The Entailed Hat Part 3

No more was said until they pa.s.sed the settled part of the forest and entered one of the many straight aisles of sky and sand among the pines, which had been opened on the great furnace tract of Judge Custis. He had here several thousand acres, and for miles the roadways were cleft towards the horizon. The moon rose behind them as they entered the furnace village, and they saw the lights twinkle through the open doors of many cottages and the furnace flames dart over the forbidding mill-pond, where in the depths grew the iron ore, like a vegetable creation, and above the surface, on splayed and conical mud-washed roots, the hundreds of strong cypresses towered from the water. Between the steep banks of dark-colored pines, taller than the forest growth, this furnace lake lay black and white and burning red as the shadows, or moonrise, or flames struck upon it, and the stained water foamed through the breast or dam where the ancient road crossed between pines, cypresses and gum-trees of commanding stature.

Tawny, slimy, chilly, and solemn, the pond repeated the forms of the groves it submerged; the s.h.a.ggy shadows added depth and dread to the effect; some strange birds hooted as they dipped their wings in the surface, and, flying upward, seemed also sinking down. As Meshach felt the chill of that pond he drew down his hat and b.u.t.toned up his coat.

"The earliest fools who turned up the bog ores for wealth," he said, "released the miasmas which slew all the people roundabout. They killed all my family, but set me free."

CHAPTER IV.

DISCOVERY OF THE HEIRLOOM.

Judge Custis was in his bedroom, in the second story of the large, inn-like mansion at the middle of the village, and he was just recovering from the effects of a long wa.s.sail. In his peculiar nervous condition he started at the sound of wheels, and, drawing his curtains, looked out upon the long shadow of an advancing figure crowned with a steeple hat.

This human shadow strengthened and faded in the alternating light, until it was defined against his storehouse, his warehouse, his cabins, and the plain, and it seemed also against the wall of dense forest pines.

Then footsteps ascended the stairs. His door opened and Meshach Milburn, with his holiday hat on his head, stood on the threshold; his eyes vigilant and bold as ever, and all his Indian nature to the front.

"My G.o.d, Milburn!" exclaimed the Judge, "odd as it is to see you here, I am relieved. Old Nick, I thought, was coming."

"Shall I come in?" asked Milburn.

"Yes; I'm sleeping off a little care and business. Let your man stay outside on the porch. Draw up a chair. It's money, I suppose, that brings you here?"

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

"Judge Custis," he said, straightforwardly, "the first time you came to borrow money from me, you said that Na.s.sawongo furnace would enrich this county and raise the value of my land."

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

"Judge Custis," continued the money-lender, "I told you, when you made the first loan, that I would investigate this ore. I did so years ago.

Specimens were sent by me to Baltimore and tested there. Not content with that, I have studied the manufacture of iron for myself--the society of Princess Anne not grudging me plenty of solitude!--and I know that every ton of iron you make costs more than you get for it. The bog ore is easy to smelt; but it is corrupted by phosphate of iron and is barely marketable."

The Judge was sitting with eyes wide open, and paler than before.

"You have found that out?" he whispered. "I did not know it myself until within this year--so help me G.o.d!"

"I knew it before I made you the second loan."

"Why did you not tell me?"

"Because you forbade our relations to be anything but commercial. I was not bound to betray my knowledge."

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

"Because," said the money-lender, coolly, "you had other security. You have a daughter!"

Judge Custis broke from the bed-covers and rushed upon Meshach Milburn.

"Heathen and devil!" he shouted, taking the money-lender by the throat, "do you dare to mention her as part of your mortgage?"

They struggled together until a powerful pair of hands pinioned the Judge, and bore him back to his bed. Samson Hat was the man.

"Judge!" he exclaimed, gentle, but firm, "you is a _good_ man, but not as good as me. Cool off, Judge!"

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

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

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

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

"Judge Custis," remarked Meshach Milburn, "if the apparent social distance between us could be lessened by any argument, I might make one.

For the difference is in appearance only. The healthy flesh which gives you and yours stature and beauty is a matter of food alone. My stock has survived five generations of such diet as has bent the spines of the forest pigs and stunted the oxen. Money and family joy will give me children comely again. My life has been hard but pure."

The old Judge felt the last unconscious reflection.

"Yes," he uttered, solemnly, "no doubt Heaven marked me for some such degradation as this, when I yielded to low propensities, and sought my pleasure and companions in the huts of the forest!"

"You claim descent from the Stuart Restoration: I know the tale. A creditor of the two exiled royal brothers for sundry tavern loans and tipples drew for his obligation an office in far-off Virginia. Seizures, confiscations, the slave-trade, marriages--in short, the long game of advantage--built up the fortunes of the Custises, until they expired in a certain Judge, whose notes of hand a hard man, forest-born, held over the Judge's head on what seemed hard conditions, but conditions in which was every quality of mercy, except consideration for your pride."

The Judge made a laugh like a howl.

"_Mercy?_" he exclaimed, "you do not know what it is! To ensnare my innocent daughter in the d.a.m.ned meshes of your princ.i.p.al and interest!

Call it malignity--the visitation of your unsocial wrath on man and an angel; but not mercy!"

"Then we will call it compensation," continued Meshach Milburn: "for twenty years I have denied myself everything; you denied yourself nothing. Your substance is wasted; renew it from the abundance of my thrift. It was not with an evil design that I made myself your creditor, although, as the years have rolled onward and solitude chilled my heart, that has always pined for human friendship, I could not but see the kindling glory of your daughter's beauty. Like the schoolboys, the married husbands--yes, like the slaves--I had to admire her. Then, unknowing how deeply you were involved, I found offered to me for sale the paper you had negotiated in Baltimore--paper, Judge Custis, dishonorably negotiated!"

The money-lender rose and walked to the sad man's bed, and held the hand, full of these notes, boldly over him.

"It was despair, Milburn!" moaned the Judge.

"And so was my resolution. Said I: 'This lofty gentleman would cheat me, his neighbor, who have suffered all the contumely of this _good society_, and on starveling opportunity have slowly recovered independence. Now he shall take my place in the forest, or I will wear my hat at the head of his family table.'"

"A dreadful revenge!" whispered Custis, with a shudder. "Such a hat is worse than a cloven foot. In G.o.d's name! whence came that ominous hat?"

Milburn took up the hat and held it before the lamplight, so that its shadow stood gigantic against the wall.

"Who would think," he said, sarcastically, "that a mere head-covering, elegant in its day, could make more hostility than an idle head? I will tell you the silly secret of it. When I came from the obscurity of the forest, sensitive, and anxious to make my way, and slowly gathered capital and knowledge, a person in New York directed a letter of inquiry to me. It told how a certain Milburn, a Puritan or English Commonwealth man, had risen to great distinction in that province, and had revolutionized its government and suffered the penalty of high-treason."

"True enough," said Judge Custis, pouring a second gla.s.s of brandy; "Milburn and Leisler were executed in New York during the lifetime of the first Custis. They antic.i.p.ated the expulsion of James II., and were entrapped by their provincial enemies and made political martyrs."

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

"Of course you found them?"

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