The Entailed Hat Part 84

"Joe," whispered the woman's husband, "you're only four mile from Dover.

Maybe it's warrants for both of us?"

"Hike, then!" hissed the pallid murderer; "the world's agin me," and he slipped away with his companion.

"Now, Bill Brinkley," the wife of Devil Jim whispered, as a tall, ingenuous-looking colored boy came in the room, "you are just in time.

She has had laudanum enough to keep her still; my daughter powdered her; let me kiss her once before she goes."

As the woman departed, the black boy, looking around him, muttered:

"Whar is dat loft? I've hearn about it."

Some movements overhead in the low dwelling directed his attention to a small trap-door, and, standing on a stool, he unbolted it and pushed it upwards, whispering,

"Any pa.s.sengers for Philadelfy? De gangplank's bein' pulled in!"

First a woolly head, then another, and next two pairs of legs appeared above.

"Take hold yer and carry de sick woman to de dearborn," the boy said, not a particle disturbed, as two frightened blacks dropped from the loft, with handcuffs upon them.

In the clear evening a wagon sped along towards the east, through the saffron marshes, tramping down the stickweed and ironweed and the golden rod, and, while the people in it cowered close, the negro driver sang, as carelessly as if he was the lord of the country:

"De people of Tuckyhoe Dey is so lazy an' loose, Dey sows no b.u.t.tons upon deir clothes, And goes widout deir use; So nature she gib dem b.u.t.tons, To grow right outen deir hides, Dat dey may take life easy, And buy no b.u.t.tons besides.

"But de people of Tuckyhoe Refuse to b.u.t.ton deir warts, Unless dey's paid a salary For practisin' of sech arts; Like de militia sogers, Dat runs to b.u.t.tons an' pay, De folks is truly shifless, On Tuckyhoe side of de bay."

A sail was seen in the starlight, rising out of the marshes at an old landing in the last elbow of Jones's Creek, and hardly had the fugitives been put on board when the anchor was weighed and the packet stood out for the broad Delaware, her captain a negro, her owner a Quaker.

The girl was awakened by the cold air of the bay striking her face.

"Freedom!" she murmured; "it must be this. Oh, I am faint for father's arms to take me."

Was this Teackle Hall that Virgie looked upon--a square, bright room, and her bed beside a window, and below her stretching streets of cobblestone and brick, and roofs of houses, to green marshes filled with cows, and a river that seemed blue as heaven, which sipped it from above like a boy drinking head downward in a spring? How beautiful! It must be freedom, Virgie thought, but why was she so cold? Her eyes, looking around the room, fell upon a lady in a cap, reading a tract to a large, shaven, square-jawed man, and this woman was of a silver kind of beauty, as if her mind had overflowed into her heart, and, not affecting it, had made her face of argent and lily, milk and sheen.

"What sayeth Brother Elias, Lucretia?"

"He sayeth, Thomas: 'This n.o.ble testimony, of refusing to partake of the spoils of oppression, lies with the dearly beloved young people of this day. We can look for but little from the aged, who have been accustomed to these things, like second nature. Without justice there can be no virtue. Oh, justice, justice, how art thou abused everywhere! Men make justice, like a nose of wax, to satisfy their desires. If the soul is possessed of love, there is quietness.'"

"Yes," said the girl, from the bed, thinking aloud; "love is quietness.

Will father come!"

She dreamed and heard and looked forth again upon the hill descending to the river, the stately sails, the farther sh.o.r.e, so like her native region, and asked with her eyes what land they might be in.

"Wilmington," said the beautiful woman. "This is the house of Thomas Garrett, the friend of slaves. When you can be moved, it shall be to the green hills of the Brandywine, where all are free."

"Hills? What are they?" mused Virgie, looking at her wasted hand. "Must I climb any more? Must I wade the swamps again? I know I have a father somewhere."

She dreamed and wept unconsciously, and told of many things at Teackle Hall, being, indeed, a little child again, playing with her little mistress, Vesta. The stars stood in the sky right over her pillow, and she talked to them, and some she seemed to know, as little Vince, or little Roxy, or Master w.i.l.l.y Tilghman, all playmates of her childhood; but ever and anon these vanished, and the young Quaker woman was reading again from the sermons of Elias Hicks, and the words were: "Love is quietness;" "Light only can qualify the soul;" "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you."

"What Comforter?" sighed Virgie, and there seemed a great blank, and then she heard a scream--was it she that screamed so?--and she was trying with all her might to get somewhere, and was fainting in the labor, but trying again and again, and then a calmness that was like gentle awe, strange because so painless, spread into her nature, and she only listened.

"My daughter," said a voice, "my own child! Call me 'father,' and say I am forgiven."

"Father! forgiven!" she murmured, and felt a warm face, that yet could not warm her own, shedding tears and kissing her, and close to it her arms were thrown tight, as if she never could let go, and everything was music, but wonderful.

She feared she must fall if she did not hold to him. Who was it that called her "daughter"? Why came those cold stars so close, as if to spy upon him?

Oh, holy purity, that held so fast and did not know, but trusted nature's quivering embrace! She wrestled with something, like a rock of ice, to move her eyes and see, or ere she was dashed down forever, the eyes that gushed for her. They were her master's.

"Master," she said, "whose am I?"

"Mine before G.o.d. Pure to my heart as your white sister, Vesta! White as young love, in fondness and trust forever!"

"And mother?" gurgled the girl's low notes; "where is she?"

"Yonder," said the Judge, "in Heaven, that will judge me, whither she winged in bearing thee to me!"

A happy light came over Virgie's face. She kissed her father twice, as if the second kiss was meant for her happier sister, and, raising her arms towards the sky he pointed to, whispered, "Freedom!" and died upon his breast.

CHAPTER XL.

HULDA BELEAGUERED.

Owen Daw brought the news of the repulse from Cowgill House and the wounding of Captain Van Dorn.

"Where is the little tacker, Levin?" asked Patty Cannon, furiously.

"Arrested, I 'spect," cried O'Day, boldly; "Van Dorn's. .h.i.t in the throat."

"He'll not talk much, then," muttered the woman; "his time had to come.

Where will I find another lover at my age? Why, honey," she chuckled to herself, in a looking-gla.s.s, "that son of his'n may come back. He's took a shine to Huldy: why not to me?"

At the idea another hideous thought came to her mind: to settle Hulda's fate in her young lover's absence, and monopolize the corrupting power over Levin Dennis, if he ever lived to see Johnson's Cross-roads again.

As individual fugitives returned, confirming the decisive repulse of the band, Patty Cannon's face grew dark, and her oaths low and deep; Cyrus James heard her say:

"If I could only hang some one for this! Joe Johnson's the white-livered sneak that would not go. I've hanged a better son-in-law."

"Aunt Patty, I love your grandchild, Huldy," Cy James ventured to say.

"The Captain's wounded and Joe's going away to Floridy. Maybe I kin git you up another band."