilghman. In a few moments the young rector +emerged from a curious old gallery for black people, by the door, +wearing his surplice; and he read the service at the desk, plaintive and +simple, Milburn and his group responding in the room a thousand might +have worshipped in. + +"Cousin Vesta," the minister said, after the service, "Miss Holland is +going to try to love me. Mr. Milburn, may I address her?" + +"She is a wilful piece," Meshach said; "you must school her first. Let +my wife give my consent." + +Vesta went to both, and kissed them: + +"I feel so much encouraged, dear Rhoda and William, to see love +beginning all about me. Now, Norah, if you could be just to James +Phoebus, who is proving his love to you, perhaps, with his life!" + +"Yes, that is a match I approve of," said Grandmother Tilghman, "but I +don't want Bill to marry. Disappointed men make rash selections." + +"Oh," said Rhoda, "don't conglatulate him too soon; I haven't tuk him +yet. He's goin' teach me outen the books, and I'll teach him outen the +forest." + +They walked together to the river bank, and Mrs. Dennis had the poor +woman, Mary, tell the adventures of Jimmy Phoebus to save her from +slavery. All were deeply moved. + +"Now, Norah," Grandmother Tilghman said, "the moment that man comes back +you go to him and kiss him, and say, 'James, you have been the only +father to my son. Do you want me to be your wife?' This world is made +for marrying, Norah. Women have no other career. Nature does not value +the brain of Shakespeare, but keeps the seed of every vagrant plant +warm, and marries everything." + +"Well," said Vesta, "Norah loves James Phoebus; don't you, Norah?" + +The widow blushed. + +"Take him, my pretty neighbor," said Milburn. + +As they all looked at her, she suddenly cried: + +"I want to, indeed. I would have done so before, but I am superstitious. +Who is it that feeds me so mysteriously?" + +"Has he been coming of late?" asked Mrs. Tilghman. + +"No, not since you were married, Vesta." + +"Then I think it will come no more," Milburn said. "You have waited +longer than I did." + +His eyes sought his wife's. He added: + +"Will I ever be more than your husband?" + +"Yes," said Grandmother Tilghman, with a special effort, "when you wear +a hat a young wife is not ashamed of." + +All felt a cold thrill at these words from the blind woman. Milburn +said, gravely, + +"How can you know about hats, when you cannot see them?" + +"Oh," said Grandmother, herself a little frightened, "that hat I think I +can smell." + + * * * * * + +That same night, in Princess Anne, Mrs. Dennis, in her little cottage, +undressed herself by a fragment of hearth-fire that now and then flashed +upon the picture of her husband, as he had left her sixteen years +before, when Levin was a baby--a rich blonde, youthful man, dressed in +naval uniform, like Decatur, whose birthplace was so near his own. + +His golden hair curled upon his forehead, his blue eyes were full of +handsome daring, and his red, pouting mouth was like a woman's; upon his +arm a corded chapeau was held, epaulettes tasselled his shoulders, his +rich blue coat was slashed with gold along the wide lappels, and stood +stiffly around his neck and fleecy stock and fan-shaped shirt-ruffles. +He seemed to be a mere boy, but of the mettle which made American +officers and privateersmen of his days the only guerdons of the +republicanism of the seas against the else universal dominion of +England. + +This portrait, the last of her family possessions, was the young +sailor's parting gift to her when he sailed in the _Ida_, leaving her a +mere girl, with his son upon her breast. The picture hung above the +lowly door, the bolt whereof was never fastened in that serene society, +and seldom is to this day. + +Mrs. Dennis knelt upon the bare floor, and raised her branching arms, +white as her spirit, to the lover of her youth: + +"Oh, thou I have adored since God gave me to feel the beauty and +strength of man in my childhood, if I have ever looked on man but thee +with love or wavering, rebuke me now for the offence I am to do, if such +it be, in choosing another father for thy boy!" + +A low wail seemed to be breathed upon the midnight from somewhere near, +and a sick man's cough seemed to break the perfect silence. The widow's +hand instinctively covered her bosom as she listened, and, deep in the +spirit of her prayer, she continued: + +"Oh, Bowie, if thou livest, let me know! May I not live to see thee come +and find me in another's arms; thy look would kill me. If thou art +detained by enemies, by savage people, or by foreign love, no matter +what thy errors, I will still be true! Give me some token by the God +that has thee in his keeping, whether thou liest on the ocean's floor or +lookest from the stars. If thou art dead, love of my youth, assure me, +oh, I pray thee!" + +The wail and hacking cough seemed to be repeated very near. A footstep +seemed to come. + +The door flew open, and in the moonlight stood a man, pale as a ghost, +of bandit look, with Spanish-looking garments, and head and neck tied up +with cerements, like wounded people in the cockpits of ships of war. + +He bent upon her the eyes of the portrait above the door. How changed! +how like! There seemed upon his throat the stain of blood. + +The widow, fascinated, frozen still, let fall her arms of ivory, and, as +she gazed, her beautiful neck, strained in horror and astonishment, +received upon its snow the rapture of Diana's shine. + +The effigy, so like her husband, yet so altered, reached towards her his +hand, on which a diamond caught the moon, and seemed to drink it. A +wail, like the others she had heard, broke from his lips, and said the +words: + +"To lose those charms! To lose that heart! O God!" + +As thus he stood, ghastly and supplicating, as if he would fall and die +upon her threshold, another hand came forward in the moonlight, and drew +the door between them. A voice she had not heard tenderly exclaimed: + +"I love him as I never loved A male!" + +"It is my husband's spirit," the widow breathed. "I cannot marry." + +She swooned upon her floor, before the dying fire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +VIRGIE'S FLIGHT. + + +Snow Hill, when Virgie looked forth upon it, almost seemed built on +snow, a white sand composing the streets, gardens, and fields, though +the humid air brought vegetation even from this, and vines clambered, +willows drooped, flowers blossomed, on winter's brink, and great +speckled sycamores, like freckled giants, and noble oaks, rose to +heights betokening rich nutrition at their roots. + +Heat and moisture and salt had made the land habitable, and the wind +from a receded sea had piled up the sand long ago into mounds now +covered with verdure, which the freak or fondness of the manor owner had +called a hill, and put his own name thereto, perhaps with memories of +old Snow Hill in London. + +Upon this apparent bank or hill two venerable churches stood, both of +English brick, the Episcopalian, covered with ivy, and the Presbyterian, +which had given its name to the first synod of the Kirk in the new +world, and now stood, surrounded with gravestones, where the visitor +might read Scottish names left to orphans at Worcester, as yonder at the +Episcopate graveyard, names left to English orphans in the same rolling +tide of blood; and Worcester was the name of the county, as the court +and jail might tell. + +Hidden in the sand, like Benjamin's cup in the bag of flinty corn, a +golden lustre yet seemed to betray Snow Hill, as the sun rose into its +old trees, and woke the liquid-throated birds, and finally made the old +brick and older whitewashed houses gleam, and exhale a soft, blue smoke. +Virgie heard a sound as of hoofs upon a bridge, and saw, across the +lily-bordered river, the Custis carriage winding up a golden road. + +"Alone!" said Virgie; "love has gone. Now I must live for freedom." + +"Breakfast, Miss," spoke a neat, kind-faced, yet ready woman, of +Virgie's own size and color; "my husband is going to drive you out of +town before any of the white people are up to see you." + +At the table was a mulatto man, whom the woman introduced as her +husband. + +"Mrs. Hudson," Virgie said, "you are doing so much for me! may the good +Lord pay you back!" + +"Oh, no," replied the woman, "I am always up at this hour. I work hard, +because I am trying to buy my mother, who is still a slave." + +"How came you free?" Virgie asked, wistfully. + +"I saved a sick gentleman's life, and he bought me for it, and gave me +my freedom. See, I have a pass that tells the color of my eyes and skin, +my weight, and everything. With this I can go into Delaware and the free +states. I wish you had one, Miss Virgie." + +"Oh, Mrs. Hudson, I dearly wish I had. Let me read it. Why, I could +almost pass for you, from this description." + +"Indeed you could," the housewife said; "we are not of the same age, but +white people don't read a pass very careful." + +"How I would love anybody that could get me such a pass!" + +"I have given my word of honor that I will never lend it. Much as I like +to help my color to freedom, I cannot break my word. To-morrow I have to +go into Delaware with my pass to nurse a lady." + +"You attend the sick, Mrs. Hudson?" + +"Yes, I have a kind of call that way, Miss Virgie. Ever since I was a +girl I pulled herbs and tried them on myself, and studied 'tendin' on +people, watchin' their minds, that is so much of sickness, and how to +wrap and rub them. My husband oysters down in the inlets. Here is his +wagon." + +"The Lord remember you in need, dear Mrs. Hudson." + +The old wagon, an open thing, to peddle oysters and fish, was driven +across the town to the south, and soon was in the open country, going +towards Virginia. A smell of salt bay seemed in the air; the hawks' +nests in dead trees indicated the element that subsisted everything, and +the trees in the fields were often lordly in size, though sand and small +oak and pine woods were seldom out of sight. As they turned into a lane +near a little roadside place of worship, a young white man rode by on +horseback, and, seeing Virgie, reined in and shouted, + +"Purty, purty, purty as peaches and cream! Ole Virginny blood is in them +eyes, by the Ensign!" + +The colored man muttered, "Go 'long, Mr. Wise!" + +"By the Ensign now," continued the man, who was young, but of a +cadaverous countenance, "if 'tis a Maryland huzzy, she is marvellous. +What's the name, angel gal?" + +"She's a Miss Spence. I'm a takin' her home yer," the mulatto man +interposed, hastily, and went in the gate, while the horseman, with a +shout like one intoxicated, gallopped towards the north. + +"I'm sorry he seen you, sho'!" the conductor said; "that's Henry A. +Wise, the big lawyer from Accomac. Maybe he'll inquire at Snow Hill, +where he's goin' to court." + +"What house is this, Mr. Hudson?" Virgie asked, seeing at the end of the +short lane a thick-set house and porch, with small farm-buildings around +it. + +"That's ole Spring Hill, built by the first of the Milburns; by the one +that made the will leavin' his hat and nothin' else to be son. It's got +brick ends. I 'spect they had money when they come here, Virgie." + +The quickened mettle of the girl noticed that he had ceased to call her +"Miss." + +"Now," said Hudson, "I'm goin' to leave you here with my sister till I +see about gittin' a boat. If you is tracked to Snow Hill, it'll be found +you come out this way, now. The inlets run up along the coast yer past +the Delaware line. I'm a goin' to sail you past Snow Hill agin an' +double on 'em. Yes, Miss Virgie, I'll git you away if it costs all I +have got together." + +An excited light seemed to be in his eyes. + +Virgie was put in a loft over the kitchen of the house, and left to her +contemplations. The place was nearly dark, and she was jaded for want of +sleep, the past night's excitement having shaken her nervous system, and +soon she began to doze fitfully, and dream almost awake. + +She saw Meshach Milburn, who seemed to have become a little, old-faced +child, reaching up to an older person, very like himself in features, +and taking a steeple hat from his hand. This older child reached back, +and took a similar hat from another, still older; and then the first two +vanished, and two old men were giving and receiving the hat. + +Then nothing was left but the hat alone, which was a huge object with +fire belching from it, and by the flame a circle of wizards went round +and round in dizzy glee, all wearing hats of similar form, but higher, +higher, till they reached the sky and stars, and each was spouting +flames. + +Among these riotous wizards she recognized the features of the tall +kidnapper and of Judge Custis; and Vesta, too, was there, and old Aunt +Hominy, all giving a hasty look of shame or sorrow or severity at her, +till she, fearing, yet fascinated, leaped into the circle, and danced +around and around with the rest, till her feet made a fiery path and her +head was burning hot, and finally she lost her balance, and fell into +the great hat, whose high walls, like mountains, surrounded her, and +nothing could she see in the bottom of the old felt tile but a little +grave, and peeping from it was the face of the murdered child the +kidnapper had taken away. + +"Come," said a voice, and Virgie awoke, with fever in her temples and +hot hands, to see the head of her conductor looking into the loft as if +with red-hot eyeballs. + +She only knew that she was going again in the old wagon, and a boy was +in it, and that after a certain time, she could not tell how long, she +was helped to the ground at an old landing, where the road stopped, and +was placed on board a sort of scow, which the breeze, laden with +mosquitoes, was carrying into a broad, islet-sprinkled water. + +The man Hudson was sounding, and was watching the sail, while the boy +steered, and Virgie was lying, sick and cold, in the middle of the +skiff, covered with the man's large coat. + +It seemed to her to be afternoon, and the ocean somewhere near, as she +heard low thunder, like breaking waves; and once, when she rose, in a +stupefied way, to look, there were familiar objects on both shores, and +she thought it was the Old Town beach near Snow Hill inlet. + +A little later the man brought her oysters and some cold pork-rib, with +corn-bread, to eat, and the shores grew closer, and finally seemed +almost to meet, as the skiff, scraping the bottom, darted through a +narrow strait. + +Then the stars were shining over her, and the waters grew wide again, +and, lying in a trance of flying lights and images, she thought she felt +her lips kissed, and a voice say "Darling!" + +Finally, she felt lifted up and carried, and, when she could realize the +situation, she found herself lying on a pile of shingles at an old +wharf, and the man, beside her, was weeping, as he watched the boat +receding down a moonlit aisle of wave. + +"My boy, my poor ole woman," she heard her conductor mutter, "I never +can come back to you no mo'!" + +"Why?" spoke Virgie, hardly realizing what she said. + +"Because--because--_you_ did it!" the man exclaimed, with ardent eyes, +seen through his streaming tears. + +"Oh, tell me where I am!" Virgie said. "Is it far to freedom now?" + +She looked at the sky, all agitated with clouds and stars moving across +each other, and it seemed the nearest world of all. + +"Is my father there?" thought Virgie, "my dear white father? Can he see +me here, sick and lonely, and hate me?" + +"We're at de Shingle landing; yonder is St. Martin's," said the negro, +cautiously; "there's two roads nigh whar we air, goin' to the North, +dear Virgie; one is the stage-road, and t'other is the shingle-trail +through the Cypress Swamp. + +"Take the road that's the safest to Freedom," Virgie sighed. + +In a few moments, walking over the ground, they came to a place where +the cart-trail crossed a sandy road, and went beyond it, along the edge +of a small stream. The man walked a few steps up the better road +undecidedly, and suddenly drew Virgie back into the bushes, but not +quick enough to be unobserved by two men coming on in an old, rattling +wagon. + +"My skin!" cried the man driving, a youngish man, of sharp, but not +unkindly eyes, "thar's a sniptious gal. Come out yer and show yourself!" + +Virgie felt the man's eyes resting on her, but not with the coarse ardor +of his companion, who wore a wide slouched hat and red shirt, and was +bandaged around the head and throat, yet from his ghastly pale face, +like death, on which some blood seemed to be smeared, and to stain the +bandage at his neck, lay a coarse leer, and he kissed his mouth at her, +and uttered: + +"_O flexuosa! esquisita!_ It is dainty, Sorden!" + +"Now ef we was a going t'other way, Van Dorn," the driver said, "we +could give them a lift. Boy, what are you out fur? Where's your passes?" + +"Yer they is. It's my wife an' me, gwyn to nurse a lady in Delaware." + +"Let me see!" He puffed his cigar upon the paper, and exclaimed, "Prissy +Hudson? why, my skin! that's my wife's nurse. And that ain't the same +woman! where did you get this pass?" + +"Go on, Sorden!" coughed the other man, "I'm bleeding. Let me lie down." + +His eyes had lost their wanton fire, and were hollow and glazing. The +driver caught him in his arms, and uttered the kind words, + +"I love him as I never loved A male!" + +"Give me back the passes!" exclaimed the mulatto man, as the wagon +started south. + +"No," shouted the driver, "I shall keep them as evidence against Prissy +Hudson for assisting a runaway!" + +"Lost! lost!" muttered the mulatto. "Now, darling, the swamp's our only +road!" + +He seized her in his flight, and pulled her up the cart-track along the +swampy branch. + +"What have you done?" cried Virgie. + +"Come! come!" answered the man. "Here is no place to talk." + +With fever making her strong, and heightening, yet clouding, her +impressions, so that time seemed extinct, and fear itself absorbed in +frenzy, the girl followed the man into the deep sand of the track, and +scarcely noted the melancholy cypress-trees rising around them out of +pools that sucked poison from the starlight, basking there beside the +reptile. + +Flowers, with such rich tints that night scarcely darkened them, sent up +their musky perfumes, and vines, in silent festoons, drooped from high +tips of giant trees like Babel's aspiring builders, turned back and +stricken dumb. They fell all limp, and, hanging there in death, their +beards still seemed to grow in the ghastly vitality of an immortal +dream. + +The sounds of restless animation, intenser in the night, as if the moon +were mistress here, and wakened every insect brain and tongue to +industry, grew prodigious in the sick girl's ears, and seemed to deaden +every word her male companion had to say, and, like enormous pendulums +of sound, the roaming crickets and amphibia swung to and fro their +contradictions, like viragos doomed to wait for eternity, and each +insist upon the last word to say: + +"You did!" "You didn't!" "You did!" "You didn't, you didn't, you +didn't!" "You did, you did!" + +Thus the eternal quarrel, begun before Hector and the Greeks were born, +had raged in the Cypress Swamp, and increased in loudness every night, +till on the flying slave girl's ears it pealed like God and Satan +disputing for her soul. + +As this idea increased upon her fancy she heard the very words these +warring powers hurled to and fro, as now the myriads of the angels +cheered together, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" and, like an army of +spiders, assembled in the swamp, a deep refrain of "Hell, hell, hell!" +groaned back. + +"Hallelujah!" "Hell!" "Hallelujah!" + +She found herself crying, as she stumbled on, "Hallelujah! hallelujah!" + +The swamp increased in depth and solemnity as they drew near the rushing +sluices of the Pocomoke, and kept along them, the trail being now a mere +ditch and chain of floating logs where no vehicle could pass, and the +man himself seemed frightened as he led the way from trunk to float and +puddle to corduroy, sometimes balancing himself on a revolving log, or +again plunging nearly to his waist in vegetable muck; but the +light-footed girl behind had the footstep of a bird, and hopped as if +from twig to twig, and seemed to slide where he would sink; and the man +often turned in terror, when he had fallen headlong from some +treacherous perch, to see her slender feet, in crescent sandals, play in +the moonlit jungle like hands upon a harp. + +He stared at her in wonder, but too wistfully. The cat-briers hung +across the opening, and grapevines, like cables of sunken ships, fell +many a fathom through the crystal waves of night; but the North Star +seemed to find a way to peep through everything, and Virgie heard the +words from Hudson, once, of-- + +"Jess over this branch a bit we is in Delaware!" + +Then the crickets and tree-frogs, the bullfrogs and the whippoorwills, +the owls and everything, seemed to drown his voice and halloo for hours, +"We is in Delaware! we is, we is! we is in Del-a-a-ware!" + +A little warming, kindly light at length began to blaze their trail +along, as if some gentle predecessor, with a golden adze, had chipped +the funereal trees and made them smile a welcome. Small fires were +burning in the vegetable mould or surface brush, and the opacity of the +forest yielded to the pretty flame which danced and almost sang in a +household crackle, like a young girl in love humming tunes as she +kindles a fire. + +The mighty swamp now grew distinct, yet more inaccessible, as its inner +edges seemed transparent in the line of fires, like curtains of lace +against the midnight window-panes. The Virginia creeper, light as the +flounces of a lady, went whirling upward, as if in a dance; the fallen +giant trees were rich in hanging moss; laurel and jasmine appeared +beyond the bubbling surface of long, green morass, where life of some +kind seemed to turn over comfortably in the rising warmth, like sleepers +in bed. + +Suddenly the man took Virgie up and carried her through a stream of +running water, brown with the tannin matter of the swamp. + +"We is in Delaware," he said, soon after, as they reached a camp of +shingle sawyers, all deserted, and lighted by the fire, the golden chips +strewn around, and the sawdust, like Indian meal, that suggested good, +warm pone at Teackle Hall to Virgie. + +She put her feet, soaked with swamp water, at a burning log to warm, and +hardly saw a mocasson snake glide round the fire and stop, as if to dart +at her, and glide away; for Virgie's mind was attributing this kindly +fire to the presence of Freedom. + +"Oh, I should like to lie here and go to sleep," she said, languidly; "I +am so tired." + +The man Hudson, wringing wet with the journey's difficulties, threw his +arms around her and drew her to his damp yet fiery breast. + +"We will sleep here, then," he breathed into her lips; "I love you!" + +The incoherence of everything yielded to these sudden words, and on the +young maid's startled nature came a reality she had not understood: her +guide was drunken with passion. + +She struggled in his arms with all her might, but was as a switch in a +maniac's hands. + +"I stole my ole woman's pass fur you," the infatuated ruffian sighed; +"you said you would love the man who got you one, Virgie. You is mine!" + +A suffocating sense and heat, more than animal nature, seemed to enclose +them. The girl struggled free, her lithe figure exerted with all her +dying strength to preserve her modesty. + +"Hudson," she cried, "I will tell your wife! God forgive you for +insulting a poor, sick, helpless girl in this wild swamp!" + +"My wife is dead to me, Virgie. You is the only wife I has now. Here we +shall sleep and forgit my children and my little home that was enough +fur me, gal, till your beauty come and tuk me from it." + +"Stop!" the girl called, with her face blanched even in her fever, +though not with fear, as her white blood rose proudly. "If you do not +keep away, I will throw myself in that deep pool and drown. I would +rather die than cheat your good wife as you have done." + +"Nothing is yer," the negro said, "but you, an' me, an' Love. I would +not let you drown. You are too beautiful. We will get to the free states +together and live for each other. Kiss me!" + +He darted upon her again and bent her fair head back by the fallen +braids of her silky hair. + +The tall woods filled with majestic light; something roared as if the +winds had gone astray and were rushing towards them. + +"Hark!" cried Virgie. "God is coming to punish you." + +As she spoke the ground beside them burst into flames and black smoke. +The man's arms relaxed; he looked around him and exclaimed, + +"It's the underground fire. Run fur your life!" + +He led the way, running to the north, as they had been going. In a +moment fire, like a golden wall, rose across their path. + +They turned whence they had come, and the fire there was like a lake of +lava, and over it the enormous trees seemed to warm their hands, and up +the dry vines, like monkeys of flame, the forked spirits of the burning +earth dodged and chased each other. + +"Gal, I can't leave you to perish," the desperate man shouted; "you must +love me or we'll die together." + +He threw his wet great-coat around her head, so that she could not +breathe the smoke nor spoil her beauty, and dashed into the fire ahead +of them. + + * * * * * + +Virgie awoke, lying upon the ground, the stars still standing in the +sky, but some streaks of light in the east betokening dawn. + +Her hands were full of soot, her skirts were burned, some smarting pains +were in her legs and feet, but she could walk. + +"Where is that poor, deluded man?" she thought. + +A groan came from the ground, and there lay something nearly naked, +burrowing his face in a pool of swamp water. + +"Thank the Lord you are not dead," the girl said, "but have lived to +repent and be a better man." + +He rose up and looked at her with a face all blackened and raw and +hideous to see. + +"Merciful Lord!" exclaimed Virgie; "what ails you, pore man?" + +"The Lord has punished me for my wickedness," he groaned. "Virgie, you +must lead me now; I am gone blind." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +VIRGIE'S FLIGHT (_continued_). + + +"Can you walk, Hudson?" asked Virgie, when her horror would permit. + +"Yes, child, I can walk, I reckon; but both my eyes is burned out. Oh, +my pore old wife: she could nurse me so well. I have lost her." + +The girl comforted the sightless man, and led him on, indifferent to +danger. He waded the deep places, where the water soothed his wounds and +filled his blistered sockets with cool mud. + +"Blessed is the pure in heart," he murmured, as they reached some sandy +ground and sank down. "You, Virgie, can see God; I never can." + +The great Cypress Swamp of Delaware--counterpart of the Dismal Swamp in +Virginia--the northern border of which they had now reached, had +probably been once a great inlet or shallow bay in the encroaching +sand-bar of the peninsula, and was filled with oysters and fish, which +in time were imprisoned and became the manure of a cypress forest that +soon started up when springs of water flowed under the sand and +moistened the seed; and for ages these forests had been growing, and had +been prostrated, and had dropped their leaves and branches in the great +inlet's bed, until a deep ligneous mass of combustible stuff raised +higher and higher the level of the swamp, and, dried with ages more of +time than dried the mummies of the Pharaohs, it often opened tunnels to +burrowing fire, which at some point of its course belched forth and +lighted the hollow trees, and raged for weeks. Such a fire they had come +through. + +Virgie, in the early daylight, came upon a small, swarthy boy, driving a +little cart and ox. + +"Are you a colored boy?" Virgie asked. + +"No," answered the boy, proudly. "I'm Indian-river Indian; reckon I'm a +_little_ nigger." + +"Take this poor man in and I will pay you. Where are you going?" + +"To Dagsborough landing, for salt." + +"Leave me at Dagsborough, at the old Clayton house," spoke up the blind +man; "it's empty. I can die thar or git a doctor." + +Before the people were up they entered a little hamlet, on that stage +road from which they had made the night's detour, and saw a few small +houses and a little shingle-boarded church near by among the woods, and +one large house of a deserted appearance was at the town's extremity. +The man said, "This is John M. Clayton's birthplace: my wife used to +work yer." + +"Virgie!" exclaimed a familiar voice. + +The girl turned, her ears still ringing with the echoes of the swamp, +and saw a face she knew, and ran to the breast beneath it, crying, + +"Samson Hat! Oh, friend, love me like my mother. I am very ill." + +"Pore, darlin' child," Samson said; "no love will I ever bodder you wid +agin but a father's. Why air you so fur from home?" + +"I'm sold, Samson: I'm trying to get free. The kidnappers is after me. +Oh, save me!" + +"I've jist got away from 'em, Virgie. The ole woman, Patty Cannon, set +me free. I promised her I would kidnap somebody younger dan ole Samson. +Bless de Lord! I come dis way!" + +He led her into the oak-trees of the old church grove, where English +worship had been celebrated just a hundred years; and she gave him money +to buy medicine and get a doctor for the blind man, and to purchase her +a shawl at the store. Then Virgie sank into a fevered sleep under the +old oak-trees, and, when she knew more, was gliding in a boat that +Samson was sailing down a broad piece of water, and her head was in his +lap. + +"You air pure as an angel yit, my little creatur," Samson said; "and now +I'm a-takin' you down the Indian River into Rehoboth Bay; and arter dark +I'll git you up the beach to Cape Hinlopen, and maybe I kin buy you a +passage on some of dem stone boats dat's buildin' de new breakwater dar, +and dat goes back to de Norf." + +"Oh, Samson, if I could love any man it would be you," Virgie said; "but +I cannot love any now except my dear white father. Who is he?" + +"De Lord, I reckon, has got yo' pedigree, Virgie." + +"Am I dying, Samson?" asked the girl, wistfully, with her brilliant eyes +full of fever. "Oh, friend, let me die so good that Miss Vesty and my +father can come and kiss me!" + +"Tell me about Princess Anne an' my dear old Marster Meshach Milburn, +dat I'se leff so long, Virgie!" the old pugilist said, wiping his eyes +of tears. + +She began to try to remember, but faces and events ran into each other, +and she felt aware that her mind was wandering, but could not bring it +back; and so the boat, sailing in sight of the ocean and the stately +ships there, grounded after noon almost within sound of the surf. + +Sheltered in a piece of woods for some hours, Virgie found herself, at +dark, carried in old Samson's arms up a beach of the sea where the sand +was yielding and seldom firm, except at the very edge of the surf, which +rolled ominously and at times became a roar, and often swept to the low, +sedgy bank. Lightning played across the black sea, lifting it up, as it +seemed, and showing vessels making either out or in, and finally thunder +burst upon the gathering confusion, and Samson said: + +"Dar's a gun in dat thunder!" + +The next flash of lightning showed a vessel close to the shore, coming +rapidly in on the southeaster, and her gun was fired again, and feeble +hailing was heard; but the storm now broke all at once, and a wave threw +Samson to the ground and nearly carried Virgie back with it to the +boiling sea; but the faithful old man fought for her, and she ran at his +side, uttering no complaint, till once, as they stopped to get breath, +and the heavenly fire drew into sight every foot, as it seemed, of that +vast ocean, cannonading it also with majestic artillery, the girl +sighed, + +"Freedom is beautiful!" + +"Oh, Virgie," Samson answered, covering her with his own coat, "if I +could buy you free, pore chile, I'd a-mos' go into slavery to save you +from dis night." + +"I can die in there," Virgie said, pointing to the waves; "they must not +catch me." + +A wail came out of the storm, so close before that it hushed them both, +and the lightning lifted upon their eyes a stranding vessel, so close, +it seemed, that they could touch it, and she was full of people, +hallooing, but not in any intelligible tongue. + +As the black night fell upon this magic-lantern sketch they heard a +crash of wave and wood, and falling spars and awful shrieks, and, when +the next vivid flash of lightning came, nothing was visible but floating +substance, and spluttering cries came out of the bosom of the sea, and a +black man, flung, as if out of a cannon, upon a wave that drenched these +wanderers, struck the ground at their feet, and looked into Samson's +eyes as the convulsion of death seized his chest and feet. + +Before they could speak to each other, the beach was full of similar +corpses, a moment before alive as themselves, and every one was naked +and black. + +"It's a slave-ship, foundered yer," cried Samson. + +He caught at a yawl-boat driving past him, in the many things that +drifted around their feet, and Virgie saw painted upon its bow the word +"_Ida_." + +"Samson," she said, feeling all the influences of Princess Anne again, +and forgetting her own misery, "it's Mrs. Dennis's husband come home and +shipwrecked." + + * * * * * + +When Virgie next remembered, she was on a vast hill of sand, near a +lighthouse that was built upon it, and flashed its lenses sleepily upon +a sullen break of day, the mutual lights showing the tops of trees +rising out of the sand, where a forest had been buried alive, like +little twigs in amber. + +Almost naked with fighting the storm, Samson Hat slept at her side, +peaceful as hale age and virtue could enjoy the balm of oblivion in +life. + +"Happy are the black," thought the sick girl, "that take no thought on +things this white blood in me makes so big: on freedom and my father. +Father, do love me before I die!" + +She knelt on the great sand hillock by Cape Henlopen and prayed till +she, too, lost her knowledge of self, and was sleeping again at Samson's +side. She dreamed of innumerable angels flying all around her, and yet +their voices were so harsh they awoke her at last, and still these +seraphs were flying in the day. She saw their wings, and moved the old +man at her side to say, + +"Samson, why cannot these angels sing?" + +The old man looked up and faintly smiled: + +"Poor Virgie, dey is wild-fowls, all bewildered by dat storm: geese and +swans. Dey can't sing like angels." + +"Yes," said the girl; "something sings, I know. What is it?" + +"Jesus, maybe," the negro answered, looking at her, his eyes full of +tears. + + * * * * * + +The great Breakwater, which required forty years and nearly a million +tons of stone to build it, was then just commencing, and where it was to +be, within the shallow bight of Henlopen, they saw the wrecks of many +vessels, some sunken, some shattered in collision, some stranded in the +marsh, proving the needs of commerce for such a work, and also the fury +of the storm that had so innocently vanished, like a sleeping tiger +after his bloody meal. + +In the gentle sunshine floated the American flag upon several vessels +there--the flag that first kissed the breeze upon that spot in the year +1776, when Esek Hopkins raised over the _Alfred_ the dyes of the peach +and cream in the centre of his little squadron. And there, along the low +bluff of the Kill, still lay the shingle-boarded town of Lewes, in the +torpor of nearly two hundred years, or since the Dutch De Vries had +settled it in 1631. Lord Delaware, Argall, and the Swede, Penn, +Blackbeard, Paul Jones, Lord Rodney, a thousand heroes, had known it +well; the pilots, like sea-gulls, had their nests there; the Marylanders +had invaded it, the Tories had seized it, pirates had been suckled +there; and now the courts and lawyers had forsaken it, to go inland to +Georgetown. + +"Virgie," said Samson, "I'll try to buy some of de stone-boat captains +to carry you to Phildelfy." + +He waded the Kill, carrying her, and left her in an old Presbyterian +church at the skirt of Lewes, and procured medicine for her, and then +labored in vain nearly all day to get her passage to a free state. The +reply was invariable: "Can't take the risk of the whippin'-post and +pillory for no nigger. Can't lose a long job like bringin' stone to the +Breakwater to save one nigger." + +At the hotel a colored man beckoned Samson aside--a fine-looking man, of +a gingerbread color--and they went into the little old disused +court-house, in the middle of a street, where there was a fire. + +"Brother," said the stranger, "I see by your actions that you're trying +to git a passage North. Is it fur yourself?" + +"No," Samson said, taking an inventory of the other's fine chest and +strength, and mentally wishing to have a chance at him; "I'm a free man, +and kin go anywhere; but I have a friend." + +"Why, old man," spoke the other, frankly, "I'm the agent of our society +at this pint." + +"What is it?" asked Samson, warily. + +"The Protection Society. They educated me right yer. I went to school +with white boys. Now, where is your friend?" + +"What kin you do fur her?" asked Samson. + +"It's a gal, is it? Why, I can just put her in my buggy, made and +provided for the purpose, and drive her to the Quaker settlement." + +"Where's that?" + +"Camden--only thirty miles off. I've got free passes all made out. Give +yourself, brother, no more concern." + +Samson looked at the handsome person long and well. The man stood the +gaze modestly. + +"Oh, if I had some knowledge!" spoke Samson; "I might as well be a slave +if I know nothin'. I can't read. I wish I could read your heart!" + +"I wish you could," said the man; "then you would trust me." + +"What is your name?" + +"Samuel Ogg." + +"I want you to hold up your hand and swear, Sam Ogg, that you will never +harm the pore chile I bring you. Say, 'Lord, let my body rot alive, an' +no man pity me, if I don't act right by her.'" + +"It's a severe oath," said the stranger, "but I see your kind interest +in the lady. Indeed, I'm only doing my duty." + +He repeated the words, however, and Samson added, "God deal with you, +Sam Ogg, as you keep dat oath. Now come with me!" + +The girl was found asleep, but delirious, her large eyes, in which the +blue and brown tints met in a kind of lake color, being wide open, and +almost lost in their long lashes, while flood and fire, sun and frost, +had beaten upon the slender encasement of her gentle life, that still +kept time like some Parian clock saved from a conflagration, in whose +crystal pane the golden pendulum still moves, though the hands point +astray in the mutilated face. + +Her teeth were shown through the loving lips she parted in her stormy +dreams, like waves tossing the alabaster sails of the nautilus, or like +some ear of Indian corn exposed in the gale that blows across the +tasselled field. + +Her raiment, partly torn from her, showed her supple figure and neck, +and, beneath her mass of silky hair, her white arm, like an ivory +serpent, sustained her head, her handsome feet being fine and high-bred, +like the soul that bounded in her maiden ambition. + +There had been days when such as she called Antony away from his wife, +and Caesar from his classical selfishness; when on many an Eastern throne +such beauty as this stirred to murmurous glory armies beyond compute, +and clashed the cymbals of prodigious conquests. She lay upon the +altar-cushions of the church, like young Isaac upon his father's altar, +and where the mourners knelt to pray for God's reconcilement, the +cruelty of their law flashed over her like Abraham's superstitious +knife. + +Priceless was this young creature, in noble hands, as wife or daughter, +human food or fair divinity, and all the precious mysteries of woman +awake in her to love and conjugality, like song and seed in the spring +bird; yet a hard, steely prejudice had shut her out from every +institution and equality, let every crime be perpetrated upon her, made +the scent of freedom in her nostrils worse than the incentive of the +thief, and has outlasted her half a century, and is self-righteous and +inflexible yet. + +In that old churchyard that enclosed her slept revolutionary officers, +who helped to gain freedom: they might be willing to rise with her, not +to be buried in the same enclosure. + +How small is religion, how false democracy, how far off are the +judgments of heaven! There stood over the pulpit an inscription, itself +presumptuous with aristocracy, saying, "The dead in Christ shall rise +first;" as if those truly dead in the humility of Christ would not +prefer to rise last! + +Samson watched his new friend narrowly, whose countenance was profoundly +piteous, and his teeth and lip made a "Tut-tut!" Satisfied with the man, +Samson knelt by Virgie and kissed her once. + +"Pore rose of slavery," said Samson, "forgive me dat I courted you like +a gal, instead of like an angel. I am old, and ashamed of myself. Dear, +draggled flower, we may never meet agin. May the Lord, if dis is his +holy temple, save you pure and find you a home, Virgie. Good-bye!" + +"Come," said the man, as Samson sat bowed and weeping, "the buggy is +ready; I'll wrap you warm, Miss." + +"Freedom!" spoke the girl, awakening; "oh, I must find it." + + * * * * * + +The next that Virgie knew, she was in a cabin loft, and voices were +heard speaking in a room below. + +"See me!" said one; "we sell you, dat's sho'! See me now! You make de +best of it. Sam Ogg yer, we sold twenty-two times. Sam will be sold wid +you and teach yo' de Murrell game." + +"Politely, gentlemen," said a feminine voice; "I don't know that I have +the nerve for it. My occupation has been marrying them. It is true that +the hue-and-cry has made that branch dull, but I had great talent for +it." + +"Kidnapping," said a third voice, "is running low. It surrounds the +whole slave belt from Illinois to Delaware. The laws of Illinois were +made in our interests till Governor Harrison, whose free man was +kidnapped, raised an excitement out there six years ago. Newt Wright, +Joe O'Neal, and Abe Thomas were the smartest kidnappers along the +Kentucky line. But Joe Johnson, who is getting ready to go south, will +be the last man of enterprise in the business. John A. Murrell's idea is +to divide fair with black men, sell and steal them back, and I think it +is sagacious. It's safer, any way, than Patty Cannon's other plan." + +"What is that, Mr. Ogg?" said the feminine-voiced negro. + +"Making away with the negro-traders, they say." + +"See me! see me!" exclaimed the first voice. "Dey'll hang her some day +fur dat." + +"Now," resumed Mr. Ogg, "a man of intelligence like you and me, Mr. +Ransom--pardon, sir, does your shackle incommode you? I'll stuff it with +some wool--" + +"Politely, Mr. Ogg; I'm ironed rather too tight." + +"I say, Mr. Ransom, you and I can always play the average slaveholder +for a fool. Why, I hardly get into any family before I make love to some +member of it, and if I don't vamose with a black wench, it's with her +mistress." + +"Ah, Mr. Ogg, they are perfectly fiendish in resenting _that!_" + +"Of course, but there's a grand tit-for-tat going through all nature. +Why, sir, the pleasures of the far South, to a man of art and enterprise +like you, far exceed this poor, plain region. Take the roof off slavery +and the blacks have rather the best of it; the whites would think so if +they could see what is going on." + +"Politely, Mr. Ogg; will not the entire institution some day blow itself +out, like one of their Western steamboats?" + +"No doubt of it, Mr. Ransom. When we have disposed of you, and you can +see the country for yourself, observe how sensitive slaveholding is! A +thousand anxieties lie in it. They believe in insurrections, rapes, and +incendiaries. A perfect sleep they hardly know, but go prowling around +night and day, driven by their suspicions. It makes them warlike, yet +unhappy, and the slaves eat the ground poor. Besides, they have terrible +enemies in the negro-traders, whom they look down on socially, and +really drive them into sympathy with the negroes. Mr. Murrell, for +instance, has a grand plan for a slave insurrection. He says white +society is all against him, and he'll get even with it." + +"See me, see me!" hoarsely chimed in another voice. "Slavery is bad +scared, sho'! Joe Leonard Smith, Catholic, over on de western sho', has +jess set twelve niggers free. Governor Charley Ridgely has set two +hundred and fifty free. John Randolph, dey say, is gwyn to set more dan +three hundred free. Dar's fifty abolition societies in Nawf Carolina, +eleven in Maryland, eight in ole Virginny, two in Delaware. Ho, ho! dey +set' em free and we'll steal' em back! Ole Derrick Molleston will never +be out of pork an' money!" + +"Politely, gentlemen," said the individual with the shackle. "Have you +heard of the incendiary proclamation issued in Boston by David Walker, +telling all slaves that it is their religious duty to rise?" + +"Yes, and rise they will, but to what end? It will be a big scare, but +no war. The next thing they will stop reading among all slaves, prevent +emancipation by law, and watch the colored meeting-houses. The fire will +be buried under the amount of the fuel, yet all be there."[6] + +"Mr. Ogg, your experience is remarkable. And you have been sold and run +away in nearly every slave state? Politely, sir, are they not kidnapping +white men, too? Who is this Morgan that was stolen last year in the +State of New York?" + +"Oh, that's a renegade Free Mason, Mr. Ransom. As much fuss is made over +him as if we did not steal a hundred free people every day. It only +shows that kidnapping of all sorts is getting to be unpopular. If a new +political party can be made on stealing one white Morgan, don't you +think another party will some day rise on stealing several millions of +black Morgans?" + +"See me! see me!" exclaimed the hoarse voice, suddenly. + +"Escaping, are you?" cried the second voice. + +"Politely, gentlemen, politely!" was heard from the third voice, some +distance off in the dark, and then chasing footsteps followed, and +Virgie arose and peeped below. + +A fire was burning in a clay chimney beside a table, on which were meat +and liquor. The girl swung herself out of the loft to the ground-floor, +and, seizing the meat and bread, rushed noiselessly into the night. + +She hardly knew what she was doing until she had crossed a bridge and +come to the edge of a small town, around which she took a road to the +right that led into another country road, and this she followed a mile +or more, till she saw a small brick house, by a stile and pole-well, in +the edge of woods. + +The light from a little dormer-window in the garret beamed so brightly +that it charmed Virgie's soul with the fascination of warmth and home, +and, without thinking, she crossed the stile, bathed her hot temples at +the well, and walked into the kitchen before the fire. + +"Freedom!" said Virgie, wanderingly; "have I come to it?" She fell upon +the rag carpet before the fire, saying, "Father, dear father," and did +not move. + +"Well," spoke a man of large paunch and black snake's eyes, sitting +there, "it's not often people in search of freedom walk into Devil Jim +Clark's!" + +"She is white," exclaimed a woman, looking compassionately upon the +stranger, "and she is dying." + +"No," retorted the man, "she is too pretty to be white. This is the +bright wench Sam Ogg was seen with. She belongs to Allan McLane, and +there's a reward of five hundred dollars for her, but she'll bring two +thousand in New Orleans for a mistress." + +"Hush!" said the woman; "you may bring a judgment upon your daughters." + +"Joe Johnson is about to sail," remarked Devil Jim Clark; "he shall take +her with him." + +The girl had heard _that_ name through the thick chambers of oblivion. +She rose and shrieked, and rushed into the woman's arms: + +"Save me, mother, save me from that man!" + +The woman's heart was pierced by the cry, and she folded Virgie to her +breast and kissed her, saying: + +"She shall sleep in our daughter's bed and rest her poor feet this +night--our daughter, James, that we buried." + +The man's mouth puckered a little; he looked uneasy, and drew his +handkerchief to his eyes. + +"You're all agin me! you're all agin me!" he bellowed, and rushed from +the room. + + * * * * * + +The wife of Devil Jim Clark was a pious Methodist, and, with her +rich-eyed daughter, spent the next day at Virgie's bedside, hearing her +broken mutterings for fatherly love and Vesta's cherished remembrance. + +"Your father is out for mischief," Mrs. Clark said. "Jump on your +saddle-horse, my daughter, and ride to the Widow Brinkley's, just over +the Camden line. Tell her to send for this girl." + +"Mamma, they say she's an abolitionist." + +"That's what I send you for. It's a race between you and your father. Be +with me or with him!" + +The girl tied on her hood, took her riding-whip, and departed. + +In an hour she returned with a tidy black woman, whom Mrs. Clark took +into Virgie's chamber. + +"My heart bleeds for this poor girl," the hostess said. "They say your +son spirits negroes North. Mr. Clark says so. I do not ask you if it is +true, but, as one mother to another, I give you this girl. She is too +white to be sold. She looks like a dead child of mine." + +"Bill is not due home till sunset. If she is alive by that time, he has +just time to drive her to Mr. Zeke Hunn's vessel at the mouth of the +creek, which lies there every trip one hour--" + +"To let runaways come aboard?" + +"I have never been accused of helping them, Mrs. Clark." + +The trader's wife slipped a bank-bill into the colored woman's hand. + +"Lend to the Lord!" she said. "I depend upon you to save us the sin of +selling this girl." + + * * * * * + +There came to the little black house that lurked by the woods two +riding-horses, and stopped at the stile. + +"Wait here!" said the voice of Devil Jim Clark. "Will you take her if +she is still delirious?" + +"Bingavast! Why not? I'm delirious myself, Jim, fur it's my +wedding-night. I'll rest her at Punch Hall." + +The herculean ruffian coolly proceeded to prepare some saddle-ropes to +tie his victim before him on his horse. He was interrupted by a woman: + +"Come and see your work, Joe Johnson!" + +Following up the short cupboard stairs, the kidnapper was pointed to an +object on the bed, with peaked face and sharpened feet, as it lay white +as lime, with eyelashes folded and the arms drawn to its sides. + +"Take her to Patty Cannon now," said Mrs. Clark, "who is only fit for +dead company." + +"The dell dead and undocked?" the ruffian exclaimed, slightly shrinking +from the body; "maybe she's counterfeited the cranke. I'll search her +cly. But, hark!" + +A wagon and hoofs were heard. + +"Joe," whispered the woman's husband, "you're only four mile from Dover. +Maybe it's warrants for both of us?" + +"Hike, then!" hissed the pallid murderer; "the world's agin me," and he +slipped away with his companion. + + * * * * * + +"Now, Bill Brinkley," the wife of Devil Jim whispered, as a tall, +ingenuous-looking colored boy came in the room, "you are just in time. +She has had laudanum enough to keep her still; my daughter powdered her; +let me kiss her once before she goes." + +As the woman departed, the black boy, looking around him, muttered: + +"Whar is dat loft? I've hearn about it." + +Some movements overhead in the low dwelling directed his attention to a +small trap-door, and, standing on a stool, he unbolted it and pushed it +upwards, whispering, + +"Any passengers for Philadelfy? De gangplank's bein' pulled in!" + +First a woolly head, then another, and next two pairs of legs appeared +above. + +"Take hold yer and carry de sick woman to de dearborn," the boy said, +not a particle disturbed, as two frightened blacks dropped from the +loft, with handcuffs upon them. + + * * * * * + +In the clear evening a wagon sped along towards the east, through the +saffron marshes, tramping down the stickweed and ironweed and the +golden rod, and, while the people in it cowered close, the negro driver +sang, as carelessly as if he was the lord of the country: + + "De people of Tuckyhoe + Dey is so lazy an' loose, + Dey sows no buttons upon deir clothes, + And goes widout deir use; + So nature she gib dem buttons, + To grow right outen deir hides, + Dat dey may take life easy, + And buy no buttons besides. + + "But de people of Tuckyhoe + Refuse to button deir warts, + Unless dey's paid a salary + For practisin' of sech arts; + Like de militia sogers, + Dat runs to buttons an' pay, + De folks is truly shifless, + On Tuckyhoe side of de bay." + +A sail was seen in the starlight, rising out of the marshes at an old +landing in the last elbow of Jones's Creek, and hardly had the fugitives +been put on board when the anchor was weighed and the packet stood out +for the broad Delaware, her captain a negro, her owner a Quaker. + +The girl was awakened by the cold air of the bay striking her face. + +"Freedom!" she murmured; "it must be this. Oh, I am faint for father's +arms to take me." + + * * * * * + +Was this Teackle Hall that Virgie looked upon--a square, bright room, +and her bed beside a window, and below her stretching streets of +cobblestone and brick, and roofs of houses, to green marshes filled with +cows, and a river that seemed blue as heaven, which sipped it from above +like a boy drinking head downward in a spring? How beautiful! It must be +freedom, Virgie thought, but why was she so cold? Her eyes, looking +around the room, fell upon a lady in a cap, reading a tract to a large, +shaven, square-jawed man, and this woman was of a silver kind of beauty, +as if her mind had overflowed into her heart, and, not affecting it, had +made her face of argent and lily, milk and sheen. + +"What sayeth Brother Elias, Lucretia?" + +"He sayeth, Thomas: 'This noble testimony, of refusing to partake of the +spoils of oppression, lies with the dearly beloved young people of this +day. We can look for but little from the aged, who have been accustomed +to these things, like second nature. Without justice there can be no +virtue. Oh, justice, justice, how art thou abused everywhere! Men make +justice, like a nose of wax, to satisfy their desires. If the soul is +possessed of love, there is quietness.'" + +"Yes," said the girl, from the bed, thinking aloud; "love is quietness. +Will father come!" + +She dreamed and heard and looked forth again upon the hill descending to +the river, the stately sails, the farther shore, so like her native +region, and asked with her eyes what land they might be in. + +"Wilmington," said the beautiful woman. "This is the house of Thomas +Garrett, the friend of slaves. When you can be moved, it shall be to the +green hills of the Brandywine, where all are free." + +"Hills? What are they?" mused Virgie, looking at her wasted hand. "Must +I climb any more? Must I wade the swamps again? I know I have a father +somewhere." + +She dreamed and wept unconsciously, and told of many things at Teackle +Hall, being, indeed, a little child again, playing with her little +mistress, Vesta. The stars stood in the sky right over her pillow, and +she talked to them, and some she seemed to know, as little Vince, or +little Roxy, or Master Willy Tilghman, all playmates of her childhood; +but ever and anon these vanished, and the young Quaker woman was reading +again from the sermons of Elias Hicks, and the words were: "Love is +quietness;" "Light only can qualify the soul;" "If I go not away, the +Comforter will not come unto you." + +"What Comforter?" sighed Virgie, and there seemed a great blank, and +then she heard a scream--was it she that screamed so?--and she was +trying with all her might to get somewhere, and was fainting in the +labor, but trying again and again, and then a calmness that was like +gentle awe, strange because so painless, spread into her nature, and she +only listened. + +"My daughter," said a voice, "my own child! Call me 'father,' and say I +am forgiven." + +"Father! forgiven!" she murmured, and felt a warm face, that yet could +not warm her own, shedding tears and kissing her, and close to it her +arms were thrown tight, as if she never could let go, and everything was +music, but wonderful. + +She feared she must fall if she did not hold to him. Who was it that +called her "daughter"? Why came those cold stars so close, as if to spy +upon him? + +Oh, holy purity, that held so fast and did not know, but trusted +nature's quivering embrace! She wrestled with something, like a rock of +ice, to move her eyes and see, or ere she was dashed down forever, the +eyes that gushed for her. They were her master's. + +"Master," she said, "whose am I?" + +"Mine before God. Pure to my heart as your white sister, Vesta! White as +young love, in fondness and trust forever!" + +"And mother?" gurgled the girl's low notes; "where is she?" + +"Yonder," said the Judge, "in Heaven, that will judge me, whither she +winged in bearing thee to me!" + +A happy light came over Virgie's face. She kissed her father twice, as +if the second kiss was meant for her happier sister, and, raising her +arms towards the sky he pointed to, whispered, "Freedom!" and died upon +his breast. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +HULDA BELEAGUERED. + + +Owen Daw brought the news of the repulse from Cowgill House and the +wounding of Captain Van Dorn. + +"Where is the little tacker, Levin?" asked Patty Cannon, furiously. + +"Arrested, I 'spect," cried O'Day, boldly; "Van Dorn's hit in the +throat." + +"He'll not talk much, then," muttered the woman; "his time had to come. +Where will I find another lover at my age? Why, honey," she chuckled to +herself, in a looking-glass, "that son of his'n may come back. He's took +a shine to Huldy: why not to me?" + +At the idea another hideous thought came to her mind: to settle Hulda's +fate in her young lover's absence, and monopolize the corrupting power +over Levin Dennis, if he ever lived to see Johnson's Cross-roads again. + +As individual fugitives returned, confirming the decisive repulse of the +band, Patty Cannon's face grew dark, and her oaths low and deep; Cyrus +James heard her say: + +"If I could only hang some one for this! Joe Johnson's the white-livered +sneak that would not go. I've hanged a better son-in-law." + +"Aunt Patty, I love your grandchild, Huldy," Cy James ventured to say. +"The Captain's wounded and Joe's going away to Floridy. Maybe I kin git +you up another band." + +Without an instant's consideration of this ambitious proposition, Mrs. +Cannon threw Cy James, by main strength, through the window of her bar, +into her kitchen, and he bawled like a baby, yet came out of his grief +muttering, "Ploughin', ploughin'! I'll make her into batter and fry her +yet." + +With this reflection Mr. James hid himself for the remainder of the +afternoon in some secluded part of the Hotel Johnson. + +Mrs. Cannon, however, had instantly resumed her monologue on business. + +"They all think to give the old woman the go-by: a sick man's no good, +and there's that wife of Van Dorn's hopin' to git him yit. By God! she +sha'n't have him in his shroud. No; I'll recruit from young material. +Ruin 'em when they's boys, and, while you kin pet 'em, they'll do your +work! I have one nigger in the garret Joe wants to burn: he's my nigger, +and I'll let him loose to bring me more niggers. Money is what I need to +put on a bold front: Huldy must fetch it!" + +With this resolution Patty Cannon mounted the stairs to a room on the +second floor, and, without knocking, pushed her way in. + +A man of a voluptuous form and face, like one overfed, yet on the best, +and with stiff, military shoulders, and of colors warm in tint, yet cold +in expression, blue eyes, and rich, wine-lined cheeks and lips, that +still seemed hard and self-indulged, spoke up at once: + +"Always knock, Patty! it's more conservative. My way in life is to reach +my point, but respect all the forms. What do you want?" + +"When do you leave for Baltimore, Cunnil McLane?" + +"As soon as Joe returns with my dear sister's property: to-morrow, I +hope." + +"You can take Huldy Bruington if you pay my price for her: two thousand +dollars down. If you won't give it, she shall be married to some young +kidnapper, who will fetch twice that pile for her in niggers. They'll +all fight their weight in black wildcats to git her." + +"Very, very abrupt proposition, Patty; not conservative at all. What's +the matter with you, dame, to-day. Van Dorn not lucky, heigh?" + +He gave her a vitreous smile and watched her over his round paunch, on +which a crystal watch-seal hung, like a more human eye than his own. Her +color began to rise. + +"I'm mad," said Patty Cannon; "don't worry me; don't Jew me! Do you +mind? Yes, Van Dorn has been whipped--by niggers, too. Will you pay my +price or not?" + +"Tut, tut, good woman! What can I want with a white girl. It wouldn't +look conservative at all in Baltimore." + +Patty Cannon stamped her foot. + +"Don't rouse me with any of your hypocritical cant, Cunnil McLane! What +have you been teachin' that child to read an' write fur--out of your +Bible, too? What do you bring her presents fur, and hang around us when +we know you despise us all, except fur the black folks we can sell you +cheap? Haven't I been sold to men like you time and again before I was a +woman, and don't I know the sneaking pains that old men take to look +benevolent when youth an' beauty is fur sale; and how they pet it to +keep it pure fur their own selfish enjoyment? God knows I do!" + +"Patty, you shock me!" the rubicund gentleman observed. "I have always +found you conservative before. Now, go and send sweet Hulda here, and, +for Heaven's sake, Patty, don't reveal this bargain to her." + +"Is it a bargain, Cunnil?" + +"It is, if she can be made willing to it." + +"That she shall, or make her bed in the forest, where good looks are not +safe around yer." + +Hulda was found at a window, looking out upon her former home, and at a +ploughman who had nearly completed the furrows in a large field, sparing +only some low places piled with brush, over one of which some buzzards +circled, lofty, yet intent as anglers watching their tackle. Hard as +that home had been to Hulda, she regretted leaving it for this men's +tavern, where her grandmother's saucy temperament found so many +incentives to bravado, and her caution, that had to be exercised in +Delaware, was quite unnecessary on the Maryland side of the line. + +At the little hip-roofed white cottage Hulda had felt a sense of privacy +pleasing to her growing life, and her ability to read often charmed +Patty Cannon to a stillness that was like the hyena's sleep, and even +made her acquiescent and cordial. + +But where she met men alone, unmodified by modest women's example, the +bold tendency of Patty was to out-do men, and lead them on to audacities +they would have feared to follow in but for her courage and policy; for +she could coax either young or coarse natures, as well as she could +drive. + +These feats of strength and cunning, statecraft and desperation, +reminded Hulda of a book she had read about the Norman knights in +England kidnapping and robbing the poor Saxons; and one description of +King William the Conqueror suggested to Hulda that he was perhaps a +Patty Cannon in his times, as his body and legs were short and powerful, +like hers, and he could bend a bow riding on horseback that no other +knight could bend on foot with the legs planted firmly. He could not +read nor write, and was superstitious, yet cruel as the grave. All this +was true of Patty Cannon, whose feat of standing in a bushel measure and +putting three hundred pounds of grain on her shoulder has been related. + +She often wrestled and bound, without assistance, strong black men +fighting for their liberties. She could ride horseback, sitting like +men, in a way to make Joan of Arc seem a maid of mere tinsel. + +Hulda was dressed in her best clothes, her hair was tied in wide braids, +her fine features and large, tender, yet seeking, gray eyes, never had +been turned on Patty Cannon so directly. + +Her grandmother abandoned in a moment an attempt to be complaisant, and +sternly ordered her to attend to Colonel McLane's chamber. + +"I can support you no longer, huzzy," said the dark-eyed woman, her +cheeks full of blood. "Make haste to find some easy life or Joe shall +get you a husband. We are ruined. You must make money, do you hear!" + +"Here is money, grandma!" said Hulda, producing some of the shillings of +1815. + +At the first glance of these Patty Cannon turned pale, but, in an +instant, the hot blood rushed to her face again, and she swore a +dreadful oath and chased Hulda, with uplifted hands, into the chamber of +Allan McLane. + +"Ah, Hulda, inflaming your poor grandmother again!" said that carefully +clad and game-fed gentleman. "Now, now, lovely girl, it's not +conservative. Honor thy father and mother, and grandmother, of course; +didn't I teach you that?" + +"What is it to be conservative?" Hulda asked, sitting before the fire, +while the Colonel ran over her straight feet and tall, willowy figure, +and stopped, a little chilled by her clear, dewy eyes. + +"Conservative? why, it's never to rush on anything; to oppose rushing; +to--to be a bulwark against innovations. To prefer something you have +tried, and know." + +"Like you?" asked Hulda. + +"Yes, your benefactor, instead of having some impulsive passion. Of +course, you never loved in this place?" + +"It is the only place I know. To be conservative, as you call it, I +must take my life and opportunity as I find them, like something I have +tried and know." + +"Ah, Hulda! I see you have a radical, perverse something in you, to +twist my meaning so close. You do not belong to this vile spot, except +by consanguinity. It would be perfectly conservative for you to look to +a better settlement." + +"You have hinted that before," Hulda said, serene in his presence as a +young woman used to proposals. "I do want to change this life, but I +cannot do it and be conservative. I must fasten upon a free impulse, a +natural chance of some kind. God has kept my heart pure in this dreadful +place, where I was born. Why are you here, if you are conservative? It +is not a gentleman's resort." + +He grew a little angry at this thrust, but she continued to look at him +quietly, unaware that she was impertinent. + +"I often have business, Hulda, with Joe and Patty; negroes are very +high, and we must buy them where they are to be had. But a deepening +religious interest in you often attracts me here." + +"Why religious as well as conservative, sir?" + +"I have been afraid that the sights you see here, after the good +instructions I have given you, might make you an infidel." + +"What is an infidel?" + +"One who, being unable to explain certain evils in life, refuses to +believe anything. That is the case with Van Dorn, a very bad man. +Stepfather Joe is always conservative on that subject. Deviate as much +as he may, he never disbelieves. Aunt Patty, too, erratic as she is, +holds a conservative position on a Great First Cause." + +Here McLane drew out his gold spectacles, and turned the leaves of his +Bible over, and pointed Hulda a place to read, beginning, "The fool hath +said in his heart, There is no God." At his command she read it, with +faith, yet observation, her mind being fully alert to the warning Van +Dorn had left her, that in his absence her great trial was to be. + +McLane was wearing a gray English suit, with full round paunch, sleek +all over the body, his hair a little gray, his gold glasses dangling in +his hand, patent varnished slippers and silk stockings, and a silk scarf +and cameo pin in it, and a cameo of his deceased sister upon his +finger-ring, marking his attire; his eyes, of a pop kind, much too far +forward, and blue as old china, and yet an animal, not a spiritual +blue--the tint of washing-blue, not of distance; a hare-lip somewhere in +his talk, though the fulness of his very red lips hardly allowed place +for it; and his nose and brows stern and military, as if he had been a +pudding stamped with the die of a Roman emperor or General Jackson. + +He watched her reading with censorship, yet desire, patronage, and +oiliness together. + +Glancing up when she had read far enough, Hulda thought he was looking +at her as if she was some rarer kind of negress. + +"Beautifully read, Hulda! I never go to such places as theatres, but you +might be, I should say, an actress. Don't think of it, however! Very +unconservative profession! I take great pride in you, my lovely girl; +suppose I take you home with me!" + +He walked to her stool, and laid his warm hand on her neck, standing +behind her; she did not move nor change color. + +"Something has happened to me, Colonel McLane," Hulda spoke, clear as a +bell out of a prison, "to make even Johnson's Cross Roads good and +happy. Can you guess what it is?" + +She bent her head back, and looked up fearlessly at him, as if he were +the negro now. + +"Not religious ecstasy?" he said. "Not camp-meeting or revival +conversion, I hope. That's vile." + +"No, Colonel. It is knowing a pure young man, whose love for me is +natural and unselfish." + +"Great God!" spoke McLane, removing his hand. "Not some kidnapper?" + +"No," Hulda said, "no slave-dealer of any kind. They cannot make him so. +He is perfectly conservative, Colonel, as to that vileness. I believe he +is a gentleman, too." + +"You must have great experience in that article," he sneered, looking +angry at her. + +"I have seen you and my lover; you have the best clothes, and profess +more. He has a nature that your opportunities would bring real +refinement from. He respects me, wretched as I am; I read it in his +eyes. You are looking for a way to degrade me in my own feelings, yet to +deceive me. Can you be a gentleman?" + +She was serene as if she had said nothing, though she rose up, and stood +at one side of the fireplace, opposite him; between them was a print of +General Jackson riding over the British. + +In that moment Allan McLane felt that the girl was cheap at her +grandmother's figure. + +He had always conceived her a flexible, peculiar child; in a few minutes +she had grown years, and become a rare and nearly stately woman, not now +to be moulded, but to be tempted with large, worldly propositions. + +"May I ask who this lover is that I am so much beneath, Hulda--I, who +have taught you the accomplishments you chastise me with? I found you +sand; I made you crystal." + +He drew out a large pongee handkerchief, and really dropped some tears +into it. She continued, cool and unmoved: + +"My love is Levin Dennis, from Princess Anne. I am not afraid to tell +it." + +"Why?" + +"Because I want his danger and mine to be fully known to him, and make +him a man." + +The Colonel folded his pongee, and came again to Hulda's side. + +"That dissipated boy! Oh, Hulda, where is your real pride? He has +abandoned his mother. He is a poor gypsy. No, I must save you from such +a mistake. It is my duty to do it." + +"I thank you for teaching me, whatever made you do it. If I could awaken +in you some unselfishness towards me and my new love, sir, it would be +the greatest gratitude I could show you. You conceal so many hard, bad +things under your word 'conservative,' that the gentle feelings, like +forgiveness, have forsaken you, I fear." + +"No," the Colonel said, stiffly, his shoulders becoming more military, +"insults to my honor I never forgive. People who do not resent, have no +conservative principle." + +"I forgive, as I hope to be forgiven, Joe, Aunt Patty, Van Dorn, and +you. I hope pity and mercy and sweet, unselfish love, such as I think +mine is, may grow in all of you! Oh, Colonel,"--she turned to him +earnestly, and, raising her hands to impress him, he merely noted the +elegance of her wrists and brown arms--"the buying and selling of these +human beings makes everybody unfeeling. It is stealing their souls and +bodies, whether they be bought at the court-house or kidnapped on the +roads. My dream of joy is to have a husband who will work with his own +free hands, and till his little farm, and sail his vessel, without a +slave. Above that I expect and ask nothing from the dear God who has so +long been my protector in this den of crime." + +"Warm or cold, hectoring or tender, you are splendid, Hulda," McLane +said, his face fairly refulgent. "Now let me show you a conservative +picture of your real deserts. I am a bachelor. I keep an elegant house +in Baltimore. My table is supplied with the best in the market; my +servants are my slaves, and never disobey me; my paintings are +celebrated; books I never run to--they are radical things--but I can buy +them; my carriage is the best Rahway turn-out, and my horses are +Diomeds. In Frederick County I have an estate, in sight of the +mountains. As a Christian act, I will take you away from this spot, to +which you seem but half kindred, and make you my wife." + +"You ask me to marry you?" + +"Conservatively; that is, continue to be my pupil, and obey me. I will +bring your mind out of its ignorance, your body out of rags, your +associations out of crime. I will provide for you, as you are obedient, +while I live and after I am dead. You shall travel with me, and see +bright cities--New Orleans, Charleston, Havana. If you remain here, you +will be another Patty Cannon or go to jail. There! Look at it +conservatively: warmth, riches, pleasure, attention, change, dress to +become you, a watch and jewels, against villainy and lowness of every +kind." + +"How are you to be repaid for this?" + +"By your love." + +"But it is not mine to give; Levin has it." + +"Pooh! that's beneath you." + +"But it is gone; I cannot get it back; it will not come." + +"Give me yourself," McLane said, drawing her towards him; "the +refinements I do not care about. Be mine!" + +The girl allowed herself to be brought nearly to his side, and, as he +bent to kiss her with his large, complacent lips, she glided from his +hands. + +"I could never stoop," said Hulda, "to be even the wife of a negro +dealer." + +He colored to the eyes, yet with admiration of her almost aristocratic +composure. + +"You could not stoop to me?" he said "Not from your father's gallows?" + +"No; he was a robber, but a bold one. You only receive the goods." + +She was gone; and he stood, with evil lights in his face, but no shame. +He drank some brandy from a flask, and murmured, "Now I have an insult +to revenge, as well as a fancy to be gratified; her father must have +been a cool rogue. Well, everything has to be done by force here; Patty +Cannon shall see my gold." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +AUNT PATTY'S LAST TRICK. + + +Opposite McLane's room was the vestibule to the slave-pen in the garret, +a room Van Dorn usually slept in. With her emotions profoundly excited, +though she had not revealed them--her modesty having received a stab +that now brought bitter tears to her eyes, and blushes, unseen except by +the angels, whose white wings had hidden them from her tempter--Vesta +fled into this room to deliberate upon her dire extremity. + +Three persons only were now in the house, each one an interested party +in her ruin; the man she had left, and Cy James, who was full of +cowardly passion for her, and Patty Cannon, who, in her present frame of +mind, would gloat to see Hulda's virtue sacrificed as something +inconsequential and merry and heartless. + +"Perhaps I can fly to our old house across the State Line, and take +refuge with the new tenant there," Hulda thought. "Oh! I wish Van Dorn +was here; he is so brave; and when he left me his kiss was like my +father's." + +Chains clanked, and the drone of low hymns came down the hatchway from +the slave-pen. + +"There is a white man up there," Hulda reflected; "dare I go up to see?" + +She unlocked the padlock, and stepped up the ladder. At the pen door she +peeped, but could not make out anything in the blackness. Then she +pulled the peg out of the staple, and walked into the sickly odor of the +jail. + +"How many are here?" Hulda asked. "I hear you, but cannot see." + +"Three men, one old woman, and some little things, makes the present +contents of Pangymonum," spoke up a rough, cheery voice, "an', by smoke! +it's jess enough." + +"Is it the white man that talks?" + +"He says he's white, but they think it's goin' to be easy hokey-pokey to +pass him off for a nigger." + +Her eyes soon recognized the speaker as he said, "By smoke! miss, you're +not much like a Johnson. I reckon you're Huldy." + +"Yes, and you, sir?" + +"I was Jimmy Phoebus before I was a nigger." + +The girl went rapidly up to him, and put her arms around him. + +"Thank God!" she said, "you are not dead. Levin Dennis, my dear friend, +wept to think you were at the river bottom. But, quick, sir; I may be +caught here. Are you all true to each other?" + +"Yes, the traitor's cut his wizzen. Speak out, Huldy!" + +"I heard Patty Cannon mutter that she was going to set her black man +free to kidnap for her. Hark! I must fly." + +Hulda descended the ladder in time to surprise Cy James coming up. He +bent his goose neck down as he leaned his hands upon his knees, and, +looking up into her face, ejaculated, + +"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! And Pangymonum, too." + + * * * * * + +"Samson," said Jimmy Phoebus, as soon as Hulda disappeared, "git +ready to be a first-class liar; I want you to take up Patty Cannon's +offer." + +"An' leave you yer alone, Jimmy? I can't do it." + +"Don't be a fool, Samson. Ironed here, we can't help nobody. Make your +way to Seaford and Georgetown, and go round the Cypress Swamp to +Prencess Anne. Alarm the pungy captains; fur Johnson'll try to run us by +sail, I reckon, down the bay to Norfolk. I've got a file that +cymlin-headed feller give me, an' I reckon I'll git out of my irons +about the time you git to Judge Custis's. There! ole Patty's coming." + +"Go, Samson," spoke the Delaware colored man. "I'm younger than you, and +I'll fight as heartily under Mr. Phoebus's orders." + +Aunt Hominy's voice came in blank monologue out of the background: + +"He tuk dat debbil's hat, chillen, an' measured us in wid little Vessy." + + * * * * * + +That evening there was a long, free conference between Samson and Patty +Cannon, in her kitchen, next to the bar, where Hulda heard laughing and +invitations to drink, and all the sounds of perfect equality, the +negro's piquant sayings and _bonhommie_ seeming to disarm and please the +designing woman, whose familiarity was at once her influence and her +weakness, and she lavished her sociable nature on blacks and whites. +Samson was so fearless and observing that he betrayed no interest in +escaping, and came slowly into the range of her temperament; but, as +Hulda peeped, towards midnight, into the kitchen, she saw old Samson +kindly patting juba, while Patty was executing a drunken dance. + +As the latter dropped upon a pallet bed she had there, and fell into a +doze, the colored man quietly raised the latch and walked off the tavern +porch. + + * * * * * + +In the morning dawn horses and voices were heard by Hulda, and she +recognized Joe Johnson's steps in the house. He shook Patty Cannon, but +could not awaken her; then looked into Van Dorn's room, and found Hulda, +apparently sound asleep, and heard his name called by Allan McLane +across the hall: + +"Joe! not so loud. Be conservative. Come in; I'm waiting for you. Is all +done and fetched?" + +"The bloke with the steeple felt will never snickle," spoke the ruffian. + +"Good, good, Joe! Vengeance is mine, and it's a conservative saying. My +dear sister is at peace." + +"The two yaller pullets have slipped you; the abigail mizzled to the +funeral with your niece, and t'other dell must have smelt us, and hopped +the twig." + +"Not tasteful language at all, Joe. I don't understand you. Where are +the two bright wenches, Virgie and Roxy?" + +"Roxie's in Baltimore; Virgie's run away." + +"Run? Where? Don't trifle with me, Joe Johnson! Conservative as I am, I +don't like it, sir. Where could she have run?" + +"There's no way for her to slip us but by water or through the Cypress +Swamp, Colonel. She ain't safe this side of Cantwell's bridge. Word has +gone out, and every road is watched." + +"But Van Dorn is beaten back; he hasn't made a single capture; the +niggers drove him out of Dover with firearms, and he is wounded +somewhere." + +The tall kidnapper turned pale, and then consigned Van Dorn's shade to +eternal torment. + +"Don't swear before me, sir!" McLane, also irritated, exclaimed. "It's +not conservative, and I won't permit it. How do I know Meshach Milburn +is dead? who did it?" + +"Black Dave fired the barker, and saw him settled." + +"Send him here!" + +The negro came in, red-eyed, and hoarse with diseased lungs, and stood, +the wreck of a once gigantic and regular man. + +"Gi' me a drink," he muttered; "I'm mos' dead wi' misery an cold." + +"Tell this man what you did," Joe Johnson spoke; "you waited till you +saw the hat at the window, and fired, and fetched hat an' man to the +ground?" + +Swallowing a thimbleful of McLane's brandy, the negro grunted "Blood!" +and looked tremblingly at his hands. + +"What shape of hat was it?" McLane asked, shaking the negro savagely; +"was it like this?" shaping his own soft slouched hat to a point. + +Black Dave looked, and shook his head. + +"Not like that? Damnation!" + +"No swearing, Colonel, before us conservatives," ventured Joe Johnson; +"what was the hat like, Dave? You're drunk." + +"Like dis, I reckon." He modelled the crown into a bell form with his +finger. + +Joe Johnson and McLane looked at each other a minute with mutual +accusation and confusion, and the former unceremoniously knocked the +negro down with his great fist. + +"No gold of mine for this job, Joe Johnson," said Allan McLane; "in your +conservatism to save your own skin, you have let your tool kill an +innocent man." + +He waved his hand, with all his strong will, towards the door, and shut +it in the kidnapper's face. Then, in haughty emotion, not like fear, but +disappointed pride and revenge, McLane sat down, glanced around him as +if to determine the next movement, and instinctively reached his hand +towards his Bible, which he opened at a marked page, and softly read, +till tears of baffled vindictiveness and counterfeited humility stopped +his voice, as follows: + +"'To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the +heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time +to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a +time to break down, and a time to build up ... God requireth that which +is past ... man hath no pre-eminence above a beast, for all is +vanity.... a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his +portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?'" + +When tears of pious vindictiveness had closed the reading, Colonel +McLane spread his pongee handkerchief on the bare floor, and knelt in +silent and comfortably assured prayer. + + * * * * * + +Black Dave had crawled into the room where Hulda partly heard these +revelations, and he entered the large closet under the concealed shaft +to the prison pen, where his groans and mental agony touched Hulda's +commiseration. She opened the trap, and crawled there too. + +"Hush, Dave!" she whispered. "What makes you so miserable?" + +"Missy, I'se killed a man. Dey made me do it. I'll burn in torment. Lord +save me!" + +"Dave," said Hulda, "my poor father died for his offences. You can do no +more; but, like him, you can repent." + +"Oh, missy, I's black. Rum an' fightin' has ruined me. Dar's no way to +do better. De law won't let me bear witness agin de people dat set me +on. How kin I repent unless I confess my sin? De law won't let me +confess." + +"Confess your poor, wracked soul to me, Dave. The Lord will hear you, +though you dare not turn your face to him." + +"Missy, once I was in de Lord's walk. My han's was clean, my face clar, +my stummick unburnt by liquor. I stood in no man's way; at de church +dey put me fo'ward. My soul was happy. One day I licked a man bigger dan +me. It made me proud an' sassy. I backslid, an' wan't no good to be +hired out to steady people; so de taverns got me, an' den de kidnappers +used me, an' now de blood of Cain an' Abel is on my forehead forever." + +Hulda knelt by the murderer, and prayed with all her heart; not the +self-conscious, special pleading of the prayer across the hall, but the +humble prayer of the penitent on Calvary: "Lord, we, of this felon den, +ask to be with thee in Paradise." + + * * * * * + +The whole of the next day was spent in preparations for flight by Patty +and her son-in-law. + +A boat of sufficient size, and crew to man it, had to be procured down +the river, and this necessitated two journeys, one of Patty, to Cannon's +Ferry, another by Joe, to Vienna and Twiford's wharf. + +During their absence Cy James was equally intent on something, and Hulda +saw him in the ploughed field near the old Delaware cottage, under the +swooping buzzards, directing the farmer where to guide his plough, and +it seemed, in a little while, that one of the horses had fallen into a +pit there. + +Later on Hulda observed Cy James, with a spade, digging at various +places near Patty Cannon's former cottage. + +"All are at work for themselves," Hulda thought, "except Levin and me. +How often have I seen Aunt Patty slip to secret places in the night, or +by early dawn, when she looked every window over to see if she was +watched. Her beehives were her greatest care." + +A sudden thought made Hulda stand still, and cast the color from her +cheeks. + +"They are all going away. I shall be taken, too, or kept for worse evil +here. My mother, in Florida, hates me; she has told me so. I know the +marriage Allan McLane means for me--to be his white slave! Levin is +poor, and his mother is poor, too; they say Patty Cannon has buried +gold. Perhaps God will point it out to me." + +She slipped down the Seaford road, and walked up the lane in the fields +she knew so well. No person was in the hip-roofed cottage. Hulda went +among the outbuildings, and began to inspect the beehives, made of +sections of round trees, and the big wooden flower-pots Patty Cannon had +left behind her. + +She was only interrupted by a gun being fired in the ploughed field, and +saw the pertinacious buzzards there fall dead from the air as they +exasperated the ploughman. + + * * * * * + +"I shall have one piece of fun in Maryland before I go," Hulda heard her +stepfather say, as he went past her bed to ascend the hatchway at morn, +"and that is to burn the nigger who mugged me. This is his day." + +Almost immediately he came, cursing, down the ladder, followed by a +jeering laugh from above, and the cry, "We'll all see you hanged yit, by +smoke! an' mash another egg on your countenance, nigger-buyer!" + +In a moment or two a tremendous quarrel was going on below stairs +between the kidnapper and his wife's mother, and Hulda believed they +were murdering each other; and, peeping once to see, beheld Johnson +holding Patty to the floor, and stuffing her elegant hair, which had +been torn out in the scuffle, into her mouth. + +"I'll be the death of you, old fence, before I go," he shouted; "the +verdict would be, 'I did the county a service.'" + +"Come away there!" cried Allan McLane, pushing past Hulda and between +the combatants. "Shame on you, Joe! To whip your grandmother is hardly +conservative. Here is an errand that will pay you well: my wench Virgie +has been caught." + +The kidnapper released the woman and turned to his guest. + +"Good news!" he said; "ef it puts my neck in the string, I'll fetch her +fur you." + +His countenance had begun to assume a sensual expression, when Patty +Cannon, to whom his back was turned, rushed upon him like a tornado, +lifted him from his feet, and threw him through the back door into the +yard and bolted him out. McLane retreated by the other door. + +"Thank heaven!" reflected Hulda, looking down in terror, "no one is +murdered yet, and I have another day of grace to wait for Levin." + + * * * * * + +"Cunnil McLane," said Patty Cannon, in his room that night, "what +interest have you in the quadroon gal an' Huldy, too? You don't want' em +both, Cunnil?" + +"No, Aunt Patty. All my views are conservative. Quite so! Hulda I want +to reform and model to my needs. She'll ornament me. By taking the girl +Virgie from my niece Vesta, I desire to punish the latter for consenting +to the degradation of our family, and marrying the forester, Milburn. +She loves this quadroon; therefore, I want to deprive her of the girl: +Joe is to bring her to me, do you see?" + +His face expressed the indifference he felt to Virgie's safety on the +way, and the coarse suggestion gave Patty Cannon her opportunity: + +"Cunnil, there's but three in the house to-night; I am one." + +"I am two, Patty." + +"And three is purty Huldy, Cunnil!" + +They looked at each other a few minutes in silence. + +"There is two to one," said Patty Cannon, with a giggle. "We have no +neighbors that air not used to noises yer." + +The silence was restored while the two products of men-dealing read each +other's countenances. + +"I made a very conservative and liberal proposition to her, Patty, and +she insulted me, yet beautifully. But I owe her a grudge for it." + +"Insulted you, Cunnil? The ongrateful huzzy! Can't you insult her back? +She never dared to disobey _me_. Her pride once broke down, she'll be +like other gals, I reckon." + +"That's true, no doubt. But, Patty, haven't you a little remorse about +it, considering she's your grandchild?" + +"My mother had none fur me, honey," the old woman chuckled, familiarly. + +"What is that story I have heard something of, about your origin, +Patty?" + +"I don't know no more about it, Cunnil, than a pore, ignorant gal would, +you know. I've hearn my grandfather was a lord. A gypsy woman enticed +his son and he married her. His father drove him from his door, an' his +wife fetched him on her money to Canady, where she went into the +smugglin' business at St. John's, half-way between Montreal and the +United States." + +"And he was hanged there for assassinating a friend who detected him?" + +"They says so, honey. Anyhow, he was hanged. We gals was beautiful. Says +mother: 'It's a hard world, but don't let it beat you, gals! Marry ef +you kin. Anyway, you must live, and you can't live off of women.' I +married a Delaware man, and so I quit bein' Martha Hanley and became +Patty Cannon."[7] + +"And what a career you have led, Aunt Patty! Lived anywhere but in this +old pocket between the bays, you would have had the reputation of +Captain Kidd. Tell me now, conservatively, was not your own helpless +childhood the cause of your mistakes, and does it never make you feel +for other sparrow-birds like Hulda?" + +The black-haired woman, with a certain evil-thinking, like one reflected +upon harshly, finally clapped her bold black eyes on McLane's, and +replied, chuckling: + +"I don't know as it do, Cunnil. Before my mother pinted the way, I loved +the men. I loved 'em to be bad. Mommy tuk us as we drifted. An' as fur +Huldy yer, her mother throws her onto me; she's not like the Cannons an' +Johnsons; she's full of pride, and," with an oath, "let it be tuk out of +her! Will you pay my price?" + +He hesitated. + +"It's not the price, Patty; it's the way. Isn't it cowardly?" + +"Yes," said Patty, saucily, "it's kidnappin'. That's the trade yer. Pay +down the money, Cunnil, an' this bare room will brighten to be your +wedding chamber. Pah! are you a man!" + +Her words aroused the visions self-love can reluctantly repulse, and +which, entertained but an instant, grow irresistible. + +The limber, maturing, rounding form of Hulda stepped on the footstool of +his mind, touched his knee, and exhaled the aroma of her youth like a +subtile musk, till he leaned back languidly, as if he smoked a pipe and +on its bowl her bust was painted, and all her modesties dissolved into +the intoxication. Brutality itself grew natural to this vision, as a +fiercer joy and substitute for the deceit he could no longer practice. +The child had flown from her in the instant of his grasping it, like a +pale butterfly, but there remained where it had floated, a silken and +nubile essence, fairy and humanity in one, clad in pure thoughts and +sweet respect, the profanation of which would be as rare a game as +Satan's struggle with the soul of Eve. + +Her innocence and spirit, self-respect and awakened womanly +consciousness, weakness and sensibility, mettle and beauty, presented +themselves by turns; and the cold, woodeny room, the neglected tavern, +the autumn night wind coming down the chimney and starting the fire, all +seemed instinctive, like him, with mischief, as if Patty Cannon's soul +flew astraddle of a broom and led a hundred witches. + +McLane was fifty; his family was a stiff commercial one, that had +generally kept demure, yet grasping, and practised the conservatism he +also boasted of, but had departed from: he was the outlaw of the house, +yet elevating its tenets into an aggressive shibboleth, the more so that +he prospered by anti-progress. + +He was a backer of domestic slave-dealers, and put his money into forms +of gain men hesitated at; not only at the curbstone, for usury, but +behind pawnbrokers and sporting men, in lottery companies and +liquor-houses, and, it was said, in the open slave-trade, too, clippers +for which occasionally stole out of the Chesapeake on affected trading +errands to the East Indies, and came home with nothing but West India +fruits. + +He strove to maintain his credit by ostentatious abhorrence of novelties +and heterodoxies, and of all liberal agitations, and had the sublime +hardihood to carry his Bible into every sink of shame, as if it was the +natural baggage of a gentleman, and expected with him; and he would +rebuke "blasphemy" while bidding at the slave auction or sitting in a +bar-room full of kidnappers, among many of whom he passed for a +religious standard. + +No portion of that Bible gave him any delight or occupation, however, +except the Old Testament, with its thoroughgoing codes of servitude, +concubinage, and an-eye-for-an-eye. He knew the Jewish laws better than +the Scribes and Pharisees in the time of Herod and John, and had +persuaded himself that the mental endorsement and, wherever possible, +the practice of these, constituted a firm believer. Revenge, +intolerance, formality, and self-sleekness had become so much his theory +that he did not know himself whether he was capable of doing evil +provided he wanted anything. + +Not particularly courageous, he was so destitute of sensibility that he +felt no fear anywhere; and, generally going among his low white +inferiors, he was in the habit of being looked up to, and rather +preferred their society. On everything he had an opinion, and permitted +no stranger in Baltimore to entertain any. The riot spirit, so early and +so frequent in that town, reposed upon such vulturous and self-conscious +social pests as he, ever claiming to be the public tone of Maryland. + +"Patty," said Allan McLane, in his hare-lip and bland, yet hard, voice, +like mush eaten with a bowie-knife, "I may pay you this money and you +may fail to deliver the property. Will she be tractable?" + +"Cunnil, I'll scare her most to death. She'll hide from me yer by your +fire, and my voice outside the door will keep her in yer till day." + +McLane went to his portmanteau and unlocked it, and took out rolls of +notes and a buckskin bag of gold. + +The yellow lustre seemed to flash in Patty Cannon's rich black eyes, +like the moon overhead upon a well. + +"How beautiful it do shine, Cunnil!" she said. "Nothing is like it fur a +friend. Youth an' beauty has to go together to be strong, but, by God! +gold kin go it alone." + +He counted out two piles, one of notes and one of gold, using his gold +spectacles upon his hawk nose to do so, and said: + +"Patty, I've bought many a grandchild _with_ the old woman, but this is +the first child I have bought _from_ the grandmother. Now fulfil your +contract and earn your money!" + +He put his spectacles in his pocket, stretched his gaitered slippers +before the fire, looked at his watch and let the crystal seal drop on +his sleek abdomen, and his vitreous, blue-green eyes filled with color +like twin vases in a druggist's window. He was ready and anxious to +substitute the ruffian for the tempter. + +Patty Cannon, glancing at the money on the table, and bearing a lamp, +started at once through the house, calling "Huldy! Huldy!" + +Nothing responded to the name. + +She searched from room to room, peering everywhere, and made the circuit +twice, and, taking a lantern, went into the windy night and round the +bounds of the old tavern. + +The house was easily explored, having no cellar nor outbuildings, and +the trap to the slave-pen was locked fast. The girl's shawl and hat were +also gone. + +"She's heard us, I reckon," the old woman muttered; "she's run away an' +ruined me. Joe's cruel to me; Van Dorn is gone; without gold I go to the +poor-house. McLane is pitiless--" + +She dwelt upon the sentence, and, with only an instant's hesitation, +turned into the tavern again and buttoned the outer door. + +Beneath her feather bed she reached her hand and drew out a large +object, took a horn from the mantel and sprinkled it with something +contained there, and then, in a bold, masculine walk, stamping hard went +in the dark up the open stairs again, talking, as she advanced, loudly, +complaisantly, or sternly, as if to some truant she was coaxing or +forcing. Finally, at McLane's chamber, she knocked hard, crying: + +"Open, Cunnil! Here's the bashful creatur! She daren't disobey no mo'. +Step out and kiss her, Cunnil!" + +"Ha!" said McLane, throwing open his door, out of which the full light +of fire and candles gleamed, "conservative, is she? Well, let her +enter!" + +As he made one step to penetrate the darkness with his dazzled eyes, +Patty Cannon silently thrust against his heart a huge horse-pistol and +pulled the trigger: a flash of fire from the sharp flint against the +fresh powder in the pan lit up the hall an instant, and the heavy body +of the guest fell backward before his chair, and over him leaned the +woman a moment, still as death, with the heavy pistol clubbed, ready to +strike if he should stir. + +He did not move, but only bled at the large lips, ghastly and +unprotesting, and the cold blue eyes looked as natural as life. + +Patty Cannon took the chair and counted the money. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +BEAKS. + + +The wind was blowing in spells, like crowds moved during an argument, at +one time mute as awe, again murmurous, and sometimes mutinous and +fierce, when Hulda, having heard a few words only of her grandmother's +overture, glided from the old tavern and passed on into the night, +terrified but not unthinking, till she reached some large pines that +seemed to say over her head, high up towards heaven: "Where now, oh +where, oh-h-h wh-h-here, in the co-o-o-old, co-o-o-old w-h-h-h-ilderness +of the wh-h-h-orld?" + +"Anywhere!" answered Hulda, not afraid of cold or nature, so intense had +become her fear of men and women. "Still, where? I might go to Cannon's +Ferry and tell my tale to those hard-hearted merchants, or to Seaford +and beg a shelter somewhere there; but first I will try our old cottage +home again." + +She went so quietly up the field lane that dogs could not have heard +her, and, as she approached the little house, saw lights in it, and soon +heard voices and saw moving figures within. + +Knowing every knot-hole and crack of the little dwelling, Hulda soon had +a perfect view of the contents of the house by standing in the dark, a +little distance from one of the low, small windows. + +A table stood in the middle of the main room, on which was an old +mouldered chest with the earth clinging to it, and beside the chest were +bones and shreds of clothing on the riven lid of the chest. + +"You swear that the evidence you give shall be the truth, the whole +truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God!" exclaimed a small, +chunky, Irish-looking person, presenting a book to be kissed by a +scrawny, chinless, goose-necked lad, whom Hulda immediately recognized +as Cyrus James. + +"Shall I take him, Doctor Gibbons?" asked a fine-looking, easy-mannered +man, of the magistrate. + +"Yes, Mr. Clayton." + +"Do you know the nature of an oath? What is it?" + +"I'll be fried like a slapper on the devil's griddle ef I don't tell +right," whined Cy James, zealously. + +"No you won't; at least, not _first_. If you don't tell me the truth +I'll have your two ears cut off on the pillory, and no slapper shall +enter that hungry stomach of yours for a month. Goy!" + +He looked at Cy James as if he had a mind to bite his nose off as a mere +beginning. + +"Now, Hollyday Hicks, you and Billy Hooper and the other constables take +away this box, which smells too loud here, as soon as the witness has +sworn to it. When did you last see this box, James?" + +"About ten year ago, sir, when I had been bound to Patty Cannon four +year, I reckon, I see Patty an' Joe Johnson an' Ebenezer, his brother, +all toting this chist to the field an' a-buryin' of it."[8] + +"What did you see them put in that chest?" + +"A dead man--a nigger-trader. I can't tell whether his name was Bell or +Miller; she killed two men nigh that time, an' I was so little that I've +got 'em mixed." + +"Did you see her kill this man?" + +"No, sir, I wasn't home. I got home in time to see 'em packin' him in +the box. I hearn Patty tell the boys how she killed him. Oh! she was +proud of it, sir, becaze she didn't have no help in it." + +Half a dozen heads of constables, some of whom Hulda knew, leaned +forward together to hear the witness, while others removed the unsavory +remains. Mr. Clayton continued: + +"How did she say she killed him?" + +"She said he come to Joe's tavern with a borreyed hoss from East New +Market, where he told the people he was buyin' niggers, and would take +fifteen thousand dollars wuth if he could git 'em. He was follered out, +an' Ebenezer Johnson got in ahead of him. They told him the tavern was +full, an' he would be better tuk care of at a good woman's little farm +close by. They made him think, she said, that a gentleman with much +money wasn't allus safe at the tavern. Aunt Patty got him supper. He sit +at the table after it a-pickin' of his teeth. She got her pistol an' +went out in her garden a-hoein' of her flowers. Once she come up on him +at the window to shoot, but he turned quick, an' she says to him: 'Oh, +sir, I only want to see if you didn't need somethin' more.' 'No, no,' +says he; 'I've made a rale good supper.' 'I loves my flowers,' Aunt +Patty says, 'an' likes to hoe 'em at sundown, so they can sleep nice an' +soft.' 'Do you?' says he; 'I reckon you're a kind woman.' He turned +around agin an' begin to look over his pocket-book. She hoed an' hoed, +an' hummed a little tune. All at once she slipped up, an' I heerd her +say, 'Boys, I give it to him good, right in the back of the head, an' he +fell on to the table, an' the water he had been drinkin' was red as +currant wine.'" + +"James Moore, I'll swear you next," the magistrate said to the new +tenant of the farm; and this man proceeded to testify concerning the +finding of the chest as he was ploughing in a wet spot where he had +removed some brush. + +Cy James, being recalled, gave testimony as to other buried bodies, +chiefly of children slaughtered in wantonness or jealousy, or to avoid +pursuit. + +"Take this boy, Joe Neal," said Constable Hicks,[9] "and hold him fast." + +"Goy!" said Clayton, with a terrible frown at Cy James, "we may have to +hang him yet! Guilty knowledge of these crimes for so many years, and +exposure at last only for a private resentment, constitute an accessory. +Well for you, depraved young man, if you had possessed the principle of +_this_ young gentleman!" + +The Senator placed his hand upon a sitting figure, and there arose in +Hulda's sight the image of her lover, Levin Dennis. + +"Constables," said Dr. Gibbons, the magistrate, "I shall give you your +warrants now. The Maryland authorities propose, without waiting for +extradition proceedings, to deliver your prisoners at the state line." + +"Goy!" said Clayton, "they may have friends in the executive chambers at +Annapolis. No, boys, act together, like patriots, as the Maryland and +Delaware lads served in the same revolutionary brigade. Joe Johnson is +due here at noon to-morrow: be careful not to disturb old Patty nor +awaken her suspicions till he arrives. She is almost past doing evil, +but he has a lifetime left to do it in." + +"Constable Neal, I'll shove them over the line to you!" spoke the +Maryland officer. + +"Constable Wilson, look out when you lay on to old Patty: she may be +loaded and go off," exclaimed the Delaware officer. + +"Doctor John Gibbons," spoke Clayton, "waste no time with them at the +hearing in Seaford, but get horses and send them right to Georgetown +jail; they are slippery as eels. Goy!" + +As Cy James was being taken to a secure place in the garret he turned to +Levin Dennis, much wilted and crestfallen. + +"Oh, Levin," he said, "Huldy won't have me now, I know. Won't you stand +by me, Levin? She's goin' to marry you, and I'll give ye all I've +found." + +"Huldy!" Levin exclaimed; "oh, must I leave her yonder at the tavern +another night?" + +"No," answered Hulda, coming forward; "we are both preserved, my friend. +But I must have made my bed in the forest this night if God had not +directed me to you." + +As they clasped each other fondly, Senator Clayton exclaimed, + +"What? Doves among the rattlesnakes. Goy!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +PLEASURE DRAINED. + + +The dawn had not broken when that fleet traveller, Joseph Johnson, +anticipating his enemies by hours, noiselessly tied his horses at the +tavern he had erected, and nearly fell into the arms of Owen Daw. + +"Joe," said that scapegrace, "thar's queer people hanging around yer. +They say a blue chist has been dug outen the field yonder, an' bones in +it. I 'spect they're a-lookin' fur you, Joe." + +"I'll give you a job, Owen," said Johnson, quick on his feet as the boy. +"Run these horses into my wagon thar while I git some duds together +before I hop the twig." + +Slipping to the rear of the house, he entered, and looked in Patty's +room--she was not there; a slight smell of gunpowder seemed to be in the +hall. Passing rapidly up the stairs, Johnson saw a light shine in +McLane's room, and he kicked the door wide open, exclaiming, + +"Bad luck everywhere; the gal's stone dead; the beaks are round us. Wake +up, McLane!" + +"Joe!" said a voice, and Patty Cannon threw her arms around him. + +"To burning fire with you!" bellowed the filial son. "Take your arms +away!" + +"Let us make up, Joe! Everybody has run away from us. Huldy is gone, +too. McLane is dead." + +"Dead? Dead where?" + +"There"--she pointed to a feather-bed lying upon the floor, the outlines +of which seemed unusually pointed and stiff for feathers, though it was +sown up in its own blankets and quilts. Joe Johnson touched it with his +foot and bounded back. + +"Hell-cat!" he cried, "is this one of your tricks?" + +"I did it fur you, Josie. He brought it on hisself. There's his +portmanteau full of money to pay our travelling expenses. He's sewed up +beautiful, and in the bay you can drop him to the bottom." + +Joe Johnson's face became almost livid pale, and, rushing upon Patty +Cannon with both hands raised, he struck her to the floor and put his +boot upon her. + +"If I had time, I'd have your life," he hissed. "But it would lose the +uptucker a job. To-night I leave you forever. Margaretta, your daughter, +wishes never to see you again. Take this crib and the blood you still +must shed to keep your old heart warm, and take my curse to choke you on +the gallows!" + +He rushed away and gave a low whistle at the window; Daw and Joe's +brother, Ebenezer, a lower set and more sinister being, bounded up the +stairs and loosened and drove before them the little band of captives. + +"One word from you, white nigger, in all this journey to-day, scatters +your brains in the woods!" + +Joe Johnson drew a pistol as he spoke, and Jimmy Phoebus saw his +nervous determination too clearly to provoke it. + +"Now, put this dab upon the wagon," Johnson said, referring to the bed, +and it was carried down by the brothers, and the dead man's portmanteau +thrown in beside it. + +"Joe! Joe!" came the voice of Patty Cannon, from the guest's room, "take +the poor old woman that's raised you along." + +"Stow yer wid!" he answered; "we go to be gentlemen in a land where you +would spot us black. Cross cove and mollisher no more; raise another Joe +Johnson, if you can, to make this old hulk lush with business: I give it +to you." + +He was gone in the vague dawn. She fell upon her face across the little +bar and moaned, + +"A pore, pore, pore old woman!" + +How long she had been leaning there she did not know, till familiar +sounds fell on her ears, and, looking up with a cry of recognition, she +shouted, + +"Van Dorn! God bless you, Van Dorn! Is you alive again?" + +The Captain was supported in the arms of another person, who took him, +ghastly pale, into the little bar and laid him upon her pallet, +muttering, + +"I loved him as I never loved A male." + + * * * * * + +The morning was well advanced, and the sun made the gaunt and steep old +tavern rise like a mammoth from the level lands, and filled its upper +front rooms with golden wine of light, as Patty Cannon sat in one of +them by a window near the piazza, and talked to Van Dorn, whom she had +tenderly washed and re-dressed, and placed him in her own comfortable +rocking-chair of rushes, with his feet raised, as all unaffected +Americans like, and blanketed, upon a second chair. + +Her woes and his relief made Patty social, yet tender, and the instincts +of her sex had returned, to be petted and beloved. + +"Oh, Captain," she said, fondly, "how clean and sweet you look, like my +good man again. Don't be cross to me, Van Dorn! My heart is sad." + +"_Chito_, Patty! _chito_! Fie! _you_ sad? I like to see you saucy and +defiant. Let us not repent! So Joe has left you?" + +"With cruel curses. My daughter hates me, he says, and means to be a +lady where I can't disgrace her. Oh, honey! to raise a child and have it +hate an' despise you goes hard, even if I have been bad. There's nothing +left me now but you, Van Dorn; oh, do not die!" + +He coughed carefully, as if coughing was a luxury to be very mildly +exerted, and wiped a little blood from his tongue and lip. + +"I'll try not to die till I comfort you some, _Marta delicioso_! The +ball is at my windpipe, and, when the blood trickles in, it makes me +cough, and I must beware of emotions, the surgeon says, lest it drop +into my lung and break a blood-vessel by some very spasmodic cough. So +do not be too beautiful or I might perish." + +He stroked his long yellow mustache with the diamond-fingered hand, and +drew his velvet smoking-cap tight upon his silken curls, but he was too +pale to blush as formerly, though he lisped as much, like a modest boy. + +"Captain," the woman said, pleased to crimson, "you are so much smarter +than me I'm afeard of you. Am I beautiful a little yet? Do I please you? +I know you mock me." + +"_O hala hala!_" sighed Van Dorn. "You are the star of my life. All that +I am, you have made me. Patty, I worship you. When you are gone, human +nature will breathe and wonder. Do you remember when first we met?" + +"A little, Captain. Tell it to me again. Praise me if you kin. I'm +almost desolate." + +Her lip trembled, and she glanced at the fields across the way, she had +so long inhabited, where, as it seemed to her, more life than ever was +visible to-day, though she did not look carefully. + +"How many years it has been, Patty, we will not tell. I was coming home +from Africa with an emigrant, a Briton, my capturer, indeed--that +officer in the blockading squadron on that coast who seized my +privateer, the _Ida_, with all her complement of Guinea slaves. His name +was all I took from him--you got the rest--_Van Dorn_!" + +She stole a startled look at him out of her listening eyes, as if this +might be unpleasant talk, but he parried it with a compliment. + +"_Chis! Dios!_ What a family of beauties you were! Betty, with her +hoyden air, and Jane, with her wealth of charms, and Patty, with her +bold, rich eyes and conquering will. We sailed into the Nanticoke by +mistake for the Manokin. My friend had pitied my misfortunes and liked +my company, and, when he broke me up as a slaver--having already been +broken as a privateer--had said: 'Dennis, that country you praise so +well has infatuated me; I'll resign my commission and buy a little +vessel, and settle in America with you for the sake of my dear little +daughter, Hulda Van Dorn.' _Ayme!_ that poor little wild-flower: +where did she spend the chill night yesterday, Patty, can you tell?" + +He coughed again, very carefully, and his eye, the brighter for his +fretted lungs, never left his hostess, as though he feared she might +overlook some pleasing feature of his story. She trotted her foot and +muttered: + +"You made me jealous of her: I got to hate an' fear her, lovey." + +"Voluptuous as two young widowers were after a long cruise, we tarried +among you sirens, myself almost at the threshold of my home, where my +wife believed me dead, yet waited longingly and waits this morn, dear +Patty. _Dios da fe!_ My friend, entasselled with bright Betty, sooner +felt remorse at the spectacle of his little child so ill-caressed, and +beckoned me away; but he had shown his gold, and could better be spared +than reckless I. You know the cool, deep game, dear Pat. _Hala ha!_ I +was made to buy the poison you sisters gave Van Dorn, and seem the +accomplice in his death: never till this week has that murder given up a +testimony--the portion of the dead man's coin your mother stole and hid, +which Hulda inherited at last. _Verdad es verde!_ I became afraid to +leave you: I am here at the death with you, my old enchantress." + +A crack ran through the empty wooden house, which made her rise; Van +Dorn, as he was called, enjoyed her uneasiness, like a pallid mask +painted with a smile. + +"Captain," she said, "how many people I see out yonder in the fields! +Maybe thar's to be a fox-chase." + +"Sit, Patty! Let me drink, in my last days of life, the wine lees of +your memory. You are so dear to me! Turn in the golden sun, that I may +linger on that face which autumn's ashes fall upon, though through the +dead leaves I see the russet colors smoulder yet! How daring was your +girlhood: the poor blacksmith farmer, whose name you will transmit +forever, fretted you with his sickness and his scruples, and, _he aqui!_ +you stilled him with the same cup you mixed for Betty's husband. His +daughter you gave to wife to his apprentice, a strong, stolid man, +capable of heroism, Patty, for he died for you, his dear misleader, on +the shameful scaffold, though all the crowd knew who his instigator was; +but, like a man, he died and never told." + +"Van Dorn, you hurt me," Patty broke out; "I cannot laugh to-day, and +these tales depress me, honey. Where shall we go when you are well?" + +"_La gente pone, y Dios dispone!_ Stay yet, and chat awhile. I would +not, for the world, see you discouraged,--you, unfathomable angel! who, +in this mangy corner of the globe, looked abroad over the land like +Catherine, from her sterile throne, over the mighty steppes, and levied +war upon the hopes of man. How you did trouble Uncle Sam, great Patty, +robbing his mails for years between Baltimore and the Brandywine! Young +Nichols still serves his term for that shrewd trick you taught him, of +cutting the mail-bags open as he sat, with the corrupted drivers, on the +crowded stage, stealthily throwing the valuable letters in the road, to +be gathered by a following horseman.[10] _Es admirable!_ Young Perry +Hutton, reared by you to kidnap, then to drive the mail and filch its +letters--a Delaware boy, too--perished on the gallows for killing a +mail-driver more scrupulous than himself, who detected him under his +mask.[11] Young Moore--was he your connection, darling?--stopping the +mail-stage at the Gunpowder Forge, fell under the driver's buckshot.[12] +And Hare--" + +"Captain," called Patty, "I see men and boys all over the fields yonder, +running and digging and dragging away the bresh. Is them ole buryins of +mine suspected?" + +"Pshaw! darling, 'tis your warm imagination, and Joe's unkindness. I +would make you happy with the memory of your daring acts. _Que +maravilla!_ In your little pets you stamped a life out, when another +woman would only stamp her foot. There was that morning when your fire +would not burn, and a little black child bawled with the cold and +angered you; if its body is ever dug up where it was laid, the skull +cracked with the billet of wood will tell the tale. You once suspected +me of truantry from your charms--_Quedo, quedo!_ exacting dame--and the +pale offspring of poor Hagar you threw upon the blazing backlog, and +grimly watched it burn. The pursued children whose cries you could not +still, that yet are stilled till hell shall have a voice, not even you +can number. Evangelists, O Patty, dipping their pens in blood of saints +to write your crimes, would make the next age infidel, where you will +seem impossible, and all of us mythology!" + +"Be still!" the woman cried, rising and walking, in her rolling gait, to +watch things without that stirred her mind more than her lover's +recitation; "what good kin these tales do you, Captain? My God! the +roads is full of people, and they are all looking yer. Is it at me, Van +Dorn?" + +He coughed painfully, still watching her, however, and answered: + +"Only a quarter-race, I guess, dear Pat! What! are you _fearing_, at +your time of life?" + +"No," cried Patty Cannon, defiantly, taking something from her bosom; +"here is the same dose I gave my husband, if the worst comes." + +"Bravo, Patty! you only tarnish into age, like an old bronze, that is +harder by time and oxidizing. I was a gentleman, and yet you mastered +me. How strange to see us together beleaguered here, myself by death, +and you by the law! Why, we have defied them both! Let them come on! Do +you believe in everlasting fire?--that every injury is a live coal to +roast the soul? I know you do; and, if you do, how beautiful your rosy +grate will be, tough charmer, with boys spoiled in the bud, and husbands +in the blossom, with families of freemen torn apart, and children, born +free as the flag of their country, sent to perpetual bondage and the +whip. _Poca barba, poca vergueenza!_[13] Who but a woman could have put +it into William Bouser's head, when she had kidnapped him and thirty +negroes more, and sold them all to Austin Woolfolk, in Baltimore, to +rise at sea on Woolfolk's vessel, and massacre the officers, only to be +hanged at last, and all to make Woolfolk a better customer!"[14] + +"There are people all round the house, Van Dorn. I hear them on the +stairs and in the rooms. Have mercy!" + +"Devils, or men, Patty? Both are your courtiers, remember, and perhaps +they crowd each other. What do we care? _Que contento estoy!_ Perhaps I +am indifferent because no blood is on my hands, vile slaver though I am! +Joe Johnson and his low-browed brother you could teach to kill; me, +nothing worse than to steal and fondle you. Patty, you believe in hell. +I am a believer, too; for I believe in heaven." + +"O Van Dorn; how you do talk!" + +"Since you entrapped my son, young Levin Dennis--_chito! quedito!_ do +not start, fair fiend--to have his father make another Johnson of him, I +have discovered, through the little girl, the beauteous damsel now, +Hulda Van Dorn, the sin you meant to spot me with; and, listen, Patty! +it was my son, rich with his mother's loyalty and love--dear guardian +wife, that never shall learn of my ruin here, nor see me more!--it was +my Levin, set free by me, who gave the news at Dover and beat us back." + +He had partly risen as he spoke, and the exertion seemed to choke him. +The woman sat in dreadful silence, watching his veins rise upon his pale +and wilful face. He caught at his throat with his fingers, and for a +time could speak no more. + +"Patty," said he, at last, between his coughing spells, "I believe +again, for I have seen my wife, true as an angel, beauteous as a child, +in prayer for me. An honest man waits my death to love her better, and +be the father of my son. _Hala o hala!_ I have had the daughter of my +murdered friend to kiss and bless me, and to love my son. My son has +given me his confidence, unknowing whom I was, and shown to me a brave, +pure heart. _Yo soy amado!_ Their prayers may knock for me at the +eternal door. But thou, the murderer of my youth, no heart will pray +for. Believe in hell, and die; _ha! hala! ho!_" + +He pointed his white finger at her in an ecstasy, with a mocking smile +in his blue eyes, like fading stars at dawn, and then the rosy morning +flowed all round his mouth, as the bullet, detached in his emotion, fell +towards the lung, and wakened hemorrhage, and to the last of his +strength he pointed at her, and then fell back, in crimson linen, +smiling yet in death. + +Terrified at the unwonted scene of a natural decease in that abode of +violence, the mistress only sat, the image of paralysis, till her door +slowly opened, and there entered, hand in hand, young Levin Dennis and +Hulda Van Dorn. + +"Levin," the young girl said, composed as one to whom reputable life and +obsequies were familiar, "I have heard the dying sentences of this +misled, strong, disappointed man. Let us kneel down, dear friend, and +say a prayer. He was our father, Levin; not Van Dorn--_that_ is my name, +the daughter of his friend--but Captain Oden Dennis, of the _Ida_ +privateer." + +As they knelt, with closed eyes, the room slowly filled, and Patty +Cannon's arms were seized by two constables, and the warrant read to +her. She heard it with humility, making no answer but this: + +"Once I had money an' friends a plenty; my money is gone, and so is my +friends; there's no fight now in pore ole Patty Cannon." + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +THE DEATH OF PATTY CANNON. + + +As Patty Cannon came out of the tavern the cross-roads were full of +people, taking their last look at the spot where she had triumphed for +nearly twenty years. + +None thought to look at Van Dorn, nor ask what had become of him, and +his friend Sorden removed his body, unseen, to a spot in the pine woods, +where his unmarked grave was dug, and standing round it were three +mourners only, and Sorden said the final words with homely tears: + +"I loved him as I never loved A male." + +The Maryland constable marched Patty Cannon down to the little bridge of +planks where ran the ditch nearly on the State line, and tradition still +believes the figment that Joe Johnson at that moment was hiding beneath +it. + +There, driven across the boundary like some borderer's cow, the queen of +the kidnappers was seized by the Delaware constable, and placed in a +small country gig-wagon, and, followed by a large mounted posse, the +road was taken to the little hamlet of Seaford, five miles distant. + +She watched the small funereal cedars and monumental poplar-trees rise +strangled from the underbrush, the dark-brown streams flowing into inky +mill-ponds, the close, small pines, scarcely large enough to moan, but +trying to do so in a baby tone, and her eyes turned to the sand, where +she was soon to be. Not agony nor repentance nor any hope of escape +fluttered her cold heart, but only a feeling of being ungratefully +deserted by her friends, and ill-treated by her equals and neighbors, +who had so seldom warned or avoided her; no preacher had come to tell +her the naked gospel, and some had bowed to her respectfully, and even +begged her oats, and made subscriptions from her ill-gotten silver. + +Seaford was a sandy place upon a bluff of the Nanticoke, and, as the +procession came in, a party of surveyors, working for Meshach Milburn's +railroad, paused to jeer the old kidnapper. She had grown suddenly old, +and never raised her voice, that had always been so forward, to make a +reply. + +The magistrate, Dr. John Gibbons, had been an educated young Irishman +who landed from a ship at Lewes, and, marrying a lady in Maryland, near +Patty Cannon's, became the legal spirit of the little town. His office, +a mere cabin, on a corner by his house, being too small for the purpose, +the examination was adjourned to the tavern, at the foot of the hill, +near where a mill-pond brook dug its way to the Nanticoke. Around the +tavern some box-bush walks were made in the sand, and willow-trees +bordered the cold river-side, and, at pauses in the hearing, wild-fowl +were heard to play and pipe in the falling tide. + +The evidence of Cy James and other cowardly companions in her sins was +quickly given, and the procession started through the woods and sands to +Georgetown, twelve miles to the eastward, where Patty Cannon was +received by all the town, waiting up for her, and the jail immediately +closed her in. + + * * * * * + +"I didn't ezackly make out what that cymlin-headed feller did it fur," +Jimmy Phoebus remarked, in the hold of an old oyster pungy, where he +found himself with his mulatto friend and Aunt Hominy and the children, +"but the file he fetched me has done its work at last. Yer, Whatcoat," +addressing his male fellow-prisoner, "take this knife the same feller +slipped me, an' cut these cords." Standing up free again, Mr. Phoebus +further remarked, + +"Whatcoat, thar's two of us yer. By smoke! thar's three." + +The docile colored man opened his eyes. + +"Him!" exclaimed the sailor, indicating the feather-bed in the hold, +with its stiff, invisible contents; "Joe'll chuck him overboard down yer +about deep water somewhere. Now, for a little hokey-pokey; I think I'll +git in thar myself, an' let Joe sell t'other feller fur a nigger." + +Phoebus's power over his fellow-prisoners--little children and idiotic +Hominy included--was now perfect, and he began to explore the rotten old +hold, which contained oyster-rakes, fish-lines, and the usual utensils +of a dredging-vessel, and soon discovered that there could be made a +clear passage to crawl through her from forecastle to-cabin by removing +a few boards. + +"Yer, Hominy," he said, "get to work with your needle, old gal; I'm +goin' to take you home." + + * * * * * + +With a good start, and a fair wind and slack tide, Johnson was off +Vienna at eight o'clock. + +"Ten mile to go, an' they can't catch me with a racehorse," he said, +"after I pass Chicacomico wharf, an' git abaft the marshes. I'm boozy +fur sleep. Thar's two in this crew I don't know, and I must be helmsman. +Bingavast! I'll make my nigger work his passage." + +He walked to the hatchway over the hold, and, sliding it back, dropped +in, and, with a few expert blows of the professional smithy, set +Whatcoat free, merely glancing where Phoebus lay upon his face, +snoring hard. + +"Cool cucumber of a bloke," Johnson said, "he'll be too much fur me in a +trade; I'll have to stifle him!" Then, ordering the mulatto man astern, +Johnson gave him the tiller, and sat near, nodding, till the second +wharf on the starboard was passed. + +"Now Gabriel can't overhaul me," Johnson exclaimed; "thar's no more road +on the Dorchester side, an' the Somerset roads is all gashed by creeks +an' barred by farm-gates. I'll sink that dab an' stiffy." + +He called two deck hands, and lifted the body out of the hold. Phoebus +still placidly slept upon his face, and Johnson looked at him with +peculiar envy after a hurried glance at the dead. Some ropes being put +around the bed, and drag-irons attached to them, the whole weight was +unceremoniously thrown overboard at the point of Hungry Neck, and the +dealer remarked, apologetically: + +"There goes a great hypocrite, gentlemen; he wasn't above piracy, ef he +could git another man to fly the black flag for him. I reckon he'll be +'conservative' enough after this. And now I'll snooze. Steer her for +Ragged Point, yonder, Whatcoat, an' when you git thar wake me. It's +clear broad inlet all the way; an' remember, nigger, I sleep and shoot, +on hair triggers!" + +With his pistols in his hand, Johnson lay down in the cabin a few feet +from the helmsman, and tried to see and sleep at once. He had been +without rest for many nights, and sleep soon bound him in its own clevis +and manacles. + +When he awoke, so deep had been his slumber that he could not recall for +a moment where he was. The tiller was unmanned, the stars shone in the +cabin hatchway, a cold bilge-water draft blew through the old hulk, and, +as he dragged himself up the steps, he saw tall woods near by, and heard +the voice of solemn pines. + +The vessel was aground; wild geese were making jubilant shrieks as they +cut the water with their fleecy wings, like cameo engraving; the outlaw +gazed and gazed, and finally muttered: + +"Deil's Island, or I'm a billy noodle! I run from it the last time I was +yer, an' my blood runs cold to be yer agin; my daddy got his curse from +this camp-meetin'." + +Taking speed from his apprehensions, Johnson slid back the hatchway and +leaped into the hold, starlight and moonlight following him, and nothing +did they reveal there except one man, peacefully sleeping upon his face, +as Phoebus had last been seen. + +The kidnapper shook his captive, but he did not awaken. He turned the +man over, and there met his eyes the cold blue stare and Roman nose and +bleeding lips of Allan McLane, apparently returned from the bottom of +the river. + +With a shriek, the outlaw bounded upon the deck and ran to the bow of +the pungy. + +"Help me!" came a faint cry from the forecastle, and, peeping in, Joe +Johnson recognized one of his own familiars he had shipped at Cannon's +Ferry, gagged, like his companion, and tied fast. The man had just been +able to articulate. + +"Now, spiflicate me!" spoke the skipper, relieving the man, "the ruffian +cly you! who did this?" + +"The white nigger did it all, Joe. He crawled through the stays to the +cabin, and got your pistols, first; leastways, we found him an' the +yaller feller at the helm on top of us, coming up the fo'castle, and +next t'other two men jined 'em. They said ole Samson had give 'em the +wink. We two was tied and throwed in yer, an' ef you had awaked, thar +was a man to stab you to the heart, sot over you." + +"The portmanteau?" cried Johnson. + +"That's gone, I reckon. They sowed you up a feather an' oyster-shell man +on a plank to heave overboard; that's what they said. They steered for +Deil's Island, an' sot the Island Parson yer to watch that you don't git +the pungy off, an' I reckon they're half-way to Princess Anne." + +Joe Johnson heard no more. He released his creatures from their bonds, +took the dead body in the pungy's canoe, and gave the command: + +"Row fur the open bay! We'll strike St. Mary's County or Virginny. +Bingavast! Hike! Never agin will I put foot on this Eastern Shore." + + * * * * * + +At Georgetown Jimmy Phoebus, Samson, and Levin Dennis met again, and +Levin told the mystery of his father's disappearance. + +"Never tell your mother, Levin, that Captain Dennis died in that +Pangymonum; it would break her heart, and she never would trust man +agin." + +"Jimmy," spoke up Samson, "let her understand that he got wrecked on the +_Ida_. It looks a little bad, but the slave-trade sounds better than +kidnappin'." + +"They say that Allan McLane owned that slave vessel," Phoebus put in; +"but he didn't live to know his loss. He'll meet his heathens at the +Judgment Seat." + +"Who has fed mother?" Levin asked. "Hulda can't explain that." + +"I kin, Levin," Samson Hat said, bashfully. "It was me. Good ole Meshach +Milburn, that everybody's down on, pitied that pore woman, an' made me +set things she needed in her window. He said if I ever told it he'd +discharge me." + +"Dog my skin!" Jimmy Phoebus observed, "the next man that calls +'steeple top' after ole Meshach I'll mash flat! But, come, my son, I've +buried at Broad Creek your wife's family relics. We'll hire a wagon, and +drive to ole Broad Creek 'piscopal church on the way, and there I'll +have you married to Huldy." + +The sword-hilt and coins were disinterred, and in that ancient edifice +of hard pine, where the worship of her English race had long been +celebrated, the naval officer's daughter became the wife of the son of +his voluptuous and perverted friend. As Jimmy Phoebus kissed them he +said: + +"Levin, when your mother says 'Yes,' all four of us will settle in the +West. Illinois has become a free state, after a hard fight, and I reckon +that'll suit us." + + * * * * * + +For a while Patty Cannon, by her affability and sorrow, had easy times +in jail, and was allowed to eat with the jailer's family; but, as the +examination proceeded before the grand jury, and her menials hastened to +throw their responsibility in so many crimes upon her alone, an outer +opinion demanded that she be treated more harshly, and some of the irons +she had manacled upon her captives were riveted upon her own ankles. +Very soon dropsy began to appear in her legs and feet, and, after it +became evident to her that neither money nor friends were forthcoming in +her defence, she fell into a passive despair. + +The frequent conferences between Jimmy Phoebus and Cy James led to the +belief that not only had Hulda recovered portions of her father's money +and valuables, hidden in the beehives and flower-pots old Patty had so +assiduously attended, but that Phoebus had seized upon property +indicated by the informer, and was to have whatever remained of it after +procuring the latter's release. + +This result was hastened by Patty Cannon's death, which happened, to the +great relief of many respectably considered people in that region, who +had feared from the first that she would make a minute confession, +implicating everybody who had dealt with her band. + +Among these was Judge Custis, who opened his skeleton-in-the-closet to +John M. Clayton one spring-like day. Clayton had quietly prodded on the +conviction of Patty Cannon, but the jealousy of the slaveholding +interest made him wary of any open appearance against her. + +They were sitting in the little parlor of the Methodist parsonage, a +small frame house with a conical-roofed portico and big end-chimney, a +little off from the public square, whither they had gone to send the +pastor to wait on the aged Chancellor, who had been taken ill in the +court-room, and lay in the hotel. + +"Clayton," said Judge Custis, in a low tone of voice, "what this woman +may do or tell, you would not think concerned me, but I will show you +how deep her influence has reached, as well as explain to you why I +would not pursue my own servants to her den. In this I humiliate myself +before you, as I must do, if I am to become your client." + +"You had been trading with Patty Cannon; I guessed that much." + +"Such was the case. When I was a collegian at Yale, returning home one +holiday, I fell in love with a beautiful quadroon, the property of my +uncle, in Northampton County. She was an elegant woman, with a good +education, and had been my playmate. I was ardent and good-looking, and +easily found lodgment in her heart; but the conquest of her charms was +long, and agonizing with sincere esteem. You must believe me when I +declare that I fell dangerously ill because I was refused by her, and, +making a confidant of my doctor, he told the girl that she must choose +between my death and her surrender. Pity, then, prevailed, even over +religion. I was happy in every point but one--the injury concealment +worked upon her self-respect; for, Clayton, my mistress was my own +cousin." + +"Goy!" + +"I never desired to marry, although no children had been born in my +patriarchal relation; but, in the course of years, my uncle became +pressed for debts, and he appealed to me to save my beautiful handmaiden +from sale, he being in full sympathy with my relation to her, because +she was his daughter." + +"I goy!" + +"The case was urgent. I possessed some negroes, the legacy of my mother. +To sell them publicly would be a stigma both upon my humanity and my +credit. I adopted the cowardly device of letting a kidnapper slip them +away, and take a large commission for his trouble. I saved my lady, but +at the expense of a secret." + +"And that secret Joe Johnson depended on, Custis, when he was suddenly +driven into your house, and found your old servant already demoralized +by the announcement of your son-in-law?" + +"The scoundrel pressed his advantage; and he saw, besides, my +daughter--not Vesta, but her half-sister, Virgie--and, between his +persecution of her and my brother-in-law's vindictiveness, poor Virgie +was literally run to the ground and into it; she is in her grave." + +Judge Custis broke into a long fit of sobbing, and Clayton, who had +noticed his dejected mien since their separation, passed an arm around +him, saying: + +"Never mind, now! Never mind, old friend! Johnson is fled; McLane, they +whisper, has never been seen since he entered Johnson's tavern. His will +was found there, and your daughter gets her mother's property and +servants back." + +"I must finish my story," Judge Custis said, stanching his tears. "By +the decline of every family with natural feelings and refinement, under +what Mr. Pinkney termed 'the contaminating curse of reluctant bondsmen,' +we, also, became poor. To save others, it was necessary that I must +marry, and get money by my own prostitution. My God, how we are repaid! +A bride was found for me in Baltimore, the sister of Allan McLane, and a +beauty. + +"I began my married life with the best intentions; my poor mistress +herself advised me to turn to my wife, and become a true man. She told +me so with her heart breaking. In heaven, where she dwells with my poor +child, she hears me now, and knows I speak the truth!" + +Judge Custis broke down again, and leaned his convulsed head on +Clayton's tender breast, whose own widower's grief gushed forth +responsively. + +"Children were born in Teackle Hall; my servitude was becoming adjusted +to me, when Allan McLane, in his love of vindictiveness and of low, +formal respectability, conceived that my poor quadroon required some +chastisement for having been his sister's rival, and he set a trap to +buy her. I was forced to have her bought, to protect her, and to bring +her to my care again, and thus our passion was revived, and, giving +birth to Virgie, she died. Reared together, and unconscious of their +kindred, those daughters loved each other as dearly as when, in heaven, +they shall hide in the radiance of each other, and cover my sins with +their angelic wings." + +"Rise up, old friend!" cried Clayton; "your transgressions are, at +least, washed out in sincere tears. Hear the birds all around us loving +and condoning, and filling the air with praise. Come out!" + +As they stepped upon Georgetown Square they saw John Randel, Jr., +leading a party of surveyors to locate the opposition railroad to +Meshach Milburn's. These and many others were pressing towards the +whipping-post and pillory, in the rear of the court-house, where stood, +exposed by the sheriff, the cleanly mulatto woman who had entertained +Virgie in Snow Hill the first night of her flight. + +"This free woman, Priscilla Hudson," cried the sheriff, "is to stand one +hour in the pillory for the crime of lending her pass to a slave. Thirty +lashes she was sentenced to, the Governor has graciously taken off. She +is to be sold, out of the state, at the end of one hour, for the term of +her natural life, to the highest bidder." + +The poor woman stood there, bare armed and bare almost to the bosom, +delicate and lovely to see, and the mother of free children, her +clothing having been partly removed before the pardon of the stripes was +announced to her. + +Her head and arms were thrust through the holes in one leaf of the +pillory, and thus, thrown forward, her modesty was exposed to the wanton +gaze of the crowd, while, on the other side of the same elevated +platform, pilloried in like manner, was a female chicken-thief, +impudent, indifferent, and chewing tobacco, and spitting it out upon the +pillory floor. + +As Clayton and Custis saw this scene on their way to the tavern, an egg, +thrown from a window of the debtor's jail, whether meant for Mrs. Hudson +or not, struck her in the face, and its corrupt contents streamed down +her white and shivering breast. + +"Shame! shame!" cried the people, as they saw the woman cry, and, gazing +up to the jail window, another female face appearing there, turned +their cries to curses: + +"Hang her! hang her!" + +For the last time in life Patty Cannon's bold and comely face swelled +again with passionate blood to the roots of the glossy black hair, and +the few who saw her rich, dark eyes, inflamed with anger, say their +pupils were dilated like the wild-cat's. She was gone in a moment, and +the sheriff had wiped Mrs. Hudson's face and breast with a handkerchief +passed up by a colored woman. + +Two men were now actively going around the crowd, hat in hand, +soliciting contributions to buy the woman, the first a blind man, whose +eyes were bandaged, and a white man led him, calling loudly: + +"The abolitionists have raised three hundred dollars to buy this woman's +freedom. We want a hundred more, as some mean people may bid her up +high. This man, her husband, stole her pass, to slip a friend away. We +couldn't git the evidence in, but it's God's truth, gentlemen! The +woman's nursed my wife, an' done a heap of good; and she come here, of +her own free will, out of Maryland, to nurse the Chancellor." + +Little money was raised in that crowd, since there was little to give, +and, addressing the two distinguished strangers, Sorden, the crier, +exclaimed: + +"What, gentlemen, will you let the Hunn brothers and Tommy Garrett and +the Motts give three hundred dollars for a woman they never saw, and we, +who see her always doing good, give nothing?" + +"Pity! pity!" sobbed the blind man. "I'm burned so bad nobody will buy +_me_, but I stole her pass to help a slave off that I fell in love +with." + +Judge Custis left Clayton's side, and waited till the hour in the +pillory was done, and, after a fierce contest, saw Sorden come off +victorious at the sale, though it took every dollar the Judge could +raise in Georgetown on his private credit. + +"What is the name of the girl you gave her pass to?" asked the Judge of +the blind mulatto. + +"Virgie, marster." + +"My heart told me so," exclaimed the Judge. "Your crime has been +punished enough. I will send you to your wife."[15] + + * * * * * + +John Randel, Jr., observed, that evening: + +"Devil Jim Clark has taken example from Patty Cannon, and squared the +circle." + +"Not dead?" asked Clayton. + +"Yes, dead and buried. He was cleaning up his contract on the canal, and +mistook the white Irish laborers there for kidnapped niggers. They set +on him, and beat him and scared him together, so that he never +recovered. They say he was 'converted' on his death-bed; or, as the +saying is, 'he died triumphantly;' but the darkeys report that the devil +came straight down with a chariot and drove him off." + +"That fellow, Whitecar, I'm reserving," said Clayton, "to punish when I +can use him to sustain an argument in favor of admitting negro testimony +in kidnapping cases.[16] Without that admission, these kidnappers cannot +be convicted: even Patty Cannon here may escape us, though she has +killed white men." + +Sorden spoke up, he being of the party: + +"A disease called leprosy has broke out in ole Derrick Molleston's +cabin; Sam Ogg has got it, too, and they say he fetched it up from the +breakwater. Nobody will go near them. Black Dave is dead; he said he +killed a man at Prencess Anne: the young wife of Levin Dennis, who +turns out to be a lady, stayed and prayed with him to the last, and he +went off humble and happy. But, my skin! another kidnapper has rented +Johnson's tavern a'ready." + +"The railroad will clear all these evils out," exclaimed Randel. "I've +put it into poetry," and he began to recite: + + "To dark Naswaddox forest fled + The murderer from the main, + And with the otter laid his head + Amid the swamp and cane: + 'Here nothing can pursue my ear, + From travelled paths astray; + I shall forget, from year to year, + The world beyond the bay!' + + "The hunted man one morning heard + A whistle near and strong, + And in the night a fiery light + The thickets flashed among: + The demon of the engine rushed + Along on blazing beams-- + The hound the murderer had flushed, + The outlaw's path was Steam's!" + + * * * * * + +The cry of hate from the crowd around the whipping-post, as it awoke +Patty Cannon's last anger, also determined her last crime. + +Fear was relative in her: she had neither the fear of men nor of shame, +and only of death as it involved a hereafter. Whether that hereafter was +a latent conviction in her mind, or the vivid admonition of guilt and +dead men's eyes peering over her dreams and into the silent, lonely +watches of haunted midnights, who shall tell? There is no analysis of a +native and ancient depravity: it was sown in the marrow, it strengthens +in the bone, and, with a cunning, daring self-assertion, gambles upon +the faith of living and of dying not. Its very fears push it onward in +crime, and make it cruelly tantalize its own fate, as cowards lean over +graveyard walls, and shout, with an inner trembling, "Come forth--I dare +you!" + +So had this woman, conscious of her deserts, bullied eternal justice +through its long postponements, never doubting, while ever vexing, the +Spirit of God, until the number of her crimes crowded the tablet of her +memory, and out of the hideous gulf of her past life gazed faces without +names and deeds without memoranda; a procession the longer that +strangers were in it, and, shrinking from her, yet pressing on, +exclaimed her name or only shrieked "'Tis she!" as if her name was +nothing to her curse. + +Sleeping in her chains, there were children's eyes watching her from +far-off corners, as if to say, "Give us the whole life we would have +lived but for you!" + +As her swollen limbs festered to the irons, there were babies' cries +floating in the air, that seemed to draw near her breasts, as if for +food, and suddenly convulse there in screams of pain, and move away with +the sounds of suffocation she had heard as they expired. + +All night there were callers on her, and whom they were no one could +tell; but the jailer's family saw her lips moving and her eyes consult +the air, as if she was faintly trying bravado upon certain +business-speaking ghosts who had come with bills long overdue and +demanded payment, and went out only to come again and again. + +Some of these mystic visitors she would jeer at and defy, and stamp her +feet, as if they had no rights in equity against her soul, having been +on vicious errands when they met their ends, and bankrupts in the court +of pity; but suddenly a helpless something would appear, and paralyze +her with its little wail, like a babeless mother or a motherless babe, +and, with her forehead wet with sweat of agony, she would affect to +chuckle, and would whisper, "Nothin' but niggers! nothin' more!" + +Day brought her some relief, but also other cares, and of these the +chief was the care of money. She had been a spendthrift all her life, +and robbed mankind of life and liberty to enjoy the selfish dissipation +of spending their blood-money; and what had she bought with it? Nothing, +nothing. To spend it, only, she had wrecked her sex and her soul; to +spend it for such trifles as children want--candy and common ornaments, +a dance and a treat, a gift for some boor or forester or even negro she +was misleading, or to establish a silly reputation for generosity: +generous at the expense of human happiness, and of robbing people of +liberty and life, merely for spending-money! + +Now she had none to appease the all-devouring greeds of habit +intensified by real necessity: no money to buy dainties or even liquor; +no money to spend upon the jailer's family and keep the reputation of +kindness alive; no money for decent apparel to appear in court; none to +corrupt the law or to hire witnesses and attorneys. + +The two demons she had created alternately seized the day and the night: +the demon of money plagued her all day, the demon of murder pursued her +all night. + +Every morning she had insatiate wants; all night she had remorseless +visitors; and, close before, the gallows filled the view, with the Devil +tying the noose. + +That Devil she plainly saw, so busy on the gallows, fitting his ropes +and shrouds and long death-caps, and he evaded her, as if he had no +commerce with her now. + +He was a cool and wistful man, perfectly happy in the prospect of +getting her, and not anxious about it, so sure was he of her soon and +complete possession. + +He was always out in the jail-yard when she looked there, fixing his +ropes, sliding the nooses, examining the gallows, like a conscientious +carpenter; and in his complacent smile was an awful terror that froze +her dumb: he seemed so impersonal, so joyous, so industrious, as if he +had waited for her like a long creditor, and compounded the interest on +her sins till the infernal sum made him a millionaire in torments. + +A Devil it was, real as a man--a slavemaster to whose quiet love of +cruelty eternal death was not enough; a man whose unscarred age, old as +the rising sun, still came and went in immortal youthfulness and +satisfaction, but for the nonce forgetting other debtors in the grip he +had on her, as his majestic expiation for his own shortcomings. + +He looked like a storekeeper, a man of accounts, a cosmopolitan +kidnapper, who knew a good article and had it now. She was so terrified +that she wanted to cry to him, and see if he would not remit that +business method and become more human, and sauce her back. + +But no; the longer she watched, the less he looked towards her, though +she knew his smile meant no one else. To hang upon his cord was very +little; to go with him after it was stretched, down the burning grates +of hell, and see him all so cool and busy in her misery, was the gnawing +vulture at her heart. + +In vain she tried to throw responsibility for her sins upon a vague, +false parentage and fatherhood, and say that she was bred to robbery and +vice; a something in her heart responded: "No, you had beauty and health +and chaste lovers whom you rejected or tempted, and a mind that was ever +clear and knew right from wrong. Conscience never gave you up, though +drenched in innocent blood. The often-murdered monitor revived and cried +aloud like the striking of a clock, but never was obeyed!" + +Thus haunted, deserted, peeped in upon from the hereafter, racked with +vain needs, her outlets closed to every escape or subterfuge, revenge +itself dead, and disease assisting conscience to banish sleep, the +wretched woman crawled to her window one day and saw the helpless +effigy of her sex exposed there for doing an act of humanity; and +instantly an instinct she immediately obeyed exacted from her one last +familiar, heartless deed, to show the crowd that even she, Patty Cannon +the murderess, had "no respect for a nigger." + +That doctrine long survived her, though she found it old when she came +among them. + +She aimed an egg at the breast of her sex, and, with a barefaced grin, +she saw it strike and burst. The next moment the crowd had recognized +and defied her. + +In the exasperation of their shout, and of being no longer praised even +for insulting a negro, a convulsion of desperate rage overcame the +murderess. + +Too helpless to retort in any other way, yet in uncontrollable +recklessness, she exclaimed, "They never shall see me hang, then!" and +swallowed the arsenic she had concealed in her bosom. + +That night she died in awful torments. + + * * * * * + +The venerable Chancellor, lying in the hotel near the whipping-post +corner, watched by the released Mrs. Hudson, who must to-morrow depart +from the state forever, heard that night voices on the square, saying: + +"Patty Cannon's dead. They say she's took poison." + +A mighty pain seized the Chancellor's heart, and the loud groans he made +called a stranger into the room. + +"Is that dreadful woman dead?" sighed the Chancellor. + +"Yes; she will never plague Delaware again, marster." + +"God be thanked!" the old man groaned. "Justice and murder are kin no +more." + +They said he died that instant of heart disease. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +THE JUDGE REMARRIED. + + +Vesta found her circle reunited, though with many absentees, at Princess +Anne. + +Aunt Hominy took her place in the kitchen, and cooked with all her +former art, but her voice and understanding were gone, and she never +would go past the Entailed Hat, and still regarded it, as nearly as +could be made out, as the cause of all her errors and dangers, though +she seemed to admit its unevadable dominion. + +The poor woman, Mary, finding Samson Hat, in time, wishing to have a +partner in the old storehouse, where he had become the only resident, +had faith enough left to make her third marriage with him; and his means +not only made good the property she had lost, but the hale old man +presented her with a babe boy, which took the name of Meshach Phoebus, +and on which Judge Custis sagely remarked that it "ought to have been a +red-headed nigger, having both the fiery furnace and the blazing sun in +its name." + +On Samson Hat's death, which resulted from rheumatism reaching his +heart, his widow joined her deliverer from slavery, James Phoebus, in +the West, where he lived happily with his bride and stepson, and often +wrote home of a friend he had there named Abe Lincoln, who made +flat-boat voyages with him down the Mississippi. Both Ellenora Phoebus +and Hulda Dennis reared Western families which played effective parts in +the drama of civilization. + +Vesta lost no time in setting free every slave about Teackle Hall and on +the farms, with the approval of her father and husband also, and Roxy +became the wife of Whatcoat, the rescued freedman, and the replacer, at +her mistress's side, of poor Virgie, whose body was brought home and +interred by the church where she had been her white sister's bridesmaid. +The grief of Vesta for Virgie was quiet, but long, and as that of an +equal, not a mistress, though she may have never known how equal. + +In the fatalities thronging about her marriage Vesta observed one signal +blessing--the complete reform of her father's habits. + +He drank nothing whatever, supplying with fruit the pleasures of wine, +and with exercise and business, on her husband's behests, the vagrant +tours he once made in the forest for politics and amours. + +Aware of his sociable and voluptuous nature, Vesta desired to see him +married again, to complete and secure his reformation; and, while she +was yet puzzling her brain to think of a wife to suit him, he solved the +problem himself by cleanly cutting out Rhoda Holland from under the +attentions of William Tilghman. + +Rhoda had rapidly learned, and had corrected her grammar without losing +her humor and her taste for dress, and her free, warm spirits soon made +her an elegant woman, in whom, fortunately or unfortunately, a very +decided worldly ambition germinated,--at once the proof and the +vindication of _parvenues_. + +She may have patterned it upon her uncle, or it may have emanated from +his ambitious family stock, which, in and around him, had wakened to the +vigor of a previous century; but it was so different from Vesta's nature +that, while it but made nobler her soul of tranquil piety and ease of +ladyhood, Vesta was interested in Rhoda's self-will and business +coquetry. + +A higher vitality than Vesta's, Rhoda Holland soon showed, in the +superficial senses, more acuteness of sight and insight, quicker +intuitions, more self-love, though not selfishness, less +scrupulousness, perhaps, in dealing with her lovers, and, with fidelity +and virtue, a pushing spirit that Vesta only mildly reproved, since she +made the allowance that it was in part inspired by herself. + +"Take care, dear," Vesta said one day, "that you grow not away from your +heart. With all improving, there is a growth that begets the heart +disease. Do you love cousin William Tilghman? He is too true a man to be +hurt in his feelings. Nothing in this world, Rhoda, is a substitute for +principle in woman." + +"I don't want to lose principle, auntie," Rhoda said; "but I am afraid I +love life too much to be a pastor's wife. I never saw the world for so +long that I'm wild in it. I want to go, to look, and to see, everywhere. +I feel my heart is in my wings, and must I go sit on a nest? Miss +Somers--" + +"The question is, dear, do you love?" + +"Auntie, I reckon I love William as much as he does me." + +"But he is devoted, Rhoda." + +"If I thought I had the whole, full heart of William, Aunt Vesta, and it +would give him real pain to disappoint him, I would marry him. But I +have watched him like a cat watches a mouse. He wants to marry me to +make other people than himself happy; to reconcile you and uncle more; +to take uncle more into your family by marrying his niece. William is +trying to love Uncle Meshach like a good Christian, but, Aunt Vesta, he +thinks more of your little toe than of my whole body." + +The crimson color came to Vesta's cheeks so unwillingly, so mountingly, +that she felt ashamed of it, and, in place of anger, that many wives so +exposed would have shown, she shed some quiet tears. + +"Rhoda, don't you know I am your uncle's wife." + +Rhoda threw her arms around her. + +"Forgive me, dear! When you tell me, Aunt Vesta, that William loves me +dearly, I'll gladly marry him. I only want, auntie, not to make +happiness impossible, when to wait would be better." + +Vesta wondered what Rhoda meant, but, kissing her friend tenderly again, +Rhoda whispered: + +"Auntie, it's not selfishness that makes me behave so. Indeed, I love +William; it's a sacrifice to let him go." + +Vesta looked up and found Rhoda's eyes this time full of tears. + +"Strange, tender girl!" cried Vesta. "What makes you cry?" + +Yet, for some unspoken, perhaps unknown, reasons, they both shed +together the tears of a deeper respect for each other. + +Soon afterwards Judge Custis, being sent to Annapolis by Milburn, was +requested to take Rhoda along, as a part of her education, and Vesta +went, also, at her husband's desire. + +She feared that her father, devoted as he had become to her husband's +business interests, still disliked him and bore him resentment; and +Vesta wished to see not only outward but inward reconcilement of those +two men, from one of whom she drew her being, and towards the other +began to feel sacred yet awful ties that took hold on life and death. + +They were taken to the landing by Mr. Milburn and the young rector, and +there, as the steamboat approached, Tilghman said: + +"Rhoda, your uncle has consented. He wishes us to marry. I ask you, +before all of them, to consider my proposal while you are gone, and come +home with your reply." + +The impetuous girl threw her arms around him and kissed him in silence, +and, covering her face with her veil, awaited in uncontrollable tears +the steamboat that was to carry her to the mightier world she had never +seen, beyond the bay. + +After she reached the steamer her stillness and grief continued, and +going to bed that night she turned up her face, discolored by tears, for +Vesta to kiss her, like a child, and faltered: + +"Aunty, don't think I have no principle. Indeed, I have some." + + * * * * * + +Annapolis, half a century the senior of Baltimore, and the first town to +take root in all the Chesapeake land, was now almost one hundred and +fifty years old, and the stern monument of Cromwell's protectorate. Its +handful of expelled Puritans from Virginia, compelled to organize their +county under the name of the Romanist, Anne Arundel, unfurled the +standard of the Commonwealth, reddened with a tyrant king's blood, +against the invading army of Lord Baltimore, and, shouting "God is our +strength: fall on, men!" annihilated feudal Maryland, never to revive; +and, after King William's similar revolution in England, "Providence +town" took his queen sister's name, _Anna_polis, like Princess Anne +across the bay. + +Annapolis became a place of fashion and of court, with horse-races, +stage-playing, a press, a club, fox-hunting clergymen, a grand +state-house, the town residences of planters, the belles of Maryland, +and the seat of war against the French, the British crown, and the +slaveholders' insurrection. + +It was now in a state of comfortable decline, having yielded to +Baltimore and to Washington its once superior influence and society; but +a lobby, the first in magnitude ever seen in this province, had +assembled in the name of canals and railroads to compete for the bonded +aid of the Legislature, and Judge Custis was leading the forlorn hope of +the Eastern Shore for some of the subsidy so liberally showered upon the +cormorant, Baltimore. + +Judge Custis was instructed to lobby at Annapolis for one million +dollars, or only one-eighth part of the grants made by the state, and he +was to draw on Meshach Milburn for funds, who, meantime, continued out +of his private resources to grade and buy right of way for one hundred +and thirty miles of railroad. + +The adventure was gigantic for the private capital of that day, and the +unpopularity of the adventurer at home was soon testified at the state +capital. + +Vesta, whose carriage had been brought over, looked with a gentle +patriotism--being herself of divided Maryland and Virginia +sympathies--upon the little peninsulated capital, with its old roomy +houses of colonial brick, its circles and triangles in the public ways, +and the unchanged names of such streets as King George, Prince George, +and the Duke of Gloucester; but Rhoda was excited to the height of state +pride in everything she saw, and, with strong faculty, seized on the +historical and political relations of Annapolis, till Judge Custis said: + +"Vesta, that girl is of the old rebel Milburn stock, I know. She takes +it all in like a wild duck diving for the bay celery." + +With two such beautiful women to speak for it, the Eastern Shore +railroad seemed at first to have many friends, but it was not in the +nature of the enterprising elements about Baltimore to yield a point, +however complaisant they might appear. + +Vesta did not go into general company, but her influence was mildly +exercised in her rooms at the large old hotel, and in her carriage as +she made excursions in pleasant weather to the South and West rivers, to +"the Forest" of Prince George and to the thrifty Quakers of Montgomery. +She wrote and received a daily letter, her husband being attentive and +tender, despite his growing cares, as he had promised to be on that +severe day he made his suit to her. + +But the story of her sacrifice, shamefully exaggerated, with all that +intensity of expression habitual in a pro-slavery society whenever money +is the stake and denunciation the game, was used to injure her husband's +interests. + +Mr. Milburn was described as a vile Yankee type of miser and +overreacher, who had plotted against the fortune of a gentleman and the +virtue of his daughter for a long series of remorseless years. + +Local opposition affirmed that he would use the railroad to ruin other +gentry and oppress his native region, and that he was a Philadelphia +emissary and an abolitionist, scheming to create a new state of the +three jurisdictions across the bay. + +Judge Custis, with his great popularity, did not escape censure; he was +said to have winked at the surrender of his child for money and +ambition, and to have broken the heart of his estimable wife after he +had lost her fortune in an iron furnace. + +Senator Clayton, whose mother had originated near Annapolis, made a +visit there from Washington, and was entrapped into saying that Delaware +would furnish all needful railway facilities for the Eastern Shore, and +that two railways there would never pay. + +Finally, Judge Custis wrote to his son-in-law to come to Annapolis and +meet these misstatements in person. + +Milburn came, and his pride being irritated by the nature of the +opposition, he wore to the scene of the combat his ancestral hat. + +He became at once the most marked figure in Maryland. + +In one end of the state he was caricatured in drawings and verses as the +generic Eastern-Shore man, wearing such a hat because he had not heard +of any later styles. + +The connection of a man of last century's hat with such a progressive +thing as a railroad, seemed to excite everybody's risibilities. His +railroad was called the Hat Line, even in the debates, and coarse people +and negroes were hired by wits in the lobby to attend the Legislature +with petitions for the Eastern Shore railroad, the whole delegation +wearing antique and preposterous hats, gathered up from all the old +counties and from the slop-shops of Baltimore; and in that day queer +hats were very common, as animal skins of great endurance were still +used to manufacture them.[17] + +From Somerset word was sent that Milburn retained his hat from no +amiable weakness or eccentricity, but because he had entered a vow never +to abandon it till he had put every superior he had under his feet; and +that he was a victim of gross forest superstition, and had made a +bargain with the devil, who allowed him to prosper as long as he braved +society with this tile. + +The hotel servants chuckled as he went in and out; the oystermen and +wood-cutters called jocosely to each other as he passed by; respectable +people said he could have no consideration for his wife to degrade her +by raising the derision of the town. Judge Custis finally remarked: + +"Milburn, I resolved, many years ago, never to address you again on the +subject of your dress. My duty makes me break the resolve: your hat is +the worst enemy of your railroad." + +Vesta, however, was the Entailed Hat's greatest victim. It lay upon her +spirits like a shroud. Nervous and apprehensive as she had become, the +perpetual admonition and friction of this article drove her into silence +and gloom, poisoned the air and blocked up the sunlight, made going +forth a constant running of the gantlet, and hospitality a comedy, and +human observation a wondering stare. + +The hat was the silent, unindicated thing that stood between her and her +husband and the rest of the world. She never mentioned it, for she saw +that it was forbidden ground. Kind and liberal as her husband was in +every other thing, she dared not allude to a matter which had become the +centre of his nervous organization, like an indurated sore; and yet she +saw, from other than selfish considerations, that this hat was his own +worst foe. + +Some positive vice--and he had none--some calculating conspiracy--and he +was direct as the day--some base amusement or hidden habit or acrid +disease would hold him in captivity and pervert his heart less than this +simple aberration of behavior. Had he been a hunchback men would have +overlooked it; a hideous goitre or wen they would not have resented; but +extreme gentility or high-bred courtesy could not refrain from turning +to look a second time at a man with a beautiful lady on his arm and a +steeple hat upon his head. + +The existence of any subject man and wife must not talk together upon, +which is yet a daily ingredient of comfort and display, itself +disarranges their economy and finally becomes the chronic intruder of +their household; and, when it is a trifle, it seems the more an +obstacle, because there is no reasoning about it. + +This Hat had long ceased to be external: it was worn on Milburn's heart +and stifled the healthy throbbing there. It made two men of him,--the +outer and the household man,--and, like the Corsican brothers, they were +ever conscious of each other, and a word to one aroused the other's +clairvoyant sensibility. + +"If people would only not observe him," Vesta said, "I think he would +lay his hat aside; but that is impossible, and all his pride is in the +unending conflict with a law of everlasting society. Who sets a fashion, +we do not know; who dares to set one that is obsolete must be a martyr; +independence no one can practise but a lunatic. Oh, what tyranny exists +that no laws can reach, and how much of society is mere formality!" + +Vesta pitied her husband, but the disease was beyond her cure. She had +anticipated some compensation for her marriage, in a larger life and +society, and in the exercise of her mind, especially in art and music; +yet these were purely social things with woman, and the baneful hat was +ever darkening her threshold and closing the vista of every other one. +She meditated escaping from it by a visit to Europe, which her father +had promised her before his embarrassments, and which had been spoken of +by Mr. Milburn as due her in the way of musical perfection. + +"Uncle," Rhoda Holland said one day, "do put off that old hat. Aunt +Vesta could love you so much better! People think it is cruel, uncle. +Oh, listen to your wife's heart and not to your pride." + +"Stop!" said Milburn. "One more reference to my honest hat and you shall +be sent back to Sinepuxent and Mrs. Somers." + +It may have been this dreadful threat, or rising ambition, or the +fascinations of Judge Custis's position and attentions and remarkable +gallantry, that disposed Rhoda to turn her worldly sagacity upon the +father of her friend. + +The visit to Annapolis occupied the whole winter; as it proceeded, Judge +Custis, suppressing the temptations of the table, and feeling his later +responsibilities thoughtfully, and desirous of a fixed settlement in a +home again, felt a powerful passion to possess Rhoda Holland. + +He contended against it in vain. Her beauty and coquetry, and ambition, +too, seized his fancy, and worked strongly upon his imagination. He had +seen her grow from a forest rose to be the noblest flower of the garden, +superb in health, rich in colors, tall and bright and warm, and easily +aware of her conquests, and with a magical touch and encouragement. She +began to lead him on from mere mischief. He was wise, and observant of +women, and he threw himself in the place of her instructor and courtier. +She became his pupil, and an exacting one, driving his energies onward, +demanding his full attention, stimulating his mind; and Vesta soon saw +that her father was a blind captive in the cool yet self-fluttered +meshes of her connection. + +"Is there any law, husband," Vesta asked, "to prevent Rhoda marrying +Judge Custis?" + +"I think not. There is no consanguinity. In a society where every degree +of cousins marry together, it would be as gratuitous to interfere in +such a marriage as to forbid my hat by law." + +"He is so enamoured of her," said Vesta, "that I fear the results of her +refusing him upon his habits. Father is a better man than he ever was: a +wife that can retain his interest will now keep him steady all his +life." + +The adjournment of the Legislature was at hand; another year, and +perhaps years unforeseen in number, were to be occupied in the same +slow, illusive quest. + +Judge Custis found himself one morning early above the dome of the old +state-house, where he frequently went at that hour with Rhoda Holland, +to look out upon the bay and the town and "Severn's silver wave +reflected." + +He turned to her with a sparkle of humor, yet a flush of the cheek, and +said: + +"My girl, what is to be your answer to Pastor Tilghman's marriage +offer?" + +"It cannot be." + +"Then I am free to ask for another. Rhoda, you have seen that I am +foolish for you. I was your admirer when you were a poor forest girl--" + +"And when you were a married man," Rhoda interrupted. "How splendid and +sly you were! But, even then, I was delighted that a great man like you +could even flirt with me. Perhaps you will cut up the same way again?" + +"No, Rhoda. This is my last opportunity. I will devote to you my +remaining life. I am fifty-five, but it is the best fifty-five in +Maryland. You shall have the devotion of twenty-five." + +"I want to be taken to Washington," Rhoda said. "I think I could marry +an old man if he took me there." + +"I will run for Congress, then. You will make a great woman in public +life. I do not ask you to love me, but to let me love you. Oh, my child, +marriage has been a tragedy with me. I will be a repentant and a fond +husband. Hear my selfishness speak and make the sacrifice." + +"If I say 'Yes,'" said Rhoda, "it is not to settle down and nurse you. +You are to be what you have been this winter: a beau, and an ever fond +and gallant gentleman." + +"Yes, as long as time will let me." + +"Then say no more about it," Rhoda answered, with a little pallor; "if +the rest are willing, a poor girl like me will not refuse you, but say, +like Ruth, 'Spread thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near +kinsman.' I love your daughter." + +Meshach Milburn, not more than half pleased with the turn affairs had +taken, hastened to Princess Anne in advance and sought William +Tilghman. + +"Dear friend," he said, "I hope your heart was not committed to my +wayward niece?" + +"Has she engaged herself to another, Cousin Meshach?" + +"Yes, to Judge Custis. You know what a taking way he has with girls. It +was not my match, William." + +Milburn looked at the young man and beheld no disappointment on his +face--rather a flush of spirit. + +"Cousin Meshach," he said, cheerfully, "I thought I could make Rhoda +happy; I thought I interpreted her right. Since I was mistaken, it is +better that she has been sincere. No, my heart is still a bachelor's and +a priest's. See, cousin! The bishop has sent for me to take a larger +field." + +He united Rhoda and the Judge, as he had married his first love--to +another; she was pale and in tears; he kissed her at the altar, and gave +his hand to the Judge warmly: + +"I know you will be a better Christian, Cousin Daniel. God has given you +much love on the earth. Our prayers for you have been answered." + +Vesta was disappointed, expecting to see William made happy in a +marriage with Rhoda. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +THE CURSE OF THE HAT. + + +As the spring burst upon Princess Anne in cherry blossoms and dogwood +flowers, in herring and shad weighting the river seines, and broods of +young chickens and peach-trees pullulating, and as the time of fruit and +corn and early cantaloupe followed, the life in human veins also +unfolded in infant fruit, and Vesta became a mother. + +The forest and the court had harmonized in the offspring, and the young +boy took the name of Custis Milburn. + +Healthy and comely, as if Society had made the match for Nature, the +infant flourished without a day's ailing, and grew upon its parents' +eyes like a miracle, having the symmetry and loveliness of the mother, +and the bold, challenging countenance of the father; and to Meshach it +brought the satisfaction of an improved posterity, and an heir to his +success; to Vesta, compensation for the loss of worldly society. + +She found more joy in Teackle Hall, with this wondrous product of her +sacrifice and pain, than with the admiration of all the good families in +Maryland; and a sense of warmth and gratitude sprang to her conscience +towards the father of this matchless gift. + +"I have not given him my whole loyalty," she reflected, with exacting +piety; "I have let trifles stand before my vows." + +Accordingly, when Milburn, conscience-stricken, and accusing himself of +hard conditions in exacting a marriage without love, came one day, with +all the magnanimity of a new parent, before his wife to make some +restitution, she surprised him by arising and kissing him. + +"Sir, I have been very proud and stubborn. Do forgive me!" + +He pressed her to his breast, while his tears ran over her face. + +"Honey," he said at length, "what a mockery my crime to you has been--to +think that you could ever love me! No, I will give you freedom. Dear as +your captivity is to me, your cage shall open and you shall fly." + +Vesta stepped back at these strange words and waited for him to explain. +He continued: + +"I will send you to Italy with our child. Your father shall go, too, if +you desire. Go from me and these unloved conditions, this hateful +bondage and constraint"--his tears flowed fast again, but he let them +fall ungrudged,--"find in your music and your noble mind forgetfulness +of this unworthy marriage. I can live in the recollection of the +blessing you have been to me." + +"What!" said Vesta; "do you command me to leave you?" + +"Yes. Let it be that. I know how conscientious you are, my darling, but +it is your duty to go. A hard struggle is before me: I am deeply +embarked in an untried business. Now I can spare the money. Go and find +happiness in a happier land." + +She went to him again and put her arms around him. + +"Leave you?" she said. "What have I done to be driven away? How could I +reconcile myself to let you live alone? 'For better or for worse,' I +said. God has made it better and better every day." + +He held her head between his palms and looked into her eyes, to see if +she spoke from the heart. + +"Husband," she whispered, "I love you." + + * * * * * + +The minds of both husband and wife, after this reconcilement, turned to +the disturbing hat as the subject of their estrangement hitherto. + +Said Milburn to himself: "What a sinner I have been to distress that +poor child with my miserable hat! At the first opportunity she gives me, +I will lay it aside forever." + +Said Vesta to her father and his bride: "What a wicked heart I have +kept, to oppose my husband in such a little thing as his good old +hat--the badge of his reverence to his family and of his bravery to an +impertinent age. I have let it discolor my married life and all the +sunshine. But my baby has melted my obdurate heart. Come, unite with me, +and let us show him that everything he wears we will adopt proudly." + +Therefore, when Milburn next went out, his wife came with a beaming face +and elastic step and put on his head his steeple hat. He looked at her +grimly, but she stopped his protest with a kiss. + +He thought to introduce the subject to Judge Custis, but that fond +bridegroom broke in with: + +"Milburn, you're a game fellow. It was impudent in me to say one word +about your hat. I'll get one like it myself if I can find one. Tut, tut, +man! It becomes you. Say no more about it." + +Milburn undertook to make the explanation to his niece, but before he +could well begin she cried: + +"Uncle Meshach, Aunt Vesta is just in love with your hat! She won't hear +of your wearing any other. We're all going to stand by it, uncle." + +A man chooses his own verdict by a long course of behavior; austerity in +the family begets fear; an affectation, whether of folly or resentment, +is at last credited to nature; man is seldom allowed to escape from the +trap of his own temperament. + +So Meshach Milburn never obtained the opportunity to relieve himself +from the affliction with which he had afflicted others. Like an impostor +who has established the claim of deafness, and mankind bawls in his ear, +the hatted spectre was made to feel uncomfortable when he put off his +tile--his consistency was at once on trial. He was like a boy who had +pricked a cross upon his hand in India ink, and, growing to be a man +with taste and position, sees the indelible advertisement of his +vulgarity whenever he takes a human hand. + +To have put on any other hat would have subjected him to new hoots and +comments, and made himself publicly smile at his own folly; he must have +climbed as high as the pillory to explain the change and make apology; +the society he had faced in defiance seemed all at once united to refuse +him a _status_ without his Entailed Hat, and it would have taken the +courage of throwing off a life-long _alias_ and living under a forgotten +name, to appear in Princess Anne in a new, contemporary head-dress. + +Milburn saw that he must wear his old hat for life; he bent under the +servitude, and was alone the victim of it now. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +FAILURE AND RESTITUTION. + + +The railroad struggle was renewed from year to year. + +The Legislature was annually beset by strong lobby forces, and an +embittered contest between the Potomac Canal and the greater railway +company, to strangle each other, left the Eastern Shore railroad out of +notice. Locomotive engines of native invention began to appear; the +railroad to Washington was finally opened, and, next, to Harper's Ferry, +as Vesta's boy became a young horseman and learned to read. The +venerable court-house at Princess Anne, with its eighty-seven years of +memories, burned down during these proceedings, and a panic extended +over Patty Cannon's old region at the whisper of another Nat Turner +rebellion among the slaves; but no mention of the thousands of +abductions there was made in the anti-Masonic convention at Baltimore, +where Samuel S. Seward and Thaddeus Stevens nominated Mr. Wirt for +President, because one white man had been stolen. The murder of Jacob +Cannon by Owen Daw did produce some distant comment a little later, +chiefly because of the apathy of the Delaware society to pursue the +murderer. + +By a long course of usury and legal persecution the Cannon brothers had +become detested in their own community, and when they sued O'Day, or +Daw, for cutting down a bee-tree on one of their farms he had tilled, +and then enforced the judgment of ten dollars, Daw,--now a man in +growth and of Celtic vindictiveness,--loaded his gun and started for +Cannon's Ferry, and waylaid Jacob just as he was leading his horse off +the ferry scow. + +"Are you going to give me back that ten dollars, you old scoundrel?" +shouted O'Day. + +"Stand back! stand back!" answered long Jacob; "the quotient was +correct; the _lex loci_ and the _lex terrae_ were argued. The _lex +talionis_--" + +"Take it!" cried the villain, adroitly firing his shot-gun into the +merchant's breast, so as not to injure his humaner beast. + +Jacob Cannon staggered to the fence at the head of the wharf, and caught +there a moment, and fell dead. + +"You scoundrel," screamed Isaac Cannon from the window, "to kill my +brother, my executive comfort." + +"Yes," answered O'Day, "and I'll give the other barrel to you!" + +As Isaac Cannon barricaded himself in, Owen O'Day collected his effects +without hurry, and betook himself to the wilds of Missouri. + +Cannon's Ferry fell into decay when the railroad at Seaford carried off +its trading importance, but there are yet to be seen the never tenanted +mansion of the disappointed bridegroom, and the gravestones which show +how Jacob's fate frightened Isaac Cannon to a speedy tomb. + +In the meantime, John M. Clayton had made use of the fears of Calhoun +and his nullifiers, who were menaced with the penalties of treason by +the president, to pass a great protective tariff bill by their aid, thus +establishing the manufactures in the same period with the railways. + +This triumph in the senate left him free to conduct the suit of Randel +against the Canal Company, which occupied as many years as the railroad +enterprise of Meshach Milburn. + +The barbarous system of "pleadings" was then in full vogue, though soon +to be weeded out even in its parent England, and the law to be made a +trial of facts instead of traverses, demurrers, avoidances, rebutters +and surrebutters, churned out of the skim milk of words. Clayton's +pleadings require a bold, dull mind to read them now, but he tired his +adversaries out, and his cousin, Chief-Justice Clayton, who was jealous +of him, had yet to decide in his favor. + +Then, after the lapse of years, the issue came to trial at the old +Dutch-English town of New Castle, and from the magnitude of the damages +claimed, the weight and number of counsel, and the novelty of trying a +great corporation, it interested the lawyers and burdened the +newspapers, and was popularly supposed to belong to the class of French +spoliation claims, or squaring-the-circle problems--something that would +be going on at the final end of the world. + +"Never you mind, Bob Frame! Walter Jones is a great advocate, but, Goy! +he don't know a Delaware jury. I'll get my country-seat, up here on the +New Castle hills, out of this case," Clayton said, as he pitched quoits +with his fellow-lawyers from Washington and Philadelphia, on the green +battery where the Philadelphia steamer came in with the Southern +passengers for the little stone-silled railroad. + +John Randel, Jr., had ruined a fine engineer, to become a litigious man +all his life. + +He sued his successor and fellow New-Yorker, Engineer Wright, and was +nonsuited. He garnisheed the canal officers, and beset the Legislature +for remedial legislation, and threatened Clayton himself with damages; +yet had such a fund of experience and such vitality that he kept the +outer public beaten up, like the driving of wild beasts into the circle +of the hunters. He had surveyed the great city of New York and planned +its streets above the new City Hall. Elevated railroads were his +projection half a century before they came about. He now looked upon +engineering with indifference, and considered himself to have been born +for the law. + +In the midst of many other duties, Clayton, in course of time, convicted +Whitecar of kidnapping, on negro testimony, having obtained a ruling to +that end from his cousin, the chief-justice; and a constituent named +Sorden (_not_ the personage of our tale), being prosecuted for +kidnapping, in order to spite Clayton, was cleared by him at Georgetown +after a marvellous exhibition of jury eloquence, and repaid the +obligation, years after our story closes, by breaking a party dead-lock +in the Legislature of Delaware, where he became a member, and sending +Mr. Clayton for the fourth time to the American senate. + + * * * * * + +The Entailed Hat became more common in the streets of Annapolis than it +had been in Princess Anne, as Milburn pressed his bill for assistance +year after year, and was shot through the back with slanders from home +and hustled in front by overwhelming opposition. + +Judge Custis took the field for Congress on the railroad issue, and was +elected, through the Forest vote, and his wife went through a Washington +season with as much dignity as enjoyment, few suspecting that she was +not the Judge's social equal. + +The ancestral hat defied all worldly hostility, but became the iron +helmet to bend its wearer's back. He prayed in secret for some pitying +angel to break the spell that bound him to it, but none conceived that +he would let it go. + +His boy grew strong, and took his father's dress to be a matter of +course; his wife pressed upon him the nauseous ornament he had so long +affected; a wide conspiracy seemed to have been formed to drive his head +into that hereditary wigwam, and he could not escape it. + +Even Grandmother Tilghman, who now was an inmate of Teackle Hall, in +William's absence of years, forgot all about the queer hat, and rejoiced +to herself that "Bill" had not married "that political girl." + +Milburn had maintained his financial solvency by turns and sorties that +even his enemies admired, but a railroad built along one man's spine and +terminated by a steeple depot on his head must wear out the unrelieved +individual at last. + +The banks in Baltimore began to break; fierce riots ensued; the state +debt had mounted up, through aid to public works, to fifteen million +dollars; the Eastern Shore Railroad obtained, too late, the vote of the +subsidy expected, and the state treasurer could not find funds to pay +it. + +The gazettes announced the failure of Meshach Milburn, Esq., of the +Eastern Shore. + +Without an instant's hesitation, Vesta surrendered her own property, and +she and Rhoda Custis opened a select school in a part of Teackle Hall, +and let the remainder for residences. + +"Why do you make this sacrifice?" asked her husband; "nobody expected +it." + +"They may say we were married to protect my parents," Vesta answered, +"but not that it was to secure myself. My boy shall have a clear name." + +His failure ended the active life of Meshach Milburn; too considerate of +his family to renew his former low endeavors, he became a clerk in the +county offices, through Judge Custis's influence, and wore his hat to +stipendiary labor with the regularity, but not the rebellious instincts, +of old days, becoming, instead, the victim of a certain religious trance +or apathy, which deepened with time. + +Vesta saw that Milburn's misfortune extinguished the last remnant of +animosity in her father's mind, and the two men went about together, +like two old boys who had both been prisoners of war, and were cured of +ambition. + +Milburn resumed his forest walks and bird-tamings, all traces of +ambition left his countenance, and he was as dead to business things as +if he had never risen above his forest origin. + +He often talked of William Tilghman, and seemed to wish to see him, +though for no apparent purpose. + +The Asiatic cholera, having begun to make annual visits to the United +States, singled out, one day, the wearer of the obsolete hat, and put to +the sternest test of affection and humanity the household at Teackle +Hall. + +Whether from the respect his steady purposes had given them, or the +natural devotion in a sequestered society, no soul left his side. + +But it brought the final visitation of poverty upon Vesta. Her school +was broken up in a day. She dismissed it herself, and calmly sat by her +husband's bed, to soothe his dying weakness, and await the providence of +God. + +He rapidly passed through the stages of cramp and collapse, a nearly +perished pulse, and the cadaverous look of one already dead, yet his +intellect by the law of the disease, lived unimpaired. + +"The stream cannot rise above the fountain," he spoke, huskily; "all we +can get from life is love. My darling, you have showered it on me, and +been thirsty all your days." + +"I have been happy in my duty," Vesta said; "you have been kind to me +always. We have nothing to regret." + +He wandered a little, though he looked at her, and seemed thinking of +his mother. + +"Where can we go?" he muttered, pitifully; "I burned the dear old hut +down. It would have been a roof for my boy." + +His chin trembled, as if he were about to cry, and sighed: + +"Fader an' mammy's quarrelled; the mocking-bird won't sing. Ride for the +doctor! ride hard! Oh! oh! too late, little chillen! They'se both +dead!" + +He returned to perfect knowledge in a moment, and fixed his eyes on +Vesta, saying, + +"I leave you poor. I tried hard. Perhaps--" + +His eye was here arrested by some conflict at the door, where Aunt +Hominy, notwithstanding her imperfect wits, was striving to keep guard. + +"De debbil's measurin' him in! Measurin' him in at las'!" the old woman +said; "Miss Vessy's 'mos' free!" + +"Admit me!" spoke a clear, familiar voice, "I must see him. Mr. Clayton +has won the lawsuit, and two hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars +damages! Cousin Meshach is rich again." + +"That friendly voice," spoke Meshach, with a happy light in his eyes; +"oh, I wanted to hear it again!" + +Yet he put his hand up with all his little strength to push away the +intruder, who would have kissed him, and whispered, + +"No. The cholera!" + +"It's the bishop, uncle!" cried Mrs. Custis; "Bishop Tilghman, from the +West." + +"Don't I know him," Milburn whispered, with sinking voice and powers. +"Honest man! Bishop of our church! Bishop in the free West! God bless +him!" + +He was lost again, as if he had fainted, for some time, and, all +kneeling, the young bishop made a prayer. + +When they arose Milburn seemed speechless, yet he tried to raise his +hand, and, Vesta coming to his aid, his long, lean fingers closed around +hers, and he signalled to William Tilghman with his eyes. + +The bishop came near, and, by a painful effort, Milburn put his wife's +hand in her cousin's. His lips framed a word without a sound: + +"_Restitution._" + +"Glory to God!" suddenly exclaimed Grandmother Tilghman, who seemed to +see without sight all that was going on. + +"I knew it would be so, if both would wait," sighed Rhoda to her +husband, through her tears. + +There was still something on Milburn's mind, though he was unable to +explain it. Every attempt was made to interpret his want, but in vain, +till Aunt Hominy broke the silence by mumbling: + +"He want dat debbil's hat!" + +Vesta saw her husband's eyes twinkle as if he had heard the word, and it +gave her a thought. She left the room, and returned with her boy, a fine +young fellow, obedient to her wish. In his hand was his father's hat. + +"What will you do if papa leaves us, Custis?" Vesta spoke, loudly, so +that the dying man could hear. + +"I will wear my forefather's hat, papa!" said the child. + +The dying man drooped his eyes, as if to say "No," and looked fervently +at his son and wearily at the old headpiece. + +Vesta placed it on his pillow, and waited to know his next wish. + +He made a sign, which they interpreted to mean, + +"Lift me!" + +He was lifted up, livid as the dead, and raised his eyes towards his +forehead. + +His wife set the Entailed Hat upon his temples. + +"Bury it!" he said, in a distinct whisper, and passed away. + + +THE END. + + + * * * * * + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] In the original manuscript a circumstantial story, as taken from +Milburn's lips, was preserved. The "Tales of a Hat" may be separately +published. + +[2] "Slavery, in the State of Delaware, never had any _constitutional_ +recognition. It existed in the colonial period by custom, as over the +whole country, but subject to be regulated or abolished by simple +legislative enactment. Very early the State of Delaware undertook its +regulation, with the view of securing the personal and individual rights +of the persons so held in bondage, and to prevent the increase by +importation. In 1787 the export of Delaware slaves was forbidden to the +Carolinas, Georgia, and the West Indies, and two years later the +prohibition was extended to Maryland and Virginia, and it never was +repealed, and in 1793 the first penalties were enacted against +kidnappers."--_Letter of Hon. N. B. Smithers to the Author._ + +[3] The skull of Ebenezer Johnson can be seen at Fowler & Wells' Museum, +New York, with the bullet-hole through it. There, also, are the skulls +of Patty and Betty Cannon. + +[4] At this point the second episode, telling the descent of the +Entailed Hat from Raleigh to Anne Hutchinson, is omitted, to shorten the +book. + +[5] Frederick Douglass, afterwards Marshal of the District of Columbia, +was at this time a slave boy twelve years old, living about twenty miles +from the scene of this conversation. + +[6] The Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia occurred a year or +thereabout later than this time. + +[7] The origin of Patty Cannon is in doubt; a pamphlet published near +her time gives it as above, with strong circumstantial embellishments, +yet there are neighbors who say she was of Delaware and Maryland +stock--a Baker and a Moore. The weight of tradition is the other way. + +[8] This incident is fully related in "Niles's Register" of April 25, +1829 (No. 919 of the full series), page 144, where also is a +contemporary account of Patty Cannon's arrest. The date of the exposure +in this story is transposed from April to October. She was to have been +tried in October, but died in May, about six weeks after her arrest. + +[9] Thomas Hollyday Hicks, the Union Governor of Maryland in 1861, was +at the date of these events member elect to the Legislature from the +neighborhood of Patty Cannon's operations, and was thirty-one years old. +Lanman's "Dictionary of Congress" says: "He worked on his father's farm +when a boy, and served as constable and sheriff of his county." + +[10] See "Niles's Register," 1826. + +[11] See "Niles's Register," 1820, for two long accounts of this crime, +saying, "One of them, Perry Hutton, a native of Delaware, formerly a +well-known stage-driver, who lately broke jail at Richmond, where he had +been committed for kidnapping." See, also, "Scharf's Baltimore +Chronicles," pp. 398, 399. + +[12] "Niles's Register," 1823. + +[13] Spanish proverb: "Little beard, little shame." + +[14] This case is related in the "Life of Benjamin Lundy." + +[15] A case actually like this, happening twenty-five years later, was +related to me by Judge George P. Fisher, of Dover. + +[16] See the case of Whitecar in the Delaware reports. + +[17] I take the following note from the _New York Tribune_ of December, +1882: "The town of Richmond, Ind., is said to be the centre of Quakerdom +in this country, and has five meetings in the two creeds of Fox and +Hicks, and the Earlham Quaker College. There I saw the large, +fur-covered white hats, a few of which are still left, which were +imported into Indiana by the North Carolina Quakers from 'Beard's Hatter +Shop,' an extinct locality in the North State, where the Quakers were +prolific, and they all ordered these marvellous hats, which are said to +be literally _entailed_, being incapable of wearing out, and as good for +the grandson as for the pioneer. They are made of beaver-skin or its +imitation in some other fur." + + + * * * * * + + +SOME POPULAR NOVELS + +Published by HARPER & BROTHERS New York. + + + * * * * * + + _The Novels in this list which are not otherwise designated are + in Octavo, pamphlet form, and may be obtained in half-binding + [leather backs and pasteboard sides], suitable for Public and + Circulating Libraries, at 25 cents, net, per volume, in + addition to the price of the respective works as stated below. + The Duodecimo Novels are bound in Cloth, unless otherwise + specified_. + + _For a_ FULL LIST OF NOVELS _published by_ HARPER & BROTHERS, + _see_ HARPER'S NEW AND REVISED CATALOGUE, _which will be sent by + mail, postage prepaid, to any address in the United States, on + receipt of nine cents_. + + * * * * * + + PRICE + +BAKER'S (W. M.) Carter Quarterman. Illustrated. $ 60 + Inside: a Chronicle of Secession. 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Illustrated. 60 +COLLINS'S Illustrated Library Edition 12mo, per vol. 1 25 + After Dark, and Other Stories.--Antonina.--Armadale.-- + Basil.--Hide-and-Seek.--Man and Wife.--My Miscellanies.-- + No Name.--Poor Miss Finch,--The Dead Secret.--The Law and + the Lady.--The Moonstone.--The New Magdalen.--The Queen + of Hearts.--The Two Destinies.--The Woman in White. +DICKENS'S NOVELS. Illustrated. + A Tale of Two Cities. 50 + Cloth 1 00 + Barnaby Rudge. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Bleak House. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Christmas Stories. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + David Copperfield. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Dombey and Son. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Great Expectations. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Little Dorrit. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Martin Chuzzlewit. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Nicholas Nickleby. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Oliver Twist. 50 + Cloth 1 00 + Our Mutual Friend. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + Pickwick Papers. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + 4to, Paper 20 + Pictures from Italy, Sketches by Boz, and American Notes. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + The Old Curiosity Shop. 75 + Cloth 1 25 + The Uncommercial Traveller, Hard Times, and Edwin Drood. 1 00 + Cloth 1 50 + _Harper's Household Dickens_, 16 vols., Cloth, in box, $22 + 00. The same in 8 vols., Cloth, $20 00; Imitation Half + Morocco, $22 00; Half Calf, $40 00. +DE MILLE'S A Castle in Spain. Illustrated. 50 + Illustrated. Cloth 1 00 +DE MILLE'S Cord and Creese. Illustrated. $ 60 + The American Baron. Illustrated. 50 + The Cryptogram. Illustrated. 75 + The Dodge Club. Illustrated. 60 cents; Cloth 1 10 + The Living Link. Illustrated. 60 cents; Cloth 1 10 +DISRAELI'S (Earl of Beaconsfield) Endymion. 4to, Paper 15 + The Young Duke. 12mo 1 50 + 4to, Paper 15 +ELIOT'S (George) Novels. Library Edition. Illustrated + 12mo, per vol. 1 25 + Adam Bede.--Daniel Deronda, 2 vols.--Felix Holt, the + Radical.--Middlemarch, 2 vols.--Romola.--Scenes of + Clerical Life, _and_ Silas Marner.--The Mill on the + Floss. +ELIOT'S (George) Novels. Popular Edition. Illustrated + 12mo, per vol. 75 + Adam Bede.--Daniel Deronda, 2 vols.--Felix Holt, the + Radical.--Middlemarch, 2 vols.--Romola.--Scenes of + Clerical Life, _and_ Silas Marner.--The Mill on + the Floss. +ELIOT'S (George) Amos Barton. 32mo, Paper 20 + Brother Jacob.--The Lifted Veil. 32mo, Paper 20 + Daniel Deronda. 50 + Felix Holt, the Radical. 50 + Janet's Repentance. 32mo, Paper 20 + Middlemarch. 75 + Mr. Gilfil's Love Story. 32mo, Paper 20 + Romola. Illustrated. 50 + Scenes of Clerical Life. 50 + The Mill on the Floss. 50 +GASKELL'S (Mrs.) A Dark Night's Work. 25 + Cousin Phillis. 20 + Cranford. 16mo 1 25 + Mary Barton. 40 + 4to, Paper 20 + Moorland Cottage. 18mo 75 + My Lady Ludlow. 20 + North and South. 40 + Right at Last, &c. 12mo 1 50 + Sylvia's Lovers. 40 + Wives and Daughters. Illustrated. 60 +HARRISON'S (Mrs.) Helen Troy. 16mo, Cloth 1 00 + Golden Rod. 32mo, Paper 25 +HAY'S (M. C.) 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Daisy Miller. 32mo, Paper 20 + An International Episode. 32mo, Paper 20 + Diary of a Man of Fifty, and A Bundle of Letters. + 32mo, Paper 25 + _The four above-mentioned works in one volume_ 4to, Paper 25 + Washington Square. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth 1 25 +JOHNSTON'S (R. M.) Dukesborough Tales. + Illustrated. 4to, Paper 25 + Old Mark Langston. 16mo, Cloth 1 00 +LAWRENCE'S Anteros. 40 + Brakespeare. 40 + Breaking a Butterfly. 35 + Guy Livingstone. 12mo, $1 50; 4to, Paper 10 + Hagarene. 35 + Maurice Dering. 25 + Sans Merci. 35 + Sword and Gown. 20 +LEVER'S A Day's Ride. 40 + Barrington. 40 + Gerald Fitzgerald. 40 + Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated. 50 + Luttrell of Arran. 60 + Maurice Tiernay. 50 + One of Them. 50 + Roland Cashel. Illustrated. 75 + Sir Brook Fosbrooke. 50 + Sir Jasper Carew. 50 + That Boy of Norcott's. 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A Life's Atonement. 4to, Paper 20 + A Model Father. 4to, Paper 10 + By the Gate of the Sea. 4to, Paper, 15 cents; 12mo, Paper 15 + Hearts. 4to, Paper 20 + The Way of the World. 4to, Paper 20 + Val Strange. 4to, Paper 20 +NORRIS'S Heaps of Money. 15 + Mademoiselle de Mersac. 4to, Paper 20 + No New Thing. 4to, Paper 25 + Thirlby Hall. Illustrated. 4to, Paper 25 +OLIPHANT'S (Mrs.) Agnes. 50 + A Son of the Soil. 50 + Athelings. 50 + Brownlows. 50 + Carita. Illustrated. 50 + Chronicles of Carlingford. 60 + Days of My Life. 12mo 1 50 + For Love and Life. 50 + Harry Joscelyn. 4to, Paper 20 + He That Will Not when He May. 4to, Paper 20 + Hester. 4to, Paper 20 + Innocent. 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Illustrated. 4to, Paper 20 + Less Black than We're Painted. 35 + Murphy's Master. 20 + One of the Family. 25 + The Best of Husbands. 25 + The Canon's Ward. Illustrated. 4to, Paper 25 + Thicker than Water. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 20 + Under One Roof. 4to, Paper 15 + Walter's Word. 50 + What He Cost Her. 40 + Won--Not Wooed. 35 +READE'S Novels: Household Edition. Ill'd 2mo, per vol. 1 00 + A Simpleton and the Wandering Heir. + A Terrible Temptation. + A Woman-Hater. + Foul Play. + Good Stories. + Griffith Gaunt. + Hard Cash. + It is Never Too Late to Mend. + Love me Little, Love me Long. + Peg Woffington, Christie Johnstone, &c. + Put Yourself in His Place. + The Cloister and the Hearth. + White Lies. +READE'S (Charles) A Hero and a Martyr. 15 + A Simpleton. 30 + A Terrible Temptation. Illustrated. 25 + A Woman-Hater. Illustrated. 30 cents; 12mo, Paper 20 + Foul Play. 30 + Good Stories of Man and Other Animals. Ill'd 4to, Paper 20 + Griffith Gaunt. Illustrated. 30 + Hard Cash. 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