The Entailed Hat Part 47

"They hated free n.i.g.g.e.rs as if they was all Tories an' didn't love Amerikey. So, seein' the free n.i.g.g.e.rs hadn't no friends, these Johnsons an' Patty Cannon begun to steal 'em, by smoke! There was only a million n.i.g.g.e.rs in the whole country; Louisiana was a-roarin' for 'em; every n.i.g.g.e.r was wuth twenty horses or thirty yokes of oxen, or two good farms around yer, an' these kidnappers made money like smoke, bought the lawyers, went into polytics, an' got sech a high hand that they tried a murderin' of the n.i.g.g.e.r traders from Georgey an' down thar, comin' yer full of gold to buy free people. That give 'em a back-set, an' they hung some of Patty's band--some at Georgetown, some at Cambridge."

"If my baby's made white in heaven, I'm afraid I won't know him," the woman said, nodding, and wandering in her mind.

"At last the Delawareans marched on Johnson's Cross-roads an' cleaned his Pangymonum thar out, an' guarded him, and sixteen pore n.i.g.g.e.rs in chains he'd kidnapped, to Georgetown jail. Young John M. Clayton was paid by the Phildelfy Quakers to git him convicted. Johnson was strong in the county--we're in it now, Suss.e.x--an' if Clayton hadn't skeered the jury almost to death, it would have disagreed. He held 'em over bilin' h.e.l.l, an' dipped 'em thar till the court-room was like a Methodis' revival meetin', with half that jury cryin' 'Save me, save me, Lord!' while some of 'em had Joe Johnson's money in their pockets. Joe was licked at the post, banished from the state, an' so skeered that he laid low awhile, goin' off somewhar--to Missoury, or Floridey, or Allybamy. But Patty Cannon never flinched; she trained the young boys around yer to be her sleuth-hounds an' go stealin' for her; an', till she dies, it's safer to be a chicken than a free n.i.g.g.e.r. They stole you, pore creatur' from Phildelfy, an' they steal 'em in Jersey and away into North Carliney; fur Joe Johnson's a smart feller fur enterprise, and Patty Cannon's deep as death an' the grave."

Phoebus looked at the woman sitting in the scow, and he saw that she was fast asleep; his tale having no power to startle her senses, now worn-out by every infliction.

"I must git that ball an' chain off," the sailor said; "but iron, in these ole sandy parts, is scarce as gold."

He lifted her out of the scow and laid her in the shade, and began to explore the old house. To his joy, he found the iron crane still hanging in the chimney, and signs of recent fire.

"These yer ole cranes was valleyble once," Jimmy said, "an' in the wills they left 'em to their children like farms, an' lawsuits was had over the bilin' pots an' the biggest kittles. It broke a woman's heart to git a little kittle left her, an' the big-kittled gal was jest pestered with beaux. But, by smoke! we're a-makin' iron now in Amerikey! Kittles is cheap, and that's why this crane is left by robbers an' gypsies after they used it."

He twisted the crane out of the bricks on which it was hinged, and some of the mantel jamb fell down.

"Hallo!" cried Jimmy, "what's this a rollin' yer? A shillin', by George!

I say, by George, this time caze ole George the Third's picter's on it.

Maybe thar's more of 'em."

He pulled a few bricks out of the jamb, and raked the hollow s.p.a.ce inside with his hand, and brought forth a steel purse of English manufacture, filled with shillings at one end, and fifteen golden guineas at the other; they rolled out through the decayed filigree, rusted, probably, by the rain percolating through the chimney, and the purse crumbled to iron-mould in his hand.

"'The Lord is my shepherd,'" said the sailor, reverently; "'I shall not want. He leadeth me by the still waters.' How beautiful Ellenory says it. Look thar at the waters of the Nantic.o.ke, beautiful as silver. Lord, make 'em pure waters an' free, to every pore creatur!"

"To who! to who!" screamed a voice out of the hollow chimney.

"Well," answered Jimmy, hardly excited, "I ain't partickler. Ha! I thought I knew you, Barney," he continued, as an owl fluttered out and hopped up a ruined stairway.

"Now, British money ain't coined by Uncle Sam; what is the date? I can make figgers out easy: Eighteen hundred and fifteen!' I was about to do Ebenezer Johnson the onjustice of saying that he'd sold his country out to ole Admiral c.o.c.kburn, but the war was done when this money was coined. Whose was it?"

He removed more carefully some of the bricks, to put his hand in the hollow depository left there, and, feeling around and higher up, brought out the bronze hilt of a sword, on which was a name.

"Who would have thought this was a house of learnin'?" Jimmy said, dubiously. "I can't read it. By smoke! maybe they've murdered somebody yer. I reckon he was British. Ellenory kin read it, if I live to see her agin."

There was nothing more, and, as he left the rotting old house, a crash and a cloud of smoke rose up behind him, and the chimney fell into the middle of the floor.

With the crane's sharp wrought-iron point and long leverage the pungy captain succeeded, after tedious efforts, in breaking the links of the chain and also in removing the linked cannon-ball from the woman's foot, but he could not remove the iron band and link around her ankle.

"G.o.d bless you!" exclaimed the woman. "It's a sin to say so, but I feel as if I could fly since that dreadful weight is off. Oh, I want to fly, for I dreamed of my baby, an' he smiled at me from heaven as if he said, 'I'm happy, mamma!'"

"You don't owe me nothin', Mary. I love a widder, as you air, an' she begged me to come yer. When you git to Prencess Anne, whar I want you to go, find Ellenory Dennis, an' tell her I've seen her boy, an' I'll bring him back if I kin."

"Princess Anne? where is it?"

"It's maybe, forty mile from yer, Mary; half-way between sunrise and sunset."

"Right south, sir?"

"That's it. Now I'll tell you how to git thar. Take this old woods road along Broad Creek and walk to Laurel, five miles; it's a little town on the creek. Keep in under the woods, but don't lose the road, fur every foot of it's dangerous to n.i.g.g.e.rs. You kin git thar, maybe, by dark. I don't know n.o.body thar, Mary, an' I can't write, fur I never learned how. But you go right to the house of some preacher of the Gospel, and tell him a lie."

Mary opened her eyes.

"I wouldn't have you tell a lie to anybody but a good man," continued Phoebus, "fur then it's so close to the Lord it won't git fur an'

pizen many, as lies always does. You must tell that preacher that you're the runaway slave of Judge Custis of Prencess Anne, an' you're sorry you run away, an' want to go home."

"Oh, sir, you are not like my wicked husband, trying to sell me too?"

"No, Mary, bad as you've been used, faith's your only sure friend. If you was to tell the preacher you had been kidnapped, he'd, maybe, be afraid to help you. They're a timid set down yer on any subject concernin' n.i.g.g.e.rs; these preachers will help save black folks' souls, but never rescue their pore broken bodies. When you tell him you are the slave of a rich man like Judge Custis, he'll jump at the chance to do the Judge a favor, an' tell you that you do right to go back to your master. That's whair he's a liar, Mary--so he'll scratch _your_ lie off."

"They'll turn me back at Princess Anne, and wont know me, maybe."

"Not if you do this, Mary. Make them take you to Judge Custis's daughter--the one that's just been married. Tell her you want to speak to her privately. Then tell her the n.i.g.g.e.r-skinned man--I'm him--that she sent away with her mother, found you whar you was chained in the woods. Take this link of the chain to show her. Tell her you want to be her cook till the one that run away is found."

"I'll do it, sir. I've got no home to go to, now."

"Tell her all you remember. Tell her not to tell Ellenory any of my troubles. Tell her I'm a-startin' for Pangymonum, an', if I die, it's nothin' but a bachelor keepin' his own solitary company. Yer's a gold piece an' three silver pieces I found, Mary, to pay your way. Good-bye."

"Won't you give me your knife?" asked the woman.

"What fur, Mary?"

"To kill myself if they kidnap me again."

"I have nothin' else to fight for my life with," said Phoebus. "No, you must not do that. Keep in the woods to Laurel."

She fell on the ground and kissed his knees, and bathed them with her tears.

"I do have faith, master," she said, "faith enough to be your slave."

"I'd cry a little, too," said Jimmy, twitching his eyes, as the woman disappeared in the forest, "if I knowed how to do it; but, by smoke! the wind on the bay's dried up my tear ponds. I'll bury these curiosities right yer, with this chain and ball, and put some old bricks around' em outen the chimney they come from."

He dug a hole with his knife, carefully cutting out a piece of the sod, and restoring it over the buried articles; and, after notching some trees to mark the place, he pushed in the scow again into Broad Creek, and descended the Nantic.o.ke on the falling tide to Twiford's wharf.

Dragging the scow up the bed of a creek to conceal it, he discovered another boundary stone. A beach led under the cover of a sandy bluff to the river gate of Twiford's comfortable house, and he boldly entered the lane and lawn, saying to himself:

"I reckon a feller can ask to buy one squar meal a day in a free country, fur I'm hungry."

Even in that day the house was probably seventy years old, roofed by an artistic shingler in lines like old lace-work, the short roofs over the three pretty dormers like laced bib-ap.r.o.ns, the window-cas.e.m.e.nts in small checkers of dark gla.s.s, the roof capacious as an armadillo's back or land-turtle's; but half of it was almost as straight as the walls, and the small, foreign bricks in the gables, glazed black and dark-red alternately, were laid by conscientious workmen, and bade fair to stand another hundred years, as they smoked their tidy chimney pipes from hearty stomachs of fireplaces below.

Standing beneath the honey-locust tree at the lawn-gate, the sailor beheld an extensive prospect of the river Nantic.o.ke, bending in a beautiful curve, like the rim of a silver salver, towards the south, the blue perspective of the surrounding woods fading into the azure bluffs on the farther sh.o.r.e, where, as he now identified it, the hamlet of Sharptown a.s.sumed the mystery and similitude of a city by the enchantment of distance. A large brig was riding up the river under the afternoon breeze, carrying the English flag at her spanker. The wild-fowl, flying in V-formed lines, like Hyads astray, flickered on the salver of the river like house-flies. Some fishermen distantly appeared, human, yet nearly stationary, as if to enliven a dream, and the bees in a row of hives kept murmuring near by, increasing the restful sense in the heart and the ears.

"Why cannot human natur be happy yer, pertickler with its gal--some one like Ellenory?" Phoebus thought; "why must it git cruel an' desperate for money, lookin' out on this dancin' water, an' want to turn this trance into a Pangymonum?"

He crossed the lane to a squatty old structure of brick by the water-side, and peeped in.

"A still, by smoke!" he said. "If it ain't apple brandy may I forgit my compa.s.s! No, it's peach brandy. Well, anyway, it's hot enough; an' this, I 'spect, is what started the Pangymonum."

He took a stout drink, and it revived his weakened system, and he bathed his head in its strong alcohol. He then returned to the lawn and walked around the house, peeping into the lower rooms--of which there were two in the main building, the kitchen being an appendage--but saw n.o.body.

The porch in the rear extended the full width of the house, unlike the smaller shed in front, which only covered two doors, standing curiously side by side.