The Entailed Hat Part 30

"What am I to do to earn all this, Mr. Johnson?"

"You comes with me fur a week,--you an' yer boat. I charters you at that figger!"

"But--mother?"

"Well, when we discharge pigwidgeon, your friend with the bell shape--Jack Sheep yer--all you got to do, Levin, is to send the hard cole to your mother by him, sayin', 'Bless you, marm; my wages will excoos my face!'"

"Oh, yes, that will do. Mother will know by the money that I have got a long job, and not be a 'spectin' of me. When do we sail, cap'n?"

"How fur is it to Prencess Anne? What time to-night kin you make it?"

Levin stepped out of the shanty and looked at the wind and water, his pulses all a-flutter between the strong brandy and the wonderful gold in his pocket; and as he watched the veering of the pine-boughs to see which way they moved, their moaning seemed to be the voice of his widowed mother by her kitchen fire that day, saying, "He is in trouble.

Where is my son? Why stays he, O my Levin?"

"The tide is on the stand, cap'n, an' will turn in half an hour. It will take us up the Manokin with this wind by dark, ef we can get water enough in the thoroughfare without going around by Little Deil's."

Johnson came out and made the same observations on wind and flood.

"I reckon it's eighteen miles to the head of deep water on Manokin, Levin?"

"Not quite, sir, through the thoroughfare; it's nigh eighteen. We've got four hours and a half of daylight yet."

"Then stand for the head of Manokin an' obey all my orders like a 'listed man, an' I'll git ye and yer mother a plantation, an' stock it with n.i.g.g.e.rs for you. Come, brace up again!"

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

While they stood in the shelter of the camp cottage going through this pastime, a voice from near at hand resounded through the woods, and made their blood stop to circulate for an instant on the arrested heart.

It was a voice making a prayer at a high pitch, as if intended to cover all the camp-ground and be heard to the outermost bounds. The sincerity of the sound made Levin Dennis feel that the camp might still be inhabited by some spiritual congregation which the eyes of profane visitors could not see--the remainder of the saints, the souls of the converted, or an ethereal host from above the solemn organ of the pines.

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

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

The accident of their coming--no unusual thing on these exposed islands--might have made untroubled people only laugh, but it produced the contrary effect on both our visitors. Levin felt a superst.i.tious fear seize upon him, and, turning to Joe Johnson, he saw that person with a face so pale that it showed his blood-gathered eye yet darker and more hideous, like a brand upon his countenance, gazing upon the late empty preaching-booth.

There Levin, turning his eyes, observed a solitary man kneeling, of a plain appearance and dress, and with locks of womanly hair falling carelessly upon a large and almost n.o.ble forehead, his arms raised to heaven and his voice flowing out in a mellow stream of supplication, in the intervals of which the geese could be heard quacking aloud and paddling their wings as they balanced and hopped over the camp-meeting arena.

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

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

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

Levin was frightened too; the more that he saw the stronger man's fear.

As they dashed across the camp-ground the wild-geese took alarm, and, some running, some flying, scudded towards the Sound. A voice from the pulpit cried after the retreating men, but only to increase their fears, and when they leaped on board the _Ellenora_, Joe Johnson was livid with terror. He ran partly down the companion-way and stopped to look back: the wild-geese were now spreading their wings like a fleet of fleecy sails, and fluttering down the sound in gallant convoy.

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

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

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

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

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

"Yer's Jack Wonnell comin' with the jug and the dinner. Sha'n't we wait fur him?"

"He's got the kingdom-come cove with him! No; stop for nothing."

But the boat had to stop, as her keel sc.r.a.ped the mud in the almost dry thoroughfare, and a plain island man of benevolent, nearly credulous, face, hailed them, saying, stutteringly:

"Ne-ne-neighbors, do-don't be sc-scared that a-way. We ain't he-eee-thens yer. Br-br-brother Wonnell's bringin' your taters and pone."

"Come on, an' be d.a.m.ned to you?" Johnson cried to Wonnell. "What do we want with this tolabon sauce?"

"Sw-w-wear not a-a-at all!" cried the parson of the islands. "'Twon't l-l-lift ye over l-l-low tide, brother. Stay an' eat, an' t-t-talk a little with us. Why, I have seen that f-f-face before!"

"Never in a gospel-ken before," the slave-dealer muttered, with an oath.

"B-but it can't be him," spoke the island parson, with solemnity. "Ole Ebenezer Johnson died s-s-several year ago."

"Who was he?" cried the slave-dealer, with a little respectful interest.

"Ebenez-z-zer Johnson," Parson Thomas replied, with a mild and credulous countenance, "was the wickedest man on the Eastern Sho' for twenty year.

P-pardon me, brother, fur a likin' ye to him, but somethin' in ye y-y-yur," pa.s.sing his hand upon his skull, "p-puts me in mind of him. It was hyur he was shot"--still keeping his hand upon the skull--"through an' through, an' died the death of the sinner. I have p-p-put my f-finger through the two holes where the b-bullet come an' went, an' rid this w-world of a d-d-demon!"

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

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

"O y-y-yes," answered the genial island exhorter, with obliging loquacity; "it was tw-w-enty-s-seven year ago that I see ole Eben-nezer Johnson come on the camp-ground of P-p-pungoteague with a mob of p-p-pirates to break up the f-f-fust Methodies camp-meetin' ever held about these sounds. He was en-c-couraged by ole King Custis, f-f-father of our Daniel Custis, of Prencess Anne, who was a b-b-big man fur the Establish Church an' d-dispised the Methodies. It was a cowardly thing to do, but while King C-C-Custis laughed and talked a' durin' of the p-p-preachin', Eb-b-b-benezer Johnson started a fight. The preacher c-c-cut his eye and saw who was a w-w-winkin' at the interference. He was a l-l-lion of the L-l-lord, and bore the c-c-commission of Immanuel.

He knowed he was outen the s-s-state of Maryland and over in the V-v-vergeenia county of Ac-c-comack, an' that if the l-l-aws was a little more t-t-tolerant sence the Revolutionary war the ar-r-ristocracy there was b-bitter as ever towards the people of the Lord. He t-t-urned from his preachin' at last, right on King Custis, an' he pinted his f-finger at him straight. The p-preacher was L-l-lorenzo Dow."

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

"That was L-l-lorenzo Dow," the parson of the islands said. "He turned on K-k-king Custis and screamed, 'W-who art thou? The L-lord shall smite thee, w-whited sepulchre, and m-mock thee in thy ch-h-hildren's children, thou A-a-a-hab and thy J-j-jezebel!' It was King Custis's wife he pinted at, too, the greatest lady and heiress in V-v-virgeenia.

Sh-h-e f-f-ainted in f-fear or r-rage to hear the prophecy and insult of her. Then, turning on Eb-b-benezer Johnson, Lorenzo Dow cried out, 'The dogs shall lie buried safer than his bones. Lay hold of him, brethren!'

And s-something in Lorenzo Dow's t-trumpet-blast made every M-methodis'

a giant. They s-swept on Ebenezer Johnson, the bully of thr-ree states, an' beat him to the ground, an' raced his band to their boats, an' then they th-hrew him into a little j-j-jail they had on the camp-ground, f-for safe keeping."

"What did King Custis do then, Pappy Thomas?" asked Levin.

"Why, brethren, what did he do but use his f-f-family influence to g-git out a warrant for the preacher and his m-managers, on the ground of f-false imprisonment and s-slander! Lorenzo Dow got over into Maryland s-safe from the warrant, but our p-presiding elder was p-put in jail till he could p-pay two thousand dollars fine. It almost beggared the poor Methodies of that day to raise so much money, but g-glory be to G-G.o.d! we can raise it now any day in the year, and in the next g-generation we can buy our p-persecutors."

"So Ebenezer Johnson, accordin' to the autum bawler's patter, got popped in the mazzard, my brother of the surplice? But he didn't climb no ladder, did he?"

The stuttering host seemed not to comprehend this sneering exclamation, and Levin Dennis said: