CHAPTER XII.

PRINCESS ANNE FOLKS.

The Washington Tavern, or, rather, the brick sidewalk which came up to

its doors, and was the lounging-place for all the grown loiterers in

Princess Anne, had been in the greatest activity all that Saturday

afternoon, since it was reported by Jack Wonnell, who set himself to be

a spy on Meshach's errand, that the steeple-hat had disappeared in the

broad mansion of Judge Daniel Custis.

Jack Wonnell had a worn bell-crown on his head, exposed to all kinds of

weather, as he was in the habit of fishing in these beaver-hats, and

never owned an umbrella in his life. He lived near Meshach, in the old

part of Princess Anne, near the bridge, and was the subject of the

money-lender's scorn and contempt, as tending to make a mutual

eccentricity ridiculous. Milburn had been willing to be hated for his

hat, but Jack Wonnell made all unseasonable hats laughable, the more so

that he was nearly as old a wearer of his bell-crowns as Milburn of the

steeple-top. Although he had no such reasons of reverence and stern

consistency as his rich neighbor, he seemed to have, in his own mind,

and in plain people's, a better defence for violating the standard taste

of dress.

The people said that Jack Wonnell, being a poor man, could not buy all

the fashions, and was merely wearing out a bargain; that he knew he was

ridiculous, and set no such conceit on his absurdity as that grim

Milburn; and they rather enjoyed his playing the Dromio to that

Antipholus, and turning into farce the comedy of Meshach's error.

Jack Wonnell had partly embraced his bargain by the example of Meshach.

A frivolous, unambitious, childish fellow, amusing people, obliging

people, running errands, driving stage, gardening, fishing, playing with

the lads, courting poor white bound girls, incontinent, inoffensive, he

had been impelled to bid off his lot of old hats by Jimmy Phoebus

saying:

"Jack, dirt cheap! Last you all your life! Better hats than old Meshach

Milburn's. You'll drive his'n out of town."

To his infinite amusement and dignity, his appearance in the bell-crown

hats attracted the severe regard of Milburn, and set the little town on

a grin. The joke went on till Jimmy Phoebus, Judge Custis, and some

others prompted Jack Wonnell, with the promise of a gallon of whiskey,

to ask Meshach to trade the steeple-top for the bell-crown. The intense

look of outrage and hate, with the accompanying menace his townsman

returned, really frightened Jack, and he had prudently avoided Milburn

ever since, while keeping as close a watch upon his movements and

whereabouts as upon some incited bull-dog, liable to appear anywhere.

In this way Jack Wonnell had followed Meshach to the court-house corner,

where stood Judge Custis's brick bank--which, of late, had done little

discounting--and, from the open space between it and the court-house in

its rear, he peeped after Milburn up the main cross street, called

Prince William Street, which stopped right at Judge Custis's gate.

There, in the quiet of early afternoon, he heard the knocker sound, saw

the door open, and beheld the Entailed Hat disappear in the great

doorway. Then, scarcely believing himself, Wonnell ran back to the

tavern, and exclaimed:

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

Jedge's!"

"You're a liar!" said Jimmy Phoebus, promptly, catching Jack by the

back of the neck, and pushing his bell-crown down till it mashed over

his nose and eyes, "What do you mean by tellin' a splurge like that?"

"I seen him, Jimmy," was the bell-crowned hero's smothered cry; "if I

didn't, hope I may die!"

"What did he go there for?"

"I can't tell, Jimmy, to save my life!"

"Whoo-oo-p!" cried Phoebus, waving his old straw hat, itself nearly

out of season. "If this is a lie, Jack Wonnell, I'll make you eat a raw

fish. Levin"--to Levin Dennis--"you slip up by Custis's, and see if ole

Meshach hain't passed around the fence, or dropped along Church Street

and hid in the graveyard, where he sometimes goes. I'll stay yer, and

make Jack Wonnell account for sech lyin'!"

Levin Dennis, a boyish, curly-haired, graceful-going orphan, walked up

the cross street, passing Church lane and the Back alley, and slowly

turned the long front of Teackle Hall, and went out the parallel street

towards the lower bridge on the Deil's Island road, till he could turn

and see the three great-chimneyed buildings of Teackle Hall lifting

their gables and lightning-rods to his sight in their reverse, the

partly stripped trees allowing that manorial pile to stand forth in much

of its length and imposing proportions. Lest he might not be suspected

of curiosity, Levin continued on to the bridge at Manokin landing, and

counted the geese come out of a lawn on a willowy cape there, and take

to water like a fleet of white schooners. He ascended the rise beyond

the bridge, and looked over to see if Meshach might have taken a walk

down the road. Then returning, he swept the back view of Princess Anne,

from the low bluff of cedars on another inhabited cape on the right,

which bordered the Manokin marshes, to the vale of the little river at

the left, as it descended between Meshach's storehouse and the ancient

Presbyterian church of the Head of Manokin, seated among its gravestones

between its hitching-stalls and its respectable parsonage manse. Nothing

was visible of the owner of the distinguishing hat.

So Levin Dennis returned more slowly around the north wing of Teackle

Hall, looking at every window, as if Meshach might be there; but nothing

did he see except the dog, which, to Levin's eye, appeared uneasy, and

ran out of the gate to make friends with him.

"So, Turk!" Dennis muttered, patting the dog's head, "no wonder you're

scared, boy, to see old Meshach Milburn come in."

Teackle Hall, according to rumor, was built at the close of the

revolutionary war by an uncle, or grand-uncle, of Judge Custis, who came

from Virginia, somewhere between Accomac and Northampton counties, and

went into shipbuilding on the Manokin, adding some privateering and

banking, too, and once, going abroad, he brought back from some ducal

residence the plan of Teackle Hall, as Judge Custis found it on his

coming into the property.

It was nearly two hundred feet in length, and would have made three

respectable churches, standing in line, with their sharp gables to the

front, the bold wings connected with the bolder centre by habitable

curtains or colonnades, in which panels of slate or grained stone made

an attic story above the lines of windows, and lintels and sills of the

same stone, with high keystones, capped every window in the many-sided

surface of the whole stately block, all built of brick brought over in

vessels from the western shore, or possibly from the North, or Europe,

and painted a gray stone color.

Its central gable had deep carved eaves, and a pediment-base to shed

rain, and a large circular window in that pediment. The two mighty

chimneys of that centre were parallel with the ridge of the roof, and

rose nearly from the middle of the two opposite slopes, bespeaking four

great fireplaces below, and a flat, low-galleried observatory upon the

roof gave views of portions of the bay on clear days.

The wings of Teackle Hall had similar, but lower, chimneys, astraddle of

their roofs, and forest trees--oak, gum, holly, and pine, with a great

willow, and some tawny cedars, and bushes of rose and lilac--dotted the

grassy lawn. The Virginia creeper and wild ivy climbed here and there to

the upper windows, and a tall, broad, panelled doorway, opening on a

low, open portico platform with steps, seemed to say to visitors: "Men

of port and consideration come in this way, but inferiors enter by some

of the smaller doors!"

Levin Dennis, who had never sounded that knocker, though he had often

taken his terrapins to the kitchen, stared in concern at the door where

it was reported Meshach Milburn had gone in, and would hardly have been

surprised if that intruder had now appeared at one of the three deep

windows over the door with a firebrand in his hand.

Levin muttered to himself: "Rich folks, I reckon, must make a trade.

Maybe it's hosses--maybe not. I know it ain't hats."

He then turned down to the Episcopal Church, only a square from Teackle

Hall, and on a street between it and the main street, though in a

retired situation, its front turned from the town, and looking over the

fields and farms, like a good pastor who is warming at the fire with his

hands behind him.

A single-storied, long, low edifice of British bricks, with its

semicircular choir next the street, and, adjoining the choir, a spire of

more modern brickwork built up to an open bell cupola, and open ribbed

dome, also of brick, tipped with a gilded cross, the ivy was greenly

matted all round the choir, and ran along the side of the church, where

Levin Dennis walked under four tall, round-topped windows of stained and

wired glass, till he came to the end gable or front of the church,

standing in unworldly contemplation of the graveyard and the back

fields.

There, since the Stamp Act Congress, or when Princess Anne was not half

a century old, the old church had taken its stand, backed up to the

town, recluse from its gossip. Between its tall round doors, with little

window-panes like spectacles let into their panels, the ivy vine arose

in form like the print of The Crucified, reaching out its stems and

tendrils wide of the one glorified window in the gable, in whose red

dyes glimmered the triumph of a bloody countenance. The mossy walls,

often scraped, the mossified pavement, the greenish tombs of marble

under the maples and firs, showed the effect of shade, solitude, and

humidity upon all things of brick in this climate, where wood was

already rising into favor as building material, but to the detraction of

picturesqueness and all the appearance of antiquity.

No sign of the unpopular townsman was to be seen anywhere, but, as Levin

Dennis peeked around the foliage in the yard he beheld a man he had

never observed before, and of a tall, bearded, suspicious, and ruffianly

exterior, lying flat on the top of a memorial vault, with his head and

feet half concealed in some cedar brambles.

"Hallo!" Dennis shouted.

"What do you hallo for?" spoke the man; "don't you never come to a

churchyard to git yer sins forgive?"

"No," said the terrapin-finder, "not till I knows I has some sins."

"What air you prowlin' about the church then fur, anyhow?" demanded the

stranger, standing up in his boots, into which his trousers were tucked;

and he stood such a straight, long-limbed, lithe giant of a man that

Levin saw he could never run away, even if the intruder meant to chew

him up right there.

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

lookin'."

"Lookin' fur what, fur which, fur who?" said the man, taking a step

towards Dennis, who felt himself to be no bigger than one of the other's

long, ditch-leaping, good-for-wading legs.

"Why, I was jess a follerin' a man--that is, friend, not 'zackly a man,

but a hat."

"A hat?" The man walked up to Dennis this time, and stood over him like

a pine-tree over a sucker. "Yer's yer hat," pulling an old straw

article, over-worn, from Dennis's head. "No wind's a blowin' to blow

hats into graveyards. Or did you set yer hat under a hen in yere, by a

stiffy?"

Dennis looked up, laughing, though not all at ease, but his amiable want

of either intelligence or fear, which belong near together, made his

most natural reply to the pertinacious intruder a disarming grin.

"No, man," Dennis said, "it was a hat on a man's head--ole Meshach

Milburn's steeple-top. I was a follerin' of him."

"Stow your wid!" the man clapped the hat back on Levin's head. "You're a

poor hobb, anyhow. Is thair any niggers to sell hereby?"

"Oh, that's your trade, nigger buyin'? Well, there's mighty few niggers

to sell in Prencess Anne. Unless"--here a flash of intelligence shone in

Levin's eyes--"unless that's what's took ole Meshach Milburn to Jedge

Custis's. He goes nowhar unless there's trouble or money for _him_."

"And where is Judge Custis's, you rum chub?"

"Yander!" pointing to Teackle Hall.

"Ha! that is a Judge's? And niggers? Broke, too! Well, it's no hank for

a napper bloke. So bingavast! Git! Whar's the tavern?"

"I'm a-goin' right thair," answered Levin, much relieved. "You must be a

Yankee, or some other furriner, sir."

"No, hobb! I'm workin' my lay back to Delaware from Norfolk, by pungy to

Somers's cove. Show me to the tavern and I'll sluice your gob. I'll

treat you to swig."

At the prospect of a drink, of which he was too fond, Levin led the way

to the Washington Tavern, where there was a material addition to the

attendance since Jimmy Phoebus had called to every passer-by that

Meshach Milburn, on the testimony of Jack Wonnell, had actually been and

gone and disappeared in Judge Custis's doorway, and nearly a dozen

townsfolks were now discussing the why and wherefore, when, suddenly,

Levin Dennis came out of Church Street with a man over six feet high, of

a prodigious pair of legs, and arms nearly as long, with a cold,

challenging, yet restless pair of blue eyes, and with reddish-brown

beard and hair, coarse and stringy. The free negro, Samson Hat, being a

little way off, was observed to cast a beaming glance of admiration at

the athletic proportions of the stranger, who looked as if he might

shoulder an ox, or outrun a horse.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Jimmy Phoebus, looking the stranger over boldly,

yet with indifference, at last. "You're cuttin' a splurge, Levin, too.

Where's Meshach?"

"Can't see no sign of him, Jimmy. Guess Jack Wonnell hit it, an' he's

gone in the Jedge's. Mebbe he's buyin' of Jedge Custis's niggers. That's

this gentleman's business."

Jimmy Phoebus, himself no slight specimen of a man, gave another

glance at the stranger from the black cherries of his eyes, and,

apparently no better satisfied with the inspection, made no sign of

acquaintance.

"Whoever ain't too nice to drink with a nigger buyer," said the man,

independently, "can come in and set up his drink, with my redge, for I'm

rhino-fat and just rotten with flush."

There was a pause for somebody to take the initiative, but Jimmy

Phoebus, turning his big, broad Greekish face and small forehead on

the stranger, remarked:

"I never tuk a drink with a nigger buyer yit, and, by smoke! I reckon

I'm too old to begin."

The man stopped and measured Jimmy up in his eye.

"Humph!" he said with a sneer, "you look to be a little more than half

nigger yourself. If I was dead broke I'd run you to market an' git my

price for you."

"No doubt of it whatever, as fur as you're concerned," said Jimmy,

unexcited, while the man pushed Levin Dennis in towards the bar.

Either the new movement of Meshach Milburn, or the example of the

strange man, set Princess Anne in a tipsy condition that day. The

stranger was full of money, and treating indiscriminately, and the

pavement before the hotel was continually beset with the loiterers, and

the bar took money and spread mischief. So when, an hour after dark, the

unpopular townsman, avoiding the crowd, passed by on the opposite side

of the street, nearest his own lodging, one of the loudest and most

unanimous yells he had ever heard in his experience, rang out from the

Washington Tavern.

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

"Laugh on!" thought Meshach, "till now I never knew the meaning of 'let

them laugh who win.'"

He felt confirmed in his idea to be married in the Raleigh tile, and

when he saw Samson Hat, Milburn said: "Boy, brush all my clothing well.

Then go back to the livery stable, and order a buggy to be ready for you

at ten o'clock. At that hour set out for Berlin; and bring back Rhody

Holland with you in the morning."

"It's more dan thirty mile, marster, an' a sandy road."

"No matter. Take it slow. I will write you a letter to carry. Samson, I

am going to be married to-night to the rose of Princess Anne."

"Dar's on'y one," said Samson. "Not Miss Vesty Custis?"

"Yes, Samson. Princess Anne may now have something to howl at. The poor

girl may be lonesome, as, no doubt, she will be dropped everywhere on my

account, and not a soul can I think of, to be my young lady's maid,

unless it is Rhody."

"Yes, Marster, wid all your money you're pore in friends; in

women-friends you is starved."

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

see me married."

"Yes, sir. Dat I do! Wouldn't miss dat fo' my Christmas gift. I 'spect

dat gal Virgie will come wid Miss Vesty to de cer'mony, marster."

"Perhaps so. You are not thinking of love, too, Samson?"

"Well, don't know, marster. Virgie's a fine gal, sho' I am a little old,

Marster Milburn, but I'll have to look out for myseff, I 'spec, now you

done burnt down my spreein' place. Dar's a wife comin' in yar now. So if

you don't speak a good word fur me wid some o' Miss Vesty's gals, I'm

aboot done."

"Well, boy," Meshach said, "you have got the same chance I had: the

upper hand. I owe you a nice little sum in wages, and you may be able to

buy one of the Custis housemaids, and set her free, and marry her, or,

be her owner. You are a free man."

Samson shook his head gravely.

"Dat won't do among niggers," he said. "Niggers never kin play de upper

hand in love, like white people. Dey has to do it by love itseff: by

kindness, marster."

Before nine o'clock Milburn and his negro left the old store by the town

bridge, and passing by the river lane called Front Street, into Church

Street, walked back of the hotel, avoiding its triflers, and reached the

church in a few minutes unobserved. The long windows shed some light,

however, but as it was Saturday night, this was attributed, by the few

who noticed it, to preparations for the next Sabbath morning. Before

setting out, Samson Hat, observing his employer to shake a trifle, asked

him if a dram of whiskey would not be proper.

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

find my manners."

He entered the church, and found it warmed, and the minister already

present in his surplice, kneeling alone at the altar. Mr. Tilghman

arose, with his youthful face very pale, and tears upon his cheeks, and

seeing his neglected parishioner and the serving-man, came down the

aisle.

"Mr. Milburn," he said, extending his hand, "I hope to congratulate,

after this ceremony, a Christian-hearted bridegroom, and one who will

take the rare charge which has fallen to him, in tender keeping. My

endeavor shall be to love you, sir, if you will let me! Miss Vesta is

the priestess of Princess Anne, and if you take her from our sight and

hearing, even God's ministrations in this church will seem hollow, I

fear."

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

pastor."

"You have been a faithful parishioner," resumed Tilghman, "during my

brief labor here, as in my boyhood, when I little dreamed I should fill

that desk. You know, perhaps, that it was from the hopeless love of my

cousin Custis, I fled to God for consolation, and he made me his humble

minister."

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

"Pardon my mentioning a subject so irrelevant to you, sir, but, though I

have surrendered every vain emotion for my cousin, her happiness is a

part of my religion, and this sudden conclusion of her marriage, about

which I have asked only one question, has urged me to throw myself upon

your sympathy."

"What do you ask, William Tilghman? No matter--your request is granted."

"How have I won your favor?" the young rector asked, somewhat surprised.

Milburn mechanically picked his hat from a pew, and held it a little way

up.

"You were the only boy in this village who never cried after this hat."

"Then it was probably overlooked by me. I was like the other boys,

mischievous, before my spirits had been depressed by unhappy love, and I

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

"It was grateful to see that exception," said Milburn; "hooted people

make fine distinctions."

"Oh, Mr. Milburn, forgive the boys! They are made for laughter, and

little causes excite it, like dogs to bark, from health and

exercise--scarcely more than that. The request I make is to let me be

your friend, because I have been your wife's! Frankness becomes my

calling, and I think you need friendly, cordial surroundings to bring

out your usefulness, and give you the freedom that will take constraint

out of your family life, and, without diminishing your good

sensibilities, dispel any morbid ones. This will open a way for Vesta to

see her domestic career, which, otherwise, might become so rapidly

contracted as to disappoint you both. You have seen her the idol of her

wide circle, free as a bird, indulged by her kind, and by Providence

also, till joy and grace, beauty and health, faith and hope live

abundant in her, and you are the beneficiary of it all. Her society

hereafter you must control. May I become your friend, and let my love

for your wife recommend me to your confidence, as you to mine and to my

prayers?"

"Have I another friend already?" exclaimed Milburn, his voice quivering.

"What wealth she brings me never known before! William, you will be ever

welcome to me."

They clasped hands upon it, and old Samson Hat, sitting back, was heard

to chuckle aloud such a warming laugh, that Meshach's response to it, in

a sudden pallid shivering, seemed slightly out of keeping. He was

recalled, however, by the entrance of Judge Custis with his daughter,

and her maid, Virgie.

Vesta was very pale, but neither shrinking nor negative. On the

contrary, she supported her father rather than received his support, and

Milburn saw the Judge's worn, helpless face, with the pride faded from

it, and pity for his daughter absorbing every other feeling of

depression.

He wore his best cloth suit, with the coat tails falling to his knees

behind, the body cut square to the hips, and the collar raised high upon

his stock of white enamelled English leather. His low-buttoned vest

exposed his shirt-buttons of crystal and gilt, and a ruffle, ironed by

Roxy's slender hands with nimble touches, parted down the middle like

sea foam on shell, and similar ruffles at the wrists were clasped by

chain buttons of pearl and silver. His vest was of figured Marseilles

stuff, and gaiters of the same material partly covered his shoes; and

his heavy seal, with his coat of arms upon it, fell from a pale ribbon

at his fob. Debtor though he was, and answering at the bar of the church

to a heavy personal and family judgment, his large and flowing lines of

body, deeply cut chin, full eyes, and natural height and grace of

stature made him a marked and noble presence anywhere.

Vesta Custis, dropping off a mantle of blue velvet at a touch of her

maid, stood in a party dress of white silk, the neck, shoulders, and

arms bare; and, as she halted a minute in the aisle, Virgie struck the

cloth sandals from her mistress's white slippers of silk, and, removing

her hood of home-embroidered cloth, a veil of white fell to her train.

The dingy light from the lamps of whale-oil gathered, like poor folks'

children's marvelling eyes, around the pair of diamonds in her

delicately moulded, but alert and generous ears. Her fine gold

watch-chain, twice dependent from her neck, disappeared in the snowy

mould of her bosom, on whose heaving drift swam a magnolia-bud and

blossom, each with a leaf. Her father's picture, in a careful miniature

set in pearls, lay higher on her breast, fastened by a pearl necklace.

Her hands were covered with white gloves, and her arms were without

ornament. Her hair, dropping in dark ringlets around her forehead and

temples, was combed upward farther back, and then gathered around a

pearl comb in high braids, and the plentiful loops drooped to her

shoulder.

Milburn glanced at the treasures of her peerless bodily charms, never

till now revealed to his sight, and their splendor almost made him

afraid.

Never had he been at a theatre, a ball, or anywhere from which he could

have foreseen a swan-like neck and bosom sculptured like these, and arms

as white as the limbs of the silver-maple, and warmed with bridal-life

and modesty.

Her lips, parted and red, her great rich eyes a goddess might have

commanded through, with their eyebrows of raven-black, like entrances to

the caves of the Cumaean sibyl, her small head borne as easily upon her

neck as a dove upon a sprig--all flashed upon Milburn's thrilled yet

flinching soul, as the revelation of a divinity.

As she stepped forward he spoke to her with that bold instinct or

ecstasy she had observed when she first addressed him in her father's

house, ten hours before.

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

"Sir, such as I could command upon this necessity I thought to do you

honor with."

"For _me_, to look so beautiful! what can I say? You are very lovely!"

"It is gracious of you to praise me. Shall we wait, or are you ready?"

He gave her his hand, unable to speak again, and she was calm enough to

notice that his hand was now hot, as if he had fever. Her father, at her

side, reached out also, and took the bridegroom's other hand:

"Milburn," he said, huskily, "this is no work of mine. My daughter has

my consent only because it is her will."

"The nobler to me for that," Milburn spoke, with his countenance

strangely flushed. "What shall we do, my lady?"

"Give me your arm; not that one. This is right. Have you brought a ring,

sir?"

"Yes." He drew from his vest pocket a little, lean gold ring, worth

hardly half a dollar.

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

Without another word she walked forward, her arm drawing him on, Virgie

following, and her father bringing up the rear. Samson Hat, feeling

uneasy at being awarded no part in the ceremony, slipped up the aisle as

far as the big, stiff-aproned stove in the middle of the church, behind

which he ducked his body, but kept his head and faculties in the centre

of the events.

Mr. Tilghman had preceded them in his surplice, and taking his place at

the altar, with his countenance pale as death, he read the exordium in

an altered voice: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here, and in

the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in

holy matrimony."

"What 'company' is here?" thought Vesta. "Not alone these poor negroes

and my father; no, I feel behind me, looking on, the generations of our

pride and helpless ease, the worthy younger suitors I have been too

exacting and particular to see the consideration and merits of, the

golden hours I might have improved my mind in, with brilliant

opportunities I was not jealous of, and which will be mine no more,

because I had not trimmed my virgin lamp; and so I slept away my

girlhood, till now I awaken at the cry, 'The bridegroom cometh,' and I

behold! Yes, I have been a foolish virgin, and am surprised when my fate

is here! Perhaps my guardian angel also stands behind me, the cross

advanced that I must take, my crown concealed; but somewhere, midway of

this journey of life, she may give it to me, and say, 'Well done!'"

"This 'company,'" thought Milburn, with swimming head, "gathered to see

me marry! what company? I seem to feel, besides these negroes, my sole

spectators, the populous forest peering on, the barefoot generations,

the illiterate broods, the instinctive parents, the sandy graves. They

give forth my lost tribe, and all cry at me, 'Go, leave us, proud one!

despiser, go!' Yet there is one I see, pure as my bride, white as my

captive's bosom, her soul all in her believing eyes, and saying, 'Oh, my

son, it is a woman like me that has come into your life, and her heart

is very tender, and, by your mother's dying love! be kind to the poor

stranger you have bought.'"

He answered, "I will!" aloud, and it seemed almost a miraculous

coincidence that it was a response to the minister's question, till he

heard the corresponding inquiry put to his bride in the clergyman's low,

but gentlest, tones:

"Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him, in

sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto

him, so long as ye both shall live?"

"I will!" spoke the Judge's daughter, clear as music, and the Judge drew

a long, deep sigh, saturated with tears, as if from the deepest wells of

grief.

He could not distinctly answer, as he joined her hand to the minister's.

The minister lost his office and speech for a moment, joining her hand

to the bridegroom's. The slave-girl burst into a wail she could not

control, and only Vesta stood calm as her bridegroom, putting her cool,

moist hand in his palm of fire, and waited to repeat the Church's

deliberate language.

When both had made this solemn promise, she reached for the little ring,

and gave it to her old lover, the minister, and Virgie loosed her glove.

Mr. Tilghman, his tears silently falling upon his book, passed the ring

to Meshach, and saw its tiny circle hoop her white finger round, no

bigger than a straw, yet formidable as the martyr's chain. His prayers

were said with deep feeling, and he pronounced them man and wife. Then,

shaking Meshach's hand, he said, with his boyish countenance bright as

faith could make it:

"My friend, may I take my kiss?"

Meshach nodded his head, but his face was like a ball of fire, and he

hardly knew what was asked. Mr. Tilghman kissed Vesta, saying,

"Cousin, your husband is my friend, and love and friendship both

surround you now. May your happiness be, like your goodness, securest

when you surmount difficulties, like those birds that cannot float at

perfect grace till they have struggled above the clouds."

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

rich eyes.

As she obediently raised her lips, a strange, warm, husky breath, not

natural nor even passionate, came from his nostrils. The Judge, looking

at this--no pleasing scene to him, the fairest Custis in two hundred

years being devoured before his sight--exclaimed within his soul,

"Is Meshach drinking? His eyes look fiery."

So, after kissing his daughter also, and saying, "May God reward you

with triumphs and compensation beyond our fears!" the Judge said:

"Milburn, I suppose, in the sudden conclusion of this union, you have

made no arrangements as to where you will go; so come, of course, to

Teackle Hall, and make it your home."

"Is that your wish, my dear one?"

Vesta replied, "Yes. But it is yours to choose, sir."

"You have some business with your father for an hour," Milburn said;

"meantime, I require something at my warehouse, and, as it is yet early

in the night, may I leave you a little while?"

She bowed her head again, and, while they proceeded towards the

church-door, lingering there, Samson took the opportunity to seize both

of Virgie's hands.

"Virgie," he exclaimed, "is all dat kissin a gwyin on an' we black folks

git none of it? Come hyeah, purty gal, an' kiss yer ole gran'fadder!"

Virgie consented without resistance, till Samson continued, "Oh, what

peach an' honey, Virgie! Gi me anoder one! I say, Virgie, sence my

marster an' your mistis have done gone an' leff us two orphans, sposen

we git Mr. Tilghman to pernounce us man an' wife, too?" Then Virgie drew

away.

"Samson Hat," she said, "what's that you are talking about? You ought to

be ashamed of yourself. You are old enough to be my father!"

"'Deed I ain't, my love. I'm good as four o' dese new kine o' Somoset

County beaux. I'm a free man. Maybe I'll sot you free too, Virgie--me

an' my marster yonder. He says we better git married. 'Deed he does."

"You are just an impertinent old negro," the girl replied. "Do you

suppose any well-raised girl would have a man who got rich by cleaning

the Bad Man's hat? You're nothing but the devil's serving-man, sir."

"Look out dat debbil don't ketch you, den," said Samson. "You pore,

foolish, believin' chile! Look out dem purty black eyes don't cry for

ole Samson yit. He's done bound to marry some spring chicken, ole Samson

is, an' I reckon you'll brile de tenderest, Virgie."

Virgie, indignant, but fluttered at her first real proposal, and from

one of the richest men of her color in Princess Anne, hastened to tie on

her young mistress's walking-shoes, and, as they all stepped from the

happy old church, where Vesta's voice had so often pierced, in her

flights of harmony, to a bliss that seemed to carry her soul, like a

lark, to heaven's gate, that

"singing, still dost soar, and, soaring, ever singest,"

she saw fall upon the pavement of the churchyard the long, preposterous,

moon-thrown hat of the bridegroom.

"Oh, what will he do with that hat, now that he has married me?" Vesta

thought. "Will he continue to afflict me with it?"

Her heart sank down, so that she felt relieved when he kissed her again

at the church-gate, and saying, "I will come soon, darling," went, with

his man, into Princess Anne.

"Is your buggy ready harnessed, Samson?" his master asked, when they

turned the court-house corner.

"Yes, marster."

At this moment a large crowd of men, comprising all the idle population

in town, as well as many Saturday-night bacchanalians from the country

and coasts, some standing before the tavern, others on the opposite

sidewalks or gathered on the court-house corner, seeing the hatted

figure of Meshach rise against the moonlight, raised the scattering

cry, finally deepening into a yell, of:

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

hat!"

With a minute's irresolution, as if hesitating to go through the crowd,

Milburn turned into the main street, crossed it, and continued down the

opposite sidewalk, on the same side with his domicile, the jeers and

jests still continuing.

"Dar's rum a workin' in dis town all arternoon, marster," his faithful

negro said, "eber sence dat long man come in from de churchyard wid

Levin Dennis. Look out, marster!"

He had scarcely spoken, when three men were seen to bar the way, two of

them drunk, the third ugly with drink, emerging from a groggery that

stood across the street from the tavern, where further beverage had been

denied them. The first was Jack Wonnell. He hiccoughed, cried

"Steeple-top!" and slunk behind a mulberry-tree. The second man was

Levin Dennis, hardly able to stand, and he sat down on the groggery

step, smiling up idiotically.

The third man, rising like a giant out of his boots, with his arms

swaying like loose grapevines, and his bearded face streaked with

tobacco drippings, looking insolence and contempt, brought the flat of

one hand fairly down on the crown of Milburn's surprising tile, with the

words:

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

The hat, age being against it, wilted down on Meshach's eyes, and the

heedless stroke, unconsciously powerful, staggered him.

Samson, who had drunk in the giant's qualifications with an instant's

admiration, immediately drew off, seeing his master insulted, and struck

the tall stranger a blow with his fist. The man reeled, rallied, and

sought to grapple with Samson. That skilful pugilist bent his knees,

slided his shoulders back, and, avoiding the clutch, raised, and threw

his trunk forward, with the blow studied well, and planted his knuckles

in the white man's eyes. The tall ruffian went down as from a bolt of

lightning.

Milburn saw all this happen in a minute of time, and his eye, looking

for something to defend himself, dropped on the brick pier under the

groggery steps, where Levin Dennis sat, stupefied by the scene. A brick

in the pier was loose, and Milburn stepped towards it. In this small

interval the hardy stranger had recovered himself and staggered to his

feet, and had drawn a dirk-knife.

"The ruffian oly you!" he bellowed. "Knocked down! by a nigger, too!

Hell have you, then!"

As he darted forward, he described a rapid circle backward and downward

with the knife, aiming to turn it through Samson's bowels, which he

would have done--that valorous servant being without defence, and not so

much as a pebble of stone lying on the bare plain of the soil to give

him aid--had not Meshach, wresting the loose brick from the pier, aimed

it at the corresponding exposed portion of the assassin's body, and

struck him full in the pit of the stomach. The man's eyes rolled, and he

fell, like one stone-dead, his dirk sticking in the sidewalk.

"Let him lie there," said Meshach, contemptuously. "No danger of such a

dog dying! If there is time he shall mend in the jail. Take to your

buggy, boy, and keep out of the way."

The negro needed no warning, as the impiety of striking a white man was

forbidden in a larger book than the Bible--the book of ignorance. He

disappeared through the houses and was a mile out of Princess Anne,

driving fast, before the new man had raised his head from the ground.

"Where is the nigger?" he gasped, his paleface painted by his bloodshot

eyes. "What kind of coves are you to let a black bloke fight a white

man? I'll cut his heart out before I tip the town."

He looked around on the crew which had crossed over from the tavern;

Meshach had vanished in his store at the descent of the road. Jimmy

Phoebus was the only one to speak.

"Nigger buyer," he said, "if you are around this town from now till

midnight, or after midnight to-morrer, Sunday night, ole Meshach Milburn

will have you in that air jail till Spring. By smoke! he'll find out yer

aunty's cedents, whair you goin, whair you been, what's yer splurge, an

all yer hokey pokey. You've struck the Ark of the Lord this time--ole

Milburn's Entailed Hat! Take my advice an' travel!"

The man washed his face at the tavern pump, turned the bank corner, and

disappeared in the night towards Teackle Hall.