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 notvenerable. "--CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_

INTRODUCTION. 

Once the author awoke to a painful reflection that he knew no placewell, though his occupation had taken him to many, and that, aftertwenty-five years of describing localities and society, he would beidentified with none. 

"Where shall I begin to rove within confines?" he asked, feeling thevacant spaces in his nature: the want of all those birds, forest trees, household habits, weeds, instincts of the brooks, and tints and tones ofthe local species which lie in some neighborhood's compass, and completethe pastoral mind. 

Numerous districts rose up and contended together, each attractive fromsome striking scene, or bold contrast, or lovely face; and wiser policymight have led his inclinations to one of these, redundant, perhaps, inwealth or literary appreciation; yet the heart began to turn, as infirst love, or vagrancy almost as sweet, to the little, lowly regionwhere his short childhood was lived, and where the unknown generationsof his people darkened the sand--the peninsula between the Chesapeakeand the Delaware. 

Far down this peninsula lies the old town of Snow Hill, on the border ofVirginia; there the pilgrim entered the court-house, and asked to see anearly book of wills, and in it he turned to the name of a maternalancestor, of whom grand tales had been told him by an aged relative. Hisbreath was almost taken by finding the following provisions, datedFebruary 12, 1800:

"I give and bequeath to my son, Ralph Milbourn, MY BEST HAT, TO HIM ANDHIS ASSIGNEES FOREVER, and no more of my estate. 

"I give to Thomas Milbourn my small iron kettle, my brandy still, all myhand-irons, my pot-rack, and fifteen pounds bond that he gave to mydaughter, Grace Milbourn. "

The next day a doctor took the author on his rounds through "theForest, " as a neighboring tract was almost too invidiously called, andthrough a deserted iron-furnace; village almost of the date of thesewills. 

Everywhere he went the Entailed Hat seemed, to the stranger in the landof his forefathers, to appear in the vistas, as if some odd, reverend, avoided being was wearing it down the defiles of time. Now like HesterPrynne wearing her Scarlet Letter, and now like Gaston in his Iron Mask, this being took both sexes and different characters, as the authorweighed 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 hadbroken from that forest, and sought a larger hemisphere; yet, whereverthe mystic Hat proceeded, his truant fancy had also been led by hismother's hand. 

Often had she told him of old Patty Cannon and her kidnapper's den, andher death in the jail of his native town. He found the legend of thatdreaded woman had strengthened instead of having faded with time, andher 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 thenarration of an episode, but the story of a large region comprehendingthree state jurisdictions, and also of that period when modern lifearose 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, andgentle-minded town on the Eastern Shore. The ancient county of Somersethaving been divided many years before the revolutionary war, and itscourts separated, the original court-house faded from the world, and theforest pines have concealed its site. Two new towns arose, and flourishyet, around the original records gathered into their plain brickoffices, and he would be a forgetful visitor in Princess Anne who wouldnot say it had the better society. He would get assurances of this from"the best people" living there; and yet more solemn assurances from thetwo venerable churches, Presbyterian and Episcopalian, whosegrave-stones, upright or recumbent, or in family rows, say, in epitaphsLatinized, poetical, or pious, "_We_ belonged to the society of PrincessAnne. " That, at least, is the impression left on the visitor as hewanders amid their myrtle and creeper, or receives, on the wide, loamystreets, the bows of the lawyers and their clients. 

There were but two eccentric men living in Princess Anne in the earlyhalf 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 hadonce attended an auction, and bought a quarter gross of beaver hats. Although that happened years before our story opens, and the fashionshad changed, Jack produced a new hat from the stock no oftener than whenhe had well worn its predecessor, and, at the rate of two hats a year, was very slowly extinguishing the store. Like most people who frequentauctions, he was not provident, except in hats, and presented astartling appearance in his patched and shrunken raiment when he mounteda bright, new tile, and took to the sidewalk. His name had become, inall grades of society, "Bell-crown. "

The other eccentric citizen was the subject of a real mystery, and evenmore burlesque. He wore a hat, apparently more than a century old, of atall, steeple crown, and stiff, wavy brim, and nearly twice as high asthe cylinders or high hats of these days. It had been rubbed andrecovered and cleaned and straightened, until its grotesque appearancewas infinitely increased. If the wearer had walked out of the court ofKing James I. Directly into our times and presence, he could not haveproduced a more singular effect. He did not wear this hat on everyoccasion, nor every day, but always on Sabbaths and holidays, on funeralor corporate celebrations, on certain English church days, and wheneverhe wore the remainder of his extra suit, which was likewise of thegenteel-shabby kind, and terminated by greenish gaiters, nearly thecounterpart, in color, of the hat. To daily business he wore a cheap, common broadbrim, but sometimes, for several days, on freak or unknownmethod, he wore this steeple hat, and strangers in the place generallygot an opportunity to see it. 

Meshach Milburn, or "Steeple-top, " was a penurious, grasping, hardlysocial man of neighborhood origin, but of a family generallyunsuccessful and undistinguished, which had been said to be dying outfor so many years that it seemed to be always a remnant, yet neverquite gone. He alone of the Milburns had lifted himself out of theforest region of Somerset, and settled in the town, and, by silence, frugality, hard bargaining, and, finally, by money-lending, had become aperson of unknown means--himself almost unknown. He was, ostensibly, amerchant or storekeeper, and did deal in various kinds of things, keeping no clerk or attendant but a negro named Samson, who knew aslittle about his mind and affections as the rest of the town. Samson'sbusiness was to clean and produce the mysterious hat, which he knew tobe required every time he saw his master shave. 

As soon as the lather-cup and hone were agitated, Samson, withoutinquiry, went into a big green chest in the bedroom over the old woodenstore, and drew out of a leather hat-box the steeple-crown, whereMeshach Milburn himself always sacredly replaced it. Then "Samson Hat, "as the boys called him, exercised his brush vigorously, and put thequeer old head-gear in as formal shape as possible, and he silentlyattended to its rehabilitation through the medium of the village hatter, never leaving the shop until the tile had been repaired, and sufferingnone whatever to handle it except the mechanic. In addition to this, Samson cooked his master's food, and performed rough work around thestore, but had no other known qualification for a confidential servantexcept 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 withouthaving a personal battle with some young, willing, and powerful negro. His physical and mental system seemed to require some such periodicalindulgence, and he measured every negro who came to town solely in thelight of his prowess. At the appearance of some Herculean orclean-chested athlete, Samson's eye would kindle, his smile start up, and his friendly salutation would be: "You're a _good_ man! 'Most asgood as me!" He was never whipped, rumor said, but by an inoffensiveblack class-leader whom he challenged and compelled to fight. 

"Befo' God, man, I never see you befo'! I'se jined de church! I kintfight! I never didn't do it!"

"Can't help it, brother!" answered Samson. "You're too _good_ a man togo froo Somerset County. Square off or you'll ketch it!"

"Den if I must I must! de Lord forgive me!" and after a tremendousbattle the class-leader came off nearly conqueror. 

Whenever Samson indulged his gladiatorial propensities he disappearedinto the forest whence he came, and being a free man of mentalindependence equal to his nerve, he merely waited in his lonely cabinuntil Meshach Milburn sent him word to return. Then silently the oldnegro 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 negrohad what he wanted, but wanted little; on more than one occasion thecourt had imposed penalties on Samson's breaches of the peace, and helay in jail, unsolicitous and proud, until Meshach Milburn paid thefine, which he did grudgingly; for money was Meshach's sole pursuit, andhe 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 norfriends, professions nor apologies. Two or three times he had beensummoned on a jury, when he put on his best suit and his steeple-crown, and formally went through his task. He attended the Episcopal worshipevery Sunday and great holiday, wearing inevitably the ancient tile, which often of itself drew audience more than the sermon. He gave a verysmall sum of money and took a cheap pew, and read from his prayer-bookmany admonitions he did not follow. 

He was not litigious, but there was no evading the perfectness of hiscontracts. His searching and large hazel eyes, almost proud and quiteunkindly, and his Indian-like hair, were the leading elements of a facenot large, but appearing so, as if the buried will of some longfrivolous family had been restored and concentrated in this man and hadgiven a bilious power to his brows and jaws and glances. 

His eccentricity had no apparent harmony with anything else nor anyespecial sensibility about it. The boys hooted his hat, and the littlegirls often joined in, crying "Steeple-top! He's got it on! Meshach'sloose!" But he paid no attention to anybody, until once, at court time, some carousing fellows hired Jack Wonnell to walk up to Meshach Milburnand ask to swap a new bell-crown for the old decrepit steeple-top. Looking at Wonnell sternly in the face, Meshach hissed, "You miserablevagrant! Nature meant you to go bareheaded. Beware when you speak to meagain!"

"I was afraid of him, " said Jack Wonnell, afterwards. "He seemed to havea loaded pistol in each eye. "

No other incident, beyond indiscriminate ridicule, was recorded of thishat, except once, when a group of little children in front of JudgeCustis's house began to whisper and titter, and one, bolder than therest, the Judge's daughter, gravely walked up to the unsocial man; itwas 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 straightand slender, with an expression on her face of composure and courtesy. Then he looked up and over the Judge's residence to see if anymischievous or presuming person had prompted this act. No one was insight, 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 hisstrong stare steadily. He took off the venerable old head-gear, and putit in the pretty maid's hand. She fixed a white rose to it, and then heplaced the hat and rose again on his head and took a small piece of goldfrom his pocket. 

"Will you take this?"

"My father will not let me, sir!"

Meshach Milburn replaced the coin and said nothing else, but walked downthe streets, amid more than the usual simpering, and the weather-beatendoor 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 tothe oldest colonial family of distinction, the Custises of Northampton, whose fortune, beginning with King Charles II. And his tavern credits inRotterdam, ended in endowing Colonel George Washington with a widow'smite. The Judge at Princess Anne was the most handsome man, the fatherof the finest family of sons and daughters, the best in estate, mostvarious in knowledge, and the most convivial of Custises. 

In that region of the Eastern Shore there is so little diversity ofproductions, the ocean and the loam alone contributing to man, thatJudge Custis had an exaggerated reputation as a mineralogist. 

He had begun to manufacture iron out of the bog ores found in theswamps and hummocks of a neighboring district, and, with the tastes of alandholding and slaveholding family, had erected around his furnace aconsiderable town, his own residence as proprietor conspicuous in themidst. There he spent a large part of the time, and not always in thecompany of his family, entertaining friends from the distant cities, enjoying the luxuries of terrapin, duck, and wines, and, as rumor saidin the forest, all the pleasures of a Russian or German nobleman on asecluded estate. 

He could lie down on the ground with the barefooted foresters, equal andfamiliar with them, and carry off their suffrages for the State Senateor the Assembly. In Princess Anne he was more discriminating, rising inthat society to his family stature, and surrounded by alliances whichdemanded what is called "bearing. " In short, he was the head of thecommunity, and his wealth, originally considerable, had been augmentedby marriage, while his credit extended to Philadelphia and Baltimore. 

Not long after the occurrence of his young daughter, Vesta, placing therose in Meshach Milburn's mysterious hat, Judge Custis said to his ladyat the breakfast-table:

"That man has been allowed to shut himself in, like a dog, too long. Heowes something to this community. I'll go down to his kennel, underpretence 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, somenegroes around Milburn's small, weather-stained store, and Samson Hat, among them, shook hands with the Judge, not a particle disturbed at thelatter's condescension. 

"Judge, " said Samson, looking that large, portly gentleman over, "you'sea _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 wrastlingyou. "

"Time?" said the negro; "we can't fight him, sho! Dat's a fack! But I'mgood 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 walkdar if he'll give me another throw. "

The Judge passed into the wide-open door of Meshach Milburn's store. Afew negroes and poor whites were at the counter, and Meshach wasmeasuring whiskey out to them by the cheap dram in exchange forcoonskins and eggs. He looked up, just a trifle surprised at theprincipal man's advent, and merely said, without nodding:

"'Morning!"

Judge Custis never flinched from anybody, but his intelligencerecognized in Meshach's eyes a kind of nature he had not yet met, thoughhe was of universal acquaintance. It was not hostility, nor welcome, norindifference. It was not exactly spirit. As nearly as the Judge couldformulate it, the expression was habitual self-reliance, and if nothabitual suspicion, the feeling most near it, which comes from consciousunpopularity. 

"Mr. Milburn, " said Judge Custis, "when you are at leisure let me have afew words with you. "

The storekeeper turned to the poor folks in his little area and remarkedto them bluntly:

"You can come back in ten minutes. "

They all went out without further command. Milburn closed the door. TheJudge moved a chair and sat down. 

"Milburn, " he said, dropping the formal "mister, " "they tell me you lendmoney, and that you charge well for it. I am a borrower sometimes, and Ibelieve in keeping interest at home in our own community. Will youdiscount 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'llpay the legal interest where you go, and the inconvenience of going willcost something too. If you add your expenses as liberally as you incurthem when you go to Baltimore, to legal interest, you are always payinga good shave. "

"Where you have risks, " suggested the Judge, "there is some reason for aheavy discount, but my property will enrich this county and all the landyou hold mortgages on. "

"Bog ore!" muttered the money-lender. "I never lent money on that kindof risk. I must read upon it! They say manufacturing requires mechanicaltalent. How much do you want?"

"Three thousand. "

"Secured upon the furnace?"

"Yes. "

Meshach computed on a piece of paper, and the Judge, with easycuriosity, studied his singular face and figure. 

He was rather short and chunky, not weighing more than one hundred andthirty pounds, with long, fine fingers of such tracery and separateaction 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 apianist, a penman, a woman of definite skill, or a man of peculiardelicacy. " All the fingers were well produced, as if the hand instead ofthe face was meant to be the mind's exponent and reveal its portraitthere. 

Yet the face of Meshach Milburn, if more repellent, was uncommon. 

The effects of one long diet and one climate, invariable, fromgeneration to generation, and both low and uninvigorating, had broughtto nearly aboriginal form and lines his cheek-bones, hair, and resinousbrown eyes. From the cheek-bones up he looked like an Indian, andexpressed a stolid power and swarthiness. Below, there dropped a largeface, in proportion, with nothing noticeable about it except the nose, which was so straight, prominent, and complete, and its nostrils sosensitive, that only the nose upon his face seemed to be good companyfor his hands. When he confronted one, with his head thrown back alittle, 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 fingersthe terms of the loan. Judge Custis was surprised at the moderation ofMeshach, and he looked up cheerfully into that ever sentinel face onwhich might have been printed "_qui vive?_"

"It's not the goodness of the security, " said Meshach, "I make it low toyou, socially!"

The Custis pride started with a flush to the Judge's eyes, to have thisostracised and hooted Shylock intimate that their relations could bemore 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 isnot so large that we don't all see each other sometimes. Why do you wearthat 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 whetherit was an angry or an awkward pause, the storekeeper said:

"Judge Custis, I concede that you are the best bred man in PrincessAnne. Where did you get authority to question another person about anydecent article of his attire?"

"I stand corrected, Milburn, " said the Judge. "Good feeling for you morethan 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, Iwill 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 bogores!"

 * * * * *

The years moved on without much change in Princess Anne. The littleManokin river brought up oysters from the bay, and carried off the cornand produce. The great brick academy at neighboring "Lower Trappe"boarded and educated the brightest youths of the best families on thePeninsula; and these perceived, as the annual summers brought theirfulness, what portion of their beauty remained with Vesta Custis. Shewas like Helen of Troy, a subject of homage and dispute in childhood, and became a woman, in men's consideration, almost imperceptibly. Sentto Baltimore to be educated, her return was followed by suitors--notyouthful admirers only, but mature ones--and the young men of thePeninsula remarked with chagrin: "None of us have a chance! Some greatcity nabob will get her. "

But the academy boys and visitors, and the townspeople, had one commonopportunity to see her and to hear her--when she sang, every Sabbath andchurch 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 churchwhen this noble yet tender voice broke forth; but they who turned to seethe singer who had made such Paradise, looked almost on Eve herself. 

She was rather slight, tall, and growing fuller slowly every year, likeone in whom growth was early, yet long, and who would wholly mature notuntil near middle life. Her head, however, was perfection, even ingirlhood, not less by its proportions than its carriage: her gracefulfigure bore it like the slender setting, holding up the first splendorof the peach; a head of vital and spiritual beauty, where purity andluxuriance, woman and mind, dwelt in harmony and joy. As she seemed everto be ripening, so she seemed never to have been a child, but, withfaculties and sense clear and unintimidated, she was never wanting inmodesty, nor accused of want of self-possession. Judge Custis made herhis reliance and pride; she never reproved his errors, nor treated themfamiliarly, but settled the household by a consent which all paid to hercharacter alone. More than once she had appeared at the furnace mansionwhen 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 thesoft, spirited command; "Come, sir! you can't stay here any more, "dismissed his companions, and took his place at the head of PrincessAnne society. 

Vesta was almost a brunette, with the rich colors of her type--eyebrowslike the raven's wing, ripe, red lips, and hair whose darkness andlength, released from the crown into which she wound it, might have spunher garments. Her eyes were of a steel-blue, in which the lights had theeffect of black. She was dark with sky breaking through, like the richdusk and twilights over the Chesapeake. 

People wondered that, with such beauty, ease, and accomplishments shewas not proud; but her pride was too ethereal to be seen. It was not thevain consciousness of gifts and endowments, but the serene sense ofworthiness, of unimpaired health, honor, and descent, which made herkind and thoughtful to a degree only less than piety. Grateful for hersocial rank and parentage, she adorned but did not forget them. Thesuitors who came for her were weighed in this scale of perfectdesert--to be sons of such parents and associates of her married sistersand sisters-in-law. Not one had survived the test, yet none knew wherehe failed. 

"Vesta is too good for any of them, " exclaimed the Judge, on more thanone occasion. "When I get the furnace in such shape that it will runitself I will take my daughter to Europe and give her a musicaleducation. "

In truth, the Judge had expectations of his daughter; for the reputationhe had attained as a manufacturer was not without its drawbacks. Hemaintained two establishments; he supported a large body of laborers anddependents, some of whom he had brought from distant places undercontract; the experiment in which he had embarked was still anexperiment, and he was subject to the knowledge and judgment of hismanager, being himself rather the patron than the manufacturer at theworks. Many days, when he was supposed to be testing the percentage andmixture of his ores, he was gunning off on the ocean bars, crabbing onWhollop's Beach, or hunting up questionable company among the forestgirls, or around the oystermen's or wrecker's cabins. He had plenty ofproperty and family endorsers, however, and seldom failed to have asatisfactory 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 merelylistened and assented, and took no pains to incur another criticism onhis motives. Meshach wore his great hat, as ever, to church and onfestive 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 wassinging, and she fancied that his large, coarse ears were turned toreceive the music she was making, and she faintly remembered that onceshe had held in her hands that wonderful hat with its copper buckle inthe band, and stiff, wide brim, flowing in a wave. More than that sheknew nothing, except that the wearer was an humble-born, graspingcreature--a forester without social propensities, or, indeed, any humanattachments. The negro who abode under his roof was beloved, compared tothe sordid master, and all testimony concurred that Meshach Milburndeserved 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 wealthwas now known to be more than considerable. He had ceased, also, to lendmoney on the surrounding farms, and rumors came across the bay that hewas a holder of stocks and mortgages on the Western Shore, and inBaltimore and Pennsylvania. The little town of Princess Anne was full ofspeculations about him, and even his age was uncertain; Jack Wonnell hadmeasured 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 ofeach other. Now, I wear two bell-crowns a year. I come out every Fourthof July and Christmas. 'Tother day I counted what was left, and Ireckoned that Meshach couldn't be forty-five at the wust. "

Vesta Custis was only twenty years old when the townsfolk thought shemust be twenty-five, so long had she been the beauty of Somerset. Hermother had always looked with apprehension on the possible time when herdaughter would marry and leave her; for Judge Custis had long ceased tohave the full confidence of his lady, whose fortune he had embarkedwithout return on ventures still in doubt, and he always waived thesubject when it was broached, or remarked that no loss was possible inhis 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 morethan harmless down. By a sort of capillary attraction Samson Hat divinedhis purpose, and, opening the big green chest, brought out themysterious hat. 

"Put it down!" commanded the money-lender. "Go out and hire me acarriage 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 overlong and hard. 

"Vanity, vanity!" he murmured, "vanity and habit! I dare not disown theenow, because they give thee ridicule, and without thee they would giveme nothing but hate!"

The people around the tavern and court-house saw, with surprise toogreat for jeering, the note-shaver go past in a carriage, driven by hisnegro, and with two horses! Jack Wonnell took off his shining beaver tocheer. As the phenomenal team receded, the old cry ran, however, downthe stilly street: "Steeple-top! He's got it on! Meshach's loose!"

The carriage proceeded out the forest road, and soon entered upon thesandy, pine-slashed region called Hard-scrabble, or Hardship. 

Here the roads were sandy as the hummocks and hills in the rear of a seabeach, and the low, lean pines covered the swells and ridges, while inoccasional level basins, where the stiff clay was exposed, someforester's unpainted hut sat black and smoking on the slope, without awindow-pane, an ornament, or anything to relieve life from its monotonyand isolation. 

But where the rills ran off to the continuous swamps the leafage startedup in splendrous versatility. The maple stood revealed in all its fair, light harmonies. The magnolia drooped its ivory tassels, and scented theforest with perfume. The kalmia and the alder gave undergrowth andbrilliancy to the foliage. Hoary and green with precipitate old age, thecypress-trees stood in moisture, and drooped their venerable beards fromangular branches, the bald cypress overhanging its evergreen kinsman, and looking down upon the swamp-woods in autumn, like some hermit artiston the rich pigments on his palette. 

But nothing looked so noble as the sweet gum, which rose like a giantplume of yellow and orange, a chief in joyous finery, where the cypresswas only a faded philosopher. 

Beside such a tall gum-tree Samson Hat reined in, where a well-springshone at the bottom of a hollow cypress. He borrowed a bucket from thehut 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 knollby 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 byde hands. "

The barefoot woman living in the cabin--one room and a loft, and thefloor 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 ungatheredon the fodderless stalks, the shrubs of peach-trees, of which thelargest grew on his ancestors' graves, the little cart for one horse orox, which was at once family carriage and farm wagon, and the few pigsand chickens of stunted breeds around the woman's feet. 

"Drive on, boy, " he exclaimed; "the worst of all is that these peopleare happy!"

"Dat's a fack, marster, " laughed Samson Hat. "Dey wouldn't speak to youin 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 hummocksrecede in waves, where successive beaches were formed as the sea slowlyretreated. Hardly deeper than a human grave they strike water, below thesand 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 mineralexists in all this low, wave-made peninsula, where my people wereshipwrecked--except the wonderful bog ores. "

The negro's genial, wondering nature broke out with comfortableassurance. 

"Dat must be in de Bible, " he said. "Marster, de Milburns been heah solong, dey must hab got shipwrecked wid ole Noah!"

"All families are shipwrecked, " absently replied Meshach, "who casttheir lot upon an unrewarding land, and growing poorer, darker, down, from generation to generation, can never leave it, and, at last, cannever desire to go. "

"Marster, dar is one got to go some ob dese days. It's me--pore oleSamson!"

"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 tomend 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 andentered 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 hadhere several thousand acres, and for miles the roadways were clefttowards the horizon. The moon rose behind them as they entered thefurnace village, and they saw the lights twinkle through the open doorsof many cottages and the furnace flames dart over the forbiddingmill-pond, where in the depths grew the iron ore, like a vegetablecreation, and above the surface, on splayed and conical mud-washedroots, the hundreds of strong cypresses towered from the water. Betweenthe steep banks of dark-colored pines, taller than the forest growth, this furnace lake lay black and white and burning red as the shadows, ormoonrise, or flames struck upon it, and the stained water foamed throughthe 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 thegroves it submerged; the shaggy shadows added depth and dread to theeffect; some strange birds hooted as they dipped their wings in thesurface, and, flying upward, seemed also sinking down. As Meshach feltthe 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 killedall 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 justrecovering from the effects of a long wassail. In his peculiar nervouscondition he started at the sound of wheels, and, drawing his curtains, looked out upon the long shadow of an advancing figure crowned with asteeple hat. 

This human shadow strengthened and faded in the alternating light, untilit was defined against his storehouse, his warehouse, his cabins, andthe 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 eyesvigilant 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, Iam 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 stayoutside on the porch. Draw up a chair. It's money, I suppose, thatbrings you here?"

The money-lender carefully put his formidable hat upon a table, took adistant chair, pushed his gaitered feet out in front, and laid a largewallet or pocket-book on his lap. Then, addressing his whole attentionto the host, he appeared never to wink while he remained. 

"Judge Custis, " he said, straightforwardly, "the first time you came toborrow money from me, you said that Nassawongo furnace would enrich thiscounty and raise the value of my land. "

"Yes, Milburn. It was a slow enterprise, but it's coming all right. Ishipped a thousand tons last year. "

"Judge Custis, " continued the money-lender, "I told you, when you madethe first loan, that I would investigate this ore. I did so years ago. Specimens were sent by me to Baltimore and tested there. Not contentwith that, I have studied the manufacture of iron for myself--thesociety of Princess Anne not grudging me plenty of solitude!--and I knowthat every ton of iron you make costs more than you get for it. The bogore is easy to smelt; but it is corrupted by phosphate of iron and isbarely 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 untilwithin 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 wasnot bound to betray my knowledge. "

"Why did you, then, from a commercial view, lend me large sums of moneyagain and again?"

"Because, " said the money-lender, coolly, "you had other security. Youhave 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 theJudge, and bore him back to his bed. Samson Hat was the man. 

"Judge!" he exclaimed, gentle, but firm, "you is a _good_ man, butnot as good as me. Cool off, Judge!"

"I expected this scene, " said Meshach Milburn. "It could not have beenavoided. I was bound in conscience and in common-sense to make you theonly proposition which could save you from ruin. For, Judge Custis, youare a ruined man!"

Overcome with excitement and suspended stimulation, the old Judge fellback on his pillow and began to sob. 

"Give him brandy, " said Meshach Milburn, "here is the bottle! He needsit now. "

The wretched gentleman eagerly drank the proffered draught from thenegro's hands. His fury did not revive, and he covered his face with hispalms and moaned piteously. 

"Judge Custis, " remarked Meshach Milburn, "if the apparent socialdistance between us could be lessened by any argument, I might make one. For the difference is in appearance only. The healthy flesh which givesyou and yours stature and beauty is a matter of food alone. My stock hassurvived five generations of such diet as has bent the spines of theforest pigs and stunted the oxen. Money and family joy will give mechildren 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 suchdegradation as this, when I yielded to low propensities, and sought mypleasure and companions in the huts of the forest!"

"You claim descent from the Stuart Restoration: I know the tale. Acreditor of the two exiled royal brothers for sundry tavern loans andtipples drew for his obligation an office in far-off Virginia. Seizures, confiscations, the slave-trade, marriages--in short, the long game ofadvantage--built up the fortunes of the Custises, until they expired ina certain Judge, whose notes of hand a hard man, forest-born, held overthe Judge's head on what seemed hard conditions, but conditions in whichwas 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 myinnocent daughter in the damned meshes of your principal and interest!Call it malignity--the visitation of your unsocial wrath on man and anangel; but not mercy!"

"Then we will call it compensation, " continued Meshach Milburn: "fortwenty years I have denied myself everything; you denied yourselfnothing. Your substance is wasted; renew it from the abundance of mythrift. 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 thekindling glory of your daughter's beauty. Like the schoolboys, themarried husbands--yes, like the slaves--I had to admire her. Then, unknowing how deeply you were involved, I found offered to me for salethe 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 thehand, 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 _goodsociety_, and on starveling opportunity have slowly recoveredindependence. Now he shall take my place in the forest, or I will wearmy hat at the head of his family table. '"

"A dreadful revenge!" whispered Custis, with a shudder. "Such a hat isworse 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 itsshadow 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 willtell you the silly secret of it. When I came from the obscurity of theforest, sensitive, and anxious to make my way, and slowly gatheredcapital and knowledge, a person in New York directed a letter of inquiryto me. It told how a certain Milburn, a Puritan or English Commonwealthman, had risen to great distinction in that province, and hadrevolutionized 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 ofthe first Custis. They anticipated the expulsion of James II. , and wereentrapped by their provincial enemies and made political martyrs. "

"The inquirer, " said Meshach, "who had obtained my address in the courseof business, related, that after Milburn's death his brethren and theirfamilies had sailed to the Chesapeake, where the Protestants hadsuccessfully revolutionized for King William, and, making choice of poorlands, they had become obscure. He asked me if the court-house recordsmade any registry of their wills. "

"Of course you found them?"

"Yes. It was a revelation to me, and gave me the honorable sense of someorigin and quality. I traced myself back to the earliest folios, at theclose of the seventeenth century. "

"Any property, Milburn?" asked the Judge, voluptuous and reanimatedagain. 

"My great-grandfather had left his son nothing but a Hat. "

"Not uncommon!" exclaimed Judge Custis. "Our early wills contain littlebut legacies of wearing apparel, household articles, bedding, pots andkettles, and the elements of civilization. "

"The will on record said: '_I give to my eldest son, Meshach Milburn, mybest Hat, and no more of my estate. _'"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Judge, loudly. "Genteel to the last! A hat offashion, no doubt, made in London; quite too ceremonious and topgallantfor these colonies. He left it to his eldest son, en-_tiled_it, we maysay. Ho! ho!"

"When my indignation was over, I took the same view you do, JudgeCustis, that it was a bequest of dignity, not of burlesque; and I madesome 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 bymy grandfather thankfully. He left it to my father, still a hat ofreputation--"

"Still en-_tiled_ to the oldest son! Ha, ha! Milburn. "

"My father sold the hat to Charles Wilson Peale, who was native to ourpeninsula, and knew the ancient things existing here that would help himto form Peale's Museum during the last century. I found the hat in thatmuseum, 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, butin time of religious excitements was proclaimed to be the true hat ofGuy Fawkes. I reclaimed it, and brought it to Princess Anne, and in avain moment put it on my head and walked into the street. It wasassailed 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 oneman's drink is another man's poison. You will accept that hat on thehead 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 byJudge Custis. The trader had concluded their interview with a decisionand fierceness that left paralysis upon the gentleman's mind. He saw, insad fancy, the execution served upon his furniture, the amazement of hiswife, the pallor of his daughter, the indignation of his sons. He alsoshrank before the impending failure of his furnace and abandonment ofthe 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 oldSteeple-top Milburn played upon the Custises' vanity, and turned theminto the street. "

"No doubt, " thought the Judge, "that fellow, Milburn, can get anythingwhen he gets my house. The poor folks' vote he may command, because heis of their class. He is a lender to many of the rich. Who could havesuspected his intelligence? His address, too? He handled me as if I werea forester and he a judge. A very, very remarkable man!" finished JudgeCustis, 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-pondbe 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'thappy like you an' me. He's 'bitious. He's lonely. Dat's enough to spileangels. 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 depeople. Your darter may git a better man, not a pyorer one. "

"Purity goes a very little way, " exclaimed the Judge, "on the male sideof marriage contracts. It's always assumed, and never expected. You neednot 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 haspower to make him loved. Your darter might go farder and fare wuss! Iwish her no harm, God knows!"

The negro said an humble good-night, and the Judge lay down upon his bedto think of the dread alternatives of the coming week; but, voluptuouseven 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, dividedfrom the water by a dense growth of pines. The bullfrogs and insectsserenaded 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 ina sandy field near the road; it had no door in the hollow doorway, nosash 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 oldend-chimney bore it toughly up, however, and the low brick props underthe corners stood plumb. Within lay a single room with open beams, asort of cupboard stairway projecting over the fireplace, and anotherdoor and window were in the rear. Before this fireplace sat MeshachMilburn on an old chair, fairly revealed by the light of some of theburning weather-boarding he had thrown upon the hearth. On the hearthwas a little heap of the bog iron ore and a bottle. 

"Come in, Samson!" he called. "Don't think me turned drunkard because Iam taking this whiskey. I drink it to keep out the malaria, and partlyas a communion cup; for to-night the barefooted ghosts who have droopedand 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 theloft, and sleep till you are called. I want the horses early forPrincess Anne!"

The negro obeyed without remark, and disappeared behind thecupboard-like door. Milburn sat before the fire, and looked into itlong, while a procession of thoughts and phantoms passed before it. 

He saw a poor family of independent Puritans setting sail at differentdates from English seaports. Some were indentured servants, hoping for acareer; others were avoiding the civil wars; others were small politicalmalefactors, noisy against the oppressions of their hero, Cromwell, andconspirators against his power; and, thrown by him in English jails, were only delivered to be sold into slavery, driven through the streetsof market-towns, placed on troop ships between the decks, among thehorses, and set up at auction in Barbadoes, like the blacks; whence theyin time continued onward westward. One, the fortunate possessor of somecompetence, sailed his own ship across the Atlantic, and delivered up toMassachusetts her governor and gentry. Another, incapable of beingsuppressed, though a servant, seized the destinies of an aristocraticcolony, and held them for a while, until accumulating enemies bore himdown, and wedlock and the gibbet followed close together. Poverty wouldnot relinquish its gripe upon the race; they struggled up like clodsupon the ploughshare, and fell back again into the furrow. 

As Meshach Milburn thought of these things he took up a portion of thebog ore from the hearth. 

"Here is iron, " he said, thoughtfully, "true iron, which makes the bloodred, moulds into infinite forms, nails houses together, binds wheels, and casts into cannon and ball. But this iron ran into a bog, formed lowcombinations, and had no other mould than twigs and leaves afforded. Itsvolcanic origin was forgotten when it ran with sand and gravel away fromthe mountain vein and upland ore along the low, alluvial bar, till, likean oyster, the iron is dredged from the stagnant pool, impure, inefficacious, corrupted. So is it with man, whose magnetic spiritfollows the dull declivity to the barren sandbars of the world, andlodges there. I am of the bog ores; but that exists which will flux withme, 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 fingerupon the crevices in the weather-boarding; he opened the little closetbelow the stairs, and a weasel dashed out and shot through the door; heascended the steep, short stairs, and with a torch examined the blackshingles, but nothing was there except a litter of young owls, whoseparents had gone poaching. Then, returning, he searched on every openbeam and rotting board, as if for writing. 

"They could not write!" he thought. "Nothing is left to me, not even asign, 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, theshadow of the Entailed Hat was dancing on the wall. As he threw his headback, so did it; as he retired from it, the hat enlarged, until thelittle room could hardly hold its shadow. Retiring again, he lifted itfrom his head with bitter courtesy, and the shadow did the same. The manand the shadow looked each at a peaked hat and stroked it. 

"This is everything, " exclaimed Milburn. "The hundred humble heads areat rest in the sand; one grave-stone would mock them all. But once thefamily brain expanded to a hat, and that survived the race. I am theQuaker 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 someshrivelled grains of corn, or tinkering a disordered mill-wheel thatmoved a blacksmith's saw. Ever full of confidence in nothing which couldincrease, credulous and sanguine, tender and laborious, Milburn's sirenursed his forest patches as if they were presently to be richplantations, and was ever "pricing" negroes, mules, tools, andimplements, in expectation of buying them. Nothing could diminish hisconfidence but disease and old age. He heard of the great "improvement"on the Furnace tract, and took his obedient wife and brood there. As thelaborers pulled out the tussocks and roots, encrusted with iron, fromthe swamp and creek, fever and ague came forth and smote them both. 

How wretched that scene when, almost too haggard to move, father andmother, in this one bare room where Meshach sat, groaning amid theirmany offspring, saw death with weakness creep upon each other--deathwithout priest or doctor, without residue or cleanliness--the death themillion die in lowly huts, yet, oh, how hard!

"Haste, sonny, _good_ boy, " the frightened father had said, knowing nothow ill he was, in his dependence on his wife; "take the horse, and rideinto Snow Hill for the doctor. Poor mother is dreadful sick!"

Then, leaping upon the lean old horse, bare-backed and with a ropebridle, Meshach had pushed through the deep sand, bareheaded andbarefooted, and almost crazy with excitement, until he entered theshining streets of the sandhilled town, and sensitively rushed into thedoctor's office, crying, "Daddy and mammy is sick, at the Furnace!" andtold his name, and wheeled, and fled. 

But, as the boy rode home, more slowly, past the river full ofsplutter-docks, the yellow masts of vessels rising above the woods, theflat fields of corn everywhere bounded by forest, and the small whitehouses 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 hutand 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 nopoverty; without her riches would be only more sand. With a littlemolasses she made Christmas kingly with a cake. She could name a littlechicken "Meshach, " and every egg it laid was a new toy. A mocking-birdcaught in the swamp became one of the family by her kindness; would itever sing again? The religion they knew was all of her. The poor slavessaw no difference in mistresses while she was theirs. In sickness shewas in her sphere--health itself had come. And once, the tenderestthing in life, when his father and she had quarrelled, and the light oflove 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 lowdoor. 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 findno note for this, and was hushed. 

Milburn arose; the fire was low. He walked to the door, and there was asign of day; the all-surrounding woods of pine were still dark, but onthe sandy road and hummock-field some light was shining, likehopefulness against hope; the farm was ploughed no more; the ungratefulcenturies were left behind and abandoned, like old wildernessbattle-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 sawMeshach Milburn before the fire, stirring the coals. Passing out, Samsonstood a moment at the gate, and lounged up the road, not to lose hismaster. As he stood there, flames burst out of the old hut and glistenedon the evergreen forest, lighting the tops of the mossy cypresses in themill-pond, and revealing the forms of the sandy fields. Before he couldstart 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 thenthe low figure, capped with the long hat, came up the road as if atmighty strides, so lengthened by the fire. 

"No need of alarm, boy!" exclaimed the filial incendiary. "Henceforth myonly 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 ahome, fine as de hat may be, mean as de roof! De hat will never hold twoheads, and dat makes happiness. "

"The hat, at least, " answered Milburn, bitterly, "will cover me where Igo. 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 noplace to go an' hide when I fights, now. It makes me feel solemn. "

"Peace!" replied Meshach Milburn. "Now for the horses and PrincessAnne!"

CHAPTER VI. 

THE CUSTISES RUINED. 

Vesta Custis, dressing in her chamber, heard early wheels upon themorning air, and looking through the blinds saw a double team coming upthe road from Hardship. 

"Mother, " she said, "is that father coming, yonder? No, it is not hisdriver. "

"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; thesteeple-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 shouldersonly by a spray of lace, pulled her mother down. 

"Don't be afraid, dear! he can see nothing but the blinds. Perhaps he islooking for the Judge. "

Vesta rose again in her white morning-gown, like a stag rising from asnow-drift. A long, trembling movement, the result of tittering, passeddown the graceful column of her back. 

"He sits there like an Indian riding past in a show, mamma! Did you eversee such a hat?"

"I think it must be buggy by this time, " said the mother; and both ofthem shook with laughter again. "Unless, " added Mrs. Custis, "the bugsare starved out. "

"Poor, lonely creature, " said Vesta, "he can only wear such a hat fromwant 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, fellnearly to her slipper, like the skin of some coal-black beast, that hadsprung down a poplar's trunk. 

"Ah! well, " exclaimed Vesta, as her maid entered and proceeded to windup this satin cordage on her crown, "what men are in their minds, canwoman know? Old ladies, not unfrequently, wear their old coal-scuttlebonnets long past the fashion, but it is from want. This man is his ownmaster and not poor. His companion is a negro, and his taste a mouldyhat, old as America. How happy are we that it is not necessary to pryinto such minds! A little refinement is the next blessing to religion. "

"Your father's mind is a puzzle, too, Vesta. He has everything whichthese foresters lack, --education, society, standing, and comforts. Buthe returns to the forest, like an opossum, the moment your eye is offhim. He can't be traced up like this man, by his hat. I think it's ashame on you, particularly. If he don't come home this day, I shall sendfor 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 theFurnace or wherever he may be. Those bog ores have given him a greatdeal of trouble. "

"I wish I had never heard of bog ore, " exclaimed Mrs. Custis. "When themoney was in bank, there was no ore about it. He goes to the forestlooking like a magistrate and a gentleman; he always comes back lookinglike 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 hermirror and looked at her face. Apparently satisfied that such charmswere trampled on, she dried her tears altogether, and resumed:

"Ginny, go out of the room! (to the neat mulatto lass). Vesta, my deardaughter, I would not cast a stain upon you for the world; but flesh andblood _will_ cry out. If your father don't do better I will separatefrom him, and leave Princess Anne!"

"Why, _mother_!"

The daughter's bright eyes were large and startled now, and theirsteel-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 lacingthe coral of the lip. She could say no more for a long moment. Rising asshe spoke, with her head thrown back, and her mould the fuller and apallor in her cheeks, she looked the Eve first hearing the Creator'srebuke. 

"A separation in this family?" whispered Vesta. "It would scandalize allMaryland. It would break my heart. "

"Darling daughter, my heart must be considered sometimes. I wassomething 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, whohave been so brave and patient longer than I have lived!"

"Ah, Vesta, it is the length of injury that wears us out! What ifsomething 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 hopefulto you. I am growing old, and where is the arm on which I should beleaning? What are we but two women left? There is another passage onwhich I often think when we sit so often alone: 'Two women shall begrinding at the mill: the one shall be taken and the other left!' Isthat you, or is it I? Listen, my child! it is time that you should feelthe melancholy truth! Your father's habits have mastered him. He isbeyond reclamation!"

Vesta was kneeling, and she slowly raised her head and looked at hermother, with her nostrils dilated. Mrs. Custis felt uneasy before thearoused mind of her child. 

"Don't look at me so, Vesta, " the poor lady pleaded. "I thought youought 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. Thedaughter went to the window and looked down, and then returned to hermother's ear. 

"Hush, mother, it is papa. Now, wash your eyes at the toilet. Let usmeet him cheerfully. Never say again that he is beyond reclamation, while we can try!"

A kiss smoothed Mrs. Custis's countenance. Vesta was dressed forbreakfast in a few moments, and descended to the library and wasreceived in her father's arms. He held her there a long while, and heldher close, and by little fits renewed his embrace, but she felt that hisbreath 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 ofbrandy. Mine gave out at the Furnace, and the morning ride has weakenedme. Where is the key?"

She looked at him with a half-glance, so that he might not suspect, asif to measure his need of stimulant. Then, without a word, she led theway to the dining-room and unlocked the liquor closet, and turned herback lest he might not drink his need from sensitiveness. 

"Naughty man, " said Vesta, standing off and looking at him when he wasdone. "I was going down for you to the Furnace after breakfast. We willhave no more of this truantry. Mamma and I have set our feet down! Youmust come back from the Furnace every night, and go again in themorning, 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 offhis boots, supplied his slippers and dressing-gown, and led the way tohis bath. In a quarter of an hour he reappeared, looking better, and heirresolutely turned again towards the dining-room, smiling suggestivelyat 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 andher mother were waiting for the usual morning prayers. Vesta placed theopen Bible on her father's knee, and he began absently and stumblinglyto read. It was in the book of Samuel, and seemed to be some old Jewishmythology. He suddenly came to a verse which arrested his sensibilitiesby its pathos:

"'And David sent messengers to Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, saying, Deliverme my wife Michal. .. . And Ish-bosheth sent, and took her from herhusband, even from Phaltiel, the son of Laish. And her husband went withher 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. Theinexorable David, perhaps, had married another's love. Occasion hadarisen to embitter her kin, and they took her back and gave her inhappiness to her pining lover. But, again, the man of correct habitstriumphed over the sons of the king, and despatched Abner to tear hiswife 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. TheJudge's eyes silently o'erflowed, and he could not see. 

Vesta had watched him closely, as her silent magistracy detected a greatanxiety or illness in her father. Lest her mother might also notice it, she interposed in the lesson, as was her habit, by reading the Episcopalform of prayer, in which they all bent their heads. Once or twice, asshe went on, she detected a suppressed sob, especially at the paragraph:"Thou who knowest the weakness and corruption of our nature, and themanifold temptations which we daily meet with, we humbly beseech thee tohave compassion on our infirmities and to give us the constantassistance of thy Holy Spirit, that we may be effectually restrainedfrom 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 notswallow. A hand softly touched his elbow, and, looking there, he saw awine-glass full of brandy softly glide to the spot. As he looked up andsaw the rich, yearning face of his dark-eyed daughter tenderlyconsulting his weakness, his heart burst forth; he leaned his head uponthe table and cried, between drink and grief:

"Darling, we are ruined!"

Mrs. Custis at once arose, and looked frightenedly at the Judge. Vestaas quickly turned to the servants and motioned them to go. 

"No, let them hear it!" raved Judge Custis, perceiving the motion. "Theyare 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 herfinger on the table-bell. Servants entered and Mrs. Custis was carriedout, her daughter following. 

When Vesta returned her father was walking up and down the floor withhis long silk handkerchief in both hands, weeping bitterly, and speakingbroken syllables. She looked at him a moment with all the might of adaughter, first called on to act alone in a great crisis. The feelingshe was wont to hold towards him, of perfect pride, had received a blowin her mother's expression: "Your father's habits have mastered himbeyond reclamation. "

Could this be true; that he, the grand, the kind, the gentleman, wasbeneath the diver's reach, the plummet's sounding, where light could notpierce, nor Hope overtake? _Her_ father, the first gentleman inSomerset, a drunkard, going ever downward towards the gutter, and no rayof heaven to beam upon his grave!

She saw his danger now: it was written on his face, where the image ofGod shone dim that had once been crowned there. Hair thinner, and verygray; the rich, dark eyes intimidated, as if manly confidence was gone;the skin no more the pure scroll of regular life written in the healthyfluid of the heart, but faded, yet spotted with alcohol; on the nose andlips signs of coarser sensuality; the large skeleton bent and thenervous temperament shattered. This father had been until this momentVesta's angel. Now, there might not be an angel in the universe to flyto his rescue. Deep, dreadful humility descended into the daughter'sspirit. 

"God forgive me!" she thought, "how blind and how proud and sinful Ihave been!"

She walked over to her father tenderly and kissed him, and then, drawinghis weaker inclination by hers, brought him to a sofa, placed a pillowfor him, and made him stretch his once proud form there. Procuring abowl of water, she washed his face free of tears with a napkin, andbathed it in cologne. The voluptuous nature of the Judge yielded to theperfume and the easy position, and he sobbed himself to sleep like anexhausted child. 

Sitting by the sleeping bankrupt, watching his breast rise and fall, andhearing his coarse snoring, as if fiends within were snarling in rivalryfor the possession of him, Vesta felt that the life which wasunconscious there was the fountain of her own, and, loving no man else, she felt her heart like a goldfish of that fountain, go around andaround it throbbingly. 

Then first arose the wish, often in woman's life repeated, to have beenborn a man and know how to help her father. That suggested that she hadbrothers who ought to be summoned, and confer with their father; but nowit occurred to her that every one of them had leaned upon him; and, though conscious that it was wicked, Vesta felt her pride rise againstthe thought that any being outside of that house, even a brother, shouldknow of its disgrace. 

What could she do? She thought of all her jewels, her riding mare, herwatch, her father's own gifts, and then the thought perished that thesecould help him. 

Could she not earn something by her voice, which had sung to suchpraises? Alas! that voice had lost the ingredient of hope, and shefeared 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 twomartyrs, my father and mother. No, nothing can be done until he awakensand tells me the worst. Meantime it would be wicked for me to increasethe 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 asick-headache seized her and she kept her room. Infirm of will, purelysocial in her marriage relations, and never aiming higher thanrespectability, she missed the coarse mark of her husband who, with allhis moral defections, probably was her moral equal, his vital standardhigher, his tone a genial hypocrisy, and at bottom he was a democrat. 

Mrs. Custis had no insight nor variability of charity; her mind, boundedby the municipal republic of Baltimore, which esteems itself the world, particularly among its mercantile aristocracy, who live like the oldVenetian nobility among their flat lagoons, and do commerce chiefly withthe Turk in the more torrid and instinctive Indies and South. Amiable, social, afraid of new ideas, frugal of money; if hospitable at thetable, with a certain spiritedness that is seldom intellectual, but abeauty that powerfully attracts, till, by the limited sympathies beneathit, the husband from the outer world discerns how hopelessly slavery andcaste sink into an old shipping society, the Baltimore that ruled theChesapeake had no more perfected product than Mrs. Custis. 

Her modesty and virtue were as natural as her prejudices; she believedthat marriage was the close of female ambition, and marrying herchildren was the only innovation to be permitted. Certainaccomplishments she thought due to woman, but none of them must becomemasculine in prosecution; a professional woman she shrank from as froman infidel or an abolitionist; reading was meritorious up to an orthodoxpoint, but a passion for new books was dangerous, probably irreligious. To lose one's money was a crime; to lose another's money the unforgivensin, because that was Baltimore public opinion, which she thought wasthe only opinion entitled to consideration. The old Scotch and Irishmerchants there had made it the law that enterprise was only excusableby success, and that success only branded an innovator. A good standardof society, therefore, had barely permitted Judge Custis to take up thebog-ore manufacture, and, failing in it, his wife thought he was nobetter than a Jacobin. 

On the Eastern Shore, where society was formed before Glasgow andBelfast had colonized upon the Chesapeake with their precise formulas oflife, a gentler benevolence rose and descended upon the ground everyday, like the evaporations of those prolific seas which manure the thinsoil unfailingly. Religion and benevolence were depositions rather thandogmas there; moderate poverty was the not unwelcome expectation, wealtha subject of apprehensive scruples, kindness the law, pride theexception, and grinding avarice, like Meshach Milburn's, was the mark ofthe devil entering into the neighbor and the fellow-man. 

Judge Custis was representative of his neighbors except in his Virginiavoluptuousness; his neighbors were neither prudes nor hypocrites, and herespected them more than the arrogant race in the old land of Accomacand in the Virginia peninsulas, whose traits he had almost lost. Sometimes it seemed to him that the last of the cavalier stock was hisdaughter, Vesta. From him it had nearly departed, and his sense of moralshortcomings expanded his heart and made him tenderly pious to his kind, if not to God. He admired new-comers, new business modes, and Northernintruders and ideas, feeling that perhaps the last evidence of hisaristocracy from nature was a chivalric resignation. The pine-trees weresaying to him: "Ye shall go like the Indians, but be not inhospitable toyour successors, and leave them your benediction, that the great bay andits rivers may be splendid with ships and men, though ye are perishedforever. " A perception of the energy of his countrymen, and a pride init, without any mean reservation, though it might involve his personalhumiliation, was Judge Custis's only remaining claim to heaven'smagnanimity. Still, rich in human nature, he was beloved by his daughterwith all her soul. 

He awoke long after noon, in body refreshed, and a glass of milk and aplover broiled on toast were ready for him to eat, with some sprigs ofnew celery from the garden to feed his nerves. He made this small mealsilently, and Vesta said, as the tray was removed:

"Now, papa, before we leave this room, you are to tell me the wholeinjury you have suffered, and what all of us can do to assist you; forif you had succeeded the reward would have been ours, and we must dividethe 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 eyesdowncast, and finally spoke:

"My child, I am the victim of good intentions and self-enjoyment. I amless than a scoundrel and worse than a fool. I am a fraud, and you mustbe made to see it, for I fear you have been proud of me. "

"Oh, father, I have!" said Vesta, with an instant's convulsion. "Youwere my God. "

"Let us throw away idolatry, my darling. It is the first of all thesins. How loud speaks the first commandment to us this moment: 'Thoushalt 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 myhouse. The work of nature in you is all that survives the long edificeof our pride. The treasure of your beauty and love still makes me richto thieves, who lie in ambush all around us. We are in danger, we arepursued. 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 heridolatry come back. He was so grand, standing there in his unaffectedpain and helplessness, that he seemed to her some manly Prometheus, whohad worked with fire and iron, to the exasperation of the jealous gods. Admiration dried her tears, and she forgot her father's references toherself. 

"What is iron?" she asked. "Tell me why you wanted to make iron! If Ican enter into your mind and sympathize with the hopes you have had, itwill lift my soul from the ground. Papa, I should have asked for thislesson long ago. "

The Judge strode up and down till she repeated the question, and hadbrought him to his seat. He collected his thoughts, and resumed hisworldly tone as he proceeded, with his old cavalier volatility, to tellthe 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 theruin of our fortune. "

Vesta arose with pale lips and a sinking heart. 

"Oh, father, " she whispered, in a frightened tone, "who knows thisterrible secret!"

"Only one man, " said the Judge, cowering down to the carpet, with hiscourage and volatility immediately gone, "old Meshach Milburn knows itall! He has purchased the duplicate notes of protest, and holds themwith 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 steadygaze, 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. "Whatfurther disgrace can this monster inflict upon us than to expose ourdishonor? Can he kill us more than that?"

"I know not how to tell you, Vessy. Spare me, my darling! My face I hidefor shame. "

There was a pause, while Vesta, with her mind expanded to touch everypoint of suggestion, stood looking down at her father, yet hardly seeinghim. He did not move. 

Vesta stooped and raised her father's face to find some solution of hismysterious evasion. He shut his eyes as if she burned him with herwondering 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, butwith a timorous countenance. 

"I wish you to go this moment and find your creditor, Mr. Milburn, andbring him to me. You must obey me, sir!"

The father raised his hands as if to protest, but before he could speaka shadow fell upon the window, and the figure of a small, swarthy mancovered 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 intothis 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 JudgeCustis, 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 hadtaken the broad street for Judge Custis's gate. The news of hisdisappearance towards the Furnace, with an extravagant livery team, hadspread among all the circle around the principal tavern, and they werediscussing the motive and probabilities of the act, with that deep innerignorance so characteristic of an instinctive society. Old JimmyPhoebus, a huge man, with a broad face and small forehead, was calledupon for his view. 

"It's nothin' but a splurge, " said Jimmy; "sooner or later everybodysplurges--shows off! Meshach's jest spilin' with money and he must havea splurge--two hosses and a nigger. If it ain't a splurge I can't tellwhat 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 ineverything else, and has tuk to hosses. If it tain't hosses, I can'ttell to save my life!"

All the lesser intellects of the party executed a low chuckle, spunaround half-way on their boot-heels and back again, and muttered: "Notto save my life!"

Jack Wonnell, wearing one of the new bell-crowns, and barefooted, andlooking like a vagrant who had tried on a militia grenadier's imposingbearskin hat, let off this irrelevant _addendum_:

"Ole Milbun's gwyn to see a gal. Fust time a man changes his reglercourse 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'ttell to save m' life!"

The smaller fry, not being trained to suggestion, grinned, held theirmouths 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'llall take off our hats an' do it polite, for, by smoke! thar's goin' tobe 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 thefront, his nose informing him of what was in the air like any silkenterrier's, and yet with a pallor of the skin as of a sick person's, andless 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 thatland was again heard, fluttering around: "to _save_ my life!"

Jimmy Phoebus had the name of being descended from a Greek pirate, orpatriot, who had settled on the Eastern Shore, and Phoebus looked ityet, 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, Milburnlifted his ancient and formidable hat, and in an instant seemed to comea century nearer to his neighbors. His stature was reduced, hisunsociableness seemed modified; he now looked to be a smallish, friendless person, as if some ownerless dog had darted through thestreet, and heard a kind chirp at the tavern door, where his receptionhad been stones. His voice, with a little tremor in it, emboldened LevinDennis 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 offhis own tile of frivolity, to feel the effect; but this remark wasregarded 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 thanusually, or am I more timid? What is it in the air that makes everythingso 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; awoodpecker in an old tree tapped as if it was the tree's old heartquickened by something; the houses all around looked like live objects, with their windows fixed upon his walk, like married folks' eyes. As hecame in sight of Judge Custis's residence, so expressive of old respectand long intentions, the money-lender almost stopped, so mild andpeacefully it looked at him--so undisturbed, while he was palpitating. 

"Why this pain?" thought Milburn. "Am I afraid? That house is mine. Do Ifear to enter my own? And yet it does not fear me. It has been there solong that it has no fears, and every window in it faces benignant to mycoming. The three gables survey yonder forest landscape like three oldmagistrates on the bench, administering justice to a county where nevertill now was there a ravisher!"

The thought produced a moment's intellectual pride in him, like lawlesspower's uneasy paroxysm. "It is the Forest these gentles have to fearto-day!" he thought, resentfully, then stopped, with another image hisword aroused:

"What has that forest ever felt of injury or hate, with every cabin-doorunlatched, no robber feared by any there, the blossoms on the negro'speachtree, the ripe persimmons on the roadside, plenteous to everyforester's child, and humility and affection making all richer, withouta 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 thepath to the gate, also walking slow, and showed neither animosity norinterest, except mechanically to walk behind him towards the door. 

"The dog knows me, " thought the quickened heart of Meshach, "fromlife-long seeing of me, but never wagged his tail at me in all thattime. Could I acquire the heart even of this dog, though I might buyhim? My debtor's step would still be most welcome to him, and he wouldeat 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 waslouder yet, like the unknown thing, after sentence has been passed. Heseemed to be there a very long time with his heart quite vacant, as ifthe debtor's knocker had scared every chatterer out of it, and yet histemples and ears were ringing. He was thinking of sounding the knockeragain, when a lady's servant, partly white, rolled back the bolt, andbowed to his question whether the Judge was in. 

He entered the broad hall of that distinguished residence, and takingthe Entailed Hat from his head, hung it up at last, where betterhead-coverings had been wont to keep equal society, on a carved mahoganyrack of colonial times. The venerable object, once there, gave a commonlook to everything, as Meshach thought, and deepened his personal senseof unworthiness. He tried to feel angry, but apprehension was too strongfor passion even to be simulated. 

"O, discriminating God!" he felt, within, "is it not enough to create usso unequal that we must also cringe in spirit, and acknowledge it! Iexpected to feel triumphant when I lodged my despised hat in this man'shouse, 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 northeasternenvirons, including all the peninsula south of the Choptank river andCape Henlopen; and near the door was a tall clock, that a giant mightstand in, solemnly cogging and waving time, and giving the monotony ofeverlasting evening to the place, which was increased by the flickeringfire of wood on the tall brass fire-irons, before which somehigh-backed, wide, comfortable leather chairs were drawn, all worn toluxurious attitudes, as if each had been the skin of Judge Custis andhis companions, recently evacuated. 

A woman's rocking-chair was disposed among them, as though every otherchair deferred to it. This was the first article to arrest Milburn'sattention, so different, so suggestive, almost a thing of superstition, poised, like a woman's instinct and will, upon nothing firm, yet, likethe sphere it moved upon, traversing a greater arc than a giant's seatwould fill. Purity and conquest, power and welcome, seemed to abidewithin it, like the empty throne in Parliament. 

Milburn, being left alone, touched the fairy rocker with his foot. Itstarted so easily and so gracefully, that, when it died away, he pressedhis lips to the top of it, nearest where her neck would be, andwhispered aloud, with feeling, "God knows that kiss, at least, waspure!"

He looked at the portraits, and, though they were not inscribed, heguessed at them all, right or wrong, from the insight of local lore orenvious interpretation. 

"Yon saucy, greedy, superserviceable rogue, " thought Meshach, "with wineand beef in his cheeks, and silver and harlotry in his eye, was theIrish tavern-keeper of Rotterdam, who kept a heavy score against thebanished princes whom Cromwell's name ever made to swear and shiver, andthey paid him in a distant office in Accomac, where they might neversee him and his bills again, and there they let him steal most of therevenue, and, of course, his loyalty was in proportion to his booty. Many a time, no doubt, he was procurer for both royal brothers, Charlesand James, making his tavern their stew, with Betty Killigrew, or LucyWalters, or Katy Peg, or even Anne Hyde, the mother of a queen--of herwho was the Princess Anne, godmother of our worshipful town here. I havenot read in vain, " concluded Meshach, "because my noble townsmen droveme to my cell!"

The next portrait was clothed in military uniform, with a higher type ofmanhood, shrewd and vigilant, but magisterial. "That should beMajor-general John Custis, " thought Milburn, looking at it, "son of Johnthe tapster, and a marrying, shifty fellow, who first began greatness asa salt-boiler on these ocean islands, till his father's friend, CharlesII. , in a merry mood, made Henry Bennet, the king's bastard son'sfather-in-law, Earl of Arlington and lessee of Virginia. All theprovince for forty shillings a year rent! Those were pure, economicaltimes, indeed, around the court. So salt-boiler John flunkeyed toArlington's overseers, named his farm 'Arlington, ' hunted and informedupon the followers of the Puritan rebel Bacon, then turned and fawnedupon King William, too. His grandchildren, all well provided for, spreadaround this bay. So much for politics in a merchant's hands!"

The tone of Meshach's comment had somewhat raised his courage, and asense of pleasurable interest in the warm room and genial surroundingsled him to pass the time, which was of considerable length, quitecontentedly, till Judge Custis was ready. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile, the steeple-top hat was giving some silent astonishment tothe house-servants, assembled to gaze upon it from the foot of the hall. The neat chamber-servant, Virgie, had carried the wondrous informationto the colonnade that the dreadful creditor had come, and Roxy, thetable waiter, had carried it from the colonnade to the kitchen, wherethe common calamity immediately produced a revolution against goodmanners. 

"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 theblock. 

"Yes, aunty, he's left it on the hat-rack. I'm afraid to go past it tothe do'. "

Aunt Hominy threw the club on the blistered bulk of dough, and retreatedtowards the big black fireplace, with a face expressive of so muchfright 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 inde fire! Maybe it'll liff de trouble off o' dis yer house. We got de hatjess wha' we want it, chillen. Roxy, gal, you go fotch it to AuntHominy!"

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 Samsonever did that!"

"Go' long, gal!" cried Aunt Hominy, "didn't Miss Vessy hole dat ar' hatone time, an' pin a white rose in it? Didn't he, dat drefful MeshachMilbun, offer Miss Vessy a gole dollar, an' she wouldn' have none of hisgole? Dat she did! Virgie, you go git dat hat, chile! Poke it off derack wid my pot-hook heah. 'Twon't hurt you, gal! I'll sprinkle ye fustwid camomile an' witch-hazel dat I keep up on de chimney-jamb. "

Aunt Hominy turned towards the broadly notched chimney sides, wherefifty articles of negro pharmacy were kept--bunches of herbs, driedpeppers, bladders of seeds, and bottles of every mystic potency. 

"Aunty, " answered Virgie, "if I wasn't afraid of that Bad Man, I wouldbe 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'drather 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 obgittin' all de gole in Somerset County. Don't I know when he wore itfust? 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 downto git de debbil's frenship. De debbil come in one night, and says toole 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 littlecolored boys and girls still more, who came up almost chilled withterror, to listen; but it produced the greatest effect on Aunt Hominyherself, whose imagination, widened in the effort, excited all her ownfears, 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'shat throws. Meshach, he sots his eyes on a good farm. Says he, 'I'llmeasure dat in!' So he gits out dar some sun-up or sundown, when de sunjest 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 detime 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. Hewalks along de road befo' de farm, and wherever dat hat makes a mark onde 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 onlyless than fear. 

"But, Aunt Hominy, " spoke Roxy, "he never measured in Judge Custis'shouse, 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 ifto creep, in the contraction of her own fears, and looking up into theirfaces with her fists clinched. "He's a ben comin' along de fence on dedarkest, cloudiest nights dis long a time, like a man dat was goin' torob something, and peepin' up at Miss Vessy's window. He took de darknights, when de streets of Prencess Anne was clar ob folks, an' de dogswas in deir cribs, an' nuffin' goin' aroun' but him an' wind an' coldan' rain. One night, while he was watchin' Miss Vessy's window like ablack crow, from de shadow of de tree, I was a-watchin' of him from dekitchen window. De moon, dat had been all hid, come right from behin' derain-clouds all at once, gals, an' scared him like. De moon was low onde woods, chillen, an' as ole Meshach turned an' walked away, hisdebbil's shadow swept dis house in. He measured it in dat night. It'sben his ever since. "

"Well, " exclaimed Roxy, after a pause, "I know I wouldn't take hold ofthat hat now. "

"I am almost afraid to look at it, " said Virgie, "but if Miss Vessy toldme 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 ofservants--Aunt Hominy, Virgie, Roxy, and the four children, from five tofourteen years of age--filed softly from the kitchen through the coveredcolonnade, and thence along the back passage to the end of the hall, where they made a group, gazing with believing wonder at the King Jamestile. 

* * * Vesta Custis, having changed her morning robe for a walking-suit, and slightly rearranged her toilet, and knelt speechless awhile toreceive the unknown will of Heaven, came down the stairs at last, intime to catch a glimpse of half-a-dozen servants staring at a strangeold hat on the hall rack. They hastily fled at her appearance, but theidea of the hat was also conveyed to her own fancy by their unwontedbehavior. She looked up an instant at the queer, faded article hangingamong its betters, and with a reminiscence of childhood, and of havingheld it in her hand, there descended along the intervening years uponthe association, the odor of a rose and the impression of a pair ofbold, startled eyes gazing into hers. She opened the library door, andthe same eyes were looking up from her father's easy-chair. 

"Mr. Milburn, I believe?" said Vesta, walking to the visitor, andextending her hand with native sweetness. 

He arose and bowed, and hardly saw the hand in the earnest look he gaveher, as if she had surprised him, and he did not know how to express hisbashfulness. She did not withdraw the hand till he took it, and then hedid not let it go. His strong, rather than bold, look, continuing, shedropped her eyes to the hand that mildly held her own, and then sheobserved, all calm as she was, that his hand was a gentleman's, itsfingers long and almost delicate, the texture white, the palm warm, and, as it seemed to her, of something like a brotherly pressure, respectfuland gentle too. 

As he did not speak immediately, Vesta returned to his face, far lessinviting, but peculiar--the black hair straight, the cheek-bones high, no real beard upon him anywhere, the shape of the face broad andpowerful, and the chops long, while the yellowish-brown eyes, wide openand intense, answered to the open, almost observant nostrils at the endof his straight, fine nose. His complexion was dark and forester-like, seeming to show a poor, unnutritious diet. He was hardly taller thanVesta. His teeth were good, and the mouth rather small. She thought hewas uncertain what to say, or confused in his mind, though no sign offear was visible. Vesta came to his rescue, withdrawing her handnaturally. 

"I have seen you many times, Mr. Milburn, but never here, I think. "

"No, miss, I have never been here. " He hesitated. "Nor anywhere inPrincess Anne. You are the first lady here to speak to me. "

His words, but not his tone, intimated an inferiority or a slight. Thevoice was a little stiff, appearing to be at want for some correspondinginflection, like a man who had learned a language without having had theuse of it. 

"Will you sit, Mr. Milburn? You owe this visit so long that you will notbe in haste to-day. I hope you have not felt that we were inhospitable. But little towns often encourage narrow circles, and make people moreselfish than they intend. "

"You could never be selfish, miss, " said Milburn, without any of thesuavity of a compliment, still carrying that wild, regarding gaze, likethe eyes of a startled ox. 

Vesta faintly colored at the liberty he took. It was slightlyembarrassing to her, too, to meet that uninterpretable look of inquiryand homage; but she felt her necessity as well as her good-breeding, andmade allowance for her visitor's want of sophistication. He was like anIndian before a mirror, in a stolid excitement of apprehension anddelight. The most beautiful thing he ever saw was within the compass ofhis full sight at last, and whether to detain it by force or persuasionhe did not know. 

Her dark hair, silky as the cleanest tassels of the corn, fell asnaturally upon her perfect head as her teeth, white as the milkycorn-rows, moved in the May cherries of her lips. The delicate archesof her brows, shaded by blackbirds' wings, enriched the clear sky of herharmonious 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, " saidMeshach, 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 talkdirected her to. A piano was in another room, but, to avoid changing thescene, as well as to use a simpler accompaniment for an ignorant man'sears, she brought her guitar, and, placing it in her lap, struck thestrings 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, sheremarked, 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, afterhesitation. "Now it is realized, I feel sceptical about it. You arethere, 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 herthat the little odd man might be cracked in the head. 

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Milburn. If it were a dream, I should have noexpression all this day but song. I think I never felt so sad to sing asjust now. Father is ill. Mamma is ill. I have become the business agentof the family, and have heard within this hour that papa is deeplyinvolved. 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 canpay 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 aremarketable immediately. You would not like to sell them?"

"Sell Virgie! She was brought up with me; what right have I to sell herany 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! howcould I ever pray again if they were sold? Oh! Mr. Milburn, where wasyour heart, to let papa waste his plentiful substance in such ahopeless experiment? If my singing in the church has given youhappiness, why could it not move you to mercy? Think of the despair ofthis family, my father's helpless generosity, my mother's marriagesettlement gone, too, and every other son and daughter parted fromthem!"

"I never encouraged one moment Judge Custis's expenditure, " saidMeshach, "though I lent him money. The first time he came to me toborrow, my mind was in a liberal disposition, for you had just enteredit with your innocent attentions. I supposed he wanted a temporaryaccommodation, and I gave it to him at the lowest rate one Christianwould charge another. "

"You say that I influenced you to lend my father money? Why, sir, I wasa child. He has been borrowing from you since my earliestrecollections. "

The creditor took from his breast-pocket a large leather wallet, and, arising, laid its contents on the table. He opened a piece of foldedpaper, and drew from it two objects; one a lock of blue-black hair likehis own, and the other a pressed and faded rose. 

"This flower, " said Milburn, with reverence, "Judge Custis's daughterfastened in my derided hat. I kept it till it was dead, and laid it awaywith my mother's hair, the two religious objects of my life. That fadedrose 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 lipsafter that, to save my father? Then you informed yourself, and knew thathe was hurrying to destruction, but still you gave him money at higherinterest. "

Milburn looked at her with diminished courage, but sincerity, andanswered: "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 beingdrawn near you still opened my purse to your father, till he has drainedme 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 yousang, and that seemed some compensation. I was bewitched; indistinctvisions of gratitude and recognition from you filled the preaching withconcourses of angels, all bearing your image, and hovering above me. Theprice I paid for that unuttered and ever-repelled hope has beenprincely, but never grudged, and it has been pure, I believe, or Heavenwould have punished me. The more I ruined myself for your father, themore successful my ventures were in all other places; if you were mytemptation, it had the favor or forgiveness of the God in whose templeit was born. "

Vesta arose also, with a frightened spirit. 

"Do I understand you?" she said, with her rich gray eyes wide open undertheir 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. "Ithought 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, carryingeven my childhood about in your evil imagination, and cursing myfather'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 slightflush. "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 itseemed you were being kept free so long to reward my silent worship. Ido not know what love is, but I know the gifts of God, as they bloom innature, repel no man's devotion. The flowers, the birds, and the forest, delighted my childhood; my youth was spent in the study of myself andman; at last a beautiful child appeared to me, spoke her way to my soul, and it could never expel her glorious presence. All things becamesubordinate to her, even avarice and success. She kept me a Christian, or I should have become utterly selfish; she kept me humble, for whatwas my wealth when I could not enter her father's house! I am here by adestiny now; the power that called you to this room, so unexpectedly tome, has borne us onward to the secret I dreaded to speak to you. Dare Igo further?"

She was trying to keep down her insulted feelings, and not say somethingthat should forever exasperate her father's creditor, but thepossibility of marrying him was too tremendous to reply. 

"This moment is a great one, " continued Milburn, firmly, "for I feelthat it is to terminate my visions of happiness, and of kindness aswell. You have expressed yourself so indignantly, that I see no thoughtof 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 yearswith your rich image, I thought you might have felt me, like anapparition, stealing around this dwelling often in the dark and rain, content with the ray of light your window threw upon the desertedstreet. Now I see that I was a weak dunce, whose passion nature lent nonerve of hers to convey even to your notice. Better for me that I hadhugged the debasing reality of my gold, and lost my eyes to everythingbut its comfort!"

He looked towards the door. Vesta sat down in the fairy rocker, anddetained him. 

"You have told me the feeling you think you had, Mr. Milburn. Poor as weCustises are now, it will not do to be proud. How did you ever thinkthat feeling could be returned by me? My youth, my connections, everything, would forbid me, without haughtiness, to see a suitor inyou. Then, you took no means to turn my attention towards you. You couldhave been neighborly, had you desired. You did not even wear thecommonest 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 myperpetual self here. I will put the substantial merits of my case toyou, since I see that I am not likely to make myself otherwiseattractive. This house is already mine. The law will, in a few weeks, put me in possession of your father's entire property. I shall changeoutward circumstances with him in Princess Anne. He is too old to adoptmy sacrifices, and recover his situation; he may find some shiftingrefuge with his sons and daughters, but, even if his spirit could brookthat dependence, it would be very unnecessary, when, by marrying hiscreditor, you can retain everything he now has to make his familyrespectable. I offer you his estate as your marriage portion!"

He took up from the table the notes her father had negotiated, and laidthem in her lap. 

Vesta sat rocking slowly, and deeply agitated. She had in her mouth thecomfort and honor of her parents, which she could confer in a singleword. 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. ' Tosay 'No' would be a crime. "

"You shall retain every feature of your home--your servants, yourmother, 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 mayappear to have sold to me, and I will accept the unpopularity of closingit. I ask only to serve you, and inhabit your daily life, like one ofthese negroes you are kind to, and if I am ever harsh to you, MissVesta, 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 calleddown to the marriage solemnity. It is before that act that we mustconsider everything. How could I make you happy? My own happiness I willdismiss. Yours must then comprehend mine. Kindness might make megrateful, 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 cupof ice. Here at the fireside let me sit and warm, and hear the rustle ofyour 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 hisintensity; "it is the price you are paying--your self-respect, perhaps--by the terms on which you obtain me. It may never be known outof 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 saythat I am the sum of your purest wishes? If your interest would consumeafter you obtained me, we might, at least, be indifferent; but if itgrew into real love, would you not often accuse yourself?"

Meshach Milburn sat down, cast his large brown eyes upon the floor, andlistened 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, " saidVesta, "that I can imagine. Lawless power could do that anywhere. To bean obedient wife is the lot of woman; but love, such as you have someglimmering of, is a mystic instinct so mutual, so gladdening, yet sofree, that the captivity you set me in to make me sing to you willdivide us like the wires of a cage. "

"There is no bird I ever caught, " said Meshach Milburn, "that did notlearn 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 calledVesta's attention to the study of him again. With her intelligence andsense of higher worth coming to her rescue, she thought: "Let me see allthat is of this Tartar, for, perhaps, there may be another way to hismercy. "

As she recovered composure, however, she grew more beautiful in hissight, her dark, peerless charms filling the room, her kindling eyesconveying love, her skin like the wild plum's, and her raven brows andcrown of luxuriant hair rising upon a queenly presence worthy of anempress's throne. Such beauty almost made Milburn afraid, but theenergies of his character were all concentrated to secure it. 

"Who _are_ you?" she asked, with a calm, searching look, cast from herhighest self-respect and alert intelligence. "Have you any relations orconnections fit to bring here--to this house, to me?"

"Not one that I know, " said the forester. "I am nothing but myself, andwhat 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 fromthe furnace which swallowed your father's substance. "

"Why, I would be afraid of you, Mr. Milburn, if your errand here was notso practical. Omens and wonders surround you. Birds forget their naturallife for you. Iron ceases to be occult when you take it up. Yourbirthplace in this world disappears by fire the night before youforeclose a mortgage upon a gentleman's daughter. Is all this sorceryinseparable from that necromancer's Hat you wear in Princess Anne?"

She had touched the sensitive topic by a skilful approach, yet hechanged color, as if the allusion piqued him. 

"Nature never rebuked my hat, Miss Vesta, and you are so like nature, itwill not occupy your thoughts. I recollect the day you decorated my oldhat; said I: 'perhaps this vagrant head-covering, after all its injuriesand wanderings, may some day find a peg beneath my own roof, and thekind welcome of a lady like that little miss. ' That was several yearsago, 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 responsiblefor it. The only conspiracy I have plotted here, was that I did notoppose most natural occurrences, all drawing towards this scene. Mymagic was hope and humility. I dared to wear my ancestor's hat in theface of a contemptuous and impertinent provincial public, and it gave methe pride to persevere till I should bring it home to honors and tonoble shelter. If you despise my hat, you will despise me. "

"Oh, no; Mr. Milburn! I try never to despise anything. If you wore yourfamily hat from some filial respect, it was, in part, piety. But wasthat, 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 revengein my mind. I had been grossly insulted. "

"Is it not something of that revenge which instigates you here--even inthis 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 indignantthought 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 adeep place in my brain through carrying it so long, and it is a subjectthat galls me to mention it. Yet, I must be consistent with my onlyeccentricity. Wherever I may go, there goes my hat; it makes myidentity, my inflexibility; it achieves my promise to myself, that menshall respect my hat before I die. "

"Pardon me, " said Vesta, not uninterested in his character, "I canunderstand an eccentricity founded on family respect. We wereVirginians, and that is next to religion there. The negroes of ourfamily 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, aparentage only virtuous; no tombstone anywhere, no crest nor motto, noteven a self-deluding lie of some former gentility, shaped from hand tohand till it commits a larceny on history, and is brazen on a carriagepanel! We were foresters. We came forth and existed and perished, likethe families of ants upon the ant-hills of sand. We migrated no morethan the woodpeckers in your sycamore trees, and made no sound in eventsmore 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 wasteswith huts and with little barns of logs, once bore the name of Milburnthrough all the localities of the Pocomoke to and beyond the greatCypress Swamp. They are dying, but never dead. The few who live expectno recognition from me, and, happy in their poverty, envy me nothing Ihave accumulated. My name has grown hard to them, my hat is the subjectof their superstitions, my ambition and success have lost me theirsympathy without giving me any other social compensation. You behold adesperate man, a merciless creditor, a tussock of ore from the bogs ofNassawongo, yet one whose only crimes have been to adore you, and towear his forefathers' hat. "

"Is this pride, then, wholly insulted sensibility, Mr. Milburn?"

"I cannot say, Miss Custis. You may smile, but I think it isaristocracy. "

"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 notdispleased at Vesta's compliment, though it bore the nature of anaccusation. 

"You are aristocratic, " explained Vesta, "because you adopted theobsolete hat of your people. Whatever vanity led you to do it, it wasthe satisfaction of some origin, I think. "

She checked herself, seeing that she was entering into his affairs withtoo much freedom. 

"I suppose that somewhere, some time, " spoke the strange visitor, "someperson of my race has been influential and prosperous. Indeed, I havebeen 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 hisgreater errand instigating her to defer it, while she was yet barelyconscious that the man was original, if not interesting. 

He told a singular tale, tracing his hat to Raleigh's times and throughSir Henry Vane to America, till it became the property of JacobMilborne, the popular martyr who was executed in New York, and hisbrethren driven into Maryland, bringing with them the harmless hat astheir only patrimony. [1]

Before he began, Milburn drew up his compact little figure and openedthe door to the hall. The wind or air from some of the large, coldapartments of the long house, coming in by some crack or open sash, gavealmost a shriek, and scattered the fire in the chimney. 

Vesta felt her blood chill a moment as her visitor re-entered with theantediluvian hat, and placed it upon the table beneath the lamp. 

It had that look of gentility victorious over decay, which suggested themummy of some Pharaoh, brought into a drawing-room on a learnedsociety's night. Vesta repressed a smile, rising through her pain, atthe gravity of the forester guest, who was about to demonstrate hisaristocracy through this old hat. It seemed to her, also, that theportraits of the Custises, on the wall, carried indignant noses in theair at their apparently conscious knowledge of the presence of someunburied pretender, as if, in Westminster Abbey, the effigies of theNorman kings had slightly aroused to feel Oliver Cromwell lying amongthem in state. 

The hat, Vesta perceived, was Flemish, such as was popular in Englandwhile 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 thishat, but the utmost she could admit was the tyranny of fashion over themind--it seemed, over the soul itself, for this old hat, inoffensive asit was, weighed down her spirits like a diving-bell. 

The man, without his hat, had somewhat redeemed himself from lowconversation and ideas, but now, that he brought this hat in andassociated his person with it, she shrank from him as if he had been atriple-hatted Jew, peddling around the premises. 

The obnoxious hat also exercised some exciting influence over MeshachMilburn, if his changed manner could be ascribed to that article, for heresumed his strong, wild-man's stare, deepened and lowered his voice, and without waiting for any query or expression of his listener, toldthe tale. 

CHAPTER IX. 

HA! HA! THE WOOING ON'T. 

It was twilight when Meshach Milburn closed his story, and silence andpallid eve drew together in the Custis sitting-room, resembling the twopeople there, thinking on matrimony, the one grave as consciousserpenthood 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 itwithin the world of a hat! You have only brought the story down a littleway towards our times. "

"I began the tale of Raleigh out of proportion, " said Milburn, "and itgrew upon the same scale, like the passion I conceived for you sointensely at the outset, that in the climax of this night I am scarcelybegun. "

"Yet, like Raleigh, I see the scaffold, " said Vesta, with an attempt athumor that for the first time broke her down, and she raised her handsto her face to hush the burst of anguish. It would not be repressed, andone low cry, deep with the sense of desertion and captivity, soundedthrough the deepening room and smote Milburn's innermost heart. Heobeyed an impulse he had not felt since his mother died, startingtowards Vesta and throwing his arms around her, and drawing her to hisbreast. 

"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 solong alone with this obdurate man, her young faculties of the headstrained by the first encounter beyond her strength, accepted thefriendship 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 hisarms. 

"You are not merciless, " said Vesta. "Tell me what I must do! You havebroken my father down and he cannot come to my help. Take pity on myinequality 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 donot know how. It is you who must encourage the faith I feel startingsomewhere 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 knowit 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 unjustlover. I cannot advise you away from me. Oh, let me plead for myself. Ilove you!"

"Then what shall I do, " exclaimed Vesta, in low tones, "if you areunable 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 withyour debtor? On me the full sacrifice falls, though I never was in yourdebt consciously, and I have never to my remembrance wished injury toany one. "

"Would you accept your father's independence at the expense of the mostdespised man in Princess Anne?" Milburn spoke without changing his kindtone. "Would you let me give him the fruit of many years of hard toiland careful saving, in order that I shall be disappointed in the onlymotive 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, " continuedMilburn. "Do you ask me to present that sum to you, and retire to myloneliness out of this bright light of home and family, warmth andmusic, 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 ofLove doing as much as that, relieving the anguish of its object, andfinding sufficient joy in the self-denying deed. "

"I do not think you personally know of any such case, though you mayhave read it in a novel or tract. Men have died, and left a fortune theycould no longer keep, to some cherished lady; or they have made aconsiderable sacrifice for a beautiful and noble woman; but where didyou ever hear, Miss Vesta, of a famished lover, surrendering everyendowment that might win the peerless one, to be himself returned to hissorrow, tortured still by love, and by his neighbors ridiculed? Whatwould Princess Anne say of me? That I had been made a fool of, and hurlnew epithets after my hat?"

Vesta searched her mind, thinking she must alight upon some such examplethere, but none suited the case. Meshach took advantage of her silence:

"The gifts of a lover are everywhere steps to love, as I haveunderstood. He makes his impression with them; they are expected. Nothing creates happiness like a gift, and it is an old saying thatblessings await him who gives, and also her who takes, and that to seekand ask and knock are praiseworthy. "

"Oh, " said Vesta, "but to be _bought_, Mr. Milburn? To be weighedagainst a father's debts--is it not degrading?"

"Not where such respect and cherishing as mine will be. Rather exaltyourself as more valuable to a miser than his whole lendings, andgreater than all your father's losses as an equivalent, and even thenputting 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 atmospherethereof, her widowhood the perfume of that extinguished star; and all mymind has been alert to discover the image I shall serve, the brightyouth ready for me, looking on one after another to see if it might behe, and suddenly you hold between me and my faith a paper with myfather's obligations, and say: 'Here is your fate; this is your wholeromance; you are foreclosed upon!' How are you to take a withered heartlike that and find glad companionship in it? No, you will bedisappointed. 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 preparethe heart for it like a field. I recollect a fable I read of a godloving a woman, and he burst upon her in a shower of gold; and what wasthat but a rich man's wooing? We get gold to equalize nobility in women;beauty is luxurious, and demands adornment and a rich setting; therichest man in Princess Anne is not good enough for you, and the mereboys your mind has been filled with are more unworthy of being yourhusband than the humble creditor of your father. Such a creation as MissVesta required a special sacrifice and success in the character of herhusband. The annual life of this peninsula could not match you, and amonster had to be raised to carry you away. "

"You are not exactly a monster, " Vesta remarked, with naturalcompassion, "and you compliment me so warmly that it relieves the strainof this encounter a little. Do not draw a woman's attention to yourdefects, as she might otherwise be charmed by your voice. "

"That also is a part of my sacrifice, " said Meshach, "like the moneywhich I have accumulated. Without a teacher, but love and hope, I haveeducated myself to be fit to talk to you. It is all crude now, like acrow that I have taught to speak, but encouragement will make meconfident and saucy, and you will forget my sable raiment--even my hat. "

A chilliness seemed to attend this conclusion, and Vesta touched herbell. Virgie, entering, took her mistress's instructions: "Bring a trayand 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, buther 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 thesaucer, 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, andpoking the charred logs into a flame; and, setting on more wood, he madethe walls spring into yellow flashes, between which Vesta saw herforefathers dart cold glances at her, in their gilt frames--yet howhelpless they were, with all their respectability, to take her body orher father's honor out of pawn!--and she felt for the first time thehollowness of family power, except in the ever-preserved mail of asolvent 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; betterclothes might fit him daintily, and Vesta re-dressed him in fancy withlavender 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 hisshirt-bosom. In place of his dull cloth suit, she would give him a buffvest and pearl buttons with eyelet rings, and white gaiters instead ofthose shabby green things over his feet, and put upon his head a neatsilk hat with narrow brim to raise his height slenderly, and let a coatof olive or dark-blue, and trousers of the same color, relieve hisornaments. Thus transformed, Vesta could conceive a peculiar yet apassable man, whom a lady might grow considerate towards by much prayingand striving, and she wondered, now, how this man had managed to sootheher already to that degree that she had voluntarily kissed him. Shewould be afraid to do it again, but it was as clearly on record as thatshe 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, wastold with an opinionated confidence I wish my poor father had somethingof. Could I ever be happy with this man, by study and piety? God mightopen the way, but it seems closed to me now. "

"The night wears on, Miss Custis, " spoke Meshach. "Its rewards arealready great to me. When may I return?"

"I think we must determine what to do this night, Mr. Milburn, " Vestasaid, with rising determination. "Not one point nearer have we come toany solution of this obligation of my father. We have considered it upto 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 fortheir children or a sick husband, why should not I for him! Poverty hasno terrors but--but the loss of pride. "

"You hazard that, whatever happens, " said her suitor, "but you will notlose it by evading the lesser evil for the greater. I have heard ofwomen who fled to poverty from dissatisfaction with a husband, but pridesurvived and made poverty dreadful. Pride in either case increased thediscontent. You should take the step which will let pride be absorbed induty, 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 conscientiousnessthat deceit cannot even approach. Something has already made you slow tomarriage, else, with your wonders, I would not have had the chance tobe now rejected by you. Marriage has become too formidable, perhaps, toyou, by the purity of your heart, the more so because you looked upon itto be your destiny. It _is_ your fate, but you contend against it. Lookupon it, then, as a duty, such as you expect in others--in your slavemaid, 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 yourfather's effects, will feel so perishing for sympathy and protectionthat love, in whatever ugly form it comes, will be God's blessing to herpoor heart. What you repel in the revulsion of fortune--the yoke of ahusband--millions of women have bent to as if it was the very rainbow ofpromise set in heaven. "

"How do you know so much of women's trials, Mr. Milburn? Have you hadsisters, 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, andstruggling downward like a wounded eagle. They have come to me at firstfor cheaper articles of necessity or smaller portions than other storeswould sell, looking on me with contempt. At last they have sacrificedtheir 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, ordance barefooted in my store for a cup of whiskey. "

"Sir, " exclaimed Vesta indignantly, rising from her rocker, "do you setthis warning for me?"

As she rose Meshach Milburn thought his wealth was merely pebbles andshells to her perfection, now animated with a queen's spirit. 

"Miss Vesta, " he said, "pardon me, but I have just issued from manygenerations of forest poverty, and knowing how hard it is to break thatthraldom, I would stop you from taking the first step towards it. Thebloom upon your cheek, the mould you are the product of without flaw, the chaste lady's tastes and thoughts, and inborn strength and joy, arethe work of God's favor to your family for generations. That favor hecontinues in laying those family burdens on another's shoulders, tospare you the toil and care, anxiety and slow decay, that this violentchange of circumstances means. It would be a sin to relapse from thisperfection 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, " Milburncontinued. "It grows in this region like the old field-pines and littleoaks over a neglected farm. Once there was a court-house settlement onDividing Creek, where justice, eloquence, talent, wit, and heroism madethe social centre of two counties, but they moved the court-house andthe forest speedily choked the spot. Now not an echo lingers of thatformer glory. You can save your house from being swallowed up in theforest. "

"By marrying the forest hero?" Vesta said, though she immediatelyregretted it. 

"Yes, " Milburn uttered stubbornly, after a pause. "I have met the houseof 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; "Ifeel that you are a kind man, at least to me, but a poor girl must makea struggle for herself. "

She saw the tears stand instantly in his eyes, and pressed heradvantage:

"Your tears are like the springs we find here, so close under the flintysand 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 myfather and mother, and let us diminish and be frugal, instead ofcowardly flying into the protection of our creditor, by a union whichthe world, at least, would pronounce mercenary. My father might come upagain, in some way. "

"No, Miss Vesta. Your father can hold no property while any portion ofhis debts remains unpaid. The easier way is to show the world that ourunion is not mercenary, by trying to love each other. Throughout theearth marriage is the reparation of ruined families--the short path, andthe most natural one, too. Ruth was poor kin, but she turned from theharvest stubble that made her beautiful feet bleed, to crawl to the feetof old Boaz and find wifely rest, and her wisdom of choice we sing inthe psalms of King David, and hear in the proverbs of King Solomon, sonsof her sons. "

"I am not thinking of myself, God knows!" said Vesta. "Gladly could Iteach a little school, or be a governess somewhere, or, like ourconnection, the mother of Washington, ride afield in my sun-bonnet andstraw hat and oversee the laborers. "

"That never made General Washington, Miss Vesta. It was marriage thatlent him to the world; first, his half-brother's marriage with theFairfaxes; next, his own with Custis's rich widow. Had they been lookingfor natural parts only, some Daniel Morgan or Ethan Allen would havebeen 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 haveit. "

"In every way I can draw you to me, " spoke Milburn, again trembling withearnestness, "I feel desperate to try. If it is wrong, it arises from mysense of self-preservation. Without you I am a dismal failure, and mylabor 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_. Iwould 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. Thenyou 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 themind. I love you in the vision of domestic settlement, in thecompanionship of thought, in the partition of my ambition, in myinstinct for cultivation. I love you, too, with the ardor of a lover, stronger than all, because I must possess you to possess myself; becauseyou kindle flame in me, and my humanity of pity is trampled down by myhumanity of desire; I cannot hear your appeal to escape! I am deaf tosentiments of honor and courtesy, if they let you slip me! Give yourselfto me, and these better angels may prevail, being perhaps accessory tothe mighty instinct I obey at the command of the Creator!"

As he proceeded, Vesta saw shine in Meshach Milburn's face the veryecstacy of love. His dark, resinous eyes were like forest ponds flashingat night under the torches of negro 'coon-hunters. His long lady's handstrembled as he stretched them towards her to clasp her, and she saw uponhis brow and in his open nostril and firm mouth the presence of a willthat seldom fails, when exerted mightily, to reduce a woman's, and makeher recognize her lord. 

Yet, with this strong excitement of mental and animal love, whichgenerally animates man to eloquence, if not to beauty, a wearysomething, nearly like pain, marked the bold intruder, and a quiver, notlike will and courage, went through his frame. It was this which touchedVesta 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, "thisday's trials have been too much for my brain. Never, in all my lifetogether, have I had realities like these to contend with. I am wornout. Nay, sir, do not touch me now!" He had tried to repeat hissympathetic overture, and pet her in his arms. "Let us end this conflictat 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 mymother'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 virtuethat you shall keep these papers from this moment until themarriage-day. "

"It will not be long, then, " Vesta said, looking at Milburn with a willand 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 strongfirelight. 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, thoughit is a surprise to me. "

He flinched a little, nevertheless, his conscience being uneasy, and thesame trembling Vesta had already observed went through his frame again. 

"What will the world say to your marriage after a single day'sacquaintance with me?"

"Nothing, " Vesta answered, "except that I am your wife. That will, atleast, silence advice and prevent intrusion. If I delay, theseforebodings may prevail, if not with me, with my family, some of whomare 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 berepented, or become a subject of reproach to yourself. To me it cannotbe, 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 thelines of a gentleman. Now, I will trust to you a family confidence. Thetroubles of this house are like a fire which there is no other way oftreating 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 appreciatesyour talents and success. It is for him I shall take this step, if Itake it at all, and I have yet an hour to reflect. But my mother will beresentful, and her brothers and kindred in Baltimore will express asavage rage, in the first place, at my father's losing her portion; nextto that, and I hope less bitterly, they will resent my marriage to you. Exposed to their interference, I might be restrained from going to myfather's assistance; they might even force me away, and break our familyup, leaving father alone to encounter his miseries. "

"I see, " said Milburn; "you would give me the legal right to meet yourmother's excited people. "

"Not that merely, " Vesta said; "I would put it out of her power andtheirs to prevent the sacrifice I meditate making. My father's immediatedread 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 wellsave the poor gentleman his whole distress, if I am to save him apart. "

"Brave girl!" exclaimed Meshach Milburn, in admiration. "It is true, then, that blood will tell. You intend to give your mother the moneywhich 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 apeace-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 beresolved. "Advise me, " she said. "I want to do the best for all, andspare all bitter words, which rankle so long. Is it necessary to tell mymother?"

"No. You are a free woman. I know your age--though I shall forget it byand by. " This first gleam of humor rather became his strange face. "Ifyou tell your father, it is enough. "

"I hope I am doing right, " Vesta said, "and now I shall take my hour tomy 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 dosay 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 thissacrifice, and leave a wounded conscience. And now, sir, farewell. Atnine o'clock go to our church and wait. If I resolve to come, there youwill find the rector, and all the arrangements made. If I do not come, Ithink you will see me no more. "

"Oh, beautiful spirit, " exclaimed her lover, "oppress me not with thatfear!"

"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, thoughyour errand here was a severe one, I thank you for your sincerity andthe 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 theEntailed Hat. Milburn, with a shudder, took it, and covered himself, anddeparted. 

CHAPTER X. 

MASTER IN THE KITCHEN. 

The kitchen had been a scene of anything but culinary peace and savorduring the long visit of the owner of the hat. 

Aunt Hominy and the little darkeys had made three stolen visits to thehall to peep at the dreadful thing hanging there, as if it were a trapof some kind, liable to drop a spring and catch somebody, or to explodelike a mortar or torpedo. As hour after hour wore on, and Miss Vesta didnot reappear, and finally rang her bell for tea, Aunt Hominy was besideherself with superstition. 

"Honey, " she exclaimed to Virgie, "jess you take in dis yer dried lizzeran' dis cammermile, an' drap de lizzer in dat ole hat, an' sprinkle deflo' whar ole Meshach sots wi' de cammermile, an' say 'Shoo!' Maybeit'll spile his measurin' of Miss Vessy in. "

"No, aunty, if old Meshach measured _me_ in, I wouldn't make the familyashamed before him. Miss Vessy is powerful wise, and maybe she'll getthe better of that wicked hat. "

"Yes, " said Roxy, "she's good, Aunt Hominy, an' says her prayers everynight and mornin'. I've heard tell that witches can't hear the Lord'sname, 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'llmake the old devil jess fly up an' away. "

"No, gals, " insisted Aunt Hominy, "cammermile is all dat'll keep himfrom a-measurin' of us in. Don't ole Meshach go to church, too, and haba prayer-book an'--listen dar, honey! ef she ain't a singin' to him!"

As Virgie answered the bell, Aunt Hominy took down her cherishedcamomile and sprinkled the little children, and gave them each a glassof 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 onteaberries, 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 ofFederal bread, or a game-pie, or a persimmon custard, an' send it to oleMeshach, he won't sell us to the slave-buyers. He never gets nothinggood to eat, an' don't know what it is. A little taste of it'll make himwant mo'. "

"Roxy, gal, " said Aunt Hominy, "I'd jess like to make a dumplin'-bag outo' dat steeple-hat he got. When I skinned de dumplin' de hat would bebad spiled, chillen, an' den de Judge would git his lan' back datMeshach's measured in. For de Judge would say, 'Meshach, ye hain'tmeasured 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' ofher puddin's. ' 'Den, ' says de Judge, 'ye ain't measured me squar. Iwon't play. Take it all back!' Chillen, we must git dat ar ole hat, orde slave-buyers done take us all. "

They started to take another peep of cupidity and awe at the storiedhat, when Virgie emerged from the parlor door with the dreaded articlein her hand, and, hanging it on the peg, came with superstitious fearand 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'sweazen over her head, and ended by pushing a sweet piece of preservedwatermelon-rind down her throat. 

"Did it hurt ye, honey?" inquired Aunt Hominy, with her eyes full ofexcitement, 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, itsmelled old, like some of the old-clothes chests up in the garret, whenwe lift the lid and peep in, an' it seems as if they were dead people'sclothes. "

The little negroes, Ned, Vince, and Phillis, heard this with shiningeyes, and dived their heads under Aunt Hominy's skirts and apron, whilethe old woman exclaimed:

"De Lord a massy!" and began to blow what she called "pow-pow" on thegirl's profaned fingers. 

"I don't believe it's anything, aunty, but an ugly, old, nasty, deadfolks' hat, " exclaimed Virgie. "He just wears it to plague people. Hewas drinking tea just like Miss Vessy, but I thought his teeth chattereda 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 upsomewhere?"

The question seemed to spur the cook's easy invention, and, after acunning yet credulous look up and down the large kitchen, where the palelight at the windows was invisible in the stronger fire beneath thegreat stack chimney, Aunt Hominy whispered:

"He dug dat hat up in ole Rehoboff ruined churchyard. He foun' it in degrave. "

"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 oleobergrown churchyard, whar de hymns ob God used to be raised befo' dedebbil got it. He says to Meshach: 'I make you de sexton hyar. Go git despade out yonder, whar de dead-house used to be, an' dig among de gravesunder 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 hatto measure in eberybody's lan'. ' So nobody kin sing or pray in datchurch. Nobody but Meshach Milburn ever prays dar. He goes dar sometimeswid his Chrismas-giff on he head, an' prays to de debbil. "

Thus does an unwonted fashion arouse unwonted visions, as if it broughtto the present day the phantoms which were laid at rest with itself, andthey walked into simple minds, and produced superstition there. 

Aunt Hominy never was stimulated to inventions of this kind, but sheimmediately absorbed them, and they became religious beliefs with her. Her manner, highly animated by her terror and belief, produced more andmore superstition in the minds of the girls and children, and theconversation fell off, --the little negroes wandering hither and thither, unable to sleep, yet unable to attract sufficient attention from anyone, till Judge Custis, who had been waiting for hours for his creditorto go, slipped down the back stairs in his old slippers, and came to thekitchen among the colored people for company's sake. 

His fine presence, and familiar, if superior, address, put a newcomplexion at once on the African end of the house. 

He picked up all the children by twos or threes, woolled them, chasedthem, tossed them, and drove the lurid images of Aunt Hominy's mind outof their spirits, and then caught the two young girls, and set Roxy onhis shoulder, and caught Virgie by the waist, and finally piled them onAunt Hominy, who ran behind her biscuit-block, and he bunched all thechildren upon the party. 

"De Lord a massy, Judge!" exclaimed Aunt Hominy, delighted, and showingher white teeth, whichever side she revealed. "Go 'long, Judge, MissyCustis ketch you! Miss Vessy's a-comin', befor' de Lawd!"

The children were screaming, getting into the riot more, whilepretending to try to get out, invading the Judge's back, and rubbingtheir clean wool into his whiskers, and the two neat servants, broughtup like white children in his family, were not unaccustomed to eitherjovial handling or petting from their master, which he commonlyconcluded by a present of some kind. 

"Old woman, " said the Judge to Aunt Hominy, "can you give me a bit ofbroiled something for my stomach? I want to eat it right here. "

"Ha! yah! Don't got nothin' but a young chicken, marster! Mebbe I kingit ye a squab outen de pigeon-house in de gable-yend. "

"That's it, Hominy!" exclaimed Judge Custis; "a tender squab, a littletoast 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 faithfulold girl; it's the last I may ask of you, for old Samson Hat is going toown you next. "

"Me? No, sah! I'll run away from Prencess Anne fust. De man dat cleansole 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, orVirgie. The old fellow will be very influential with our new master, and, Hominy, we're all depending on you to make him so comfortable thathe will just keep the family together. "

Sobriety came in on this attempted witticism, and the old cook saw afilm 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 abird or season de soup you like. Bless God, dis time we'll git de squaban' de celery an' de toast, befo' ole Meshach Milburn measures all wegot in!"

While the children crawled around the Judge's knees, setting up a dismalwail to see him sob, the two neat house girls, forgetting everycontingency to themselves, sobbed also, like his own daughters, to seehim unmanned; but Aunt Hominy only felt desperately energetic at thechance to cook the last supper of the Custis household. 

She lighted a brand of pine in the fire, and started one of the stableboys up a ladder by its light to ransack the pigeon-cote, and in a verylittle while both a chicken and a bird were broiled and set upon thekitchen-table upon a spotless cloth, and the plume of lily-white celery, and the smoking toast in velvet cream, warmed the Judge's nostrils, anddried his tears. 

Roxy stood behind him to wait upon his wishes; Virgie subdued everyexpression 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 hermiserable. As he finished his meal, and took out his gold tooth-pick, and felt a comfortable joy of such misery and sympathy, Vesta opened thedoor, and said:

"Papa!"

"My child?"

"Let me speak with you. "

Judge Custis rose, and raised his hands to Aunt Hominy in speechlessrecognition of her service; but not till the door closed behind him didthe old cook's cry burst through her quivering lips:

"Oh! chillen, chillen, he'll never eat no mo' like dat again. OleMeshach's measured him in!"

CHAPTER XI. 

DYING PRIDE. 

At the termination of Milburn's long visit, Vesta had gone to her ownroom, and read her passage in the Bible, and said her prayer, and triedto think, but the day's application had been too great to leave her mindits morning energy, when health, which is so much of decision, waselastic 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 aroundher mind, timorous, but helpless, and without a hole of escape. 

She would cease to be a maid within the circuit of the clock, or forsakeher family, and drive that great bloodhound of duty over the thresholdof her ruined home. 

In the one case lay outward devastation--the red eyes of parents andservants who had not slept all night, and looked at her as theirobdurate hostage, and the prying constables lodged upon the premises tosee that nothing was smuggled out, the ring of the auctioneer's bell, and the fingering of boors and old gossips over the cherished things ofthe family, even to her heirlooms, jewelry, and hosiery; the vast oldhouse a hollow barn when these were done, and she and her mothervisitors at the jail where her poor father looked through the bars, andbent his head in shame!

Then the servants, one after another, mounted upon the court-houseblock, the old gray servitors mocked, the little children parted, likecalves by the butcher, and the young girls feeling the desperateapprehensions of abuse and violation, that were the other alternative toherself, with whom purity was like the whiteness of the lily, prizedmore 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, upthe white ramparts of her neck and temples. 

The form which had altered so little from childhood, supple andstraight, and moulded to perfection, was to fall like the younghickory-tree in the August hurricane, twisted from its native grove. Thebreath of the man she was to yield her life to, irresistible and hot asthat storm, she had felt already, when he held her for a moment in hisarms in the transport of passion, and heard his fearless avowal ofdesire. 

To marry any man now seemed hard; to marry this one was inexpressibleshame, and at the thought of it she could not shed a tear, suchparalysis came over her. She had read of the recent Greek revolution, where elegant ladies of Scio, and other isles of the Ęgean Sea, educatedin the best seminaries of Europe, had been sold by thousands as commonslaves in the markets of Constantinople, and carried to their estates bybrutal Turks, with all the gloating anticipation of lust and tyranny. 

On this vivid episode started a procession of all the ages of women whohad been the sport of conquest since their common mother, Eve, lostParadise by her simplicity: the Jewish maidens carried to Babylon, theGothic virgins dragged at the horse-tails of the Moors, the daughters ofPalestine and Byzantium consigned to Arab sensualists, and made tofollow their nomadic tents, and the almond-eyed damsels of Chinasurrendered by their parents to the wild Kalmucks, to be beaten andstarved on every cold plain of Asia, till life was laid down withneither hope nor fear. 

"I am happier than millions of my sex, " Vesta said; "my captor does notdespise me, at least. Perhaps he will treat me kinder than I think, andgive 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, wouldhave granted, and his words were remembered with accusation: "What willthe world say to your marriage after a single day's acquaintance withme?" "Will this haste not be repented, or become a subject of reproachto 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 himbegin to think me weak and changeful already. "

To see if there was the least glimmer of relief from this marriage Vestacrossed to her mother's room, and found Mrs. Custis with her headwrapped in handkerchiefs steeped in cologne, and a vial of laudanum inher 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 andbrutality. 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 aletter to my brother, Allan McLane, in Baltimore. He shall settle withJudge 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 carewhich. "

"Mother, " exclaimed Vesta, "what a sin! to abuse poor father now in allhis trouble!"

"Trouble!" echoed Mrs. Custis, mockingly, "what trouble has he had, Iwould like to know? Living in the woods like a Turk among his barefootedforest concubines! Spending my money, raked and scraped by my poorfather 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 yourfather 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, Isuppose? How long will they keep him? You had better keep your jewels, girl, for your wedding, and have it come quickly, for marriage is nowyour only salvation. "

"My last jewel shall go, then, " Vesta said, with a pale resolution thatdarted through her veins like ice. 

"Save your jewels, " Mrs. Custis continued, "and choose a husband beforethis 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 inKent. There is that young fool Carroll, with thousands of acres on thewestern shore, and the widower Hynson of King George, Virginia, witheighty slaves and his stables full of race-horses. You can marry any ofthese Dennis boys, or take Captain Ringgold of Frederick, who lives inelegance at West Point, or be mistress of Tench Purvience's mansion onMonument 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 forBaltimore and use your Uncle Allan's house and become engaged andmarried there. "

"Mamma, " Vesta spoke without rebuke, only with a sad, confirmed feelingof her destiny, "I could be capable of deceiving any of those gentlemenif I could so heartlessly leave my father. "

"Deceiving!" Mrs. Custis remarked, filling her palm and brow with thecologne. "What is man's whole work with a woman but deceit? To court herfor her money, to kiss her into taking her money out of good mortgagesand putting it into bog iron ore? To tell her when past middle life thatshe has nothing to live upon, except the charity of the public, or herreluctant friends. All this for an experiment! The Custis family are allknaves 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, whilepapa looks around and finds something to do. We can rent a house inPrincess Anne and open a seminary. I can teach French and music, you canbe the matron and do the correspondence and business, and if papa is ata loss for larger occupation he can lecture on history and science. Ourfriends 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 allthese accomplishments and charms for but a husband, and what is he forbut to provide bread and clothes. Don't be as crazy as your unprincipledfather! Try no experiments! Drop philanthropy! Money is the foundationof all respectability. "

Vesta thought to herself: "Can that be so? Does it not, then, justifythe man who solicits me in his means of getting money? Mother"--Vestaspoke--"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 knowsuch a one. "

Mrs. Custis kissed her daughter, and moaned about her poor head and lostmarriage portion, and Vesta set out to look for her father. 

She found him as described, in the luxury of tears and squab, ascomfortable among his negro servants as in the state legislature or atthe head of society, and they wrapped up in his condescension andmisfortunes. 

As Vesta saw the curious scene of such patriarchal democracy in the oldkitchen, she wondered if that voluptuous endowment of her father was notthe happy provision to make marriage unions tolerable, and socialrevulsions philosophical. Something of regret that she had not more ofthe animal faintly grew upon her sad smile when she considered thatwherever her father went he made welcome and warmth, as she already feltat the picture of him, after parting with her apathetic mother. 

"Roxy, " said Vesta, as she left the kitchen, "do you go up to my motherand 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 inthe library. "

She sat before her father, he too undecided to speak, and seeing by herfixed expression that it was no time for loquacity. She sealed theletter with wax, and, Virgie coming in, her father heard the directionshe gave with curiosity greater than his embarrassment:

"Take this to Rev. William Tilghman. Give it to him only, and see thathe 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 myfriend, not to disappoint me. "

The girl's steps were hardly out of hearing when Vesta opened the drawerof the library-table and took out a package of papers tied with astring. She unloosed it, and her father recognized from where he sat hisnotes of hand and mortgages. 

"Gracious God, my darling!" exclaimed Judge Custis, "how came you bythose papers?"

"They are to be mine to-night, father--in one hour. The moment theybecome 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 inher lap and looked at him so calmly that he stopped. 

"You may burn the house, papa, " she said, "it is still your own. Butthese papers you could only burn by a crime. It would be cheating anhonorable man. "

"Honorable! Who?" the Judge exclaimed. 

"He who is to be my husband. "

"You marry Meshach Milburn!" shouted the Judge, "O curse of God!--nothim?"

"Yes, this night, " answered Vesta; "I respect him. I hold theseobligations 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 aCustis, 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 soprudent. If I do not marry him, they will be given back to him thisnight. "

"Then give them back, my child, and save your soul and your purity, lestI live to be cursed with the sight of my noble daughter's shame? Thismarriage will be unholy, and the censure to follow it will be thebankruptcy of more than our estate--of our simple fame and old familyrespect. 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 thatgentleman--he is a gentleman, for I have seen him, and a gentleman ofmany gifts--will compel respect even where false pride and familypretension appear to put him down. Who that underrates him will make anyconsiderable sacrifice to assist us? Your sons, --will they do it? Thenby what right do they decide my marriage choice? No, father, I only domy part to support our house in its extremity, as these gentlemen andothers have done before. "

She pointed to the old portraits of Custises on the wall. If any of themlooked 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 thesolicitude 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, bothweeping together. He went into a fit of grief that admitted of noconversation till it was partly spent, and at last lay with his grayhairs folded to her heaving bosom, where the compensation of his lovemade her sacrifice more precious. 

"I feel that I am doing right, father, " she said tenderly "Till now Ihave had my doubts. No other young heart is wronged by my taking thisstep; I have never been engaged, and it now seems providential, as Icould not then have gone to your assistance without injuring myself andanother; and your debts are too great for any but this man to settlethem. Your life has been one long sacrifice for me, and not a cloud hasdarkened 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 sacrificewith 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 somesad tendencies I see in you, the disappointment may break me down. Intemperance in you--a judge, a gentleman, a husband, and a father--is adeformity worse than Mr. Milburn's honest, unfashionable hat. Do you notfeel 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 tobe kind to me, and the sight of you walking downward in his view willdegrade 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 ofGod!"

"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 betterthan this world's consideration. Oh, what would strengthen me now butGod's approval, though I go into a captivity I dreamed not of. Eventhere I can take my harp beneath the willows, like them in Babylon, andpraise 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 theEpiscopal 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 thetwo large rooms, and died away in melody, she rose and kissed her fatheragain, and said, "Courage, love! we shall be happy still. "

A knock at the door and there entered the young clergyman she had sentfor, a sandy-haired, large-blue-eyed, boyish person, with a fair skineasily freckled, and a look of youthful chivalry under his sincereChristian humility. 

"Good-evening, William, " Vesta spoke; "I did not expect to see you tillwe 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, "whomare 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 featuresretained their habitual sweetness. 

"I can marry you, cousin, even to Meshach Milburn, " he said, "if that isyour wish. Why do you marry him?"

"It is not loyal in you to ask, William, but I will give you thisanswer: he has asked me. He is also devoted and rich. To avoidexcitement, possibly some opposition, though it would be vain, we are tobe 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'sasserted wealth found you cold enough to want it, when love has been sogenerously offered you by almost every young man of station in thisregion, and from abroad--even by me?" he said, after a pause. "The scaris 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 yoursister, you would not add this night the weight of your doubt to myother burdens, but take my hand with all the strength of yours, and liftme onward. "

"I will, " said the rector, swallowing a dry spot in his throat. "Thoughit was a bitter time I had when you refused me, cousin, the pain led meto my vows at the altar where I minister, and I have had the assistanceof your beautiful music there, like the angel I seem to have seenreserved for me, in place of you, sitting at your side. And I know thatthis marriage is, on your part, pure as my sister's. No further will Iinquire--what penalty you are paying for another, what mystery I cannotpierce. "

He raised his hands above her head: "The peace of God that passethunderstanding, abide with you, dear sister, forever!"

He went out with his eyes filled with tears, but hers were full ofheavenly light, feeling his benediction to be righteous. 

CHAPTER XII. 

PRINCESS ANNE FOLKS. 

The Washington Tavern, or, rather, the brick sidewalk which came up toits doors, and was the lounging-place for all the grown loiterers inPrincess Anne, had been in the greatest activity all that Saturdayafternoon, since it was reported by Jack Wonnell, who set himself to bea spy on Meshach's errand, that the steeple-hat had disappeared in thebroad mansion of Judge Daniel Custis. 

Jack Wonnell had a worn bell-crown on his head, exposed to all kinds ofweather, as he was in the habit of fishing in these beaver-hats, andnever owned an umbrella in his life. He lived near Meshach, in the oldpart of Princess Anne, near the bridge, and was the subject of themoney-lender's scorn and contempt, as tending to make a mutualeccentricity ridiculous. Milburn had been willing to be hated for hishat, but Jack Wonnell made all unseasonable hats laughable, the more sothat he was nearly as old a wearer of his bell-crowns as Milburn of thesteeple-top. Although he had no such reasons of reverence and sternconsistency as his rich neighbor, he seemed to have, in his own mind, and in plain people's, a better defence for violating the standard tasteof dress. 

The people said that Jack Wonnell, being a poor man, could not buy allthe fashions, and was merely wearing out a bargain; that he knew he wasridiculous, and set no such conceit on his absurdity as that grimMilburn; and they rather enjoyed his playing the Dromio to thatAntipholus, 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, obligingpeople, running errands, driving stage, gardening, fishing, playing withthe lads, courting poor white bound girls, incontinent, inoffensive, hehad been impelled to bid off his lot of old hats by Jimmy Phoebussaying:

"Jack, dirt cheap! Last you all your life! Better hats than old MeshachMilburn's. You'll drive his'n out of town. "

To his infinite amusement and dignity, his appearance in the bell-crownhats attracted the severe regard of Milburn, and set the little town ona grin. The joke went on till Jimmy Phoebus, Judge Custis, and someothers prompted Jack Wonnell, with the promise of a gallon of whiskey, to ask Meshach to trade the steeple-top for the bell-crown. The intenselook of outrage and hate, with the accompanying menace his townsmanreturned, really frightened Jack, and he had prudently avoided Milburnever since, while keeping as close a watch upon his movements andwhereabouts 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 littlediscounting--and, from the open space between it and the court-house inits rear, he peeped after Milburn up the main cross street, calledPrince William Street, which stopped right at Judge Custis's gate. There, in the quiet of early afternoon, he heard the knocker sound, sawthe door open, and beheld the Entailed Hat disappear in the greatdoorway. Then, scarcely believing himself, Wonnell ran back to thetavern, and exclaimed:

"May I be struck stone dead ef ole Meshach ain't gwyn in to theJedge's!"

"You're a liar!" said Jimmy Phoebus, promptly, catching Jack by theback of the neck, and pushing his bell-crown down till it mashed overhis 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 Ididn'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 nearlyout of season. "If this is a lie, Jack Wonnell, I'll make you eat a rawfish. Levin"--to Levin Dennis--"you slip up by Custis's, and see if oleMeshach hain't passed around the fence, or dropped along Church Streetand hid in the graveyard, where he sometimes goes. I'll stay yer, andmake Jack Wonnell account for sech lyin'!"

Levin Dennis, a boyish, curly-haired, graceful-going orphan, walked upthe cross street, passing Church lane and the Back alley, and slowlyturned the long front of Teackle Hall, and went out the parallel streettowards the lower bridge on the Deil's Island road, till he could turnand see the three great-chimneyed buildings of Teackle Hall liftingtheir gables and lightning-rods to his sight in their reverse, thepartly stripped trees allowing that manorial pile to stand forth in muchof its length and imposing proportions. Lest he might not be suspectedof curiosity, Levin continued on to the bridge at Manokin landing, andcounted the geese come out of a lawn on a willowy cape there, and taketo water like a fleet of white schooners. He ascended the rise beyondthe bridge, and looked over to see if Meshach might have taken a walkdown 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 atthe left, as it descended between Meshach's storehouse and the ancientPresbyterian church of the Head of Manokin, seated among its gravestonesbetween its hitching-stalls and its respectable parsonage manse. Nothingwas visible of the owner of the distinguishing hat. 

So Levin Dennis returned more slowly around the north wing of TeackleHall, looking at every window, as if Meshach might be there; but nothingdid he see except the dog, which, to Levin's eye, appeared uneasy, andran out of the gate to make friends with him. 

"So, Turk!" Dennis muttered, patting the dog's head, "no wonder you'rescared, boy, to see old Meshach Milburn come in. "

Teackle Hall, according to rumor, was built at the close of therevolutionary war by an uncle, or grand-uncle, of Judge Custis, who camefrom Virginia, somewhere between Accomac and Northampton counties, andwent into shipbuilding on the Manokin, adding some privateering andbanking, too, and once, going abroad, he brought back from some ducalresidence the plan of Teackle Hall, as Judge Custis found it on hiscoming into the property. 

It was nearly two hundred feet in length, and would have made threerespectable churches, standing in line, with their sharp gables to thefront, the bold wings connected with the bolder centre by habitablecurtains or colonnades, in which panels of slate or grained stone madean attic story above the lines of windows, and lintels and sills of thesame stone, with high keystones, capped every window in the many-sidedsurface of the whole stately block, all built of brick brought over invessels 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 shedrain, and a large circular window in that pediment. The two mightychimneys of that centre were parallel with the ridge of the roof, androse nearly from the middle of the two opposite slopes, bespeaking fourgreat fireplaces below, and a flat, low-galleried observatory upon theroof gave views of portions of the bay on clear days. 

The wings of Teackle Hall had similar, but lower, chimneys, astraddle oftheir roofs, and forest trees--oak, gum, holly, and pine, with a greatwillow, and some tawny cedars, and bushes of rose and lilac--dotted thegrassy lawn. The Virginia creeper and wild ivy climbed here and there tothe upper windows, and a tall, broad, panelled doorway, opening on alow, open portico platform with steps, seemed to say to visitors: "Menof port and consideration come in this way, but inferiors enter by someof the smaller doors!"

Levin Dennis, who had never sounded that knocker, though he had oftentaken his terrapins to the kitchen, stared in concern at the door whereit was reported Meshach Milburn had gone in, and would hardly have beensurprised if that intruder had now appeared at one of the three deepwindows 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 TeackleHall, and on a street between it and the main street, though in aretired situation, its front turned from the town, and looking over thefields and farms, like a good pastor who is warming at the fire with hishands behind him. 

A single-storied, long, low edifice of British bricks, with itssemicircular choir next the street, and, adjoining the choir, a spire ofmore modern brickwork built up to an open bell cupola, and open ribbeddome, also of brick, tipped with a gilded cross, the ivy was greenlymatted all round the choir, and ran along the side of the church, whereLevin Dennis walked under four tall, round-topped windows of stained andwired glass, till he came to the end gable or front of the church, standing in unworldly contemplation of the graveyard and the backfields. 

There, since the Stamp Act Congress, or when Princess Anne was not halfa century old, the old church had taken its stand, backed up to thetown, recluse from its gossip. Between its tall round doors, with littlewindow-panes like spectacles let into their panels, the ivy vine arosein form like the print of The Crucified, reaching out its stems andtendrils wide of the one glorified window in the gable, in whose reddyes glimmered the triumph of a bloody countenance. The mossy walls, often scraped, the mossified pavement, the greenish tombs of marbleunder the maples and firs, showed the effect of shade, solitude, andhumidity upon all things of brick in this climate, where wood wasalready rising into favor as building material, but to the detraction ofpicturesqueness and all the appearance of antiquity. 

No sign of the unpopular townsman was to be seen anywhere, but, as LevinDennis peeked around the foliage in the yard he beheld a man he hadnever observed before, and of a tall, bearded, suspicious, and ruffianlyexterior, lying flat on the top of a memorial vault, with his head andfeet half concealed in some cedar brambles. 

"Hallo!" Dennis shouted. 

"What do you hallo for?" spoke the man; "don't you never come to achurchyard 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 thestranger, standing up in his boots, into which his trousers were tucked;and he stood such a straight, long-limbed, lithe giant of a man thatLevin saw he could never run away, even if the intruder meant to chewhim up right there. 

"I ain't a prowlin', friend, " answered Levin Dennis. "I was jess alookin'. "

"Lookin' fur what, fur which, fur who?" said the man, taking a steptowards Dennis, who felt himself to be no bigger than one of the other'slong, 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 likea pine-tree over a sucker. "Yer's yer hat, " pulling an old strawarticle, over-worn, from Dennis's head. "No wind's a blowin' to blowhats into graveyards. Or did you set yer hat under a hen in yere, by astiffy?"

Dennis looked up, laughing, though not all at ease, but his amiable wantof either intelligence or fear, which belong near together, made hismost natural reply to the pertinacious intruder a disarming grin. 

"No, man, " Dennis said, "it was a hat on a man's head--ole MeshachMilburn's steeple-top. I was a follerin' of him. "

"Stow your wid!" the man clapped the hat back on Levin's head. "You're apoor hobb, anyhow. Is thair any niggers to sell hereby?"

"Oh, that's your trade, nigger buyin'? Well, there's mighty few niggersto sell in Prencess Anne. Unless"--here a flash of intelligence shone inLevin's eyes--"unless that's what's took ole Meshach Milburn to JedgeCustis'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 fora napper bloke. So bingavast! Git! Whar's the tavern?"

"I'm a-goin' right thair, " answered Levin, much relieved. "You must be aYankee, or some other furriner, sir. "

"No, hobb! I'm workin' my lay back to Delaware from Norfolk, by pungy toSomers's cove. Show me to the tavern and I'll sluice your gob. I'lltreat you to swig. "

At the prospect of a drink, of which he was too fond, Levin led the wayto the Washington Tavern, where there was a material addition to theattendance since Jimmy Phoebus had called to every passer-by thatMeshach Milburn, on the testimony of Jack Wonnell, had actually been andgone and disappeared in Judge Custis's doorway, and nearly a dozentownsfolks were now discussing the why and wherefore, when, suddenly, Levin Dennis came out of Church Street with a man over six feet high, ofa prodigious pair of legs, and arms nearly as long, with a cold, challenging, yet restless pair of blue eyes, and with reddish-brownbeard and hair, coarse and stringy. The free negro, Samson Hat, being alittle way off, was observed to cast a beaming glance of admiration atthe athletic proportions of the stranger, who looked as if he mightshoulder 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'sgone in the Jedge's. Mebbe he's buyin' of Jedge Custis's niggers. That'sthis gentleman's business. "

Jimmy Phoebus, himself no slight specimen of a man, gave anotherglance at the stranger from the black cherries of his eyes, and, apparently no better satisfied with the inspection, made no sign ofacquaintance. 

"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'mrhino-fat and just rotten with flush. "

There was a pause for somebody to take the initiative, but JimmyPhoebus, turning his big, broad Greekish face and small forehead onthe stranger, remarked:

"I never tuk a drink with a nigger buyer yit, and, by smoke! I reckonI'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 halfnigger yourself. If I was dead broke I'd run you to market an' git myprice 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 thestrange man, set Princess Anne in a tipsy condition that day. Thestranger was full of money, and treating indiscriminately, and thepavement before the hotel was continually beset with the loiterers, andthe bar took money and spread mischief. So when, an hour after dark, theunpopular townsman, avoiding the crowd, passed by on the opposite sideof the street, nearest his own lodging, one of the loudest and mostunanimous yells he had ever heard in his experience, rang out from theWashington Tavern. 

"Steeple-top! Steeple-top! Old Meshach's loose. Whoo-o-op!"

"Laugh on!" thought Meshach, "till now I never knew the meaning of 'letthem laugh who win. '"

He felt confirmed in his idea to be married in the Raleigh tile, andwhen 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 youat ten o'clock. At that hour set out for Berlin; and bring back RhodyHolland 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, Iam 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 poorgirl may be lonesome, as, no doubt, she will be dropped everywhere on myaccount, 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; inwomen-friends you is starved. "

"You may go with me to the church, " said Meshach, "I suppose you want tosee me married. "

"Yes, sir. Dat I do! Wouldn't miss dat fo' my Christmas gift. I 'spectdat 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 youdone burnt down my spreein' place. Dar's a wife comin' in yar now. So ifyou don't speak a good word fur me wid some o' Miss Vesty's gals, I'maboot done. "

"Well, boy, " Meshach said, "you have got the same chance I had: theupper hand. I owe you a nice little sum in wages, and you may be able tobuy 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 upperhand in love, like white people. Dey has to do it by love itseff: bykindness, marster. "

Before nine o'clock Milburn and his negro left the old store by the townbridge, and passing by the river lane called Front Street, into ChurchStreet, walked back of the hotel, avoiding its triflers, and reached thechurch in a few minutes unobserved. The long windows shed some light, however, but as it was Saturday night, this was attributed, by the fewwho noticed it, to preparations for the next Sabbath morning. Beforesetting out, Samson Hat, observing his employer to shake a trifle, askedhim if a dram of whiskey would not be proper. 

"No, boy; this is a wedding without wine. I shall need all my wits tofind my manners. "

He entered the church, and found it warmed, and the minister alreadypresent in his surplice, kneeling alone at the altar. Mr. Tilghmanarose, with his youthful face very pale, and tears upon his cheeks, andseeing his neglected parishioner and the serving-man, came down theaisle. 

"Mr. Milburn, " he said, extending his hand, "I hope to congratulate, after this ceremony, a Christian-hearted bridegroom, and one who willtake the rare charge which has fallen to him, in tender keeping. Myendeavor shall be to love you, sir, if you will let me! Miss Vesta isthe priestess of Princess Anne, and if you take her from our sight andhearing, even God's ministrations in this church will seem hollow, Ifear. "

"To me they would, " said Milburn, "though from no disrespect to ourpastor. "

"You have been a faithful parishioner, " resumed Tilghman, "during mybrief labor here, as in my boyhood, when I little dreamed I should fillthat desk. You know, perhaps, that it was from the hopeless love of mycousin Custis, I fled to God for consolation, and he made me his humbleminister. "

"I have heard so, " said Milburn; "or, rather, I have seen so. "

"Pardon my mentioning a subject so irrelevant to you, sir, but, though Ihave surrendered every vain emotion for my cousin, her happiness is apart of my religion, and this sudden conclusion of her marriage, aboutwhich I have asked only one question, has urged me to throw myself uponyour 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 wayup. 

"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 Idid not know I was any exception to their habits. "

"It was grateful to see that exception, " said Milburn; "hooted peoplemake fine distinctions. "

"Oh, Mr. Milburn, forgive the boys! They are made for laughter, andlittle causes excite it, like dogs to bark, from health andexercise--scarcely more than that. The request I make is to let me beyour friend, because I have been your wife's! Frankness becomes mycalling, and I think you need friendly, cordial surroundings to bringout your usefulness, and give you the freedom that will take constraintout of your family life, and, without diminishing your goodsensibilities, dispel any morbid ones. This will open a way for Vesta tosee her domestic career, which, otherwise, might become so rapidlycontracted as to disappoint you both. You have seen her the idol of herwide circle, free as a bird, indulged by her kind, and by Providencealso, till joy and grace, beauty and health, faith and hope liveabundant in her, and you are the beneficiary of it all. Her societyhereafter you must control. May I become your friend, and let my lovefor your wife recommend me to your confidence, as you to mine and to myprayers?"

"Have I another friend already?" exclaimed Milburn, his voice quivering. "What wealth she brings me never known before! William, you will be everwelcome to me. "

They clasped hands upon it, and old Samson Hat, sitting back, was heardto chuckle aloud such a warming laugh, that Meshach's response to it, ina sudden pallid shivering, seemed slightly out of keeping. He wasrecalled, however, by the entrance of Judge Custis with his daughter, and her maid, Virgie. 

Vesta was very pale, but neither shrinking nor negative. On thecontrary, she supported her father rather than received his support, andMilburn saw the Judge's worn, helpless face, with the pride faded fromit, and pity for his daughter absorbing every other feeling ofdepression. 

He wore his best cloth suit, with the coat tails falling to his kneesbehind, the body cut square to the hips, and the collar raised high uponhis stock of white enamelled English leather. His low-buttoned vestexposed his shirt-buttons of crystal and gilt, and a ruffle, ironed byRoxy's slender hands with nimble touches, parted down the middle likesea foam on shell, and similar ruffles at the wrists were clasped bychain buttons of pearl and silver. His vest was of figured Marseillesstuff, and gaiters of the same material partly covered his shoes; andhis heavy seal, with his coat of arms upon it, fell from a pale ribbonat his fob. Debtor though he was, and answering at the bar of the churchto a heavy personal and family judgment, his large and flowing lines ofbody, deeply cut chin, full eyes, and natural height and grace ofstature made him a marked and noble presence anywhere. 

Vesta Custis, dropping off a mantle of blue velvet at a touch of hermaid, stood in a party dress of white silk, the neck, shoulders, andarms bare; and, as she halted a minute in the aisle, Virgie struck thecloth sandals from her mistress's white slippers of silk, and, removingher 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 herdelicately moulded, but alert and generous ears. Her fine goldwatch-chain, twice dependent from her neck, disappeared in the snowymould of her bosom, on whose heaving drift swam a magnolia-bud andblossom, each with a leaf. Her father's picture, in a careful miniatureset in pearls, lay higher on her breast, fastened by a pearl necklace. Her hands were covered with white gloves, and her arms were withoutornament. Her hair, dropping in dark ringlets around her forehead andtemples, was combed upward farther back, and then gathered around apearl comb in high braids, and the plentiful loops drooped to hershoulder. 

Milburn glanced at the treasures of her peerless bodily charms, nevertill now revealed to his sight, and their splendor almost made himafraid. 

Never had he been at a theatre, a ball, or anywhere from which he couldhave foreseen a swan-like neck and bosom sculptured like these, and armsas white as the limbs of the silver-maple, and warmed with bridal-lifeand modesty. 

Her lips, parted and red, her great rich eyes a goddess might havecommanded through, with their eyebrows of raven-black, like entrances tothe caves of the Cumęan sibyl, her small head borne as easily upon herneck as a dove upon a sprig--all flashed upon Milburn's thrilled yetflinching soul, as the revelation of a divinity. 

As she stepped forward he spoke to her with that bold instinct orecstasy she had observed when she first addressed him in her father'shouse, ten hours before. 

"You have dressed yourself for me?" he said. 

"Sir, such as I could command upon this necessity I thought to do youhonor 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 tonotice that his hand was now hot, as if he had fever. Her father, at herside, reached out also, and took the bridegroom's other hand:

"Milburn, " he said, huskily, "this is no work of mine. My daughter hasmy consent only because it is her will. "

"The nobler to me for that, " Milburn spoke, with his countenancestrangely 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, worthhardly half a dollar. 

"It was my poor mother's, " he said. 

Without another word she walked forward, her arm drawing him on, Virgiefollowing, and her father bringing up the rear. Samson Hat, feelinguneasy at being awarded no part in the ceremony, slipped up the aisle asfar as the big, stiff-aproned stove in the middle of the church, behindwhich he ducked his body, but kept his head and faculties in the centreof the events. 

Mr. Tilghman had preceded them in his surplice, and taking his place atthe altar, with his countenance pale as death, he read the exordium inan altered voice: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here, and inthe face of this company, to join together this man and this woman inholy matrimony. "

"What 'company' is here?" thought Vesta. "Not alone these poor negroesand my father; no, I feel behind me, looking on, the generations of ourpride and helpless ease, the worthy younger suitors I have been tooexacting and particular to see the consideration and merits of, thegolden hours I might have improved my mind in, with brilliantopportunities 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 mygirlhood, till now I awaken at the cry, 'The bridegroom cometh, ' and Ibehold! Yes, I have been a foolish virgin, and am surprised when my fateis here! Perhaps my guardian angel also stands behind me, the crossadvanced that I must take, my crown concealed; but somewhere, midway ofthis journey of life, she may give it to me, and say, 'Well done!'"

"This 'company, '" thought Milburn, with swimming head, "gathered to seeme marry! what company? I seem to feel, besides these negroes, my solespectators, the populous forest peering on, the barefoot generations, the illiterate broods, the instinctive parents, the sandy graves. Theygive 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 mycaptive's bosom, her soul all in her believing eyes, and saying, 'Oh, myson, it is a woman like me that has come into your life, and her heartis very tender, and, by your mother's dying love! be kind to the poorstranger you have bought. '"

He answered, "I will!" aloud, and it seemed almost a miraculouscoincidence that it was a response to the minister's question, till heheard 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, insickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only untohim, so long as ye both shall live?"

"I will!" spoke the Judge's daughter, clear as music, and the Judge drewa long, deep sigh, saturated with tears, as if from the deepest wells ofgrief. 

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 handto the bridegroom's. The slave-girl burst into a wail she could notcontrol, and only Vesta stood calm as her bridegroom, putting her cool, moist hand in his palm of fire, and waited to repeat the Church'sdeliberate 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 ringto Meshach, and saw its tiny circle hoop her white finger round, nobigger than a straw, yet formidable as the martyr's chain. His prayerswere said with deep feeling, and he pronounced them man and wife. Then, shaking Meshach's hand, he said, with his boyish countenance bright asfaith could make it:

"My friend, may I take my kiss?"

Meshach nodded his head, but his face was like a ball of fire, and hehardly knew what was asked. Mr. Tilghman kissed Vesta, saying, "Cousin, your husband is my friend, and love and friendship bothsurround you now. May your happiness be, like your goodness, securestwhen you surmount difficulties, like those birds that cannot float atperfect grace till they have struggled above the clouds. "

"May I kiss you now?" Milburn said, gazing with a wild look upon herrich eyes. 

As she obediently raised her lips, a strange, warm, husky breath, notnatural nor even passionate, came from his nostrils. The Judge, lookingat this--no pleasing scene to him, the fairest Custis in two hundredyears 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 youwith triumphs and compensation beyond our fears!" the Judge said:

"Milburn, I suppose, in the sudden conclusion of this union, you havemade no arrangements as to where you will go; so come, of course, toTeackle 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 earlyin the night, may I leave you a little while?"

She bowed her head again, and, while they proceeded towards thechurch-door, lingering there, Samson took the opportunity to seize bothof Virgie's hands. 

"Virgie, " he exclaimed, "is all dat kissin a gwyin on an' we black folksgit none of it? Come hyeah, purty gal, an' kiss yer ole gran'fadder!"

Virgie consented without resistance, till Samson continued, "Oh, whatpeach an' honey, Virgie! Gi me anoder one! I say, Virgie, sence mymarster an' your mistis have done gone an' leff us two orphans, sposenwe git Mr. Tilghman to pernounce us man an' wife, too?" Then Virgie drewaway. 

"Samson Hat, " she said, "what's that you are talking about? You ought tobe 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' SomosetCounty beaux. I'm a free man. Maybe I'll sot you free too, Virgie--mean' my marster yonder. He says we better git married. 'Deed he does. "

"You are just an impertinent old negro, " the girl replied. "Do yousuppose any well-raised girl would have a man who got rich by cleaningthe 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 forole Samson yit. He's done bound to marry some spring chicken, ole Samsonis, an' I reckon you'll brile de tenderest, Virgie. "

Virgie, indignant, but fluttered at her first real proposal, and fromone of the richest men of her color in Princess Anne, hastened to tie onher young mistress's walking-shoes, and, as they all stepped from thehappy old church, where Vesta's voice had so often pierced, in herflights of harmony, to a bliss that seemed to carry her soul, like alark, 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?" Vestathought. "Will he continue to afflict me with it?"

Her heart sank down, so that she felt relieved when he kissed her againat the church-gate, and saying, "I will come soon, darling, " went, withhis man, into Princess Anne. 

"Is your buggy ready harnessed, Samson?" his master asked, when theyturned the court-house corner. 

"Yes, marster. "

At this moment a large crowd of men, comprising all the idle populationin town, as well as many Saturday-night bacchanalians from the countryand coasts, some standing before the tavern, others on the oppositesidewalks or gathered on the court-house corner, seeing the hattedfigure of Meshach rise against the moonlight, raised the scatteringcry, finally deepening into a yell, of:

"Man with the hat loose! Steeple-top! Three cheers for old Meshach'shat!"

With a minute's irresolution, as if hesitating to go through the crowd, Milburn turned into the main street, crossed it, and continued down theopposite sidewalk, on the same side with his domicile, the jeers andjests still continuing. 

"Dar's rum a workin' in dis town all arternoon, marster, " his faithfulnegro said, "eber sence dat long man come in from de churchyard widLevin Dennis. Look out, marster!"

He had scarcely spoken, when three men were seen to bar the way, two ofthem drunk, the third ugly with drink, emerging from a groggery thatstood across the street from the tavern, where further beverage had beendenied them. The first was Jack Wonnell. He hiccoughed, cried"Steeple-top!" and slunk behind a mulberry-tree. The second man wasLevin Dennis, hardly able to stand, and he sat down on the groggerystep, smiling up idiotically. 

The third man, rising like a giant out of his boots, with his armsswaying like loose grapevines, and his bearded face streaked withtobacco drippings, looking insolence and contempt, brought the flat ofone hand fairly down on the crown of Milburn's surprising tile, with thewords:

"Halloo! Yer's Goosecap! Hocus that cady, Old Gripefist!"

The hat, age being against it, wilted down on Meshach's eyes, and theheedless stroke, unconsciously powerful, staggered him. 

Samson, who had drunk in the giant's qualifications with an instant'sadmiration, immediately drew off, seeing his master insulted, and struckthe tall stranger a blow with his fist. The man reeled, rallied, andsought to grapple with Samson. That skilful pugilist bent his knees, slided his shoulders back, and, avoiding the clutch, raised, and threwhis trunk forward, with the blow studied well, and planted his knucklesin the white man's eyes. The tall ruffian went down as from a bolt oflightning. 

Milburn saw all this happen in a minute of time, and his eye, lookingfor something to defend himself, dropped on the brick pier under thegroggery steps, where Levin Dennis sat, stupefied by the scene. A brickin the pier was loose, and Milburn stepped towards it. In this smallinterval the hardy stranger had recovered himself and staggered to hisfeet, 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 downwardwith the knife, aiming to turn it through Samson's bowels, which hewould have done--that valorous servant being without defence, and not somuch as a pebble of stone lying on the bare plain of the soil to givehim aid--had not Meshach, wresting the loose brick from the pier, aimedit at the corresponding exposed portion of the assassin's body, andstruck him full in the pit of the stomach. The man's eyes rolled, and hefell, like one stone-dead, his dirk sticking in the sidewalk. 

"Let him lie there, " said Meshach, contemptuously. "No danger of such adog dying! If there is time he shall mend in the jail. Take to yourbuggy, boy, and keep out of the way. "

The negro needed no warning, as the impiety of striking a white man wasforbidden in a larger book than the Bible--the book of ignorance. Hedisappeared 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 bloodshoteyes. "What kind of coves are you to let a black bloke fight a whiteman? 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. JimmyPhoebus was the only one to speak. 

"Nigger buyer, " he said, "if you are around this town from now tillmidnight, or after midnight to-morrer, Sunday night, ole Meshach Milburnwill have you in that air jail till Spring. By smoke! he'll find out yeraunty's cedents, whair you goin, whair you been, what's yer splurge, anall yer hokey pokey. You've struck the Ark of the Lord this time--oleMilburn's Entailed Hat! Take my advice an' travel!"

The man washed his face at the tavern pump, turned the bank corner, anddisappeared 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 seemedvery dear, yet somewhat dread to them, being reclaimed again, but at thepenalty of a new member of the family and he an intruder. To the libraryVesta and her father went, and he threw some wood upon the low fire, andlighted the lamp and candles; then turning, he took his daughter in hisarms and sobbed bitterly, repeating over the words: "What shall I do! Owhat shall I do!" She also yielded to the luxury of grief, but wasspeechless till he said:

"My darling, I have dreamed of your wedding-day many a time, but it wasnot like this. Music and joy, free-heartedness, a handsome, youthfulbridegroom, 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 withconsumption, day by day, like a dying lilac-tree, with its clustersfewer every year till it deadened to the root, I could have wept inheavenly 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 andtrodden in the sand, your pride reduced, your tastes unheeded, yourheart dragged into the wigwam of a savage and made to consult hismaudlin will---- Oh, what shall I do!"

"I do not fear my husband like that, " Vesta said, opening his arms. "Mymind, I think, he will rather raise to serious things, for which I havesome desire, though, I fear, no talent. Papa, something tells me thatthis old life we have led, easy and happy, comfortable and independent, is passing away. Our family race must learn the new lessons of the ageif 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 aremnant of colonial, or, rather, of provincial dignity, to which thenature of this republican government is hostile. Tobacco, which was onceour money, is disappearing from this shore, and wheat and corn we cannotgrow like the rich young West, which is pouring them out through thecanal the late Governor Clinton lived to open. Money is becoming a thingand not merely a name, and it captures every other thing--land, distinction, talent, family, even beauty and purity. The man you marriedunderstands the art of money and we do not. "

"Then are we not impostors, papa, if we assume to be so much better thanour real superiors? Surely we must persevere in those things the agedemands, and excel in them, to sustain our pride. "

"Yes, if the breed is gamecock it will accept any challenge, not onlywar and politics, but mechanics, shop-keeping, cattle-herding, anything!"

"Papa, if you can see these things that are to be, so clearly, why canyou 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 foroffice, we foresaw everything but the humiliation of ourselves, and thatwe hardly admitted when it had come, so much were we flattered by ourphilosophic intellects. Our newest amusement is to expound theconstitution to them who are doing too well under it, although ourfathers, 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 ifthey are all here!"

He took them up, with volatile relief laughing on his yet tear-markedface, and said:

"We'll burn them, Vessy. "

"Nay, sir, not till you have seen them all. A single note missing wouldgive you the same perplexity, and there is no daughter left to settleit. "

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 myhusband. "

Something strange in her expression baffled the Judge. 

"Ha!" he interjected, "have I a rival already, daughter? Is his conquestas 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 onlywhat he is. "

"Perhaps you can love him, too?" the Judge said, watching her with anapprehension 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, yourpeace, your independence, and the upbraiding we expected from mamma atthe loss of her dower. He is now your son-in-law, still in the prime oflife, with the business training you lament that you do not possess. Begin this moment, papa, and learn his habits. Count and identify thosenotes!"

Judge Custis looked them over separately, ran the number of notes he hadgiven 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 notspeak there! Every penny in those debts is stamped with Mr. Milburn'sinjuries and coined by his sacrifices. Have you spent his moneyremembering 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 learnbusiness sense. It must be so respectable to live with one's mind ableto help one's security and one's friends, and prepare for age orsickness while strong and healthy. Now, I think I will not let you burnthese notes till you have paid the price of them! Please write atransfer 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 overthese old properties to you?"

"In consideration of my repayment of the sum of my mother's estate toyou for her, for which you have given her no security whatever. It isnot provided for by these notes. I have only Mr. Meshach Milburn'spromise that he will pay her this money, risked and lost by you, father, I fear very heedlessly. Is it restitution, also, for Mr. Milburn tostrip himself to pay your debts to mother?"

"No, " said the Judge, guiltily, "that he pays on account of his passionfor you. He may cheat you there. "

"I do not believe it, because he has been faithful to me so many yearsbefore I knew he loved me. A man who keeps himself pure for a woman hehas no vows to, will pay her father's debts of honor when he haspromised. "

Judge Custis found the issue quite too warm for his convenience, andblushing as much as Vesta, he sat down and drew up a conveyance of hisproperty to Vesta Milburn, in her own right, and in consideration oftwenty-five thousand dollars, paid to Mrs. Lucy Custis on account ofjudgment 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 theproprietor?"

"No. The tragedy nearly finished here may be repeated, papa, and all ofus be homeless if you can go in debt again. I shall not do that--noteven for my husband, and here will stand Teackle Hall to protect youall from the cold if bad times ever come again. "

"You have paid a greater price for it, my child, than it is worth, andyou are entitled to it. "

"Besides, dear father, if Mr. Milburn needs any reminder of his promiseto repay mamma's dowry, this will give it. He intended his gift to be mymarriage dower, and were I to convey it to you I should first ask hisconsent; not in law, perhaps, but in delicacy. "

"Oh, yes, " the Judge said carelessly, "I am glad you have such goodreasons. Yet, my beautiful, my last child, --pride of my race! I hate tosee you so ready for this business--this calculation and foresight. Itis not like the Custises. I fear this man, Milburn, in a single day hasthrown his net around your nature, and annexed you to his sordidexistence. At this moment the redeeming thing about you is that youcannot love him. "

"Dear father, thoughts like that beset me, too--the pride ofaristocracy, the remembrance of what has been; but I want to be honestand 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 inmy conduct. He knows I do not love him. Instead of standing upon anobdurate heart, I pray God to melt my nature and mould it to hisaffection!"

Regarding her a moment with increasing interest, Judge Custis cameforward and kissed her forehead. 

"Amen, then!" he said. "May you love your husband! I will do all I canto 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 decanterand some cake. It will not hurt you, after your fast, to drink a glassof 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 thisspotless 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 manstood 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 bythe starlight. 

"Good-evening, " said the man; "you don't know me, Judge Custis? Nomatter, 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 ofDorchester?"

"Yes, Judge, Joe Johnson, the slave-dealer. I've bought many a niggerfrom a Custis when it was impolite to sell 'em, Judge, so they let merun' em off, and cussed me for it to the public. An' that's made meonpopular, Judge Custis, and that's my fix to-night. "

"You have been fighting, Johnson, I think, " said the Judge, withsuppressed dislike. 

"I've been knocked down by a nigger, " said the man, with a glare offerocity, removing his hand from the wounded eye, as if it inflamed hisrecollection of the blow to see the drops of blood drip from his beardto the porch. "This town is too nice to abide a dealer in theconstitutional article, and so they set on me, when I was a littlejingle-brained with lush, an' while the nigger klemmed me in the peep, alittle white villain with a steeple bonnet hit me in the bread-bag witha stone. I've come yer, Judge, to lie up in the kitchen, an' sleep warmover Sunday, for the cops threaten to take me, if they catch me beforemidnight. "

"I suppose you know, Johnson, that I am a magistrate, and the properharborage I give to breakers of the peace is the jail. "

"I'm not afraid of that limbo, Judge Custis, when I come to you. OldPatty Cannon has done you many a good turn with Joe Johnson's gang aboutelection times in the upper destreeks of Somerset. Patty always saidJudge Custis was a game gentleman that returned a favor. "

The Judge's countenance, an instant blank, lighted up with all avote-getter's smile, and he said:

"Joe, you're a terrible fellow, but dear old Aunt Patty did always takemy part! I suspect, Joe, that you have run afoul of Samson, the hiredman of Meshach Milburn, who is a boxer, though I wonder that he couldget away with your youth and size. Of course, I won't let you come toharm. 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 theNanticoke to Norfolk, and shipped 'em to Orleens. Says I: 'I'll go backEastern Shore way, and see if there's any niggers to git. ' So I trampedit from Somers's Cove to Princess Anne, an' sluiced my gob at Kingstonand the Trappe till I felt noddy with the booze, and lay down in thechurchyard to snooze it off. Bein' awaked before my nod was out, I feltevil an' chiveyish, and the tavern blokes, an' the nigger, an' thefeller with the steeple shap, all clecked me at once. "

"Well, Joe, for Aunt Patty's sake, I'll take care of you. Go to thekitchen door, and I'll step through the house and tell our Aunt Hominyto give you supper and breakfast, and a place to get some sleep. But youmust keep out of the way, and slip off quietly on Sunday, for we havehad a wedding in the family to-day, Joe, and though I cannot understandyour peculiar slang, I suspect the bridegroom to be the man who knockedthe breath out of you with the stone. "

The stranger lifted his hand from his bloody eye again, and counted thered drops splashing down from his beard. Judge Custis marked his scowl. 

"Tut, tut!" said the Judge, "you will never get your revenge out of thatman. He is too strong. I don't wonder that he disabled you, and don'tyou ever get into his clutches, Joe; for if he knows you are here, Ishall be forced to send you to jail this very night. Keep out of thehands of Meshach Milburn! He has knocked the breath out of you, Mr. Johnson, but there are some whose hearts he has twisted out of theirbodies. "

"I'll meet him somewhere, " Joe Johnson muttered, "but not in PrincessAnne;" and he pulled down his slouched hat to cover his eyes, andstalked away to find the kitchen. 

"Oh, what a day can bring forth, " Judge Custis thought, raising hishands to the October stars: "Meshach of the ominous hat the host in myparlor: Joe Johnson, the son-in-law of Patty Cannon, the guest of mykitchen!"

CHAPTER XIV. 

MESHACH'S HOME. 

Vesta had slept she hardly knew how long, but it was day, and slowly hereyes 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 swiftstep passed before her mirror, whispering:

"I have dreamed it all!"

The fresh, flushing skin, and radiant contrasts of hair and eyes seemedso welcome to her in their perfect assurance of health, that shewhispered 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 thatwonderful yesterday rose to her mind, and the vow she had made to honorand obey seemed to have been too easily repented. She looked upon herhand, and the little, thin, pathetic thread of gold reaffirmed hermemory of the wedding-ring, and at the next suggestion a blush coursedthrough her being like a redbird in the apple-blossoms: perhaps he hadstolen from her chamber stealthily as he came, while she, drowned indeep slumber, wotted not. 

A glance into the mirror again revealed those blushes repeating eachother, like the Aurora in the northern dawn, till, with a searchingconsciousness, and her voice raised above the whisper, she said, "Be still, silly _girl_!"

Opening the door, she found Virgie lying on the rug without, warmlywrapped 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 beentoo awake, if I did sleep a little. Maybe _he_ ain't a-coming, MissVessy. Maybe he's ashamed!"

"Hush, Virgie, " Vesta said, "you are speaking of your master. "

Throwing her morning-robe around her shoulders, the maiden bride trippednoiselessly to her mother's apartment; the door was open, the nighttaper floating in its vase, and Mrs. Custis lay asleep with herbank-book under her pillow. 

"Shall I awake her?" Vesta thought. "Yes, if I do not need herexperience, I do want her confidence, and not to give her mine wouldseem deceit now. "

Vesta kissed her mother softly, and placed her cheek beside that lady'sthin, respectable profile as she awoke, and said:

"Daughter, mercy! why, what has become of you? It seems to me I haveseen nobody for days, and I wanted to express my indignation even in mydreams. Where have you been?"

"Oh, mamma, " Vesta said, taking Mrs. Custis's head in her arms, "I havebeen finding your lost fortune, which troubled us all so much. It is tobe given back to you, dearest--my husband has promised to do so. "

"Your husband? Whom have you selected, that he is so free with hismoney? How could you hear from Baltimore so soon? Now, don't tell me aparcel of stuff, thinking to comfort me. Your father is a villain, andmy connections shall know it. "

Mrs. Custis drew her bank-book from under her head, and began to cry, asshe took a single look at its former total. 

"Darling mamma, " Vesta said, "seeing you so miserable yesterday onaccount of papa's failure, and your portion gone with it, I accepted anoffer 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, andeverything as it is--the servants, the stable, and the movables--belongto me, in my own name, paid for in papa's notes, and by him transferredto me to be our home forever, so that a revulsion like yesterday may notagain 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 trickto deceive me. I don't accuse you of it, Vesta, but you are the victimof somebody and your father. Now, who can this man be, so free with hisready money? It's not the style in Baltimore to promise so liberally asall that. Have you accepted young Carroll?"

"No, nor thought of him, mamma. "

"Then it must be that widower fool, Hynson, ready to sell his negroesfor a second wife like you. "

"He has neither been here in body or mind, " Vesta said; "never in mymind. "

"That would be a marriage to make a talk: it wouldn't be like you tobestow so much beauty on a widower. I think there is a certain vulgarityabout an elegant girl marrying a widower. She is so refined, and he isgenerally so sleek and sensual. Did you hear from Charles McLane?"

"Nothing, mamma; let me ease your mind by telling you that my husbandlives here in Princess Anne. He was father's creditor, Mr. MeshachMilburn. He has loved me unknown for years. I saw a way to stop allscandal and recrimination by marrying him at once, that the society weknow would have but one, and not two, subjects of curiosity. Papa saw memarried last night to Mr. Milburn, and I bear his name this Sabbathday. "

"His wife? Meshach Milburn? The vulgarian in the play-actor's hat? Thatman! 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 shehad been told of my purpose, she would have opposed it bitterly. "

Roxy was summoned to assist Vesta, and after Mrs. Custis had becomeconscious, and sighed and cried hysterically, her daughter, sitting inher lady's rocker, spoke out plainly:

"Mother, I appreciate your disappointment in my marriage, though Ishould be the one to make complaint and receive sympathy, instead ofdiscouragement; but I do not desire it; indeed, I will not permit anyperson to disparage my husband, or draw odious comparisons between mypoverty and his exertions. If there are in my body, or my society, anymerits to please a man, they have fallen to him under the law ofProvidence, that he that hath shall receive. I pity your illness, dearmamma, but I fear Mr. Milburn is ill, too, for he has not been here allnight, though he left me at the church-gate. "

"I hope the viper is dead!" Mrs. Custis said, with great clearness, andenergized it by sitting up in bed. Roxy left the room. 

"I hope he has been murdered, " said Mrs. Custis, "and that the murdererwill never be discovered. If there is any spirit of the McLanes left inmy brothers and nephews, they will wipe out, in blood, the insult ofthis marriage between my daughter and the man who set a trap upon thehonor of a respectable family. "

Vesta arose with a pale, troubled face, yet with some of her mother'sprejudice flashing back. 

"He can defend himself, mamma. I shall go to seek him now, since he isso much hated for me. "

She returned to her room, and put on a walking-suit, and made hertoilet. In the library Vesta found her father dozing in a large chair, with his feet upon a leather sofa, and a silk handkerchief drawn acrosshis crown, under which were the dry beds of tears that had coursed downhis cheeks. She saw, with a touch of joy, that the sherry in thedecanter was untouched, and the two glasses were still clean: he had notrelapsed into his habits, even while making an all-night vigil to waitfor the unwelcome son-in-law. He started as she entered, and then staredat her between his dazed wits and a mute inquiry that she couldunderstand. 

"He has not come, papa. And mamma--oh! she is severe. "

Vesta, trembling at the throat a moment, rushed into her father'swide-open arms, and buried the sob in his breast. 

"Poor soul! Poor lamb! Poor thing!" he said, over and over, while histemper slowly rose, that seldom rose of recent years, since pleasure andcarelessness had taken its masculine sting away, but Vesta felt histones 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 shedrew away he strode across the room and back again, a noble exhibitionof 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 havehappened?"

"He will either come or fight me, " Judge Custis remarked. "I have triedto be a peaceable man and Christian magistrate, albeit a poor hypocritein some, things, but I am pushed too far. My wife's smallness is worsethan insanity and wickedness put together. Between her and thismoney-broking fiend, and my neglected child entrapped into such amarriage, by God! I will clean my old duelling arms, and appeal toinjustice itself to set me even. "

If he had been fine-looking in his sincere grief, he was thrice moreattractive in his sincere high spirit. Vesta, admiring him in spite ofher 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 aninsult, for which I should have challenged him, and shot him if hedeclined. Now he has married you and absconded, using you and the Custishonor 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 aman's arms, at choice, in my courting days. Public opinion will clear meunder this provocation, and I can acquit my own conscience, abhorrentas 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 toher. She says she will send for Uncle Allan McLane, and is moreunreasonable than ever. Papa, your feelings are unjust. Something we donot know of has happened to Mr. Milburn. He was not himself all thewhile at the church. Now that I recollect, he was not ardent for themarriage to be so soon. It was I who hastened the hour. Let us be rightin everything, having progressed so far with the recovery of ourfortunes, and let us await the fulfilment of events hopefully. "

"Milburn was drunk at the ceremony, I saw that, " Judge Custis said, "butit 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. Ifeel 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 sullennessshe is showing I fear more than your passing emotion, papa. Be firm, yetkind, 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 hisneglect. "

"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 hadrequired it. To tell the truth, " Vesta said, blushing, "the poor man wasso kind to me yesterday, in spite of his object, and so quaint, and, asit seemed, dependent on me, that my charity is enlisted for him, and Icould almost have married him from pity. "

The Judge's temper fell a little in the study of his daughter'sblushing. 

"Wonderful! wonderful!" he thought to himself; "that poor corn-bredfellow has already made more impression on this girl's pride than ahundred cavalier gallants. Truly, we are a republic, Vesta, " hecontinued aloud, "and you lay down the Custis character as easily as ourold connection, Lord Fairfax, accepted the democracy of his hiredsurveyor, Mr. Washington, before he died. "

"I laid down the Custis name yesterday, " Vesta said, "though not theirbetter character, I hope. Papa, there is only one law of marriage; it iswhere the wife follows the husband. "

She looked a little archly at him, wiping her eyes of recent tears, andthough she may not have meant it, he was reminded of his own fear of hiswife. 

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 hada 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 comefarther, till Vesta went out and kissed her kindly. 

"Poor Aunty Hominy! did you think I was sold, or abused, because I hadbeen 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 ofniggers that had stolen something. "

"Miss Vessy, " she stammered, at last, "is you measured in by oleMeshach? Is he got you, honey? Dat he has, chile! He's gwyn to bury youunder dat pizen hat. Po' little girl! Po' Miss Vessy!"

"Oh, Aunt Hominy, " Vesta said, "he will be a kind master in spite of hisqueer hat, and take good care of you and all the children; for he is myhusband, 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! Hominyain'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 andtoast, the old servant, gliding back in the depths of Teackle Hall, raised a wild African croon, as over the dead, giving her voice amusical inflection like the jingle of Juba rhyme:

"Good-bye, Miss Vessy! Good-bye, Aunt Hominy's baby! Good-bye, dearyoung missis! Good-bye, my darlin' chile, furever, furever, an' Ofurever, little Vessy Custis, O chile, farewell!"

The tears raining upon her cheeks, her wild, wringing hands and upflungarms and shape convulsed, Vesta remembered long, and thought, as sheleft Teackle Hall with Virgie, that some African superstition had, bythe aid of dreams, drawn into a passing excitement the faithfulservant's brain. 

At the corner of old Front Street, and extending almost out upon thelittle Manokin bridge, stood Meshach Milburn's two-story house andstore, with a door upon both streets. Though planted low, in a hollow, it stood forward like Milburn's challenging countenance, unsupported byany neighbors. 

"Don't it look like a witch's, Missy?" Virgie said, as Vesta took in itsnot unpicturesque outlines and crude plank carpentry, the weather-rottedroof, the decrepit chimney at the far end, the one garret window in thesharp gable, the scant little windows above stairs, and the doors low tothe sand. 

"It may have been the pride of the town fifty years ago, Virgie. I havepassed it many a day, looking with mischievous curiosity for thesteeple-hat, to show that to some city friend, little thinking I mustever enter the house. But hear that wilful bird singing so loud! Whereis it?"

"I can't tell to save my life. It ain't in the tree yonder. It's thefirst bird up this mornin', Miss Vessy, sho'!"

"Is not that larger door standing ajar, the one with the four panels init?" Vesta asked. "Yes, it is unfastened and partly open. "

The blood left Vesta's heart a moment, as the thought ran through hermind: "He has been watched, followed home, and murdered!"

The idea seemed to explain his absence on his marriage night, and, likea sudden flame first seen upon a burning ship, lighting up the wideocean with its bright terrors, Vesta saw the infinite relations of sucha 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 churchgate: "I will come soon, darling, " and now, this silent abode, with itsdoor ajar on Sunday dawn, before the town was up--they might bear thesuspicion of a dreadful crime by the ruined debtor house of Custisagainst their friendless creditor. 

This thought, personal to her father, was immediately dismissed in thefeeling for a possibly murdered husband. If the idea barely touched hersense of self, that her tremendous sacrifice had been arrested byHeaven, and her purity saved between the altar and the nuptials by thebloodshed of her purchaser at the hands of some meaner avenger, thoughnot until she had redeemed her father from Milburn's clutch, this ideanever passed beyond the portal of her mind; she repulsed it, entering, and began to think of the easy prey her husband might have been, hatedby so many, defended by none, known to be very rich, no loss to thecommunity, as it might think, in its financial ignorance, and his onlyguard a stalwart negro notorious for fighting. 

Believing Milburn to deserve better than his present fame, Vestaadvanced towards the door of the old wooden store with a spirit ofcommiseration and awe, and still the wild bird from somewhere poured outa 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 thatbrought 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 insong! Does Mr. Milburn keep birds?"

"I can't tell, Miss Vessy. That bird's a Mocker. It must be in theresomewhere. Oh, don't go in, Miss Vessy; something will catch you, dearMissy, sho'. "

But Vesta was already gone, following the piercing sound of the nativebird, that seemed to be in the loft. 

She saw a little counter of pine, and a pine desk built into it, andbundles of skins, some cord-wood, a pile of lumber and boxes, a fewbarrels of oil or spirits, and dust and cobwebs thick on everything; anda little way in from the door the light and darkness made weird effectsupon each other, increasing the apparent distances, and changing theforms; and the sun, now risen, made turning cylinders of gold-dust atcertain knot-holes in the eastern gable, across whose film she saw twolean mice stand upon the floor unalarmed, and tamely watch her come. 

The screaming of the bird was conveyed through the thin floor from abovewith loud distinctness, and every note of singing things seemed to beimitated by it, from the hawk's gloating cry to the swallow's twitteringalarm, with the most rapid versatility, and even hurry, as if thecreature was trying over every bird language, with the hope of findingone mankind could understand. It was idle to expect to be heard amidsuch clamor, and Vesta, having pounded on the floor a few times, madeher 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 aboveflickered down. 

At this moment the bird's notes abruptly ceased, and a voice, unlikeanything she had ever heard in her life, yet human, spoke in response toa more natural human voice, both issuing from above. 

The second voice seemed to be Milburn's; the first voice was somethinglike it, yet not like anything from the throat of man, and thesuperstition she had been rebuking in her servant came with a thrillinginfluence upon her entire nature. She was about to fly, but called outone 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! Comep-chee! come see! come see me!"

The last accentuation, in spite of the bird's interference, wassufficiently distinct to amount to an invitation, and with a raising ofher eyelids once dependently to heaven, Vesta went up the stairs. 

She put her head into a large, long room, which took up the wholecontents of the second story, and was lighted on three sides by thesmall windows she had seen without. It had no carpet or floor-coveringof any kind; the fire was gone out upon the chimney-hearth in the end, and the atmosphere, a little chill, was melting before the sunshinewhich now streamed in at both sides of the fireplace and clearlyrevealed every object in the apartment, --some clothes-pegs, a woodentable 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; blacksilhouettes, in little round ebony frames, of a woman and a man hungover the mantel, and between them a silhouette of a face she had nodifficulty in recognizing to be intended for her own. 

Stretched upon a low child's bed, of the sort called trundle-bed inthose days, which could be wheeled under the high-legged bed of theparents, lay the bridegroom, in his wedding-dress and gaitered shoes, with his steeple-crowned hat upon the faded calico quilt beside him, andhis face as red as burning fever could make it. 

Vesta only verified the particulars of the inventory of Milburn's lodgeafterwards, her instant attention being drawn to the motionless form ofher husband, whose flushed face seemed to indicate a death bystrangulation 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 herelbow. 

Vesta, with one hand on the helpless man's brow, turned again, almostindignantly, for the tone seemed to address some sense of neglect orshame in her, which she had not been guilty of. Still, nothing was to beseen. 

At the far corner of the room was a step-ladder leading to a hole in theloft above; but this was not the place of the interruption, for sheheard the voice now come as from the chimney at the opposite end of theroom, 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 tryingto 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 tinglingat the use of her own name, Vesta saw on the dusty wooden mantel acommon bird of a gray color, with dashes of brown and black upon hiswings, and a whitish breast, and he was greatly agitated, as if he meantto fly upon her or upon some other intruder she could not see. 

His eyes, of black pupils upon yellowish eyeballs, sparkled with nervousactivity. He flung himself into the air above her head, uttering soundsof such mellow richness and such infinite fecundity of modulation, thatthe old hovel almost burst with intoxicated song, combining gladness, welcome, fear, defiance, superstition, horror, and epithalamium alltogether, like Orpheus gone mad, and losing the continuity of his goldennotes. 

The bird's upper bill was beaked like a hawk's, his lower was sharp as alance, and between them issued that infuriated melody and cadence andepithet that old Patrick Henry's spirit might have migrated into fromhis grave in the Virginia woods. He suddenly flung himself from hisvortex of song upon the bed of the sick man, with a twitching hop andrapid opening and shutting of the tail, like the fan of a disturbedbeauty, and thence perched upon Milburn's peaked hat, and with aconvulsive struggle of his throat and body, as if he were in superhumanlabor, 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 itagainst her bosom, and soothed its excitement. 

She had heard verified what Audubon avowed, and had but recentlypublished in the beautiful edition of his works her father was asubscriber to, that some said the American mocking-bird could imitatethe human voice, though the naturalist remarked that he himself hadnever heard the bird do it. 

The present verification, Vesta thought, of the mocking-bird's supremestpower, might have issued from its excitement at the silent and helplesscondition of its master--that master who had told Vesta that no bird inthe woods ever resisted his seductions and mystic influence. 

"If that be true, " Vesta said to herself, "there is no danger of thisvociferous pet making his escape if I put him out of the window till Ican 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 thereset up a concert the Sabbath morning might have been proud of, when, inthe 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 eagerlove, sighing praise and happiness as their supernal hearts emittedmusic in the glow of ecstasy, and carrying upward the loveliest emotionsof the earth in yearning sympathy for nature. No language, now, thatVesta could identify, was woven into that maze of morning song, whichchallenged, with its fulness and golden weight, the floods of sunshine, matching light with sound, spontaneous both, and rivals for the favorsof the soft atmosphere. Singing with all its heart, outdoing all itknew, forgetting imitation in wild improvisation, watching her window asit danced upon the twigs and fluttered into the air, conscious of herlistening as it purled and warbled towards her, and sounded every pipeand trumpet, virginal and clarion, hautboy and castanet, in theorchestra of its rustic bosom, the mocking-bird's ode seemed almostsupernatural 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, astruly as if nature were greeting my coming to him in the old poet'sspirit:

 "'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 herwhole attention to her husband; and the high heat of his brain andcirculation, and his muttering, like delirium, seemed to indicate thathe had an intense attack of intermittent fever. She heard the wordsseveral times repeated by him: "I will come soon, darling!" and thesimplicity of his devotion to her, unloved as he was, had such flavor ofpathos 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 stayby his side and nurse him, as his wife. "

At this conclusion she looked Milburn over carefully, to see if anywound or sign of violence, whether by accident or an enemy, appearedupon 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 servantmight be there. Samson's bed, as she supposed it was, had not beendisturbed, and so, descending, she raised the window over the largerdoor 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 wroteher father a note, telling him to come to her; and to the girl, when shereturned, her mistress said:

"I want you to get a roll of new rag-carpet at Teackle Hall, and have itbrought here, to spread upon this floor. Send me, too, a pair of ourbrass 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 mypicture in the sewing-room, and wrap it up, and have it sent. I musthave mamma's medicine-box and a wheelbarrow of ice; and let Hominy makesome strong tea and hot-water toast. Virgie, do not forget that thissick gentleman is my husband, and a part of our own family!"

"The girl's face preserved its respect with difficulty as she heard thelast part of the sentence, but she replied to What she understood to bea warning by saying:

"Miss Vessy, I never tell anybody tales. "

"No, dear, you do not. I only feared you might forget the very differentview 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 heopened his eyes to see whom it was, she heard him say, with anarticulate sigh:

"Heaven. "

With the remainder of the water and her handkerchief she washed his hotskin and kept it moist, and fitful murmurs, as "Darling!" "Angel!""Beautiful lady!" came from his roving brain as perception and poisoncontended for his mind. The inborn sense in woman of happiness afterdoing good offices and being appreciated was attended with a certainintellectual elation, and even amusement, at having witnessed what wasaltogether new to her, --the life of the meaner class of white people. She looked at the dexterous silhouette of herself, cut, probably, frommemory, long ago, by the man, no doubt, who never knew her untilyesterday, and, guessing the companion profiles to be his mother andfather, she exclaimed, mentally:

"I cannot see anything insincere about this man's statement to me. Hereare all the proofs of his deep attachment to me long before he forced myname upon papa with such apparent insolence. If papa could see theseproofs with a woman's interest, he would have a full apology in them. Here, too, is the bird that sings my name. What strength ofprepossession the master must have had to make the feathered pupilrepeat the sound of 'Vesta, ' and call me 'sweet!' What resources, too, without the use of money or social aids! He knows the story of ourEnglish beginning, while we make it an idle boast; but to him Cromwelland Milton, Raleigh and Vane, are men of to-day. Ah!" Vesta thought, "Ithink I see now one of those Puritans in my husband, of whom I haveheard as sprinkled through Virginia. We are the Cavaliers. There is theRoundhead, even to the King James hat. "

As she was led onward in these probabilities, Vesta took up the demureold Hat and looked it over without any superstition, and reflected:

"Do we not exaggerate trifles? Why should this man be so derided becausehe covers his head with an old hat? What of it? Suppose it shows somevanity or eccentricity, why is there more merit in covering that up thanin expressing it in the dress? The styles we wear to-day are thederision even of the current journals, and what will be thought of themfifty years hence, when the fashion magazines show me as I look, --theenvy of my moment, the fright of my grandchildren?"

With rising color, she put the hat in the leather hat-box, and shut itup. 

Judge Custis made his way up the dark stairs in a little while, and, assoon 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 thebilious 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. Heexposed himself, I suppose, extraordinarily that night, and I hear thathe burned the old cabin in the morning. Now he will burn, in memory ofit, for the next ten weeks; for he has, I suspect, from the time of daythe burning and delirium came, what is called the double quotidian typeof 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 lastnight. 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 thatbed, and his head left him for some hours. The paroxysm goes away duringsleep, and returns in the morning; so, before he could get abroadto-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 luckto survive forty days of fever, with probably eighty sweats in thattime. "

"He must be doctored at once, papa. "

"Well, I am good enough doctor for the bilious fever. He wants plenty ofcold 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 offever and chill, he wants calomel and Peruvian bark, and if thesedelirious spells go on, he may want both bleeding and opium. "

"Here are some of the things he immediately needs, then, " Vesta said, asa tall white man she had never seen before came up the stairs withVirgie, bringing some Susquehanna ice in a blanket, and a roll ofcarpet, and other articles she had sent for. The man's face wore a largebruise that heightened his savage appearance. 

"Judge, " exclaimed the stranger, "I'm doin' a little work to pay fur myboard. 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 iftrying 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 assailantyesterday. Don't hesitate: see how he glares at you!"

"Oh, it's the billy-noodle with the steeple nab-cheat, him that settledme with the brick, " said the stranger, in a low voice. "So I have pipedhim. Ah! that's plumby!"

As the tall man started to go Milburn's countenance relaxed, he wanderedagain 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 weboth 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 Johnsondrew his long figure down the stairs, like a pole. 

"What a brutal giant, " Vesta said; "and how came he to be doing ourerrands?"

"Why, Aunt Hominy hadn't nobody to bring the wheelbarrow load, and thisman said he'd come, and he would come, Miss Vesty, so I couldn't sayanything. "

"He's a man of a good deal of influence, " said the Judge, uneasily, "inthe upper part of our county, and in Delaware. Last night, after thewedding, he slapped Meshach's hat, and old Samson knocked him down forit, 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 narrowroad, --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; andthen spoke: "If Mr. Milburn was strong, I think he would hardly let thatman get out of the county before night. "

"Well, daughter, what are you going to do with these articles he hasbrought?"

"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 mehang 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 thefloor, and Virgie had made a second errand to Teackle Hall, and broughtback the lady's rocking-chair that Milburn so much affected, and toiletarticles, and some dark cloth to hide the bare boards in places, and theold loft soon wore a reasonable appearance of habitable life. Virgiemade up the fire, and the brass andirons took the cheerful flame uponthem, while Vesta sweetened the lemonade after her father had cut andsqueezed the lemons, and added some magnesia to make the drink foam. 

"Really, " said Judge Custis, "this miserable den takes the rudimentaryform of a home. I suppose there are now more comforts in his sight thanMeshach's whole race ever collected. What is your next move, Vesta?"

"To stay right here, darling papa, till it is safe and convenient tocarry 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 willspread from Chincoteague to Arlington. Every Custis that lives willcensure me and outlaw you. "

"I think you had best see Mr. Tilghman before the service, papa, andhave the marriage announced from the desk this morning: that will settlethe excitement before night. As for staying here, my home, you know, iswhere 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 tomy nature to improve my intercourse with my husband while he is sick, that the hasty marriage we made may still have its period ofacquaintance and good understanding. I want to sound the possibilitiesof my happiness. He will be less my master now than in his strength andpossession. Perhaps--" Vesta's voice fell, and she turned to gaze uponthe bridegroom, whose fever still consumed his wits--"perhaps I caninfluence 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 werepierced as through some ever-open ventricle, like an old wound. 

"Steeple-top! Who cried 'steeple-top'?" he muttered. "Oh, can't you seeI'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, " JudgeCustis finally said; "his obdurate heart has been bruised by thatnickname. In public he never appeared to flinch before it; but you seeit inflicted a never-healing wound. Who has not his vulture?"

"And how unjust to pursue this man with such frivolous inhospitality somany years, " Vesta exclaimed, her splendid eyes flashing. "No accounthas been made of his private reasons, his family piety, or his sterntaste, perhaps; for he must have a reason for his wardrobe, that being, it would seem, the only thing there can be no independence about. Didyou hear, papa, his feeling for me but this moment? Strangely enough, myown mind was thinking of that hat. It seems to be bigger than the verysteeples 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 devilmakes him, " the trim, fawn-footed Virgie said; "Aunt Hominy says the BadMan wouldn't let him make no mo' money if he didn't go to church in thathat. 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. Hominybelieves it. She's 'most scared out of her life about Mr. Milburn comingto the house, an' she's got all the little ones a' most crazy withfear. "

"Poor, dark, ignorant soul!" Vesta said; "she is, however, moreexcusable than these grown men, whose prejudices against an article ofdress are as heathen in character as her fetish superstition. "

"If he is a good man to you, Miss Vessy, " the slave girl said, "I'llthink the Bad Man hasn't got anything to do with him. If he treats youbad, I'll think the Bad Man has. "

"Sometimes I feel as if men ought to have been left wild, like theanimals, " the Judge said, rinsing out Milburn's mouth with a piece ofice, "for the obstacles to liberty raised by fashion and civilizationare Asiatic in their despotism. Think of the taxes we pay to fashionwhen we refused less to kings. Think of the aristocracy based upondress, after we have formally extirpated it by statute! Think of theinfluence the boot-makers and mantua-makers of Europe, proceeding fromthe courts we have renounced, exert upon our Presidents and Senators, and, through the women of this country, upon all the men in the land! Amillion women who do not know that there are two houses of Congress, know just what bonnet the Duchess d'Angoulźme is wearing, and howCharles X. In Paris ties his cravat. So the devil always gets a worm inevery apple. The French Revolution abolished feudality, titles, greatlanded property, and only omitted to abolish fashion, and that worm--asilkworm it is--is devastating republican government everywhere, usingthe women to infect us. "

"Yet, in the nature of woman, " said Vesta, "is the love of dress asstrongly as the love of woman is in man. Some righteous purpose is init, papa, --to ornament ourselves like the birds, and let art be born. "

"God knows his own mysteries, " Judge Custis said. "But Vesta, go homewith me to your own comfortable home, and let Virgie stay here to keepwatch. "

"Master, I'm afraid to stay here, " the girl exclaimed, sidling towardsher young mistress. 

"Then I will stay, and be nurse, " the Judge said. "Fear not! I will givehim 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 spoiledme. No, Virgie and I will both remain, and you conciliate mamma. All isgoing well. Really, I am happy and grateful to my Heavenly Father thathe 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 alady. "

"No, I am a woman, " said Vesta; "that man and I must see one or theother 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 domuch to sweeten it. He has loved me and taken the shadow from your oldage 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 arenot mine. "

"Yes, " Vesta said, "you are full of good, wherever you may havestrayed. "

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 youknow 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 andkissed 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 flutteredabove 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 Sundaysunshine, that he had never seen a more perfect day. The leaves wereturning on the great sycamore-trees, and the maples along the rise inthe road wore their most delicate garments of nankeen, while some younghickories, loaded with nuts, and a high gum-tree, splendid in finery, beckoned him out their way, across the Manokin bridge to the oppositehill, where the Presbyterian church overlooked the town. 

The Judge, whose eyes were filled with happy tears, partly at the realrelief to his circumstances accomplished by Vesta's great sacrifice, andpartly by the scene just closed, of her natural honor and fidelity tothe man who had forced her wedding vows from her, took the northerncourse and crossed the little bridge, and as he went up the hill theenvirons of the town and the town itself spread out behind him in thestillness of the Sabbath, and the quails and fall birds piped andcackled low in the corn and the grain stubble. Some wild-geese in thesouth flew over the low gray woods towards the bay; a pack of houndssomewhere bayed like distant music; he heard the turkeys gobble, at oneof the adjacent farms on the swells in the marshy landscape, whereabundance, not otherwise denoted, showed in the fat poultry that roostedin the trees like living fruit and spoke apoplectically. 

While he drank in the wine of autumn on the air, that had a bare tasteof frost, like the first acid in the sweet cider, he saw a carriage ortwo come over the level roads towards Princess Anne, and the church-belltold their errand as it dropped into the serenity its fruity twang, likea pippin rolling from the bough. So easily, so musically, so regularlyit rang, like the voice of something pure, that was steady even in itsjoys, 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 passedhim, their inmates all bowing, and often stealing a look back to seeJudge Custis again, the first man in the county. 

They looked upon an humbled heart, a gladdened soul, which the sharphand of affliction had made to bleed, while an unforeseen Providence inhis darling child had kissed the wound to sleep and sucked the poisonfrom it. 

Raising his brow towards the bright blue sky, as if he could not raiseit high enough to feel more of that heavenly rest encinctured there, theJudge 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 mychild has walked, or I shall never see her in the life to come!"

His lips trembled and his breast heaved convulsively. In that idea ofbeing unfit to enter where his child would go, in the more abundant lifebeyond the present, he received a distinct sermon from the long-emptypulpit of nature and conscience, and revelations from within clearerthan Holy Scriptures; for he felt the justice of the final separation ofthe impure from the pure, and the faith of perseverance in good to drawonward towards holiness itself, and perseverance in sensuality andselfishness to detain the spirit in its husk of swine. His agonyincreased. 

"Where shall I drift if I go on, " he said, "playing the sleek magistrateand family head, and loving to slip away in the dark, like negroeshunting coons by night? What is escaping discovery to the increasingdegradation of my own sanctuary, my created spirit? Can I find the way Ihave wandered down and retrace my steps? There is but little of lifeleft me to do it in, but by God's help I will try! Yes, this goldenSabbath I will do something to begin. What shall it be?"

He put on his hat, and said to himself: "I will go to the Methodistmeeting-house: they work directly upon the conscience, deepen the senseof sin, and preach a quick cleansing as by light shining in. There I maygrovel in the sight of men and women and arise redeemed. But, no. It isthe 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 worshipto another now. If I go to church this morning it must be to our own. Isthere any excuse but cowardice for not going?"

He looked into his debtor nature, to see what he owed to anybody, thatmight be owned and settled this day. 

Slowly and almost to his dislike there arose an obligation to hiswife--the obligation of love he was defrauding her of, if, indeed, heloved her at all with the ardor of old times. 

She had fretted his passion away in little sticklings for littleproprieties, and narrowing understanding, and subservience to effeminatesocial traditions. She jarred upon the health of his intellect with herunsympathetic refinements and pitiful uncharities, and fear of allcatholicity. She was gentility itself, without the spark of nature, andbelieving that she inhabited the castle towers of exclusiveness andsocial righteousness, she had made his home the donjon-keep of hisknighthood, at once the loftiest domestic apartment and the prison. 

Nevertheless, she was his wife, and something of her nature must be inVesta, though the Judge had not found it. He reflected that hiswaywardness might have sharpened her peculiarities and spread thedistance between their minds, till, deprived of a husband's guidance, her fluttered woman's nature had quit the pasturage of the fields andair, and perched upon her nest and vegetated there. 

"I have gone away from her, " he said, "and complain that she has notgrown. I have myself abounded in village dignity and pretension, and sether the example of respecting nothing else. I have been a fraud, andwonder that she is not wordly-wise. "

He found his infirm will very obdurate against making love to his wifeagain, but the request he had just made of Heaven, to lead him into theright steps, prevailed upon him to make his worship at home thismorning. 

"Yes, " he said, "I will start right. She is sick and alone, and Vestataken from her. I will send a note to the rector to announce themarriage, as Vesta requested, and do my worship at Teackle Hall thisday. "

The Manokin, spreading wider as it flowed farther from the town, andwidening from a brook to a creek, till it moistened fringes of marsh andcut low bluffs into the fields, never seemed to invite him so much towander 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 usyears ago, and the dull, small range of household talk, and the dynasticgossip of the good families, wear down my spirits. But I have been atruant husband, and my tongue is parched by dusty rovings in prodigalways. Let me woo her again with all my might!"

He walked through Princess Anne, worship now having commenced in all thechurches, and saw nobody upon the street except a divided group beforethe tavern. There he heard Jimmy Phoebus speak to Levin Dennissharply:

"Levin, what you doin' with that nigger buyer? Ain't you got no Dennispride left in you?"

The Judge saw that Joe Johnson, safe from civil process on Sunday, evenif his enemy had not been helpless in bed, was washing Levin Dennis'sbrandy-sickened head under the street pump, plying the pump-handle andshampooing him with alternate hands. 

"Jimmy, " answered Levin, when he was free from the spout, "thisgentleman's give me a job. I'm goin' to take him out for tarrapin on theSound. 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 niggerbuyer is a fine splurge fur you, by smoke! I can't see where your prideis, Levin, to save my life. "

Jack Wonnell, wearing a bell-crown, looked on with timid enjoyment ofthis 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 JimmyPhoebus, 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 withme all yisterday, an' to-day air a beginnin' of it agin. Do you want tofight?"

"No, " said Jimmy, whittling a stick; "I ain't fond of fighting, and Inever do it of a Sunday. I wouldn't be guilty of fightin' you, bysmoke!"

"I have tuk a bigger nug than you and nicked his kicks into the bottomof his gizzard till his liver-lights fell into my mauleys. So it's nishor 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 hiswhittling knife to the giant's throat. "Raise it or, by smoke! yer goesyer jugler. "

As Phoebus spoke he lifted one foot, of a prodigious size, as deftlyas an elephant hoisting his trunk, and kicked the man's hand from thehip pocket without moving either his own body or countenance. It wasdone so automatically that the other turned fiercely to see who kickedhim, and his sheath-knife, partly raised, was flung by the force of thekick 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 menapart. 

"Fighting on Sunday in our public street, " he exclaimed; "Phoebus, Iwouldn't have thought it of you!"

"This yer bully, Judge, " Jimmy said coolly, "started to take PrencessAnne 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 poorimbecile, Levin Dennis, and, as I expresses my opinion of it, he drawshis knife on me; so I takes my foot, Judge, that you have seen me untiea 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, " JimmyPhoebus 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 asplurge. Now, as you've been licked by a nigger and kicked by a whiteman, 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 blackcherries of eyes, and his huge broad face of swarthy color expressed itsfull Oriental character:

"The last time I saw you, Joe Johnson, was not a-lurking in JudgeCustis's kitchen fur no good, nor a-insultin' of the Judge's t'othervisitor, Milburn of the steeple-top: it was a-huggin' the whippin'-poston the public green of Georgetown, State of Delaware, an' the sheriffa-layin' of it over your back; an' after he sot you up in the pillory Itook the rottenest egg I could git, an' I bust it right on the eye wherethat 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 unthinkinginterjection:

"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 freeniggers of their liberty, knowin' that they didn't carry no arms andcouldn't make no good defense! That's your trade, an' it's the meanestan' most cowardly in the world. It's doin' what the Algerynes does infair fighting. You're a fine American citizen, ain't you? I know yourgang, 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 theJudge with this fulness, and he felt some natural admiration as he tookPhoebus 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 yourjourney and disturb us no more, or I shall put criminal process uponyou, 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 youtake it?"

"Why, with pleasure, Judge, " the nonchalant villager replied. "I don'tlook 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 hismemorandum 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 onhim, 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 theprejudice agin a nigger hittin' a white man is sich in this state thatJoe Johnson, bloody as he is, would never have stretched hemp for SamsonHat; so I picked a quarrel with the nigger buyer to take the fight outof him before Samson should come. He won't fight nobody now in thistown. _His_ hokey-pokey is done _yer_. "

"You took a great risk, Phoebus. He is such an evil fellow in hisresentments, that I let him hide and eat in my quarters for fear of someill requital if I refused. That gang of Patty Cannon's is the curse ofthe Eastern Shore. "

"And if you'll pardon a younger and a porer man, Judge, it's jest sichgentlemen as you that lets it go on. You politicians give them people'munity, an' let 'em alone because they fight fur you in 'lection timesan' air popular with foresters an' pore trash, because they persecutesniggers an' treats to liquor. You know the laws is agin their actions onboth sides of the Delaware line, but in Maryland they're a dead letter. "

"You speak plain truth, James Phoebus, brave as your conduct. But thepoor men must make a sentiment against these kidnappers, because amongthe ignorant poor they find their defenders and equals. "

"Judge, " the pungy captain said, "they'se a-makin' a pangymonum of allthe destreak about Patty Cannon's. By smoke! it's a shame to liberty. Inopen 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 nowenjoyed. Jimmy Phoebus continued:

"Now yer, we're raising hokey-pokey about the Algerynes and theTrypollytins capturin' of a few Christian people an' sellin' of 'em toTurkey, an' about the Turkey people makin' slaves of the Christian Greekfolks. 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 abig man for a-breakin' of it up. By smoke! they're sellin' more freepeople to death and hell along Mason and Dixon's line, than up the wholebuzzum of the Mediterranean Sea. "

The brown-skinned speaker was more excited now than he had been duringall the collision with Joe Johnson. 

"Indeed, Phoebus, they have kidnapped several thousand people, thePhiladelphia abolitionists say, but the reports must be exaggerated. Thedemand for negroes is so great, since the cotton-gin and the foreignmarkets have made cotton a great staple, and the direct importation ofslaves from Africa has been stopped, that there is a great run forborder-state negroes, and free colored people seldom are righted whenthey 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 uphigh; they got to be wuth eight hunderd dollars whair they wasn't wuthtwo hunderd; and all the politicians begun to say: 'Niggers is not fitto be free. Niggers is the bulrush, or the bulwork, or bull-something ofour nation. ' And then kidnapping of free niggers started, and the nextthing 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 theWashington 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 blackeyes an' coal black hair. Whair did they come from? They come fromGreece, whair Leonidas an' Marky Bozarris and all them fellers camefrom: 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 afree-born man, and I tell you, Judge, it's a dangerous time when nothingbut his shade of color protects a free man. "

"James Phoebus, " the Judge said, gravely, "I hope you believe me whenI say that I think all these things outrages, and they grow out of thegreater outrage of slavery itself. We are being governed by new states, hatched in the Southwest from the alligator eggs of old slavery, thathad grown into political and moral disrepute with us in Maryland andVirginia. "

"There's no nigger in me, " Phoebus said, putting on his hat, "but Ihave taken these hints about my looking like a nigger to heart, and I'lltake a nigger's part when he is imposed on, as if he was some of thebody 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 Hatappeared, driving down Princess Anne's broad main street a young whitegirl. 

"There's the nigger that set my peep in limbo, " muttered the negrodealer, "but even he shall go past to-day. This accursed town is packedagin me. "

He took a long look at Samson, however, who mildly returned it in themost respectful manner, as if he had never seen the strange gentlemanbefore. "And now, my pals, " Joe Johnson said, turning to Levin Dennisand Jack Wonnell, "we will all three go down to the bay and I'll pervidethe lush, and pay the soap while you ketch the tarrapin, an' let mesleep my nazy off. "

"I'll go an' no mistake!" cried Jack Wonnell, who had been taking adrink 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 JimmyPhoebus after me. "

Joe Johnson took a bag of gold from inside his waist-band, hanging by aloop 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 awaywith me, pig widgeon, an' find your boat, and I pay you this pash atsundown. "

Levin's credulous eyes shone, and with one reluctant look towards hismother's cottage he led the way into the country. 

Little was said as they walked an hour or more towards the west, thestranger apparently brooding upon his indignities, and twice passingaround the jug of brandy which Jack Wonnell was made to carry, andbefore noon they came to a considerable creek, out in which was anchoreda 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 thestranger'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 JudgeCustis's uncle's privateer that never was heard of no mo'. We don't knowif the British tuk him an' hanged him, or if the _Idy_ sunk somewhairan' drowned him, or if she's a-sailin' away off. I has to take care ofmother. "

"Humph!" growled Joe Johnson; "son of a gander and a gilflirt: purtykid, too--got the ole families into him. No better loll for me!"

Drawing a punt concealed under some marsh brush, young Levin pushed offto his vessel, made her tidy by a few changes, pulled up the jib, andbrought her in to the bank. 

"Mr. Johnson, I never ketched tarrapin of a Sunday befo', but I reckontain't no harm. "

"Harm? what's that?" Joe Johnson sneered. "Hark ye, boy, no funking withme now! When I begin with a kinchin cove I starts squar. If ye thinkit'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 JackWonnell superserviceably got the terrapin tongs, and stood in the bowwhile the cat-boat skimmed down Monie Creek before a good breeze and alee tide. The chain dredge for terrapin was thrown over the side, butthe boat made too much sail for Wonnell to take more than one or twotardy animals with his tongs, as they hovered around the transparentbottoms making ready for their winter descent into the mud. 

"Take up your dredge, " Johnson commanded in a few minutes. "It makes usgo slow. "

Jack Wonnell obediently made a few turns on the windlass, and as the bagcame up, two terrapin of the then common diamond-back variety rolled onthe deck, and a skilpot. 

"That's enough tarrapins, " Johnson said, "unless you're afraid it'sdoin' wrong, Levin. Say, spooney! is it wicked now?"

The boy laughed, a little pale of face, and Johnson closed his remarkwith:

"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 aSunday? The way to git rich, sonny, is to break all the commandments atthe 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 thestranger the helm, and by Wonnell's aid raised the main-sheet, and thelight boat went winging across Monie Bay, starting the water-fowl as ittacked through them. 

"Here's another swig all round, " Joe Johnson exclaimed, "and then I'llgo below to lollop an hour, for I'm bloody lush. "

Levin drank again, and it took the shuddering instinct out of him, andJoe 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 therewas a great unknown joke or coincidence between them, finallywhispering:

"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 bepayin' 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 anothergrin, 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'tno white gal in Princess Anne purty as them two house gals of JedgeCustis'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. Youcan't buy a nigger to save your life. When some of Jedge Custis'sniggers 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, grinnedhideously, 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 andflapped her sails as if such news had driven all the wind out of them. 

"Jack, " Levin exclaimed, "Jimmy Phoebus says you've turned out areg'lar liar. Now I believe it, too. "

"Hope I may die!" Jack Wonnell protested, "I never does lie: it's toohard to find lies for things when people comes an' tells you, or you kinsee fur yourseff. Jimmy called me a liar fur sayin' Meshach Milburn wasgone into the Jedge's front do', but we saw him come out of it, didn'twe?"

"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 totell lies. I loves that gal like peach-an'-honey, Levin, an' I don'tkeer whether she's white or no. She's mos' as white as me, an' a gooddeal better. "

"So you do talk to Roxy some?"

"Levin, I'll tell you all about it, an' you won't tell nobody. Well, Ipicks magnoleys an' wild roses an' sich purty things fur Roxy to giveher missis, an' Roxy gives me cake, an' chicken, an' coffee at the backdoor, knowin' I ain't got much to buy 'em with. Lord bless her! shedon't half know I don't think as much of them cakes an' snacks an' warmrich coffee, as I do of her purty eyes. She's a white angel with alittle coffee in her blood, but it's ole Goverment Javey an' more thanhalf cream!"

Here Levin laughed loudly, and said that Jack must have learned that outof a book. 

"Oh, " said Jack, shutting one eye hard and joining in the grin, "sence Iben in love I kin say lots o' smart things like that. I have seen purtylittle Roxy grow up from a chile, an' as she begin to round up and gittall, says I: 'Nigger or no nigger, she's angel!' The white gals theyall throwed off on me, caze I wasn't earnin' nothin', an' I sot my eyeson 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'refur 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 asVirgie. ' 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 youflowers for your missis. I know whair the magnoleys is bloomin' thewhitest 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 MissVesty's toilet every day. ' 'I'll git 'em fur you, Roxy, ' says I, 'becazeI allus thought you was a little beauty. ' Says she: 'I'd give mostanything to surprise Miss Vesty with flowers every day, --rale wildones!' 'Then, ' says I, 'Roxy, I'll git' em fur you for a kiss!' An' shemost a-blushed blood-red an' ran away. "

"That's what I told you, Jack, she's raised too well to be talkin' towhite fellers. "

"Nobody's raised too well, " rejoined Jack Wonnell, "to be deef to loveand kindness. Says I to myself: 'Jack, you skeert that gal. Now saynothin' 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 themagnoleys, an' I come to the do' an' asked ole Hominy to bring down Roxyfor a minute. Roxy she come, an' was gwyn to run away till she saw myflowers, 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 atrade: '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 iton the groun's of coffee, an', Levin, I everlastin'ly fotched the wildflowers 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 shesays, as I was drinkin' of the coffee: 'Mr. Wonnell, what do you putyourself at sech pains fur to 'blige a pore slave girl that ain't buthalf white?' I thought a minute, so as to say something that wouldn'tskeer her off, an' I says: 'Roxy, it's becaze I'm sech a pore, worthlessfeller that the white gals won't look at me!' The tears come right toher eyes, an' she says: 'Mr. Wonnell, if I was white I would look atyou. ' '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 youhad no kind of sense. "

"Love-makin' is the best sense of all, " said Jack, "it's that sense thatkeeps 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 cansee, an' hear, an' feel, an' they're give to people to find outsomething purty to love. Love was the whole day's work in the garding ofEden befo' man got too industrious, an' it's all the work I do, an' Ihope 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 littlelove start up in purty Roxy, but she didn't understand it, an' I was askeerful not to skeer it as if it had been a snow-bird hoppin' to a crumbof bread. She would talk to me about her little troubles, an' I listenedkeerful 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 Ilistened the more she liked to tell me, an' I saw that Roxy wasa-thinkin' a great deal of me, Levin, without she or me lettin' of iton. 

"This mornin' she came to the door with her eyes jest wiped froma-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 forMiss Vesty, ' says I, 'beautiful to see!' 'Oh, ' says Roxy, 'Miss Vestywon't need 'em now. ' Says I: 'Roxy, air you goin' to have all thattrouble 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'twhisper 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 tolive 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, ' Roxysaid. An' jest at that minute, love bein' oncommon strong over me thismornin', I took the first kiss from Roxy's mouth, an' she didn't saynothin' 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 withone 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 tobe. But mother is all I kin take keer of, and, pore soul! she's in somuch 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 Lorddidn't look out for her maybe she'd starve. "

"Yes, Levin, you likes brandy as much as I likes the gals. You go offfor tarrapin, an' taters, an' oysters, an' peddles 'em aroun' PrencessAnne, an' then somebody pulls you in the grog-shops an' away goes yourmoney, 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 forghosts to see me. "

"Well, now, " Levin said, "there's a ghost, or something, that looks outfor mother when I'm drunk or gone, an' it leaves tea and coffee in thewindow for her. "

"Sho'! why, Levin, that's Jimmy Phoebus! He's ben in love with yourmother 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 Iguessed 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-pokeylike that. What I give, I go and give with no sneakin' about it orprying into Ellanory's poverty. ' He was right down mad, but he couldn'tfind nothing out. So I think it may be the ghost of father, drowned atsea, bringing tea and coffee, and sometimes a dress, and a pair ofshoes, too, to keep mother warm. "

Levin Dennis, standing against the tiller, seemed to Jack Wonnell to befair and spiritual as a woman, as his comely brow and large eyes grewserious with this relation of his father's mysterious fate. His darkauburn hair, in short ringlets parted in the middle, gave his sunburntcountenance a likeness to some of the old gentle families with which hewas allied, his father having been a son of younger sons, in a date whenprimogeniture 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 privateerlaunched on the Manokin, the _Ida_, which set sail with a good crew andsuperior armament, amid the acclaims of all Somerset, and, sailing pastthe Capes into the ocean with all her bunting flying, slid down thefarther world to everlasting silence and the vapors of mystery. 

His widow waited long and patiently with this only boy, Levin, ascarcely lisping child, and stories of every kind were current; that thecaptain had been captured and hanged by the enemy, and the ship burnedor condemned; that he had hoisted the black flag and become a pirate andquit 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, whowere sullen at the loss of their investment and their expected profitsfrom the vessel, lived in the little house she had owned before hermarriage, and sank into the plainer class of people, almost losing heridentity with the ruling families to which her son was kin, but in herhumbler class highly respected and solicited in marriage. 

She was still young and fair, and Jimmy Phoebus, a hale bachelor, andcaptain 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 forhelp. She feared the absent lover might be alive and return to find heranother's wife. 

So her son, growing up without a father's discipline, and being toorespectable, it was supposed, to put to a trade or be indentured, livedby fugitive pursuits on land and water, hauling and peddling vegetablesand provisions at times; and now, by the gift of Jimmy Phoebus, hesailed his little sloop or cat-boat chiefly to carry terrapin toBaltimore. Rough sailor acquaintances, exposure, a credulous, easily lednature, and almost total neglect of school at a time when education wasa high privilege, had made him wayward and often intemperate, butwithout developing any selfish or cruel characteristics, and being of anagreeable exterior and affable disposition, he fell a prey to anystrangers who might be in town--gunners, negro buyers, idle planters, and spreeing overseers, many of whom hired his company and vessel totake their excursions; and, while loving his mother, and being her onlyreliance, she saw him slipping further and further into manhood withoutsteadiness or education or fixed principles, or any female influence todraw him to domestic constraints. 

His slender, supple figure, and marks of gentility in his limbs, andshapely brow and large, gentle eyes, poorly consorted with raggedclothes, bare feet, and absolute dependence on chance employment, thelatter becoming more precarious as his age and stature made moredemands for money through his false appetites. 

"Jack, " said Levin Dennis, "what do you mean by gittin' money to buyRoxy Custis? You never git no money. "

"Won't he give it to me? Him?" Jack Wonnell indicated the hatchway downwhich Joe Johnson had gone. "He's got bags of it. "

"Him? Why, Jack, how much money do you s'pose a beautiful servant likeRoxy will fetch?"

"Won't that piece _he's_ gwyn to give you buy her?"

"Five dollars? Why, you poor fool, she will bring five hundreddollars--maybe thousands. This nigger trader, with all his gold, wouldbe 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 wouldrespect her an' marry her, too, Levin, they makes laws agin him! Maybe Ikin steal Roxy?"

Here Jack whistled low, shut one eye with deep knowingness, and grinnedbehind his bell-crown. 

"Oh, you simpleton!" Levin said. "Where could you take her to?"

"Pennsylvany, Cannydy, Turkey, or some of them Abolition states upthar"--Jack Wonnell indicated the North with his finger. "Ain't there noplace where a white man kin treat a bright-skinned slave like that as ifthey both was a Christian?"

"No, " answered Levin, "not in this world. "

The hero of the bell-crowns was much affected, and Levin thought hereally was whimpering, though his vacant grin was a poor frame forgrief. 

"Jack, " said Levin, "if what Roxy Custis told is true, the gal is theslave of your pertickler enemy, Meshach Milburn. "

The wearer of the rival species of hat was "badly sobered, " as Levinmentally expressed it, at this dismal solution of his gentle dreams oflove. He arose and walked to the bow of the boat, and looked down intothe flying waves over which the cat-boat skipped, as if he might seekthe solution of his own disconnected yet harmless life in the bottom ofthe sound, among the oyster rocks. 

The water was now speckled with canoes and periaugers (pirogues), andlittle sail-boats coming from Deil's Island preaching, and before themrose out of the bay the low woody islands and capes which, with whitestraits between, enclose from the long blue nave of the Chesapeake thescalloped aisle called Tangier Sound. Like pigeons and wrens around somecathedral, the wild-fowl flew in these involuted, almost fantastic, architectures of archipelago and peninsula, which, lying flat to thewater, yet took ragged perspective there, as if some Gothic builder hadlaid his foundations, but had not bent the tall pines together, thatgrew above in palm-like groves, to make the groined roofs and arches ofhis design. 

Here could be seen the ospreys, sailing in graceful pairs above theherrings' or the old wives' shoals, taking with elegance andconscientiousness the daily animal food that even man demands, with allhis sentiments and gospels. There the canvas-back duck, in a littleflock, broke the Sabbath to dive for the wild celery that grows beneaththe sound. In yonder tree the bald eagle was starting out upon hisAlgerine work of vehemence and piety, to intercept the hawk and stealhis cargo. The wild swan might be those faint, far birds flying so highover Kedge's Straits, in the south, and the black loon, spreading hiswings like a demon, disappears close to the cat-boat, and rises no moretill memory has forgotten him. 

Levin Dennis steered close to a point where he had been wont to scatterfood for the black ducks, and draw them to the gunner's ambush. Sheldrakes and goosanders, coots and gulls, whifflers and dippers, madethe best of Sunday, and bathed and wrote their winged penmanship on thewhite sheet of water. 

Poor Jack Wonnell returning, with something on his face between a grinand 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, butyou never fight nobody. Everybody kin git along with you, Jack!"

"No they can't, Levin. Meshach Milburn hates the ground I tread on. Ifhe 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. Hethinks I'm a-mockin' of him. Levin, I ain't got no other kind of hat towear. Meshach Milburn needn't wear that air hat, but if I don't wear abell-crown I must go bareheaded. I bought that lot of hats with the onlydollar or two I ever had, as they say a fool an' his money is soonparted. 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 oleMilburn's Entail Hat, as they call it. Why can't he, rich as a Jew, gobuy a new hat, or buy me one? I don't want to mock him. I'm afeard ofhim! He looks at me with them loaded pistols of eyes an' it mos' makesme 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 itwould be safe, becaze it wasn't your own. "

"I 'spect I will have to go to the pore-house some day, Levin; my oleaunt, who takes keer of me, can't live long, an' I ain't good furnothin'. I can't git no jobs and I run arrands for everybody furnothin', but the first money I git I'm gwyn to buy a new hat with. Eversence I wore these bell-crowns Meshach hates me, an' I hope he's theonly man that does hate me, Levin. I don't think Meshach kin be a badman. "

"How kin he be good, Jack?"

"Why, I have seen him in the woods when he didn't see me, calling up thebirds. Danged if they didn't come and git on him! Now birds ain't gwynto hop on a man that's a devil, Levin. Do you believe he deals with thedevil?"

"I do, " said Levin; "I see sich quare things I believe in most anythingquare. These yer tarrapins has got sense, and they're no more like itthan a stone. One night when we hadn't nothin' to eat at home, motherand 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 fourtarrapins down in the cellar, --black tarrapin, that had been put theresix months before. I said to mother: 'I 'spect them ole tarrapins isdead an' starved, but I'll go see. '

"I found 'em under the wood-pile, an' they didn't smell nor nothin', soI 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 showsome signs of life. No, they was stone dead!

"'Well, mother, ' says I, 'put on your bilin' water an' we'll see if deadtarrapin is fit fur to eat!' She smiled through her cryin', and put thewater on, an' when it began to bubble in the pot, I lifted up one ofthem tarrapins an' dropped him in the bilin' water, an' Jack, I'll bedog-goned if them other three tarrapins didn't run right off the tablean' drop on to the flo' an' skeet for that cellar door!

"I caught 'em an' biled 'em, an' as we sat there eatin' stewed tarrapinwithout no salt, or sherry wine, or coffee, or even corn-bread, we heardsomethin' like paper scratchin' on the window, an' mother fell back andclasped 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 thehouse, white as a ghost myself, an' I cried out, 'Mother, it's father'ssperrit come again!'

"She made me git on my knees an' pray with her to give poor father'sspirit comfort in his home or in heaven!"

CHAPTER XVII. 

SABBATH AND CANOE. 

They now approached an island with low bluffs, on which appeared aconsiderable village, shining whitely amid the straight brown trunks ofa grove of pine-trees; but no people seemed moving about it, and theysaw but a single vessel at anchor in the thoroughfare or strait theysteered into--a canoe, which revealed on her bow, as they rounded tobeside 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 canoeouten. She fell like cannon, going off inter the swamp. She's a'mostfive fathom long, an' a man can lie down acrost her. She's to carry theMethodis' preachers out to the islands. "

"Hadn't we better wake _him_ up now?" said Jack Wonnell; "I 'spect youwant a drink, Levin?"

"Yes; I got a thirst on me like fire, " Levin exclaimed. "I could dosomethin' wicked now, I 'spect, for a drink of that brandy. "

Mooring against the shore, Levin went to his passenger, who was still indeep 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 beardmatted with the blood that had spilled from his disfigured eye, and nowdisguised 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 hisside, though he muttered in his stirred sleep such words as Levin couldnot understand:

"The darbies, Patty! Make haste with them darbies! Put the nippers onher wrists an' twist 'em. Ha! the mort is dying. Well, to the gardenwith her!"

At this he awoke, and turned his cold, light eyes on Levin, and leapedto his feet. 

"Did you hear me?" he cried. "It was only nums, kid, and jabber of anazy man. Some day this sleep-talk will grow my neck-weed. Don't mindme, 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 ofmy 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 onedesperate. 

"How the young jagger lushes his jockey, " the tall man muttered. "He'sin Job's dock to-day. I'll take no more. A bloody fool I was allyesterday, 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 itfur politeness. This is the camp-meetin', then? Yer, Wonnell, take thispiece 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 theseeming town was found--a deserted religious encampment of durablewooden shells, or huts, in concentric circles of horseshoe shape, and atthe open end of the circle was the preaching-stand, a shed elevatedabove the empty benches and pegs of removed benches, and which had awide shelf running across the whole front for the preacher's Bible, andto receive his thwacks as he walked up and down his platform. 

It looked a little mysterious now, with the many evidences of a largehuman occupation in the recent summer, to see this naked town and hollowpulpit lying so suggestively under the long moan of the pine-trees, conferring together like dread angels in council, and expressing atevery rising breeze their impatience with the sins of men. 

At times the great branches paused awhile, scarcely murmuring, as ifthey were brooding on some question propounded in their council, orlistening to human witnesses below; and then they would gravelyconverse, as the regular zephyrs moved in and out among them, and pauseagain, as if their decision was almost dreaded by themselves. Atintervals, a stern spirit in the pines would rise and thunder and shakethe shafts of the trees, and others would answer him, and patience wouldhave a season again. And so, with scarcely ever a silence that remainedmore 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 whenthe rainbow hung out its perennial assurance upon the storm, andtypified to trembling worshippers the great synod of the Creator, ineverlasting session, ready to smite the world with fire, but suspendingsentence in the evergreen pity of God. 

In one of the deserted shells, or "tents, " of pine, with neatly shingledroof, facing the preaching-booth, Joe Johnson and Levin Dennis foundbenches, and, at the tall man's example, Levin also lighted a pipe, andlooked out between the escapes of smoke at Tangier Sound, deserted asthis camp-ground on the Sabbath, since the worshippers had reached homefrom church in their canoes. He thought of his lonely mother in the townof Princess Anne, wondering where he was, and of the Sundays fastspeeding by and bringing him to manhood, with no change in theircondition for the better, but penury and disappointment, a vagueexpectation of the dead to return, and deeper intemperance of the deadman's son and widow's only hope. He would have cried out with a sense ofmisery contagious from the music of those pines above him, perhaps, ifthe brandy had not begun to creep along his veins and shine bold in hislarge, 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 Ican't understan'. "

"I'm dead struck with you, Levin, " Joe Johnson said. "I want to fix youan' your mother comfortable. You're blood stock, an' ought to be stabledon 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 ofthem 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 hundreddollars--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, andJimmy 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 atthem 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 thatfigger!"

"But--mother?"

"Well, when we discharge pigwidgeon, your friend with the bellshape--Jack Sheep yer--all you got to do, Levin, is to send the hardcole to your mother by him, sayin', 'Bless you, marm; my wages willexcoos my face!'"

"Oh, yes, that will do. Mother will know by the money that I have got along 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, hispulses all a-flutter between the strong brandy and the wonderful gold inhis pocket; and as he watched the veering of the pine-boughs to seewhich way they moved, their moaning seemed to be the voice of hiswidowed 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 willtake us up the Manokin with this wind by dark, ef we can get waterenough 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 gotfour 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 itwith niggers for you. Come, brace up again!"

He offered the brandy-jug, and encouraged the boy to drink heartily, andaffected to do the same himself, though it was but a feint. 

While they stood in the shelter of the camp cottage going through thispastime, a voice from near at hand resounded through the woods, and madetheir 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 coverall the camp-ground and be heard to the outermost bounds. The sincerityof the sound made Levin Dennis feel that the camp might still beinhabited by some spiritual congregation which the eyes of profanevisitors could not see--the remainder of the saints, the souls of theconverted, or an ethereal host from above the solemn organ of the pines. 

The idea had scarcely seized upon him when a fluttering of wings washeard, and on the old camp-ground alighted a flock of white wild-geese. 

They balanced their large deacon and elder-like bodies upon the emptyseats, and there set up as grave a squawking as if they were singing ahymn, with that indifferent knowledge of harmony possessed bycamp-meeting choristers. 

The accident of their coming--no unusual thing on these exposedislands--might have made untroubled people only laugh, but it producedthe contrary effect on both our visitors. Levin felt a superstitiousfear seize upon him, and, turning to Joe Johnson, he saw that personwith a face so pale that it showed his blood-gathered eye yet darker andmore hideous, like a brand upon his countenance, gazing upon the lateempty preaching-booth. 

There Levin, turning his eyes, observed a solitary man kneeling, of aplain appearance and dress, and with locks of womanly hair fallingcarelessly upon a large and almost noble forehead, his arms raised toheaven and his voice flowing out in a mellow stream of supplication, inthe intervals of which the geese could be heard quacking aloud andpaddling their wings as they balanced and hopped over the camp-meetingarena. 

"Who's he a prayin' to?" Levin asked of Joe Johnson. 

"Quemar!" muttered Johnson, as if he were terrified at something; "hispotato-trap is swallerin' ghosts! Curse on the swaddler? The kid willwhindle directly. Come, boy, come!"

At this, seizing Levin's hand, partly in persuasion, partly as if hewanted the lad's protection, Johnson, fairly trembling, ran for theboat. 

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 thepulpit cried after the retreating men, but only to increase their fears, and when they leaped on board the _Ellenora_, Joe Johnson was livid withterror. He ran partly down the companion-way and stopped to look back:the wild-geese were now spreading their wings like a fleet of fleecysails, and fluttering down the sound in gallant convoy. 

"What did you run for?" Levin said; "the jug of brandy is left. It wasonly Parson Thomas!"

"You run first, " the man replied, gasping for breath, and a littleashamed. "What did he preach at me fur?"

"That's the parson of the islands, " Levin said; "he started Deil'sIsland camp-meetin' last year, an' his favo-rite preacher dyin' jess ashe got it done, ole Pap Thomas, who lives yer, comes out to thepreachin'-stand sometimes alone, an' has a cry and a prayer. The geesescared _me_, cap'n. "

"Push off!" ordered Joe Johnson; "my teeth are most a-chatterin' withthe chill that mace cove give me. "

He pulled up the anchor, hoisted the jib, and showed such nervousapprehension that Levin subsided to managing the helm, and steered downthe thoroughfare, or strait, which, for some distance, wound around thecamp-meeting grove. 

"Yer's Jack Wonnell comin' with the jug and the dinner. Sha'n't we waitfur 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 drythoroughfare, 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'the-eee-thens yer. Br-br-brother Wonnell's bringin' your taters andpone. "

"Come on, an' be damned to you?" Johnson cried to Wonnell. "What do wewant with this tolabon sauce?"

"Sw-w-wear not a-a-at all!" cried the parson of the islands. "'Twon'tl-l-lift ye over l-l-low tide, brother. Stay an' eat, an' t-t-talk alittle 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. "OleEbenezer 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 credulouscountenance, "was the wickedest man on the Eastern Sho' for twenty year. P-pardon me, brother, fur a likin' ye to him, but somethin' in yey-y-yur, " passing his hand upon his skull, "p-puts me in mind of him. Itwas hyur he was shot"--still keeping his hand upon the skull--"throughan' through, an' died the death of the sinner. I have p-p-put myf-finger through the two holes where the b-bullet come an' went, an' ridthis w-world of a d-d-demon!"

The story appeared to have a fascination for the slave-buyer, LevinDennis thought, and Johnson exclaimed:

"Well, hod, did he ever run afoul of _you_?"

"O y-y-yes, " answered the genial island exhorter, with obligingloquacity; "it was tw-w-enty-s-seven year ago that I see ole Eben-nezerJohnson come on the camp-ground of P-p-pungoteague with a mob ofp-p-pirates to break up the f-f-fust Methodies camp-meetin' ever heldabout these sounds. He was en-c-couraged by ole King Custis, f-f-fatherof our Daniel Custis, of Prencess Anne, who was a b-b-big man fur theEstablish Church an' d-dispised the Methodies. It was a cowardly thingto do, but while King C-C-Custis laughed and talked a' durin' of thep-p-preachin', Eb-b-b-benezer Johnson started a fight. The preacherc-c-cut his eye and saw who was a w-w-winkin' at the interference. Hewas 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 theV-v-vergeenia county of Ac-c-comack, an' that if the l-l-aws was alittle more t-t-tolerant sence the Revolutionary war the ar-r-ristocracythere was b-bitter as ever towards the people of the Lord. He t-t-urnedfrom his preachin' at last, right on King Custis, an' he pinted hisf-finger at him straight. The p-preacher was L-l-lorenzo Dow. "

"Wheoo!" Jack Wonnell exclaimed, with a coinciding grin; "I've hearn ofhim: a Yankee-faced feller, like a woman, with long braids an' curls ofhair fallin' around of his breast an' back, and a ole straw hat, rain orshine. "

"That was L-l-lorenzo Dow, " the parson of the islands said. "He turnedon K-k-king Custis and screamed, 'W-who art thou? The L-lord shall smitethee, w-whited sepulchre, and m-mock thee in thy ch-h-hildren'schildren, thou A-a-a-hab and thy J-j-jezebel!' It was King Custis's wifehe 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 ofher. Then, turning on Eb-b-benezer Johnson, Lorenzo Dow cried out, 'Thedogs 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' thenthey 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-gitout a warrant for the preacher and his m-managers, on the ground off-false imprisonment and s-slander! Lorenzo Dow got over into Marylands-safe from the warrant, but our p-presiding elder was p-put in jailtill he could p-pay two thousand dollars fine. It almost beggared thepoor Methodies of that day to raise so much money, but g-glory be toG-god! we can raise it now any day in the year, and in the nextg-generation we can buy our p-persecutors. "

"So Ebenezer Johnson, accordin' to the autum bawler's patter, gotpopped in the mazzard, my brother of the surplice? But he didn't climbno 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, " theisland parson said, "and to the Lord a thousand y-years are but asd-days. "

"The tide is fuller, Levin, " Joe Johnson cried, "your keel is clear. Nowpint her for Manokin. So bingavast, my benen cove, and may you chant allby yourself when I am gone!"

"God bless the boys!" the islander cried, "an' k-keep them from thef-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 chordof natural rhetoric in his high fiddle-string of a windpipe, stoodlooking after them till they passed down the thoroughfare under thejib-sail, and Joe Johnson did not say a word till some marsh brushintervened between them, he being apparently under a remnant of thatpanic which had seized him on the camp-ground. 

"That's a good man, " Levin Dennis said, giving the tiller to JackWonnell and raising the sail; "he preached to the Britishers when theysailed from Tangiers Islands to take Baltimore, and told 'em they wouldbe beat an' their gineral killed. He's made the oystermen all round yerjine the island churches an' keep Sunday. That stutterin' leaves himwhen 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 atale! 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 thequails a-pipin' of you. Some day I'll larn it to you if you're a goodboy. "

They now sailed out of the thoroughfare into the broad mouth of theManokin, where a calm fell upon air and water for a little while, andthey could hear smothered music, as of drum-fish beneath the water, beating, "thum! thum!" and crabs and alewives rose to the surface aroundthem, chased by the tailor-fish. The cat-boat drifted into the mouth ofa creek where rock and perch were running on the top of the water, andwith the tongs Jack Wonnell raised half a bushel of oysters in a fewdips, and opened them for the party. Along the shores wild haws and wildplums still adhered to the bushes, and the stiff-branchedpersimmon-trees bore thousands of their tomato-like fruit. Thepartridges were chirping in the corn, the crow blackbirds held a funeralfeast around the fodder, some old-time bayside mansions stretched theirlong sides and speckled negro quarters along the inlets, half hidden bythe nut-trees, and in the air soared the turkey-buzzard, like avoluptuary 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 ovaboardmost anywhair an' git a full meal. You kin catch a bucket of crabs witha piece of a candle befo' breakfast, an' shoot a wild-duck mos' withyour eyes shet. "

"This country's good for nothin', " Joe Johnson said. "Floredey is theland! Wot kin a nigger earn for yer? Corn, taters, melons: faugh!Tobacco is a givin' out, cotton won't live yer. But Floredey is thehell-dorader of the yearth. "

"What's the hell-dorader?" asked Levin. 

"That's Spanish or Porteygee for cheap niggers an' cotton, " cried thetrader. "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 furniggers to pick it. Thar's a Yankee in Georgey made a cotton-gin to ginit 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 pertectedfur a-topperin' of me! But never mind, I'll be a big skull yet, an' keepmy kerrige--in Floredey. "

"What's Floredey good fur?" Levin asked. 

"It's full of nigger Injins, Simminoles, every one of 'em goin' to becaught 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 freeniggers in Delaware and up North will be sold, an' you an' me, Levin, isgwyn to own a drove of 'em an' have a orchard of oranges an' a thousandacres of cotton in bloom. We'll hold our heads up. Your mother shall beswitched to a nabob. My wife will be a shakester in diamonds. We'lldispise Cambridge an' Princess Anne, an' there sha'n't be a free niggerleft on the face of the earth. We'll swig to it!"

The sick-headed yet fancy-ridden Levin drank again, and listened to thedealer's marvellous tales of golden fruit on coasts of indigo, and palmsthat sheltered parrots calling to the wild deer. Jack Wonnell took thehelm when Levin lay down to sleep in the little cabin, still lulled bytales of wealth and lawless daring, and there he slept the deep sleepof the castaway, when the vessel grounded at dusk, in the sound ofevening church-bells, at Princess Anne. 

"Let him sleep, " Joe Johnson spoke; "yer, Wonnell, I give you tray ofhis 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 eventsonce started on their course, like eaglets scarcely taught to fly beforethey attack and kill, when the sound of carriage-wheels, arrested at thedoor, called her to the window, and Tom, the mocking-bird, which hadbeen comparatively quiet since he found his master snugly cared for, nowbegan 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 thehorses' heads, and there dropped from the carriage, without using thecarriage-step, at a leap and a skip, a young female object whose headwas invisible in an enormous coal-scuttle bonnet of figured blue chintz. However quick she executed the leap, Vesta observed that the arrival hadforgotten to put on her stockings. 

Before Vesta could turn from the window this singular object had dartedup the dark stairs of the old storehouse and thrown herself on thedelirious man's bed:

"Uncle, Uncle Meshach! air you dead, uncle? Wake up and kiss yourRhudy!"

She had kissed her uncle plentifully while awaiting the same of him, andthe attack a little excited him, without recalling his mind to anysustained remembrance, though Vesta heard the words "dear child, " beforehe turned his head and chased the wild poppies again. Then the youngfemale, ejaculating, "Lord sakes! Uncle don't know his Rhudy!" pulled her black apron overher head and had a silent cry--a little convulsion of the neck and notan audible sigh besides. 

"She weeps with some refinement, " Vesta thought; and also observed thatthe visitor was a tall, long-fingered, rather sightly girl of, probably, seventeen, with clothing the mantuamaker was guiltless of, and a hoopbonnet, such as old people continued to make in remembrance of thehigh-decked vessels which had brought the last styles to them when theirancestors emigrated with their all, and forever, from a land of _modes_. The bonnet was a remarkable object to Vesta, though she had seen somesuch at a distance, coining in upon the heads of the forest people tothe 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 alsoresembled the long, hollow, bow-shaped Conestoga wagons of which Vestahad seen so many going past her boarding-school at Ellicott's Millsbefore the late new railroad had quite reached there. As she had oftenpeered into those vast, blue-bodied wagons to see what creatures mightbe passengers in their depths, so she took the first opportunity of theblue 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 browneyes, set in the attitude of wonder the moment they observed anotherwoman 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 theface longish, and with something fine amid the wild, cow-like stare shefixed 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 upthere with her long fingers, and long, plump, weather-stained wrists. 

Vesta looked on with the first symptoms of amusement she had felt sincethe morning she and her mother laughed at the steeple-crown hat, as theylooked down from the windows of Teackle Hall upon the man already herhusband. That morning seemed a year ago; it was but yesterday. 

"Old hats and bonnets, " Vesta thought, "will be no novelties to me byand 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 andlooking 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 wouldhave 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 yourbonnet. 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 PrincessAnne; I live in Nu Ark. "

At this the girl carefully extricated her head from the Conestogascuttle, looked all over the bonnet with pride and anxiety, and thencarefully laid it on the top of her uncle's hat-box. 

"Uncle Meshach give it to me, " she said, with a sly inclination towardsthe sick bed. "Misc Somers made it. Uncle, he bought all the stuff; MiscSomers 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--sechextravagins; but Misc Somers she said Uncle Meshach was rich an' hadn'tbut one Rhudy. It ain't quite as big as Misc Somers's bonnet, but it'sdraw'd mour. "

Here Rhoda gave a repetition of what Vesta had twice before observed--aninaudible sniffle, and, being caught in it, wiped her nose on her apron. 

"Take my handkerchief, " Vesta said, "you are cold, " and passed over hercambric with a lace border. 

"What's it fur?" Rhoda asked, looking at it superstitiously. "You don'twipe your nuse on it, do you? Lord sakes! ain't it a piece of your neckfixin'?"

Vesta felt in a good humor to see this weed of nature turn thehandkerchief over and hold it by the thumb and finger, as if she mightbecome 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 alwaysforgit 'em. My nuse wipes itself. "

"Now come near the fire and warm your feet, " said Vesta; "for your ridefrom the oceanside, this cold morning, through the forests of thePocomoke, must have chilled you through. Lay off your blanket shawl. "

Rhoda laid the huge black and green shawl, that reached to her feet, onthe 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'ssech a proud place!"

She had a way of laughing, by merely indenting her cheeks, without asound, just as she expressed the sense of pain; the only differencebeing in the beaming of her eyes; and Vesta thought it had somethingcontagious in it. She would laugh broadly and in silence, as if she hadbeen put on behavior in church, and there had adopted a grimace to makethe other girls laugh and save herself the suspicion. 

As she pulled her skirts down to her feet, Vesta's observation wasconfirmed that Rhoda had no stockings on, and she could not helpexclaiming, "My dear child, what possessed you to ride this October morning onlyhalf dressed? You might catch your death. "

Rhoda caught her nose on the half sniffle, raised and dimpled her cheeksin a sly laugh, and cried, "Lord sakes! you mean my legs? Why, I ain't got but two pairs ofstockings, an' Misc Somers is a wearin' one of' em, and the ould pair'sin the wash. It's so tejus to knit stockings, and sech fun to gobarefoot, 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 laughquite aloud, and saw meantime that the young woman's oft-cobbled shoescovered a slender foot a lady might have envied. 

"Now, Rhoda, " Vesta said, almost indignantly, "why did you not ask yourwealthy uncle for some good yarn stockings?"

"Him? Why, ma'am, he's got so many pore kin, if he begin to give' em allstockings, 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 ofthem others. "

"So you are the favorite? Now, what was your uncle going to do with allhis 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, inher brief knowledge of this forest family, went through Vesta's veinsand nerves, and she silently remarked, "How little a young girl knows of men around her--what satyrs are takingher image to their arms! These people knew he loved me, when I knew notthat 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, themocking-bird, shout 'Vesty, ' and saw a lady's picture yonder betweengrandpar and grandmem, and told Misc Somers, and she says, 'Your UncleMeshach's in luve!' Oh, I was right glad of it, because he was so sadand lonesome!"

The fountain of sympathy burst up again in Vesta's heart, and she feltthat there were compensations riches and station knew not of in humblealliances like hers. 

"Rhoda, " she said, going to the young girl and putting her hand upon hersoft brown hair, "you have not noticed the new picture of a lady hangingup 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' thebrass 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 bystealth 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 hisown thoughts:

"Sweety! sweety! sweet! Vesty, see! see! see!"

Vesta felt a chain of happy thoughts arise in her mind, which sheexpressed as frankly as the girl of forest product had spoken, that shemight not retard the welcome of these homely friendships:

"Yes, Rhoda, I am thankful to find a social life open to me where thereseemed no way, and brooks and playmates where everything looked dry. Youcome here like a sunbeam, God bless you! I can hear you talk, and teachyou 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 birdseemed to teach her patience, as he suggested, hopping and flying in theair, "Come see! come see! come see!"

"Yes, " thought Vesta, "_come and see!_ It is good counsel. I begin tofeel the breaking of a new sense, --curiosity about the poor and lowly. My education seems to have closed my observation on people of my ownrace, who daily trode almost upon my skirts, and whom I never saw--whomit was considered respectable not to see--while even my colored servantsenjoyed my whole confidence because they were my slaves. Yet, inmisfortune, to these plain white people I must have dropped; and thenRoxy and Virgie, sold to some temporary rich man, would have been aboveme, slaves as they would continue! How false, how fatal, both slaveryand 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, thecloth hangings, the fairy rocker, and all the acquisitions of heruncle's abode, and Vesta again observed that she was of slender andwillowy shape and motion, unaffected in anything, not forward norexcited, and with the shrewd look so near ready wit that she could makeVesta laugh almost at will. Vesta showed her how to administer cooldrink and the sponging to the sufferer, and he saw them together with alook 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 shemarried a rich man, who biled salt and had vessels an' kept tavern. Father Hullin died of the pilmonary; mar died next. Misc Somers broughtme up whar the tavern used to be. It ain't a stand no more. UncleMeshach owns it. "

"Is it a nice place?"

"Now it ain't as nice as it use to be, Aunt Vesty"--the girl glidedeasily over what Vesta thought might be a hard word--"sence the shewsdon'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 ofher eyes. "He bruke a stone with his fist and Misc Somers kep thestone, and what do you think it was?"

"Marble?"

"No'm; chork! He jest washed the chork over with a little shell orvarnish or something, and, of course, it bruke right easy; so he wasn'tthe 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 bentlike 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 ofwindows high, and four high chimneys. The rope-walker said it was fit tobe a rueyal palace. Then thar's the kitchen an' colonnade built on toit. It's the biggest house, I reckon, about Sinepuxin. Thatrope-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'dbreak the rupe after he'd walked on it, and he said it wasn't stretchedtight enough, and went along a feeling of it; and Misc Somers found outevery 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 goingto tell him, if he comes agin, he's a mountin-bank. Lord sakes! sheain't afraid. "

"So, since it has ceased to be a tavern, dear, you see no morejugglers?"

"The last shew there, " Rhoda said, "was the canninbils and themissionary. The missionary had converted of 'em, and they didn't eat nomore; but he tuld how they used to eat people; and they stouled a ponyouten the stables an' run to the Cypress swamp, and thar they turned outto be some shingle sawyers he'd just a stained up. Misc Somers isa-waitin' for him. Lord sakes! she don't keer. "

"And so you were an orphan, brought up at the old roadside stage-houseat Newark? And who is Mrs. Somers?"

"Misc Somers, she's a ole aunt of Par Hullin. She an' me live togethersence par and mar died of the pilmonary. Oh, I have a passel of beausthat takes me over to the Oushin on Sinepuxin beach, outen the way ofthe skeeters, an' thar we wades and sails, and biles salt and roastsmammynoes. 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 withPrincess Anne. They say your uncle will be sick here several weeks, andwe can help each other to make him well. Now he is waking. "

Milburn opened his eyes and sighed, and saw them together, and Rhodaheld back considerately while the young wife approached the bed. Helooked 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, thoughshe can't love me. '"

"Uncle Meshach, give Auntie time!" cried Rhoda, with a quick divinationof 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 thepilmonary 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 havenever 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 takingthe time you would not give her, and which she means for us to improveour almost violent acquaintance. I shall be very happy sitting here, andwish you would let your niece be with me; I desire it. "

He tried to smile, though the strong sweat succeeding the fever brokeupon 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 thefever escape, gave him a feeling of drowsy relief which Vestaunderstood. 

"Now let us turn the covers under the edges, Rhoda, " she said, "and putyour 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 eyespeacefully as a child. 

"Now, Rhoda, " said Vesta, in a few minutes, "I hear papa's carriage atthe door, and, while he comes up, I shall ride back to see my mother andget 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 shewas 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 gleeand accusation. "I'm goin' to plosecute you, Jedge, fur not tellin' ofme you was a married man. My heart's bruke. "

"Who could remember what he was, Rhoda, sitting all that evening besideyou at--where was it?"

"The Blohemian glass-blowers, " Rhoda cried; "the only ones that evervisited the Western Himisfure. Jedge, " with sudden impetuosity, "thatlittle one, with the copper rings in his years, wasn't a Blohemian atall. He lived up at Cape Hinlupen, an' Misc Somers see him thar when shewas a buyin' of herring thar. She's goin' to tell him, when she catcheshim at Nu-ark. "

The young rector observed the flash of those bright eyes following thepleasing dimples, and the slips of orthography seemed to him never lessculpable coming from such lips and teeth. 

"William, " said Vesta, "come around this afternoon, and let us have ourusual Sunday reading-circle. Mr. Milburn will be awake and appreciateit, as he is one of your most regular parishioners. Rhoda, you canread?"

"Oh, yes'm. Misc Somers, she's a good reader. She reads the OldTestamins. The names thar is mos' too long for me, but I reads thePsalms an' the Ploverbs right well. "

"Very well, then, we will read verse about, so that Mr. Milburn can hearboth 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 aminister 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 itall, unless you was a speretual merikle. Misc Somers see one of 'em atJinkotig. They called him the enfant phrenomeny. He exhorted at fiveyear old, and at seven give his experyins. "

"Rare, Miss Rhoda, " the rector said, hardly able to keep his reverencein amusement at her impetuosity. 

"Oh, he made a wild excitemins, Aunt Vesty. The women give each othertheir babies to hold while they tuk turns a-shouting. 'Yer, Becky, holdmy 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' emout. But, Aunt Vesty, that little phrenomeny was a dwarf, twenty yearold, 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 awell-modelled nose and a dimpling that argued to Vesta something tocome. "Misc Somers says you held one of them babies, Jedge, to let itsmother shout, and pretended to be under a conviction; an' that youbackslid right thar and was a-whisperin' to the other mother. Lordsakes! Misc Somers finds it all out. "

"Well, " said the Judge, finding the laugh against him, "I never didbetter electioneering than that day. By holding that baby five minutes Imade a vote, and the mother will hold it twenty years before she willmake 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 theother. 'Oh, ' she says, 'he's sly and safe when he gits over yer on theWorcester side. ' Misc Somers, she's dreadful plain. "

William Tilghman, during the continuation of this colloquy, looked withinterest on the two young ladies: Vesta, the elder by two or threeyears, and richly endowed with the lights of both beauty andaccomplishments; the maid from the ocean side, plainer, and with noornament within or without; but he could foresee, under Vesta'sfostering, a graceful woman, with coquetry and fascination not whollylatent there; and, as his eyes met Rhoda's, he interpreted the look thatat a certain time of life almost every maiden casts on meeting a youngman--"Is he single?" She shot this look so archly, yet so strong, thatthe arrow wounded him a very little as it glanced off. He smiled, butthe 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 atomb against him, began to come forth like a glow-worm and wink its lampathwart the dark. 

"She must come to Sunday-school, " he thought, "if she stays in PrincessAnne. 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 waswell since the strange lady, who had been so quiet all the morning, wasgone. 

"That bird almost speaks, " said William Tilghman; "I have spent many anhour teaching them, but never could make one talk like that. "

"Maybe you had too much to teach to it, " Rhoda Holland said; "it ain'toften 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 reckonthe bird got mad and lonesome, and jest hooted words at him. "

"What is it saying now?" Tilghman asked. "See! it is almost convulsivein its attempts to say something. "

The gray bird, as impressive as a poor poet, seemed nearly in a state ofepilepsy to bring up some burden of oppressive sound, and, as theywatched it, almost tipsy with the intoxicant of speech, fluttering, driving, and striking in the air, it suddenly brought out a note liquidas 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 faggedface, for good resolution and yesterday's unbracing had left himsomewhat limp and haggard still. "He brings out 'love' as if he had madea vow against it, but the confession had to come. Many a monk would singthe same if instinct could find a daring word in his chorals. Thesemockers of Maryland were celebrated in the British magazines a hundredyears 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-birdssurpass them as one of our Eastern Shore clippers outsails all the navalpowers of Europe. "

"I've hearn 'The British Nightingale, '" Rhoda said, with a flash of hereyes; "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 ofhim 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 wasgin in that glass, and told about it. "

Rhoda made even the minister laugh, as she indented her cheeks and casta sheep's glance at him and the Judge. He marvelled that such forestEnglish could be resented so little by his mind, but he thought, "Never mind, she may have had no more lessons than the bird, whosedifficulty is even beautiful. But see! Mr. Milburn is wide awake. Myfriend, how do you feel?"

"Better, better!" murmured Milburn. "I cannot lie here any more. Thereis money, _money_, gentlemen, dependent on my getting about. "

He started up with the greatest resolution and confidence, and fell uponhis head before he had left the coverlets. 

"No, no!" said the Judge, as he and Tilghman picked Milburn up andarranged him as before. "Your will is matched this time, my braveson-in-law! You are back in the hut you have consumed, among the firesthereof, and the avenging blast of Nassawongo furnace burns in yourveins and cools you in the mill-pond alternately. Lie there and repentfor the injury you have done a spotless one!"

If Meshach heard this it was never known, but the unconscious orimpulsive utterance strengthened the impression with Tilghman and Rhodathat Vesta's marriage was not altogether voluntary, and produced on botha feeling of deeper sympathy and respect for her. 

"Judge, " the young minister said, "do good for evil, if evil there hasbeen! I have given him my hand sincerely; perhaps you can relieve hismind of some business care. "

"Mr. Milburn, " the Judge said, when he saw the resinous eyes rolltowards him again out of that swarthy face, now pale with weakness, "Iam 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'seyes, and he pressed his head between his wrists, as if to bring backthe 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 youwill lie till nature does her restoration, assisted by this medicine Ihave brought you. You must undergo calomel, and this quinine must set onits work of several weeks to break up the regularity of these chills. Inthe 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. Helooked at all three of the observers, and said to Tilghman, "William, Imight send you but for your calling; leave me with the Judge a littlewhile, 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 inhis 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 Somerssays King Solomons was no better than a lily outen the pond, and said sohimself. "

The young man, sincere as his humility was, blushed a little at the ideaof walking through his native town with that bonnet at his side, hebeing of one of the self-conscious, high-viewing families of the oldpeninsula--his grand-uncle the staff-officer of Washington, andmessenger from Yorktown to Congress with the news, "Cornwallis hasfallen;" but it was his chivalric sense, and not his piety, whichimmediately dispelled the last touch of coxcombry, when he felt that alady had requested him. 

"With happiness, Miss Holland;" and he did not feel one shrinkingthought again as he ran the gantlet of the idle fellows of the town, many of them his former vagrant playmates. Rhoda was perfectly happy. Hewould have taken her to his grandmother's, with whom he kept house, butthat aristocratic old dowager might say something, he considered, todestroy Rhoda's confidence in her elegant appearance and easyvocabulary; and they walked past Teackle Hall, where Vesta saw them, andopened the door and made them come in and eat a little. Rhoda at firstshowed some uneasiness under this great pile of habitation, but Vestawas so natural and gracious that the shyness wore off, and, at a fittingmoment, the bride said:

"Rhoda, my dear, there is a bonnet up-stairs I expect to wear thiswinter, and I want to try it on you, whom I think it will particularlybecome. "

Rhoda's quiet eyes flashed as she saw the new article and heard Vestapraise it, upon her head. The old bonnet had received a cruel blow, inspite of Mrs. Somers. 

Tilghman, too, accused himself that he felt a little relieved when heescorted Rhoda back to Meshach's in another bonnet, and Vesta followed, with her great shaggy dog, Turk; she not unconscious--though serene andthoughtfully polite to all she knew--of people peering at her in wonderand excitement from every door and window of the town. The news wasworking in every household, from the servants in the kitchens to theaged people helped to their food with bib and spoon, that the fameddaughter of Daniel Custis was the prize of the junk dealer and usurerin "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 upin bed, and nothing was visible that would support his pillow but theaged 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 newties I have formed; to the mutual interest my wife and I have in makingup your losses on Nassawongo furnace, which we are all the poorer by tothat amount; and to a suitor whose cause I have taken up. I have boughtan 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 Iam 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 mighthave been confederated in things valuable to ourselves and to our timeand place. But that is past, and you do not possess my confidence as mylegal agent, my attorney. I wish you to get another advocate for me. "

"I am willing to be useful, even without your compliments, " the Judgesaid, remembering his Christian resolution. "We will not quarrel, if Ican serve you. "

"I do not wish to hurt your feelings, but my strength is not greatenough for unmeaning flattery. This marriage was so dear to my heartthat I have put it before a very large interest about which I have notime to lose, and still am helpless upon this bed. I will trust you todo my errand. Go to that chest, Judge Custis, and you will find apackage 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 wrappedin herbs, ascended into his nose, and he saw some faded clothes, asthose of poor people deceased, male and female, lying within. Themocking-bird piped a noisy warning as he raised the lid of the till andsaw 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 letTom fly out. He starts my nerves. Wh-oo-t, whi-it, Tom!"

The mocking-bird, spreading its wings and tail, and striking obstinatelytowards its master a minute, as he whistled, flew out of the window andsettled in the old willow below, and had a Sunday-afternoon concert, calling the passing dogs by name, whistling to them, and deceiving catsand chickens with invitations they familiarly heard, to eat, to shoo, toscat, 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 hisfather-in-law. 

"The papers will be plain to you, Judge Custis, after I have made a fewwords of explanation. You well know that the canal between the Delawareand Chesapeake is finished, and vessels are now passing through it frombay to bay. It is taking one hundred dollars a day tolls, and twentyvessels already go past between sun and sun, though the size of theshipping of the cities it connects has not yet been adapted to itsproportions. It has been a cheap and quick work, costing something abovetwo millions of dollars, taking only five years of time; and yet it hasbegun its mercantile life by a cheat upon a man to whom it is indebtedas a promoter and contractor, and to whom I have advanced the means tocompel justice and damages. "

"Well, well, Milburn; I must pay tribute to your enterprise. The era ofthese great carrying corporations has barely begun, and you stake yourlittle fortune against one of them that is backed by the great city ofPhiladelphia!"

"The canal passes through the state of Delaware, in which is threequarters of its little length of only fourteen miles, and there a suitwill be free, to some extent, from the corruptions they might exercisein Pennsylvania; and, if successful there, we can more easily attach thetolls of the canal. I have no more faith in the Legislature of Delawarethan of any other state; kidnappers sit in its responsible seats, and itlicenses lotteries to make prizes of its own honor. But we shall try ourcase before a simple jury, which will be flax in the hands of one lawyerin that state, if we can secure him; but hitherto he has refused mycontractor, 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, andpossesses a remarkable power over the agricultural and mixed races ofthat small state, whom he thoroughly understands by sympathy andacquaintance. I heard him once in court, at Georgetown, wither andconfound the confederated kidnapping influences of the whole peninsula, and, against the will and intention of the jury, prevail upon theirfears and sensibilities to find a bold rogue guilty of stealing freemen; of color--a rogue who was in this room, unless it is a delusion ofmy fever, this very day, and with whom I fancied I had been in collisionsomewhere. "

"You only knocked him down with a brick, after Samson had done it withhis fist, and then the fellow came to me for shelter, afraid you wouldpursue him at law, and I suppose he did an errand for my servants tothis abode. "

The Judge looked around upon the abode as if he had used the mostrespectable 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; forreasons of timidity, or doubts of success, or politicalambition--something I cannot fathom--Mr. Clayton will not hearken to mydebtor, and I have not disclosed my own interest in the suit. He is athome from Washington, and an appointment has been made with him at hisoffice in Dover to-morrow. You see I am unable to keep it, and I have noone else to send, and information reaches me that the canal company, discovering my money in the contractor's bank account, intends to retainClayton forthwith. If you set out this afternoon, you can reachLaureltown for bedtime. It is at least forty miles thence to Dover, andyou might ride it to-morrow by noon, with push, and in that case youhave a chance to beat the Philadelphia emissary several hours. I havefive thousand dollars at stake already; I believe I shall get damages offorty times five if I can retain that man. "

"I am ready to start at once, " said the Judge, rising up; "I can readthese papers on the way. The saddle was my cradle, and I have a goodhorse. My valise can follow me on the stage to-morrow. "

"Unless you see the best reasons for it, my name is not to be mentionedto 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 thedoor-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 bridgebehind the store, or strayed a little way up the Manokin brook, hearingthe mocking-bird rend his breast in all the ventriloquy of genius. 

"Virgie, " said Samson Hat, meeting them under the willow-tree, "when Icarries you off and marries you, I s'pect you'll be climbin' up in myloft, too, makin' it comf'able fo' me. "

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you old, black, impertinentservant of darkness!" Virgie said. "Indeed, when I look at a man, hemust 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. Hecomes to see her every day. He's devotion itself. Indeed, Samson, if youare going to marry me, and Roxy marry all those bell-crown hats, weshall 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 thesteeple-hat and you that cleans it, and the people will be so gladthey'll set me free and I can go North. "

"Look out, Virgie; I'll put dat high-crown hat on you like MarsterMilburn put de bell on de buzzard. He went up to dat buzzard one daywid a little tea-bell in his hand an' says, 'Buzzard, how do ye likemusic?' Says de buzzard, tickled wid de compliment, 'I'm so larnid indat 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 dislittle bell will be very pleasin' to yo' refine taste. ' Wid dat he takesa 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 belltinkled, an' all de other buzzards hear some'in' like de cowbell on dedead 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 atalent he didn't have, and it made everybody oncomfitable. "

"I've heard about Meshach belling a buzzard, " said Roxy, "but they sayhe's got something on his foot, too, like a hoof--a clove foot. Did youever 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; itdraws white men and black men, like quare music in de air, but it makesde pale gal lonesome. She can't marry ary white man; she despises blackones. "

The shrewd lover had touched a chord of young pain in the hearts of boththose delicate quadroons. Both were so nearly white that the slightcorruption increased their beauty, rounded their graceful limbs, plumpened their willowy figures, gave a softness like mild night totheir expressive eyes, and blackened the silken tassels of their elegantlong hair. No tutor had taught them how to walk, --they who moved onhealth like skylarks on the air. Faithful, pure-minded, modest, natural, they were still slaves, and their place in matrimony, which naturewould have set among the worthiest--superior in love, superior inmaternity, superior in length of days and enjoyment--was, by the freakof man's _caste_, as doubtful as the mermaid's. 

Roxy was a little the shorter and fuller of shape, the milder and morepathetic; in Virgie the white race had left its leaner lines and greaterunrelenting. She said to Samson, with the pique her reflectionsinspired, "I never thought the first man to make love to me would be as black asyou. "

"De white corn years, " says Samson, "de rale sugar-corn, de blackbirdgits. None of dem white gulls and pigeons gits dat corn. A white fellerwouldn't suit you, Virgie. "

"Why?" says Roxy, "Virgie was raised among white children; so was I. Wedidn't know any difference till we grew up. "

"Dat was what spiled ye, " Samson said; "de colored man is de besthusban'. He ain't thinkin' 'bout business while he makin' love, likeMarster 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' afool 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 donothin' 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 spokeup. "I never thought about him except as a friend. I know I sha'n't lookdown on him because he likes a yellow girl, for then I would be lookingdown on myself. "

"Virgie, " said Samson, "I reckon I'm a little ole, but you kin't fineout whar it is. Ye ought to seen me fetch dat white hickory of a fellerin de eye yisterday, and he jest outen his teens. I know it's a kine ofimpedent to be a courtin' of you, Virgie, dat's purtier dan Miss Vestyherself--"

"Nobody can be as pretty as Miss Vesta, " Virgie cried, delighted withthe compliment; "she's perfection. "

"As I was gwyn to say, " dryly added Samson, "I never just knowed what Iwas a lettin' Marster Milburn keep my wages fur, till he married MissVesty, and then I sot my eyes on Miss Vesty's friend an' maid, and Isays, 'Gracious goodness! dat's de loveliest gal in de world. I'll gitmy money and buy her and set her free, and maybe she'll hab me, ole as Iam. '"

"She will, too, Samson, if you do that, I believe, " Roxy cried; "see howshe's a-smiling and coloring about it. "

Virgie's throat was sending up its tremors to her long-lashed eyes, anda wild, speculative something throbbed in her slender wrists and beat inthe little jacket that was moulded to her swelling form: the first sightof freedom in the wild doe--freedom, and a mate. 

"My soul!" Roxy added, "if poor Mr. Wonnell could set me free, I think Imight 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 itfree. "

She turned away, but the negro had been a wise lover, and his pleapierced home, and it struck the Caucasian fatherhood of the brightquadroon. 

"Freedom is mos' all I got, " the negro continued; "it's wuth everythingbut 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'mafeard 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 littlereading-circle assembled, without his patronage, over the old store, andthe young minister directed it. In the warm afternoon the windows wereraised till Milburn's chill began to set in again, and they could hearthe mocking-bird, in his tree, tantalizing the great shaggy dog Turk bywhistling 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 windowsof the store, and finally he seemed to think the spot was haunted, orunreliable 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 keepinghis mistress captive. Turk was a setter with mastiff mixing, worth alittle for the hunt and more for the watch, but as an ornament andfriend worth more than all; he was so impartial in his favors as to likeAunt Hominy and Vesta about equally, and often slept in the kitchenbefore 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 littleribbon-backed bristol card, inscribed in Vesta's childhood by herlearning fingers, "Watch with me. " He thought of his cousin, nowfluttering between her betrayal to this Pilate and her crucifixion, andcaught her eyes looking at the Bible-marker, as if saying to him and tothe forest maiden, "Watch with me. "

Tilghman started the reading, Vesta followed, and Rhoda had to do herpart, also; but she required to labor hard to keep up, as the chapterwas in the Acts, descriptive of Paul's voyage towards Rome, and hadplenty of hard words and geography in it. At one verse, Rhoda's readingwas 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 dogcouldn't spell that; it looks like Snyder spelled by his hiredman--against Cnidus--the--wind--not--snuffers--no, snuffering (hereRhoda executed the double sniffle)--yes, didn't I say snuffering? I meansuffering--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 underCrete over against Salmone; and, hardly passing it, came unto a placewhich is called the Fair Havens, nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea. '"

"Lord sakes!" exclaimed Rhoda, putting out her crescent foot, on whichwas 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 forsailors finding a good port in trouble. "

"Thar ain't no good port out thar on the Oushin side now but Monroe'sInlet, outen Jinkotig. The rest of 'em gits filled up, an' kadgin's theon'y way to kadge through of 'em, Misc Somers says. "

"She means warping, or pulling over a shoal inlet by a rope to ananchor, as the water lifts the vessel. "

"Yes, you know, Mr. Tilghman, " Rhoda cried, delighted; "that'skadgin'--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 gitthe 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' themaboard 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 kedgehome, to warp over the bars of life, and Hope, in ever so little ananchor, helps a little, if we do not lose the line. Little hopes areoften better than great ones, for o'er-great hopes swamp little vessels. Even hope must be artfully shaped and skilfully dropped to take hold ofthe unseen bottoms of opportunity. All of us have entertained burdensomehopes, heavy anchors, and they would not hold us against the breakers;but there may be little hopes, carried in advance of us, that will drawus into pleasant sounds and bays. "

"We owe to you, Rhoda, this comforting hope, " said Vesta, "and, whileyou 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 aroundon Sunday afternoon to see the principals in the surprising marriagethey 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 andcoming. I want you to feel free as ever, though my wife at last. I didnot seek you to cloud your morning, but to share your sunshine. Go toTeackle Hall, and there I will come when I am stronger. At no time do Iever 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 drewback, 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 herthe losses Judge Custis has named to me as her portion in Nassawongofurnace. The amount is in this check, which I give you, although it isSunday, because it represents no business among any of us, but an act ofpeace. "

"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, tryingto smile; "be you my anchor out in calm water, and I will try to draw toyou some day. It is not the price I pay that troubles me; it is theprice you are paying. "

"I am deeply interested in you, " Vesta said; "if I should say more thanthat, 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 mybird come in, and then shut the window, to keep the night-hawks and owlsfrom finding him. "

He managed, between his rising paroxysms of the chill, to whistle a noteor two, and Tom flew in the window and fluttered viciously around hishead, as if to be revenged for exile, and then, leaping on the oldhat-box, set up a show performance, in which were all the menagerie oftown and field, and, stopping a little while to hear the bird sing hername again, Vesta and her friends withdrew. 

Mrs. Custis was found in her bedroom, much improved in spirits, buthighly 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 hermother warmly. "He has sent you a check for all your lost money, and hislove, 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 nota gentleman now?"

Mrs. Custis eagerly took the check. 

"Do you believe it is good, precious? Maybe he sent it to deceive mewhile he could take advantage of your gratitude. Oh, these foresters aredevils! I wish I had the money for it. "

"It is good for everything he has, mamma. Not to pay it would make him abankrupt. He gave it to me almost with gallantry. Indeed, he is the mostsingular man I ever knew. "

"That is the case with all pirates, " said Mrs. Custis; "something inthe female nature attracts us to lawless men, who take what theywant--ourselves included. We were, I suppose, originally, just seizedand appropriated, and are looking out for the appropriator to this day. But you, Vesta, with the Baltimore blood in you, do not expect to playthe Sabine bride tamely like that--to defend your spoiler and reconcilehim 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; theyhad else no popularity in the scamp court of Charley-over-the-water. Hethought the daughter of any gentleman in his following was made for hismistress, and a large percentage of the said damsels thought he wasright. "

"Mr. Milburn is no Cavalier, I can see that, " Vesta said; "I amattracted to him by elements of such strength and simplicity that Ifancy he is a Puritan. "

"Puritan fiddlestick!" Mrs. Custis said, putting Milburn's check in herbosom and pinning it in there, and looking vigilantly at the pinafterwards. "Now, my great comfort, my only McLane! do not idealize thisforester as of any beginning whatsoever. It is all wrong. Thousands ofconvicts were exported to Chesapeake Bay from the slums of London, Bristol, Glasgow, and other places, and propagated here like thepokeweed. With instincts of larceny, and, possibly, a little rebellionin it, your man has robbed this house of your person; if he should alsotake 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 largeamount your husband has misspent--not one who could do it but at asacrifice you would not permit. For you and papa, to restore your faithin each other, I married our stranger creditor, forcing him to the altarrather than he me; and he has already proved himself of more delicacythan you, if I am to believe you are in your right mind. No, I am noMcLane. "

"You are not, if you do not use their Scotch-Irish perseverance to getthe better of Meshach Milburn. You have obtained a marriage settlementwith him, now have it confirmed, and sue out your divorce before theLegislature! Publicly as you have been profaned, ask the State ofMaryland for reparation. The McLanes, the Custises, and all theirconnections, from the Christine River to the James, will stormAnnapolis, make your cause, if necessary, a political issue, and thecourts of this county will give you damages out of this beast'sunpopular wealth. "

Vesta looked at her mother with astonishment. 

"What would become of my self-respect, my maiden name, if I made thatshow of my private griefs, mother?"

"Why, you would be a heroine. Every old lover, of whom there are so manyeligible ones, would feel his zeal return. A romance would attend yourname wherever the Baltimore newspapers are taken, and you would be asgreat 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 aslovely as you! If Jerome had seen you--you were not born, then, and Iwas in society--he would never have looked at Betty. But, you see, sheforced a settlement out of the Emperor, husbanded the income of it, andshe is rich, and freer to-day than if she had become a FrenchBonaparte. "

"Weak as they may be in many things, I am a Custis, " Vesta spoke, withpale scorn. "I would not drag my name through the tobacco-stainedlobbies 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 hiswife, I would not take back to my dying day, unless he first denied hisword. I believe there is such a thing as honor yet. Mother, you fret myfather by such principles. "

"They are the principles of your uncle, Allan McLane. "

"A man I shrink from, " Vesta said, "although he is your brother. Hisunfeeling respectability, his unchangeableness, his want of everyimpulse but hate, his appropriation of our family honor, as if he wasour lawgiver and high-sheriff, his secretiveness, formal religion, andmysterious prosperity, I do not appreciate, much as I have tried to becharitable to him. I do not like Baltimore as I do the Eastern Shore; itis 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 youruncle 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 andanother at her check; "it requires a microscope to find it. The nextthing 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, soacrimonious, affected her with a sense of gross ingratitude, and with agreater disappointment--she had failed to restore joy to her parents byher desperate sacrifice. 

She began to feel that she might have done wrong. The broad sight of heract, looking back upon it from this momentary revulsion, seemed afrightful flood, like the mouth of one of the little Eastern Shorerivers that expands to a gulf in the progress of a brook. Last night shesaw in an instant the misunderstandings and ruin she could prevent byher ready decision; now she saw the misunderstandings she never couldcorrect, the prejudices stronger than parental sympathy, the wideseparation her marriage had effected between two classes of her duty--tothink with her husband's affection and her mother's interests at thesame time. 

It also occurred to her that her father, the darling of her thought, hadseemed slow to appreciate her marriage sacrifice, and was testy at herwillingness to loosen her heart with her vestal zone towards herhusband. 

The whole day had passed with such relief, such satisfaction, that sheexpected to end it in the tranquillity of Teackle Hall, like some youngeagle 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, Vestahad found worldliness, resentment, intrigue, and aspersion, concludingwith a reference to the one object she feared and shrank from--the hatof dark entail, the shadow upon her future life. Her eyes filled up, shelisped 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 filledthe room. In a moment Virgie entered, alert to her playmate's pains, andthrew her arms around her mistress and kissed her like a child. 

"Oh, missy, " she spoke to Mrs. Custis, "to make her cry after what shehas 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 herparched breast despite the quadroon taint as the golden sand in thebrooks of Africa, giving at once wealth and cooling. The slave girl'slong white arms, scarcely less pale than ivory--for she had slipped inat the sign of sorrow, while making her simple toilet--drew Vesta intoher lap and laid her head upon the fair maiden shoulder, as if it was ababe's. On such a shoulder, only a shadow darker, Vesta had often lainin infancy, and sucked the milk that was sweet as Eve's--the commonfount of white and black--at the breast of Virgie's mother. Thatfaithful nurse was gone; the wild plum-tree grew upon her grave; butVirgie inherited the motherly instinct and added the sisterly sympathy, and her rich hair, half unbound, streamed down on Vesta's temples amongthe dark ringlets there, while she looked into her own spirit for a wordto check those tears, and found it:

"People will say you have been crying, dear missy. The Lord knows youdid 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 trembledon 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 thatseemed to be reflected on their long, silken lashes, bore out a spirittamed by servitude, which still could kindle to everything thatconcerned woman in her birthright. 

Vesta kissed Virgie, and ceased to sob; she rose and kissed her motheralso. 

"It was very wrong in me to say what I did not wish to say, about UncleAllan, mamma. I hope papa was kind to you to-day. "

"Dear me!" Mrs. Custis cried; "everything is turned upside down by thatbog iron ore. A new element has come into the family to disturb it. Nobody believes anything respectable any more. Your father is aninfidel, or a radical, or something perverse; you are defending thosewild foresters! What will become of the Christian religion and societyand good principles?"

"What did papa say before he left home?"

"He acted in the strangest manner, Vesta. He came right in and kissedme, like a great booby, and sat down and wanted to talk about ourcourting days. I thought at first he was drunk again, or that theMethodists had got hold of him and fed him on camp-meeting straw. How doyou 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 andaffection! If we could all humble our hearts, it would be so easy tostart life better, and turn this accident to joy and comfort. I havefound new engagements and reliefs already. There is a young girl, Mr. Milburn's niece, whom I shall bring home this evening and occupy myselfteaching her. She is an orphan, without a mother's knowledge, barelyable 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 hasbeen here all this day, and you have scarcely given her an hour. Betweenthis fatal marriage and your neglect, she left, with her husband, positively pale with horror. I do not know what is to follow thismarriage. I have posted a letter already to my brother Allan, tellinghim of your betrayal by your father and this bridegroom. All ourconnection will be up in arms. "

Vesta's heart sank again, but she felt no fears of her husband's abilityto meet mere family opposition, secured by law and form in his rights. She only feared hostility might rouse in him severity and defiance whichwould neutralize her present influence upon him, and change hisaccommodating, 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 adventurousexcursion into the forest where her husband grew--the hat that hadcovered his head!

Her mother's thoughtless mention of that object made it formidable toher fears as some iron mask locked round her husband's countenance, making day hideous and the world a dungeon to all who must walk withhim. 

She discerned that his combative spirit would start to the defence ofhis hat if it should become the subject of family rancor, because no manforgives an insult to his personal appearance; and this article of wearhad ringed his brain with gangrene, and war made upon it would be met bywar, while Vesta had expected to induce forgetfulness of the rusty oldtile, to charm away the remembrance of it, and to have it laid foreveraside. 

"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 tosubmit to any trespass. I warn you, mamma, to put my uncle at nodisadvantage; for my husband has already beaten papa, and he will smileat your brother when he knows that I do not support any of hispretensions. "

"The first thing, " answered Mrs. Custis, stubbornly, "is to see that hepays this check. Oh, my dear money!"--she pressed it to her heart--"howdelightful it is to see you again. Science, love, glory, ideas: howvulgar they are without money. With this check paid, I think I shallnever read a book again; and as for the bog ores, why, I shall scream ifthere is an iron article in the house. Vesta, this house, I believe, isyours now? I had forgotten. Well, no wonder you defend the man who tookyour 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 andyou may require the whole house. I am too well-bred to be converted toany 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 talkof dear papa. I know he loves you. "

"It is too late, " Mrs. Custis remarked, solemnly, with another fondlingof her check; "he has neglected me too long. I expect his attention andrespect, and that he shall behave himself; but no lovey and no honey forme 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 keepupstarts at arm's-length, to enjoy my life in its appointed circle, taking care of my income, and never--no, never!--giving any human beingthe opportunity to make me a beggar again. "

"Oh, mamma, " Vesta said, "think of Judge Custis! Have you not made homecold to him by this formalism? We must study men, and please themaccording to their tastes, and therein lies our joy; else we are falseto the companionship God gave us to man for. Yield to your husband'sboyish-heartedness; fly with him, like the mate by the bird! He hasrepented; welcome him to your love again, and stay his feet from truantgoing, or he may dash down the precipice this sorrow has arrested himbefore, of everlasting dissipation and the death of his noble soul!"

Vesta stood above her mother, deeply moved, deeply earnest. Her motherstole 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 Iwould marry a business man, and let the aristocracy go. There is thesecond knock at the front-door. I believe I will dress myself and godown-stairs too. "

There were two ladies in the parlor when Vesta went there--GrandmotherTilghman and the Widow Dennis. 

"Good-evening, Vesta, " said the old lady, who was stone-blind, buteasily knew Vesta's footstep. "William thought you would not go toevening service on account of Mr. Milburn's illness, so I came around tosit till church was over, when he will take me home. But what is that Ihear in this parlor, like somebody sniffling?"

"It's me, Aunt Vesty, " said the voice of Rhoda Holland from thebackground. 

"This is Mr. Milburn's niece, who has come here to stay with me, " Vestasaid. 

"Ah! then it is no Custis. The last sniffle I heard was at the ball toLafayette in the spring of 1781. The marquis had marched from Head ofElk to the Bald Friars' ferry up the Susquehanna and inland among thehills to Baltimore, and we gave him a ball which, at his request, wasturned into a clothing-party. He snuffed so much that he kept up asniffle all the evening, like--"

Here Rhoda's sniffle was heard again. 

"Yes, that's a good imitation, " said Grandmother Tilghman, "but I don'tlike it. "

"Did the gineral dance at the ball?" asked Rhoda. "What did he do withhis swurd? Did he dance with it outen his scibburd?"

"He danced like a gentleman, " Mrs. Tilghman replied, as if she wouldrather 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 sniffleyet?"

"I don't recollect, grand-aunt. I was a little girl, and so muchflattered 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 ofage; "you danced before Lafayette with my grandson Bill. Bill hardlyremembers Lafayette at all, thinking of you that night, so wonderful inyour girl's charms. I told him Vesta would never marry him, as he wastoo 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 thoughtyou would marry _that_! But Bill is as dear a fool as ever. He says nowthat Meshach Milburn is a good man, too. I never thought he was abovea--"

Rhoda sniffled earnestly. 

"Precisely that, " exclaimed the old lady; "that was my estimate of thestock. Bill says he is a financial genius. I don't see what is to becomeof girls in this generation. Here is Ellenora, too good to marryPhoebus, the sailor man, too poor to marry anybody else; now, ifMilburn had married her and taken her son Levin into his business, itwould 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 ityet. "

"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 Rivera-crossin' to 'Napolis. He was a-swarin' at the cappen of the piriaugerand a dammin' of the Eas'n Shu, and he said they wan't no good rudes inMarylan' nohow; that the Wes'n Shu was all red mud, an' the Eas'n Shuyaller mud, an' the bay was jus' pizen. Misc Somers say she don't thinkit was Gineral Washin'ton, caze he cuss so. She goin' to find out whenshe kin git a book an' somebody to read outen it to her, caze shedreffle smart. "

"Grand-aunt Tilghman, " Vesta interposed to the blank silence of theroom, "knew General Washington intimately. "

"Do tell us!" cried Rhoda. "You kin be a right interestin' ole woman, Ireckon, ef you air so quar. "

In the midst of a smile, in which the blind old lady herself joined, andMrs. Custis at the same time entered the room, Mrs. Tilghman spoke asfollows:

"I went to visit Cousin Martha Washington several years before theRevolution, at Mount Vernon. I had seen her while she was the widow ofCousin Custis, and we occasionally corresponded. In those days wevisited by vessel, so a schooner of Robert Morris's father set me ashoreat Mount Vernon. Colonel Washington was then having his first portraitpainted by Wilson Peale, and he was forty years old. Peale andWashington used to pitch the bar, play quoits, and fox-hunt, whileCousin Martha, who was only three months younger than the colonel, knitted and cut out sewing for her colored girls, and heard herdaughter, Martha Custis, play the harpsichord. Poor Martha had theconsumption; she was dark as an Indian; Washington often carried heralong the piazza and into the beautiful woodlands near the house; butshe died, leaving him all her money--nearly twenty thousand dollars. WeCustises rather looked down on Colonel Washington in those days; he wasnot of the old gentry; his poor mother could barely read and write, andonce, when we went to Fredericksburg to see her, she was riding out inthe field among her few negroes as her own overseer, wearing an oldsun-bonnet, and sunburned like a forester. "

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Custis. "I should think she was a greatimpediment to Washington. "

"I reckon that's the way her son got big, " exclaimed Rhoda; "if his marhad laid down in bed all day, he couldn't have killed King George soeasy with his swurd. "

"I often said to Cousin Martha, 'What did you see in this big horse of aman?' 'Oh, ' she replied, 'he's the best overseer in Virginia. He looksafter my property as no other man could. '"

"Then, " said Mrs. Custis, emphatically, "he was one man out of athousand. "

"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 RhodaHolland. "Lord sakes! I should think it would make 'em cold. "

"I wonder if men are ever great?" asked Vesta; "or whether it is notgreat occasion and trial that project them. A crisis comes in our lives, and, finding what we can endure, we incur greater risks, and finallydelight in such adventure. "

"That is the way with my poor boy, Levin, " said Mrs. Dennis, quietly, toVesta. 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 hasgone off in his boat, and I have been worried about him all day. Sometime, I am afraid, he will go and never return. Oh, Cousin Vesta, thiswaiting for a husband neither alive nor dead is very trying. "

Overhearing the remark, Mrs. Custis remarked, "Norah, you ought to beashamed to keep that faithful fellow waiting on you, when you could giveyourself 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. OdenDennis is probably dead; if not dead, he does not mean to return, for Ican think of no circumstances in this age which would forcibly detain aman from his wife fifteen years. Even if he was in a prison, he would beallowed to write to you. He may not be dead, Norah, but he is not comingback. Get a father for your son; you cannot manage Levin. "

"Maybe he has been stoled by Injins, " exclaimed Rhoda, with greatfervor; "thar was a Injin captive in a shew at Nu-ark, that had beenkept nineteen years. He forgot his language, and whooped dreffle. MiscSomers say he was an imploster, an' worked on the Brekwater up toLewistown. 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 widowthirty years. I never gave up the expectation of marrying again till Ilost my eyesight; and even after that, at sixty-five, I had an offer ofmarriage; but I said to my gallant old beau, 'I will not take a man Icannot 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, allthe life worth living is domestic joy. Do not lose it, Ellenora; do notput it off too long!"

"I could love Mr. Phoebus, plain as he is, " the widow spoke, "if Icould persuade myself that Oden is dead. But that I cannot do. A realperson--spirit or man--is watching over me closely. My very shoes I wearto-night came from that mysterious agent. It is not my son; it is notJames Phoebus. No other stranger would so secretly assist me. I ambound up in the fear and wonder that it is my husband. "

"That does beat conjecture, " said old Mrs. Tilghman. "Have you no friendyou might suspect?"

"None, " the widow answered. "None who have not worn out their means ofgiving long ago. Can I marry, with this ghostly visitation coming soregularly? Should I not have faith in a husband's living if I receive awife's care from an unseen hand?"

"Oden Dennis, " Mrs. Custis remarked, "was hardly a man to do charity andnot be seen. He was rather self-indulgent, demonstrative, and restless. I cannot think of his nocturnal visits in the body. Besides, he wouldnot supply you in that way, Norah, if he meant to come back; and if hecannot himself come to you, neither could he send. "

Not altogether relishing Mrs. Tilghman's reproof, Rhoda was again heardfrom, saying:

"Lord sakes! all the women has to talk about when they is gone is themen. When the men comes, they talks as if they never missed of 'em. MiscSomers, she never had no man, an' she talks mos' about the women thathas 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. Heain't got no quar old women runnin' of him down--caze Misc Somers isdreffle afraid of him!" This last remark seemed apologetic and anafterthought. 

"I am beginning to think my fortune is better than I deserve, " Vestareplied, to soften the application, as wine, tea, and cake were broughtin. "Now, dear friends, as I am Mr. Milburn's wife, let us all beChristians 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 drinkingheartily. 

As the conversation proceeded, now by general participation, again bycouples apart, and Vesta found herself more and more a subject ofsympathy, with no little curiosity interwoven in it, she also imaginedthat an undertone of belief was abroad that she had made a mercenarymarriage. 

Old Mrs. Tilghman--in her prime a most caustic belle, and worldly asthree marriages, all shrewdly contracted, could make her--seemeddetermined to hold that Vesta had rejected her grandson for themoney-lender on the consideration of wealth. Vesta's own mother, too, who should have known her well, had twice hinted the same. Even theinoffensive Ellenora had accepted that idea, or another kin to it, andRhoda Holland had remembered that her uncle was the richest ofbridegrooms in Princess Anne. Vesta felt the injustice, but said toherself:

"I must make the sacrifice complete, and incur any harsh judgment it maybear. I see that I shall be driven for sympathy to the last place in theworld I anticipated: to my husband's heart. Yes, there is somethingbesides 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 greatsacrifice--to have it put upon a low motive from the lower plane ofsacrifice in many otherwise kind people. We give our money to aninstitution of charity, and it is said that it was for notoriety, orself-seeking, or at the expense of our kin. We lead a forlorn hope inpolitics, or some other arena, to establish a cause or assist aprinciple, with the certain result of defeat, and we are said to bejealous or malignant. Perhaps we make a book to illustrate some oldregion off the highways of observation, drawn to it by kindred stringsor 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 aqueer and gratuitous thing from such an outer source. So we wince alittle, but feel that it was necessary to be misunderstood to completethe 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 nervoussystem, under the tension of almost two days' excitement and events suchas she had never known, was alert and could not fall to slumber. Oldpassages of Testament lore haunted her soul, such as: "Thy desire shallbe to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;" "A man shall leave hisfather and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife. " She began to seethat marriage was not merely the solution of a family trouble, and thegiving of her body as a hostage for a pecuniary debt, but that it was arendition of all her liberty, even the liberty of sympathy and ofsorrow, 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 thedesertion to the degree that they now confounded her with her newinterest, let go their claim upon her, and could scarce conceive of herexcept in the dual relation of a woman subject to her husband, andselfish 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 ofconfidence? What did I know of this world only yesterday? Then every wayseemed 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 driftwith every passing fear and confusion into the fickleness which makeswoman contemptible after she has given her hand. I will never give uptwo persons--my father, and my husband!"

As she turned down the lamp, it being nearly midnight, a short, fiercecry, quickly stifled, as if some wild animal had howled once innightmare and fallen asleep in his kennel again, seized on her ears andchilled her blood. 

Vesta started up in bed and listened. It seemed to her that there werefootsteps, but they passed away, and she listened in vain for any othersounds, till sleep fell deep and dreamless upon her, like black Lethewinding through a desert wedding-day. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

LONG SEPARATIONS. 

Vesta was awakened by Roxy, Virgie, and her mother all standing aroundher bed at once, exclaiming something unintelligible together. It waslate morning, the whole family having slept long, after the severalexperiences of two such days, and the sun was shining through the greattrees before Teackle Hall and burnishing the windows, so that Vestacould hardly see. 

"The kitchen servants have run away, " Mrs. Custis shrieked, on Vesta'srequest that her mother only should talk. "Old Hominy is gone, and hastaken all her herbs and witcheries with her; and all the young childrenbred in the kitchen, Ned and Vince, the boys, and little Phillis, thebaby, they, too, are gone. "

"I heard a strange cry or howl last night, as I dropped to sleep, " Vestaexclaimed, rubbing her eyes. 

"Dear missy, " cried Virgie, falling upon the pillow, "it was your poordog Turk; his throat has been cut upon the lawn. "

"Yes, missy, " Roxy blubbered, "poor Turk lies in his blood. There isnobody to get breakfast but Virgie and me. Indeed, we did not know aboutit. "

"That is not very likely, " said the suspicious Mrs. Custis. 

"I know you did not, girls, " Vesta said, "you have too much intelligenceand principle, I am sure; nor could Hominy have been so inhuman to mypoor 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 atonce to Mr. Milburn's and bring his man Samson here, and awake MissHolland to take Samson's place by her uncle. Tell Samson to make thefire, and you and he get the breakfast. No person is to speak of thisincident of the kitchen servants leaving us on any pretence. "

"Won't you give the alarm the first thing?" cried Mrs. Custis, not verywell pleased to see Vesta keep her temper. "They may be overtaken beforethey get far away, daughter. Those four negroes are worth twelve hundreddollars!"

"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 hadbehaved so treacherously. "

"I say, sell them and get the money, " Mrs. Custis cried; "are they notours?"

"No, mamma, they are mine. Mr. Milburn and papa are to be consultedbefore 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 ofMeshach Milburn and his queer hat. She believed the devil give it tohim. She thought he had bought her by marrying you, and was going tochristen her to the Bad Man, or do something dreadful with her and thelittle children. "

"That's it, Miss Vessy, " plump little Roxy added. "Hominy loved thelittle children dearly; she thought they was to become Meshach's, andshe must save them. "

"Poor, superstitious creature!" Vesta exclaimed. 

"More misery brought about by that fool's hat!" cried Mrs. Custis. "If Iever lay hands on it, it shall end in the fire. "

"No wonder, " Vesta said, "that this poor, ignorant woman should doherself such an injury on account of an article of dress that disturbsliberal and enlightened minds! Now I recollect that Hominy saidsomething about having 'got Quaker. ' What did it mean?"

The two slave girls looked at each other significantly, and Virgieanswered, "Don't the Quakers help slaves to get off to a free state? Maybe shemeant that. "

"Do you suppose the abolitionists would tamper with a poor old womanlike that, whose liberty would neither be a credit to them nor a comfortto 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 achild, or anything, when she is possessed with a devil, " Mrs. Custisinsisted. 

"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 heslept 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 Ihave dreamed of him since. It was the man Mr. Milburn knocked down formashing his hat; he was afraid Mr. Milburn would throw him into jail, sohe asked master to hide in the kitchen. But Hominy was almost crazy withfear 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 arethe despots that never will abdicate or die. "

"The idea of your father letting a tramp like that sleep in the kitchenamong the slaves!" cried Mrs. Custis. "What obligation had he incurredthere, too, I should like to know? Teackle Hall is become a cave of owlsand 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 andwithout a man's assistance to discover where ours is gone. I know what Ishall do: I will start this day for Cambridge, to meet my brother, andvisit the Goldsboroughs there till some order is brought out of thisattempt 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-morrowafternoon; I will go as far as Salisbury this day, and either meet himon the road to-morrow or find him at Cambridge. Oh, what a house isTeackle Hall--full of male and female foresters, abolitionists, runaways, and radicals! All made crazy by the bog ores and the fool'shat!"

Descending to the yard, Vesta found Turk lying in his blood, his mastiffjaws and shaggy sides clotted red, and, as it seemed, the howl in whichhe died still lingering in the air. The Virginia spirit rose in Vesta'seyes:

"Whoever killed this dog only wanted the courage to kill men!" sheexclaimed. "James Phoebus, look here!"

The pungy captain had been abroad for hours, and the masts of hisvessel were just visible across the marshy neck in the rear of TeackleHall. He touched his hat and came in. 

"Early mornin', Miss Vesty! Hallo! Turk dead? By smoke, yer'spangymonum!"

"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 howland fall dead. His froat was not cut dat sudden; it's gashed as if widsomethin' blunt. "

"Right you are, nigger! The throat-cuttin' was a make believe; the stabwill 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 onJack 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. AsWonnell observed the dead dog, pretty little Roxy came out of thekitchen, and stood blushing, yet frightened, to see him. 

"What yo' doin' with them rosy-posies?" Jimmy demanded. "Who're theyfur? What air you sneakin' aroun' Teackle Hall fur so bright of amornin', lazy as I know you is, Jack Wonnell?"

"They are flowers he brings every morning for me, " Roxy spoke up, comingforward with a pretty simper. 

"For you?" exclaimed Vesta. "You are not receiving the attentions ofwhite men, Roxy?"

"He offered, himself, to get flowers for me, so I might give you aspretty ones as Virgie, missy. I let him bring them. He's a poor, kindman. "

"I jess got 'em, Jimmy, " interjected Jack Wonnell, with his peculiarwink and leer, "caze Roxy's the belle of Prencess Anne, and I'm thebell-crown. She's my little queen, and I ain't ashamed of her. "

"Courtin' niggers, air you!" Jimmy exclaimed, collaring Jack again. "Nowwhar 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 tellthe truth, for my sake! Aunt Hominy is gone, with all the kitchenchildren, 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, twistingout of the bay captain's hands. "He's gwyn to be sold out by MeshachMilburn. 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; therewas 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 anegro trader. That trader and he disappear the same evening. The traderlives about Delaware, too, Miss Vesty. "

Vesta's countenance fell, as she thought of the suspicion that mightattach to her father. The great old trees around Teackle Hall seemedmoaning together in the air, as if to say, "Ancestors, this is strangeto hear!"

"Who told you, Jack Wonnell, " spoke the bay sailor, "that Judge Custiswas to be sold out?"

"I won't tell you, Jimmy. "

"I told him, " Roxy cried, after an instant's hesitation, while JimmyPhoebus was grinding the stiff bell-crown hat down on Wonnell'ssuffocating muzzle. "I did think we was all going to be sold, and hadnobody 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, " Jackcried 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 Greekparoxysms of temper on, as his dark skin and black-cherry eyes flamedvolcanic. "Whar did you leave Ellenora's boy and that infernalsoul-buyer? Speak, or I'll throttle you like this dog!"

"You let him alone, sir!" little Roxy cried, hotly, "he won't deceiveanybody; 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 totell all that he knows, or papa shall commit him to jail. "

Jack Wonnell, taking his place some steps away from Phoebus, andwiping his eyes on his sleeve, whimpering a few minutes, to Roxy's greatagitation, finally told his tale. 

"I'm sorry, Jimmy, you accused me before this beautiful lady an' mypurty 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 reckonthe jail's as good as the pore-house for me, ef they want to send methair, fur it's in town, and Roxy kin come an' look through the bars atme every day. "

Roxy was so much affected that she threw her apron up to her face, andVesta and Phoebus had to smile, while Samson Hat, looking indulgentlyon, exclaimed, "Dar's love all froo de woods. Doves an' crows can't help it. It'sdeeper down dan fedders an' claws. "

"That nigger trader, " continued Jack Wonnell, bell-crown in hand, "hiredme an' Levin to take him a tarrapinin'. He had a bag of gold thatbig"--measuring with his hand in the crown of the hat--"an' he giveLevin some of it, an' I took it to Levin's mother las' night, an' toldher Levin wouldn't be back fur a week, maybe. I thought Mr. Johnson wasgwyn to give me some gold too, so I could buy Roxy, but yer's all hegive me. Everybody disappints me, Jimmy!"

Jack Wonnell showed an old silver fi'penny bit, and his countenance wasso lugubrious that the sailor exclaimed, "Jack, he paid you too well for all the sense you got. Now, whar hasLevin gone with the _Ellenora Dennis?_"

"I don't know, Jimmy. He made Levin sail her up to the landin' down yerbelow 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' offwith the nigger trader to git some of his money fur mother!'"

"Poor miserable boy!" Phoebus exclaimed; "he's led off easy as hispore daddy. The man he's gone with, Miss Vesty, is black as hell. JoeJohnson is known to every thief on the bay, every gypsy on the shore. Hesteals free niggers when he can't buy slave ones, outen Delaware state. He sometimes runs away Maryland slaves to oblige their hypocriticalmasters that can't sell 'em publicly, an' Johnson and the bereaved ownerdivides the price. Go in the house, yaller gal!" Jimmy Phoebus turnedto Roxy, who obeyed instantly. "Jack Wonnell, you go too; I'm done withyou!" (Jack slipped around the house and made his peace with Roxy beforehe 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 TeackleHall--"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 MeshachMilburn?"

"By neither, I will risk my life. Mr. Milburn was taken to his bedSaturday evening, and on Sunday father went to Delaware on legalbusiness for my husband. "

"That is Meshach Milburn, I hear, " the bay sailor remarked, with apenetrating look. "Shall I go and see him on this nigger business?"

"No, " Vesta replied; "he is too sick, and it is a delicate subject toname to him. My girls, Virgie and Roxy, think old Hominy ran away from asuperstitious fear she had of Mr. Milburn, who had become the master ofTeackle Hall by marriage. "

"Yes, by smoke! every nigger in town, big and little, is afraid ofMilburn's hat. "

"He has no ownership in those servants, nor has my father now. I willtell you, James--relying on your prudence--that Hominy belonged to me, and so did those three children, having passed from my father to myhusband and thence to me and back to my father, and from him to me againin 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 faēadeof Teackle Hall, and exclaimed "by smoke!" several times before he madehis conclusions. 

"Miss Vesty, " he said, finally, "send for your father to come homeimmediately. People will not understand how Joe Johnson, outlaw as heis, dared to rob a Maryland judge of his house servants, Johnson himselfbein' a Marylander, unless they had some understanding. Your suddenmarriage, an' your pappy's embarrassments, will be put together, bysmoke! an' thar is some blunt enough to say that when Jedge Custis ishard up, he'll git money anyhow!"

The charge, made with an honest man's want of skill, battered down allexplanations. 

"I confess it, " said Vesta. "Papa's going away on a Sunday, and thesepeople disappearing on Sunday night, might excite idle comment. It mightbe said that he endeavored to sell some of his property before hiscreditor could seize it. "

"I have seen you about yer since you was a baby, Vesty, an' Ellenorasays you're better game an' heart than these 'ristocrats, fur who Inever 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 awhite man's keer, I wouldn't stop 'em to be cap'n of a man-of-war. ButJoe Johnson, supposin' that he's got of 'em, is a demon. Do you see thestab on that dog? well, it's done with one of the bagnet pistols themkidnappers carries--hoss pistols, with a spring dagger on the muzzle;and, when they come to close quarters, they stab with 'em. Johnsonkilled your dog; I know his marks. He sails this whole bay, and maybehe'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, withthe wind an' start he's got, and your pappy's influence lost to us byhis absence. But thar is one chance to overhaul the thief. "

"What is that, James?" said Vesta, earnestly. "I do want to save thosepoor 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 headof Nanticoke River. It's the headquarters of his band, and a black bandthey air. He has had good wind"--the pungy captain looked up and notedthe 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 byland, if that's his destination, before he gits to Vienna, an' make himshow his cargo. Then, with a messenger to follow Jedge Custis an' turnhim back, we can swear these niggers on Johnson--and, you see, we can'tmake no such oath till we git the evidence--an' then, by smoke! we'llbring ole Hominy an' the pore chillen back to Teackle Hall. "

"Here is one you love to serve, James, " said Vesta, as the Widow Denniscame 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 gonefor a week with a negro trader; he sends me so much money, I fear he isunder an unusual temptation, and Wonnell says the trader is giving himliquor. 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 kinmake a fool of me if I go chase him now, and I can't measure money witha nigger trader, by smoke!"

"Oh! James, " the widow spoke, "you know my heart would be yours if Icould control it. When my way is clear you will have but to ask. Do goand 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 accessoryto the crime, " she sobbed. "Oh, this is what I have ever feared. JamesPhoebus, you have always had the best influence over Levin. If youlove 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 whoshould drive her as far as Salisbury, where she could get a slave of herson-in-law to continue on with her to Cambridge. 

"I have been thinking all the morning where I can find a reliable man togo and bring back papa, " Vesta answered; "there are a few slaves at theFurnace, but time is precious. "

"Here is Samson, " Virgie said, "and he has got a mule he rides all overthe county. Let him go. "

"Go whar, my love?" asked Samson. 

"To Dover, in Delaware, " Vesta answered. "You can ride to Laurel bydark, 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 tillI 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 alittle deviation, and at the Springs you will be only three miles fromthe Nanticoke. Even mamma might go on with the carriage to-night as faras the Springs, or to Vienna. "

"If two of them are going, " Virgie exclaimed, "one can drive MissyCustis 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 tolove you a little, black and bad as you are. "

"I'se afraid of Delawaw state, " Samson repeated, laughing slowly. "JoeJohnson, 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 theNanticoke, Samson, while you keep right in the high-road from Laurel toGeorgetown, and on to Dover. Joe Johnson's been whipped at the post, andbanished from Delaware for life, and dussn't go thar no more. "

"If you go, Samson, " little Roxy put in, having reappeared, "Virgie'llfeel 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 thanMaryland? 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 skinalmost paler than her young mistress's, her figure like the clove'safter a hard winter--the more active that a little meagre--her headsmall, and its tresses soft as the crow blackbird's plumage, and theloyalty that lay in her large eyes, like strong passion, for hermistress, was turned to pride, and nearly scorn, when they listened tohim. 

"A slave, Miss Vesty says"--Virgie spoke with almost fierceness--"is notone 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'reafraid, and are like these low slave negroes who dare nothing if theycan 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, anddid not resent her spirit as unbecoming a slave, but rather feltresponsive chords in her own nature, as if, indeed, Virgie was the moreimperious of the two. Coming now into full womanhood, her race elementsfinding their composition, her character unrestrained by any one inTeackle Hall, Virgie was her young mistress's shield-bearer, like Davidto 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 mehard, an' mebbe I'd git a kiss befo' I started. "

"Wait till you come back, and see if you do your errand well, " Virgiespoke again. "I shall not kiss you now. "

"I will, " cried little Roxy, to the amusement of them all, giving Samsona 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 JackWonnell playing marbles with the boys at the court-house corner. 

"Jack, " he said, "I'm a-going to find Levin an' that nigger trader. Imay git in a peck of trouble up yonder on the Nanticoke. Tell all thepungy men whair I'm a-goin', an' what fur. "

"Can't I do somethin' fur you, Jimmy? Can't I give you one o' mybell-crowns; thair's a-plenty of 'em left. "

"Take my advice, Jack, an' tie a stone to all them hats and sink' em inthe Manokin. Ole Meshach's hat has made more hokey-pokey than the Bankof Somerset. Pore an' foolish as you air, maybe your ole bell-crownswill ruin you. "

The road to Salisbury--laid out in 1667, when "Cecil, Lord of Marylandand Avalon, " erected a county "in honor of our dear sister, the LadyMary Somerset"--followed the beaver-dams across the little river-heads, and pierced the flat pine-woods and open farms, and passed through twolittle hamlets, before our travellers saw the broad mill-ponds andpoplar and mulberry lined streets of the most active town--albeitwithout a court-house--in the lower peninsula. Jimmy Phoebus, drivingthe two horses and the family carriage, and Samson, following on hismule, descended into the hollow of Salisbury at the dinner-hour, andstopped 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, theforest cypress-trees impudently intruding into the obliquely-radiatingstreets, and humidity of ivy and creeper over many of the old, gable-chimneyed houses, the long lumber-yards reflected in the swampyharbor among the canoes, pungies, and sharpies moored there, the smallhouses sidewise to the sandy streets, the larger ones rising up thesandy hills, the old box-bush in the silvery gardens, the bridges closetogether, and the smell of tar and sawdust pleasantly inhaled upon thelungs, made a combination like a caravan around some pool in the Desertof the Nile. 

"If there is any chance to catch my negroes, " Mrs. Custis said, "I willgo right on after dinner. Samson, send Dave, my daughter's boy, to meimmediately; he is working in this hotel. "

Samson found Dave to be none other than the black class-leader he hadfailed to overcome at the beginning of our narrative, but changes werevisible in that individual Samson had not expected. From having a clean, godly, modest countenance, becoming his professions, Dave now wore asour, evil look; his eyes were blood-shotten, and his straight, manlyshoulders and chest, which had once exacted Samson's admiration andenvy, were stooped to conform with a cough he ever and anon made fromdeep in his frame. 

"Dave, " said Samson, "your missis's modder wants you, boy, to drive herto 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 couldbox. 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 tofight. 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-leaderDave. "

"Oh, brudder, wake up an' do better. Yer, I give you a dollar, an' wantto be your friend, Davy, boy. "

"I'll git drink wid it, " Dave muttered, going; and, as he passed out ofthe stable-door he looked back at Samson fiercely, and exclaimed, "MaySatan burn your body as he will burn my soul. I hate you, man, long asyou live!"

Jimmy Phoebus remarked, a few moments afterwards, that Dave, dividinga pint of spirits with a lean little mulatto boy, put a piece of moneyin the boy's hands, who then rode rapidly out of the tavern-yard upon afleet Chincoteague pony. 

At two o'clock they again set forward, the man Dave driving the carriageand Jimmy Phoebus sitting beside him, while Samson easily keptalongside upon his old roan mule, the road becoming more sandy as theyascended the plateau between the Wicomico and Nanticoke, and thecarriage 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, aftercoffee, in the morning, and reach Cambridge for breakfast. "

"I will turn off at Spring Hill, " Samson spoke, "and I kin feed my muleat sundown in Laurel an' go to sleep. "

In an hour they came in sight of old Spring Hill church, a venerablerelic of the colonial Established Church, at the sources of a creekcalled Rewastico; and before they crossed the creek the driver, Dave, called "Ho, ho!" in such an unnecessarily loud voice that Mrs. Custisreproved him sharply. Dave jumped down from the seat and appeared to beexamining some part of the breeching, though Samson assured him that itwas all right. As Dave finished his examination, he raised both handsabove his head twice, and stretched to the height of his figure as hestood on the brow of a little hill. 

"Missy Custis, " he apologized, as he turned back, "I is tired mighty baddis a'ternoon. Dat stable keeps me up half de night. "

"Liquor tires you more, David, " Mrs. Custis spoke, sharply; "and thattavern is no place to hire you to with your appetite for drink, as Ishall tell your master. "

At this moment Jimmy Phoebus observed the lean little mulatto boy whohad left the hotel come up out of the swampy place in the road andexchange 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 hisheels into the pony's flank and darted into the brush towards Salisbury. 

"Samson, " spoke Dave, "you see dat ole woman in de cart yonder?"--hepointed to a figure ascending the rise in the ground beyond thebrook--"I know her, an' she's gwyn right to Laurel. She lives dar. It'sten miles from dis yer turn-off, an' she knows all dese yerwoods-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. JimmyPhoebus saw him overtake the old woman in the cart and begin to speakwith her as the scrubby woods swallowed them in. 

"What's dat he said about Joe Johnson?" observed Dave, after a badspell of coughing, as they cleared the old church and entered the sandypine-woods. 

Mrs. Custis spoke up more promptly than Jimmy Phoebus desired, andtold the negro about the escape of Hominy and the children, and the hopeof Mr. Phoebus to head the party off as they ascended the Nanticoketowards the Delaware state-line. 

"You don't want to git among Joe Johnson's men, boss?" said the red-eyednegro; "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'shardly a mile from whar we air. De corner's squar as de stone dat sotson 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 atVienna, he's up yer to Crotcher's Ferry, he's all ober de country, buthe 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 disside o' de Delawaw line, so dey can't git him in Delawaw. He calls hisplace Johnson's Cross-roads: ole Patty Cannon lives dar, too. She'safraid to stay in Delawaw now. "

"Why, what is the occupation of those terrible people at present?" askedMrs. 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 ofhis 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, bysmoke!--or ever sence she came to Delaware from Cannady, as the bride ofpore Alonzo Cannon--a-makin' robbers an' bloodhounds out of the youngmen 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 shesets at stealin' free niggers outen the State of Delaware; and, whenit's safe, they steal slaves too. She fust made a tool of EbenezerJohnson, the pirate of Broad Creek, an' he died in his tracks a-fightinfur 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 herdaughter, when Bruington, her first son-in-law, had been hanged. WhenSamson Hat, who is the whitest nigger I ever found, knocked Joe Johnsondown in Princess Anne, the night before last, he struck the worst man inour 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 ashe guided the horses. At the last words, he exclaimed:

"Samson knocked Joe Johnson down? Den de debbil has got him, and meansto pay him back!"

"What's that?" cried Jimmy Phoebus. 

The sweat stood on the big slave's forehead, as if his imagination wasterribly possessed, but before he could explain Mrs. Custis interrupted:

"I think it was said that old Patty Cannon corrupted Jake Purnell, whocut his throat at Snow Hill five years ago. He was a free negro whoengaged slaves to steal other slaves and bring them to him, and hedelivered them up to the white kidnappers for money; and nobody couldaccount for his prosperity till a negro who had been beaten to death wasfound in the Pocomoke River, and three slaves who had been seen in hiscompany were arrested for the murder. They confessed that they hadstolen the dead negro and he had escaped from them, and was so beatenwith clubs, to make him tractable, that when they gave him to Purnellhis life was all gone. Then he was thrown in the river, but his bodycame up after sinking, and the confession of the wretched toolsexplained to the slave-owners where all their missing negroes had gone. They marched and surrounded Purnell's hut, and he was discoveredburrowed 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 toear. "

During this narrative the man Dave had listened with rising nervousexcitement, rolling his eyes as if in strong inward torment, till theconcluding words inspired such terror in him that he dropped the reins, threw back his head, and shouted, with large beads of sweat all roundhis brow:

"Mercy! mercy! Have mercy! Save me, oh, my Lord!"

"He's got a fit, I reckon, " cried Jimmy Phoebus, promptly grasping thereins as the horses started at the cry, and with his leg pinning Dave tothe carriage-seat. At that moment the road descended into the hollow ofBarren Creek, and, leaping down at the old Mineral Springs Hotel, ahealth resort of those days, Phoebus humanely procured water andfreshened up the gasping negro's face. 

"I declare, I am almost afraid to trust myself to this man, " Mrs. Custisobserved, with more distaste than trepidation. 

"Every nigger in this region, " exclaimed Jimmy Phoebus, "thinksPangymonum's comin' down at the dreaded name of Patty Cannon; an' thisnigger's gone most to ruin, any way. "

"Oh, marster, " exclaimed the slave, recovering his speech and glaringwildly 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 agood conscience, an' hearin' missis tell of the end of Jake Purnell, itmade 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 takea little sperits; it'll strengthen his nerves an' make him drivebetter. "

As they drank at the old summer-resort bar, at that time in the heightof its celebrity, and the only _spa_ on the peninsula, south of theBrandywine Springs, Phoebus spoke low to the negro:

"Dave, somethin' not squar and fair is a-workin' yer, by smoke! I've gotmy eye on you, nigger, an' sure as hokey-pokey thair it'll stay. Youknow my arrand yer, Dave: to save a pore, ignorant, deluded black womanfrom Joe Johnson's band. Now, you've been a-cryin 'Mercy!' I want you toshow mercy by a-tellin' of me whar I'm to overtake an' sarch LevinDennis's cat-boat if it comes up the Nanticoke to-night with them peopleand Joe Johnson aboard!"

Having swallowed his liquor greedily, the colored man replied, with hisformer lowering countenance and evasive eyes:

"You can't do nothin' as low down de river as Vienny, 'case de Nanticokeis too wide dar, and if you cross it at Vienny ferry, den you got deNorfwest Fork between you and Johnson's Cross-roads, wid one ferry overdat, at Crotcher's, an' Joe Johnson owns all dat place. But you kin keepup dis side o' de Nanticoke, Marster Phoebus, de same distance as fromyer to Vienny, to de pint whar de Norfwest Fork come in. Sometimes JoeJohnson sails up dat big fork to get to his cross-roads. In gineral hekeeps straight up de oder fork to Betty Twiford's wharf, right on deboundary line. "

"How far is that?"

"It's five miles from yer to Vienny, and five miles from yer to alandin' opposite de Norfwest Fork. Four miles furder on you're atSharptown, an' dar you can see Betty Twiford's house on de bank twomiles acrost de Nanticoke. "

"Nine miles, then, to Sharptown! He's had the tide agin him since heentered the Nanticoke, and it's not turned yit. By smoke! I'll look fora conveyance!"

"You can ride with me to the first landing, " spoke up a noble-lookingman, whip in hand; "and after delaying a little there, I shall go on theSharptown 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 badeher adieu, and took the vacant seat in the stranger's buggy. 

When Mrs. Custis came to Vienna ferry, and the horses and carriage wenton board the scow to be rowed to the little, old, shipping settlement ofthat name, the negro Dave, standing at the horses' heads, exchanged afew 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 isa hat out of a thousand. "

"I never did see it, missis. "

"You cannot mistake it for any other hat in the world. Now, Samson isthe only servant and watchman at Mr. Milburn's store, and he attends tothat disgraceful hat. If you can ever get it from him, Dave, and destroyit, you will be doing a useful act, and I will reward you well. "

The moody negro looked up from his remorseful, brutalized orbs, andsaid:

"Steal it?"

"Oh, no, I do not advise a theft, David--though such a wretched hat canhave no legal value. It is an affliction to my daughter and Judge Custisand 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 oldtobacco-port of Vienna. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

NANTICOKE PEOPLE. 

A map would be out of place in a story, yet there are probably some whoperceive that this is a story with a reality; and if such will take anyatlas and open it at the "Middle States" of the American republic, theywill see that the little State of Delaware is fitted as nicely into asquare niche of Maryland as if it were a lamp, or piece of statuary, standing on a mantelpiece. It stands there on a mantelshelf about fortymiles wide, and rises to more than three times that height, making aperfectly straight north and south line at right angles with its base. Thus mortised into Maryland, its ragged eastern line is formed of theAtlantic Ocean and the broad Delaware Bay. 

The only considerable river within this narrow strip or _Hermes_ of astate is the Nanticoke, which, like a crack in the wall, --and the sameblow fractured the image on the mantel, --flows with breadth and tidalebb and flow from the Chesapeake Bay through the Eastern Shore ofMaryland into Delaware, and is there formed of two tidal sources, theone to the north continuing to be called the Nanticoke, and that to thesouth--nearly as imposing a stream--named Broad Creek. 

Nature, therefore, as if anticipating some foolish political boundarieson the part of man, prepared one drain and channel of ingress at thesouthwestern 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 theafternoon of October, with the sun, an hour high in the west, shiningupon his dark, Greekish cheeks and neck, and he hearing the fall birdswhistle and cackle in the mellowing stubble and golden thickets. 

The meadow-lark, the boy's delight, was picking seed, gravel, andinsects' eggs in the fields--large and partridge-like, with breastwashed yellow from the bill to the very knees, except at the throat, where hangs a brilliant reticule of blackish brown; his head and backare of hawkish colors--umber, brown, and gray--and in his carriage issomething of the gamecock. He flies high, sometimes alone, sometimes inthe flock, and is our winter visitor, loving the old fields improvidencehas 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 redhead, whose schoolmaster is the squirrel, and whose tactics of keeping atree between him and his enemy the Indian fighters adopted. He mimicsthe tree-frog's cry, and migrates after October, like othervoluptuaries, who must have the round year warm, and fruit and eggsalways in market. Dressed in his speckled black swallow-tail coat, withhis long pen in his mouth and his shirt-bosom faultlessly white, thewoodpecker works like some Balzac in his garret, making the tree-toplively as he spars with his fellow-Bohemians; and being sure himself ofa tree, and clinging to it with both tail and talons, he esteemseverything else that lives upon it to be an insect at which he may runhis bill or spit his tongue--that tongue which is rooted in the brainitself. 

In the hollow golden bowl of echoing evening the sailor noted, too, theflicker, in golden pencilled wings and back of speckled umber andmottled white breast, with coal-black collar and neck and head ofcinnamon. His golden tail droops far below his perch, and, runningdownward along the tree-trunk, it flashes in the air like a sceptre overthe wood-lice he devours with his pickaxe bill. "Go to the ant, thousluggard!" was an instigation to murder in the flicker, who loves youngants as much as wild-cherries or Indian corn, and is capable of takingany such satire seriously upon things to eat. Not so elfin and devilishas the small black woodpecker, he is full of bolder play. 

The redbird, like the unclaimed blood of Abel, flew to the little treesthat grew low, as if to cover Abel's altar; the jack-snipe chirped inthe swampy spots, like a divinity student, on his clean, long legs, probing with his bill and critical eye the Scriptures of the fields; thequail piped like an old bachelor with family cares at last, as he ledhis mate where the wild seeds were best; and through the air dartedvoices 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 wasits command, and yet too narrowly dancing in the eyes, like spiders in awell, disturbing the mirror there. 

"Ha!" chuckled the man, as if his eyes had chuckled, so poorly did thatsound represent his lordly stature and look of high spirit--"ha! that'swhat brings them all to my neighbor Johnson: a fair quotient!"

"Quotient?" repeated Jimmy. 

"Johnson's a great factor hereabout, " continued the military-lookingman, bending his handsome eyes on the bay captain, as if there was abusiness secret between them, and peering at once mischievously andnobly; "he makes the quotient to suit. He leaves the suttle large andnever stints the cloff. "

"He don't narry a feller down to the cloth he's got, sir?" assentedJimmy, 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: lawswhich have no consignees, cattle which have no lawyer and no tongue, rights which have lapsed by their assertion being suspended, till demandand supply, like a pair of bulldogs, tear what is left to pieces. Armedwith his _ca. Sa. _, my neighbor Johnson offsets everybody's _fi. Fa. _, serves his writ the first, and makes to gentlemen like you asatisfactory quotient. But he cuts no capers with Isaac and JacobCannon!"

"I expect now that you are Jacob Cannon?" remarked the tawny sailor, nothaving understood a word of what preceded. "If that's the case, I'm gladto know your name, and thank you for givin' me this lift. "

By a bare nod, just intelligible, Mr. Cannon signified that the guesswould do; and still meditating aloud in his small, grand way, continued:

"We let neighbor Johnson and his somewhat peculiar mother-in-law makesuch commerce as suits him, provided he studies to give us noinconvenience. That is his equation; with his quotient we have noconcern other than our slight interest in his wastage, as when MadameCannon rides down to change a bill and leaves an order forsupplies--rum, chiefly, I believe. Gentlemen like you come into thiscountry to deal, replevin, or what not, and we say to you all, 'Don'ttread on us--that is all. ' We shall not look into your parcels, nor lieawake of nights to hear alarms; but harm Isaac and Jacob Cannon oneha'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 thathe was not beyond fifty years of age, of a spare, lofty figure--at leastsix feet four high--sitting straight and graceful as an Indian, hisclothes well-tailored, his countenance and features both stern andrefined; every feature perfected, and all keen without being hard orangular--and yet Jimmy did not like him. There seemed to have been madea commodore or a general--some one designed for deeds of chivalry andgreat philanthropy; and yet around and between the dancing eyes spiderlines were drawn, as if the fine high brain of Jacob Cannon had putaside matters that matched it and meddled with nothing that ascendedhigher above the world than the long white bridge of his nose. Hissentiments apparently fell no further towards his heart than that; hisbrain 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 peoplein this apparently new region of country. 

"The quotient of much misplanting and lawyering is the lands on theNanticoke, " spoke the gray-nosed Apollo; "the piece of country directlybefore us, in the rear of my neighbor Johnson's cross-roads, was an oldIndian reservation for seventy years, and so were three thousand acresto our right, on Broad Creek. The Indian is a bad factor to civilize hiswhite neighbors; he does not know the luxury of the law, that grandcontrivance 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 turnedthe 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 thebrink of the Revolutionary War, they left a demoralized white race; andothers who moved in upon the deserted lands of the Nanticokes were, ifpossible, more Indian than the Indians. This peninsula never produced agreat Indian, but when Ebenezer Johnson settled on Broad Creek itpossessed a greater savage than Tecumseh. He took what he wanted andappealed to nature, like the Indian. He stole nothing; he merely tookit. He served, with anything convenient, from his fists to ablunderbuss, his _fi. Fa. _ and his _ca. Sa. _ upon wondering butsubmissive mankind. Need I say that this was before the perfect day ofIsaac 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 atthe prospect of oats, and continued:

"Such was the multiplicand to make the future race. Here, too, raged theboundary-line debate between Penns and Calverts, with occasional raidsand broken heads, and a noble suit in chancery of fifty years, till noman's title was known, and, instead of improving their lands, ourvoluptuous predecessors improved chiefly their opportunities. You cutsundry cords of wood and hauled it to the landing, and Ebenezer Johnsoncoolly scowed it over to his paradise at the mouth of Broad Creek. Youhad a little parcel of negroes, but the British war-ships, in twosuccessive wars, lay in the river mouth and beckoned them off. Having nointerest in any certain property, the foresters of the Nanticoke wouldrather trade with the enemy than fight for foolish ideas; and so thisregion was more than half Tory, and is still half passive, the otherhalf predatory. To neither half of such a quotient belongs the house ofIsaac and Jacob Cannon!"

His nostrils swelled a trifle with military spirit, and he raised thebridge of his nose delicately, turning to observe his instinctivecompanion. 

"If it's any harm I won't ask it, " the easy-going mariner spoke, "butair you two Cannons ary kin to ole Patty Cannon?"

Mr. Cannon smiled. 

"In Adam all sinned--there we may have been connected, " he said. "Thequestion you ask may one day be actionable, sir. The Cannons are anumerous people in our region, of fair substance, such as we have, butthey showed nothing to vary the equation of subsistence here till therearose the mother of Isaac and Jacob Cannon. She was a remarkable woman;unassisted, she procured the charter for Cannon's Ferry, and made theport settlement of that name by the importance her ferry acquired; andwhen she died there were found in her house nine hundred dollars insilver--for she never would take any paper money--the earnings of thatsequestered ferry, to start her sons on their career. She knew thepeculiar character of some of her neighbors--how lightly _meum_ and_tuum_ sat upon their fears or consciences--but she kept no guard excepther own good gray eyes and dauntless heart over that accumulating pileof little sixpences, for there was but one spirit as bold as she in allthis region of the world--"

"And that, I reckon, " observed Jimmy Phoebus, "was ole Patty Cannonherself. "

Mr. Jacob Cannon slightly bowed his head, and spoke aloud from an innercommunion:

"Forgive me, mother, that I make the comparison! Thy frugal oil, thatburned with pure and lonely widow's flame at Cannon's Ferry window, thetraveller hailed with comfort in his heart, and blessed the enterprise. But to compound the equation another unknown quantity of female forcearose beside my mother's lamp. A certain young Cannon, distantly of ourstock, must needs go see the world, and he returned with a fair demon ofa bride, and settled, too, at Cannon's Ferry. He lived to see thewondrous serpent he had warmed in his arms, and died, they say, of thesting. But she lived on, and, shrinking back into the woods to a littlefarm my mother's sons rented to her, she lighted there aJack-o'-the-lantern many a traveller has pursued who never returned totell. With Ebenezer Johnson's progeny and her own siren sisters, whofollowed Madame Cannon to the Nanticoke, the nucleus of a settlementbegan, 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'ma pore man from Prencess Anne. If you took me for a nigger-dealer youdid me as pore a compliment as when I asked if you was Patty Cannon'skin. 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 twinklingcare, but showed no personal concern. 

"Every man must be his own security, my dark-skinned friend, till he canfind a bailsman. That place I never take--neither the debtor's nor thesecurity. The firm of Isaac and Jacob Cannon allows no trespass, andfurther 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 letsuch 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 littlescow, half filled with water, and with only a broken piece of paddle init, was the only boat the pungy captain could find. The merchant's buggywas soon out of sight, and the wide, gray Nanticoke, several hundredyards wide, and made wider by a broad river that flowed into it throughlow bluffs and levels immediately opposite, was receiving the strongshadows of approaching night, and the tide was running up it violent anddeep. 

Long lines of melancholy woods shut both these rivers in; an ospreysuddenly struck the surface of the water, like a drowning man, and roseas if it had escaped from some demon in the flood; the silencefollowing 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 bysome slave ordering his brother to be lashed or one sympathetic soul inperdition made the time-caller to another's misery--floated on theevening light as if the oars of Charon echoed on the Styx, and brokenhearts were crossing over. 

Alone, unintimidated, but not altogether comfortable, Jimmy Phoebusproceeded to bail out the old scow, and wished he had accepted one ofJack Wonnell's hats to do the task, and, when he had finished it, thestars and clouds were manoeuvring around each other in the sky, withthe clouds the more aggressive, and finally some drops of rain puncturedthe long, bare muscles of the inflowing tide, making a reticule oflittle pittings, like a net of beads on drifting women's tresses. Asnight advanced, a puffing something ascended the broad, black aisle ofthis forest river, and slowly the Norfolk steamboat rumbled past, withpassengers for the Philadelphia stage. Then silence drew a sheet of fogaround herself and passed into a cold torpor of repose, affected only bythe waves that licked the shores with intermittent thirst. 

The waterman, regretting a little that he had not taken his stand atVienna, where human assistance might have been procured, and thinkingthat the poison airs might also afflict him with Meshach Milburn'scomplaints, fought sleep away till midnight, straining his eyes and earsever and anon for signs of some sail; but nothing drew near, and he hadinsensibly closed his lids and might have soon been in deep sleep, butthat he suddenly heard, between his dreams and this world, somethinglike a little baby moaning in the night. 

He sat up in the damp scow, where he had been lying, and listened withall his senses wide open, and once again the cry was wafted upon theriver zephyrs, and before it died away the sailor's paddle was in thewater, and his frail, awkward vessel was darting across the tide. 

He saw, in the black night, what none but a sailor's eyes would haveseen, a thing not visible, but divined, coming along on the bosom of theriver; and his ears saw it the clearer as that little cry continued--nowstopped, now stifled, now rising, now nearly piercing; and then therewas a growl, momentary and loud, and a rattle as of feet over wood, anda stroke or thud, or heavy concussion, and then a white thing rose upagainst the universal ink and rushed on the little scow, sucking wateras it came--the cat-boat under full sail. 

Phoebus had paddled for the opposite shore of the river to prevent theobject of his quest escaping up the Northwest Fork, yet to be in itspath if it beat up the main fork, and, by a piece of instinctivecalculation, he had run nearly under the cat-boat bows. 

"Ahoy, there!" cried Jimmy, standing up in his tipsy little skiff; "ahoythe _Ellenory Dennis!_ I'm a-comin' aboard. "

And with this, the paddle still in his hand, and his knees and feetnearly sentient in their providence of uses, the sailor threw himselfupon the low gunwale, and let it glide through his palms till he couldsee the man at the helm. 

There was no light to be called so, but the helmsman was yet perceivedby 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 yourfriend, an' come out of this Pangymonum an' stop a-breakin' of yourmother's heart! Oh, I see you, my son!"

If he did see Levin Dennis, Levin did not see Jimmy Phoebus, norapparently 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 thegrave now, and the boy at the helm seemed petrified and deaf and blind. 

The pungy captain's temper rose, his superstition not being equal tothat of most people, and he cried again, "You're a disgrace to the woman that bore you. Hell's a-waitin' for yourpore tender body an' soul. Heave ahoy an' let drop that gaff, an' takeme aboard, Levin!"

Still silent and passive as a stone, the youthful figure at the helm didnot 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-shotrang out, and the sailor's hands loosened from the gunwale and clutchedat the air, and he felt the black night fall on him as if he had pulleddown its ebony columns upon his head. 

He knew no more for hours, till he felt himself lying in cold water andsaw the gray morning coming through tree-boughs over his head. He had athirsty feeling and pain somewhere, and for a few minutes did not move, but lay there on his shoulder, holding to something and guessing what itmight be, and where he might be making his bed in this chilly autumndawn. 

His hand was clutching the a-stern plank of the old scow, and was sostiff he could not for some time open it. The scow was aground upon amarshy shore, in which some large trees grew, and were the fringes of awoods that deepened farther back. 

"By smoke!" muttered Jimmy, "if yer ain't hokey-pokey. But I reckon Iain't dead, nohow. "

With this he lifted the other hand, that had been stretched beneath hishead, 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 hispistol, 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 ofwhich gave him acute pain, and made the blood flow freshly as hewithdrew 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, whowas 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 hadstunned 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 thescenery. 

The river was here a full quarter of a mile wide, on the opposite shorebluffy, and in places bold, but, on the side where Phoebus had driftedwith the tide, clutching his old scow with mortal grip, there extended apoint of level woods and marsh or "cripple, " as if by the action of someback-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 riverhad a wide bend or hollow to receive two considerable creeks, andchanged its course almost abruptly from west to southwest, giving agrand view of its wide bosom for the distance of more than two milesinto Maryland; and the prospect was closed in that direction by awhitish-looking something, like lime or shell piles, standing againstthe background of pale blue woods and bluffs. 

Right opposite the spot where Phoebus had been stranded, a clearedfarm came out to the Nanticoke, affording a front of only a singlefield, on the crest of a considerable sand-bluff--elevations lookingmagnified 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 arespectable farm-house of considerable age, with a hipped roof and threequeer dormer windows slipping down the steeper half below, and twochimneys, not built outside of the house, as was the general fashion, but naturally rising out of the old English-brick gables. All betweenthe gables was built of wood; a porch of one story occupied nearly halfthe 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 leftcrouched an old, low building on the water's edge, looking like abrandy-still or a small warehouse. The road from the wharf and lanepassed along a beach, and partly through the river water, to enter agate between this shed and the dwelling; and from the garden or lawn, onthe bluff before the latter, arose two tall and elegant trees, ahoney-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 ofthe 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, helanded and parted the bushes, and found it to be a stone of a bluishmarble, 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, isTwiford's, because it's a'most on the state-line, but, I'm ashamed tosay, 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 theswamp, and its shores nowhere offered a dry landing; yet there wererecent foot-marks deeply trodden in the bog, and disclosed up the slopeinto the woods, and from their direction seemed to come the mysteriouschanting. 

"My head's bloody and I'm wet as a musk-rat, so I reckon I ain't afraidof gittin' a little muddy, " and with this the navigator stepped from thescow in swamp nearly to his middle, and pulled himself up the slope bymain strength. 

"I believe my soul this yer is a island, " Jimmy remarked; "a islandsurrounded 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 groveof pines, through whose roar, like an organ accompanied by a humanvoice, the singing was heard nearer and nearer, and, following the trackof previous feet, which had almost made a path, Phoebus came to aspace where an axe had laid the smaller bushes low around a largeloblolly pine that spread its branches like a roof only a few feet fromthe ground; and there, fastened by a chain to the trunk, which allowedher to go around and around the tree, and tread a nearly bare place inthe 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 theground at the woman's feet, in an old tattered gray blanket that mighthave been discarded from a stable. Near the child was a wooden box, inwhich were a coarse loaf of corn-bread and some strips of bacon, and awooden trough, hollowed out of a log, contained water. The woman's facewas scratched and bruised, and, as she came to some dental sounds in herchant, 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 inblank curiosity, as if she did not know what kind of animal he was, andthen continued her song, wearily, as if she had been singing it fordays, and her mind had gone into it and was out of her control. As shemoved 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 atJohnson's Cross-roads! Git up thar, gal, an' let me see what ails you. "

The woman rose mechanically, still singing in the shrill, cracked, wearydrone, and, as she rose, the baby awoke and began to cry, and shestooped and took it up, and, patting it with her hands, sang on, as ifshe would fall asleep singing, but could not. 

The chain, strong and rusty, had been very recently welded to her feetby a blacksmith; the fresh rivet attested that, and there were alsopieces of charcoal in the pine strewings, as if fire had been broughtthere for smith's uses. Jimmy Phoebus took hold of the chain andexamined it link by link till it depended from a powerful staple drivento the heart of the pine-tree; though rusty, it was perfect in everypart, and the condition of the staple showed that it was permanentlyretained in its position, as if to secure various and successivepersons, while the staple itself had been driven above the reach of thehands, as by a man standing on some platform or on another's shoulders. 

Phoebus took the chain in his short, powerful arms, and, giving alittle run from the root of the tree, threw all the strength of hiscompact, heavy body into a jerk, and let his weight fall upon it, butdid 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 ofem's a blacksmith and t'other's a woodchopper. Gal, how did you gityer?"

The woman, a young and once comely person of about twenty-eight years ofage, sang on a moment as if she did not understand the question, tillPhoebus repeated it with a kinder tone:

"Pore, abused creatur, tell me as your friend! I ain't none of thesekidnappers. Git your pore, scattered wits together an tell a friend ofall women an' little childern how he kin help you, fur time's worth adollar a second, an' bloody vultures are nigh by. Speak, Mary!"

The universal name seemed timely to this woman; she stopped her chantingand burst into tears. 

"My husband brought me here, " she said, between her long sobs. "He soldme. I give him everything I had and loved him, too, and he sold me--meand my baby. "

"I reckon you don't belong fur down this way, Mary? You don't talk likeit. "

"No, sir; I belong to Philadelphia. I was a free woman and a widow; myhusband 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 whiteas you. He told me he had a farm in Delaware, and wanted me to be hiswife; he promised me so much and was so anxious about it, that Ilistened to him. Oh, he was a beautiful talker, and I was lonesome andwanted love. I let him sell my house and give him the money, and starteda week ago to come to my new home. Oh, he did deceive me so; he said heloved me dearly. "

She began to cry again, and her mind seemed to wander, for the nextsentence was disconnected. Jimmy took the baby in his arms and kissed itwithout any scruples, and the child's large, black eyes looked into hisas 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; "theywanted the bacon, I 'spect. The water-snakes has crawled around here inthe 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 Igive my love to was so much worse than them, that I just sung and letthem look at me. "

"You say he sold you, Mary?"

The woman rubbed her weary eyes and slowly recollected where she hadleft off. 

"We moved our things on a vessel to Delaware, and come up a creek to alittle 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 ahouse 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 wererunning tamely all round about as she hesitated. 

"I thought then of the kidnappers of Delaware, for I had heard aboutthem, and I jumped out of bed and fought for my life. They knocked medown and the rope around my feet tripped me up; but I fought with myteeth 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 knockedmy teeth out. My last hope was almost gone when I saw my husband comingin, and I cried to him, 'Save me! save me, darling!' He had a rope inhis hand, and, before I could understand it, he had slipped it over myneck 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 loosenedthe slipknot that had strangled me--the voice was his I had trusted somuch; I never could forget it!--'Eben, ' he said, 'I've took down everymole and spot on her body and can swear to' em, for I've learned 'em byheart, and you won't have no trouble a-sellin' her, as she can'ttestify. "

"The imp of Pangymonum!" Jimmy cried. "He had married you to note downyour 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 hadheard them say. He believed me, and told them the mayor of Philadelphiahad a reward out for them, for kidnappin' free people, already. Thenthey talked together--a little scared they was--and tied me again, andbrought 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 thesailor 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 beenon this arrand, by smoke! To drift yer, hangin' senseless to that olescow, must have been to save you, Mary. This is a island where theychains 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'llstay 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 bitof the bacon. "

He took the child again and amused it while the woman carefully cleanedhis 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 thenexamined the chain again, especially where it was rivetted at the feet, and lifted a large iron ball weighing several pounds, which was alsoaffixed to her ankle, so that she could not climb the tree. Her ankle hefound blistered by the red-hot rivet being smithed so barbarously closeto the flesh. 

"Don't leave me, oh! don't leave me here to die, " the woman pleaded, ashe started into the woods. 

"I'll stay by you an' we'll die together, if we must; but it's not myidee to die at all, Mary. I'm goin' to bring that air scow ashore whileI cut a hickory, if I can find one, to break this yer chain. "

Plunging again into the mud nearly to his waist, Phoebus pulled thescow up into the woods, and had barely concealed himself when he sawcome 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, " Jimmymuttered; "but I'm afraid this knife will have to go to the heart ofsome son of Pangymonum in ten minutes, or Ellenory Dennis never agin bepestered by her ugly lover. "

He was seized with a certain frenzy of strength and discernment at thedanger he was in, and, as he carried the scow onward and across thewoodland island, heavy as it was, he also noted a single small hickorytree on that farther margin, and threw himself against it and bent itdown, and plunged his knife into the straining fibres so that itcrackled and splintered in his hand. He leaped to the tree and scaled itas he had often climbed a mast, and he thrust the sapling under thestaple, trimming the point down with the knife as he clutched the treeby his knees, and then, catching the young hickory like a lever, hedropped down the pine trunk and got his shoulder under the sapling andbrought the weight of his body desperately against it. The staple bentupward in the tree, but did not loosen. 

At that instant the scraping of a boat upon the mud was heard, and theblack 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, andclimbing higher, like a cat, he worked the point of the lever downwardsinto the now crooked staple, and threw himself out of the tree againstthe sapling, which bent like a bow nearly double, but would not break, and, as the staple yielded and flew out, the chain and the delivererfell 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'sleaps, through the awe-hushed pines, carrying the whole burden on hisshoulders. 

He sat them in the scow, which sank to the edges, and, covered by aprotruding point of woods, pushed off into the deep river, yet guidingthe frail vessel in to the sides of the stream, away from the influenceof the out-running tide. As the scow turned the first crease or elbow inthe 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 keepafloat, the wound in his cheek began to bleed again, and he felt hisstrength going. Down, down he began to settle, till the water reachedhis 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 andchild into the stream, and the child was gone beneath the surface beforethe 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 herand she caught him by the hair, and he clutched her with the drowninginstinct, and down they went together, like husband and wife, innature'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 itslimbs, and made an invisible yet sure pathway to the shore. The longchain 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, whichshe no longer saw, she was about to let go of her deliverer's body andthrow herself also into the river, to die with them, when the old scow, having emptied itself of the water, reappeared at the surface and struckthe 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. Godhas took my baby. I can't do nothing for it now, but maybe I can savethis man's life before I die. "

Indifferent to her personal fate, she drew intelligence from her spiritof sacrifice, which is the only thing better than learning. She pushedthe scow down and under Phoebus with her remaining hand, till itrelieved her of a portion of the weight of his body, and rose up, half-bearing the bronze-faced sailor's form, and animating her generouspurpose with the honest and happy smile he wore upon his face, even inthe vestibule of the eternal palace. Then, gathering the long meshes ofthe iron chain up from its termination at her feet, she threw the longerportion of it into the scow, so that it no longer became entangled inthe cross-branches and knots below, and she could lift also the ironball sufficiently to glide her feet along the tree. 

With pain and difficulty, lessened by self-forgetfulness, she pushed thescow and the body to the foot of the tree, and, feeling around its oldroots for further support, the red-eyed terrapins arose and swam aroundher, disturbed in their possessions; but she feared no reptiles anymore, since Death, the mighty crocodile, had eaten the babe that she hadnursed but this morning. 

She had intelligent remembrance enough to think of all the precautionsher deliverer had taken, and, when she had dragged his body on the shoreinto the dense, scrubby woods, she also drew out the little scow andheaped some dead brush upon it, and had scarcely concealed herself whenshe heard voices from the river, and the report of a sail swung aroundupon 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 onhis visit; for all the beaks will gather fur him an' be started by JohnM. Clayton. "

"I'm sorry fur Joe, " answered another voice; "he hoped to make one morebig 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'sonly a mile and a half. If we discover nothin', we'll run down the riverand inquire at the landings as fur as Vienny. "

The colored woman now worked with all her strength to revive theinsensible sailor, rolling him, rubbing his body till her elbows seemedalmost to be dropping off, and then rubbing his great, broad breast withher head and face and neck. She breathed into his mouth the breathheaven vouchsafed to Hagar as bountifully as to Sarah, and, wringing outportions of her garments and hanging them at sunny exposures to dry, shesubstituted them, in her exhausted intervals, for the wet clothing ofthe 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 havethis life back!"

Crying and weeping, fainting and laboring, the moments, it seemed thevery hours, ran by and still he did not waken; and still, with all thatnoble strength that makes the fields of white men grow and blossom underthe negro's unthanked toil, the widow and childless one fought on forthis 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 acomforting morning nap in summer:

"You thar, Mary?"

He stared around with difficulty, his wounded face now clotted andstained with blood, and his eyes next looked an inquiry so kind andapprehensive 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, havingsacrificed all she had, the greatest of which was modesty, to bring backthat life in him which came naked and unashamed into the world--and heput 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 upunder my hands instead. You can do good: you're a white man. Baby wouldhave 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 togo 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 riseand walk, and leave the refuge in the woods. He advised the coloredwoman to crawl through the pine-trees along the margin, while he paddledin the old scow in the shadow of the forest, which now lay strong uponthe 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-blackenedhouse faced the river, and seemed to grin out of its broken ribs andhollow window-sockets like a traitor's skull discolored upon a gibbet. It was falling to pieces, and along its roof-ridge a line of crowsbalanced and croaked, as if they had fine stories to tell and weirdopinions to pass upon the former inhabitants of the tenement. 

"There, I have hearn tell, " said Jimmy, as he drew in to the bank, andtook 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 ofBroad 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, thequestion coming from her desolate heart. 

"In them days they didn't kidnap much; it was jest a-beginnin'. The warof '12 busted everything on the bay, burned half a dozen towns, kept thewhite 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'tknow whar ole Ebenezer come from; some says this, an' some that. All weknow is, that he an' the Hanlen gals, one of 'em Patty Cannon, was thehead devils in an' after the war. "

"It's a bad-lookin' ole house, sir. See, yonder's a coon runnin' out ofthe door. Oh! I hear my child cryin' everywhere I look. "

"The British begun to run the black people off in the war. The blackpeople wanted to go to 'em. The British filled the islands in Tangieryer 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 thewar was done, the British sailed away from Chesapeake Bay with thousandsof them colored folks, an' then the people yer begun to hate the freeniggers. "

"For lovin' liberty?" the woman sighed, looking at the ball, which hadgalled her ankle bloody. 

"They hated free niggers as if they was all Tories an' didn't loveAmerikey. So, seein' the free niggers hadn't no friends, these Johnsonsan' Patty Cannon begun to steal 'em, by smoke! There was only a millionniggers in the whole country; Louisiana was a-roarin' for 'em; everynigger was wuth twenty horses or thirty yokes of oxen, or two good farmsaround yer, an' these kidnappers made money like smoke, bought thelawyers, went into polytics, an' got sech a high hand that they tried amurderin' of the nigger traders from Georgey an' down thar, comin' yerfull of gold to buy free people. That give 'em a back-set, an' they hungsome 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, " thewoman said, nodding, and wandering in her mind. 

"At last the Delawareans marched on Johnson's Cross-roads an' cleanedhis Pangymonum thar out, an' guarded him, and sixteen pore niggers inchains he'd kidnapped, to Georgetown jail. Young John M. Clayton waspaid by the Phildelfy Quakers to git him convicted. Johnson was strongin the county--we're in it now, Sussex--an' if Clayton hadn't skeeredthe jury almost to death, it would have disagreed. He held 'em overbilin' hell, an' dipped 'em thar till the court-room was like aMethodis' revival meetin', with half that jury cryin' 'Save me, save me, Lord!' while some of 'em had Joe Johnson's money in their pockets. Joewas licked at the post, banished from the state, an' so skeered that helaid low awhile, goin' off somewhar--to Missoury, or Floridey, orAllybamy. But Patty Cannon never flinched; she trained the young boysaround yer to be her sleuth-hounds an' go stealin' for her; an', tillshe 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 intoNorth Carliney; fur Joe Johnson's a smart feller fur enterprise, andPatty Cannon's deep as death an' the grave. "

Phoebus looked at the woman sitting in the scow, and he saw that shewas fast asleep; his tale having no power to startle her senses, nowworn-out by every infliction. 

"I must git that ball an' chain off, " the sailor said; "but iron, inthese ole sandy parts, is scarce as gold. "

He lifted her out of the scow and laid her in the shade, and began toexplore the old house. To his joy, he found the iron crane still hangingin the chimney, and signs of recent fire. 

"These yer ole cranes was valleyble once, " Jimmy said, "an' in the willsthey left 'em to their children like farms, an' lawsuits was had overthe bilin' pots an' the biggest kittles. It broke a woman's heart to gita little kittle left her, an' the big-kittled gal was jest pestered withbeaux. But, by smoke! we're a-makin' iron now in Amerikey! Kittles ischeap, and that's why this crane is left by robbers an' gypsies afterthey used it. "

He twisted the crane out of the bricks on which it was hinged, and someof 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 spaceinside with his hand, and brought forth a steel purse of Englishmanufacture, filled with shillings at one end, and fifteen goldenguineas at the other; they rolled out through the decayed filigree, rusted, probably, by the rain percolating through the chimney, and thepurse crumbled to iron-mould in his hand. 

"'The Lord is my shepherd, '" said the sailor, reverently; "'I shall notwant. He leadeth me by the still waters. ' How beautiful Ellenory saysit. 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! Ithought I knew you, Barney, " he continued, as an owl fluttered out andhopped up a ruined stairway. 

"Now, British money ain't coined by Uncle Sam; what is the date? I canmake figgers out easy: Eighteen hundred and fifteen!' I was about to doEbenezer Johnson the onjustice of saying that he'd sold his country outto ole Admiral Cockburn, but the war was done when this money wascoined. Whose was it?"

He removed more carefully some of the bricks, to put his hand in thehollow depository left there, and, feeling around and higher up, broughtout 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 somebodyyer. I reckon he was British. Ellenory kin read it, if I live to see heragin. "

There was nothing more, and, as he left the rotting old house, a crashand a cloud of smoke rose up behind him, and the chimney fell into themiddle of the floor. 

With the crane's sharp wrought-iron point and long leverage the pungycaptain succeeded, after tedious efforts, in breaking the links of thechain 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 feelas 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' shebegged me to come yer. When you git to Prencess Anne, whar I want you togo, find Ellenory Dennis, an' tell her I've seen her boy, an' I'll bringhim back if I kin. "

"Princess Anne? where is it?"

"It's maybe, forty mile from yer, Mary; half-way between sunrise andsunset. "

"Right south, sir?"

"That's it. Now I'll tell you how to git thar. Take this old woods roadalong Broad Creek and walk to Laurel, five miles; it's a little town onthe creek. Keep in under the woods, but don't lose the road, fur everyfoot of it's dangerous to niggers. You kin git thar, maybe, by dark. Idon't know nobody thar, Mary, an' I can't write, fur I never learnedhow. But you go right to the house of some preacher of the Gospel, andtell him a lie. "

Mary opened her eyes. 

"I wouldn't have you tell a lie to anybody but a good man, " continuedPhoebus, "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'rethe runaway slave of Judge Custis of Prencess Anne, an' you're sorry yourun 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. Ifyou was to tell the preacher you had been kidnapped, he'd, maybe, beafraid to help you. They're a timid set down yer on any subjectconcernin' niggers; these preachers will help save black folks' souls, but never rescue their pore broken bodies. When you tell him you are theslave of a rich man like Judge Custis, he'll jump at the chance to dothe Judge a favor, an' tell you that you do right to go back to yourmaster. That's whair he's a liar, Mary--so he'll scratch _your_ lieoff. "

"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'sdaughter--the one that's just been married. Tell her you want to speakto her privately. Then tell her the nigger-skinned man--I'm him--thatshe sent away with her mother, found you whar you was chained in thewoods. Take this link of the chain to show her. Tell her you want to beher 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 mytroubles. Tell her I'm a-startin' for Pangymonum, an', if I die, it'snothin' but a bachelor keepin' his own solitary company. Yer's a goldpiece 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 hertears. 

"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 womandisappeared in the forest, "if I knowed how to do it; but, by smoke! thewind on the bay's dried up my tear ponds. I'll bury these curiositiesright yer, with this chain and ball, and put some old bricks around' emouten 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 sometrees 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 discoveredanother boundary stone. A beach led under the cover of a sandy bluff tothe river gate of Twiford's comfortable house, and he boldly entered thelane and lawn, saying to himself:

"I reckon a feller can ask to buy one squar meal a day in a freecountry, fur I'm hungry. "

Even in that day the house was probably seventy years old, roofed by anartistic shingler in lines like old lace-work, the short roofs over thethree pretty dormers like laced bib-aprons, the window-casements insmall checkers of dark glass, the roof capacious as an armadillo's backor 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-redalternately, were laid by conscientious workmen, and bade fair to standanother hundred years, as they smoked their tidy chimney pipes fromhearty stomachs of fireplaces below. 

Standing beneath the honey-locust tree at the lawn-gate, the sailorbeheld an extensive prospect of the river Nanticoke, bending in abeautiful curve, like the rim of a silver salver, towards the south, theblue perspective of the surrounding woods fading into the azure bluffson the farther shore, where, as he now identified it, the hamlet ofSharptown assumed the mystery and similitude of a city by theenchantment of distance. A large brig was riding up the river under theafternoon breeze, carrying the English flag at her spanker. Thewild-fowl, flying in V-formed lines, like Hyads astray, flickered on thesalver of the river like house-flies. Some fishermen distantly appeared, human, yet nearly stationary, as if to enliven a dream, and the bees ina row of hives kept murmuring near by, increasing the restful sense inthe heart and the ears. 

"Why cannot human natur be happy yer, pertickler with its gal--some onelike Ellenory?" Phoebus thought; "why must it git cruel an' desperatefor money, lookin' out on this dancin' water, an' want to turn thistrance into a Pangymonum?"

He crossed the lane to a squatty old structure of brick by thewater-side, and peeped in. 

"A still, by smoke!" he said. "If it ain't apple brandy may I forgit mycompass! 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 bathedhis head in its strong alcohol. He then returned to the lawn and walkedaround the house, peeping into the lower rooms--of which there were twoin the main building, the kitchen being an appendage--but saw nobody. The porch in the rear extended the full width of the house, unlike thesmaller shed in front, which only covered two doors, standing curiouslyside by side. 

Completely sheltered by the longer porch, Phoebus, looking into awindow, there saw a table already set with a clean cloth, and bread andcold chicken, and a pitcher of creamy milk, with a piece of ice floatingin 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 bedwas also in the room, which looked out by one window upon the lawn andthe river, and by the other at the farm, the corn-cribs, and the smallbarns and pound-yard. 

With a sailor's quiet, sliding feet, Jimmy walked into the low hall, anda cat-bird, in a cage there, immediately started such a shrill series ofcries that his steps were unheard by himself. 

"Nobody bein' yer, " thought Jimmy, "an' the flies gittin 'at thevictuals, 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 asea-captain and a widower, and she was one of the beautiful Hanleygirls, brought up by old Ebenezer Johnson at his house across on BroadCreek; and there Captain Twiford courted her, and brought her here tolive. He died early--all my aunties' husbands died early--and is buriedin the vault out here behind the pound, where you can go in and see himin his shroud, lying by Aunt Betty. Her next husband, John Gillis, lefther, and then she lived with William Russell, a negro-trader. Aunt Pattygoverned all her sisters and the Johnson boys, too. Oh, how I fear herwhen she looks at me sometimes with her bold, black eyes: I can't helpit. "

Another voice, not a woman's, yet almost as gentle, now seemed to ask aquestion; 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 spokeagain:

"Yes, he was killed in the room under this, before I was born, AuntPatty 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 indebt, and this house and farm were sold under executions and bought by aMaryland man, who stole an opportunity when the men were away, and sethis 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, andthe 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 dogsare 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-birdever I see, fur now it's shut up a-purpose. "

There sounded something familiar to the uninvited guest in the voicewhich seemed to delay this intention; but the cat-bird, with hisunaccommodating mood, broke right in again. Then the female continued:

"While the men--who had come armed, expecting trouble--were removingAunt Betty's goods out of the room, throwing many of them out of thewindows, so as to be themselves in sole possession, a sound was heard inthe room below, where your meal is now ready, like a panther skippingand lashing his tail; and, before the men could breathe, old EbenezerJohnson was up the stairs and laying about him. His eyes were full ofmurder. One man jumped right through that window and rolled off theporch; another he pitched down the stairs; the third was a boy, JoeKing, barely grown--he lives not far from this house now--and EbenezerJohnson dashed him down the stairs, too, and started after him. All hislife the boy had been taught to dread that terrible man, and now he wasin his hands, or flying before him; and, as he reeled through the roombelow, out of the door that opens on the back porch, the boy's eyes, inthe 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. Theboy, as he whirled past, grasped the long rifle, drew it to hisshoulder, and, with a young volunteer's skill--for he had been drillingto fight the British--he put the two balls in that old man's brain. Bothballs entered over the left eyebrow, and one passed through the head andwas found in the wall; the other never was found. [3] The lawless giantgave a trembling motion through his frame, his eyes glazed, and he sankdead upon the floor without a sound--the wicked had ceased fromtroubling! Aunt Betty, Aunt Patty, and Aunt Jane, three sisters shapedby him in soul, fell on his body and wept and almost prayed, but it wastoo late. They buried him near Aunt Betty, in the field behind thepound. "

Undertaking to rise from his chair, Jimmy Phoebus made a loud scrapingon 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 beloose. "

"Who's there?" also asked the other voice, with something very familiarto 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 agirl's bare feet, beautifully moulded, slowly descended the steepstairway, and next a slender, graceful body came into view, and finallya 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 bloodwas hideously matted and not wholly stanched even yet. She sank slowlydown 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 poundbetween him and the house; and scarcely had he done so when Levin Dennisappeared coming down the stairs, all unconscious of the apparition, and, finding the beautiful girl insensible, he raised her in his arms andstole a kiss. 

Paying for his one act of deceit by losing the principal object of hisquest, Jimmy Phoebus stopped a minute by Ebenezer Johnson's grave. 

In a level field of deep sand--the soil here being the poorest in theregion--and between the cattle-pound and the pines, which wereeverywhere jealous of their other indigenous brother, the Indian corn, an old family burial-lot lay under some low cedar-trees, with wild berrybushes growing all around. There were several little stones overTwifords that had died early, and a large heap of sand, planted withsome flowers, that might have covered a favorite horse, but whichPhoebus believed was the resting-place of the river buccaneer; andthere was also a vault of brick and plaster, with the little door ajar, where prurient visitors, themselves with Saul's own selfish curiosity toraise the dead, had poked and peeped about until the coffin lids hadbeen 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, asmen are buried now, for clothing was too valuable in the scanty-peopledcountry to feed it to the worms. Twiford lay shrivelled up, shroud andflesh making but one skin, the face of a walnut color, the haircomplete, the teeth sound, and severe dignity unrelaxed by the exposurehe was condemned to for his evil alliance with Betty Hanley. 

She also lay exposed, who had lived so shamelessly, respecting not themould of beauty God had given her, till now men leered to look upon hernearly kiln-dried bosom glued into its winding-sheet, and the glory ofher hair, that had been handled by bantering outlaws, and in a ripplingwave 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 vaultagainst it. "Now, I reckon, I kin git to the cross-roads by a leetleafter dark. "

CHAPTER XXV. 

PATTY CANNON'S. 

Phoebus passed along the side of a large, black, cypress-shadedmill-pond, and found the boundary stone again, and took the angle fromits northern face as a compass-point, and, proceeding in that direction, soon fell in with a sort of blind path hardly feasible for wheels, whichran almost on the line between the states of Maryland and Delaware, passing in sight of several of these old boundary stones. Not a dwellingwas visible as he proceeded, not even a clearing, not a stream exceptone mere gutter in the sand, not a man, hardly an animal or a bird; themonotonous sand-pines, too low to moan, too thick to expand, too dry togive 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 thewild 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 ofpines, that's a little above the world, an' says 'Holy, rolley, melancho-ly, mind your soul-y'--I could go into their sap and shatsfust-rate. But to die yer an' never be found in these desert wastes ispore 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. Sometimesa crow would caw, to hear strange sounds go past, like an oldwatchman's rattle moved one cog. The stars became bright, however, andthe moon was new, and when Phoebus came to a large cleared opening inthe pines, the lambent heavens broke forth and bathed the sandy fieldswith silver, and showed a large, high house at the middle of theclearing, with outside chimneys, one thicker than the other, and a porchof two stories facing the east. 

Though not a large dwelling, it was large for those days and for thatunfrequented region, and its roof seemed to Phoebus remarkably steepand long, and yet, while enclosing so much space, had not a singledormer window in it. The southern gable was turned towards the intruder, and in it were two small windows at the top, crowded between the thickchimney and the roof slope. The two main stories were well lighted, however, and the porch was enclosed at the farther end, making a doubleoutside room there. No sheds, kitchens, or stables were attached to thepremises, but an old pole-well, like some catapult, reared its long poleat half an angle between the crotch of another tree. Roads, marked bytall worm fences, crossed at the level vista where this tall housepresided, and a quarter of a mile beyond the cross-roads, to thenortheast, was another house, much smaller, and hip-gabled, likeTwiford'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'vehearn tell of this place considabul. The big barn-roofed house is JoeJohnston's tavern for the entertainment of Georgey nigger-traders thatcomes to git his stolen goods. It's at the cross-roads, three miles fromCannon's Ferry, whar the passengers from below crosses the Nanticoke furEaston and the north, an' the stages from Cambridge by the King's roadmeets 'em yonder at the tavern. The tavern stands in Dorchester County, with a tongue of Caroline reaching down in front of it, an' Delawarestate hardly twenty yards from the porch. Thar ain't a court-housewithin twenty miles, nor a town in ten, except Crotcher's Ferry, wharevery Sunday mornin' the people goin' to church kin pick up a basketfulof ears, eyes, noses, fingers, an' hair bit off a-fightin' on Saturdayafternoon. They call the country around Crotcher's, Wire Neck, caze noneck is left thar that kin be twisted off; the country in lower Car'linethey calls 'Puckem, ' caze the crops is so puckered up. They say Joe's agreat man among his neighbors, an' kin go to the Legislater. The t'otherhouse out in the fields is Patty Cannon's own, whar she did all herdev'lishness fur twenty years, till Joe got rich enough to build hispalace. "

With the rapid execution of a man who only plans with his feet andhands, the bay sailor observed that there was a grove of good hightimber--oaks and pines--only a few rods from the cross-roads and to theright, under cover of which he could draw near the tavern. As heproceeded to gain its shade, he heard extraordinary sounds of turbulencefrom 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 theditch was now perfectly dry, "this ditch seems to me to pint right forthat tavern. "

He therefore crawled along its dry bed till it crossed under a road by awooden culvert or little bridge of a few planks. 

The noise at the tavern was now like a fight, and, as Phoebuscontinued 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 concealedapproach, Phoebus lost the moment to take a single glance only, and, drawing his old slouched hat down on his face to hide the bandaging, hemuttered, "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 hardlyfifteen years old; but the boy was the more reckless and courageous ofthe two, while the man, with three times the boy's strength, lacked thestomach or confidence to avail himself of it; and, having had the boydown, was now being turned by the latter, amid shouts of "Three to twoon Owen Daw!" "Bite his nose off, Owen Daw!" "Five to two that CyrusJames gits gouged by Owen Daw!"

The boy with a Celtic face and supple body was full of zeal to meritfavor and inflict injury, and, as the circle of vagrants and outlaws ofall ages reeled and swayed to and fro, Phoebus, unobserved by anybody, put his head down among the rest and searched the faces for those ofLevin Dennis or Joe Johnson. 

Neither was there, and the only face which arrested his attention was awoman's, standing in the door of the enclosed space at the end of theporch, at right angles to the central door of the tavern, and justbeside it. The whole building was without paint, and weather-stained, but the room on the porch was manifestly newer, as if it had been anafterthought, and its two windows revealed some of the crude appendagesof 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 muchinterested in the fight that she turned all parts of her countenanceinto 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 membersof the crowd, however they were absorbed in the fight. She was what iscalled a "chunky" woman, short and thick, with a rosy skin, low butpleasing forehead, coal-black hair, a rolling way of swaying and movingherself, a pair of large black eyes, at once daring, furtive, andfamiliar, and a large neck and large breast, uniting the bull-dog andthe 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 mainbuilding, shining quite through the house, and Phoebus saw that therear door was also open and was unguarded. 

He took the first chance, therefore, of dodging around the corner of thebar, intending to pass around the north gable of the house and dart upthe stairs by the unwatched door; but he had barely got out of sightwhen a loud hurrah burst from the crowd as a feeble voice was heardcrying "Enough, enough!" followed by jeers rapidly approaching. 

The large outside chimney, where Phoebus now was, had an arched cavityin it large enough to contain a man, being the chimney of two differentrooms within, whose smoke, uniting higher up, ascended through one stem. Into this cavity Phoebus dodged, in time to avoid the beaten party tothe fight, the grown man, who staggered blindly by towards a well, hisface dripping blood, and he was sobbing babyishly; but the concealedsailor 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 afterhim, and Jimmy himself fell in at the rear, and, instead of going withthe rest towards the well, where the loser was bathing his face, Phoebus softly stepped over the low sill of the back door, the woman'sback being turned to him, and, as he had anticipated, a stairwayascended there out of a large room, which answered the purposes ofparlor and hall, dining and gambling room, as Jimmy drank in at oneglance, from seeing tables, dishes and cards, bottles and whips, armsand saddles. This stairway had no baluster, and was not safe in the darkfor strangers to the house. 

Satisfying himself by an interior observation, as he had suspectedexteriorly, that there was no cellar under Johnson's tavern, the sailorslipped up the stairs, intent to find where Judge Custis's property andEllenora'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 wasajar, and, peeping through, Phoebus saw, extended on a bed, obliviousto all the righting and din outside, Joe Johnson the negro-trader, hisform revealed by a lamp and the open fire. 

An impulse, immediately repressed, came on the sailor to draw his knifeand stab Johnson to the heart, as probably the villain who had shot himfrom the cat-boat. The negro-trader wearily turned his long length inthe bed, and Phoebus slipped back along the hall to the only doorbesides that was not closed fast, leading into the room at the rearsouthern corner of the house. 

This door creaked loudly as it was opened, and a man of a bandit formand dress, who was lying on a pallet within, revealed by the brightmoonlight streaming in at two windows, half roused himself as Jimmycrouched at the door, where a partition, as of a very largeclothes-press, taking up fully half the room, rose between the intruderand 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 hisknife again. The man was heard moving about the narrow room, and hefinally seemed to walk out into the hall and down the stairs. 

Feeling around his closet, which was pitch dark, Phoebus found a deepindentation in it, as of a smaller closet, and the sound of crooningvoices came from above. 

"By smoke!" Jimmy mentally exclaimed, "this big closet is nothin' but ablind fur a stairway in the little closet to climb up to the dungeonunder the big roof. "

He stole out again and found the moonlight now streaming upon an emptypallet and the burly watchman gone, and streaming, too, upon a largerdoor in the closet opposite the indentation he had felt, this doorsecured by a padlock through a staple fastening an iron bar. The key wasin the padlock, and Jimmy turned it back, drew off the lock and droppedthe bar. 

The moment he opened the door an almost insupportable smell came down ashallow hatchway within, up which leaned a rough step-ladder, movable, and of stout construction. 

"That smell, " said Phoebus, entering, and pulling the door closebehind him, "might be wool, or camel, or a moral menagerie from theroyal gardings of Europe, but I guess it's Nigger. "

He went up the steep steps with some difficulty, as they were made topass only one person, and at the top he entered a large garret, dividedinto two by a heavy partition of yellow pine, with a door at the middleof it, and from beyond this partition came the sounds of crooning andbabbling he had heard. 

The bright night, shining through a small gable window, revealed thisouter half of the garret empty, and not furniture or other appurtenancethan the hole in the floor up which he had come, and the door into theplace of wailing beyond, which was fastened by a long iron spikedropping into a staple that overshot a heavy wooden bar. As he slippedup the spike and took the bar off, Phoebus heard some person in theroom 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, "particklerin Pangymonum, whar I am now. "

He also reflected that the arrangements of this kidnappers' pen, simpleas they seemed, were quite sufficient. If authority should demand tosearch the house, the double clothes-press below, with the ladder pulledup into the loft, became a harmless closet hung with wardrobe matters, and the inner closet a storeroom for articles of bulk; and no humanbeing could either go up or come down without passing two inhabitedfloors 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 totaldarkness that prevailed, as there was no window whatever in this pen orden, but he heard various voices, and inhaled the strong, close air ofmany African breaths exhausting the supply of oxygen, and knew thatchains and irons were being moved against the boards of the floor. 

"Thair ain't nothin' to do yer, " Jimmy remarked, softly, "but jess squatdown an' git a-climated, as they say about strangers to our biliousshore, an' git your eyeballs tuned to the dark. But I should say thatthis was both hokey-pokey an' Pangymonum, by smoke!"

A man in some part of the den was praying in a highly nervous, excitedway, slobbering out his agonizing sentences, and dwelling hard upon hismore open vowels, and keeping several other inmates in sympathy or equalmisery, as they piped in answer to his apostrophes:

"Lawd, de-_scen'! De_-scen', O my Lawd. I will not let dee go; no, oh myLawd! Come, save me! Yes, my Lawd! Come walkin' on de waters! Come outenLazarus'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 awaitthe strengthening of his eyes to see around him. The place appeared tobe nearly twenty-five feet square, and was cross-boarded both the gableway and under the sloping roof, whose eaves were planked up a foot ortwo above the floor; in the middle any man could stand upright andscarcely touch the ridge beam with his hands, but along the slopingsides could barely sit upright. 

The man still continuing to express his absolute subjection of spirit ina frenzy of words, and several little children crying and shoutingresponsively, Phoebus ordered the man to cease, after asking himkindly to do so several times; and the command being disobeyed, heslapped the praying one with his open hand, and the poor wretch rolledover in a kind of feeble fit. 

A little child somewhere continuing to cry, Phoebus took it in hisarms and held between it and the starlight, at the half-open door, oneof the shillings he had obtained from the old cabin on Broad Creek a fewhours before. The child, seeing something shine, seized it and heldfast, and Phoebus next passed his hand over the face of a sleepingman, who was snoring calmly and strenuously on the floor beside him. Hemade 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 dejectedmulatto person, who had been lying back in the shadows, crawl forward, rattling his manacles. This man, when spoken to, replied with suchrefinement and accuracy, however his face betokened great inward misery, that the sailor took as careful a survey of him as the moonlightpermitted, coming in by that one lean attic window. He was a man who hadshaved himself only recently, and his dark, curling side-whiskers andclean lips, and the tuft of goatee in the hollow of his chin, andintelligent, high forehead, seemed altogether out of place in thisdarksome eyrie of the sad and friendless. 

"Is he your friend, sir?" asked this man, turning towards Samson. "Hemust have a good conscience if he is, for he slept soon after he wasbrought 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 breakany gentleman's heart to hear my tale. Who is your friend, sir?"

"Samson, wake up, old bruiser!" cried Phoebus, shaking the sleepersoundly; "you didn't give in to one or two, by smoke!"

"Is it you, Jimmy?" the old negro finally said, with a sheepishexpression; "why, neighbor, I'm glad to see you, but I'm sorry, too. Ablack man dey don't want to kill yer, caze dey kin sell him, but a whiteman 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 canthey mean?"

"I'm ironed so heavy, Jimmy, " continued Samson, "dat I can't set upmuch. 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, bysmoke!"

In a minute he had severed the cords at the wrist, and the intelligentyellow man pleaded that a similar favor be done for him, to which thesailor acceded ungrudgingly. 

"Jimmy, " said Samson, "if it's ever known in Prencess Anne--as I 'spectit never will be, fur we're in bad hands, neighbor--dar'll be a laughinstid of a cry, fur ole boxin' Samson, dat was kidnapped an' fetched tojail 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 PattyCannon. She is the only woman ever seen at a threshing-floor who canstand in a half-bushel measure and lift five bushels of grain at onceupon her shoulders, weighing three hundred pounds. "

"I ain't half dat, " Samson smiled, quietly, "an' she handled me, shoreenough. 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 purtyto look at, an' maybe fifty year ole. She was de nicest woman mos' everI see. She made me git off my mule an' ride in de wagon by her, an' takea drink of her own applejack--she said she 'stilled it on her farm. Shesaid she knowed Judge Custis, an' asked me questions about PrencessAnne, 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 wasnamed de Tussocky branch, whar she got out of de wagon to water herhoss. At dat place she come up to me an' says, 'Samson, I'll wrastleyou!' 'Go long, ' says I, 'I kin't wrastle no woman like you. ' 'You gotto, ' she says, swearin' like a man, an' takin' holt of me jess like aman wrastles. I felt ashamed, an' didn't know what to do, and, befo' Icould wink, Jimmy, dat woman had give me de trip an' shoved me wid ablow like de kick of an ox, and was a-top of my back wid a knee likeiron 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. Istarted like lightnin' to jump up, an' my legs caught each oder; she hadcarried de cord to tie me under her gown, an' clued it aroun' me in aminute. As I run at her an' fell hard, she drew de runnin' knot tightan' danced aroun' me like a fat witch, windin' me all up in de rope. Desweat started from my head, I yelled an' fought an' fell agin, an', as Ilaid with my tongue out like a calf in de butcher's cart, she whisperedto 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 mein de cart an' gagged me so I couldn't say a word, and blood came outenmy mouth. I heard her talkin' to people as we passed by a town an' overa bridge. Nobody looked in de cart whar I laid kivered over, till wecome to a ferry in de night, an' dar we passed over, and I heard hertalkin' to a man on dis side of de ferry. He come to de side of de wagonan' peeped at me, layin' helpless dar, my eyes jess a-prayin' tohim--and he had an elegant eye in his head, Jimmy. He says softly tohisself, '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 deirons, and shoved me into dis hole in de garret. "

"I reckon that was Isaac Cannon, t'other Levite that never sees anythingthat ain't in his quoshint. "

"How's the purty gals, Jimmy? I shall see' em in my dreams, I' spect, ifI _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 fightfor liberty. How many fighting men are we here?"

"I 'spect you's de only one, Jimmy; we's all chained up; desenigger-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? Deybrought her in dis mornin' wi' two little children outen Teackle Hallkitchen; one of dem you give dat silver to--little Ned. Hominy ain'tsaid a word sence she come. "

Jimmy Phoebus went back to the corner of the den where the old womancowered, and called her name in many different accents and with kindassurances:

"Hominy, ole woman, don't you know Ellenory's Jimmy? Jedge Custis iscomin' for you, aunty. I'm yer to take you home. "

She did not speak at all, and Phoebus lifted her without resistancenearer to the moonlight. Her lips mumbled unintelligibly, her eyes weredull, 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 becomean idiot. They sometimes take it that way. "

Phoebus bent his face close down to the poor old creature's, sittingthere in her checkered turban and silver earrings, clean and tidy asservants of the olden time, and he studied her vacant countenance, hertenantless eyes, her lips moving without connection or relevance, andfelt that cruelty had inflicted its last miraculous injury--whipped outher mind from its venerable residence, and left her body yet to sufferthe pains of life without the understanding of them. 

"Oh, shame! shame!" cried the sailor, tears finally falling from hiseyes, "to deceive and steal this pore, believin' intelleck! To rob thecook of the little tin cup full o' brains she uses to git food fur badan' fur good folks! Why, the devils in Pangymonum wouldn't treat that away 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, shesaid, an' must go. De long man had a boat--Mars Dennis's boat--an' in denight little Phillis woke up an' cried. Nobody couldn't stop her. Delong man picked little Phillis up by de leg an' mashed her skull in aginde 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'tsteer de boat an' shet his mouf, he'd shoot him. I heerd de pistol gooff, but Mars Dennis wasn't killed, fur I saw him steerin' afterwards. "

"Thank God!" spoke the sailor, kissing the child. "Ellenory's boy wasinnocent, by smoke! That nigger-trader shot me an' threatened Levin'slife if he listened to me hailing of him. The noise I heard was themurder of the baby, whose cries betrayed the coming of the vessel. Samson, thar's been treachery ever sence we left Salisbury, an' thatnigger Dave's a part of it. "

"He said he hated me caze I larned him to box. Maybe my fightin's beenmy punishment, Jimmy, but I never struck a man a foul blow. "

"And what was _your_ hokey-pokey?" the pungy captain cried to the manwho had been making so much religious din. "Did they sell you fur neverknowin' whar to stop a good thing?"

The man hoarsely explained, himself interested by the disclosures andfraternity around him:

"I was slave to a local preacher in Delaware, an' de sexton of dechurch. It was ole Barrett's chapel, up yer between Dover an'Murderkill--de church whar Bishop Coke an' Francis Asbury fust met on depulpit stairs. My marster an' me was boff members of it, but he lovedmoney 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 leffin 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. Youpray, Rodney!' I knelt an' prayed for marster after I must leave him tobe free next year, an', while I was prayin' loud, people crept in dechurch an' tied me, and marster was gone. "

"He sold you fur life to them kidnappers, boy, becaze you was goin' tobe 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, " criedJimmy Phoebus, cheerily. "Here are four men, loving liberty, bound tohave it or die. Thar's one of' em with a knife, an' the first kidnapperthat 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 ontoCalvary 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 youcan'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 rekindledspirit. 

"We will all be murdered, gentlemen, " protested the dejected mulatto. "Iknow these desperate people. "

"Then you crawl over in the corner, " Phoebus commanded, "and see threemen fight fur you. We don't want any fine buck nigger to spile hisbeauty for us. "

The man crawled back into the blackness of the den again, and Phoebusbegan to search the open half of the garret for implements of war. Hefound two long pieces of chain, with which determined men might beat outan adversary's brains. 

"Now, boys, " Jimmy delivered himself, "I hain't lost my head yisterdaynor to-day neither, by smoke! I'm goin' to kill the first person thatcomes yer, an' git the keys of this den from him, an' lock all of you infast, an' the dead kidnapper, too. Then they won't git at you to shipyou off till I kin git to Seaford, over yer in Delaware--it's not morethan six mile--whar I know three captains of pungies, and all of' em'sin port thar now--all friends of Jimmy Phoebus, all well armed, andtheir crews enough to handle Pangymonum!"

A noise was heard at the lock of the lower door, and Phoebus slippedinto 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, andthe light of a lamp flashed up the hatchway and upon the naked roof, andthrough the cracks of the boarded garret pen. 

The sailor's knife was in his belt-pouch, where he carried it over thehip. As he leaned down to look through a crack in the low door, he felta 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 thepen 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 fromhim and saved your life. It's a rebellion, captain!"

"Help! Patty! Joe!" cried the man, with a loud voice, as Jimmy Phoebusthrew himself upon him and extinguished the lamp, and the two powerfulmen rolled on the floor together in a grip of mortal combat. 

Phoebus was a man of great power, but his antagonist was strong andslippery, too, and a spirited rough-and-tumble fighter. 

The pungy captain was on top, the bandit man locked him fast in his armsand legs, and tried to stab him in the side, as Phoebus felt thehandle of a clasp-knife, which seemed slow to obey its spring, strikehim 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 downit, while the two negro assistants of Phoebus beat down the negrotraitor with their chains, and searched him vainly for the knife he hadfilched. 

At last Phoebus prevailed, and his antagonist rolled down the openhatchway, seven feet or more, still keeping his desperate hold onPhoebus, and dragging him along; and both might have cracked theirskulls 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 recollectedhimself 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 wasbleeding at the flesh-wound in his cheek, and breathless from hisconflict. A woman had dashed a vessel of water into his face, and thishad revived him. 

The other man, called "captain, " had, meantime, by the aid of thiswoman--the same Phoebus had seen down-stairs--subdued and tied theblack insurgents, and both of them were flourishing their whips over thebacks and heads of the prisoners, big and little, so that the garret wasno slight reflection of the place of eternal torment, as the shadows ofthe monsters, under the weak light, whipped and danced against the beamsand shingles, and shrieks and shouts of "Mercy!" blended in hideousdissonance. 

The woman now turned her lamp on the sailor's rough, swarthy, injuredcountenance, 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 anoath, the former kicked the prostrate man with his heavy boot. 

"I popped this bloke last night, " he said, "and thought the scold's curehad him. He's a sea-crab playin' the setter fur niggers. He sang beef tome in Princess Anne. I told him thar he'd pass for a nigger, Patty, andwe'll sell him fur one to Georgey!"

"All's fish that comes to our net, Joe, " the woman chuckled; "he'll sellhigh, too. "

"That white man, " spoke the voice of Samson, within the pen, his chainsrattling, "has hunderds of friends a-lookin' fur him, an' you'll ketchit 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, andthen struck him down with the handle of his heavy whip. 

"Patty, " he growled, "that nigger's scienced; he's the champion scrapperof Somerset. He knocked me down, and I marked him fur it; and now, byGod! I'm a-goin' to burn him alive on Twiford's island. "

He swore an oath, half blasphemous, half blackguard, and the captainmurmured, with a lisp:

"The white man is the only _witness_. Make sure of him!"

Irons were produced, and the captain speedily fastened Phoebus's handsin a clevis, and hobbled his feet, and placed him, without brutality, inthe 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 pencried out:

"Aunt Patty, let me out: I saved the captain's life; I took the whiteman'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 nextgang--you an' the white nigger thar. "

The man threw himself upon the floor and moaned and prayed, as thelamplight disappeared and the hatchway slid echoingly over the stairs, and the lower bolts were drawn. As he lay there in horror and amidcontempt, a voice arrested his ears near by, singing, with musical andeasy spirit, so low that it seemed a hymn, from the roads and fields fardown 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 atreacherous heart that simple hymn bestirred. It was only JimmyPhoebus, thinking what he could say to punish this double traitormost, who had turned his back upon his race and upon gratitude, andJimmy had remembered the poor woman chained to the tree on Twiford'sisland, and her oft-reiterated hymn; and the conclusion was flashed uponhis mind that the mulatto wretch who decoyed her away and sold her wasnone other than his renegade fellow-prisoner, in turn made merchandiseof because too dangerous to set at large in the probable hue-and-cry forher. 

"Poor Mary!" Phoebus slowly spoke, in his deepest tones, with solemncadence. 

The wretched man listened and trembled. 

"Mary's sperrit's callin' 'Zeke!'" Phoebus continued, awful in hisinflection. 

The miserable procurer's heart stopped at the words, and his eyeballsturned 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 ofthe 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 intoa place between two of the cypress shingles in the roof, where he hadhidden the sailor's knife, the blade being pressed out of sight, andonly the handle within his grasp. It had been overlooked in the excitingscenes of the previous few minutes, and now recurred to his mind, assuperstitious passions rolled like dreadful meteors across the black andhopeless 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 earsagain, he raised one shriek of "Mercy!" to which no answer fell, anddrew 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 andorange leaves were falling almost audibly from the trees, as LevinDennis awoke on Wednesday, in the long, low house standing back in thefields from Johnson's cross-roads, and drank in the cool, stimulatingmorn, the sun already having made his first relay, and his postilionhorn was blowing from the old tavern that reared its form so broadly andyet so steeply in plain sight. 

Levin had been brought up from Twiford's wharf the night before by thepretty maid whom Jimmy Phoebus had so much frightened, and this washis first day of restful feeling, having slept off the liquor fumes ofSunday, the exciting watches of Monday, and the mingled pleasure andpain, illness and interest, love and remorse, of Tuesday. 

He had felt already the earliest twinges of youthful fondness for theyoung girl he had spent the day with at Twiford's, while lying sickthere from a disordered stomach and nervous system, and her amiabilityand charms, more than the temptation of unhallowed money, had changedhis purpose to escape at Twiford's and give information of the injuryinflicted upon Judge Custis's property. 

It hardly seemed real that he had been an accessory to a felony and awitness to a murder--the stealing of a gentleman's domestic slaves andthe braining of the smallest and most helpless of them, nearly in hissight; yet so it had happened, and he felt the danger he was in, buthesitated how to act. He had accepted the money of the trader, andpassed his mother's noblest friend on the river without recognition, while a dastardly ball had probably ended poor Phoebus's career. Toall these deeds he was the only white witness, the only one on whosetestimony redress could be meted out. 

He felt, therefore, that he was a prisoner, and his life dependent onhis cordial relations with the bloody negro-dealer and his band; andJohnson had reiterated his promise that if Levin joined them in equalfraternity he should make money fast and become a plantation proprietor. 

This night coming, a raid on free negroes in Delaware was to be made bythe band in force, and Levin had been told that he must be one of thekidnappers, and his frank co-operation that night would forever relievehim of any suspicions of defection and bad faith. 

"Steal one nigger, Levin, " Joe Johnson had said, "and then if evercaught in the hock you never can snickle!"

Levin interpreted this thieves' language to mean that he must do a crimeto get the kidnappers' confidence. 

The power of this band he had divined a little of when, at points alongthe river, especially about Vienna, there had been mysteriousintercourse between Joe Johnson and people on the shore, carried on inimitations of animal sounds; and the negro ferryman at that oldDorchester village had spoken with Johnson only half an hour before thetrader's encounter with Jimmy Phoebus in mid-stream, whereupon thegrim passenger had produced his pistol and notified Levin:

"Now, my feller prig, honor's what I expect from you, and, to remind youof it, Levin, I'm a-goin' to pint this barking-iron at your mummer, sothat if you patter a cackle, a blue plum will go right down yourthroat. "

He had then tried to evade some one expected on the river, and, in a fitof rage at the awakening and wailing of the child, had hushed itforever, and then had shot Phoebus down. 

Poor Hominy had sincerely believed that Johnson's peculiar slang was thelanguage of the good Quakers, followers of Elias Hicks, who shelteredrunaway slaves and spoke a "thee" and "thou" and "verily, " and thatstrange misapprehension in her ignorant mind the keen dealer had madeuse of to decoy her into Levin's vessel and waft her into a distantcountry. 

"We didn't steal her, Levin, " Johnson said; "she wanted to mizzle from agood 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 beenasleep, 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 ofsight of the Somerset shore, and entered the Nanticoke towards night byway of Harper's Strait, and run up on the night flood; but the instinctof Jimmy Phoebus had cut him off at the forks of the Nanticoke, andpropelled another crime to Johnson's old suspected record. He had neverbeen indicted yet for murder, though murder was thought to be none tooformidable a crime for him. 

There was a zest of adventure in this guilty errand, which, but for itscrime, would have pleased Levin moderately well, the roving drop in hisblood expanding to this wild association; and he knew but littlecomparatively of the Delaware kidnappers, reading nothing, and in thosedays little was printed about Patty Cannon's band except in the distantjournals like _Niles's Register_ or _Lundy's Genius of Emancipation_. Levin had never sailed up the Nanticoke region before, and its scenerywas agreeable to his sight, while his heart was just fluttering in thefirst flight of sentiment towards the interesting creature he had sounexpectedly 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 beautifulwildflower of a young woman sitting by his pallet, looking into hislarge soft eyes with her own long-lashed orbs of humid gray, andbrushing his dark auburn ringlets with her hand. As he had looked upwonderingly, she had said to him:

"I have never seen a man before with his hair parted in the middle, butI 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 ownbold lips. Oh, sir, I am not as wicked as she!"

"How kin you be wicked at all, " Levin asked, "when you look so good? Iwould trust your face in jail. "

"Would you? How happy that makes me, to be trusted by some one! Nobodyseems to trust me here. My mother was never kind to me. Captain Van Dornis 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 therest of her life, and we are all going there after father gets one moredrove 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 youhere hours, almost hoping you never might wake up, so beautiful and pureyou looked asleep. "

"And you--that's the way you look, Huldy. How kin you look so an' be hisdaughter. "

"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 turnedupon her beautiful bare feet, white as the river that flashed beneaththe window. 

"Hulda Bruinton, " she said, swallowing a sigh. 

"Bruinton--where did I hear that name?" Levin asked; "some tale has beentold me, I reckon, about him?"

"Yes, everybody knows it, " Hulda said, in a voice of pain; "he washanged 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 andneglected me, and Aunt Patty, my grandmother, brought me up. She waskind to me, but, oh, how cruel she can be to others!"

"You talk as if you kin read, Huldy, " said Levin, wishing to change soharsh a topic; "kin you?"

"Yes, I can read and write as well as if I had been to school. Some onetaught me the letters around the tavern--some of the negro-dealers: Ithink it was Colonel McLane; and I had a gift for it, I think, because Ibegan to read very soon, and then Aunt Patty made me read books toher--oh, such dreadful books!"

"What wair they, Huldy?"

"The lives of pirates and the trials of murderers--about Murrell's bandand the poisonings of Lucretia Chapman, the execution of Thistlewood, and Captain Kidd's voyages; the last I read her was the story of Burkeand Hare, who smothered people to death in the Canongate of Edinburghlast 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 looksso horribly at me, and mutters such threats, that I fear she is going tokill me, and so I hasten to get her favorite books and read to her thedark crimes of desperate men and women, and she laughs and listens likeone hearing pleasant tales. My soul grows sick, but I see she isfascinated, and I read on, trying to close my mind to the cruelnarrative. "

"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 Iever knew were negro-traders, or I should believe you too gentle to liveby that brutal work. I looked at you lying in this bed, and pity andlove came over me to see you, so young and fair, entering upon this lifeof 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 thefloody 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 huntto-morrow night. The river is watched, and you would not be let escapevery far, but in this house I am your jailer. Joe told me he would sellme if I let you get away. "

Levin listened and looked once more ardently and wonderingly at her, andfell 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 mylife, nor trampled on a worm if I could git out of his path, --so help memy poor mother's prayers! Huldy, how shall I save myself from thesewicked men and the laws I never broke till Sunday? Oh, tell me what todo!"

"Do anything but commit their crimes, " she answered. "Promise me youwill never do that! Let us begin, and be the friends I wished we mightbe, 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 somethingto cherish and protect. I am almost a woman: oh, what is my dreadfuldoom?--to become a woman here among these wolves of men, who meet aroundmy 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 sometrader whose bold and wicked eyes stared at me so coarsely, and I haveheard them talk of a price, as if I was the merchandise to betransferred--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 boatchartered 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--nothingstronger. Their brandy, which they 'still themselves, sets people onfire. I will set the table for you. "

It was after the table had been set that Jimmy Phoebus slipped in anddevoured the milk and meat, overhearing the continuance of theconversation just given; and when his awkward motions had disturbedthese new young friends, Hulda fainted on the stairs before theapparition Levin did not see, and he snatched the kiss that was likeplucking a pale-red blossom from some dragon's garden. 

That night two horses without saddles came to bring them both toJohnson's Cross-roads, and Levin awoke at Patty Cannon's old residenceon 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 upsome 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 comewith flowers in her hat. "

A mischievous blue-jay was in a large cherry-tree, apparentlydomesticated there, and he occupied himself mimicking over the woman'shead the alternate cries of a little bird in terror and a hawk's screamof 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 andtale-carriers. That's why I keeps 'em round me. They's better than awatch-dog to bark at strangers, and, caze they steals all their life, Ilove' em. Blue-jay, by Ged! is ole Pat Cannon's bird. "

"Grandma, " Hulda said, "I wish you had a large, elegant garden. You loveflowers. "

"Purty things I always _would_ have, " exclaimed the bulldog-bodiedwoman, with an oath; "bright things I loved when I was a gal, and tradedwhat 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 ofroses. "

"Florida, they say, is beautiful, grandma, and flowers are everywherethere. "

"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 'emhates me yer, and the darned lawyers tries to indict me, but I'll liveon the line till they shoves me over it, whar I've been cock of the walksence I was a gal. "

As Hulda, also barefooted, but moulded like the flowers, so that herfeet seemed natural as the naked roots, carried the boxes around to theglass beds encircling a chimney--dahlias, autumnal crocuses or saffrons, tri-colored chrysanthemums or gold-flowers, and the orange-coloredmarigolds--the elder woman, resting on her hoe, smelled the turpentineof a row of tall sunflowers and twisted one off and put it in herwide-brimmed Leghorn hat. 

"When I hornpipe it on the tight rope, " Levin heard her chuckle, "one ofthese yer big flowers must die with me. "

She disappeared into the peach orchard, which tinted the garden with itspinkish boughs, and Levin improved the chance to look over the cottageand the landscape. 

It was a mere farm, level as a floor, part of a larger clearing in theprimeval woods, where only fire or age had preyed since man was come;and, although there seemed more land than belonged to this property, noother house could Levin see over all the prospect except the bold andtarnished form of Johnson's castle, sliding its long porch forward atthe base of that tall, blank, inexpressive roof which seemed suspendedlike the drab curtain of a theatre between the solemn chimney towers;the northern chimney broad and huge, and bottomed on an arch; thesouthern chimney leaner, but erect as a perpetual sentry on the King'sroad. 

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-roofgave considerable bed accommodation in the attic besides, the roomsbeing all small, as was general in that day. Around the house extended apretty garden, with some cherry and plum trees and wild peach along itsboundaries, and the fields around contained many stumps, showing thatthe clearing had been made not many years before, while here and theresome heaps of brush had been allowed to accumulate instead of beingburned. 

As Levin looked at one of those brush-heaps in a low place, a pair ofbuzzards slowly and clumsily circled up from it, and, flying low, wentround and round as if they might be rearing their young there and hatedto go far; and, for long afterwards, Levin saw them hovering high abovethe spot in parental mindfulness. 

He drew his head in the dormer casement, and was making ready to go downto the breakfast he smelled cooking below, when his own name waspronounced in the garden, and he stopped and listened. 

"You lie!" exclaimed the old woman's voice. "I'll mash you to theground!"

"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'shead, while a demoniac expression of rage distorted her not unpleasingfeatures. 

Levin walked at once to the window and whistled, as if to the bird inthe tree. The older woman immediately dropped her hoe, and cried out toLevin:

"Heigh, son! ain't you most a-starved fur yer breakfast? It's all readyfur ye, an' Huldy's waitin' fur ye to come down. "

Levin at once went down the short, winding stairs to a table spread inthe kitchen end, and the old woman blew a tin horn towards Johnson'sCross-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 botheryou, and I don't want no harm to come to you, Levin; so you telleverybody you see yer that Levin Cannon is your name, and they'll thinkyou'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 hesaid:

"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'spore 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 himgood. "

The breakfast was brought in by a white man with a face scratched andbitten, and one eye full of congested blood. 

"Cy, " Patty Cannon cried, "them slappers, I 'spect, you had hard work toturn with that red eye Owen Daw give you. "

"I'll brown both sides of him yit, when I git the griddle ready forhim, " the man exclaimed, half snivelling. 

"Before you raise gizzard enough for that, little Owen'll peck outen yereyes, Cy, like a crow; he's game enough to tackle the gallows. You maygit 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, whoalways impose on you. Please don't go there again. "

"Where else kin he go?" inquired Patty Cannon, severely; "thar ain't nochurch left nigh yer, sence Chapel Branch went to rot for want ofparsons' 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 theCaptain kin make somethin' of Cy James, an' people around yer'll respecthim. Why, Captain, honey, ain't ye hungry?"

This was addressed to a man with several bruises on his forehead, and anenormous flaxen mustache, as soft in texture as a child's hair--a manwearing delicate boots with high Flemish leggings, that curled over andshowed full women's hose of red, over which were buckled trousers ofbuff corduroy, covering his thighs only, and fastened above his hips bya 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 allhis clothing, upon a peg in the wall, and bowed to Hulda first with asmile of welcome, to Madame Cannon cavalierly, and to Levin with agraceful reserve that attracted the boy's attention from the notoriouswoman at he head of the table, and held him interested during all themeal. 

"Pretty Hulda, I salute you! Patty, _buenos dias!_ I hope I see youwell, friend!"--the last to Levin. 

As he took up his knife and fork Levin observed a ring, with a purewhite diamond in it, flash upon the Captain's hand. He was a blue-eyedman, with a blush and a lisp at once, as of one shy, but at times hewould look straight and bold at some one of the group, and then heseemed to lose his delicacy and become coarse and cold. One such look hegave at Hulda, who bowed her eyes before it, and looked at him butlittle again. 

To Levin this man had the greatest fascination, partly from hisextraordinary dress--like costumes Levin had seen at the theatre inBaltimore, where the pirates on the stage wore a jacket and open shirtand belt similar in cut though not in material--and partly from hiscountenance, in which was something very familiar to the boy, though heracked his memory in vain for the time and place. The stranger washardly more than forty to forty-five years of age, but the mistress ofthe house treated him with all the blandishments of a husband. 

"Dear Captain! pore honey!" she said; "to have his beautiful yaller hairtored out by the nigger hawk! Honey, he fell onto me, and I thought abull had butted me in the stummick. "

"He broke no limbs, Patty, " the captain lisped, feeding himself in adainty way--and Levin observed that his fork was silver, and his knifewas a clasp-knife with a silver handle, that he had taken from hispocket--"_Chis! chis!_ if he had snapped my arm, the caravan must havegone without me to-night. I am sore, though, for Seńor was a valiantwrestler. "

"He'll git his pay, honey, when they sot him to work in Georgey an' floghim right smart, an' we spend the price of him fur punch. He, he! loveylad!"

"I took this from him to-day when I searched him carefully, " the captainsaid, 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 themon, spelled out the coin:

"George--three--eighteen--eighteen hunderd-and-fifteen!"

She threw up her head so quickly that the spectacles dropped from hernose, and Hulda caught them, and then Mrs. Cannon turned on Hulda with aferocious 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 ofthose strong, piercing looks he sometimes afforded, right into thehostess's eyes. "It might be a coincidence: _chis! chito!_ A shilling ofa certain year is no rare thing. But, Madame Cannon, it becomes slightlycurious when six such shillings, all numbered with that significantyear, came out of the same pocket!"

With this he passed five shillings of the same appearance over to thehostess, and she put on her spectacles again and looked at them all, anddropped them in her lap with a weary yet frightened expression, andmuttered:

"Van Dorn, who kin he be?"

"That is of less consequence, my dear, than whether we can afford tosell 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, unconsciousof their regard. 

"Shoo!" the woman said; "people kin scare theirselves every day if theymind to. We've got him, and, if he knows anything, it's all in thatnigger noddle. So eat and be derned!"

"My guardian angel, " the Captain remarked, with a blush and a strongerlisp, "you may not have observed that I have never ceased to eat, whileyou immediately lost your appetite. What will you do with theshillings?"

Mrs. Cannon took them from her lap, and rose as if she meant to throwthem out of the window, her angry face bearing that interpretation. 

"Stop, remarkable woman, " the Captain said, pulling his soft, flaxenmustache with the diamond-flashing hand, "let your fecund resources stopand counsel, for I am only looking to your happiness, that has soabundantly blessed my life and banished every superstition from my hearttill I believe in neither ghosts, nor God, nor devil, while you believein all of them, and give yourself many such unnecessary friends andintruders. _Chito! chito!_ as the Cubans say, and hear my suggestionbefore you throw away those shillings!"

"Take care how you mock me!" cried Patty Cannon, with her dark, boldeyes furtive, like one both angered and troubled, and her ruddy cheeksfull 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 sinlessbosom being their safe depository, and her long-lashed eyes melting ourghosts 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 girlishdelight:

"Oh, grandma, how kind you are! Why do you speak so mad at me when yougive me these pretty things? They seem almost warm in my bosom as I putthem there, like things with life. Let me kiss you for them!"

She rose from the chair and approached the mistress of the house, whosat in a strange terror, not forbidding the embrace, yet almostshuddering as Hulda stooped and pressed her pure young lips to theblanched and dissipated face of Patty Cannon. 

The Captain looked at the kiss with his peculiar strong, cold look, andsmiled at Hulda graciously and said:

"There, ladies, repose in each other's confidence! A few shillings forsuch a kiss is shameful pay, Aunt Patty. Do you remember as well as Ido, Madame Cannon, that once you missed some money, and thought yourmother had stolen it, and hunted everywhere for it, and it never came tolight?"

"Yes, " cried Patty Cannon, "I do, " and swore a man's oath. 

"Has the Seńor been in that direction, do you think? I think he has, forMelson and Milman are up from Twiford's with the news that Zeke's lasthide has burst her chain and fled, and all the lower Nanticoke gives notrace 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. "ThePhiladelphia woman the Seńor says he set free, and that she has gone tostart an alarm against us. The Seńor is a cool man: he told me that, andlaughed and roared, and says he will live to see us all in apicture-frame. _Ayme, ayme_, Patty!"

With her face growing longer and longer, the woman heard these scarcelyintelligible sentences--wholly unintelligible to the younger people--andto Levin it seemed that she grew suddenly old and yet older, till hercheeks, but lately blooming, seemed dead and wrinkled, and, frommaintaining the appearance of hardly fifty, and fair at that, she nowlooked 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 settleddown 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 oneshall assist at these ceremonies of expiation but Van Dorn himself, whose rights in Mistress Cannon are of priority. She's dropsical, andhastening to perdition too soon, which I must arrest and let her comfortme still more. Sweet comforter! Young gentleman, you shall help me. "

Levin took hold of Patty Cannon's feet and found that she seemed made ofbone, so tough were her sinews, and Van Dorn easily lifted her broadshoulders, and so she was laid on a bed in the next room, where theelegant Captain was seen rubbing her limbs, and even handling a bottleof leeches, one of which he allowed to crawl over the hand that wore thediamond, making it look like a ruby melting or in living motion. As thisvoracious blood-lover took his fill around the straight ankles of thehostess, 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 theblood-mark on him and he's ours. "

"Great woman!" the Captain lisped, prolific of his kisses, "MariaTheresa! Semiramis! Agrippina! Cleopatra! ever fecund in great ideas andgrowing youthful by nightshade, _alto! quedo!_ but I love thee!"

"Am I young a little yit, honey?" asked Patty Cannon. "Oh, don't deceiveme, Van Dorn! Can my eyes look love an' hate, like old times?"

"_Si! quizį!_ More and more, dark angel, entering into black age liketorches in a cave, I see your deep eyes flame; but never do they pleaseme, Patty, as when they flash on some new wicked idea, like this ofmarking the boy for life. Who is he?"

"He's a Cannon, one of the stock that my Delaware man belonged to. Hismother looked down on me fur coming in their family: I have rememberedher. "

"You want your young cousin made a felon, then?"

"Yes, honey, I want him scorched, so the devil will know him fur hisown. "

The Captain reached down to the lady's feet and pulled off the leech andheld it up against his hollow palm, gorged with the blood of the fairpatient. 

"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 inthe glass seemed to splash blood. 

"Ha, ha! Van Dorn, I love you!" the woman cried, and smothered him withcaresses. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

CANNON'S FERRY. 

When it was announced to Levin and Hulda, who had meantime been talkingin the garden, dangerously near the subject of love, that they were tobe given a ride to Cannon's Ferry with Captain Van Dorn, at the especialdesire of Aunt Patty Cannon--who also sent them a handful of half-centsto spend--they were both delighted, though Hulda said:

"Dear Levin, if it was only ourselves going for good, how happy we mightbe! I could live with your beautiful mother and work for her, and, knowing me to be always there, you would bring your money home insteadof wasting it. "

"Can't we do so some way?" asked Levin. "Oh, I wish I had some sense! Iwish Jimmy Phoebus was yer, Huldy, to take me out thair in the gardenan' whip me like my father. But, if I hadn't come yer, how could I haveseen you, Huldy?"

"How could I have spent such a heavenly night of peace and hope if youhad 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 aletter 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 nopaper here, no ink that I can get, the postage on a letter is almostnineteen cents, and, look! these half-cents are short of the sum by justtwo. "

"I have gold, " cried Levin, thinking of the residue of Joe Johnson'sbounty. 

He put his hand into his pocket, but the money was no longer there. 

"Hush!" cried Hulda, "you have been robbed. Everybody is robbed whosleeps here. Grandma can smell gold like the rat that finds yellowcheese. "

The individual who had served the breakfast was seen coming towardsthem, 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 soI can't see how. "

Levin started at once, suggesting to Hulda to make search for hismissing money, and, when they were in the little stable, the manobserved, in a whisper, to Levin:

"By smoke!"

Levin went on putting the bridles and breeching on the horses, when theman 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, nowslipped around to the front of Levin and looked down on him, andwhispered:

"Hokey-pokey!"

The idea crossed Levin's mind that the scullion of Patty Cannon musthave gone crazy. 

"Whair did you pick up them words, Cy?" Levin asked. 

"Hokey-pokey!" answered Cy James, with a more mysterious and impressivesufflation; "Hokey-pokey! By smoke! and Pangymonum, too!"

"Why, Cy! what do you mean? Jimmy Phoebus never swars but in them airwords. 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, andstared 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 oftenthat 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, excitedfellow whispered, with the greatest solemnity. 

"They're Jimmy Phoebus's daily words, dear Cyrus. He was killed on theriver 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'ttell 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'tno coward. Tell her I'm goin' to fry all these people on my griddle--allbut Huldy. Tell her I'm only playin' coward till I gets 'em all inbatter an' the griddle greased, an' then I'll be the bully of theCross-roads!"

"Do you hate _me_, Cy Jeems? I ain't done nothin' to you. I'm aprisoner here till I kin git my boat back from Joe an' go to PrencessAnne. "

"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 wharole Patty buries her gole an' silver!"

"Come with those horses, you idle lads, " the lisping voice of theCaptain was heard to call. "_Ya, ya!_ there, _luego!_ the morning passeson. "

"All ready, " Cy James replied, and as they left the stable door hewhispered once again, and looked significantly towards Johnson'sCross-roads:

"By smoke! Hokey-pokey! an' Pangymonum, too!"

The Captain, looking like a gentleman of the knightly ages misplaced inthis forest lair, held the reins standing on the ground, and handedHulda in to the seat beside his own with a grace and a blush and alisping laugh that, Levin thought, were very fascinating. 

"Now, Master Cannon, take your place in the tail of the vehicle, " theCaptain said, bowing to Levin, and darting one of those cold, coarselooks at him that he vouchsafed but for a moment, like a soft cat thathas all the nature of the rabbit except the tiger's glare. 

The vehicle was an old wagon without springs, and Levin's seat was apiece of board, while Hulda's had a back to it, and the Captain hadpadded it with a bear's-skin robe. He looked with the most delicateattention at Hulda, blushed when she looked at him, and, scarcelynoticing the horses, yet having them under nearly automatic control, hedrove out of Patty Cannon's lane and turned into the woods. 

Levin cast one long, prying look at Johnson's tavern, wishing he mighthave the gift to see through its weather-stained planking and tall blankroof, and then he watched the road, of hard sand or piney litter, withhere and there a mud-hole or long, puddly rut in it, unravel like aribbon behind the wheels among the thick pines. 

He also observed the skill with which the Captain threw his long cowhidewhip, a mere strip of rawhide fastened to a stick, awkward in otherhands; but Van Dorn could brush a fly from either of the short, shaggyDelaware horses with it, and hardly look where he struck or disturb thehorse, and he could deliver a blow with it by mere sleight that made theanimal stagger and tremble with the abrupt pain. 

At a little sandy rill, the only one they crossed, a long water-snakeendeavored to escape before the rapid wagon could strike it, but theCaptain rose to his feet quick and cat-like, and projected the long lashinto the roadside, and the snake writhed and bounded in the air almostcut in two. Then, sitting again and bending so close to Hulda that hislong, downy mustache of gold touched her cheek, Van Dorn said, softly:

"_Qué hermoso!_ Young wild-flower, let me take a snake out of your pathalso?"

"Which one, Captain?"

"It does not matter. Name any one. "

"Alas!" said Hulda, "I am of them; how can I wish harm to my stepfatherand my grand-dame? They are not what I wish, but I am commanded to honorthem. "

"By whom, fair Hulda?"

"By God. I read it in the Book after I heard it from a slave. "

"_Dónde estį!_ What slave that we know was so God-read?"

"Poor drunken Dave. He was a good man before he knew us. He told me allthe Commandments for a drink of brandy, and I wrote them down andafterwards I found them in a book. "

"_Chis! chito!_ how graceful is your mind, Hulda! It comes out of theabsolute blank of your condition and discovers things, as the youngosprey, untaught before, knows where to dive for fish. Who that evercomes 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 goodpeople, ' I think he called it; but he said you believed nothing, andthere was no basis, I think he called it, for 'conservative good' inyou. "

"_O hala hala!_ But this is good, " the Captain softly remarked, strokinghis golden mustache with the hand that carried the lustrous ring. "PattyCannon may be saved; I must be damned; and Allan McLane will sit injudgment. No, I believe nothing, because such as they believe!"

"That is why nobody likes you, " Hulda frankly observed, "agreeable asyou are. "

"And can you believe in anything after the surroundings of yourchildhood, touching crime like the pond-lily that grows among thewater-snakes?"

"The lily cannot help it, and is just as white as if it grew underglass, because--"

"Because the lily has none of the blood of the snake?" the captainlisped. "Do you enter that claim?"

"No, " said Hulda; "I know I am born from wicked parents, a daughter ofcrime, my father hanged, my mother of dreadful origin, but never have Ifelt that God held me accountable for their works if I kept my hearthumble and my hands from sin; and never have I been tempted yet fromwithin my own nature to enjoy a single moment of such hideousselfishness. And I thank my kind Maker that something to love andbelieve in, though unhappy as myself, has come down the sad pathway Ilooked 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 strawto cling to. "

Van Dorn's hand slipped around her waist, and his florid cheeks and blueeyes bent beneath her Leghorn hat:

"I find it here, perhaps, Hulda. Shall I embrace your youth with mystrong passion? I fear I love you. "

"Yes, " she answered, looking up with her long-lashed eyes of suchentrancing gray; "kiss me if it will give you hope!"

The blush and high color went out of his face as he stared into thosepassive, 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 Igave you the right for any pure object. The kiss _you_ would give medoes 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 thinkof you so often and, yet, never with admiration. You are the only personhere who appears to have lost something by being here; some portion ofyou seems to have disappeared; I have felt that you might have been agentleman, though you can never be again. I shrink from you, and still Ipity 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 youhave looked at me with bold and evil eyes many a time, but never camenearer. When I gaze at you as I did just now, you fly from me. That boyI 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 protectthat poor orphan boy I shall carry your name to God for pardon; if youever do him harm, my prayers for you will be dumb forever. "

"_Oh! aymé! aymé!_" 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 smallsquare houses, strewn about like toy-blocks between pairs of red outsidechimneys, sat, in the soft, humid October morning, along the rim of amarshy creek that, skirting the hamlet, flowed into the Nanticoke Rivera few miles, by its course, above Twiford's wharf. Two streets, formedby two roads, ended in a third street along the sandy, flattish rivershore, and there stood four or five larger dwellings, like theirhumbler neighbors, built of wood, but with bolder, greater chimneys, rising into the air as if in rivalry of four large ships and brigs thatlay at anchor or beside the two wharves, and threw their masts and sparsinto the sailing clouds, making the low forest that closed river andvillage in, stoop to its humility. But the beautiful river, withfrequent bluffs of sand and woods, flowing two hundred yards wide instately 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 criedto Levin:

"Levin, oh, look! Did you ever see as big a place as this? Yonder is theroad to Seaford, just as far as we have come! The big ships are takingcorn for West Indies, and bringing sugar and molasses. That is the ferryscow, and on the other side it is only five miles to Laurel. "

"Do you like to travel that road?" asked the Captain, with his pleasinglisp and blush returned again. 

"It makes me sad, " replied Hulda; "but I do not mutter when I go pastthe spot, like grandma. "

"What spot?" asked Levin. 

"Where father killed the traveller, " Hulda said. "He died shamefully forit. You could almost see the place but for yonder woods, where the roadto Laurel climbs the sandy hill. "

"What's this?" said Van Dorn, seeing a little crowd around one of thesingle-story cabins, and turning his team into the parallel street. 

A very tall, grand-looking man towered above the rest, and seemed unableto stand upright in the low cottage, with his proportions, so that hetook his place on the grassy sand without and gave his directions tosome 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; nowshe sees the quotient, too. "

Van Dorn looked on and saw a spinning-wheel come out of the door, and alittle wool in a bag after it. Jacob Cannon put his foot on the wheeland poked his head in the door. 

"I see an axe and a coffee-mill there, constable: levy onto 'em withyour _distringas. Experientia docet stultos!_ Pass out that pair ofshoes!"

A voice of a woman crying was heard, and Van Dorn and Levin both leapedout to look. 

Hulda also stepped down and disappeared. 

A woman, barely able to stand up, and white as illness and anguish couldmake 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 withthe 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 norsuttle when you serve a writ for Isaac and Jacob Cannon!"

"Where shall I lie with my babe?" cried the poor woman, looking aroundon the naked cabin, where neither bed, nor blanket, nor chair, norchest, nor spinning-wheel remained. 

"_Li-vari facias!_ and _fi-eri facias!_ If there's a mistake a replevinlies, but no mistakes are made by Isaac and Jacob Cannon. Constable, Ithink 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 Octoberfire, and it was thrown in the miscellaneous heap at Jacob Cannon'sfeet. 

"Now take the cradle, hard-hearted man, " the woman cried, "and turn thebaby into the fire, too, since I can cook nothing to make its milk in mybreasts. "

"Is the cradle worth anything, constable?" asked the magnificent-lookingman with the gray silvery lights around his horsy nose; "if it's worthtaking, I want it. People who can't pay their debts must live singlelike Jacob Cannon, and not be distrained. "

A boy, with his face scratched, and dissipation settled in it, boundedsuddenly into the aghast group of spectators, and made a vicious dive torecover the effects around Jacob Cannon's feet, but that mighty worthytook him by the collar and, holding him up, dropped him over a fencelike a bug:

"Owen Daw, here be witnesses to an assault _insultus_, actionable as atrespass _vi_, the quotient whereof is damages or the equivalent inGeorgetown 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, andlate distrainer on the profile of Cyrus James, Esquire, seizing an uglystick. 

"Justifiable as _son assault demesne_, " remarked the creditor, carelessly, as he wrenched the bobbin from the spinning-wheel andknocked 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 andimpulsively cried to Van Dorn:

"Oh, Captain! can't you pay her debts! I'll give all Joe's going to giveme, to pay you back. See how she lays on the bare floor! Hear her childcrying for her! Oh! I think I hear my mother's voice a-callin' of mehome 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 bloomedsuccessively upon his fresh, effeminate cheeks. He did not repel theboy's hands, however, but looked at the scene with worldly and unpityingcuriosity. 

"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 youwill think them music. "

"Oh, when we cry to God for mercy, captain, maybe our cries will soundlike 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 wantto, till the day of judgment. "

"I've got the judgment, " Jacob Cannon answered, his whitish eyes seemingto chuckle to the bridge of his nose, "and this is the day it's due. Alllegal days are 'judgment days' to Isaac and Jacob Cannon. "

"My son, my son, " the woman's voice wailed out to Owen Daw, "I see theend of your going to Patty Cannon's: my baby to the grave, myself to thealmshouse, and you to the gallows. "

"Captain, Captain, " Levin cried, "oh, pay the debt for me! Mother'snever been poor as this. Pay it, and I will work fur you anywhair, dearcaptain. "

"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, nothingless. "

"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 itwith Isaac Cannon. "

"God bless you!" cried the woman, taking her babe from the cradle andhushing its hunger at her breast; "they call you a wicked man, butblessings on you for all the good you do!"

"_Chito! chito!_" smiled Van Dorn. "I did it for this foolish boy; I pitynone. "

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, amongdangerous men and in great temptation, but he has found a friend. In oneweek this friend will try to write again, and, if not heard from, seekLevin Dennis at Johnson's Cross-roads_. "

This letter, written with all her unproficient speed, had just beenfolded, wafered, and endorsed, and she had put down one of the shillingsof 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 readsit. "

"If it were sent, _pomarosa_, we all might die. No, you are toodangerous. "

He looked, without his blush, at the shilling she was putting back inher 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, whowas at the desk--a man a little shorter than Jacob, and not so much of aking in appearance but with the same whitish eyes dancing around thebridge of his nose, and a more covert and thoughtful brow--"BrotherIsaac, Captain Van Dorn is chicken-hearted, and wants to settle the debtof 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 downfrom Mrs. Cannon's field?"

"Yes, actionable under statute made and provided, wilfully to spoil ordestroy any timber or other trees, roots, shrubs, or plants; value ofsaid bee-tree three dollars; _levari facias!_ The quotient isunsatisfactory to Isaac and Jacob Cannon. "

The eyes of the elder and smaller brother endeavored to have anintroduction 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 thispayment, gentlemen. She has already moved her effects across the line toson-in-law Johnson's. The bee-tree I know nothing about. "

"Brother Jacob, " spoke Isaac Cannon, "Moore takes the farm! Let him benotified 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, mybailiff seized on her plough as security for the aforesaid bee-treespoiled, maimed, and destroyed, and Moore is ploughing to put in hiswheat with it already. Time is money to Isaac and Jacob Cannon. "

"Ha, ha! what an executive comfort! Brother Jacob never adds an item toprofit and loss. "

"Gentlemen, " said Van Dorn, "I recommend you not to be chargingbee-trees to tenants in the vicinity of Johnson's Cross-roads. It's anunusual item, and we are raising young men there who may not understandit. "

"Captain, " said the elder Cannon, chuckling as if still in admiration ofMarius's subtlety, "I recollect now that our ferryman brought over a manfrom Laurel this morning with some news. A woman with a broken shacklereported there last night, and said she was the slave of Daniel Custisof Princess Anne: she came from Broad Creek. "

"Where did she go?"

"A Methodist preacher put her in his buggy and started to her master'swith her. "

"Then she'll beat the wind, " said Van Dorn; "these preachers are allhorse-jockeys, and can outswap the devil. _Hola! ya, ya!_ I must see tothis. "

He strode out, with a cold eye glanced at Hulda. 

"Come, young people, " spoke the grand head of Jacob Cannon to Levin andHulda; "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 theinterior. 

Levin kept Hulda's hand in his as they slowly saw emerge from theshadows a great variety of dissimilar things heaped together, till thehouse 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 anold country without minerals and manufactures, in the early part of thenineteenth 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 callthis Peale's Museum Number Two, or the Variegated Quotient. "

"All these things taken from the poor?" asked Hulda. "How many miseriesthey 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 childishcontempt, accompanied her words:

"I should think you would fear that day, Mr. Cannon, when you say theprayer, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassagainst us. '"

The wind from the river seemed to bend the old warehouse, and the noiseit made through the chinks and around the corners, slightly stirring theloosely disposed pile of cottage and hut comforts, seemed to arouse lowwails among these as when they were torn from the chimney side and thefamily. 

"Where is my baby?" the cradle seemed to say, "that I received androcked warm from the womb of pain? Oh, I am hungry for his littlesmile!"

"Why do I rest my busy wheel?" the spinner seemed to creak, "when I knowmy children are without stockings? Who keeps me here idle while Motherasks for me?"

"Where is the old gray head, " sighed the feathers, sifting in the breezefrom a broken pillow-case, "that every night and in the afternoons dozedon our bag of down, and picked us over once a year, and said her prayersin 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 boysare crying for food, and still there is no one to lift me on the craneand start the fire beneath me! What will they think of me, they gatheredaround so many years and watched me boil, and poked their little fingersin 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 forcedme 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 theyoung wife who sewed me together and showed me so proudly, for I fearshe is a-cold since her young husband died!"

These household sounds the thrilled young lovers, standing so poor andon the brink of what they knew not, seemed to hear in awe, and drewcloser to each other, like young Eve and Adam in the great wreck ofParadise and at the voice of God. 

Hand in hand they stepped forth into the bright light of day, and walkedalong the sandy street beneath the tall locust, maple, and ailanthustrees that grew in line along the front yards of the Cannon brothers. Four large houses stood sidewise, end to end, here: first, Cannon'sbusiness house; next, Isaac Cannon's comfortable home, where he dwelt, amarried man; and, third, the elegant frame mansion, with tall, airychimneys, of Jacob Cannon the bachelor, whose house, built for a bride, had never yet been warmed by a fire; finally, the old, bow-roofed, lowdwelling of the mother of the Cannons, opposite which was the ferrywharf, and Van Dorn talking to the negro ferryman. 

"Levin, " said pretty Hulda, not sad, but very grave, "this noble houseis like that noble-looking Mr. Cannon, hollow and cold. He lives withhis 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 loveyou, Levin. I will try to save you, if I can, because I love you, thoughsuffering may come to me. "

"No, " cried Levin, "I cannot leave you, dear. If I could now cross inthe 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 hismustache, 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, youngpeople, come!"

As they passed Cannon's place, going out of town, the familiar voice ofJacob was heard to cry:

"Owen Daw's escaped, Brother Isaac; but we'll clap it to him on a _debonis 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 theferry, past an ancient double puncheon house there, with an arch in thecentre, young Hulda--who now wore shoes and stockings, and a presentabledress of English goods, and looked quite the woman out of her sincereand sometimes proud and eloquent eyes--said to him, as she pointed back:

"Captain, it was there my father killed the traveller, where we see theroad beyond the ferry enter the pines. "

"Yes, " said Van Dorn, giving her a cold look; "we might see the placebut 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 hearit, too, so that no deceit shall be between us. "

Her smooth, moist hair, gray, humid eyes, complexion born between therose 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 andthree miles of level road separated her from the vengeance of PattyCannon, and that she must assert herself strongly over him. 

"_Ya, ya!_ Are you not harsh? Remember, you may be whipped by yourgrandma. "

"No, you will whip me, or kill me, if it is to be done. You dare notgive me to her to punish. "

"Dare not, again? Why?"

"Because you are my guardian. Between us is an instinct different fromlove, but strong; I feel it. I lean towards you, but not on you. What isit?"

"_O Dios!_" lisped Van Dorn, his blush suspended and his warm blue eyesfascinated by her. "Is this a child or Echo?"

"Tell me of my father's crime. I want Levin to know the wretched thinghe has affection for. "

"_Ayme! ah!_ Well, listen, young lovers; and see what grisly things walkin these pines! There was a man named Brereton; they call him Bruingtonhere, where their noses are twisted and their chins weak. He came fromold Lewes, off to the east by Cape Henlopen, and of a stout family, inwhich was a grain of evil ever smoking through the blood. Do yousometimes feel it, Hulda?"

"No, not evil like that. "

"He was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and held the iron while the masterstruck. 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 moneyfrom his pocket, and one piece--a dollar--fell in the soft soot of theshop, 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, andlaid it dead. 

"When the man departed, the boy raised his foot and uncovered thedollar; 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, whomight possess a dollar. He took the empty shop of Patty Cannon's firsthusband, years after that saint died, and worked on hobbles, clevises, and chains to hold the kidnapped articles of commerce. Naturally hekidnapped, too, and, while she was yet a child, Patty's daughter becameBrereton's wife, bestowed by the fond, appreciative mother. MasterLevin, if you fall into his path, Brereton's daughter may be bestowed onyou. _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 tomake me ashamed. I feel as if God's hand covered me like the silverdollar 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 itwith her hand in Van Dorn's sight. Van Dorn spoke on rapidly:

"There were two brothers named Griffin from about Cambridge, inMaryland; spoiled boys who had taken to the flesh trade, and they stolemen and gambled the proceeds away, and Brereton was their leader. Oneday a traveller came by from Carolina, hunting contraband slaves, and hewas of your boastful sort, and dropped the hint that he had fifteenthousand dollars on his body to be invested. No later had he spoken thanhe felt his folly, from the burning eyes around him and watering mouthstelling him to sleep there and slaves would be fetched; so he started ina fright for Laurel, by way of Cannon's Ferry, intending to deposit hismoney or make them deal with him there. The word was passed to Breretonby his wife or mother-in-law, and by Brereton to the Griffins, to mountand intercept the gold. Some say, " lisped Van Dorn, "that MistressCannon, dressed in man's clothes, commanded the band. "

A deep, chuckling interest, like the sound of a hidden brook, attendedVan Dorn's recital, and he was blushing like a girl. 

"At Slabtown, a nondescript spot a mile above Cannon's, thelight-marching band crossed in a row-boat; they piled brush and bentdown saplings in the traveller's road, where he should almost reach thebrow of the hill in his buggy, and when the fleshmonger halted at theobstacle, _chis, hola!_ they let him have it on both sides, and senticicles 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 burstingfirearms in the evening shades, leaped the brushy barriers and gallopedto Laurel, and delivered there an ashy-visaged effigy, down whose beardthe red dye of his life dripped audibly, as he sat stiff in death in thebuggy. His name was only guessed; how happy he in that!"

"And what was the fate of the murderers?" Hulda asked, with less horrorthan Levin showed. 

"Three of them were arrested; one of the Griffins exposed his brotherand Captain Brereton; these two died on the gallows at Georgetown, youngBrereton exerting himself under the noose to prevent his injudiciouscomrade 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 herband again with the lure of Widow Brereton's hand; he killed a constableto recommend himself the better, and died on the gallows at his nativeCambridge. _Hala hala!_ she gave your mother, wild-flower Hulda, to JoeJohnson 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 aslow, heavy face, but he never smiled on me. "

"Well, here is the cross-roads, " said Van Dorn. "What shall I do withthis 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 thefree negro Samson--large components of a small town; but it had alsogained what everybody admitted to be the most beautiful woman in theplace except Mrs. Vesta Milburn--the brown-eyed, tall, roguish niece ofMeshach Milburn, whom Vesta had made a lady of in externals, correctedsome of her faults, such as the sniffle, and was daily teaching her themysteries 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'ssemi-social husband, determined to like him, and finding smallresistance there, and, happily, no suspicion; and this was so gratefulto Vesta that she indulged the hope that her cousin and late lover wouldfind compensation for her loss in Rhoda Holland. 

Love came easily on as a topic of talk where Rhoda, with herunconventional 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 thelibrary, "do preachers love jus' like other folks? Misc Somers say theyis drea'fle sly-boots. She say thar was a preacher down yer to GirdleTree Hill that preached the Meal-an-the-Yum was a-goin' to happen rightoff. "

"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! theyhad frills put on thar night-gowns to rise in. An' the night before theywas 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 atGirdle Tree Hill caze the preacher wa'n't thar, an' they didn't knowwhen. "

"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, andgrandmother and you grow to like each other, as I believe you will, Imight fall in love with you. "

"Lord sakes! Me loved by a preacher? Couldn't I never stay home from thepreachin'? But then, to hear your own ole man a-barkin' away at theother gals, I think it would be right good!"

The subject had now gone to that length that in a few days, toGrandmother 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 whichthe artful Rhoda strayed as soon as she saw the gate ajar. 

"Misc Tilghman, " she said one day, "I been a-lookin' at you. I 'spectyou was a real beauty. If you wasn't a little quar, nobody would see youwas a ole woman now. "

"I was a belle, " spoke the blind old lady, emphatically. "General JohnEager Howard said he would rather talk with me than hear an oration fromFisher Ames. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, proposed to me when I wasold enough to be your grandmother, and after Susan Decatur, thecommodore'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 awife 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 naļvely concluded, at which Mrs. Tilghman had to join in the laughter, and there was noevil feeling. 

Jack Wonnell now held the temporary post of cook and woodchopper atTeackle Hall, and Roxy saw him every day, sewed his tattered clothingup, put the germs of self-respect in him, and caused Vesta to say to herhusband, as they were sitting in his storehouse parlor one afternoon, inthe intermission of his chill and sweat:

"Such rapid changes have taken place here, Mr. Milburn, that they havedisturbed my judgment, and now I hardly know whether my oldest prejudiceis assured, as I see that white man the happy domestic servant of mypure slave girl. She seems to have no greater affection than pity andinterest for him, while he is made more of a man by his undisguiseddevotion to her. No man could work better than he does now. "

"Love is so great, so occult, " the husband said, his brown eyessearching his wife's face over, "that its combinations have centuriesleft to run before they shall beat every prejudice down, and prove, inspite of sin and dispersion, that of one blood are all the nationsmade. "[4]

CHAPTER XXIX. 

BEGINNING OF THE RAID. 

The raid into Delaware was all organized when Levin and Hulda weredriven to Johnson's tavern, and the arrival of Van Dorn called forthcheers and yells, as that blushing worthy threw his trim, athleticfigure 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 forthat 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 tharto lush with her. "

"I'll take mine along, " Levin cried, "an' drink it in the chill o' thenight. "

"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 wesets no account on. "

As Van Dorn and Levin pushed through the motley crowd on the littleporch into the bar, where Mrs. Cannon administered, she set before themtwo fiery bowls, and cried:

"Come in yer, Colonel McLane, an' jine my nug an' my young cousinLevin. "

"No, Patty, " answered a voice from the next room within; "I've drunk myshare. There's nothing like a conservative course. "

As Patty put her head into this inner room, Levin Dennis, seeing awindow open at his elbow, threw the whole of his liquor over hisshoulder into the yard and smacked his lips heartily, saying, "Good!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Van Dorn, evidently noticing Levin's deceit; "smartpeople are around us, Patty. Beware!"

He took from his pocket the fateful letter and glanced at itsendorsement, and, as he did so, Levin heard an exclamation in the yardfrom a man who had received the whole of the apple brandy and sugar inhis face, and was furious; but as soon as he seemed to recognize thethrower he muttered, apologetically:

"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! and Pangymonum, too!"

When Levin looked at Van Dorn again, the blush was on his face, but theletter had disappeared. 

"Beware of the conservative course, Colonel, " lisped Van Dorn, "exceptwhen generous Patty makes the punch; for she holds such measure of itthat 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 anice boy drink. "

"But no more for him now, _cajela_, " the Captain protested; "two suchwill make him fall off his horse. _Bebamos_, Patty! _Estaexcelente!_"--drinking. 

"How purty the Captain says them things, " the madam cried to thegentleman within. "Maybe he's a mockin' his ole sweetheart. Oh, VanDorn, if I thought you could forget me I would kill you!"

Levin noticed the rapid temper and demoniac face of this not unengaginglady as she spoke, her whole nature turning its course like a wheelingbat, and from plausibility to an instant's jealousy, and then to a darktide of awful rage, took but a thought. 

"_Qué disparate! hala o he!_" Van Dorn lisped, sweetly, chucking thehostess under the chin; "but I do love to see thee so, thou charmer ofmy life. Never will I desert thee, Patty, whilst thou can suffer. "

Her dark clouds slowly passed away as Levin turned from the place, buther small head and abundant raven hair showed the blood troubled to theroots, and the eyes, once rich with midnight depths, now glazing in thecourse of time, like old window panes, by age, searched the bandit'sface 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, youblush so modestly. Where is that pot of color you paint your cheeks witheven 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 thateclipse heaven altogether. I love to see thee fear, though fearingnothing here, because I see nothing that you fear beyond the grave. Youhate this boy?"

"I hate him worse than wrinkles. Let him not come to me a childto-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 blistershave give him fever. My nigger, that I tied--ha! ha! a good job forPatty Cannon, at her age!--says t'other's a pore coaster named JimmyPhoebus. "

"Joe must be ready for a quick departure, " the Captain exclaimed, "whenwe come back from Dover: it is a bold undertaking, and the whole of thelittle state will be aroused like a black snake uncoiling in one'spocket. "

The woman pointed from her shoulder towards the inner room, and spokeeven 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 manploughing in the farm so recently deserted by his hostess for the gayercross-roads. The afternoon light fell on the sandy fields and struck apolish from the ploughshare, and, as the ploughman passed the bramblyspot again, the buzzards slowly circled up, as if to protest that hecame too near their young. 

The long, lean servant, who had waited on the breakfast-table, came outto Levin and watched his eyes. 

"Ploughin', ploughin', " he said. "Levin, I kin show you how to plough: Ican't do it, but you're the man. "

"Cyrus, Huldy don't hate you. She says you're the nighest to a friendshe'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. Theylick 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 furit. "

Putting his long arms on his knees and bending down, the scullion staredclose to Levin's eyes and whispered, looking towards the field:

"Ploughin'! ploughin'!"

Then, turning partly, and gazing over the old tavern with a look ofwisdom, Cy James whispered again:

"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! an' Pangymonum, too!"

"I reckon he's crazy, " Levin thought, as the queer fellow turned andfled. 

It was about three o'clock when the cavalcade was reviewed by CaptainVan Dorn from the porch of the hotel, and it consisted of about twentypersons, white and black; some riding mules, some horses, and there wasone wagon in the line--the same that had been driven to Cannon'sFerry--intended for Levin, Joe Johnson, and the Captain. Van Dorn stoodblushing, pulling his long mustache of flax, and resting on his cowhidewhip. 

"Dave, " he called to a powerful negro, "get down from that mule; you'retoo 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. Theorder of march is in pairs, a quarter to half a mile apart. If any manacts in anything without orders, or halloos upon the road, he may getthis 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 vehiclewent last. A moment before he departed, Cy James touched the Captain'ssleeve and whispered, "Huldy. " Turning to see if he was unobserved, VanDorn followed to the deep-arched chimney at the northern gable, anddismissed his guide with a look. 

"Captain Van Dorn, " Hulda said, her large gray eyes strained intenderness and nervous courage, "do that boy Levin no harm: I love him!God forgive all your sins, many as they are, if you disobeygrandmother'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 meansto ruin, and watch her black flashes of cunning between: she is nocousin of Levin; he is Joe's gentle prisoner; his very name she made himhide 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, exertingall 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 tenderone. "

"Yes, sir. There is something like a father in it. Oh, my father, artthou 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 thefaith 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 thyselfsinless a brief day or two, it may be well for thee and Levin. Thygrandmother 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 andthrew his whip like a thunderbolt, and a cheer rose from the discardedvolunteers loitering about the tavern as he drove Joe Johnson and Levinaway. 

The road was nearly dead level for five miles, but, being the oldtravelled road from Laurel and the south to Easton, and pointing towardsBaltimore, numerous farms and clearings were seen, and tobacco-fieldsalternated with the dry corn and new-ploughed wheat patches. Here andthere, like a measure of gold poured upon the ground, the yellow earslay in the gaunt corn-rows, to become the ground meal of the slave andthe cattle's winter substance. Joe Johnson's popularity was everywhereapparent, and many a shout was given of, "Good luck to ye, Joe!" "Toteus a nigger back from Delaway, Joe!" "Don't be too hard on them ar blackBlue 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 thecentre of Delaware state, and saw one large brick house of colonialappearance dominating the little wooden hamlet, and here, as generallywithin the Maryland line, hunting negroes was the "lark" or the seriousoccupation of many an idle or enterprising fellow, who trained his negroscouts like a setter, or more often like a spaniel, and crossed the lineon appointed nights as ardently and warily as the white trader in Africatakes to the trails of the interior for human prey. 

"Joe, " said Van Dorn, "what is to be your disposition of the prisonerswe have?"

"All goes with me to Norfolk but one, --the nigger boxer; I burn himalive on Twiford's island. If the white chap is too pickle to sell, I'llthrow him overboard; he ain't safe. "

"_Ea! sus!_ it is boyish to burn the old lad. I have had many a blowfrom 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; whymake him your equal by hating him?"

"I am a Delaware boy, " Joe Johnson said, "and it's the pride with me togive no nigger a chance. In Maryland you pets 'em, like ole Colonel NedLloyd over yer on the Wye; he's give his nigger coachman a gole watchan' chain because he's his son! What a nimenog! Some day he'll raise anigger that'll be makin' politikle speeches, an' then I don't want tolive 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 theirqueens, 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, atDover, to-night: he may send me to the post, too; and I fear no Delawaregovernor will take off the cropping of my ears, as was done for you instate patriotism. "

"Beware of that imp of Tolobon!" Joe Johnson muttered. "How I wish youcould kill him, Van Dorn. He's got to be a senator; some day he'll bechief-justice of Delaware: then, what'll niggers be wuth thar?"

"I fancy, Joseph, you might be a legislator in Delaware if yourinclinations ran that way?"

"Easy enough, but I makes legislators. My wife, Margaretta--her firsthusband'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 musthave it. ' So, from bein' his peculiar, she becomes the madam; but sheinwented the kid. "

"I have never been in Dover; how shall I tell where Lawyer Claytondwells?"

"It's on the green a-middle of the town, a-standin' by thestate-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 thestate-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 hissystem, and he thanked God he had refused Patty Cannon's burning dram, else he might be this night--he thought it with remorse--the recklessmate 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 dodown the Peninsuly. McLane has become the owner of a gal thar, an' wantsher sneaked. I takes black Dave with me, an' when I'm back, my boat willbe ready an' my cargo packed. Then hey fur Floridey!"

He unhaltered his horse at the tail of the wagon, mounted him, and rodeback across the stream. Van Dorn touched his horses and entered thedense woods in a byway to the north. 

"Get up here, Master Levin, and ride by me, " the Captain said, verysoon, and he lifted Levin's old hat from his head and looked at hisbright hair parted in the middle, his fine, large eyes, needing thelight of knowledge, and his soft complexion and marks of goodextraction. 

"Where is thy father, Levin, to let thee go so ragged, with suchgraceful 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 thatthou dost not cheat. I marked how Madam Cannon's punch was tossed out ofthe window. "

"I thought you would not want me drunk beside you all night, sir, andthen 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; Ireckon you're a smart man. "

"_Si, seńor_, 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. Iam no Christian. "

"Maybe you're Chinee or Mahometan, then, sir; I 'spect everybody's got areligion. "

"I was a Mahometan for business ends, " Van Dorn said. "Having become aslaver, it was nothing to be a renegade. Stealing a man's soul everyday, I put no value on mine. Yes, Mahomet is the prophet of God: so areyou. "

"You have been in Afrikey, I 'spect, " suggested Levin. 

"A few years only, but long enough to be rich and to be ruined. I knowthe negro coast from the Gambia to Cape Palmas, and inland to Timbo. Ihave had an African queen and the African fever: I went to conquerAfrica and became a slave. "

"In Africa, I 'spect, Captain, " Levin remarked, without inference, "anigger-trader is respectable. "

Van Dorn shook his head. 

"I doubt if that trade is respectable anywhere on this globe, unless itbe _here_. No, I will say for these people, too, that while they do itlow lip homage, they look down on it. I was once the greatest guest inTimbo, housed with its absolute prince, attended by my suite, lookinglike an ambassador, and he called me 'his son' and drew me to hisbreast. Proclamations were made that I should be respected as such, yetevery human object fled before me. As I rode out alone to see thegardens and cassava fields, the roaming goats and oxen, and the richmountain 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 Iwas 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 respectablethan 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 ofman, in the familiar study of such universal slavery, grovels with it, and points to bright destiny no more with the head erect: I died inAfrica. "

"Ain't you in the business now, sir?"

"Now I am a mere forest thief and bushman, Levin. He who begins a basetrade rises early to its fulness, and in subsequent life must be a poorwolf rejected from the pack, stealing where he can sneak in. Such is thekidnapper eking out the decayed days of the slaver; such is the ruinedvoluptuary, living at last on the earnings of some shameless woman; sucham I: behold me!"

Van Dorn's eyes turned on Levin in their cold, heartless light, and yethe blushed, as usual. 

"You ought to be a gentleman, Captain. What made you break the laws soand be a bad man?"

"_Aymč! aymč_!" mused Van Dorn, "shall I tell you? It was Africa. I wasa 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 whisperedto me, in the West Indies, that my clipper was just the thing for theslave-trade, and I made the first venture out of virtue, which is allthe voyage. In Africa I fell a prey to the voluptuous life a white manleads 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 adance in the harem around the young intruder: I forgot my native landand every obligation in it; I was enslaved by Africa to its swooningjoys; 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 isno more than varnish on the maple-tree. And even here, my lad, wherecivilization builds a wall of social fire around the slave, you oftenmark 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 ofpleasure weighed down my spirits. The thing called honor had flown fromover me like the heavenly dove, and in its place a hundred painted birdsflocked joyfully, the dazzling creatures of that thoughtless world. Oh, that I could have been born there or never have seen it! At last Istarted home, but the world had adopted a new commandment, 'Thou shaltnot trade in man. ' They took my ship and all its black cargo, and I camehome naked. Then my heart was broke, and I turned kidnapper. "

"Home is the best place, " said Levin; "I 'spect it is, even if folks ispore. When Jimmy Phoebus give me a boat I thought I was rich as aJew. "

"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 fatherfeeds her. "

"_Quedo!_ a ghost? what kind of thing is that? Aunt Patty sees them: Inever do. "

"It comes an' puts sugar an' coffee in the window, an' sometimes a pairof 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 everhad. I hoped mother would marry him, he's been a-waitin' fur her solong. She's afraid father ain't dead. "

"_O hala, hala!_ women are such waiters; but this man can wait too. Ishe strong?"

"He come mighty nigh givin' Joe Johnson a lickin' last Sunday, sir, inPrincess Anne. He hates a nigger-trader. Him an' Samson Hat, a blackfeller, 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' torun away niggers. He's got my boat an' ruined my credit, I 'spect, inPrincess Anne, an' what will mother do when I go to jail?"

"Why, this other man, Phoebus, is there to marry her or look afterher. "

"Oh, Captain, " sobbed Levin, putting his hands on Van Dorn's knees, andlaying his orphan head there too, "pore Jimmy's dead: Joe Johnson shothim. "

The Captain did not move or speak. 

"I've been a drunkard, Captain, " Levin sobbed again, in the confidenceof 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' andspreein', and they takes liquor with 'em, an' I drinks. God help me; Inever 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 nowbathed 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 hisnature 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 thetrees, with a little faint light streaming from the door, and heard thelow hilarity of drinking men. The whole band poured out to receive VanDorn's commands. 

"One hour here to feed and rest!" Van Dorn exclaimed. "Let those sleepwho can. Let any straggle or riot who dare!"

CHAPTER XXXI. 

PEACH BLUSH. 

Judge Custis, whom we left riding out of Princess Anne on Sundayafternoon, kept straight north, crossed the bottom of Delaware in theearly evening, and went to bed at Laurel, on Broad Creek, a few milessouth of Cannon's Ferry. 

At daylight he was ahorse again, scarcely stiff from his exertion, andfeeling the rising joys of a stomach and brain becoming clearer than foryears, of all the forms of alcohol. His mind had been bathed in sleepand temperance, the two great physicians, and wiped dry, like the feetof the Prince of sufferers, with women's hairs. Exercise, natural to aVirginian, awakened his flowing spirits again, and he fancied the airgrew purer as he advanced into the north, though there was hardly anyperceptible change of elevation. The country grew drier, however, as heturned the head springs of the great cypress swamp--the counterbalanceof the Dismal Swamp of Virginia--receded from the Chesapeake waters, andapproached the tributaries of the Atlantic. At nine o'clock he enteredthe court-house cluster of Georgetown, a little place of a few hundredpeople, pitched nearly at the centre of the county one generationbefore, or about ten years after the independence of the country. 

It was a level place of shingle-boarded houses, assembled around a sandysquare, in which were both elm and Italian poplar trees; and adouble-storied wooden court-house was on the farther side, surrounded bylittle cabins for the county officers, pitched here and there, and inthe rear was a jail of two stories, with family apartments below, andthe dungeon window, the debtors' room, and a family bedroom above; andnear the jail and court-house stood the whipping-post, like a dismantledpump, with a pillory floor some feet above the ground. 

Young maples, mulberry and tulip trees, and ailanthuses grew bravely tomake shade along the two streets which pierced the square, and the fourstreets which were parallel to its sides--pretty lanes being insertedbetween, to which the loamy gardens ran; and, as the Judge stopped atthe tavern near the court, he was told it was "returning day, " and theplace 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?" askedthe 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 Bayardand 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 hewhipped the British. "

At breakfast Judge Custis recognized a gentleman opposite, wearingsmallclothes, and with his hair in a queue, who spoke without other thana 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 werethose of stewardship, and whose nearly obsolete dress was the badge, notof worldly pride, but of perished joys and contemporaries. Hisunaffected countenance seemed to say: "I wear it because it is uselessto put off what no one else will wear, when presently I shall neednothing but a shroud. "

Judge Custis looked at the meek old gentleman closely, sitting at hisplate like a lay brother in some monastery or infirmary, indifferent totalk or news or affairs; and the remembrance of what he had been--keen, accumulative, with youthful passions long retained, and the man buoyantunder the judge's guard--impressed the Virginian to say to himself:

"What, then, is man! At last old age asserts itself, and bends thebrazen temple of his countenance, like Samson, in almost pious remorse. There sits twenty-five years of equity administration; behind it, thirtyyears of jocund and various life. No newspaper shall ever record it, because none are printed here; he is indifferent to that forgetfulnessand to all others, because the springs of life are dry in his body, andhe no more enjoys. "

"Are you travelling north, Judge Custis?" the old man asked, forpoliteness' 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 ofyour 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. Ihave been a flatterer, too. "

The Chancellor's black boy was put on the Judge's horse, and the twomen, in a plain, country-made, light, square vehicle, turned thecourt-house corner for the north. As they passed the door they heard thesheriff 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 passingchancellor, whose look of resignation only deepened and grew morehumble. The Judge had some vague recollection which moved him to changethe subject. 

"We see each other but little, Chancellor, though we divide the samelittle heritage of land. I suppose your people are all proud ofDelaware. "

"Yes, " said the old man; "being such a little adventurer, a merefoundling in the band of states, our people have the pride of theirindependence. The laws are administered, some more farms are opened inthe forest every year, blossoms come, and old men die and are buried ontheir farms, and their bones respected a few years. Our history is sopastoral that we must show some temper when it is assailed, or we mightlet out our ignorance of it. "

They rode in silence some hours through an older settled and more opencountry, with some large mill-ponds and a better class of farmimprovements, and the sense of some large water near at hand wasmystically felt. 

The Judge followed the old man's eyes at one place, seeing that theywere raised with an expression of tranquil satisfaction, like agedpiety, and a beautiful landscape of soft green marsh lay under theirgaze from a slight elevation they had reached, showing cattle and sheeproving in it, tall groves where cows and horses found midday shade, andwinding creeks, carrying sails of hidden boats, as if in a magicalcruise upon the velvet verdure. Haystacks and farm settlements stood outin the long levels, and sailing birds speckled the air. In the fardistance 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 alarge mill-pond, sawmills, several vessels building on the stocks, andan air of superior vitality to anything Judge Custis had seen inDelaware. Here the Chancellor pointed out the late home of SenatorClayton's father, and, after the horses had been fed, they continuedstill northward, passing another small town on a creek near the marshes, and, a little beyond it, came to a venerable brick church, a little fromthe road, in a grove of oaks and forest trees. 

"Here is Barrett's chapel, " said the Chancellor; "celebrated for theplotting of the campaign between Wesley's native and English preachersfor 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 inthe gable, trim rows of arch-bricks over door and windows, and beltmasonry; and heard the tall trees hush it to sleep like a baby left tothem. Nearly fifty feet square, and probably fifty years old, it lookedto be good for another hundred years. 

"My family in Accomac was harsh with the Methodists through a mistakenconservatism, " Judge Custis said. "They are a good people; they seem tosuit this peninsula like the peachtree. "

A small funeral procession was turning into Barrett's chapel, and theChancellor interrogated one of the more indifferent followers as to thedead person. Having mentioned the name, the citizen said:

"His death was mysterious. He was a Methodist and a good man, but itseems that avarice was gnawing his principles away. A slave boy, soon tobecome free by law, disappeared from his possession, and he gave it outthat the boy had run away. But suddenly our neighbor began to drink andto display money, and they say he had the boy kidnapped. He died likeone with an attack of despair. "

As they turned again northward, in the genial afternoon, Judge Custissaid:

"What a stigma on both sides, Chancellor, is this kidnapping!"

The old man meekly looked down and did not reply. Judge Custis, feelingthat there was some sensitiveness on this and kindred subjects, yet whyhe could not recollect, continued, under the impulse of his feelings:

"The night before I left Princess Anne, Joe Johnson, one of your worstkidnappers, boldly came to my house for lodging. Why I let him staythere 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--thename 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 thisstate. This Brereton killed a slave-buyer for what he brought here uponhis person to buy the kidnapped free people and apprentice-slaves. Brereton was the son-in-law of Patty Cannon, that infamous panderbetween Delaware and the South. "

The old Chancellor looked up. 

"I wish to anticipate you, " he said, "in what you might further say withtruth, but perhaps do not fully know. The murderer, Brereton, was theson-in-law of Patty Cannon, it is true; but he was also thebrother-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 insuch a little state!"

It was in the middle of the afternoon that Judge Daniel Custis rode intoa small town on an undulating plain, around two sides of which, athardly 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 windingthrough copse, splutter-dock, lotus-flower, and marsh to the DelawareBay. 

At the centre of the town, on the swell or crest of alluvial soil, of alight sandy loam foundation, an oblong public square, divided by a northand south street, contained the principal dwellings of the place, one ofwhich was the Delaware State Capitol, a red-brick building, a littleolder than the American Constitution, with a bell-crowned cupola aboveits centre, and thence could be seen the Delaware Bay. 

Near the state-house stood the whipping-post in the corner, humble as ahitching-post, and the brick jail hid out of the way there also, like anunpresentable servant ever cringing near his master's company. Variousbuildings, generally antique, surrounded this prim, Quakerly square, some brick, and with low portals, others smart, and remodelled to suitthe times; some were mere wooden offices or huts, with long dormersfalling from the roof-ridge nearly to the eaves, like a dingy featherfrom a hat-crown, with a jewel in the end; and one was an oldsteep-roofed hotel, painted yellow, with a long, lounging side. 

At diagonal corners of this square, as far apart as its space wouldpermit, two venerable doctors' homes still stood, which had given morerepute to Delaware's little capital than its jurists or statesmen, --theformer residence of Sykes the surgeon and Miller the pathologist andwriter. 

It was at the former of these houses, a many-windowed, tall, side-fronting house of plastered brick, with side office and centredoor, that Judge Custis stopped and hitched his horse to a rack near thestate-house adjoining. The sound of twittering birds fell from the largeelms, willows, and maples on the square, and Custis could see the robinsrunning in the grass. 

From the door of the two-storied side office the sound of a violin cametenderly, and the Judge waited until the tune was done, when loudexclamations of pleasure, the clapping of hands, and the stamping offeet, showed that the fiddler was not alone. 

Presenting himself at the door, Judge Custis was immediately confrontedby a large, tall man, fully six feet high, with a strong countenance andsandy hair, who carried the fiddle and bow in his hand, and with theother 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 expectedyou on this simple occasion? Sit down there and take my own chair! Notthat little one--no, the big easy-chair for my old friend! Goy!"

As Judge Custis cast his eye around, to note the company, thedemonstrative 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; "Ireckon he is, by the lips and skin. "

"Goy!" rapidly spoke the fiddler. "Friend Custis--I know my heart doesnot deceive me!--let me introduce you to the very essence of grand oldlittle Delaware: here is Bob Frame, the ardent spirit of our bar; thisis James Bayard, our misguided Democratic favorite; here is CharleyMarim and Secretary Harrington, and my esteemed friend Senator Ridgely, and my cousin, Chief-justice Clayton. We are all here, and all honoredby such a rare guest. Goy!"

As the Judge went through the hand-shaking process, the tall, well-fedhost stooped to the convivial person again, and, with his hand to theside 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 doour dear friends all get along in Somerset and Accomac? Where _do_ youcall home now, Friend Custis? How are our old friends Spence andUpshur, and Polk and Franklin and Harry Wise? Goy! how I love ourneighbors below. "

There was a strength of articulation and physical emphasis in thespeaker that the Judge noted at once, and it was attended with a beamingof the eyes and a fine fortitude of the large jaws that made him nearlymagnetic. 

"And this is John M. Clayton?" said the Judge. "We are not so far offthat we have not fully heard of you. And now, since I belong to anumerous family, let me identify myself, Clayton, as Daniel Custis, lateJudge on the Eastern Shore. "

"Judge Custis! Daniel Custis! Friends, " looking around, "what an honor!Think of it! The eminent American manufacturer! The creator of ourindustries! The friend of Mr. Clay and the home policy! Bayard, you neednot shake your head! Ridgely, pardon my patriotic enthusiasm! Look at _aman_, 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 ardentspirit 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 tothe Judge--"how is the little river Wicomico--no, I mean Manokin--howdoes it flow? Does it flow benevolently? Does it abound in the bestoysters 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, andan old colored woman came in, closely followed by some of hergrandchildren, who stood, gazing, at the door. "Take this gentleman andgive 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, andwe'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 thehost; he hesitated, wandered in the eyes, and caught himself on thewords:

"No, give him the Speaker Chew room: that'll suit him best. "

As the Judge followed the servant out, the young Senator emptied hismouth of a large piece of tobacco into a monster spittoon that a blindman could hardly miss, and, with a face still long and silent, and muchat 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 onthe 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 tillhis hard, squarish head rested against the mantel, and he felt along thestrings 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, andmovement of his broad, athletic chest, as he continued the air, showedthat he was inwardly laboring with some strong emotion. 

His cousin, the Chief-justice, made a signal with his hat, and one byone the sitters stole out into the square noiselessly, and went theirways, leaving the young man playing on, with the negro child at hisknee, leaning there as if to spy out the living voice in his violin. 

Other children came to the door--white children from the square, blackchildren from the garden--and some ventured a little way in to hear thetender wooing of the sympathetic strings. He moved his bow mechanically, but the music sprang forth as if it knew its sister, Grief, was waitingon the chords. At last a bolder child than the rest came and pushed hiselbow and said, "Papa!"

"My boy, my dear boy!" the fiddler cried, as tears streamed down hischeeks, and he lifted the lad to his heart and kissed him. 

Judge Custis, though no word passed upon the subject, saw the solitarycanker at the Senator's heart--his wife's dead form in the oldPresbyterian kirk-yard. 

It was soon apparent to Judge Custis, from this and other silent things, that a light-hearted, affectionate, strong, yet womanly, engine ofenergy constituted the young Delaware lawyer-politician. Keen, cunning, impulsive, hopeful, his feet provincial, his head among the birds, hecombined facility and earnestness in almost mercurial relations to eachother, and the Judge saw that these must constitute a remarkable jurylawyer. 

His face was shaven smooth; his throat and chin showed an early tendencyto flesh; the poise of his head and thoughtful darting of his eyes andslight aqualinity of his nose indicated one who loved mental action andcompetition, yet drew that love from a great, healthy body that had tobe watched lest it relapse into indolence. The loss of his wife so soonafter marriage had been followed by nearly complete indifference towomen, and he had made politics his only consolation and mistress, harnessing her like a young mare with his old roadster of the law, anddriving them together in the slender confines of his principality, andthen locking the law up among his office students to drive politics intothe national arena at Washington. 

"You require to be very neighborly, Clayton, in a small bailiwick likethis?" the Judge inquired, as they strolled along the square in the softevening. 

"We have the best people in the world in Delaware, friend Custis: fewtraders, 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 'aclever man. ' You must stop, whatever be your errand, and smile andinquire of every man at his gate for every individual member of hishousehold. The time lost in such kind, trifling intercourse is in theaggregate 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 athick-set, sandy, uncertain-looking man who was about retreating intothe 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 ofyourself, 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 somuch 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 hisco-laborer, Joe Johnson--whom I sent to the post and then saved fromcropping--that he'll kill me. Goy!"--Mr. Clayton looked around a trifleapprehensively--"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 Delawarehad to provide against it. Our laws have never permitted the domesticslave-trade with other states. "

The little place seemed to have a good society, and the beauty of theyoung girls sitting at the doors or walking in the evening showedsomething of the florid North Europe skins, Batavian eyes, and rotundDutch or Quaker figures. 

As they returned to the public square, a room in the tavern, almostbrilliantly lighted for that day of candles, displayed its windows tothe gaze of Clayton, who exclaimed:

"Goy! that is surely John Randel, Junior. "

"That distinguished engineer?" observed his visitor, who had beenwaiting all the evening to broach the subject of his errand. "I have thegreatest 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; sopersistent 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 clothleggings, buttoned to above his knee, sat in a nearly naked, carpetlessroom, writing, his table surrounded by burning wax candles, and hiscountenance was proud and intense. Mr. Clayton rushed upon him andseized his hand:

"How is my friend Randel? The indefatigable litigant, the brilliantengineer, 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 ishe at?"

"Stand there, " spoke the engineer, "and look at me while I read thesentence I was finishing upon John Middleton Clayton of Delaware. "

"Go it, Randel! Now, Custis, he'll put a wick in me and just set meafire. Goy!"

"'It is the curse of lawyers, '" the unrelaxing stranger read, "'to lettheir judgment for hire, from early manhood, to easy clients, or tosuppress it in the cringing necessities of popular politics: hence thatresidue and fruit of all talents, the honest conviction of a man'sbravest sagacity, perishes in lawyers' souls ere half their powers arefledged: they become the registers of other men, they think no more thanwax. '"

Here Mr. Randel blew out one of the candles. The illustration wascogent. Mr. Clayton lighted it again with another candle. 

"There's method in his madness, Custis, " he said, with a wink. "Let meintroduce my great friend to you, Randel?"

"Stop there, " the engineer repeated, sternly, "till I have read mysentence. 'Seldom it is that a lawyer of useful parts, in a community asdetached and pastoral as the State of Delaware, has a cause appealing tohis manliness, his genius, and his avarice, like this of John Randel, Junior, civil engineer! No equal public work will probably be built inthe State of Delaware during the lifetime of the said Clayton. No fee hecan earn in his native state will ever have been the reward of a lawyerthere like his who shall be successful with the suit of John Randel, Junior, against the Canal Company. No principle is better worth a greatlawyer's vindication than that these corporations, in their infancy, shall not trample upon the private rights of a gentleman, and treat hisscholarship and services like the labor of a slave. '"

"Well said and highly thought, " interposed Judge Custis. 

"'The said Clayton, '" continued John Randel, still reading, "'refusesthe aid of his abilities to a stranger and a gentleman inhospitablytreated in the State of Delaware. '"

"No, no, " cried Clayton; "that is a charge against me I will notpermit. "

"'The said Clayton, '" read Randel, inflexibly, "'with the possibilitiesof light, riches, and honor for himself, and justice for a fellow-man, chooses cowardice, mediocrity--and darkness. He extinguishes my hopesand his. '"

With this, Mr. Randel, by a singular fanning of his hands and waft ofhis breath, put out all the candles at once and left the whole room indarkness. 

Judge Custis was the first to speak after this extraordinaryillustration:

"Clayton, I believe he has a good case. "

"That is not the point now, " Mr. Clayton said, with rising spirit andemphasis. "The point now is, 'Am I guilty of inhospitality?' Goy! thattouches 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 anintroduction from my brilliant young friend, Mr. Seward, of New York, who vouches for him. But the corporation he menaces is also entitled tohospitality: 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 ofhospitality 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, " saidJohn Randel, Junior, relighting the candles with his tinder-box. 

"No lawyer ought to refuse the trial of such a public cause because ofany state scruples, " Judge Custis put in, in his grandest way. "That isnot national; it is not Whig, Brother Clayton. " The Judge here gave hisentire family power to his facial energy, and expressed the Virginianand patrician in his treatment of the Delaware _bourgeois_ and plebeian. "Granted that this corporation is young and untried: let it bedisciplined in time, that it may avoid more expensive mistakes in thefuture. No cause, to a true lawyer, is like a human cause; the time maycome when the talent of the American bar will be the parasite ofcorporations and monopolists, but it is too early for that degradationfor you and me, Senator Clayton. The rights of a man involve allprogress; progress, indeed, is for man, not man for progress. As a sonof Maryland, if he came helpless and penniless to me, I would not letthis 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 hisbreath failed him; his hands became limp, and then hastily covered hiseyes, and he sank to the table with a groan, and put his head upon itconvulsively. 

"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. SenatorClayton, looking from one to the other in nervous indecision, seeingCustis's dewy eyes, and Randel's proud breaking down, was himselfcarried away, and shouted:

"I goy! This is a conspiracy. But, Randel, I'll take your case; I can'tsee a man cry. Goy!"

As they all arose sympathetically and shook hands, a knock came on thedoor, and there was a call for Mr. Clayton. He returned in a fewminutes, with a rather grim countenance, and said:

"Randel, I have just declined a big round retaining-fee to defend thevery suit your tears and Brother Custis's have persuaded me toprosecute. 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; "fiveminutes' delay would have been fatal. "

CHAPTER XXXII. 

GARTER-SNAKES. 

At Princess Anne Vesta had moved her husband to Teackle Hall, and heoccupied her father's room and seemed to be growing better, though thedoctor said that he had best be sent to the hills somewhere. 

The free woman, Mary, whom Jimmy Phoebus sent to Vesta, had arrivedvery opportunely, and took Aunt Hominy's place in the kitchen, where allthe children's echoes were gone, the poor woman's own bereavementthrilling the ears of Virgie, Roxy, and Vesta herself; but, alas! hertale was not legal testimony, because she was a little black. 

Jack Wonnell had found unexpected favor in Meshach Milburn's eyes, andwas appointed to sleep in the store and watch it; and there Roxy camedown in the twilights, and, with pity more than affection, heard himweave 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 andartful, bold and domestic, soft and outlawed, as the houseless Thomascat that makes highways of the fences, and wooes the demurest kittenforth by the magic of his purring. 

"Roxy, " said Jack, "I'm a-goin' to git you free, gal, fur I 'spectMeshach 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 samecoo, 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 isin love, too, with a white man, but you mustn't breathe it. "

"Never, " said Jack, making solemn motions with his eyes, and cuddlingcloser in dead earnest of sympathy. "Hope I may die! Can't tell, to savemy life! Who-oop! Tell me, Roxy!"

"Pore sister Virgie, she was made to love, and, though it's hopeless, Ithink she loves Mr. Tilghman, our minister, because he loved Miss Vestyonce, and Virgie worships Miss Vesty like her sister. "

 * * * * *

Vesta told the story of Mary, the free woman, to her husband, wholistened closely and said:

"I know of but one thing, my darling, that will make such ignorance andcruelty fade out in the forests of this peninsula: an iron road. A newthing, 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 charterfor a railroad up this peninsula that will pass inside the line ofMaryland, and penetrate every kidnapping settlement hidden there, andlight, intercourse, and law shall exterminate such barracoons asJohnson's. "

Vesta was glad to hear her father praised by her husband, and hopesrekindled of some happier family reunion, when she should feel theheartache die within her that now raged intermittently during her vestalhoneymoon. A letter came on the fourth day which dashed these hopes tothe 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; "motheris 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, andI 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 theline of malaria, in the hills. I can make the effort now. "

Her grief and loneliness deprived her of the will to refuse him. Roxywas selected to be her mistress's maid upon the journey, and WilliamTilghman and Rhoda Holland were to take them in the family carriage downto Whitehaven landing for the evening steamer. 

Jack Wonnell, in officious zeal to be useful, gathered flowers, and hungaround Teackle Hall to run errands; and, in order not to exasperateVesta's husband, appeared bareheaded as the party set off, Milburn'shat-box being one of the articles of travel, and Milburn vouchsafingthese words to Jack:

"There is a dollar for you, Mr. Wonnell. I rely upon you to watch my oldstore 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 inBalt'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 affectedto shed some tears also, as she waved good-bye to Virgie, whose eyeswere turned with wistful pain upon the beautiful face of her mistressreceding down the vista. Vesta threw her a kiss and reclined her headupon her husband's shoulder. 

That evening, an hour before the carriage was to return, Virgie and thefree woman, Mary, walked together down to Milburn's store, to see ifJack Wonnell was on the watch. As they trode in the soft grass and sandunder the old storehouse they saw the bell-crowned hat--a new one, brought from the ancient stock that very day--shining glossily onWonnell's high, eccentric head, as he sat in the hollow window of theold storehouse and talked to the mocking-bird, which he was feeding witha 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 insuch elegant irrelevance to the remainder of his dress, and cried, "Meshach, he! he! he! Vesty, she! Vesty, Meshach! Vesty, Meshach!" butsaid nothing the village vagrant would teach it. He showed the patienceidleness can well afford, and, feeding it a little, or withholding thefood 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, asthe lights in the west sank and faded, the shiftless lover continued invain to seek to give the bird one note more than the magician, hismaster, had taught. 

The stars modestly appeared in the soft heavens, and Princess Annegathered its roofs together like a camp of camels in the desert, and, with an occasional bleat or bark or human sound, seemed dozing out thesoft fall night, absorbed, perhaps, in the spreading news of Mrs. Custis's death and Vesta's wedding-journey, that had to be taken atlast. 

"Miss Virgie, " said the woman Mary--ten years her senior, but comelystill--"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 saythey will soon set me free. Mary, how do people feel when they arefree?"

"They don't appreciate it, " sighed Mary. "They go and put themselves incaptivity again, like selfish things: they falls in love. "

"But to love and be free!" Virgie said, her bosom glowing in the thoughttill her rich eyes seemed to shed warmth and starlight on hercompanion's face; "to give your own free love to some one and feel himgrateful for it: what a gift and what a joy is that! He might bethankful 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 softlyexclaimed. "It must be some one who does not despise me. I hear MissVesta's beau, Master William, read the beautiful service, with hissweet, submissive face, and I think to myself, 'How freely he might havemy heart to comfort his if he would take it like a gentleman!' I wouldbe his slave to make him happy, if he could love me purely, like mymother! Oh, my mother, whose name I do not know! where is the tie thatfastens me to heaven? Did my father love me?"

"Pore Jack! pore Jack! Sing 'Roxy, Roxy, Roxy, ' Tom!" coaxed Wonnellabove 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 toall 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 lifenever call me his, and say, 'My daughter, come to my respect, rest on myheart, and take my name'?"

"Poor Virgie!" sighed Mary; "remember we are black! We hardly ever havefathers: they is for white people. "

"Dog my hide!" mumbled Wonnell, above, "ef a bird ain't a perwersecritter. 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. Whycan'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 theLamb's blood, Virgie. That's where your soul pints you to, dear younglady. I know it ain't pride and rebellion in you: it's like I'm lookingat 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 ofwhich, with a door low to the ground, Mary drew Virgie, and theylistened 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. Lookonly 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'syoung wife thinks so much of. I'll snake her out to-night. She's theproperty of Allan McLane, left him in his sister's will. They found onher body the paper giving the gal to the dead woman only two daysbefore. She's Allan's to-morrow, but to-night she's mine!"

A sensual, sucking, chuckling sound, like a kiss made upon the back ofhis own hand, followed this significant threat; and Mary, placing herhand 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 theyglided from the old tenement unobserved, and entered the copse along thestream. 

"Pore Jack! Pore Jack! His leetle Roxy's gone away. Pore Jack! Roxy!Roxy! Roxy!" the mourner at the window above chattered sleepily to thenodding bird. 

The negro at the corner of the old warehouse, half covered by thewillow's shade, peered up with blood-shotten eyes to distinguish thecovering on the bird-tamer's head. 

He saw Jack Wonnell sitting backward on the window-frame, swaying in andout, as he lazily tempted the mocking-bird to sing, and once thebell-crown hat, so singular to view, came in full relief against thegray sky. 

"It's ole Meshach, " said the negro, silently, with desperate eyes. "Ihoped 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 Tommywon't sing. Sing, Tommy, little Roxy's pet: 'Pore Jack! Pore--'"

The great horse-pistol boomed on the night, and in the smoke the negrorushed into the bush and sought the fields. 

Down from his seat in the window-sill the witless villager camebackward, all bestrewn, measuring his body in the sand, where he lay, silent as the other shadows, with his arms extended in the frenzy ofdeath, 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 emptywindow-sill to seek his tutor, and set up the lesson he had learned toolate:

"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 melancholythoughts inspired by the departure of his cousin, whom he had at lastseen go into the great wilderness of the world the passive companion ofher husband, like the wife of Cain, driven forth with him, when thecarriage was arrested at the ancient Presbyterian church--whichoverlooked Princess Anne from the opposite bank of the little river--bya 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 byWilliam 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 nodanger, child!"

"I am sold, " the girl gasped, with terror on her tongue and in her wildeyeballs. "Miss Vesty's sold me to her Uncle Allan. He's sent thekidnappers after me. They're yonder, in Princess Anne. Oh, drive me tothe North, to the swamps, anywhere but there!"

"I know your mistress made you over to her mother, Virgie, for aprecaution, fearing you might not be safe in her own hands. She told meso, and asked if the death of her mother could possibly affect you. "

"Oh, it has!" the girl whispered. "Mary knows the kidnapper that's comefor me. He is the same that stole Hominy and the children. He kept herchained on an island. He says he'll have me to-night, to do as hepleases. Master McLane lets him have me!"

The girl, in her terror, as the carriage had descended the hill alreadyand crossed the Manokin, seized the reins in Tilghman's hands and drewthem with such frenzy that the horses, as they came to Meshach Milburn'sstore, were pulled into the open area before it, where something intheir surprise or lying on the ground gave them immediate fright, andthey dashed at a gallop into Front Street, the wheels passing over anobject 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 crossedTilghman, an experienced horseman and driver, had reined the flyinganimals into a nearly unoccupied street, called Back Alley, parallelwith the main street of Princess Anne, but hidden from it by houses andgardens, 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 abrook's music, told the girls to sit perfectly still, as they had aclear, level road; and, seeing that he could not stop the animals by anymere exercise of strength, without danger to his harness, he waited fortheir power to wear out, or their fears to subside. 

Rhoda Holland was ashamed to scream, if her pride was not too wellaroused already in the presence of the muscular young minister, sittingthere like an artillery teamster driving into battle, and his nostrilsand jaws delineated in the gray air, expressed almost the joy he hadlong put by of following the hounds in the autumn fox-hunts, where JudgeCustis said he had been the perfect pattern of a rider. 

As for Virgie, she felt no fear of wild horses, since they were leavingbehind the bloody hunters of men and women, and she almost wished it washerself alone, dashing at that frightful pace to destruction, until theyoung man, mindful, perhaps, of his mistress, torn from his sight toinhabit another's arms, and feeling that this poor quadroon was dear asa sister to Vesta's heart, bent down in the midst of his apprehensionsand kissed the slave girl pityingly. 

Then, with an instant's greater torrent of tears, a sense of rest andman's respect fell upon Virgie's soul, and she paid no heed to time ordangers till the carriage came to a stop in the deep forest sandsseveral miles east of Princess Anne. 

"William, " said Rhoda Holland, "what air we to do to save Virgie? UncleMeshach's gone. Jedge Custis is nobody knows whar, now. This yer AllanMcLane, Aunt Vesty says, is dreffle snifflin' an' severe. I think it's aconspliracy to steal Virgie when they's all away. Misc Somers would takekeer of her, but I'm afraid she'd tell somebody. "

"Are you sure that you saw and heard truly?" the minister said toVirgie. 

"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. Maryknew him too well. Oh, do not take me back to Princess Anne. I willnever go there again. "

"It may be true, " Tilghman reflected. "It probably _is_ true. Vesta hasno 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 sentJoe Johnson to kidnap Virgie, under color of his right, and Johnsonwould abuse anybody. Vesta will never forgive us if we let Virgie go tohim. "

"But I am a slave, " Virgie sobbed. "Oh, my Lord! to think I am not MissVesta's, but a strange man's, slave. How could she give me away!"

"It was an error of judgment, " Tilghman replied. "She could notanticipate her mother's immediate death. Yet there, where she thoughtyou safest, you were most in peril. "

They had now crossed the Dividing creek into Worcester County, andhalted to cool the horses off at the same old spring, under thegum-tree, where Meshach Milburn stopped, the evening he went to theFurnace village. 

"William, " Rhoda Holland spoke, "if Virgie is McLane's slave you can'tkeep 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, andwe will drive her to-night to Snow Hill, and leave her there with anurse, a free woman, once belonging to my family, and this nurse has ahusband who is said to be a conductor on what is called the UndergroundRoad 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 givingher 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 clothand for my country as now. To think how many men preach the Gospel ofGod all their lives long, and have never set a living soul free. I willdo one such Christian felony, by the help of Christ. "

As he spoke, the sound of a corn-stalk fiddle, and of foresters' nakedfeet dancing on the floor of the old Milburn cabin, came crooning out inthe 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 stainedwith the blood of the bog-ores that oozed upward from the depths likethe corpse of murdered Enterprise, suffocated in Meshach Milburn'sforeclosure. 

A sense of desolation filled them all; but what was it, in either of thewhite twain, to the bursting ties of that lovely quadroon, raised like alily in the household heat of kindness and the breath of purity, to becast forth like a witch, on a moment's information, and consigned to theponds and night-damps?

The horses toiled through the sand till an open country of farms gavebetter roads, and at ten o'clock at night they crossed the Pocomoke atSnow Hill, and stopped at a gate before a neat, whitewashed, one-storyhouse, with a large stack-chimney over the centre, and two doors and asingle window in the front. It stood in a short street leading to theriver, whose splutter-docks and reeds were seen near by among the mastsof vessels and the mounds of sawdust. 

Virgie kissed Rhoda good-night, and descended with Mr. Tilghman, whoopened a gate, and, going up some steps, knocked at a vine-environeddoor. A window opened and there was a parley, and the door soonafterwards unclosed softly and admitted them. 

"Oh, may God let you know some night the pure bed and sleep you havebrought me to!" Virgie whispered. "God bless you for the kiss you gaveme, my dear white playmate, that you are not ashamed of! Oh, my heartis 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. Youcan write, and write to your young mistress wherever you go. "

"Tell her, " said the runaway girl, "that I loved her dearly. Oh, dearold Teackle Hall! shall I ever see you again? William, I shall get myfreedom, or die on the road to it. "

"That is the spirit, " the minister said; "we will buy it for you if wecan, but get it for yourself if you can do it. "

He kissed her again, with the instinct of a father to a child, andhastened 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 herpore, 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 splendida-preachin', but I like you better drivin' and showin' your excitemins. "

"You are a beautiful girl, " the clergyman said; "suppose you try to likeme better. "

The great question, being thus opened, was not disposed of when theyreached Princess Anne, and quietly stabled the horses. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

HONEYMOON. 

Meanwhile the steamer was taking Vesta and her husband across theChesapeake Bay in the night--that greatest, gentlest indentation in thecoast 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 themother, and on whose breast a brood of rivers lay and suckled withoutrivalry--the long Susquehanna, James, and Potomac; the short, thickChoptank, Chester, and Patapsco; and, to the flying wild-swan, itsarborage looked like a vast pine-tree, with boughs of snow, climbing twohundred miles from its roots in the land of corn and cotton into thegolden cloud of Northern grain and hay. 

Upon one broken horn of this fruitful bay hung Baltimore, like aneagle's nest upon the pine, seizing the point of indentation thatbrought it nearest to the fertile upland and the valley outlets of theNorth and West, where the toil-loving Germans burnished their farms withwomen's hands, and sent their long bowed teams to market on as manyturnpikes as the Chesapeake had rivers. 

At morning Vesta looked upon the fleet of little sail lying in the basinof the city, among larger ships and arks and barges, and saw FederalHill's red clay rising a hundred feet above the piers, and the spotlessmonument to Washington resting its base as high above the tide, on anearly naked bluff. The rich sunrise fell on the streaked flag of therepublic at the mast on Fort McHenry, and the garrison band was playingthe 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 inthe enemy's hands was doing tribute to that flag from cotton-field andrice-swamp, tobacco land and corn-row, pouring the poetry of his loyaltyand toil to the very emblem of his degradation!

Vesta heard, with both satisfaction and sorrow, at Barnum's Hotel thather husband was too ill to attend the funeral, and must keep his roomand fire; she needed his comfort and devotion in her sorrow, but uponher dead mother's bier seemed to stand the injunction against thatfateful hat he had brought with him; and yet she pitied him that he muststay alone, unknown, unrelated, chattering with the chill or burningwithout complaint. 

"God send you sympathy from the angels like you, my darling!" Milburnsaid. "I know what it is to lose a mother. "

Escorts in plenty waited on Vesta, but she wished she could find somekinsman of her husband, if ever so poor, to take his arm to the churchand burial-ground; and at the news that her uncle Allan McLane had notarrived, and would not, probably, now be present, she felt anotherblending of relief and apprehension, because her husband might notto-day be exasperated by him, yet his relations to her mother's propertywould still remain unknown, --and Vesta feared for Virgie. 

In the same impulse which had made her retain Teackle Hall, to secure itagainst her father's careless business methods, she had made Virgie overto her mother, to place her, apparently, farther from danger, neversupposing that in those prudent hands the enemy might insinuate; butDeath, the deathless enemy, was filching everywhere, and though shecould not see why Virgie could be persecuted, Vesta now wished she hadset her free. 

The girl belonged to her mother's estate: suppose Allan McLane was theadministrator of it? Suppose, indeed, he was the heir? Vesta's heartfell, as she considered that a woman had best let business alone. 

The young bride-mourner was an object of mingled admiration and sympathyas 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 youngRobert Breckenridge, fresh from Kentucky, on a visit to his brother, thepastor, thought he had never seen Vesta's equal even in Kentucky; and, as he gazed through her mourning veil, the pastor's Delaware wife heardhim whisper, "Divinity itself!"

The clear olive skin, eyes of gray twilight, eyebrows like midnight'sown arches, and luxuriant hair, were touched by grief as if a goddesssuffered; and, in her deep mourning robes, Vesta seemed a monarch'sdaughter about to pass through some convent to her sainthood. 

She had the height to give dignity to this beauty, and the grace to liftpathos above weakness. 

The minister's musical tones were wrought to consonance with this noblehuman model, and he spoke of that ideal motherhood which, to every childat the bier, seems real as the dripping bucket at the fairy's well--ofmother's love, trials, weakness, and immortality; of the absence of hersympathy making the first great bereavement in life's progress; of hernature abiding in us and her spirit hovering over, while we live. 

Painted in the soft hues of personal experience, prescribed to her needswith a physician's art, doing all that funeral talk can do to raise thefinal tears from among the heartstrings and pour them in oblation uponthe corpse, the pastor's consolation had the effect of some mesmerichand that weakens our systems while it sublimates our feelings, andVesta's female nature was almost broken down. 

Where could she lean for the close sympathy befitting such grief? Herfather was not here, and she had none but her husband--the husband ofless than a week, but still the nearest to her need. 

On him she allowed herself to rest that solemn evening after hermother'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 narrowedtheir chamber, and they sat with no other light than a little woodsmouldering in the grate, he came to her and began to talk of childhoodand his own mother, of the little sorrows his mother had shared withhim, of domestic disagreements and happy love-making anew; how men feelwhen the partner of life is taken away, and children know not themeaning of Death, that has done so awful a thing upon the inoffensiveone; but above all is shining, Meshach said, the star of motherhood, faintly lighting our way, mellowing our souls, and basking on thewaters. 

As he continued, and she could not see him, but only hear theplaintiveness of his voice, it became comfortable to hear him speak, andshe grew more passive, a sense of resignation fell upon her heart, andof gratitude to him that could divine her loss so touchingly; and, likea child, she rested upon his side, upon his knee, and in his arms atlast. Not fond nor yet infatuated, but subsiding and consenting, accepting her destiny like a myriad of women that are neither oppressednor tender, but with reluctance, yield, she passed out of grief towifedom, like one tired and in a dream. 

Visits of consolation were made by a few old friends for a day or twosucceeding. The Rev. Henry Lyon Davis, late president of the college atAnnapolis, came, bringing his handsome boy of twelve, Master HarryWinter Davis. The attorney-general of Maryland, Mr. Roger Taney, camewith Mr. George Brown, the banker. Commodore Decatur's widow sent amourning token, and the Honorable William Wirt brought Mr. RobertSmith, 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 eithersupercilious or studiously avoided the groom. 

An invitation came from Arlington House to Vesta, to bring Mr. Milburnthere; and, as they proceeded out the Washington road in a privatecarriage, they observed Mr. Ross Winans's friction-wheel car, withnearly forty people in it, making its trial trip behind a horse at agallop. At the Relay House, where the horses on the railroad werechanged, Milburn remarked, gazing up the Patapsco valley:

"My wife, we are here at the birth of this little iron highway. If ourvision was great enough, we might see the mighty things that may happenupon it: servile insurrection, sectional war, great armies riding togreat battles, thousands of emigrants drawn to the West. We shall die, but generations after us this road will grow and continue, like a veinof iron, whose length and uses no man can measure. "

The road to Washington was in places good, and often turned in among thepines. At Riverdale they saw the deer of Mr. George Calvert, adescendant of one of the Lords Baltimore, browsing in his park, and hisgreat four-in-hand carriage was going in the lodge-gates from a statevisit 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, andthen, crossing Mason's ferry, they were set down at Arlington House anhour after dark. 

The hospitable, harmless proprietor welcomed them into the huge edifice, half temple, half barn, among his elaborate daubs of pictures, andfurniture and relics of Custis and Washingtonian times. He was nearlyfifty years of age, of Indian features, but rather weak face, like onewhose only substantiality was in his ancestors, and Vesta, placing himbeside her husband, reflected that a similar inbreeding had produced asimilarity in the two men, both of a sallow and bilious attenuation; butMilburn, beside her kinsman Custis, was like a bold wolf beside avacant-visaged sheep. 

Yet these men liked each other immediately, Milburn's intelligence andmoney, 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 groveof sepulture for an army of dead, while Vesta, in the dwelling, talkedwith her cousins, and with the graceful Lieutenant Lee, who was courtingMary Custis. 

It was a happy domestic life, and in the host's veins ran the blood ofthe Calverts, though not of the legitimate line. 

It was suggested to go to the Capitol, and Mr. Milburn, growing dailybetter in the hill region, went also, and wore his steeple hat, greatlyto the edification of Mr. Custis, who revelled in such antiquities. Vesta heard the ladies whispering, when they returned, that a parcel ofboys and negroes had followed the hat, laughing and jeering, and hadfinally driven the party to their carriage. This, and her husband'simpatience to return to his business, hastened their departure fromArlington. 

They took the steamer down the Potomac, and, as they came off the mouthof St. Mary's River, Milburn donned his Raleigh's hat again, and stoodon deck, looking at the lights about the old Priest's House, where thecapital of Lord Baltimore lay, a naked plain and a few starvelingmementoes, within the bight of a sandy point that faced the archipelagoof the Eastern Shore. 

"My hat, " said Milburn to himself, "is old as yonder town, and betterpreserved. The Calverts and Milburns have married into Mrs. Washington'skin. Does my wife love me?"

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE ORDEAL. 

When Levin Dennis awoke in the bottom of the old wagon it was beingrapidly driven, and Van Dorn's voice from the driver's seat was heard tosay, 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 acrack of his whip. 

Levin, whom some friendly hand had wrapped in a bearskin coat--he hadseen one like it upon Van Dorn--next heard the slaver speak to anotherparty 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, jostledby the rough wagon, but, being perfectly sober now, he was morereasoning and courageous, and his new-found love impelled him toself-preservation. He might have rolled out of the vehicle and into thewoods, and at least saved himself from committing further crime, but howwould he see Hulda any more--Hulda, in danger, perhaps? Thus, even toignorance, love brings understanding, and Levin began to ask himself thecause of his own misery. He knew it was liquor, yet what made him drinkif not a disposition too easily led? Even now he was under almostvoluntary subjection to the bandit in the wagon, whose voice he heardblandly 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 youto 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 froma 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 outsilently upon the flat country of forest and a few poor farms, drainedimperfectly by some ditches of the Choptank. He supposed it might bealmost midnight, from the position of those brilliant constellationswhich shone down equally upon his mother and himself--she in herinnocence and he in his anxiety--and shone, also, perhaps, upon his poorfather's grave in isle or ocean. 

Within an hour blood was to be shed, no doubt, and rapine done, and heknew not the road to escape by nor the hole to hide in. Yet in that hourhe 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 saidin extenuation of him in a court of justice, except by his mother'sfaith, which was no more evidence than a negro's oath. 

Once it arose in his mind to surprise Van Dorn, overcome him, cast himout 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 couldcling to a smooth plank like a bird's to a bough; but his heart relentedto 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'slife with his sailor's knife, if they grappled at all, and this dayexpiring Van Dorn had paid a debt for him to the widow whose son wasnext 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 blowwith his whip-lash on the shoulder that made him literally fall from themule and grovel with pain. 

"Discipline is what your mother failed to give you, _repróbo_. Manners Ishall teach you. Fall in the rear!"

Owen Daw crawled desperately on his mule and obeyed without parley, buthis audacity soon recovered enough to force his animal up to the wagontail and open whispered communications with Levin there. 

Nothing had passed them for hours that Levin had seen, when suddenly ahorseman at a rapid lope stopped the wagon, and a hoarse negro voicemuttered:

"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 willstretch your chilled limbs. "

"May I go with him?" asked Owen Daw, in his Celtic accent, quitecringing now. 

"Not unless he wants you. "

"Come, then, " Levin obligingly said. 

While the two youths were still lingering by the wagon they heard thesewords:

"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 isdar 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 tousanddollars, if dar's a cent, at dat festibal: gals more'n half white, mendat 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 Dawseemed to forget his affront at the tidings, and chuckled to Levin asthey trotted away:

"Bet you I git a better nigger nor you!"

"Oh, shame, Owen Daw! Your mother was saved to-day from bein' turned outof 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 thisday's work. "

As they rode on they came to the man called Sorden, riding as the guideto the invading column, a person of more genteel address than anybeneath 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 thanI 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 anigger. "

"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 mecome. 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 isboys, and I hate to see 'em spiled. If you was nigger boys I wouldn'tkeer 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 akitchen and garret, at the left of the road, to which the corner of apiece of oak and hickory woods came up shelteringly, while in the rearseveral small barns and cribs enclosed the triangle of a field. A doorin the middle, towards Maryland, seemed very high-silled, and lowgrated windows were at the cellar on each side of the steps. 

The place had a suspicious appearance, and a pack of hounds in full cryrushed from the kitchen, and, while in the act of leaping the stile andpalings, were arrested almost in mid air by a chuffy voice crying fromwithin:

"Hya! Down! Spitch!"

The whole pack meekly sneaked back to the house, whining low, and a fewblows 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 nearlyinto the cover of the woods, and its little yard was made cavernous bythick-planted paper-mulberry and maple trees, while a line ofcherry-trees and an old pole-well rose along the road and hedge. As theyrode 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 theroof--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, farmsit, gambles a little, but nigger-runnin' is his best game. My skin! Yercomes Captain Van Dorn. I love him as I never loved A male. "

"Van Dorn, " spoke a voice from the house, "remember my family isparticular. Your men must go to the barn. Come in!"

"Spiced brandy at the barn!"--a quiet remark from somewhere--wassufficient to lead the herd away, and, giving the order to "water andfodder, " Van Dorn passed into the kitchen, thence through a bedroom tothe chief room of the house, and up a small winding-stair to a scrap ofhallway or corridor hardly two feet wide. 

The man who led pointed to a trap above one end of this hall, andexclaimed, "Niggers there! family yonder!"--the last reference to a doorclosing the little passage. 

He then opened a wicket at the side of the hall, admitting Van Dorn toan exceedingly small closet or garret room, barely large enough for themen to sit, and lighted by a lamp in the little dormer window seen frombelow. 

"Drink!" said the man, uncorking a bottle of champagne; "I had it readyfor you. "

He poured the foaming wine and set the bottle on a sort of secretary ordesk, and then looked anxiety and avarice together out of his liquidblack eyes and broad, heavy face. 

"_Buéna suérte, seńor!_" Van Dorn lisped, as they drank together. 

"Hya! spitch!" nervously muttered Clark, cutting his own top-boots witha dog-whip. "I wish I was out of the business: the risk is too great. Mywife is religious--praying, mebbe, now, in there. My daughters is at theseminaries, spendin' money like the Canawl Company on the lawyers. Nothin' pays like nigger-stealin', but it's beneath you and me, VanDorn. "

"_A la verdad!_ This is my last incursion, Don Clark. Pleasure has keptme poor for life. To-day I did a little sacrifice, and it grows uponme. "

"If they should ketch me and set me in the pillory, Van Dorn, for whatyou do to-night, hya! spitch!"--he slashed his knees--"it would breakMrs. Clark's heart. "

"I want this money to-night, " said Van Dorn, "to make two young peoplehappy. They shall take my portion, and take me with them out of theplains of Puckem. "

"Oh, it is nervous business"--Clark's eyes of rich jelly made the palloron his large face like a winding-sheet--"hya! spitch! The Quakers area-watchin' me. Ole Zekiel Jinkins over yer, ole Warner Mifflin down tothe mill, these durned Hunns at the Wildcat--they look me through everytime they ketch me on the road. But the canawl contract don't pay likeniggers; my folks must hold their heads up in the world; Sam Ogg won'tlet 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 intrust. If you go out of it, so will I. "

"Then to-night, _peniténte!_ we make our few thousand and quit. Give upyour 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!" VanDorn said, after his host had descended the stairs, "he can never beless than a thief with that irksomeness under such fair competence. "

At that moment a beautiful maid or woman, in her white night-robe, stoodin the little doorway, with eyes so like the richness of his just gonethat it must have been his daughter. She fled as she recognized astranger, and Van Dorn pursued till a door was closed in his face. 

"Poor fool!" he said, sinking into his chair again; "I will never bemore 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 ifthey is black. "

"Now, listen, lad!"--Van Dorn's face ceased to blush and the coarselook came into his blue eyes--"this night's excursion is for yourprofit. I like your gentle inclination for me, and the good acts youhave solicited from me, and the confidence you have shown me as to yourlove for pretty Hulda. Join me in this work willingly, and I will giveher, 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 backspotted with crime or dead. Now choose which it shall be. "

"To die, then, " cried Levin, with one hand drawing the long, silken hairfrom his eyes and with the other drawing his own knife; "but I willfight 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! _huérfano_, waif, " Van Dorn murmured, while his blush returned, "take heed thou ever sayest 'No' with courage like that, when cowardiceor weak acquiescence would extort thy 'Yes. ' This moment, if thou hadstconsented, 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 tearsquickly following his courage; "twice I have thought of doin' itto-day. "

"I never would have put you to that test, my poor lad, but that I sawyour conscience at work all this day under the stimulation of virtuouslove. Think nothing of me. Build your own character upon some goodexample, and, sweet as life is, fight for it on the very frontiers ofyour 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 referevery act of your character to him. Ask yourself what he would do inyour predicament, then go and do the same. "

"I do know such a man, " Levin said, in another moment; "It is JimmyPhoebus, my poor, beautiful mother's beau. "

"_El rayo ha caido!_" Van Dorn spoke, low and calm; "yes, Levin, any manworthy of your mother will do. "

"Captain, turn back with me! Is it too late?"

"Too late these many years, young _seńor_. I shall lead the war onAfrica 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 withSorden at the lead, and a mile from here, at Camden town, take your ownway. Good-night!"

Taking a single look at the miserable band of whites and blackscollected in the barn, and revealed by a lantern's light in theexcitement of drink and avarice, or the familiarity of fear andvice--some inspecting gags of corn-cob and bucks of hickory, otherstrimming clubs of blackjack with the roots attached; others loadingtheir horse-pistols and greasing the dagger-slides thereon; somewhetting their hog-killing knives upon harness, others cutting rope andcord into the lengths to bind men's feet--Levin was set on the lopinghorse he had been already riding, by Clark, the host, and soon metSorden 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 yourcritter is; ain't it Dirck Molleston's? I thought so. Then he'll bewantin' to turn in at Cooper's Corners. "

"Does Derrick live there?"

"Yes. That's whar he holds the Forks of both roads from below, andwatches the law in Dover. I hope Van Dorn will git away with the lootand 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 thestrange events of the night, and his wonder what to do next, keptLevin's brain whirling till he saw the form of a few houses rise amongthe trees, and a line of arborage indicate a main road from north tosouth. 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 Ishall get no bed nor food all night, and be picked up in the mornin' fura kidnapper. I can't go back. The big river or the ocean, I reckon, isbefore me. What would Jimmy Phoebus do?"

He held the animal in as he asked this question, and paused at thecrossing of the great State road. 

The idea slowly spread upon his whole existence that James Phoebuswould, 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 youngman's mind, it rose more and more stalwart, and appeared to lead towardsDover, where so many poor souls, in the joys of intercourse and freedom, were like little birds unconscious of the hawks above them, and no manin the world but Levin Dennis could save them from death or bondage. 

Would James Phoebus, with his lion nature, ever hesitate in the dutyof a citizen and a Christian under such circumstances, or forgiveanother man for withholding information that might be life and libertyand mercy?

Yet there was Van Dorn to be betrayed. What would Van Dorn do in Levin'splace?

The words of Van Dorn, not a quarter of an hour old, spoke aloud inLevin's echoing consciousness: "Think nothing of me. Refer every act tosome faithful man and go and do the same!"

Levin looked up, and the very clouds, now swollen dark in spite ofstarshine, 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 animaldarted 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 alarge, dark object in the road ahead, and a horseman rode right acrossLevin's course, forcing his animal back on its haunches. 

"High doings, friend!" a man's voice raspingly spoke; "I'm concerned forthee!"

"Git out of my way or I'll stab you!" Levin cried, between his new ardorto do his duty and the idea that he had already been intercepted byPatty Cannon's band. 

"Ha, friend! I'm less concerned for myself than thee. Thou wilt not staba citizen of Camden town at his own door?"

"For Heaven's sake, let me go, then!" Levin pleaded. "The kidnappers iscoming to Dover in a few minutes. I want to tell Lawyer Clayton!"

Immediately the other person, a tall, lean man, wheeled and dashed afterthe dark object ahead, which Levin, following also hard, found to be alarge covered wagon--something between the dearborn or farmer's and thefamily carriage. 

"Bill, " the Quaker called to the driver, "spare not thy whip till Doverbe well past. Here is one who says kidnappers are raiding even thecapital of Delaware. I'm concerned for thee!"

The driver began to whip his horses into a gallop, and cries, as ofseveral 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, withoutspeaking, and came to a little log-and-frame cabin in a fork of theroad, where Levin's horse tried to run in. 

"Ha, friend! Is it not Derrick Molleston's loper thee has--the same thathe gets from Devil Jim Clark? What art thou, then? I feel concerned forthee. "

"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, " theQuaker said, pointing to a brick house on the left; "for there lived ajudge whose son bucked a poor negro fiddler in his father's cellar, anddelivered him to Derrick Molleston to be sold in slavery. I hear thepoor man tells it in his distant house of bondage. "

"What's this?" Levin inquired, seeing a strange structure of beams on acape or swell to the right, in sight of the dark forms of a town on thenext crest beyond. 

"A gallows, " said the Quaker, "on which a horse-thief will be hangedto-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 Doverand stole into the obscurity of the town. 

"Ha! ha!" exclaimed the Quaker; "if Joe Johnson had not stopped to feedat Devil Jim's, he might have overtaken my brother's wagon full ofescaping slaves. I tell thee, friend, because I'm scarce concerned forthee now. "

CHAPTER XXXV. 

COWGILL HOUSE. 

Long after midnight, Dover was in bed, except at one large house on theCapitol green, where light shone through the chinks and cracks ofcurtains and shutters, and some watch-dog, perhaps, ran along curiouslyto see why. 

The stars and clouds in the somewhat troubled sky looked down throughthe leafless trees upon the pretty town and St. Jones's Creek circlingpast it, and hardly noticed a long band of creeping men and animalssteal up from the Meeting House branch, past the tannery and theacademy, and plunge into the back streets of the place, avoiding thepublic square. 

One file turned down to the creek and crossed it, to return fartherabove, cutting off all escape by the northern road, while a second fileslipped silently through and around the compact little hamlet and waitedfor the other to arrive, when both encompassed an old brick dwellingstanding back from the roadside in a green and venerable yard, nearlyhalf a mile from the settled parts of Dover. 

This house was brilliantly lighted, and the rose-bushes and shade treeswere all defined as they stood above the swells of green verdure and theornamental paths and flower-beds. 

One majestic tulip-tree extended its long branches nearly to the portalof the quaint dwelling, and a luxuriant growth of ivy, starting betweenthe cellar windows, clambered to the corniced carpentry of the eaves, and made almost solid panels of vine of the spaces between the fourlarge, keystoned windows in two stories, which stood to the right of thebroad, dumpy door. 

This door, at the top of a flight of steps, was placed so near the gableangle of the house that it gave the impression of but one wing of amansion originally designed to be twice its length and size. 

Between this gable--which faced the road, and had four lines of windowsin 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, andperhaps twelve feet above the ground. This, as might be guessed, was onthe landing of the stairs within; for the great door and front of theresidence being at the opposite side, the whole of the space at thetownward gable, to the width of seventeen feet, was a noble hall aboutforty feet long, lofty, and with pilasters in architectural style, andlighted by two great windows in the gable and the square window on thestairway. 

The stairway itself was a beautiful piece of work and proportion, risingfrom the floor in ten railed steps to the landing at the square window, where a space several feet square commanded both the great front doorand the windows in the gable, and also the yard behind; thence, at rightangles, the flight of steps rose along the back wall to a second landingover the dumpy back-door, and, by a third leap, returned at rightangles, to the floor above, making what is called the well of thestairway 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 largemansion, yet it had lost nothing in agreeableness by becoming, instead, the largest room in the house, receiving abundant daylight, and it waslarge enough for either a feast or public worship, and such was itsfrequent use. 

Built by a tyrannical, eccentric man at the beginning of the century, it had passed through several families until a Quaker named Cowgill, whoafterwards became a Methodist, and who held no slaves and was kind toblack people, made it his property, and superintended a tannery and millwithin sight of it. 

He was frequently absent for weeks, especially in the bilious autumnseason, and allowed his domestics to assemble their friends and thegeneral race, at odd times, in the great hallway, for such rationalenjoyments as they might select. 

In truth, the owner of the house desired it to get a more cheerfulreputation; for the negroes, in particular, considered it haunted. 

The first owner, it was said, had amused himself in the great hall-roomby making his own children stand on their toes, switching their feetwith a whip when they dropped upon their soles from pain or fatigue; andhis own son finally shot at him through the great northern door with arifle or pistol, leaving the mark to this day, to be seen by a smallpanel set in the original pine. The third owner, a lawyer, oftenentertained travelling clergymen here; and, on one occasion, theeccentric Reverend Lorenzo Dow met on the stairs a stranger and bowed tohim, and afterwards frightened the host's family by telling it, sincethey were not aware of any stranger in the house. The room over thegreat door had always been considered the haunt of peculiar people, whomolested nobody living, but appeared there in some quiet avocation, andvanished when pressed upon. 

This main door itself had a church-like character, and was battened orbuilt in half, so that the upper part could be thrown open like awindow, 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 ofsteps and on a flower-yard surrounded by elms, firs, and Paulowniatrees, the latter of a beany odor and nature. A lower servants' part ofthe dwelling, in two stories, stretched to the fields, and had averanda-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 tofly 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 reachyou. Train it on the staircase window, and fire only if you seeresistance 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 asmounting-blocks to Sorden's party. I shall storm the main door. As weenter there, Sorden, order your men right over Melson and Milman intothe 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. Ifit 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 thefront 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 springin the windows and beat opposition down. _Relampaguéa!_ Ransom is slow. "

The knocker on the great door sounded, and it sprang open and quicklyslammed 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 awindow in the gable, drawing his face away, so as to be unseen in thenight. 

The bright interior was full of people, sitting back against thewainscoting, as if listening to a sermon, while down the middle of thestately hall stretched a table lighted by whale-oil lamps and manylittle candles, and filled with the remnants of a feast. The stairway inthe corner Van Dorn could not see, and there the dusky audience was allfacing, as if towards the preacher. There seemed a something out of thecommon in the kind of attention the inmates were paying, but Van Dorn'seyes were absorbed in the sight of several drooping and yet almoststartled 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 'emmos' 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 seizedthe heavy panel and ran with it. The door flew open, but at that momentevery light in Cowgill House went out. 

"Dar's ghosts in dar, " the hoarse voice of Derrick Molleston was heardto say, and the negro element stopped and shrank. 

"Tindel, your torch!" Van Dorn exclaimed, and, after a moment'sdelay--the old house and shady yard meantime illumined by lightning, andsounds of thunder rolling in the sky--a blazing pine-knot, all prepared, was procured, and Van Dorn, holding it in his left hand, and withnothing 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 greatwindows at the gable side fell inwards with a crash as the kidnapperscame pouring over. 

Van Dorn's quick eye took in the situation as he waved his torch, and itlighted ceiling and pilaster, the close-fastened doors on the left andthe great stairway-well beyond, filled with black forms in the attitudeof defence. 

"Patty Cannon has come!" he shouted again; "follow me!"

An instant only brought him to the base of the staircase, and thelightning flashing in the gaping windows and fallen door revealed him tohis followers, with his yellow hair waving, and his long, silkenmustache 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 woulddisable but fail to kill. 

Van Dorn, far ahead, made three murderous slashes of his whip across thehuman objects above, and, with a toss of that formidable weapon, clubbedit and darted on. 

At the moment loud explosions and smoke and cries filled the echoingplace, as a volley of firearms burst from the landing, sweeping the lineof 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 thecowardly assailants ran to places of refuge, some crawling out at theportal, some dropping from the windows, and others getting behind thestairway, out of fire, and seeking desperately to draw the bolts of thesmaller door there. 

"Patty Cannon has come!" Van Dorn repeated, throwing himself into thebody of the defenders, who, terrified at his bravery, began to retreatupward around the angles of the stairs. 

One man, however, did not retreat, neither did he strike, but wrappedVan Dorn around the body in a pair of long and powerful arms, and liftedhim 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 forhis knife, but his arms were enclosed in the unknown stranger's, who, having seized him from behind, sought to push him through the squarewindow on the landing into the grass yard below, where the rain wasfalling and the lightning making brilliant play among the herbs andferns. 

As the kidnapper prepared himself to fall, with all his joints andmuscles relaxed, the boy, Owen Daw, lying bloodthirstily along the limbof the old tulip-tree, aimed his musket, according to Van Dorn'sinstructions, at the forms contending there, and greedily pulled thetrigger. 

The Quaker's arms, as they enclosed Van Dorn, presented, upon the cuffof his coat, a large steel or metal button, and the ball from the tree, striking this, glanced, and entered Van Dorn's throat. 

"_Aymé Guay!_" Van Dorn muttered, and was thrown out of the window tothe 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 doorthere and rushed forth, only to receive handfuls of red pepper dustthrown by Miles Tindel, as he cried, "Tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!"

They screamed with anguish, and rolled in the wet grass, and yet, withfears stronger than pain, sought the road in blindness, and some way toleave the town. 

Young Owen O'Day, or Daw, crept down the tree, and, seeing Van Dorn inSorden's arms at the wagon, contemptuously said, as he mounted his muleand vanished:

"I reckon he'll never discipline me no mo'. "

Derrick Molleston, regretting the loss of his loping horse, bore out tothe wagon an object he had found striving to escape from the veranda atthe kitchen side, though with a gag in his mouth, and a skewer betweenhis 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 blackvictim lying helpless on his back, and Van Dorn bleeding in Sorden'sarms, who continued to moan, "I loved him as I never loved A male!"

Van Dorn made several efforts to talk, and often coughed painfully, andfinally, 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 allheah. "

As they advanced up a shady lane, fire from somewhere began to make acertain illumination in spite of the loud storm. 

"It's Bill Greenley. He's set de jail afire, " the negro exclaimed. "Seeme, O see me!"

The conflagration gave a vapory red light to a secluded dwelling theynow approached, upon a bowery lawn, and Sorden saw a woman of a severeaspect 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. Shewas your brother's mother-in-law. I love this man as I never loved Amale. He is wounded, and we want him taken in till he can have adoctor. "

"Take him to the jail, then, if that is not it burning yonder, " thewoman exclaimed, scornfully. "Shall I make the home of the Chancellor ofDelaware a hospital for Patty Cannon's men as a reward for her sendingmy 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, " Sordensaid. 

As they left the lane a flash of lightning, so near, so white, that theyseemed 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 torefrom his harness, while the wagon was overset. 

The negro picked up his helpless fellow-African and lifted him on hisback, 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 whiletrickling, 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 asI never loved A male. "

The fire of the burning jail lighted their return into the outskirts ofDover and to the gallows' hill, where stood the scaffold, split with thelightning from cross-beam to the death-trap. As they halted opposite itto rest, a horse and rider came stumbling past, and Molleston, droppinghis burden, shouted:

"Bill Greenley, dat's our hoss. We want it. "

"His is the hoss that's on him, " cried the escaped horse-thief, lookingscornfully up at his own gallows as he lashed his blinded animal alongin 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, standingbefore his office as the rising sun innocently struck the tree-tops inthe public square of Dover. 

Judge Custis, sitting at an upper window, observed that many noble elmsand locusts had been riven by lightning, or torn by wind and wind-drivenfloods of rain. 

"What a night!" Custis exclaimed; "the jail burned, the lightningappalling, 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, didhe? And it's Bill Greenley that burned the jail? Goy! And the blackpeople 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 cleansuit 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 AuntHominy and your little niggers. They was at Johnson's Cross-roads lastnight. 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 andfellow-Whig, Jonathan Hunn, resume!"

"Friend, " spoke out a wiry, lean, healthy-skinned man, "this young mansurprised me last night with intelligence that thy Maryland friends weremarching on the very capital of Delaware, to steal men. I was out in theroad at that late hour for another Christian purpose, and the Lordrewarded me with this good one: I brought friend Dennis to JohnClayton's back door, and he lent us all his firearms. At the littlebrick grocery of William Parke, just beyond the Cowgill House--where Iam told he sells ardent liquors to negroes contrary to law, and so takesthe name among them of 'Kind Parke'--I found several of our freeDelaware negroes, I fear on no good errand. So I remarked, 'If WilliamParke, 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 vileenticement 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 CowgillHouse so as to make it at once a decoy and a hornet's nest. I despisewar and men of war so much that I have somewhat studied their campaigns, and I suggested, friend Clayton, that the stairway was a good tacticaldefensive position--is that the vain term?--to send a volley out themain door, and a flank fire on every door and window on the sides ofCowgill's hall. It also commanded the back yard by a window on thestaircase. A door beneath the staircase was barricaded. There was afestival, or feast, given that night, by absent friend Cowgill'spermission, by these Dover folks of color. I would not wonder if it wasdesigned or discovered by these scoundrels on thy line of states, friendCustis. I told the men-at-arms to leave their huzzies all below in thefeasting-hall till the attack began, and then to let them escape up thestairway, and to defend that stair like sinful men. But first a negrospy knocked on the door, and a loop was thrown over his neck, and two ofthe 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! CaptainVan Dorn had got to the bottom of the stairs, when the niggers half-wayup fired over his head and shot mos' everything down. The Quaker man yerthen pinioned the captain an' dropped him, wounded, out of the highwindow. I pity Van Dorn, but _he_ says that he's in a bad business. Ihope he ain't dead. "

"Who is this Van Dorn?" asked Judge Custis. "I've heard of such adare-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 suckthe blossoms on the vines that has growed up through the eaves fromoutside, flew around in the dark among the yaller gals that was a-hidin'and a-prayin', and never feelin' the wasps sting em', thinkin' aboutthem kidnappers. I reckon, gen'lemen, the kidnappers will never come toDover no more. "

"Two things surprise me, " Clayton said; "that Joe Johnson would ventureto raid Dover itself after the licking I got him; and that free darkeyscould make such a defence. "

"Ah! John Clayton, " spoke Jonathan Hunn, "there was a white witnessthere, to affirm that they only defended their lives. "

"It was Captain Van Dorn that raided Dover, " Levin spoke; "Joe Johnsonis a coward. "

"Judge Custis, " said Mr. Clayton, "you and I can save this peninsula, atleast, from the sectional excitements that are coming. You mustsurrender to Delaware old Patty Cannon and her household. She now liveson 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, afterthe free opinions you have expressed?"

There was a long, awkward pause. The Quaker arose, and, looking well atJudge Custis, said:

"None but Almighty God knows the secrets of a slave-holder's mind. Noson 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 Dennisdisappeared, Clayton only saying:

"Who would have thought that soft-eyed boy was already fascinated bythese kidnappers? He has taken his horse and gone back to PattyCannon's. "

The suit against the Canal Company required a great deal of research, aslaw-books were then scarce, and precedents for breaches of contractagainst corporations were not many; this form of legal life beingcomparatively modern in that day, like the dawn of the floral age, orbefore megatheriums grazed above the trees or iguanodons swam in thecanals. Clayton and Custis walked and ate and lay down together, comparing knowledge and suggestions, and the litigious mind of JohnRandel, Junior, was rather irritating to both of them, so that, to berid of his society in Dover, the two lawyers, meantime supplied withmoney by Meshach Milburn's draft, resolved to visit the canal, which wasdistant about thirty miles. 

The three men started together in a carriage, after breakfast, on a softyet frosty morning, such as often gives to this region a winter sparkleand 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 tastefuland trimmed like those in the French Netherlands, the leafless peachorchards stretched out like the tea-plants in China. Two or three littletowns studded the roadside, the woods gave way altogether to smallerfarms, and, at a steep bottom called the Fiddler's Bridge, they turnedacross the fields to an old four-chimneyed, galleried mansion, at theend 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 dinnerspread. 

After dinner they launched upon the stream in a row and sail boat, toMr. Clayton's trepidation, and bore out through acres of splutter-docks, and muskrats and terrapins unnumbered, and many wild-fowl, to theChesapeake and Delaware Canal, which extended for several miles througha mighty pond or feeder, like a ditch within a bayou. 

The negro rower tied their boat behind a passing vessel, which towedthem out to the locks at the Delaware River, at a point opposite awillowy island, and where an embryo "city" had been started in themarshes, and there they waited for the packet from Philadelphia. Mr. Randel took his negro man, a person of sorrowful yet inexpressivecountenance, to be a kind of piano or model on which to play his fiercegestures. 

"Clayton, " said he, sitting on a stone lock in the evening gloaming, "Iought to have been a lawyer. Not that I am not the greatest theoreticalengineer in the country, but my legal genius interposes, and I sue thevillains who employ me. "

Here he gave the melancholy negro a violent shaking, who took it asstolidly 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, puttingthe negro down on his hams and sitting on him; "whoever employs geniushas to be a scoundrel. In the nature of their relations it is so. Hedeflects 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, andyou employ him--"

"I'm a scoundrel, of course, " Randel exclaimed. "His sense of law andright must yield to my ideas. Now look at this canal! Had I not beenobliged to defer to the soulless corporation which employed me, I wouldhave dug it to the depth that the tides of the two bays would havefilled it, instead of damming up the creeks for feeders, and pumpingwater into it by steam-pumps. Then the war-vessels of the country couldgo 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 boysgathering around. 

"John Fitch, the engineer, " said John M. Clayton, "left a curious will;it begins, 'To William Rowan, my trusty friend, I bequeath my BeaverHat. '"

Judge Custis's countenance fell, thinking of another hat which hadentered his family. 

The barge on which they embarked had numerous passengers, and soon cameto a small lock-town and turn-bridge, and, a few miles beyond, enteredupon a serious piece of work, leaving the trough of a creek, of whichthe canal had previously availed itself, and cutting through the lowridge of the peninsula, which, to Judge Custis, seemed almostmountainous. He was of that patriotic opulence, just short ofimagination, which rejoiced in public works, and this little canal, onlyfourteen miles long, was, with two or three exceptions, the onlyachieved work in the Union, turnpikes and bridges omitted. Built by thenational government, by three of the states it connected, and by privatesubscription, it had involved two and a quarter million dollars ofexpense--no light burden when the population was, by the previouscensus, less than eight million whites in all the land. 

Judge Custis's family troubles faded from his mind as he looked up atthe deep cutting, nearly seventy feet in height of banks, with sands ofyellow and green, and stains of iron and strata of marl, some of whichhad fallen back into the excavation and threatened the navigation again;and, when he saw a bridge, called the Buck, leap the chasm ninety feetoverhead, by a span that then seemed sublimity itself, he touchedClayton 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 ata bridge where Mr. Clayton said his namesake, the revolutionary Governorof 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, nearthe banks of a river, under a long table-mountain of barren clay andiron stain, on the farther shore. 

"Here, " said Randel, "is my future estate of Randalia. Here I shall seeall the commerce of the canal passing by, and garnishee every vesselthat pays my tolls to the Canal Company. "

"Randel, " asked Mr. Clayton, "what were those stakes I saw some distanceback, 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 theLabadists and their Bohemian patron, Augustine Herman, the homestead ofthe late treaty minister, Bayard, and the ancient Welsh Baptist churchesamong the hills of the Elk and Christiana, where some of Cromwell'swarriors lay. It was the favorite land of Whitefield, and in theneighborhood was an iron furnace Judge Custis examined with melancholyinterest, as one of the investments of General Washington's father morethan a hundred years before, when the Indians made the iron. They alsowent to Turkey Point, where the British army was disembarked to capturePhiladelphia, and Knyphausen's division obliterated the history ofDelaware by carrying her records away from Newcastle. Returning from oneof these pleasant journeys, two messages from different points searedJudge Custis's eyeballs:

"Your wife died at Cambridge. " "Your daughter is very ill atWilmington. "

"To Wilmington!" cried Judge Custis, staggering up. "Oh, my daughter! Ihave 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 gallantriesto 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 overpoor Wonnell's body. A strange negro was seen here--an enemy of yourservant, Samson. The new cook at Teackle Hall thinks he fired the shot. "

The young rector felt the searching look of those resinous forester'seyes 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 unusualhats for mine, that was not well described to him, or the description ofwhich 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 amoment's gentleness; "but some of her proud kin, to whom I am less thana dog, did send the assassin. I think I guess the man. "

"Do not rush to a conclusion! Remember, Vesta has suffered so much forothers' errors. "

"He was killed in this room, where Wonnell never came before. The woundshows the shot to have come from a point below, where nothing butWonnell's hat, and not his features, could be seen. The mistake ofbell-crown for steeple-top shows that it was a stranger's job: the poorfool died for me. Now where did the bungler who killed me by proxy comefrom?"

"I will be frank with you, sir. Joe Johnson, the kidnapper, was alsohere: Mary says so. To save Virgie from him, I helped her away. "

"Now, " said Milburn, "what enemy of mine delegated the kidnapper toprocure a murderer?"

He waited a moment without response, and answered, in a low tone ofvoice, 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 wordfrom me. But I shall not spare my assassins. To them I shall be as onethey have killed, and whose blood smokes, for vengeance. I possess theonly 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 delicatenostrils 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, " hespoke. "Her people compel me to wear it! I thought all malice to thispoor hat would be done with my social triumph here. But I am not a manto be frightened. Let them kill me, but it shall be under my ancestralbrim. "

"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. "Tomleft me, " he said, "when they began to fire bullets at my Hat. "

 * * * * *

Vesta's female instinct had already found the explanation of Wonnell'sdeath. 

From the moment of knowing her husband, his fatal hat had been theshadow across her life's path. His person had never been offensive toher, and something attractive or modifying in him had led her, when achild, 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, aquarrel which involved her conquest, not by wooing, but by the treaty ofwar. The same hat had inspired the superstition which led her kitchenservants to leave their comfortable home, and had been the insuperableobstacle to her mother's consent to her marriage. It had caused the onlybitter words that ever passed between her and her father. At last it hadspilled blood, and her uncle, she well knew, from his implacablenature, had set the ruffians on, and she knew as well that her husbandhad found him out. 

His intelligence, which would have been otherwise a matter of pride toher, became a subject of fear, involved with his hat. 

Then, the loss of Virgie was hardly less severe to Vesta than her ownmother's. 

It was true that Roxy, pretty and loving, now poured all her devotion ather mistress's feet, but there had been something in Virgie that Roxycould never rise to--a dignity and self-reliance hardly less than awhite woman's. Vesta shed bitter tears at the news of that dearcomforter's flight, and on her knees, praying for the delicate youngwanderer, she felt God's conviction of the sins of slavery. Alas!thousands felt the same who would not admit the conviction, and gaveexcuses that welded into one nation, at last, the sensitive millions whocould not agree to a lesser sacrifice, but were willing to give war. 

A little note from Snow Hill told Vesta that her maid had alreadydeparted, and would only write again from free soil. 

So the upbraided hat was worn more often than before, and Vesta had tosuffer much humiliation for it. Her husband now moved actively toorganize his railroad, and visited the Maryland towns of the peninsula, taking her along, and wearing on the journey his King James tile, nowswathed in mourning crape. 

At Cambridge, which basked upon the waters like an English Venice, heapplied the sinews of war to a listless public sentiment, and the countypress began to call for Joe Johnson's expulsion, and Patty Cannon'srendition to the State of Delaware. At Easton, lying between the waterson her treasures of marl, like a pearl oyster, the people turned out tosee the little man in the peaked hat, with the beautiful lady at hisside; and Vesta was more pained for her husband than herself, to feelthat his _outré_ dress was prejudicing his railroad, as business, noless than beauty, revolts from any outward affectation. At the oldaristocratic homes on the Wye River, more scowls than smiles werebestowed on the eccentric _parvenu_; and at Chestertown, whereoriginated the Peales who drew this hat into their museum, the boysburned tar-barrels on the market space, and marched, in hats of brownloaf-sugar wrappers, like Meshach's, before the dwelling of Vesta'shost. 

The greater the opposition, the more indomitable Milburn grew to live itdown. He wrote to her father to go to Annapolis and work for a railroadcharter and state aid, and began grading for his line in the vicinity ofhis old store at Princess Anne, throwing the first shovelful of earthhimself, with the immemorial hat upon his sconce. This time there wereno shouts, and he almost regretted it, seeming to feel that jeers carryno deep malice, while silence is hate. 

Loyal to her least of vows, and wishing to love and obey him in spiritfully, Vesta felt that his own good-nature was being darkened again byhis obstinacy upon this single point of an obsolete hat. 

He looked, in their evening circle at Teackle Hall, like a younger andknightlier person, in a modern suit of clothes, and slippers of Vesta'sgift. His delicate hand well became the ring she put upon it, and, whenhe talked high enthusiasm and sense, and stood ready to back them withcourage and money, Vesta thought her husband lacked but one thing tomake him the equal of his supposititious kinsman, the democratic martyrin the seventeenth century, and that was another head-dress. She almostfeared to broach the subject, knowing that an old sore is ever the mostsensitive, and being too direct and frank to insinuate or practise anyarts 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 currentstyle. He answered her letter politely, and put the new hat upon therack of Teackle Hall, and never touched it again. 

Next, Rhoda Holland, his niece, procuring, from some country beau, abeaver-skin--and beavers were growing scarce and dear in thatpeninsula--had him an elegant cap made of it for the cold weather nowcoming; but he only kissed her and put it on the rack, and there ittempted the moth. 

His chills and fever continued at broken times, but more regular becamethe dislike and opposition of the old class of society as he undertookto become the promoter of his region. They regarded it as audacity worsethan crime: he had outstripped them in wealth, and now was underminingtheir importance. Many avowed that they would never ride on a railroadbuilt by such a man; others hoped it would break him; some took openground against his work, and wrote letters to Annapolis to prejudice himwith the Legislature, where the Baltimore interest was already cryingloudly that an Eastern Shore railroad meant to take Maryland trade andmoney to Philadelphia. Meshach fiercely responded that, unless therailway took the line of the Maryland counties, Delaware state wouldbuild it and carry it off to Newcastle instead of to Elkton, whereMeshach meant to unite with a projected Baltimore system. Prudentlyestimating the sparseness of his fortune to execute a hundred miles ofembankment and railroad, Milburn yet kept up a display of surveyors andgraders in several counties, and his local patriotism had at least theappreciation of Vesta's little circle. 

In the meantime the continued absence of Samson surprised him, and JudgeCustis's letters were irregular and long coming as he went farthernorth, while two letters received by the Widow Dennis were as mysticalas they were assuring: one, in a female hand, told her that her sonLevin was being tenderly watched, and another, in man's writing, enclosed some money, and said her son would soon be home. Mrs. Denniswas far from happy in this indefinite state of mind, and her heart toldher, 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. Youwork too hard between your canal case and your railroad. Let us fill thetwo 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 independencein Maryland, Samuel Chase, who forced that hesitating state, bythreatenings and even riots, to declare for permanent separation fromEngland, as Henry Winter Davis, by the same means, eighty-five yearsafterwards, 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 generousfever for education, following the act of tolerance, made some nobleschool-houses that the growth of towns ultimately discouraged. With fourgreat chimneys above its conical roof, and pediments and cupola, and twowide stories, and high basement, all made in staid, dark brick, theacademy yet had a mournful and neglected look, as if, like man, it wasruminating upon the more brutalized times and lessening enlightenmentfalse systems ever require. 

"Ah!" said Vesta's husband, "how many a poor boy thou hast sent fromyonder 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 tobees, and reverse their hard conditions in this life. The queen bee hasno rival in the hive; all other females there are immature, and all themales are dying for the queen. She has five hundred lovers, so lovesickfor her that they never work, and forty times as many maids, likePenelope's, all embroidering comb and wax. "

"How was that proved?"

"By putting the bees in a glass house and watching them. To God allmankind may be in a glass hive, too, and every buzzer's secret biographybe kept. "

"And the queen bee's honeymoon?"

"From her that word is taken. She flies high into the air and meets alover by chance; she has so many that one is sure to be met; she kisseshim in that crystal eddy of sunshine, and, in the transport, he iswounded to the heart. How many young drones from the academy have seenthee 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 unsightlyforest-tree somewhere, and all that love her follow: the long-neglectedherb becomes busy with music and sweetness, and the flashing of silverwings, till into some gum-tree cone the farmer gathers the swarm, and itis their home. "

Vesta looked up at the poetical illustration, and saw her husband'sconical hat, into which she had been hived, and her eyes fell to hermourning weeds. 

"Oh, my father!" she thought; "has he kept his good resolutions! It isall I have left to hope for. "

They travelled down the aisles of the level forest, sometimes theholly-trees, in their green leafage and red fruit, sometimes the cleanlypine-tree's green, enriching the brown concavity of oaks; and at thescattered settlement of Kingston, the Jackson candidate for governor, Mr. Carroll, bowed from his door. Crossing Morumsco Creek, they bore tothe east, and soon saw, on a plain, the still animate ecclesiasticalhamlet of Rehoboth, extending its two ancient churches across thevision. 

The road ran to the bank of the River Pocomoke, where a ferry was stillmaintained to the opposite shore and the Virginia land of Accomac, andthe cold tide, without a sail, went winding to an oystery estuary of thebay, where the mud at the bottom was so soft that vessels aground in itcould still continue sailing, as on the muggy globe that Noah came toshore in. 

Close by were oyster-shells high as a natural bluff, made by the Indiangourmands before John Smith's voyage of navigation. 

Vesta was set out at the great, ruined Episcopal church that, like acastle of brick, made the gateway of Rehoboth; while William Tilghmanand Rhoda strolled into the open door of the brick Presbyterian churchfarther on, and Milburn put up the horses at the tavern. 

"William, " Rhoda asked, "was this the first Presbyterian church evermade yer?"

"The first in America, Rhoda. This was Rev. Francis Makemie's church. Helived in Virginia, not far from here, where no other worship waspermitted but ours, so he came over the Pocomoke and reared a church oflogs at this point, and this is the third or fourth church-building uponthe spot. Rehoboth then came to be such a point for worship that theEstablished Church put up yonder noble old edifice, as if to overawethis Calvinistic one, in 1735. "

"It's a quare old house, " said Rhoda. "The little doors that opens fromthe vestiblulete into the side galleries sent a draught right down thepreacher's back at the fur end, and when he give out the hymn, 'Blow yethe trumpet, blow, ' he always blowed his nose twice. So they boarded upthe galleries and let the ceiling down flat, and if we go up thar we cansee the other old round ceiling, William. "

So they went up the narrow stairs from the door, and came into the tubesof galleries all closed from the congregation, and there, sitting downin the obscurity, the preacher passed his arm around Rhoda's waist. 

"Take keer, " she said; "maybe you was predestined to be lost yer. I'mskeered 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 eyeswith her arch, demure ones. The young rector suddenly kissed her. 

"You've brought it on yourself, Rhoda, by looking so pretty in thisstern old place of creeds and catechisms. Could you love me if I askedyou?"

"You couldn't love me true, William. Your heart is in t'other old churchamong the bats and foxes, where Aunt Vesty sits this minute. "

"No, my sorrow is there, Rhoda. I am trying to build a nest for myheart. We all must love. "

"William, I don't think a young man in love can remember so much historywhen 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 oldfirst love. I couldn't make you happy. "

"Try, " said William; "my fancy wavers towards you. You are a beautifulgirl. "

"Yes, " said Rhoda, practically, "it's time I was gittin' married. Ithink I'll take you on trial, and watch Aunt Vesty to see if she isjealous of me. "

All differences of education passed away, when, standing for a momentwith this tall, willowy girl in his arms, her ardent nature in the blushof uncertainty, her very coquetry languishing, like health takingreligion captive, the rector of Princess Anne felt that there is nomedicine for love but love. 

They walked together around the square old edifice, among the graves ofTilghmans, Drydens, Revells, and Beauchamps, and saw the round-cappedwindows and double doors in arched brick, and, passing back along theroad, entered the enclosure of the grand old Episcopal church, which wasnearly eighty feet long, and presented its broadside of blackish brick, and double tier of spacious windows, to the absolute desertion of thisforest place. 

The churchyard was a copse of gum-tree and poplar suckers, and berrybushes, with apple-trees and cedars and wild cherry-trees next above, and higher still the damp sycamores and maples, growing out of myrtlenearly knee-deep upon the waves of old graves. 

In beautiful carpentry, the thirteen windows on this massive side upheldin 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, andbeen replaced with poorer workmanship. In the opposite gable was anotherdoor that had been forced open, and, as they stepped across the sill, acrack, like ice first stepped upon, went splitting the long and loftyvacancy with warning rumbles. 

Now the whole interior, in fine perspective, stood exposed, at leastseventy-five by fifty feet, like a majestic hall unbroken by anyside-galleries, and with double stories of windows shedding a hazylight, and, at the distant end, a low pulpit, with spacious altar. Thewalls of this neglected temple were two feet thick, and its high ceilingwas kept from falling down by ten rude wooden props of recent roughcarpentry; the pews were stately, high-fenced things, numbered in whiteletters on a black ground, and each four-sided, to contain ten persons;the rotting damask cushions in many of them told of a formeraristocracy, while now all the congregation could be assembled in asingle pew, and worship was unknown but once a year, when the bishopcame to read his liturgy to dust and desolation. 

So, on the opposite western cape of the Chesapeake, shivered the Romanpriests of Calvert's foundation, in the waste of old St. Mary's; thefolds had left the shepherds, and fifty people only came to worship inthe kirk of the earliest Presbyterians. 

Two tall, once considered elegant, stoves were nearly midway up thecracking church-floor; and Mary, the free woman, had made a fire in oneof them, and the pine wood was roaring, and the long height of pipe wassmoking. Startled by the fire, a venerable opossum came out of one ofthe pews, and waggled down the aisle, like a gray devotee who had saidhis prayers, and feared no man. 

Vesta was reading her prayer-book aloud near the stove to the prettywidow and Grandmother Tilghman. In a few moments the young rectoremerged from a curious old gallery for black people, by the door, wearing his surplice; and he read the service at the desk, plaintive andsimple, Milburn and his group responding in the room a thousand mighthave worshipped in. 

"Cousin Vesta, " the minister said, after the service, "Miss Holland isgoing to try to love me. Mr. Milburn, may I address her?"

"She is a wilful piece, " Meshach said; "you must school her first. Letmy wife give my consent. "

Vesta went to both, and kissed them:

"I feel so much encouraged, dear Rhoda and William, to see lovebeginning all about me. Now, Norah, if you could be just to JamesPhoebus, who is proving his love to you, perhaps, with his life!"

"Yes, that is a match I approve of, " said Grandmother Tilghman, "but Idon't want Bill to marry. Disappointed men make rash selections. "

"Oh, " said Rhoda, "don't conglatulate him too soon; I haven't tuk himyet. He's goin' teach me outen the books, and I'll teach him outen theforest. "

They walked together to the river bank, and Mrs. Dennis had the poorwoman, Mary, tell the adventures of Jimmy Phoebus to save her fromslavery. All were deeply moved. 

"Now, Norah, " Grandmother Tilghman said, "the moment that man comes backyou go to him and kiss him, and say, 'James, you have been the onlyfather to my son. Do you want me to be your wife?' This world is madefor marrying, Norah. Women have no other career. Nature does not valuethe brain of Shakespeare, but keeps the seed of every vagrant plantwarm, 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 waitedlonger 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 weara hat a young wife is not ashamed of. "

All felt a cold thrill at these words from the blind woman. Milburnsaid, gravely, "How can you know about hats, when you cannot see them?"

"Oh, " said Grandmother, herself a little frightened, "that hat I think Ican 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 flashedupon the picture of her husband, as he had left her sixteen yearsbefore, when Levin was a baby--a rich blonde, youthful man, dressed innaval uniform, like Decatur, whose birthplace was so near his own. 

His golden hair curled upon his forehead, his blue eyes were full ofhandsome daring, and his red, pouting mouth was like a woman's; upon hisarm a corded chapeau was held, epaulettes tasselled his shoulders, hisrich blue coat was slashed with gold along the wide lappels, and stoodstiffly around his neck and fleecy stock and fan-shaped shirt-ruffles. He seemed to be a mere boy, but of the mettle which made Americanofficers and privateersmen of his days the only guerdons of therepublicanism of the seas against the else universal dominion ofEngland. 

This portrait, the last of her family possessions, was the youngsailor's parting gift to her when he sailed in the _Ida_, leaving her amere girl, with his son upon her breast. The picture hung above thelowly 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 andstrength of man in my childhood, if I have ever looked on man but theewith love or wavering, rebuke me now for the offence I am to do, if suchit 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'shand instinctively covered her bosom as she listened, and, deep in thespirit of her prayer, she continued:

"Oh, Bowie, if thou livest, let me know! May I not live to see thee comeand find me in another's arms; thy look would kill me. If thou artdetained by enemies, by savage people, or by foreign love, no matterwhat thy errors, I will still be true! Give me some token by the Godthat has thee in his keeping, whether thou liest on the ocean's floor orlookest 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 footstepseemed 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 upwith 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, asshe 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 hishand, on which a diamond caught the moon, and seemed to drink it. Awail, like the others she had heard, broke from his lips, and said thewords:

"To lose those charms! To lose that heart! O God!"

As thus he stood, ghastly and supplicating, as if he would fall and dieupon her threshold, another hand came forward in the moonlight, and drewthe 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 onsnow, a white sand composing the streets, gardens, and fields, thoughthe humid air brought vegetation even from this, and vines clambered, willows drooped, flowers blossomed, on winter's brink, and greatspeckled sycamores, like freckled giants, and noble oaks, rose toheights betokening rich nutrition at their roots. 

Heat and moisture and salt had made the land habitable, and the windfrom a receded sea had piled up the sand long ago into mounds nowcovered with verdure, which the freak or fondness of the manor owner hadcalled a hill, and put his own name thereto, perhaps with memories ofold Snow Hill in London. 

Upon this apparent bank or hill two venerable churches stood, both ofEnglish brick, the Episcopalian, covered with ivy, and the Presbyterian, which had given its name to the first synod of the Kirk in the newworld, and now stood, surrounded with gravestones, where the visitormight read Scottish names left to orphans at Worcester, as yonder at theEpiscopate graveyard, names left to English orphans in the same rollingtide of blood; and Worcester was the name of the county, as the courtand jail might tell. 

Hidden in the sand, like Benjamin's cup in the bag of flinty corn, agolden lustre yet seemed to betray Snow Hill, as the sun rose into itsold trees, and woke the liquid-throated birds, and finally made the oldbrick and older whitewashed houses gleam, and exhale a soft, blue smoke. Virgie heard a sound as of hoofs upon a bridge, and saw, across thelily-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, ofVirgie's own size and color; "my husband is going to drive you out oftown before any of the white people are up to see you. "

At the table was a mulatto man, whom the woman introduced as herhusband. 

"Mrs. Hudson, " Virgie said, "you are doing so much for me! may the goodLord 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 memy 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 freestates. I wish you had one, Miss Virgie. "

"Oh, Mrs. Hudson, I dearly wish I had. Let me read it. Why, I couldalmost pass for you, from this description. "

"Indeed you could, " the housewife said; "we are not of the same age, butwhite 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 liketo help my color to freedom, I cannot break my word. To-morrow I have togo 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 agirl I pulled herbs and tried them on myself, and studied 'tendin' onpeople, watchin' their minds, that is so much of sickness, and how towrap and rub them. My husband oysters down in the inlets. Here is hiswagon. "

"The Lord remember you in need, dear Mrs. Hudson. "

The old wagon, an open thing, to peddle oysters and fish, was drivenacross the town to the south, and soon was in the open country, goingtowards Virginia. A smell of salt bay seemed in the air; the hawks'nests in dead trees indicated the element that subsisted everything, andthe trees in the fields were often lordly in size, though sand and smalloak and pine woods were seldom out of sight. As they turned into a lanenear a little roadside place of worship, a young white man rode by onhorseback, and, seeing Virgie, reined in and shouted, "Purty, purty, purty as peaches and cream! Ole Virginny blood is in themeyes, by the Ensign!"

The colored man muttered, "Go 'long, Mr. Wise!"

"By the Ensign now, " continued the man, who was young, but of acadaverous 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 maninterposed, hastily, and went in the gate, while the horseman, with ashout 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 theshort lane a thick-set house and porch, with small farm-buildings aroundit. 

"That's ole Spring Hill, built by the first of the Milburns; by the onethat made the will leavin' his hat and nothin' else to be son. It's gotbrick 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 Isee about gittin' a boat. If you is tracked to Snow Hill, it'll be foundyou come out this way, now. The inlets run up along the coast yer pastthe 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 Ihave 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 hercontemplations. The place was nearly dark, and she was jaded for want ofsleep, the past night's excitement having shaken her nervous system, andsoon she began to doze fitfully, and dream almost awake. 

She saw Meshach Milburn, who seemed to have become a little, old-facedchild, 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 twovanished, and two old men were giving and receiving the hat. 

Then nothing was left but the hat alone, which was a huge object withfire belching from it, and by the flame a circle of wizards went roundand round in dizzy glee, all wearing hats of similar form, but higher, higher, till they reached the sky and stars, and each was spoutingflames. 

Among these riotous wizards she recognized the features of the tallkidnapper and of Judge Custis; and Vesta, too, was there, and old AuntHominy, all giving a hasty look of shame or sorrow or severity at her, till she, fearing, yet fascinated, leaped into the circle, and dancedaround and around with the rest, till her feet made a fiery path and herhead was burning hot, and finally she lost her balance, and fell intothe great hat, whose high walls, like mountains, surrounded her, andnothing could she see in the bottom of the old felt tile but a littlegrave, and peeping from it was the face of the murdered child thekidnapper had taken away. 

"Come, " said a voice, and Virgie awoke, with fever in her temples andhot hands, to see the head of her conductor looking into the loft as ifwith red-hot eyeballs. 

She only knew that she was going again in the old wagon, and a boy wasin it, and that after a certain time, she could not tell how long, shewas helped to the ground at an old landing, where the road stopped, andwas placed on board a sort of scow, which the breeze, laden withmosquitoes, was carrying into a broad, islet-sprinkled water. 

The man Hudson was sounding, and was watching the sail, while the boysteered, and Virgie was lying, sick and cold, in the middle of theskiff, covered with the man's large coat. 

It seemed to her to be afternoon, and the ocean somewhere near, as sheheard low thunder, like breaking waves; and once, when she rose, in astupefied way, to look, there were familiar objects on both shores, andshe thought it was the Old Town beach near Snow Hill inlet. 

A little later the man brought her oysters and some cold pork-rib, withcorn-bread, to eat, and the shores grew closer, and finally seemedalmost to meet, as the skiff, scraping the bottom, darted through anarrow 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 felther lips kissed, and a voice say "Darling!"

Finally, she felt lifted up and carried, and, when she could realize thesituation, she found herself lying on a pile of shingles at an oldwharf, and the man, beside her, was weeping, as he watched the boatreceding down a moonlit aisle of wave. 

"My boy, my poor ole woman, " she heard her conductor mutter, "I nevercan 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 acrosseach other, and it seemed the nearest world of all. 

"Is my father there?" thought Virgie, "my dear white father? Can he seeme 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-trailthrough 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 wherethe cart-trail crossed a sandy road, and went beyond it, along the edgeof a small stream. The man walked a few steps up the better roadundecidedly, and suddenly drew Virgie back into the bushes, but notquick enough to be unobserved by two men coming on in an old, rattlingwagon. 

"My skin!" cried the man driving, a youngish man, of sharp, but notunkindly 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 ardorof his companion, who wore a wide slouched hat and red shirt, and wasbandaged around the head and throat, yet from his ghastly pale face, like death, on which some blood seemed to be smeared, and to stain thebandage 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, "wecould 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, "PrissyHudson? why, my skin! that's my wife's nurse. And that ain't the samewoman! 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. Thedriver 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 wagonstarted south. 

"No, " shouted the driver, "I shall keep them as evidence against PrissyHudson for assisting a runaway!"

"Lost! lost!" muttered the mulatto. "Now, darling, the swamp's our onlyroad!"

He seized her in his flight, and pulled her up the cart-track along theswampy 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, herimpressions, so that time seemed extinct, and fear itself absorbed infrenzy, the girl followed the man into the deep sand of the track, andscarcely noted the melancholy cypress-trees rising around them out ofpools that sucked poison from the starlight, basking there beside thereptile. 

Flowers, with such rich tints that night scarcely darkened them, sent uptheir musky perfumes, and vines, in silent festoons, drooped from hightips of giant trees like Babel's aspiring builders, turned back andstricken dumb. They fell all limp, and, hanging there in death, theirbeards still seemed to grow in the ghastly vitality of an immortaldream. 

The sounds of restless animation, intenser in the night, as if the moonwere mistress here, and wakened every insect brain and tongue toindustry, grew prodigious in the sick girl's ears, and seemed to deadenevery word her male companion had to say, and, like enormous pendulumsof sound, the roaming crickets and amphibia swung to and fro theircontradictions, like viragos doomed to wait for eternity, and eachinsist upon the last word to say:

"You did!" "You didn't!" "You did!" "You didn't, you didn't, youdidn'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 Satandisputing for her soul. 

As this idea increased upon her fancy she heard the very words thesewarring powers hurled to and fro, as now the myriads of the angelscheered together, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" and, like an army ofspiders, 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 rushingsluices of the Pocomoke, and kept along them, the trail being now a mereditch and chain of floating logs where no vehicle could pass, and theman himself seemed frightened as he led the way from trunk to float andpuddle to corduroy, sometimes balancing himself on a revolving log, oragain plunging nearly to his waist in vegetable muck; but thelight-footed girl behind had the footstep of a bird, and hopped as iffrom twig to twig, and seemed to slide where he would sink; and the manoften turned in terror, when he had fallen headlong from sometreacherous perch, to see her slender feet, in crescent sandals, play inthe moonlit jungle like hands upon a harp. 

He stared at her in wonder, but too wistfully. The cat-briers hungacross the opening, and grapevines, like cables of sunken ships, fellmany a fathom through the crystal waves of night; but the North Starseemed to find a way to peep through everything, and Virgie heard thewords 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 trailalong, as if some gentle predecessor, with a golden adze, had chippedthe funereal trees and made them smile a welcome. Small fires wereburning in the vegetable mould or surface brush, and the opacity of theforest yielded to the pretty flame which danced and almost sang in ahousehold crackle, like a young girl in love humming tunes as shekindles a fire. 

The mighty swamp now grew distinct, yet more inaccessible, as its inneredges seemed transparent in the line of fires, like curtains of laceagainst the midnight window-panes. The Virginia creeper, light as theflounces of a lady, went whirling upward, as if in a dance; the fallengiant trees were rich in hanging moss; laurel and jasmine appearedbeyond the bubbling surface of long, green morass, where life of somekind seemed to turn over comfortably in the rising warmth, like sleepersin bed. 

Suddenly the man took Virgie up and carried her through a stream ofrunning water, brown with the tannin matter of the swamp. 

"We is in Delaware, " he said, soon after, as they reached a camp ofshingle sawyers, all deserted, and lighted by the fire, the golden chipsstrewn 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, andhardly saw a mocasson snake glide round the fire and stop, as if to dartat her, and glide away; for Virgie's mind was attributing this kindlyfire to the presence of Freedom. 

"Oh, I should like to lie here and go to sleep, " she said, languidly; "Iam so tired. "

The man Hudson, wringing wet with the journey's difficulties, threw hisarms 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 theyoung maid's startled nature came a reality she had not understood: herguide was drunken with passion. 

She struggled in his arms with all her might, but was as a switch in amaniac'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 enclosethem. The girl struggled free, her lithe figure exerted with all herdying strength to preserve her modesty. 

"Hudson, " she cried, "I will tell your wife! God forgive you forinsulting 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 weshall sleep and forgit my children and my little home that was enoughfur 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 notkeep away, I will throw myself in that deep pool and drown. I wouldrather die than cheat your good wife as you have done. "

"Nothing is yer, " the negro said, "but you, an' me, an' Love. I wouldnot let you drown. You are too beautiful. We will get to the free statestogether and live for each other. Kiss me!"

He darted upon her again and bent her fair head back by the fallenbraids of her silky hair. 

The tall woods filled with majestic light; something roared as if thewinds 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 amoment fire, like a golden wall, rose across their path. 

They turned whence they had come, and the fire there was like a lake oflava, and over it the enormous trees seemed to warm their hands, and upthe dry vines, like monkeys of flame, the forked spirits of the burningearth dodged and chased each other. 

"Gal, I can't leave you to perish, " the desperate man shouted; "you mustlove me or we'll die together. "

He threw his wet great-coat around her head, so that she could notbreathe the smoke nor spoil her beauty, and dashed into the fire aheadof them. 

 * * * * *

Virgie awoke, lying upon the ground, the stars still standing in thesky, but some streaks of light in the east betokening dawn. 

Her hands were full of soot, her skirts were burned, some smarting painswere 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 torepent and be a better man. "

He rose up and looked at her with a face all blackened and raw andhideous to see. 

"Merciful Lord!" exclaimed Virgie; "what ails you, pore man?"

"The Lord has punished me for my wickedness, " he groaned. "Virgie, youmust 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 todanger. He waded the deep places, where the water soothed his wounds andfilled his blistered sockets with cool mud. 

"Blessed is the pure in heart, " he murmured, as they reached some sandyground and sank down. "You, Virgie, can see God; I never can. "

The great Cypress Swamp of Delaware--counterpart of the Dismal Swamp inVirginia--the northern border of which they had now reached, hadprobably been once a great inlet or shallow bay in the encroachingsand-bar of the peninsula, and was filled with oysters and fish, whichin time were imprisoned and became the manure of a cypress forest thatsoon started up when springs of water flowed under the sand andmoistened the seed; and for ages these forests had been growing, and hadbeen prostrated, and had dropped their leaves and branches in the greatinlet's bed, until a deep ligneous mass of combustible stuff raisedhigher and higher the level of the swamp, and, dried with ages more oftime than dried the mummies of the Pharaohs, it often opened tunnels toburrowing fire, which at some point of its course belched forth andlighted the hollow trees, and raged for weeks. Such a fire they had comethrough. 

Virgie, in the early daylight, came upon a small, swarthy boy, driving alittle 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 blindman; "it's empty. I can die thar or git a doctor. "

Before the people were up they entered a little hamlet, on that stageroad from which they had made the night's detour, and saw a few smallhouses and a little shingle-boarded church near by among the woods, andone 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 towork 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 widagin 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, setme 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 Englishworship had been celebrated just a hundred years; and she gave him moneyto buy medicine and get a doctor for the blind man, and to purchase hera shawl at the store. Then Virgie sank into a fevered sleep under theold oak-trees, and, when she knew more, was gliding in a boat thatSamson was sailing down a broad piece of water, and her head was in hislap. 

"You air pure as an angel yit, my little creatur, " Samson said; "and nowI'm a-takin' you down the Indian River into Rehoboth Bay; and arter darkI'll git you up the beach to Cape Hinlopen, and maybe I kin buy you apassage 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; "butI 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 eyesfull of fever. "Oh, friend, let me die so good that Miss Vesty and myfather 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 eyesof 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 itback; and so the boat, sailing in sight of the ocean and the statelyships there, grounded after noon almost within sound of the surf. 

Sheltered in a piece of woods for some hours, Virgie found herself, atdark, carried in old Samson's arms up a beach of the sea where the sandwas yielding and seldom firm, except at the very edge of the surf, whichrolled 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 itseemed, and showing vessels making either out or in, and finally thunderburst 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, comingrapidly in on the southeaster, and her gun was fired again, and feeblehailing was heard; but the storm now broke all at once, and a wave threwSamson to the ground and nearly carried Virgie back with it to theboiling sea; but the faithful old man fought for her, and she ran at hisside, uttering no complaint, till once, as they stopped to get breath, and the heavenly fire drew into sight every foot, as it seemed, of thatvast ocean, cannonading it also with majestic artillery, the girlsighed, "Freedom is beautiful!"

"Oh, Virgie, " Samson answered, covering her with his own coat, "if Icould buy you free, pore chile, I'd a-mos' go into slavery to save youfrom dis night. "

"I can die in there, " Virgie said, pointing to the waves; "they must notcatch 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 acrash of wave and wood, and falling spars and awful shrieks, and, whenthe next vivid flash of lightning came, nothing was visible but floatingsubstance, and spluttering cries came out of the bosom of the sea, and ablack man, flung, as if out of a cannon, upon a wave that drenched thesewanderers, struck the ground at their feet, and looked into Samson'seyes as the convulsion of death seized his chest and feet. 

Before they could speak to each other, the beach was full of similarcorpses, a moment before alive as themselves, and every one was nakedand black. 

"It's a slave-ship, foundered yer, " cried Samson. 

He caught at a yawl-boat driving past him, in the many things thatdrifted 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 andshipwrecked. "

 * * * * *

When Virgie next remembered, she was on a vast hill of sand, near alighthouse that was built upon it, and flashed its lenses sleepily upona sullen break of day, the mutual lights showing the tops of treesrising out of the sand, where a forest had been buried alive, likelittle 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 inlife. 

"Happy are the black, " thought the sick girl, "that take no thought onthings 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 tillshe, too, lost her knowledge of self, and was sleeping again at Samson'sside. She dreamed of innumerable angels flying all around her, and yettheir voices were so harsh they awoke her at last, and still theseseraphs were flying in the day. She saw their wings, and moved the oldman 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 andswans. 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 oftears. 

 * * * * *

The great Breakwater, which required forty years and nearly a milliontons of stone to build it, was then just commencing, and where it was tobe, within the shallow bight of Henlopen, they saw the wrecks of manyvessels, some sunken, some shattered in collision, some stranded in themarsh, proving the needs of commerce for such a work, and also the furyof the storm that had so innocently vanished, like a sleeping tigerafter his bloody meal. 

In the gentle sunshine floated the American flag upon several vesselsthere--the flag that first kissed the breeze upon that spot in the year1776, when Esek Hopkins raised over the _Alfred_ the dyes of the peachand cream in the centre of his little squadron. And there, along the lowbluff of the Kill, still lay the shingle-boarded town of Lewes, in thetorpor of nearly two hundred years, or since the Dutch De Vries hadsettled it in 1631. Lord Delaware, Argall, and the Swede, Penn, Blackbeard, Paul Jones, Lord Rodney, a thousand heroes, had known itwell; the pilots, like sea-gulls, had their nests there; the Marylandershad invaded it, the Tories had seized it, pirates had been suckledthere; and now the courts and lawyers had forsaken it, to go inland toGeorgetown. 

"Virgie, " said Samson, "I'll try to buy some of de stone-boat captainsto carry you to Phildelfy. "

He waded the Kill, carrying her, and left her in an old Presbyterianchurch at the skirt of Lewes, and procured medicine for her, and thenlabored in vain nearly all day to get her passage to a free state. Thereply was invariable: "Can't take the risk of the whippin'-post andpillory for no nigger. Can't lose a long job like bringin' stone to theBreakwater to save one nigger. "

At the hotel a colored man beckoned Samson aside--a fine-looking man, ofa gingerbread color--and they went into the little old disusedcourt-house, in the middle of a street, where there was a fire. 

"Brother, " said the stranger, "I see by your actions that you're tryingto git a passage North. Is it fur yourself?"

"No, " Samson said, taking an inventory of the other's fine chest andstrength, 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 societyat this pint. "

"What is it?" asked Samson, warily. 

"The Protection Society. They educated me right yer. I went to schoolwith 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 andprovided 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. Giveyourself, brother, no more concern. "

Samson looked at the handsome person long and well. The man stood thegaze modestly. 

"Oh, if I had some knowledge!" spoke Samson; "I might as well be a slaveif 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 neverharm 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 interestin 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 theblue and brown tints met in a kind of lake color, being wide open, andalmost lost in their long lashes, while flood and fire, sun and frost, had beaten upon the slender encasement of her gentle life, that stillkept time like some Parian clock saved from a conflagration, in whosecrystal pane the golden pendulum still moves, though the hands pointastray in the mutilated face. 

Her teeth were shown through the loving lips she parted in her stormydreams, like waves tossing the alabaster sails of the nautilus, or likesome ear of Indian corn exposed in the gale that blows across thetasselled 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 ivoryserpent, 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 Cęsar from his classical selfishness; when on many an Eastern thronesuch beauty as this stirred to murmurous glory armies beyond compute, and clashed the cymbals of prodigious conquests. She lay upon thealtar-cushions of the church, like young Isaac upon his father's altar, and where the mourners knelt to pray for God's reconcilement, thecruelty of their law flashed over her like Abraham's superstitiousknife. 

Priceless was this young creature, in noble hands, as wife or daughter, human food or fair divinity, and all the precious mysteries of womanawake in her to love and conjugality, like song and seed in the springbird; yet a hard, steely prejudice had shut her out from everyinstitution and equality, let every crime be perpetrated upon her, madethe scent of freedom in her nostrils worse than the incentive of thethief, and has outlasted her half a century, and is self-righteous andinflexible yet. 

In that old churchyard that enclosed her slept revolutionary officers, who helped to gain freedom: they might be willing to rise with her, notto be buried in the same enclosure. 

How small is religion, how false democracy, how far off are thejudgments of heaven! There stood over the pulpit an inscription, itselfpresumptuous with aristocracy, saying, "The dead in Christ shall risefirst;" as if those truly dead in the humility of Christ would notprefer to rise last!

Samson watched his new friend narrowly, whose countenance was profoundlypiteous, 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 likea 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 hisholy temple, save you pure and find you a home, Virgie. Good-bye!"

"Come, " said the man, as Samson sat bowed and weeping, "the buggy isready; 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 wereheard speaking in a room below. 

"See me!" said one; "we sell you, dat's sho'! See me now! You make debest of it. Sam Ogg yer, we sold twenty-two times. Sam will be sold widyou and teach yo' de Murrell game. "

"Politely, gentlemen, " said a feminine voice; "I don't know that I havethe nerve for it. My occupation has been marrying them. It is true thatthe hue-and-cry has made that branch dull, but I had great talent forit. "

"Kidnapping, " said a third voice, "is running low. It surrounds thewhole slave belt from Illinois to Delaware. The laws of Illinois weremade in our interests till Governor Harrison, whose free man waskidnapped, raised an excitement out there six years ago. Newt Wright, Joe O'Neal, and Abe Thomas were the smartest kidnappers along theKentucky line. But Joe Johnson, who is getting ready to go south, willbe the last man of enterprise in the business. John A. Murrell's idea isto divide fair with black men, sell and steal them back, and I think itis 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 dayfur 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 withsome wool--"

"Politely, Mr. Ogg; I'm ironed rather too tight. "

"I say, Mr. Ransom, you and I can always play the average slaveholderfor a fool. Why, I hardly get into any family before I make love to somemember of it, and if I don't vamose with a black wench, it's with hermistress. "

"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 enterpriselike you, far exceed this poor, plain region. Take the roof off slaveryand the blacks have rather the best of it; the whites would think so ifthey could see what is going on. "

"Politely, Mr. Ogg; will not the entire institution some day blow itselfout, like one of their Western steamboats?"

"No doubt of it, Mr. Ransom. When we have disposed of you, and you cansee the country for yourself, observe how sensitive slaveholding is! Athousand anxieties lie in it. They believe in insurrections, rapes, andincendiaries. A perfect sleep they hardly know, but go prowling aroundnight and day, driven by their suspicions. It makes them warlike, yetunhappy, and the slaves eat the ground poor. Besides, they have terribleenemies in the negro-traders, whom they look down on socially, andreally drive them into sympathy with the negroes. Mr. Murrell, forinstance, has a grand plan for a slave insurrection. He says whitesociety is all against him, and he'll get even with it. "

"See me, see me!" hoarsely chimed in another voice. "Slavery is badscared, sho'! Joe Leonard Smith, Catholic, over on de western sho', hasjess set twelve niggers free. Governor Charley Ridgely has set twohundred and fifty free. John Randolph, dey say, is gwyn to set more danthree hundred free. Dar's fifty abolition societies in Nawf Carolina, eleven in Maryland, eight in ole Virginny, two in Delaware. Ho, ho! deyset' em free and we'll steal' em back! Ole Derrick Molleston will neverbe out of pork an' money!"

"Politely, gentlemen, " said the individual with the shackle. "Have youheard 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, butno war. The next thing they will stop reading among all slaves, preventemancipation by law, and watch the colored meeting-houses. The fire willbe buried under the amount of the fuel, yet all be there. "[6]

"Mr. Ogg, your experience is remarkable. And you have been sold and runaway in nearly every slave state? Politely, sir, are they not kidnappingwhite men, too? Who is this Morgan that was stolen last year in theState of New York?"

"Oh, that's a renegade Free Mason, Mr. Ransom. As much fuss is made overhim as if we did not steal a hundred free people every day. It onlyshows that kidnapping of all sorts is getting to be unpopular. If a newpolitical party can be made on stealing one white Morgan, don't youthink another party will some day rise on stealing several millions ofblack 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, somedistance off in the dark, and then chasing footsteps followed, andVirgie arose and peeped below. 

A fire was burning in a clay chimney beside a table, on which were meatand 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 andcome to the edge of a small town, around which she took a road to theright that led into another country road, and this she followed a mileor more, till she saw a small brick house, by a stile and pole-well, inthe edge of woods. 

The light from a little dormer-window in the garret beamed so brightlythat it charmed Virgie's soul with the fascination of warmth and home, and, without thinking, she crossed the stile, bathed her hot temples atthe well, and walked into the kitchen before the fire. 

"Freedom!" said Virgie, wanderingly; "have I come to it?" She fell uponthe rag carpet before the fire, saying, "Father, dear father, " and didnot move. 

"Well, " spoke a man of large paunch and black snake's eyes, sittingthere, "it's not often people in search of freedom walk into Devil JimClark's!"

"She is white, " exclaimed a woman, looking compassionately upon thestranger, "and she is dying. "

"No, " retorted the man, "she is too pretty to be white. This is thebright wench Sam Ogg was seen with. She belongs to Allan McLane, andthere's a reward of five hundred dollars for her, but she'll bring twothousand 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 takeher 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 herbreast and kissed her, saying:

"She shall sleep in our daughter's bed and rest her poor feet thisnight--our daughter, James, that we buried. "

The man's mouth puckered a little; he looked uneasy, and drew hishandkerchief to his eyes. 

"You're all agin me! you're all agin me!" he bellowed, and rushed fromthe room. 

 * * * * *

The wife of Devil Jim Clark was a pious Methodist, and, with herrich-eyed daughter, spent the next day at Virgie's bedside, hearing herbroken mutterings for fatherly love and Vesta's cherished remembrance. 

"Your father is out for mischief, " Mrs. Clark said. "Jump on yoursaddle-horse, my daughter, and ride to the Widow Brinkley's, just overthe 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. Bewith 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 tookinto Virgie's chamber. 

"My heart bleeds for this poor girl, " the hostess said. "They say yourson spirits negroes North. Mr. Clark says so. I do not ask you if it istrue, but, as one mother to another, I give you this girl. She is toowhite 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 hasjust time to drive her to Mr. Zeke Hunn's vessel at the mouth of thecreek, 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 ofselling this girl. "

 * * * * *

There came to the little black house that lurked by the woods tworiding-horses, and stopped at the stile. 

"Wait here!" said the voice of Devil Jim Clark. "Will you take her ifshe is still delirious?"

"Bingavast! Why not? I'm delirious myself, Jim, fur it's mywedding-night. I'll rest her at Punch Hall. "

The herculean ruffian coolly proceeded to prepare some saddle-ropes totie 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 anobject on the bed, with peaked face and sharpened feet, as it lay whiteas lime, with eyelashes folded and the arms drawn to its sides. 

"Take her to Patty Cannon now, " said Mrs. Clark, "who is only fit fordead company. "

"The dell dead and undocked?" the ruffian exclaimed, slightly shrinkingfrom the body; "maybe she's counterfeited the cranke. I'll search hercly. 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 heslipped 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 asmall trap-door, and, standing on a stool, he unbolted it and pushed itupwards, whispering, "Any passengers for Philadelfy? De gangplank's bein' pulled in!"

First a woolly head, then another, and next two pairs of legs appearedabove. 

"Take hold yer and carry de sick woman to de dearborn, " the boy said, not a particle disturbed, as two frightened blacks dropped from theloft, with handcuffs upon them. 

 * * * * *

In the clear evening a wagon sped along towards the east, through thesaffron marshes, tramping down the stickweed and ironweed and thegolden rod, and, while the people in it cowered close, the negro driversang, 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 oldlanding in the last elbow of Jones's Creek, and hardly had the fugitivesbeen put on board when the anchor was weighed and the packet stood outfor 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'sarms 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 ofcobblestone and brick, and roofs of houses, to green marshes filled withcows, and a river that seemed blue as heaven, which sipped it from abovelike a boy drinking head downward in a spring? How beautiful! It must befreedom, Virgie thought, but why was she so cold? Her eyes, lookingaround 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, hadmade 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 thespoils of oppression, lies with the dearly beloved young people of thisday. We can look for but little from the aged, who have been accustomedto these things, like second nature. Without justice there can be novirtue. Oh, justice, justice, how art thou abused everywhere! Men makejustice, like a nose of wax, to satisfy their desires. If the soul ispossessed 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 tothe river, the stately sails, the farther shore, so like her nativeregion, and asked with her eyes what land they might be in. 

"Wilmington, " said the beautiful woman. "This is the house of ThomasGarrett, the friend of slaves. When you can be moved, it shall be to thegreen hills of the Brandywine, where all are free. "

"Hills? What are they?" mused Virgie, looking at her wasted hand. "MustI climb any more? Must I wade the swamps again? I know I have a fathersomewhere. "

She dreamed and wept unconsciously, and told of many things at TeackleHall, being, indeed, a little child again, playing with her littlemistress, Vesta. The stars stood in the sky right over her pillow, andshe talked to them, and some she seemed to know, as little Vince, orlittle Roxy, or Master Willy Tilghman, all playmates of her childhood;but ever and anon these vanished, and the young Quaker woman was readingagain from the sermons of Elias Hicks, and the words were: "Love isquietness;" "Light only can qualify the soul;" "If I go not away, theComforter will not come unto you. "

"What Comforter?" sighed Virgie, and there seemed a great blank, andthen she heard a scream--was it she that screamed so?--and she wastrying with all her might to get somewhere, and was fainting in thelabor, but trying again and again, and then a calmness that was likegentle awe, strange because so painless, spread into her nature, and sheonly listened. 

"My daughter, " said a voice, "my own child! Call me 'father, ' and say Iam forgiven. "

"Father! forgiven!" she murmured, and felt a warm face, that yet couldnot warm her own, shedding tears and kissing her, and close to it herarms were thrown tight, as if she never could let go, and everything wasmusic, but wonderful. 

She feared she must fall if she did not hold to him. Who was it thatcalled her "daughter"? Why came those cold stars so close, as if to spyupon him?

Oh, holy purity, that held so fast and did not know, but trustednature's quivering embrace! She wrestled with something, like a rock ofice, to move her eyes and see, or ere she was dashed down forever, theeyes 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 asyoung 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 shewinged in bearing thee to me!"

A happy light came over Virgie's face. She kissed her father twice, asif the second kiss was meant for her happier sister, and, raising herarms towards the sky he pointed to, whispered, "Freedom!" and died uponhis breast. 

CHAPTER XL. 

HULDA BELEAGUERED. 

Owen Daw brought the news of the repulse from Cowgill House and thewounding 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 thethroat. "

"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 toherself, in a looking-glass, "that son of his'n may come back. He's tooka shine to Huldy: why not to me?"

At the idea another hideous thought came to her mind: to settle Hulda'sfate in her young lover's absence, and monopolize the corrupting powerover Levin Dennis, if he ever lived to see Johnson's Cross-roads again. 

As individual fugitives returned, confirming the decisive repulse of theband, Patty Cannon's face grew dark, and her oaths low and deep; CyrusJames heard her say:

"If I could only hang some one for this! Joe Johnson's the white-liveredsneak 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 gityou 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 griefmuttering, "Ploughin', ploughin'! I'll make her into batter and fry heryet. "

With this reflection Mr. James hid himself for the remainder of theafternoon 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! shesha'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 yourwork! 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 toput on a bold front: Huldy must fetch it!"

With this resolution Patty Cannon mounted the stairs to a room on thesecond 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 coldin expression, blue eyes, and rich, wine-lined cheeks and lips, thatstill seemed hard and self-indulged, spoke up at once:

"Always knock, Patty! it's more conservative. My way in life is to reachmy 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, Ihope. "

"You can take Huldy Bruington if you pay my price for her: two thousanddollars down. If you won't give it, she shall be married to some youngkidnapper, who will fetch twice that pile for her in niggers. They'llall fight their weight in black wildcats to git her. "

"Very, very abrupt proposition, Patty; not conservative at all. What'sthe matter with you, dame, to-day. Van Dorn not lucky, heigh?"

He gave her a vitreous smile and watched her over his round paunch, onwhich a crystal watch-seal hung, like a more human eye than his own. Hercolor began to rise. 

"I'm mad, " said Patty Cannon; "don't worry me; don't Jew me! Do youmind? Yes, Van Dorn has been whipped--by niggers, too. Will you pay myprice or not?"

"Tut, tut, good woman! What can I want with a white girl. It wouldn'tlook conservative at all in Baltimore. "

Patty Cannon stamped her foot. 

"Don't rouse me with any of your hypocritical cant, Cunnil McLane! Whathave you been teachin' that child to read an' write fur--out of yourBible, too? What do you bring her presents fur, and hang around us whenwe know you despise us all, except fur the black folks we can sell youcheap? Haven't I been sold to men like you time and again before I was awoman, and don't I know the sneaking pains that old men take to lookbenevolent when youth an' beauty is fur sale; and how they pet it tokeep it pure fur their own selfish enjoyment? God knows I do!"

"Patty, you shock me!" the rubicund gentleman observed. "I have alwaysfound 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 notsafe around yer. "

Hulda was found at a window, looking out upon her former home, and at aploughman who had nearly completed the furrows in a large field, sparingonly some low places piled with brush, over one of which some buzzardscircled, lofty, yet intent as anglers watching their tackle. Hard asthat home had been to Hulda, she regretted leaving it for this men'stavern, where her grandmother's saucy temperament found so manyincentives to bravado, and her caution, that had to be exercised inDelaware, was quite unnecessary on the Maryland side of the line. 

At the little hip-roofed white cottage Hulda had felt a sense of privacypleasing to her growing life, and her ability to read often charmedPatty Cannon to a stillness that was like the hyena's sleep, and evenmade her acquiescent and cordial. 

But where she met men alone, unmodified by modest women's example, thebold tendency of Patty was to out-do men, and lead them on to audacitiesthey would have feared to follow in but for her courage and policy; forshe could coax either young or coarse natures, as well as she coulddrive. 

These feats of strength and cunning, statecraft and desperation, reminded Hulda of a book she had read about the Norman knights inEngland kidnapping and robbing the poor Saxons; and one description ofKing William the Conqueror suggested to Hulda that he was perhaps aPatty 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 otherknight could bend on foot with the legs planted firmly. He could notread nor write, and was superstitious, yet cruel as the grave. All thiswas true of Patty Cannon, whose feat of standing in a bushel measure andputting three hundred pounds of grain on her shoulder has been related. 

She often wrestled and bound, without assistance, strong black menfighting for their liberties. She could ride horseback, sitting likemen, 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 hadbeen turned on Patty Cannon so directly. 

Her grandmother abandoned in a moment an attempt to be complaisant, andsternly ordered her to attend to Colonel McLane's chamber. 

"I can support you no longer, huzzy, " said the dark-eyed woman, hercheeks full of blood. "Make haste to find some easy life or Joe shallget you a husband. We are ruined. You must make money, do you hear!"

"Here is money, grandma!" said Hulda, producing some of the shillings of1815. 

At the first glance of these Patty Cannon turned pale, but, in aninstant, the hot blood rushed to her face again, and she swore adreadful oath and chased Hulda, with uplifted hands, into the chamber ofAllan McLane. 

"Ah, Hulda, inflaming your poor grandmother again!" said that carefullyclad and game-fed gentleman. "Now, now, lovely girl, it's notconservative. 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 havetried, and know. "

"Like you?" asked Hulda. 

"Yes, your benefactor, instead of having some impulsive passion. Ofcourse, you never loved in this place?"

"It is the only place I know. To be conservative, as you call it, Imust take my life and opportunity as I find them, like something I havetried and know. "

"Ah, Hulda! I see you have a radical, perverse something in you, totwist my meaning so close. You do not belong to this vile spot, exceptby consanguinity. It would be perfectly conservative for you to look toa better settlement. "

"You have hinted that before, " Hulda said, serene in his presence as ayoung woman used to proposals. "I do want to change this life, but Icannot do it and be conservative. I must fasten upon a free impulse, anatural chance of some kind. God has kept my heart pure in this dreadfulplace, where I was born. Why are you here, if you are conservative? Itis not a gentleman's resort. "

He grew a little angry at this thrust, but she continued to look at himquietly, unaware that she was impertinent. 

"I often have business, Hulda, with Joe and Patty; negroes are veryhigh, and we must buy them where they are to be had. But a deepeningreligious 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 goodinstructions I have given you, might make you an infidel. "

"What is an infidel?"

"One who, being unable to explain certain evils in life, refuses tobelieve anything. That is the case with Van Dorn, a very bad man. Stepfather Joe is always conservative on that subject. Deviate as muchas 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 hisBible over, and pointed Hulda a place to read, beginning, "The fool hathsaid in his heart, There is no God. " At his command she read it, withfaith, yet observation, her mind being fully alert to the warning VanDorn had left her, that in his absence her great trial was to be. 

McLane was wearing a gray English suit, with full round paunch, sleekall over the body, his hair a little gray, his gold glasses dangling inhis hand, patent varnished slippers and silk stockings, and a silk scarfand cameo pin in it, and a cameo of his deceased sister upon hisfinger-ring, marking his attire; his eyes, of a pop kind, much too farforward, and blue as old china, and yet an animal, not a spiritualblue--the tint of washing-blue, not of distance; a hare-lip somewhere inhis talk, though the fulness of his very red lips hardly allowed placefor it; and his nose and brows stern and military, as if he had been apudding stamped with the die of a Roman emperor or General Jackson. 

He watched her reading with censorship, yet desire, patronage, andoiliness together. 

Glancing up when she had read far enough, Hulda thought he was lookingat her as if she was some rarer kind of negress. 

"Beautifully read, Hulda! I never go to such places as theatres, but youmight be, I should say, an actress. Don't think of it, however! Veryunconservative 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, standingbehind her; she did not move nor change color. 

"Something has happened to me, Colonel McLane, " Hulda spoke, clear as abell out of a prison, "to make even Johnson's Cross Roads good andhappy. Can you guess what it is?"

She bent her head back, and looked up fearlessly at him, as if he werethe negro now. 

"Not religious ecstasy?" he said. "Not camp-meeting or revivalconversion, I hope. That's vile. "

"No, Colonel. It is knowing a pure young man, whose love for me isnatural 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 heis a gentleman, too. "

"You must have great experience in that article, " he sneered, lookingangry at her. 

"I have seen you and my lover; you have the best clothes, and professmore. He has a nature that your opportunities would bring realrefinement from. He respects me, wretched as I am; I read it in hiseyes. You are looking for a way to degrade me in my own feelings, yet todeceive me. Can you be a gentleman?"

She was serene as if she had said nothing, though she rose up, and stoodat one side of the fireplace, opposite him; between them was a print ofGeneral Jackson riding over the British. 

In that moment Allan McLane felt that the girl was cheap at hergrandmother's figure. 

He had always conceived her a flexible, peculiar child; in a few minutesshe had grown years, and become a rare and nearly stately woman, not nowto 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, whohave taught you the accomplishments you chastise me with? I found yousand; I made you crystal. "

He drew out a large pongee handkerchief, and really dropped some tearsinto it. She continued, cool and unmoved:

"My love is Levin Dennis, from Princess Anne. I am not afraid to tellit. "

"Why?"

"Because I want his danger and mine to be fully known to him, and makehim 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 hasabandoned his mother. He is a poor gypsy. No, I must save you from sucha mistake. It is my duty to do it. "

"I thank you for teaching me, whatever made you do it. If I could awakenin you some unselfishness towards me and my new love, sir, it would bethe greatest gratitude I could show you. You conceal so many hard, badthings under your word 'conservative, ' that the gentle feelings, likeforgiveness, 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 noconservative principle. "

"I forgive, as I hope to be forgiven, Joe, Aunt Patty, Van Dorn, andyou. I hope pity and mercy and sweet, unselfish love, such as I thinkmine is, may grow in all of you! Oh, Colonel, "--she turned to himearnestly, and, raising her hands to impress him, he merely noted theelegance of her wrists and brown arms--"the buying and selling of thesehuman beings makes everybody unfeeling. It is stealing their souls andbodies, whether they be bought at the court-house or kidnapped on theroads. My dream of joy is to have a husband who will work with his ownfree hands, and till his little farm, and sail his vessel, without aslave. Above that I expect and ask nothing from the dear God who has solong been my protector in this den of crime. "

"Warm or cold, hectoring or tender, you are splendid, Hulda, " McLanesaid, his face fairly refulgent. "Now let me show you a conservativepicture of your real deserts. I am a bachelor. I keep an elegant housein Baltimore. My table is supplied with the best in the market; myservants are my slaves, and never disobey me; my paintings arecelebrated; books I never run to--they are radical things--but I can buythem; my carriage is the best Rahway turn-out, and my horses areDiomeds. In Frederick County I have an estate, in sight of themountains. As a Christian act, I will take you away from this spot, towhich 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 willbring your mind out of its ignorance, your body out of rags, yourassociations 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 seebright cities--New Orleans, Charleston, Havana. If you remain here, youwill be another Patty Cannon or go to jail. There! Look at itconservatively: warmth, riches, pleasure, attention, change, dress tobecome you, a watch and jewels, against villainy and lowness of everykind. "

"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; "therefinements I do not care about. Be mine!"

The girl allowed herself to be brought nearly to his side, and, as hebent to kiss her with his large, complacent lips, she glided from hishands. 

"I could never stoop, " said Hulda, "to be even the wife of a negrodealer. "

He colored to the eyes, yet with admiration of her almost aristocraticcomposure. 

"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 insultto revenge, as well as a fancy to be gratified; her father must havebeen a cool rogue. Well, everything has to be done by force here; PattyCannon 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 stabthat now brought bitter tears to her eyes, and blushes, unseen except bythe angels, whose white wings had hidden them from her tempter--Vestafled into this room to deliberate upon her dire extremity. 

Three persons only were now in the house, each one an interested partyin her ruin; the man she had left, and Cy James, who was full ofcowardly passion for her, and Patty Cannon, who, in her present frame ofmind, would gloat to see Hulda's virtue sacrificed as somethinginconsequential and merry and heartless. 

"Perhaps I can fly to our old house across the State Line, and takerefuge with the new tenant there, " Hulda thought. "Oh! I wish Van Dornwas here; he is so brave; and when he left me his kiss was like myfather's. "

Chains clanked, and the drone of low hymns came down the hatchway fromthe 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 shepeeped, but could not make out anything in the blackness. Then shepulled the peg out of the staple, and walked into the sickly odor of thejail. 

"How many are here?" Hulda asked. "I hear you, but cannot see. "

"Three men, one old woman, and some little things, makes the presentcontents 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 topass him off for a nigger. "

Her eyes soon recognized the speaker as he said, "By smoke! miss, you'renot 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 becaught 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 manfree to kidnap for her. Hark! I must fly. "

Hulda descended the ladder in time to surprise Cy James coming up. Hebent 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, "gitready to be a first-class liar; I want you to take up Patty Cannon'soffer. "

"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 yourway to Seaford and Georgetown, and go round the Cypress Swamp toPrencess Anne. Alarm the pungy captains; fur Johnson'll try to run us bysail, I reckon, down the bay to Norfolk. I've got a file thatcymlin-headed feller give me, an' I reckon I'll git out of my ironsabout 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, andI'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 PattyCannon, in her kitchen, next to the bar, where Hulda heard laughing andinvitations to drink, and all the sounds of perfect equality, thenegro's piquant sayings and _bonhommie_ seeming to disarm and please thedesigning woman, whose familiarity was at once her influence and herweakness, and she lavished her sociable nature on blacks and whites. Samson was so fearless and observing that he betrayed no interest inescaping, and came slowly into the range of her temperament; but, asHulda peeped, towards midnight, into the kitchen, she saw old Samsonkindly patting juba, while Patty was executing a drunken dance. 

As the latter dropped upon a pallet bed she had there, and fell into adoze, the colored man quietly raised the latch and walked off the tavernporch. 

 * * * * *

In the morning dawn horses and voices were heard by Hulda, and sherecognized Joe Johnson's steps in the house. He shook Patty Cannon, butcould not awaken her; then looked into Van Dorn's room, and found Hulda, apparently sound asleep, and heard his name called by Allan McLaneacross the hall:

"Joe! not so loud. Be conservative. Come in; I'm waiting for you. Is alldone 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. Mydear sister is at peace. "

"The two yaller pullets have slipped you; the abigail mizzled to thefuneral with your niece, and t'other dell must have smelt us, and hoppedthe twig. "

"Not tasteful language at all, Joe. I don't understand you. Where arethe 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, Idon't like it, sir. Where could she have run?"

"There's no way for her to slip us but by water or through the CypressSwamp, Colonel. She ain't safe this side of Cantwell's bridge. Word hasgone out, and every road is watched. "

"But Van Dorn is beaten back; he hasn't made a single capture; theniggers drove him out of Dover with firearms, and he is woundedsomewhere. "

The tall kidnapper turned pale, and then consigned Van Dorn's shade toeternal torment. 

"Don't swear before me, sir!" McLane, also irritated, exclaimed. "It'snot conservative, and I won't permit it. How do I know Meshach Milburnis 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 yousaw the hat at the window, and fired, and fetched hat an' man to theground?"

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 hisfinger. 

Joe Johnson and McLane looked at each other a minute with mutualaccusation and confusion, and the former unceremoniously knocked thenegro down with his great fist. 

"No gold of mine for this job, Joe Johnson, " said Allan McLane; "in yourconservatism to save your own skin, you have let your tool kill aninnocent man. "

He waved his hand, with all his strong will, towards the door, and shutit in the kidnapper's face. Then, in haughty emotion, not like fear, butdisappointed pride and revenge, McLane sat down, glanced around him asif to determine the next movement, and instinctively reached his handtowards his Bible, which he opened at a marked page, and softly read, till tears of baffled vindictiveness and counterfeited humility stoppedhis voice, as follows:

"'To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under theheaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a timeto pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; atime to break down, and a time to build up . .. God requireth that whichis past . .. Man hath no pre-eminence above a beast, for all isvanity. .. . A man should rejoice in his own works; for that is hisportion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?'"

When tears of pious vindictiveness had closed the reading, ColonelMcLane spread his pongee handkerchief on the bare floor, and knelt insilent and comfortably assured prayer. 

 * * * * *

Black Dave had crawled into the room where Hulda partly heard theserevelations, and he entered the large closet under the concealed shaftto the prison pen, where his groans and mental agony touched Hulda'scommiseration. 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. Lordsave me!"

"Dave, " said Hulda, "my poor father died for his offences. You can do nomore; but, like him, you can repent. "

"Oh, missy, I's black. Rum an' fightin' has ruined me. Dar's no way todo better. De law won't let me bear witness agin de people dat set meon. How kin I repent unless I confess my sin? De law won't let meconfess. "

"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 churchdey put me fo'ward. My soul was happy. One day I licked a man bigger danme. It made me proud an' sassy. I backslid, an' wan't no good to behired out to steady people; so de taverns got me, an' den de kidnappersused 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 theself-conscious, special pleading of the prayer across the hall, but thehumble 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 Pattyand her son-in-law. 

A boat of sufficient size, and crew to man it, had to be procured downthe river, and this necessitated two journeys, one of Patty, to Cannon'sFerry, another by Joe, to Vienna and Twiford's wharf. 

During their absence Cy James was equally intent on something, and Huldasaw him in the ploughed field near the old Delaware cottage, under theswooping buzzards, directing the farmer where to guide his plough, andit seemed, in a little while, that one of the horses had fallen into apit there. 

Later on Hulda observed Cy James, with a spade, digging at variousplaces 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, orby early dawn, when she looked every window over to see if she waswatched. Her beehives were her greatest care. "

A sudden thought made Hulda stand still, and cast the color from hercheeks. 

"They are all going away. I shall be taken, too, or kept for worse evilhere. My mother, in Florida, hates me; she has told me so. I know themarriage Allan McLane means for me--to be his white slave! Levin ispoor, and his mother is poor, too; they say Patty Cannon has buriedgold. Perhaps God will point it out to me. "

She slipped down the Seaford road, and walked up the lane in the fieldsshe knew so well. No person was in the hip-roofed cottage. Hulda wentamong the outbuildings, and began to inspect the beehives, made ofsections of round trees, and the big wooden flower-pots Patty Cannon hadleft behind her. 

She was only interrupted by a gun being fired in the ploughed field, andsaw the pertinacious buzzards there fall dead from the air as theyexasperated the ploughman. 

 * * * * *

"I shall have one piece of fun in Maryland before I go, " Hulda heard herstepfather 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 ajeering laugh from above, and the cry, "We'll all see you hanged yit, bysmoke! an' mash another egg on your countenance, nigger-buyer!"

In a moment or two a tremendous quarrel was going on below stairsbetween the kidnapper and his wife's mother, and Hulda believed theywere murdering each other; and, peeping once to see, beheld Johnsonholding Patty to the floor, and stuffing her elegant hair, which hadbeen torn out in the scuffle, into her mouth. 

"I'll be the death of you, old fence, before I go, " he shouted; "theverdict would be, 'I did the county a service. '"

"Come away there!" cried Allan McLane, pushing past Hulda and betweenthe combatants. "Shame on you, Joe! To whip your grandmother is hardlyconservative. Here is an errand that will pay you well: my wench Virgiehas 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 herfur you. "

His countenance had begun to assume a sensual expression, when PattyCannon, 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 theyard and bolted him out. McLane retreated by the other door. 

"Thank heaven!" reflected Hulda, looking down in terror, "no one ismurdered yet, and I have another day of grace to wait for Levin. "

 * * * * *

"Cunnil McLane, " said Patty Cannon, in his room that night, "whatinterest have you in the quadroon gal an' Huldy, too? You don't want' emboth, Cunnil?"

"No, Aunt Patty. All my views are conservative. Quite so! Hulda I wantto reform and model to my needs. She'll ornament me. By taking the girlVirgie from my niece Vesta, I desire to punish the latter for consentingto 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 theway, 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 noneighbors that air not used to noises yer. "

The silence was restored while the two products of men-dealing read eachother's countenances. 

"I made a very conservative and liberal proposition to her, Patty, andshe 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 belike other gals, I reckon. "

"That's true, no doubt. But, Patty, haven't you a little remorse aboutit, 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 enticedhis son and he married her. His father drove him from his door, an' hiswife fetched him on her money to Canady, where she went into thesmugglin' business at St. John's, half-way between Montreal and theUnited 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. Saysmother: 'It's a hard world, but don't let it beat you, gals! Marry efyou kin. Anyway, you must live, and you can't live off of women. ' Imarried a Delaware man, and so I quit bein' Martha Hanley and becamePatty Cannon. "[7]

"And what a career you have led, Aunt Patty! Lived anywhere but in thisold pocket between the bays, you would have had the reputation ofCaptain Kidd. Tell me now, conservatively, was not your own helplesschildhood the cause of your mistakes, and does it never make you feelfor other sparrow-birds like Hulda?"

The black-haired woman, with a certain evil-thinking, like one reflectedupon harshly, finally clapped her bold black eyes on McLane's, andreplied, chuckling:

"I don't know as it do, Cunnil. Before my mother pinted the way, I lovedthe men. I loved 'em to be bad. Mommy tuk us as we drifted. An' as furHuldy 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 ofher! 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. Paydown the money, Cunnil, an' this bare room will brighten to be yourwedding chamber. Pah! are you a man!"

Her words aroused the visions self-love can reluctantly repulse, andwhich, entertained but an instant, grow irresistible. 

The limber, maturing, rounding form of Hulda stepped on the footstool ofhis mind, touched his knee, and exhaled the aroma of her youth like asubtile musk, till he leaned back languidly, as if he smoked a pipe andon its bowl her bust was painted, and all her modesties dissolved intothe intoxication. Brutality itself grew natural to this vision, as afiercer 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 apale butterfly, but there remained where it had floated, a silken andnubile essence, fairy and humanity in one, clad in pure thoughts andsweet respect, the profanation of which would be as rare a game asSatan's struggle with the soul of Eve. 

Her innocence and spirit, self-respect and awakened womanlyconsciousness, weakness and sensibility, mettle and beauty, presentedthemselves by turns; and the cold, woodeny room, the neglected tavern, the autumn night wind coming down the chimney and starting the fire, allseemed instinctive, like him, with mischief, as if Patty Cannon's soulflew astraddle of a broom and led a hundred witches. 

McLane was fifty; his family was a stiff commercial one, that hadgenerally kept demure, yet grasping, and practised the conservatism healso boasted of, but had departed from: he was the outlaw of the house, yet elevating its tenets into an aggressive shibboleth, the more so thathe prospered by anti-progress. 

He was a backer of domestic slave-dealers, and put his money into formsof gain men hesitated at; not only at the curbstone, for usury, butbehind pawnbrokers and sporting men, in lottery companies andliquor-houses, and, it was said, in the open slave-trade, too, clippersfor which occasionally stole out of the Chesapeake on affected tradingerrands to the East Indies, and came home with nothing but West Indiafruits. 

He strove to maintain his credit by ostentatious abhorrence of noveltiesand heterodoxies, and of all liberal agitations, and had the sublimehardihood to carry his Bible into every sink of shame, as if it was thenatural baggage of a gentleman, and expected with him; and he wouldrebuke "blasphemy" while bidding at the slave auction or sitting in abar-room full of kidnappers, among many of whom he passed for areligious 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 thanthe Scribes and Pharisees in the time of Herod and John, and hadpersuaded 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 theorythat he did not know himself whether he was capable of doing evilprovided he wanted anything. 

Not particularly courageous, he was so destitute of sensibility that hefelt no fear anywhere; and, generally going among his low whiteinferiors, he was in the habit of being looked up to, and ratherpreferred their society. On everything he had an opinion, and permittedno stranger in Baltimore to entertain any. The riot spirit, so early andso frequent in that town, reposed upon such vulturous and self-conscioussocial 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 youmay fail to deliver the property. Will she be tractable?"

"Cunnil, I'll scare her most to death. She'll hide from me yer by yourfire, 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 ofnotes 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 afriend. 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 goldspectacles upon his hawk nose to do so, and said:

"Patty, I've bought many a grandchild _with_ the old woman, but this isthe first child I have bought _from_ the grandmother. Now fulfil yourcontract and earn your money!"

He put his spectacles in his pocket, stretched his gaitered slippersbefore the fire, looked at his watch and let the crystal seal drop onhis sleek abdomen, and his vitreous, blue-green eyes filled with colorlike twin vases in a druggist's window. He was ready and anxious tosubstitute 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 circuittwice, and, taking a lantern, went into the windy night and round thebounds of the old tavern. 

The house was easily explored, having no cellar nor outbuildings, andthe trap to the slave-pen was locked fast. The girl's shawl and hat werealso 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 thepoor-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 largeobject, took a horn from the mantel and sprinkled it with somethingcontained there, and then, in a bold, masculine walk, stamping hard wentin the dark up the open stairs again, talking, as she advanced, loudly, complaisantly, or sternly, as if to some truant she was coaxing orforcing. 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 lightof fire and candles gleamed, "conservative, is she? Well, let herenter!"

As he made one step to penetrate the darkness with his dazzled eyes, Patty Cannon silently thrust against his heart a huge horse-pistol andpulled the trigger: a flash of fire from the sharp flint against thefresh powder in the pan lit up the hall an instant, and the heavy bodyof the guest fell backward before his chair, and over him leaned thewoman a moment, still as death, with the heavy pistol clubbed, ready tostrike if he should stir. 

He did not move, but only bled at the large lips, ghastly andunprotesting, 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, atone time mute as awe, again murmurous, and sometimes mutinous andfierce, when Hulda, having heard a few words only of her grandmother'soverture, glided from the old tavern and passed on into the night, terrified but not unthinking, till she reached some large pines thatseemed to say over her head, high up towards heaven: "Where now, ohwhere, oh-h-h wh-h-here, in the co-o-o-old, co-o-o-old w-h-h-h-ildernessof the wh-h-h-orld?"

"Anywhere!" answered Hulda, not afraid of cold or nature, so intense hadbecome her fear of men and women. "Still, where? I might go to Cannon'sFerry and tell my tale to those hard-hearted merchants, or to Seafordand beg a shelter somewhere there; but first I will try our old cottagehome again. "

She went so quietly up the field lane that dogs could not have heardher, and, as she approached the little house, saw lights in it, and soonheard voices and saw moving figures within. 

Knowing every knot-hole and crack of the little dwelling, Hulda soon hada perfect view of the contents of the house by standing in the dark, alittle distance from one of the low, small windows. 

A table stood in the middle of the main room, on which was an oldmouldered chest with the earth clinging to it, and beside the chest werebones and shreds of clothing on the riven lid of the chest. 

"You swear that the evidence you give shall be the truth, the wholetruth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God!" exclaimed a small, chunky, Irish-looking person, presenting a book to be kissed by ascrawny, chinless, goose-necked lad, whom Hulda immediately recognizedas Cyrus James. 

"Shall I take him, Doctor Gibbons?" asked a fine-looking, easy-manneredman, 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 tellright, " whined Cy James, zealously. 

"No you won't; at least, not _first_. If you don't tell me the truthI'll have your two ears cut off on the pillory, and no slapper shallenter 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 merebeginning. 

"Now, Hollyday Hicks, you and Billy Hooper and the other constables takeaway this box, which smells too loud here, as soon as the witness hassworn to it. When did you last see this box, James?"

"About ten year ago, sir, when I had been bound to Patty Cannon fouryear, 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 orMiller; she killed two men nigh that time, an' I was so little that I'vegot '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 inthe box. I hearn Patty tell the boys how she killed him. Oh! she wasproud of it, sir, becaze she didn't have no help in it. "

Half a dozen heads of constables, some of whom Hulda knew, leanedforward together to hear the witness, while others removed the unsavoryremains. Mr. Clayton continued:

"How did she say she killed him?"

"She said he come to Joe's tavern with a borreyed hoss from East NewMarket, where he told the people he was buyin' niggers, and would takefifteen 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 wasfull, an' he would be better tuk care of at a good woman's little farmclose by. They made him think, she said, that a gentleman with muchmoney wasn't allus safe at the tavern. Aunt Patty got him supper. He sitat 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 himat 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, ' AuntPatty 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 turnedaround 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 hersay, 'Boys, I give it to him good, right in the back of the head, an' hefell on to the table, an' the water he had been drinkin' was red ascurrant wine. '"

"James Moore, I'll swear you next, " the magistrate said to the newtenant of the farm; and this man proceeded to testify concerning thefinding of the chest as he was ploughing in a wet spot where he hadremoved some brush. 

Cy James, being recalled, gave testimony as to other buried bodies, chiefly of children slaughtered in wantonness or jealousy, or to avoidpursuit. 

"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 tohang him yet! Guilty knowledge of these crimes for so many years, andexposure 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 inHulda's sight the image of her lover, Levin Dennis. 

"Constables, " said Dr. Gibbons, the magistrate, "I shall give you yourwarrants now. The Maryland authorities propose, without waiting forextradition proceedings, to deliver your prisoners at the state line. "

"Goy!" said Clayton, "they may have friends in the executive chambers atAnnapolis. No, boys, act together, like patriots, as the Maryland andDelaware lads served in the same revolutionary brigade. Joe Johnson isdue here at noon to-morrow: be careful not to disturb old Patty norawaken 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 theMaryland officer. 

"Constable Wilson, look out when you lay on to old Patty: she may beloaded and go off, " exclaimed the Delaware officer. 

"Doctor John Gibbons, " spoke Clayton, "waste no time with them at thehearing in Seaford, but get horses and send them right to Georgetownjail; they are slippery as eels. Goy!"

As Cy James was being taken to a secure place in the garret he turned toLevin Dennis, much wilted and crestfallen. 

"Oh, Levin, " he said, "Huldy won't have me now, I know. Won't you standby me, Levin? She's goin' to marry you, and I'll give ye all I'vefound. "

"Huldy!" Levin exclaimed; "oh, must I leave her yonder at the tavernanother 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 notdirected 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 thetavern 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 init. 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 togetherbefore I hop the twig. "

Slipping to the rear of the house, he entered, and looked in Patty'sroom--she was not there; a slight smell of gunpowder seemed to be in thehall. Passing rapidly up the stairs, Johnson saw a light shine inMcLane's room, and he kicked the door wide open, exclaiming, "Bad luck everywhere; the gal's stone dead; the beaks are round us. Wakeup, McLane!"

"Joe!" said a voice, and Patty Cannon threw her arms around him. 

"To burning fire with you!" bellowed the filial son. "Take your armsaway!"

"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 outlinesof which seemed unusually pointed and stiff for feathers, though it wassown up in its own blankets and quilts. Joe Johnson touched it with hisfoot 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 hisportmanteau full of money to pay our travelling expenses. He's sewed upbeautiful, and in the bay you can drop him to the bottom. "

Joe Johnson's face became almost livid pale, and, rushing upon PattyCannon with both hands raised, he struck her to the floor and put hisboot upon her. 

"If I had time, I'd have your life, " he hissed. "But it would lose theuptucker a job. To-night I leave you forever. Margaretta, your daughter, wishes never to see you again. Take this crib and the blood you stillmust shed to keep your old heart warm, and take my curse to choke you onthe gallows!"

He rushed away and gave a low whistle at the window; Daw and Joe'sbrother, Ebenezer, a lower set and more sinister being, bounded up thestairs and loosened and drove before them the little band of captives. 

"One word from you, white nigger, in all this journey to-day, scattersyour brains in the woods!"

Joe Johnson drew a pistol as he spoke, and Jimmy Phoebus saw hisnervous 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 portmanteauthrown in beside it. 

"Joe! Joe!" came the voice of Patty Cannon, from the guest's room, "takethe poor old woman that's raised you along. "

"Stow yer wid!" he answered; "we go to be gentlemen in a land where youwould spot us black. Cross cove and mollisher no more; raise another JoeJohnson, if you can, to make this old hulk lush with business: I give itto you. "

He was gone in the vague dawn. She fell upon her face across the littlebar and moaned, "A pore, pore, pore old woman!"

How long she had been leaning there she did not know, till familiarsounds fell on her ears, and, looking up with a cry of recognition, sheshouted, "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 oldtavern rise like a mammoth from the level lands, and filled its upperfront rooms with golden wine of light, as Patty Cannon sat in one ofthem by a window near the piazza, and talked to Van Dorn, whom she hadtenderly washed and re-dressed, and placed him in her own comfortablerocking-chair of rushes, with his feet raised, as all unaffectedAmericans like, and blanketed, upon a second chair. 

Her woes and his relief made Patty social, yet tender, and the instinctsof her sex had returned, to be petted and beloved. 

"Oh, Captain, " she said, fondly, "how clean and sweet you look, like mygood 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 anddefiant. Let us not repent! So Joe has left you?"

"With cruel curses. My daughter hates me, he says, and means to be alady where I can't disgrace her. Oh, honey! to raise a child and have ithate an' despise you goes hard, even if I have been bad. There's nothingleft me now but you, Van Dorn; oh, do not die!"

He coughed carefully, as if coughing was a luxury to be very mildlyexerted, and wiped a little blood from his tongue and lip. 

"I'll try not to die till I comfort you some, _Mįrta delicióso_! Theball is at my windpipe, and, when the blood trickles in, it makes mecough, and I must beware of emotions, the surgeon says, lest it dropinto my lung and break a blood-vessel by some very spasmodic cough. Sodo not be too beautiful or I might perish. "

He stroked his long yellow mustache with the diamond-fingered hand, anddrew his velvet smoking-cap tight upon his silken curls, but he was toopale to blush as formerly, though he lisped as much, like a modest boy. 

"Captain, " the woman said, pleased to crimson, "you are so much smarterthan 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 thatI am, you have made me. Patty, I worship you. When you are gone, humannature 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'malmost desolate. "

Her lip trembled, and she glanced at the fields across the way, she hadso long inhabited, where, as it seemed to her, more life than ever wasvisible to-day, though she did not look carefully. 

"How many years it has been, Patty, we will not tell. I was coming homefrom Africa with an emigrant, a Briton, my capturer, indeed--thatofficer in the blockading squadron on that coast who seized myprivateer, the _Ida_, with all her complement of Guinea slaves. His namewas 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 thismight be unpleasant talk, but he parried it with a compliment. 

"_Chis! Dios!_ What a family of beauties you were! Betty, with herhoyden air, and Jane, with her wealth of charms, and Patty, with herbold, rich eyes and conquering will. We sailed into the Nanticoke bymistake for the Manokin. My friend had pitied my misfortunes and likedmy company, and, when he broke me up as a slaver--having already beenbroken as a privateer--had said: 'Dennis, that country you praise sowell has infatuated me; I'll resign my commission and buy a littlevessel, and settle in America with you for the sake of my dear littledaughter, 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 hisfretted lungs, never left his hostess, as though he feared she mightoverlook some pleasing feature of his story. She trotted her foot andmuttered:

"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 tarriedamong you sirens, myself almost at the threshold of my home, where mywife believed me dead, yet waited longingly and waits this morn, dearPatty. _Dios da fe!_ My friend, entasselled with bright Betty, soonerfelt remorse at the spectacle of his little child so ill-caressed, andbeckoned me away; but he had shown his gold, and could better be sparedthan reckless I. You know the cool, deep game, dear Pat. _Hala ha!_ Iwas made to buy the poison you sisters gave Van Dorn, and seem theaccomplice in his death: never till this week has that murder given up atestimony--the portion of the dead man's coin your mother stole and hid, which Hulda inherited at last. _Verdad es verde!_ I became afraid toleave you: I am here at the death with you, my old enchantress. "

A crack ran through the empty wooden house, which made her rise; VanDorn, as he was called, enjoyed her uneasiness, like a pallid maskpainted 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 ofyour memory. You are so dear to me! Turn in the golden sun, that I maylinger on that face which autumn's ashes fall upon, though through thedead leaves I see the russet colors smoulder yet! How daring was yourgirlhood: the poor blacksmith farmer, whose name you will transmitforever, fretted you with his sickness and his scruples, and, _he aqui!_you stilled him with the same cup you mixed for Betty's husband. Hisdaughter you gave to wife to his apprentice, a strong, stolid man, capable of heroism, Patty, for he died for you, his dear misleader, onthe 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, andthese tales depress me, honey. Where shall we go when you are well?"

"_La gente pone, y Dios dispone!_ Stay yet, and chat awhile. I wouldnot, for the world, see you discouraged, --you, unfathomable angel! who, in this mangy corner of the globe, looked abroad over the land likeCatherine, from her sterile throne, over the mighty steppes, and leviedwar upon the hopes of man. How you did trouble Uncle Sam, great Patty, robbing his mails for years between Baltimore and the Brandywine! YoungNichols still serves his term for that shrewd trick you taught him, ofcutting the mail-bags open as he sat, with the corrupted drivers, on thecrowded stage, stealthily throwing the valuable letters in the road, tobe gathered by a following horseman. [10] _Es admirable!_ Young PerryHutton, reared by you to kidnap, then to drive the mail and filch itsletters--a Delaware boy, too--perished on the gallows for killing amail-driver more scrupulous than himself, who detected him under hismask. [11] Young Moore--was he your connection, darling?--stopping themail-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 ofmine suspected?"

"Pshaw! darling, 'tis your warm imagination, and Joe's unkindness. Iwould make you happy with the memory of your daring acts. _Quemaravilla!_ In your little pets you stamped a life out, when anotherwoman would only stamp her foot. There was that morning when your firewould not burn, and a little black child bawled with the cold andangered you; if its body is ever dug up where it was laid, the skullcracked with the billet of wood will tell the tale. You once suspectedme of truantry from your charms--_Quedo, quedo!_ exacting dame--and thepale offspring of poor Hagar you threw upon the blazing backlog, andgrimly watched it burn. The pursued children whose cries you could notstill, that yet are stilled till hell shall have a voice, not even youcan number. Evangelists, O Patty, dipping their pens in blood of saintsto write your crimes, would make the next age infidel, where you willseem impossible, and all of us mythology!"

"Be still!" the woman cried, rising and walking, in her rolling gait, towatch things without that stirred her mind more than her lover'srecitation; "what good kin these tales do you, Captain? My God! theroads is full of people, and they are all looking yer. Is it at me, VanDorn?"

He coughed painfully, still watching her, however, and answered:

"Only a quarter-race, I guess, dear Pat! What! are you _fearing_, atyour 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 isharder by time and oxidizing. I was a gentleman, and yet you masteredme. 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! Doyou believe in everlasting fire?--that every injury is a live coal toroast the soul? I know you do; and, if you do, how beautiful your rosygrate will be, tough charmer, with boys spoiled in the bud, and husbandsin the blossom, with families of freemen torn apart, and children, bornfree as the flag of their country, sent to perpetual bondage and thewhip. _Poca barba, poca vergüenza!_[13] Who but a woman could have putit into William Bouser's head, when she had kidnapped him and thirtynegroes more, and sold them all to Austin Woolfolk, in Baltimore, torise at sea on Woolfolk's vessel, and massacre the officers, only to behanged at last, and all to make Woolfolk a better customer!"[14]

"There are people all round the house, Van Dorn. I hear them on thestairs and in the rooms. Have mercy!"

"Devils, or men, Patty? Both are your courtiers, remember, and perhapsthey crowd each other. What do we care? _Que contento estoy!_ Perhaps Iam 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!_ donot start, fair fiend--to have his father make another Johnson of him, Ihave 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 guardianwife, that never shall learn of my ruin here, nor see me more!--it wasmy 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 paleand wilful face. He caught at his throat with his fingers, and for atime could speak no more. 

"Patty, " said he, at last, between his coughing spells, "I believeagain, 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, andbe the father of my son. _Hala o hala!_ I have had the daughter of mymurdered friend to kiss and bless me, and to love my son. My son hasgiven 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 theeternal door. But thou, the murderer of my youth, no heart will prayfor. Believe in hell, and die; _ha! hala! ho!_"

He pointed his white finger at her in an ecstasy, with a mocking smilein his blue eyes, like fading stars at dawn, and then the rosy morningflowed all round his mouth, as the bullet, detached in his emotion, felltowards the lung, and wakened hemorrhage, and to the last of hisstrength 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 ofviolence, the mistress only sat, the image of paralysis, till her doorslowly opened, and there entered, hand in hand, young Levin Dennis andHulda Van Dorn. 

"Levin, " the young girl said, composed as one to whom reputable life andobsequies were familiar, "I have heard the dying sentences of thismisled, strong, disappointed man. Let us kneel down, dear friend, andsay 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 PattyCannon's arms were seized by two constables, and the warrant read toher. 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 myfriends; 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 ofpeople, taking their last look at the spot where she had triumphed fornearly twenty years. 

None thought to look at Van Dorn, nor ask what had become of him, andhis friend Sorden removed his body, unseen, to a spot in the pine woods, where his unmarked grave was dug, and standing round it were threemourners 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 ofplanks where ran the ditch nearly on the State line, and tradition stillbelieves the figment that Joe Johnson at that moment was hiding beneathit. 

There, driven across the boundary like some borderer's cow, the queen ofthe kidnappers was seized by the Delaware constable, and placed in asmall country gig-wagon, and, followed by a large mounted posse, theroad was taken to the little hamlet of Seaford, five miles distant. 

She watched the small funereal cedars and monumental poplar-trees risestrangled from the underbrush, the dark-brown streams flowing into inkymill-ponds, the close, small pines, scarcely large enough to moan, buttrying to do so in a baby tone, and her eyes turned to the sand, whereshe was soon to be. Not agony nor repentance nor any hope of escapefluttered her cold heart, but only a feeling of being ungratefullydeserted by her friends, and ill-treated by her equals and neighbors, who had so seldom warned or avoided her; no preacher had come to tellher the naked gospel, and some had bowed to her respectfully, and evenbegged her oats, and made subscriptions from her ill-gotten silver. 

Seaford was a sandy place upon a bluff of the Nanticoke, and, as theprocession came in, a party of surveyors, working for Meshach Milburn'srailroad, paused to jeer the old kidnapper. She had grown suddenly old, and never raised her voice, that had always been so forward, to make areply. 

The magistrate, Dr. John Gibbons, had been an educated young Irishmanwho landed from a ship at Lewes, and, marrying a lady in Maryland, nearPatty 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 thetavern some box-bush walks were made in the sand, and willow-treesbordered the cold river-side, and, at pauses in the hearing, wild-fowlwere heard to play and pipe in the falling tide. 

The evidence of Cy James and other cowardly companions in her sins wasquickly given, and the procession started through the woods and sands toGeorgetown, twelve miles to the eastward, where Patty Cannon wasreceived by all the town, waiting up for her, and the jail immediatelyclosed 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 hefound 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 fellerslipped me, an' cut these cords. " Standing up free again, Mr. Phoebusfurther 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 yerabout deep water somewhere. Now, for a little hokey-pokey; I think I'llgit in thar myself, an' let Joe sell t'other feller fur a nigger. "

Phoebus's power over his fellow-prisoners--little children and idioticHominy included--was now perfect, and he began to explore the rotten oldhold, which contained oyster-rakes, fish-lines, and the usual utensilsof a dredging-vessel, and soon discovered that there could be made aclear passage to crawl through her from forecastle to-cabin by removinga few boards. 

"Yer, Hominy, " he said, "get to work with your needle, old gal; I'mgoin' to take you home. "

 * * * * *

With a good start, and a fair wind and slack tide, Johnson was offVienna 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 boozyfur 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, droppedin, and, with a few expert blows of the professional smithy, setWhatcoat 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 atrade; I'll have to stifle him!" Then, ordering the mulatto man astern, Johnson gave him the tiller, and sat near, nodding, till the secondwharf on the starboard was passed. 

"Now Gabriel can't overhaul me, " Johnson exclaimed; "thar's no more roadon the Dorchester side, an' the Somerset roads is all gashed by creeksan' barred by farm-gates. I'll sink that dab an' stiffy. "

He called two deck hands, and lifted the body out of the hold. Phoebusstill placidly slept upon his face, and Johnson looked at him withpeculiar envy after a hurried glance at the dead. Some ropes being putaround the bed, and drag-irons attached to them, the whole weight wasunceremoniously thrown overboard at the point of Hungry Neck, and thedealer remarked, apologetically:

"There goes a great hypocrite, gentlemen; he wasn't above piracy, ef hecould 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 forRagged Point, yonder, Whatcoat, an' when you git thar wake me. It'sclear 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 feetfrom the helmsman, and tried to see and sleep at once. He had beenwithout rest for many nights, and sleep soon bound him in its own clevisand manacles. 

When he awoke, so deep had been his slumber that he could not recall fora moment where he was. The tiller was unmanned, the stars shone in thecabin 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 heardthe voice of solemn pines. 

The vessel was aground; wild geese were making jubilant shrieks as theycut the water with their fleecy wings, like cameo engraving; the outlawgazed and gazed, and finally muttered:

"Deil's Island, or I'm a billy noodle! I run from it the last time I wasyer, an' my blood runs cold to be yer agin; my daddy got his curse fromthis camp-meetin'. "

Taking speed from his apprehensions, Johnson slid back the hatchway andleaped into the hold, starlight and moonlight following him, and nothingdid 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 theman over, and there met his eyes the cold blue stare and Roman nose andbleeding lips of Allan McLane, apparently returned from the bottom ofthe river. 

With a shriek, the outlaw bounded upon the deck and ran to the bow ofthe pungy. 

"Help me!" came a faint cry from the forecastle, and, peeping in, JoeJohnson recognized one of his own familiars he had shipped at Cannon'sFerry, gagged, like his companion, and tied fast. The man had just beenable to articulate. 

"Now, spiflicate me!" spoke the skipper, relieving the man, "the ruffiancly you! who did this?"

"The white nigger did it all, Joe. He crawled through the stays to thecabin, and got your pistols, first; leastways, we found him an' theyaller feller at the helm on top of us, coming up the fo'castle, andnext t'other two men jined 'em. They said ole Samson had give 'em thewink. We two was tied and throwed in yer, an' ef you had awaked, tharwas 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 manon a plank to heave overboard; that's what they said. They steered forDeil's Island, an' sot the Island Parson yer to watch that you don't gitthe 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, andLevin told the mystery of his father's disappearance. 

"Never tell your mother, Levin, that Captain Dennis died in thatPangymonum; it would break her heart, and she never would trust managin. "

"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 thankidnappin'. "

"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 theJudgment Seat. "

"Who has fed mother?" Levin asked. "Hulda can't explain that. "

"I kin, Levin, " Samson Hat said, bashfully. "It was me. Good ole MeshachMilburn, that everybody's down on, pitied that pore woman, an' made meset things she needed in her window. He said if I ever told it he'ddischarge 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'veburied at Broad Creek your wife's family relics. We'll hire a wagon, anddrive to ole Broad Creek 'piscopal church on the way, and there I'llhave you married to Huldy. "

The sword-hilt and coins were disinterred, and in that ancient edificeof hard pine, where the worship of her English race had long beencelebrated, the naval officer's daughter became the wife of the son ofhis voluptuous and perverted friend. As Jimmy Phoebus kissed them hesaid:

"Levin, when your mother says 'Yes, ' all four of us will settle in theWest. Illinois has become a free state, after a hard fight, and I reckonthat'll suit us. "

 * * * * *

For a while Patty Cannon, by her affability and sorrow, had easy timesin jail, and was allowed to eat with the jailer's family; but, as theexamination proceeded before the grand jury, and her menials hastened tothrow their responsibility in so many crimes upon her alone, an outeropinion demanded that she be treated more harshly, and some of the ironsshe had manacled upon her captives were riveted upon her own ankles. Very soon dropsy began to appear in her legs and feet, and, after itbecame evident to her that neither money nor friends were forthcoming inher defence, she fell into a passive despair. 

The frequent conferences between Jimmy Phoebus and Cy James led to thebelief that not only had Hulda recovered portions of her father's moneyand valuables, hidden in the beehives and flower-pots old Patty had soassiduously attended, but that Phoebus had seized upon propertyindicated by the informer, and was to have whatever remained of it afterprocuring the latter's release. 

This result was hastened by Patty Cannon's death, which happened, to thegreat relief of many respectably considered people in that region, whohad 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 toJohn M. Clayton one spring-like day. Clayton had quietly prodded on theconviction of Patty Cannon, but the jealousy of the slaveholdinginterest made him wary of any open appearance against her. 

They were sitting in the little parlor of the Methodist parsonage, asmall frame house with a conical-roofed portico and big end-chimney, alittle off from the public square, whither they had gone to send thepastor to wait on the aged Chancellor, who had been taken ill in thecourt-room, and lay in the hotel. 

"Clayton, " said Judge Custis, in a low tone of voice, "what this womanmay do or tell, you would not think concerned me, but I will show youhow deep her influence has reached, as well as explain to you why Iwould not pursue my own servants to her den. In this I humiliate myselfbefore 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 oneholiday, I fell in love with a beautiful quadroon, the property of myuncle, in Northampton County. She was an elegant woman, with a goodeducation, and had been my playmate. I was ardent and good-looking, andeasily found lodgment in her heart; but the conquest of her charms waslong, and agonizing with sincere esteem. You must believe me when Ideclare 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 choosebetween my death and her surrender. Pity, then, prevailed, even overreligion. I was happy in every point but one--the injury concealmentworked upon her self-respect; for, Clayton, my mistress was my owncousin. "

"Goy!"

"I never desired to marry, although no children had been born in mypatriarchal relation; but, in the course of years, my uncle becamepressed for debts, and he appealed to me to save my beautiful handmaidenfrom sale, he being in full sympathy with my relation to her, becauseshe 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 mycredit. I adopted the cowardly device of letting a kidnapper slip themaway, and take a large commission for his trouble. I saved my lady, butat the expense of a secret. "

"And that secret Joe Johnson depended on, Custis, when he was suddenlydriven into your house, and found your old servant already demoralizedby the announcement of your son-in-law?"

"The scoundrel pressed his advantage; and he saw, besides, mydaughter--not Vesta, but her half-sister, Virgie--and, between hispersecution of her and my brother-in-law's vindictiveness, poor Virgiewas 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 hadnoticed his dejected mien since their separation, passed an arm aroundhim, saying:

"Never mind, now! Never mind, old friend! Johnson is fled; McLane, theywhisper, has never been seen since he entered Johnson's tavern. His willwas found there, and your daughter gets her mother's property andservants back. "

"I must finish my story, " Judge Custis said, stanching his tears. "Bythe decline of every family with natural feelings and refinement, underwhat Mr. Pinkney termed 'the contaminating curse of reluctant bondsmen, 'we, also, became poor. To save others, it was necessary that I mustmarry, 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 abeauty. 

"I began my married life with the best intentions; my poor mistressherself advised me to turn to my wife, and become a true man. She toldme so with her heart breaking. In heaven, where she dwells with my poorchild, she hears me now, and knows I speak the truth!"

Judge Custis broke down again, and leaned his convulsed head onClayton's tender breast, whose own widower's grief gushed forthresponsively. 

"Children were born in Teackle Hall; my servitude was becoming adjustedto me, when Allan McLane, in his love of vindictiveness and of low, formal respectability, conceived that my poor quadroon required somechastisement for having been his sister's rival, and he set a trap tobuy her. I was forced to have her bought, to protect her, and to bringher to my care again, and thus our passion was revived, and, givingbirth to Virgie, she died. Reared together, and unconscious of theirkindred, those daughters loved each other as dearly as when, in heaven, they shall hide in the radiance of each other, and cover my sins withtheir angelic wings. "

"Rise up, old friend!" cried Clayton; "your transgressions are, atleast, washed out in sincere tears. Hear the birds all around us lovingand 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 toMeshach Milburn's. These and many others were pressing towards thewhipping-post and pillory, in the rear of the court-house, where stood, exposed by the sheriff, the cleanly mulatto woman who had entertainedVirgie in Snow Hill the first night of her flight. 

"This free woman, Priscilla Hudson, " cried the sheriff, "is to stand onehour in the pillory for the crime of lending her pass to a slave. Thirtylashes she was sentenced to, the Governor has graciously taken off. Sheis to be sold, out of the state, at the end of one hour, for the term ofher 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, herclothing having been partly removed before the pardon of the stripes wasannounced to her. 

Her head and arms were thrust through the holes in one leaf of thepillory, and thus, thrown forward, her modesty was exposed to the wantongaze of the crowd, while, on the other side of the same elevatedplatform, pilloried in like manner, was a female chicken-thief, impudent, indifferent, and chewing tobacco, and spitting it out upon thepillory 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. Hudsonor not, struck her in the face, and its corrupt contents streamed downher white and shivering breast. 

"Shame! shame!" cried the people, as they saw the woman cry, and, gazingup to the jail window, another female face appearing there, turnedtheir cries to curses:

"Hang her! hang her!"

For the last time in life Patty Cannon's bold and comely face swelledagain with passionate blood to the roots of the glossy black hair, andthe few who saw her rich, dark eyes, inflamed with anger, say theirpupils were dilated like the wild-cat's. She was gone in a moment, andthe sheriff had wiped Mrs. Hudson's face and breast with a handkerchiefpassed 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, whoseeyes were bandaged, and a white man led him, calling loudly:

"The abolitionists have raised three hundred dollars to buy this woman'sfreedom. We want a hundred more, as some mean people may bid her uphigh. This man, her husband, stole her pass, to slip a friend away. Wecouldn't git the evidence in, but it's God's truth, gentlemen! Thewoman's nursed my wife, an' done a heap of good; and she come here, ofher 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 andthe 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 lovewith. "

Judge Custis left Clayton's side, and waited till the hour in thepillory was done, and, after a fierce contest, saw Sorden come offvictorious at the sale, though it took every dollar the Judge couldraise in Georgetown on his private credit. 

"What is the name of the girl you gave her pass to?" asked the Judge ofthe blind mulatto. 

"Virgie, marster. "

"My heart told me so, " exclaimed the Judge. "Your crime has beenpunished 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 thecircle. "

"Not dead?" asked Clayton. 

"Yes, dead and buried. He was cleaning up his contract on the canal, andmistook the white Irish laborers there for kidnapped niggers. They seton him, and beat him and scared him together, so that he neverrecovered. They say he was 'converted' on his death-bed; or, as thesaying is, 'he died triumphantly;' but the darkeys report that the devilcame straight down with a chariot and drove him off. "

"That fellow, Whitecar, I'm reserving, " said Clayton, "to punish when Ican use him to sustain an argument in favor of admitting negro testimonyin kidnapping cases. [16] Without that admission, these kidnappers cannotbe convicted: even Patty Cannon here may escape us, though she haskilled white men. "

Sorden spoke up, he being of the party:

"A disease called leprosy has broke out in ole Derrick Molleston'scabin; Sam Ogg has got it, too, and they say he fetched it up from thebreakwater. Nobody will go near them. Black Dave is dead; he said hekilled a man at Prencess Anne: the young wife of Levin Dennis, whoturns out to be a lady, stayed and prayed with him to the last, and hewent off humble and happy. But, my skin! another kidnapper has rentedJohnson's tavern a'ready. "

"The railroad will clear all these evils out, " exclaimed Randel. "I'veput 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 awokePatty 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 wasa latent conviction in her mind, or the vivid admonition of guilt anddead men's eyes peering over her dreams and into the silent, lonelywatches of haunted midnights, who shall tell? There is no analysis of anative and ancient depravity: it was sown in the marrow, it strengthensin the bone, and, with a cunning, daring self-assertion, gambles uponthe faith of living and of dying not. Its very fears push it onward incrime, and make it cruelly tantalize its own fate, as cowards lean overgraveyard walls, and shout, with an inner trembling, "Come forth--I dareyou!"

So had this woman, conscious of her deserts, bullied eternal justicethrough its long postponements, never doubting, while ever vexing, theSpirit of God, until the number of her crimes crowded the tablet of hermemory, and out of the hideous gulf of her past life gazed faces withoutnames and deeds without memoranda; a procession the longer thatstrangers were in it, and, shrinking from her, yet pressing on, exclaimed her name or only shrieked "'Tis she!" as if her name wasnothing to her curse. 

Sleeping in her chains, there were children's eyes watching her fromfar-off corners, as if to say, "Give us the whole life we would havelived but for you!"

As her swollen limbs festered to the irons, there were babies' criesfloating in the air, that seemed to draw near her breasts, as if forfood, and suddenly convulse there in screams of pain, and move away withthe sounds of suffocation she had heard as they expired. 

All night there were callers on her, and whom they were no one couldtell; but the jailer's family saw her lips moving and her eyes consultthe air, as if she was faintly trying bravado upon certainbusiness-speaking ghosts who had come with bills long overdue anddemanded payment, and went out only to come again and again. 

Some of these mystic visitors she would jeer at and defy, and stamp herfeet, as if they had no rights in equity against her soul, having beenon vicious errands when they met their ends, and bankrupts in the courtof pity; but suddenly a helpless something would appear, and paralyzeher with its little wail, like a babeless mother or a motherless babe, and, with her forehead wet with sweat of agony, she would affect tochuckle, and would whisper, "Nothin' but niggers! nothin' more!"

Day brought her some relief, but also other cares, and of these thechief was the care of money. She had been a spendthrift all her life, and robbed mankind of life and liberty to enjoy the selfish dissipationof 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; tospend 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 shewas misleading, or to establish a silly reputation for generosity:generous at the expense of human happiness, and of robbing people ofliberty and life, merely for spending-money!

Now she had none to appease the all-devouring greeds of habitintensified by real necessity: no money to buy dainties or even liquor;no money to spend upon the jailer's family and keep the reputation ofkindness alive; no money for decent apparel to appear in court; none tocorrupt 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 herall night. 

Every morning she had insatiate wants; all night she had remorselessvisitors; and, close before, the gallows filled the view, with the Deviltying the noose. 

That Devil she plainly saw, so busy on the gallows, fitting his ropesand shrouds and long death-caps, and he evaded her, as if he had nocommerce with her now. 

He was a cool and wistful man, perfectly happy in the prospect ofgetting her, and not anxious about it, so sure was he of her soon andcomplete possession. 

He was always out in the jail-yard when she looked there, fixing hisropes, sliding the nooses, examining the gallows, like a conscientiouscarpenter; and in his complacent smile was an awful terror that frozeher dumb: he seemed so impersonal, so joyous, so industrious, as if hehad waited for her like a long creditor, and compounded the interest onher 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 ofcruelty eternal death was not enough; a man whose unscarred age, old asthe rising sun, still came and went in immortal youthfulness andsatisfaction, but for the nonce forgetting other debtors in the grip hehad on her, as his majestic expiation for his own shortcomings. 

He looked like a storekeeper, a man of accounts, a cosmopolitankidnapper, who knew a good article and had it now. She was so terrifiedthat she wanted to cry to him, and see if he would not remit thatbusiness method and become more human, and sauce her back. 

But no; the longer she watched, the less he looked towards her, thoughshe knew his smile meant no one else. To hang upon his cord was verylittle; to go with him after it was stretched, down the burning gratesof hell, and see him all so cool and busy in her misery, was the gnawingvulture 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 andvice; a something in her heart responded: "No, you had beauty and healthand chaste lovers whom you rejected or tempted, and a mind that was everclear and knew right from wrong. Conscience never gave you up, thoughdrenched in innocent blood. The often-murdered monitor revived and criedaloud like the striking of a clock, but never was obeyed!"

Thus haunted, deserted, peeped in upon from the hereafter, racked withvain needs, her outlets closed to every escape or subterfuge, revengeitself dead, and disease assisting conscience to banish sleep, thewretched woman crawled to her window one day and saw the helplesseffigy of her sex exposed there for doing an act of humanity; andinstantly an instinct she immediately obeyed exacted from her one lastfamiliar, heartless deed, to show the crowd that even she, Patty Cannonthe murderess, had "no respect for a nigger. "

That doctrine long survived her, though she found it old when she cameamong 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 recognizedand defied her. 

In the exasperation of their shout, and of being no longer praised evenfor insulting a negro, a convulsion of desperate rage overcame themurderess. 

Too helpless to retort in any other way, yet in uncontrollablerecklessness, she exclaimed, "They never shall see me hang, then!" andswallowed 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-postcorner, watched by the released Mrs. Hudson, who must to-morrow departfrom 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 madecalled 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 nomore. "

They said he died that instant of heart disease. 

CHAPTER XLV. 

THE JUDGE REMARRIED. 

Vesta found her circle reunited, though with many absentees, at PrincessAnne. 

Aunt Hominy took her place in the kitchen, and cooked with all herformer art, but her voice and understanding were gone, and she neverwould go past the Entailed Hat, and still regarded it, as nearly ascould be made out, as the cause of all her errors and dangers, thoughshe seemed to admit its unevadable dominion. 

The poor woman, Mary, finding Samson Hat, in time, wishing to have apartner in the old storehouse, where he had become the only resident, had faith enough left to make her third marriage with him; and his meansnot only made good the property she had lost, but the hale old manpresented 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 ared-headed nigger, having both the fiery furnace and the blazing sun inits name. "

On Samson Hat's death, which resulted from rheumatism reaching hisheart, his widow joined her deliverer from slavery, James Phoebus, inthe West, where he lived happily with his bride and stepson, and oftenwrote home of a friend he had there named Abe Lincoln, who madeflat-boat voyages with him down the Mississippi. Both Ellenora Phoebusand Hulda Dennis reared Western families which played effective parts inthe drama of civilization. 

Vesta lost no time in setting free every slave about Teackle Hall and onthe farms, with the approval of her father and husband also, and Roxybecame the wife of Whatcoat, the rescued freedman, and the replacer, ather mistress's side, of poor Virgie, whose body was brought home andinterred 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 anequal, not a mistress, though she may have never known how equal. 

In the fatalities thronging about her marriage Vesta observed one signalblessing--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 vagranttours he once made in the forest for politics and amours. 

Aware of his sociable and voluptuous nature, Vesta desired to see himmarried again, to complete and secure his reformation; and, while shewas yet puzzling her brain to think of a wife to suit him, he solved theproblem himself by cleanly cutting out Rhoda Holland from under theattentions of William Tilghman. 

Rhoda had rapidly learned, and had corrected her grammar without losingher humor and her taste for dress, and her free, warm spirits soon madeher an elegant woman, in whom, fortunately or unfortunately, a verydecided worldly ambition germinated, --at once the proof and thevindication of _parvenues_. 

She may have patterned it upon her uncle, or it may have emanated fromhis ambitious family stock, which, in and around him, had wakened to thevigor of a previous century; but it was so different from Vesta's naturethat, while it but made nobler her soul of tranquil piety and ease ofladyhood, Vesta was interested in Rhoda's self-will and businesscoquetry. 

A higher vitality than Vesta's, Rhoda Holland soon showed, in thesuperficial senses, more acuteness of sight and insight, quickerintuitions, more self-love, though not selfishness, lessscrupulousness, perhaps, in dealing with her lovers, and, with fidelityand virtue, a pushing spirit that Vesta only mildly reproved, since shemade the allowance that it was in part inspired by herself. 

"Take care, dear, " Vesta said one day, "that you grow not away from yourheart. With all improving, there is a growth that begets the heartdisease. Do you love cousin William Tilghman? He is too true a man to behurt in his feelings. Nothing in this world, Rhoda, is a substitute forprinciple in woman. "

"I don't want to lose principle, auntie, " Rhoda said; "but I am afraid Ilove life too much to be a pastor's wife. I never saw the world for solong 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? MissSomers--"

"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 itwould give him real pain to disappoint him, I would marry him. But Ihave watched him like a cat watches a mouse. He wants to marry me tomake other people than himself happy; to reconcile you and uncle more;to take uncle more into your family by marrying his niece. William istrying to love Uncle Meshach like a good Christian, but, Aunt Vesta, hethinks 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 soexposed 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 medearly, I'll gladly marry him. I only want, auntie, not to makehappiness 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 loveWilliam; 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 shedtogether the tears of a deeper respect for each other. 

Soon afterwards Judge Custis, being sent to Annapolis by Milburn, wasrequested to take Rhoda along, as a part of her education, and Vestawent, also, at her husband's desire. 

She feared that her father, devoted as he had become to her husband'sbusiness interests, still disliked him and bore him resentment; andVesta wished to see not only outward but inward reconcilement of thosetwo men, from one of whom she drew her being, and towards the otherbegan 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, andthere, 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 comehome 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 tearsthe steamboat that was to carry her to the mightier world she had neverseen, beyond the bay. 

After she reached the steamer her stillness and grief continued, andgoing to bed that night she turned up her face, discolored by tears, forVesta 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 totake root in all the Chesapeake land, was now almost one hundred andfifty years old, and the stern monument of Cromwell's protectorate. Itshandful of expelled Puritans from Virginia, compelled to organize theircounty under the name of the Romanist, Anne Arundel, unfurled thestandard of the Commonwealth, reddened with a tyrant king's blood, against the invading army of Lord Baltimore, and, shouting "God is ourstrength: fall on, men!" annihilated feudal Maryland, never to revive;and, after King William's similar revolution in England, "Providencetown" took his queen sister's name, _Anna_polis, like Princess Anneacross the bay. 

Annapolis became a place of fashion and of court, with horse-races, stage-playing, a press, a club, fox-hunting clergymen, a grandstate-house, the town residences of planters, the belles of Maryland, and the seat of war against the French, the British crown, and theslaveholders' insurrection. 

It was now in a state of comfortable decline, having yielded toBaltimore and to Washington its once superior influence and society; buta lobby, the first in magnitude ever seen in this province, hadassembled in the name of canals and railroads to compete for the bondedaid of the Legislature, and Judge Custis was leading the forlorn hope ofthe Eastern Shore for some of the subsidy so liberally showered upon thecormorant, Baltimore. 

Judge Custis was instructed to lobby at Annapolis for one milliondollars, or only one-eighth part of the grants made by the state, and hewas to draw on Meshach Milburn for funds, who, meantime, continued outof his private resources to grade and buy right of way for one hundredand thirty miles of railroad. 

The adventure was gigantic for the private capital of that day, and theunpopularity of the adventurer at home was soon testified at the statecapital. 

Vesta, whose carriage had been brought over, looked with a gentlepatriotism--being herself of divided Maryland and Virginiasympathies--upon the little peninsulated capital, with its old roomyhouses 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 statepride in everything she saw, and, with strong faculty, seized on thehistorical and political relations of Annapolis, till Judge Custis said:

"Vesta, that girl is of the old rebel Milburn stock, I know. She takesit all in like a wild duck diving for the bay celery. "

With two such beautiful women to speak for it, the Eastern Shorerailroad seemed at first to have many friends, but it was not in thenature 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 mildlyexercised in her rooms at the large old hotel, and in her carriage asshe 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 andtender, despite his growing cares, as he had promised to be on thatsevere day he made his suit to her. 

But the story of her sacrifice, shamefully exaggerated, with all thatintensity of expression habitual in a pro-slavery society whenever moneyis the stake and denunciation the game, was used to injure her husband'sinterests. 

Mr. Milburn was described as a vile Yankee type of miser andoverreacher, who had plotted against the fortune of a gentleman and thevirtue of his daughter for a long series of remorseless years. 

Local opposition affirmed that he would use the railroad to ruin othergentry and oppress his native region, and that he was a Philadelphiaemissary and an abolitionist, scheming to create a new state of thethree jurisdictions across the bay. 

Judge Custis, with his great popularity, did not escape censure; he wassaid to have winked at the surrender of his child for money andambition, and to have broken the heart of his estimable wife after hehad lost her fortune in an iron furnace. 

Senator Clayton, whose mother had originated near Annapolis, made avisit there from Washington, and was entrapped into saying that Delawarewould furnish all needful railway facilities for the Eastern Shore, andthat two railways there would never pay. 

Finally, Judge Custis wrote to his son-in-law to come to Annapolis andmeet these misstatements in person. 

Milburn came, and his pride being irritated by the nature of theopposition, 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 thegeneric Eastern-Shore man, wearing such a hat because he had not heardof any later styles. 

The connection of a man of last century's hat with such a progressivething as a railroad, seemed to excite everybody's risibilities. Hisrailroad was called the Hat Line, even in the debates, and coarse peopleand negroes were hired by wits in the lobby to attend the Legislaturewith petitions for the Eastern Shore railroad, the whole delegationwearing antique and preposterous hats, gathered up from all the oldcounties and from the slop-shops of Baltimore; and in that day queerhats were very common, as animal skins of great endurance were stillused to manufacture them. [17]

From Somerset word was sent that Milburn retained his hat from noamiable weakness or eccentricity, but because he had entered a vow neverto abandon it till he had put every superior he had under his feet; andthat he was a victim of gross forest superstition, and had made abargain with the devil, who allowed him to prosper as long as he bravedsociety with this tile. 

The hotel servants chuckled as he went in and out; the oystermen andwood-cutters called jocosely to each other as he passed by; respectablepeople said he could have no consideration for his wife to degrade herby raising the derision of the town. Judge Custis finally remarked:

"Milburn, I resolved, many years ago, never to address you again on thesubject of your dress. My duty makes me break the resolve: your hat isthe worst enemy of your railroad. "

Vesta, however, was the Entailed Hat's greatest victim. It lay upon herspirits like a shroud. Nervous and apprehensive as she had become, theperpetual admonition and friction of this article drove her into silenceand gloom, poisoned the air and blocked up the sunlight, made goingforth a constant running of the gantlet, and hospitality a comedy, andhuman observation a wondering stare. 

The hat was the silent, unindicated thing that stood between her and herhusband and the rest of the world. She never mentioned it, for she sawthat it was forbidden ground. Kind and liberal as her husband was inevery other thing, she dared not allude to a matter which had become thecentre of his nervous organization, like an indurated sore; and yet shesaw, from other than selfish considerations, that this hat was his ownworst foe. 

Some positive vice--and he had none--some calculating conspiracy--and hewas direct as the day--some base amusement or hidden habit or acriddisease would hold him in captivity and pervert his heart less than thissimple aberration of behavior. Had he been a hunchback men would haveoverlooked it; a hideous goitre or wen they would not have resented; butextreme gentility or high-bred courtesy could not refrain from turningto look a second time at a man with a beautiful lady on his arm and asteeple 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, itselfdisarranges their economy and finally becomes the chronic intruder oftheir household; and, when it is a trifle, it seems the more anobstacle, because there is no reasoning about it. 

This Hat had long ceased to be external: it was worn on Milburn's heartand stifled the healthy throbbing there. It made two men of him, --theouter and the household man, --and, like the Corsican brothers, they wereever conscious of each other, and a word to one aroused the other'sclairvoyant sensibility. 

"If people would only not observe him, " Vesta said, "I think he wouldlay his hat aside; but that is impossible, and all his pride is in theunending 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 existsthat no laws can reach, and how much of society is mere formality!"

Vesta pitied her husband, but the disease was beyond her cure. She hadanticipated some compensation for her marriage, in a larger life andsociety, and in the exercise of her mind, especially in art and music;yet these were purely social things with woman, and the baneful hat wasever darkening her threshold and closing the vista of every other one. She meditated escaping from it by a visit to Europe, which her fatherhad promised her before his embarrassments, and which had been spoken ofby Mr. Milburn as due her in the way of musical perfection. 

"Uncle, " Rhoda Holland said one day, "do put off that old hat. AuntVesta 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 shallbe sent back to Sinepuxent and Mrs. Somers. "

It may have been this dreadful threat, or rising ambition, or thefascinations of Judge Custis's position and attentions and remarkablegallantry, that disposed Rhoda to turn her worldly sagacity upon thefather of her friend. 

The visit to Annapolis occupied the whole winter; as it proceeded, JudgeCustis, suppressing the temptations of the table, and feeling his laterresponsibilities thoughtfully, and desirous of a fixed settlement in ahome 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 hadseen 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 easilyaware of her conquests, and with a magical touch and encouragement. Shebegan to lead him on from mere mischief. He was wise, and observant ofwomen, 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 sawthat her father was a blind captive in the cool yet self-flutteredmeshes of her connection. 

"Is there any law, husband, " Vesta asked, "to prevent Rhoda marryingJudge Custis?"

"I think not. There is no consanguinity. In a society where every degreeof cousins marry together, it would be as gratuitous to interfere insuch a marriage as to forbid my hat by law. "

"He is so enamoured of her, " said Vesta, "that I fear the results of herrefusing him upon his habits. Father is a better man than he ever was: awife that can retain his interest will now keep him steady all hislife. "

The adjournment of the Legislature was at hand; another year, andperhaps years unforeseen in number, were to be occupied in the sameslow, illusive quest. 

Judge Custis found himself one morning early above the dome of the oldstate-house, where he frequently went at that hour with Rhoda Holland, to look out upon the bay and the town and "Severn's silver wavereflected. "

He turned to her with a sparkle of humor, yet a flush of the cheek, andsaid:

"My girl, what is to be your answer to Pastor Tilghman's marriageoffer?"

"It cannot be. "

"Then I am free to ask for another. Rhoda, you have seen that I amfoolish for you. I was your admirer when you were a poor forest girl--"

"And when you were a married man, " Rhoda interrupted. "How splendid andsly you were! But, even then, I was delighted that a great man like youcould 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 myremaining life. I am fifty-five, but it is the best fifty-five inMaryland. You shall have the devotion of twenty-five. "

"I want to be taken to Washington, " Rhoda said. "I think I could marryan old man if he took me there. "

"I will run for Congress, then. You will make a great woman in publiclife. 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 fondhusband. 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 fondand gallant gentleman. "

"Yes, as long as time will let me. "

"Then say no more about it, " Rhoda answered, with a little pallor; "ifthe 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 nearkinsman. ' I love your daughter. "

Meshach Milburn, not more than half pleased with the turn affairs hadtaken, hastened to Princess Anne in advance and sought WilliamTilghman. 

"Dear friend, " he said, "I hope your heart was not committed to mywayward niece?"

"Has she engaged herself to another, Cousin Meshach?"

"Yes, to Judge Custis. You know what a taking way he has with girls. Itwas not my match, William. "

Milburn looked at the young man and beheld no disappointment on hisface--rather a flush of spirit. 

"Cousin Meshach, " he said, cheerfully, "I thought I could make Rhodahappy; I thought I interpreted her right. Since I was mistaken, it isbetter that she has been sincere. No, my heart is still a bachelor's anda priest's. See, cousin! The bishop has sent for me to take a largerfield. "

He united Rhoda and the Judge, as he had married his first love--toanother; she was pale and in tears; he kissed her at the altar, and gavehis hand to the Judge warmly:

"I know you will be a better Christian, Cousin Daniel. God has given youmuch love on the earth. Our prayers for you have been answered. "

Vesta was disappointed, expecting to see William made happy in amarriage with Rhoda. 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

THE CURSE OF THE HAT. 

As the spring burst upon Princess Anne in cherry blossoms and dogwoodflowers, in herring and shad weighting the river seines, and broods ofyoung chickens and peach-trees pullulating, and as the time of fruit andcorn and early cantaloupe followed, the life in human veins alsounfolded in infant fruit, and Vesta became a mother. 

The forest and the court had harmonized in the offspring, and the youngboy took the name of Custis Milburn. 

Healthy and comely, as if Society had made the match for Nature, theinfant 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 itbrought the satisfaction of an improved posterity, and an heir to hissuccess; to Vesta, compensation for the loss of worldly society. 

She found more joy in Teackle Hall, with this wondrous product of hersacrifice and pain, than with the admiration of all the good families inMaryland; and a sense of warmth and gratitude sprang to her consciencetowards the father of this matchless gift. 

"I have not given him my whole loyalty, " she reflected, with exactingpiety; "I have let trifles stand before my vows. "

Accordingly, when Milburn, conscience-stricken, and accusing himself ofhard conditions in exacting a marriage without love, came one day, withall the magnanimity of a new parent, before his wife to make somerestitution, 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--tothink that you could ever love me! No, I will give you freedom. Dear asyour 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, ifyou desire. Go from me and these unloved conditions, this hatefulbondage and constraint"--his tears flowed fast again, but he let themfall ungrudged, --"find in your music and your noble mind forgetfulnessof this unworthy marriage. I can live in the recollection of theblessing 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, butit is your duty to go. A hard struggle is before me: I am deeplyembarked in an untried business. Now I can spare the money. Go and findhappiness 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 Ireconcile myself to let you live alone? 'For better or for worse, ' Isaid. God has made it better and better every day. "

He held her head between his palms and looked into her eyes, to see ifshe spoke from the heart. 

"Husband, " she whispered, "I love you. "

 * * * * *

The minds of both husband and wife, after this reconcilement, turned tothe disturbing hat as the subject of their estrangement hitherto. 

Said Milburn to himself: "What a sinner I have been to distress thatpoor 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 havekept, to oppose my husband in such a little thing as his good oldhat--the badge of his reverence to his family and of his bravery to animpertinent age. I have let it discolor my married life and all thesunshine. 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 faceand elastic step and put on his head his steeple hat. He looked at hergrimly, but she stopped his protest with a kiss. 

He thought to introduce the subject to Judge Custis, but that fondbridegroom broke in with:

"Milburn, you're a game fellow. It was impudent in me to say one wordabout 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 hecould well begin she cried:

"Uncle Meshach, Aunt Vesta is just in love with your hat! She won't hearof 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 inthe family begets fear; an affectation, whether of folly or resentment, is at last credited to nature; man is seldom allowed to escape from thetrap of his own temperament. 

So Meshach Milburn never obtained the opportunity to relieve himselffrom the affliction with which he had afflicted others. Like an impostorwho has established the claim of deafness, and mankind bawls in his ear, the hatted spectre was made to feel uncomfortable when he put off histile--his consistency was at once on trial. He was like a boy who hadpricked a cross upon his hand in India ink, and, growing to be a manwith taste and position, sees the indelible advertisement of hisvulgarity whenever he takes a human hand. 

To have put on any other hat would have subjected him to new hoots andcomments, and made himself publicly smile at his own folly; he must haveclimbed 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 refusehim a _status_ without his Entailed Hat, and it would have taken thecourage of throwing off a life-long _alias_ and living under a forgottenname, 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 theservitude, 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 anembittered contest between the Potomac Canal and the greater railwaycompany, to strangle each other, left the Eastern Shore railroad out ofnotice. Locomotive engines of native invention began to appear; therailroad to Washington was finally opened, and, next, to Harper's Ferry, as Vesta's boy became a young horseman and learned to read. Thevenerable court-house at Princess Anne, with its eighty-seven years ofmemories, burned down during these proceedings, and a panic extendedover Patty Cannon's old region at the whisper of another Nat Turnerrebellion among the slaves; but no mention of the thousands ofabductions there was made in the anti-Masonic convention at Baltimore, where Samuel S. Seward and Thaddeus Stevens nominated Mr. Wirt forPresident, because one white man had been stolen. The murder of JacobCannon by Owen Daw did produce some distant comment a little later, chiefly because of the apathy of the Delaware society to pursue themurderer. 

By a long course of usury and legal persecution the Cannon brothers hadbecome detested in their own community, and when they sued O'Day, orDaw, 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 ingrowth and of Celtic vindictiveness, --loaded his gun and started forCannon's Ferry, and waylaid Jacob just as he was leading his horse offthe 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 wascorrect; the _lex loci_ and the _lex terrę_ were argued. The _lextalionis_--"

"Take it!" cried the villain, adroitly firing his shot-gun into themerchant's breast, so as not to injure his humaner beast. 

Jacob Cannon staggered to the fence at the head of the wharf, and caughtthere a moment, and fell dead. 

"You scoundrel, " screamed Isaac Cannon from the window, "to kill mybrother, 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 effectswithout hurry, and betook himself to the wilds of Missouri. 

Cannon's Ferry fell into decay when the railroad at Seaford carried offits trading importance, but there are yet to be seen the never tenantedmansion of the disappointed bridegroom, and the gravestones which showhow Jacob's fate frightened Isaac Cannon to a speedy tomb. 

In the meantime, John M. Clayton had made use of the fears of Calhounand his nullifiers, who were menaced with the penalties of treason bythe president, to pass a great protective tariff bill by their aid, thusestablishing the manufactures in the same period with the railways. 

This triumph in the senate left him free to conduct the suit of Randelagainst the Canal Company, which occupied as many years as the railroadenterprise of Meshach Milburn. 

The barbarous system of "pleadings" was then in full vogue, though soonto be weeded out even in its parent England, and the law to be made atrial of facts instead of traverses, demurrers, avoidances, rebuttersand surrebutters, churned out of the skim milk of words. Clayton'spleadings require a bold, dull mind to read them now, but he tired hisadversaries out, and his cousin, Chief-Justice Clayton, who was jealousof him, had yet to decide in his favor. 

Then, after the lapse of years, the issue came to trial at the oldDutch-English town of New Castle, and from the magnitude of the damagesclaimed, the weight and number of counsel, and the novelty of trying agreat corporation, it interested the lawyers and burdened thenewspapers, and was popularly supposed to belong to the class of Frenchspoliation claims, or squaring-the-circle problems--something that wouldbe 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 theNew Castle hills, out of this case, " Clayton said, as he pitched quoitswith his fellow-lawyers from Washington and Philadelphia, on the greenbattery where the Philadelphia steamer came in with the Southernpassengers for the little stone-silled railroad. 

John Randel, Jr. , had ruined a fine engineer, to become a litigious manall his life. 

He sued his successor and fellow New-Yorker, Engineer Wright, and wasnonsuited. He garnisheed the canal officers, and beset the Legislaturefor remedial legislation, and threatened Clayton himself with damages;yet had such a fund of experience and such vitality that he kept theouter public beaten up, like the driving of wild beasts into the circleof the hunters. He had surveyed the great city of New York and plannedits streets above the new City Hall. Elevated railroads were hisprojection half a century before they came about. He now looked uponengineering with indifference, and considered himself to have been bornfor the law. 

In the midst of many other duties, Clayton, in course of time, convictedWhitecar of kidnapping, on negro testimony, having obtained a ruling tothat end from his cousin, the chief-justice; and a constituent namedSorden (_not_ the personage of our tale), being prosecuted forkidnapping, in order to spite Clayton, was cleared by him at Georgetownafter a marvellous exhibition of jury eloquence, and repaid theobligation, years after our story closes, by breaking a party dead-lockin the Legislature of Delaware, where he became a member, and sendingMr. Clayton for the fourth time to the American senate. 

 * * * * *

The Entailed Hat became more common in the streets of Annapolis than ithad been in Princess Anne, as Milburn pressed his bill for assistanceyear after year, and was shot through the back with slanders from homeand hustled in front by overwhelming opposition. 

Judge Custis took the field for Congress on the railroad issue, and waselected, through the Forest vote, and his wife went through a Washingtonseason with as much dignity as enjoyment, few suspecting that she wasnot the Judge's social equal. 

The ancestral hat defied all worldly hostility, but became the ironhelmet to bend its wearer's back. He prayed in secret for some pityingangel to break the spell that bound him to it, but none conceived thathe would let it go. 

His boy grew strong, and took his father's dress to be a matter ofcourse; his wife pressed upon him the nauseous ornament he had so longaffected; a wide conspiracy seemed to have been formed to drive his headinto that hereditary wigwam, and he could not escape it. 

Even Grandmother Tilghman, who now was an inmate of Teackle Hall, inWilliam's absence of years, forgot all about the queer hat, and rejoicedto herself that "Bill" had not married "that political girl. "

Milburn had maintained his financial solvency by turns and sorties thateven his enemies admired, but a railroad built along one man's spine andterminated by a steeple depot on his head must wear out the unrelievedindividual at last. 

The banks in Baltimore began to break; fierce riots ensued; the statedebt had mounted up, through aid to public works, to fifteen milliondollars; the Eastern Shore Railroad obtained, too late, the vote of thesubsidy expected, and the state treasurer could not find funds to payit. 

The gazettes announced the failure of Meshach Milburn, Esq. , of theEastern Shore. 

Without an instant's hesitation, Vesta surrendered her own property, andshe 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 expectedit. "

"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 ofhis family to renew his former low endeavors, he became a clerk in thecounty offices, through Judge Custis's influence, and wore his hat tostipendiary labor with the regularity, but not the rebellious instincts, of old days, becoming, instead, the victim of a certain religious tranceor apathy, which deepened with time. 

Vesta saw that Milburn's misfortune extinguished the last remnant ofanimosity 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 ofambition. 

Milburn resumed his forest walks and bird-tamings, all traces ofambition left his countenance, and he was as dead to business things asif 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 UnitedStates, singled out, one day, the wearer of the obsolete hat, and put tothe sternest test of affection and humanity the household at TeackleHall. 

Whether from the respect his steady purposes had given them, or thenatural devotion in a sequestered society, no soul left his side. 

But it brought the final visitation of poverty upon Vesta. Her schoolwas broken up in a day. She dismissed it herself, and calmly sat by herhusband's bed, to soothe his dying weakness, and await the providence ofGod. 

He rapidly passed through the stages of cramp and collapse, a nearlyperished pulse, and the cadaverous look of one already dead, yet hisintellect by the law of the disease, lived unimpaired. 

"The stream cannot rise above the fountain, " he spoke, huskily; "all wecan get from life is love. My darling, you have showered it on me, andbeen thirsty all your days. "

"I have been happy in my duty, " Vesta said; "you have been kind to mealways. We have nothing to regret. "

He wandered a little, though he looked at her, and seemed thinking ofhis mother. 

"Where can we go?" he muttered, pitifully; "I burned the dear old hutdown. 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 thedoctor! ride hard! Oh! oh! too late, little chillen! They'se bothdead!"

He returned to perfect knowledge in a moment, and fixed his eyes onVesta, saying, "I leave you poor. I tried hard. Perhaps--"

His eye was here arrested by some conflict at the door, where AuntHominy, notwithstanding her imperfect wits, was striving to keep guard. 

"De debbil's measurin' him in! Measurin' him in at las'!" the old womansaid; "Miss Vessy's 'mos' free!"

"Admit me!" spoke a clear, familiar voice, "I must see him. Mr. Claytonhas won the lawsuit, and two hundred and twenty-six thousand dollarsdamages! 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 theintruder, who would have kissed him, and whispered, "No. The cholera!"

"It's the bishop, uncle!" cried Mrs. Custis; "Bishop Tilghman, from theWest. "

"Don't I know him, " Milburn whispered, with sinking voice and powers. "Honest man! Bishop of our church! Bishop in the free West! God blesshim!"

He was lost again, as if he had fainted, for some time, and, allkneeling, the young bishop made a prayer. 

When they arose Milburn seemed speechless, yet he tried to raise hishand, and, Vesta coming to his aid, his long, lean fingers closed aroundhers, and he signalled to William Tilghman with his eyes. 

The bishop came near, and, by a painful effort, Milburn put his wife'shand in her cousin's. His lips framed a word without a sound:

"_Restitution. _"

"Glory to God!" suddenly exclaimed Grandmother Tilghman, who seemed tosee without sight all that was going on. 

"I knew it would be so, if both would wait, " sighed Rhoda to herhusband, through her tears. 

There was still something on Milburn's mind, though he was unable toexplain 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 itgave her a thought. She left the room, and returned with her boy, a fineyoung 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, sothat 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 ferventlyat 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 hisforehead. 

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 fromMilburn's lips, was preserved. The "Tales of a Hat" may be separatelypublished. 

[2] "Slavery, in the State of Delaware, never had any _constitutional_recognition. It existed in the colonial period by custom, as over thewhole country, but subject to be regulated or abolished by simplelegislative enactment. Very early the State of Delaware undertook itsregulation, with the view of securing the personal and individual rightsof the persons so held in bondage, and to prevent the increase byimportation. In 1787 the export of Delaware slaves was forbidden to theCarolinas, Georgia, and the West Indies, and two years later theprohibition was extended to Maryland and Virginia, and it never wasrepealed, and in 1793 the first penalties were enacted againstkidnappers. "--_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 skullsof Patty and Betty Cannon. 

[4] At this point the second episode, telling the descent of theEntailed Hat from Raleigh to Anne Hutchinson, is omitted, to shorten thebook. 

[5] Frederick Douglass, afterwards Marshal of the District of Columbia, was at this time a slave boy twelve years old, living about twenty milesfrom the scene of this conversation. 

[6] The Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia occurred a year orthereabout later than this time. 

[7] The origin of Patty Cannon is in doubt; a pamphlet published nearher time gives it as above, with strong circumstantial embellishments, yet there are neighbors who say she was of Delaware and Marylandstock--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 acontemporary account of Patty Cannon's arrest. The date of the exposurein this story is transposed from April to October. She was to have beentried in October, but died in May, about six weeks after her arrest. 

[9] Thomas Hollyday Hicks, the Union Governor of Maryland in 1861, wasat the date of these events member elect to the Legislature from theneighborhood of Patty Cannon's operations, and was thirty-one years old. Lanman's "Dictionary of Congress" says: "He worked on his father's farmwhen 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 awell-known stage-driver, who lately broke jail at Richmond, where he hadbeen committed for kidnapping. " See, also, "Scharf's BaltimoreChronicles, " 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, wasrelated 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 Quakerdomin this country, and has five meetings in the two creeds of Fox andHicks, and the Earlham Quaker College. There I saw the large, fur-covered white hats, a few of which are still left, which wereimported into Indiana by the North Carolina Quakers from 'Beard's HatterShop, ' an extinct locality in the North State, where the Quakers wereprolific, and they all ordered these marvellous hats, which are said tobe literally _entailed_, being incapable of wearing out, and as good forthe grandson as for the pioneer. They are made of beaver-skin or itsimitation in some other fur. "

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