The Entailed Hat Part 58

The wind from the river seemed to bend the old warehouse, and the noise it made through the c.h.i.n.ks and around the corners, slightly stirring the loosely disposed pile of cottage and hut comforts, seemed to arouse low wails among these as when they were torn from the chimney side and the family.

"Where is my baby?" the cradle seemed to say, "that I received and rocked warm from the womb of pain? Oh, I am hungry for his little smile!"

"Why do I rest my busy wheel?" the spinner seemed to creak, "when I know my children are without stockings? Who keeps me here idle while Mother asks for me?"

"Where is the old gray head," sighed the feathers, sifting in the breeze from a broken pillow-case, "that every night and in the afternoons dozed on our bag of down, and picked us over once a year, and said her prayers in 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 boys are crying for food, and still there is no one to lift me on the crane and start the fire beneath me! What will they think of me, they gathered around so many years and watched me boil, and poked their little fingers in 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 forced me 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 the young wife who sewed me together and showed me so proudly, for I fear she is a-cold since her young husband died!"

These household sounds the thrilled young lovers, standing so poor and on the brink of what they knew not, seemed to hear in awe, and drew closer to each other, like young Eve and Adam in the great wreck of Paradise and at the voice of G.o.d.

Hand in hand they stepped forth into the bright light of day, and walked along the sandy street beneath the tall locust, maple, and ailanthus trees that grew in line along the front yards of the Cannon brothers.

Four large houses stood sidewise, end to end, here: first, Cannon's business house; next, Isaac Cannon's comfortable home, where he dwelt, a married man; and, third, the elegant frame mansion, with tall, airy chimneys, of Jacob Cannon the bachelor, whose house, built for a bride, had never yet been warmed by a fire; finally, the old, bow-roofed, low dwelling of the mother of the Cannons, opposite which was the ferry wharf, and Van Dorn talking to the negro ferryman.

"Levin," said pretty Hulda, not sad, but very grave, "this n.o.ble house is like that n.o.ble-looking Mr. Cannon, hollow and cold. He lives with his 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 love you, Levin. I will try to save you, if I can, because I love you, though suffering may come to me."

"No," cried Levin, "I cannot leave you, dear. If I could now cross in the 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 his mustache, 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, young people, come!"

As they pa.s.sed Cannon's place, going out of town, the familiar voice of Jacob was heard to cry:

"Owen Daw's escaped, Brother Isaac; but we'll clap it to him on a _de bonis 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 the ferry, past an ancient double puncheon house there, with an arch in the centre, young Hulda--who now wore shoes and stockings, and a presentable dress of English goods, and looked quite the woman out of her sincere and sometimes proud and eloquent eyes--said to him, as she pointed back:

"Captain, it was there my father killed the traveller, where we see the road beyond the ferry enter the pines."

"Yes," said Van Dorn, giving her a cold look; "we might see the place but for the woods. It is at a hill, a short mile from the Nantic.o.ke."

"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 hear it, too, so that no deceit shall be between us."

Her smooth, moist hair, gray, humid eyes, complexion born between the rose 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 and three miles of level road separated her from the vengeance of Patty Cannon, and that she must a.s.sert herself strongly over him.

"_Ya, ya!_ Are you not harsh? Remember, you may be whipped by your grandma."

"No, you will whip me, or kill me, if it is to be done. You dare not give me to her to punish."

"Dare not, again? Why?"

"Because you are my guardian. Between us is an instinct different from love, but strong; I feel it. I lean towards you, but not on you. What is it?"

"_O Dios!_" lisped Van Dorn, his blush suspended and his warm blue eyes fascinated by her. "Is this a child or Echo?"

"Tell me of my father's crime. I want Levin to know the wretched thing he has affection for."

"_Ayme! ah!_ Well, listen, young lovers; and see what grisly things walk in these pines! There was a man named Brereton; they call him Bruington here, where their noses are twisted and their chins weak. He came from old Lewes, off to the east by Cape Henlopen, and of a stout family, in which was a grain of evil ever smoking through the blood. Do you sometimes feel it, Hulda?"

"No, not evil like that."

"He was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and held the iron while the master struck. 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 money from his pocket, and one piece--a dollar--fell in the soft soot of the shop, 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, and laid it dead.

"When the man departed, the boy raised his foot and uncovered the dollar; 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, who might possess a dollar. He took the empty shop of Patty Cannon's first husband, years after that saint died, and worked on hobbles, clevises, and chains to hold the kidnapped articles of commerce. Naturally he kidnapped, too, and, while she was yet a child, Patty's daughter became Brereton's wife, bestowed by the fond, appreciative mother. Master Levin, if you fall into his path, Brereton's daughter may be bestowed on you. _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 to make me ashamed. I feel as if G.o.d's hand covered me like the silver dollar 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 it with her hand in Van Dorn's sight. Van Dorn spoke on rapidly:

"There were two brothers named Griffin from about Cambridge, in Maryland; spoiled boys who had taken to the flesh trade, and they stole men and gambled the proceeds away, and Brereton was their leader. One day a traveller came by from Carolina, hunting contraband slaves, and he was of your boastful sort, and dropped the hint that he had fifteen thousand dollars on his body to be invested. No later had he spoken than he felt his folly, from the burning eyes around him and watering mouths telling him to sleep there and slaves would be fetched; so he started in a fright for Laurel, by way of Cannon's Ferry, intending to deposit his money or make them deal with him there. The word was pa.s.sed to Brereton by his wife or mother-in-law, and by Brereton to the Griffins, to mount and intercept the gold. Some say," lisped Van Dorn, "that Mistress Cannon, dressed in man's clothes, commanded the band."