CHAPTER XXVII.
CANNON'S FERRY.
When it was announced to Levin and Hulda, who had meantime been talkingin the garden, dangerously near the subject of love, that they were tobe given a ride to Cannon's Ferry with Captain Van Dorn, at the especialdesire of Aunt Patty Cannon--who also sent them a handful of half-centsto spend--they were both delighted, though Hulda said:
"Dear Levin, if it was only ourselves going for good, how happy we mightbe! I could live with your beautiful mother and work for her, and,knowing me to be always there, you would bring your money home insteadof wasting it."
"Can't we do so some way?" asked Levin. "Oh, I wish I had some sense! Iwish Jimmy Phoebus was yer, Huldy, to take me out thair in the gardenan' whip me like my father. But, if I hadn't come yer, how could I haveseen you, Huldy?"
"How could I have spent such a heavenly night of peace and hope if youhad not come, dear? The Good Being must have led you to me."
"Huldy," said Levin, after thinking to the range of his knowledge,"maybe thar's a post-office at Cannon's Ferry, an' you kin write aletter to Jack Wonnell fur me."
"Why not to your mother, Levin?"
"Oh, I am ashamed to tell her; it would kill her."
"If we should be found out, Levin, Aunt Patty would kill me. There is nopaper here, no ink that I can get, the postage on a letter is almostnineteen cents, and, look! these half-cents are short of the sum by justtwo."
"I have gold," cried Levin, thinking of the residue of Joe Johnson'sbounty.
He put his hand into his pocket, but the money was no longer there.
"Hush!" cried Hulda, "you have been robbed. Everybody is robbed whosleeps here. Grandma can smell gold like the rat that finds yellowcheese."
The individual who had served the breakfast was seen coming towardsthem, a man in size, with a low forehead, no chin to speak of, a long,crane neck, and a badly scratched and festered face.
"Mister," he said to Levin, "come help me hitch the horses; I'm beat soI can't see how."
Levin started at once, suggesting to Hulda to make search for hismissing money, and, when they were in the little stable, the manobserved, in a whisper, to Levin:
"By smoke!"
Levin went on putting the bridles and breeching on the horses, when theman said again, with an insinuating grin:
"By smoke!"
"Heigh?" exclaimed Levin.
"By smoke!" the man remarked again, with a very ardent emphasis.
"You must have been in Prencess Anne," Levin said, "to swar 'by smoke.'"
The ill-raised man, with such an inferior head and cranish neck, nowslipped around to the front of Levin and looked down on him, andwhispered:
"Hokey-pokey!"
The idea crossed Levin's mind that the scullion of Patty Cannon musthave gone crazy.
"Whair did you pick up them words, Cy?" Levin asked.
"Hokey-pokey!" answered Cy James, with a more mysterious and impressivesufflation; "Hokey-pokey! By smoke! and Pangymonum, too!"
"Why, Cy! what do you mean? Jimmy Phoebus never swars but in them airwords. Do you know Jimmy Phoebus?"
"Pangymonum, too!" hissed Cy James, with every animation. "Hokey-pokey,three! an' By smoke, one!"
He put his long arms on his knees, and bent down like a great goose, andstared into Levin's eyes.
"I never had sense enough," Levin said, "to guess a riddle, Cy Jeems.Them words I have hearn a good man--my mother's friend--use so oftenthat they scare me. My mind's been a-thinkin' on him night an' day. Oh,is he dead?"
"By smoke! Hokey-pokey! an' Pangymonum, too!" the long, lean, excitedfellow whispered, with the greatest solemnity.
"They're Jimmy Phoebus's daily words, dear Cyrus. He was killed on theriver night before last; I saw him fall; it is my sin and misery."
"He ain't dead," Cy James whispered, very low and carefully. "I won'ttell you whar he is till you make Huldy _like_ me."
"How kin I do that, Cy?"
"She thinks I'm a coward and gits whipped by Owen Daw. Tell her I ain'tno coward. Tell her I'm goin' to fry all these people on my griddle--allbut Huldy. Tell her I'm only playin' coward till I gets 'em all inbatter an' the griddle greased, an' then I'll be the bully of theCross-roads!"
"Do you hate _me_, Cy Jeems? I ain't done nothin' to you. I'm aprisoner here till I kin git my boat back from Joe an' go to PrencessAnne."
"I won't hate you if you kin make Huldy love me," Cy James replied."Tell her I ain't no coward; that I'm goin' to be free, an' rich too."He dropped his palms to his knees again, and whispered, "fur I know wharole Patty buries her gole an' silver!"
"Come with those horses, you idle lads," the lisping voice of theCaptain was heard to call. "_Ya, ya!_ there, _luego!_ the morning passeson."
"All ready," Cy James replied, and as they left the stable door hewhispered once again, and looked significantly towards Johnson'sCross-roads:
"By smoke! Hokey-pokey! an' Pangymonum, too!"
The Captain, looking like a gentleman of the knightly ages misplaced inthis forest lair, held the reins standing on the ground, and handedHulda in to the seat beside his own with a grace and a blush and alisping laugh that, Levin thought, were very fascinating.
"Now, Master Cannon, take your place in the tail of the vehicle," theCaptain said, bowing to Levin, and darting one of those cold, coarselooks at him that he vouchsafed but for a moment, like a soft cat thathas all the nature of the rabbit except the tiger's glare.
The vehicle was an old wagon without springs, and Levin's seat was apiece of board, while Hulda's had a back to it, and the Captain hadpadded it with a bear's-skin robe. He looked with the most delicateattention at Hulda, blushed when she looked at him, and, scarcelynoticing the horses, yet having them under nearly automatic control, hedrove out of Patty Cannon's lane and turned into the woods.
Levin cast one long, prying look at Johnson's tavern, wishing he mighthave the gift to see through its weather-stained planking and tall blankroof, and then he watched the road, of hard sand or piney litter, withhere and there a mud-hole or long, puddly rut in it, unravel like aribbon behind the wheels among the thick pines.
He also observed the skill with which the Captain threw his long cowhidewhip, a mere strip of rawhide fastened to a stick, awkward in otherhands; but Van Dorn could brush a fly from either of the short, shaggyDelaware horses with it, and hardly look where he struck or disturb thehorse, and he could deliver a blow with it by mere sleight that made theanimal stagger and tremble with the abrupt pain.
At a little sandy rill, the only one they crossed, a long water-snakeendeavored to escape before the rapid wagon could strike it, but theCaptain rose to his feet quick and cat-like, and projected the long lashinto the roadside, and the snake writhed and bounded in the air almostcut in two. Then, sitting again and bending so close to Hulda that hislong, downy mustache of gold touched her cheek, Van Dorn said, softly:
"_Que hermoso!_ Young wild-flower, let me take a snake out of your pathalso?"
"Which one, Captain?"
"It does not matter. Name any one."
"Alas!" said Hulda, "I am of them; how can I wish harm to my stepfatherand my grand-dame? They are not what I wish, but I am commanded to honorthem."
"By whom, fair Hulda?"
"By God. I read it in the Book after I heard it from a slave."
"_Donde esta!_ What slave that we know was so God-read?"
"Poor drunken Dave. He was a good man before he knew us. He told me allthe Commandments for a drink of brandy, and I wrote them down andafterwards I found them in a book."
"_Chis! chito!_ how graceful is your mind, Hulda! It comes out of theabsolute blank of your condition and discovers things, as the youngosprey, untaught before, knows where to dive for fish. Who that evercomes to Johnson's Cross-roads brings the Bible?"
"Colonel McLane."
"He? the self-righteous crocodile! he gave you the Book?"
"Yes. He told me Joe and grandma were good people--'conservative goodpeop
le,' I think he called it; but he said you believed nothing, andthere was no basis, I think he called it, for 'conservative good' inyou."
"_O hala hala!_ But this is good," the Captain softly remarked, strokinghis golden mustache with the hand that carried the lustrous ring. "PattyCannon may be saved; I must be damned; and Allan McLane will sit injudgment. No, I believe nothing, because such as they believe!"
"That is why nobody likes you," Hulda frankly observed, "agreeable asyou are."
"And can you believe in anything after the surroundings of yourchildhood, touching crime like the pond-lily that grows among thewater-snakes?"
"The lily cannot help it, and is just as white as if it grew underglass, because--"
"Because the lily has none of the blood of the snake?" the captainlisped. "Do you enter that claim?"
"No," said Hulda; "I know I am born from wicked parents, a daughter ofcrime, my father hanged, my mother of dreadful origin, but never have Ifelt that God held me accountable for their works if I kept my hearthumble and my hands from sin; and never have I been tempted yet fromwithin my own nature to enjoy a single moment of such hideousselfishness. And I thank my kind Maker that something to love andbelieve in, though unhappy as myself, has come down the sad pathway Ilooked along so many years, and found me waiting for him."
Without reply, the Captain kept his own thoughts for several minutes,and finally sighed:
"I know one thing in which I might believe, pretty child."
"Oh, then embrace it," Hulda said, "and give your faith a single strawto cling to."
Van Dorn's hand slipped around her waist, and his florid cheeks and blueeyes bent beneath her Leghorn hat:
"I find it here, perhaps, Hulda. Shall I embrace your youth with mystrong passion? I fear I love you."
"Yes," she answered, looking up with her long-lashed eyes of suchentrancing gray; "kiss me if it will give you hope!"
The blush and high color went out of his face as he stared into thosepassive, large gray orbs, wide open beneath his pouting, rich,effeminate lips, and, as he hesitated, Hulda repeated:
"Kiss me, if it will make you hope!"
"No, no," he answered; "of all places I am most hopeless _there_."
"I knew you would not kiss me," Hulda said, with a tone above him, "if Igave you the right for any pure object. The kiss _you_ would give medoes not see its mate in my soul."
"You hate me, then?" said Van Dorn.
"No, I pity you; I pray for you, too."
"For me? What interest have you in me?"
"I do not know," said Hulda. "I have often wondered what made me thinkof you so often and, yet, never with admiration. You are the only personhere who appears to have lost something by being here; some portion ofyou seems to have disappeared; I have felt that you might have been agentleman, though you can never be again. I shrink from you, and still Ipity you. But, with all your handsome ways, I would never love you,while the poor boy who is riding with us I loved as soon as he came."
"_Chis! chito!_ You can shrink from me and not from a Cannon, too? Why,girl, you have put him in my power."
"I have been in your power for a long time, Captain Van Dorn, and youhave looked at me with bold and evil eyes many a time, but never camenearer. When I gaze at you as I did just now, you fly from me. That boyI love is as safe as I am, in your hands."
"Why, dear presumer? Tell me."
"Because I love him, and you require my pity. As long as you protectthat poor orphan boy I shall carry your name to God for pardon; if youever do him harm, my prayers for you will be dumb forever."
"_Oh! ayme! ayme!_" softly laughed Van Dorn, his blush not coming now;"you forget, Hulda, that I believe in nothing."
They had hardly gone four miles when a little, low-pitched town of smallsquare houses, strewn about like toy-blocks between pairs of red outsidechimneys, sat, in the soft, humid October morning, along the rim of amarshy creek that, skirting the hamlet, flowed into the Nanticoke Rivera few miles, by its course, above Twiford's wharf. Two streets, formedby two roads, ended in a third street along the sandy, flattish rivershore, and there stood four or five larger dwellings, like theirhumbler neighbors, built of wood, but with bolder, greater chimneys,rising into the air as if in rivalry of four large ships and brigs thatlay at anchor or beside the two wharves, and threw their masts and sparsinto the sailing clouds, making the low forest that closed river andvillage in, stoop to its humility. But the beautiful river, withfrequent bluffs of sand and woods, flowing two hundred yards wide instately tide, and bearing up to Cannon's Ferry fish-boats and pungies,Yankee schooners and woodscows, and the signs of life, however lowly,that floated in blue smoke from many hearths, or sounded in oars,rigging, and lading, seemed to Hulda human joy and power, and she criedto Levin:
"Levin, oh, look! Did you ever see as big a place as this? Yonder is theroad to Seaford, just as far as we have come! The big ships are takingcorn for West Indies, and bringing sugar and molasses. That is the ferryscow, and on the other side it is only five miles to Laurel."
"Do you like to travel that road?" asked the Captain, with his pleasinglisp and blush returned again.
"It makes me sad," replied Hulda; "but I do not mutter when I go pastthe spot, like grandma."
"What spot?" asked Levin.
"Where father killed the traveller," Hulda said. "He died shamefully forit. You could almost see the place but for yonder woods, where the roadto Laurel climbs the sandy hill."
"What's this?" said Van Dorn, seeing a little crowd around one of thesingle-story cabins, and turning his team into the parallel street.
A very tall, grand-looking man towered above the rest, and seemed unableto stand upright in the low cottage, with his proportions, so that hetook his place on the grassy sand without and gave his directions tosome one within:
"Levy on the spinning-wheel! Simplify the equation! Stand by your _fi.fa.!_ Don't be chicken-hearted, constable--she's had the equivalent; nowshe sees the quotient, too."
Van Dorn looked on and saw a spinning-wheel come out of the door, and alittle wool in a bag after it. Jacob Cannon put his foot on the wheeland poked his head in the door.
"I see an axe and a coffee-mill there, constable: levy onto 'em withyour _distringas. Experientia docet stultos!_ Pass out that pair ofshoes!"
A voice of a woman crying was heard, and Van Dorn and Levin both leapedout to look.
Hulda also stepped down and disappeared.
A woman, barely able to stand up, and white as illness and anguish couldmake her, had staggered to the door to beg that her shoes be given back,and pointed to her naked feet.
"Now she's off the bed, levy on that!" cried the military figure withthe long, eloquent face and twinkling eyes; "shove it out the window.Mind your _fi. fa._ and I'll take care of the quotient."
"Have mercy!" cried the woman; "my child was only born last week."
"Fling out that good chair there, constable. Levy on the green chest!Don't you see a whole quilt or blanket anywhere! Allow neither tret norsuttle when you serve a writ for Isaac and Jacob Cannon!"
"Where shall I lie with my babe?" cried the poor woman, looking aroundon the naked cabin, where neither bed, nor blanket, nor chair, norchest, nor spinning-wheel remained.
"_Li-vari facias!_ and _fi-eri facias!_ If there's a mistake a replevinlies, but no mistakes are made by Isaac and Jacob Cannon. Constable, Ithink I see an iron pot on that crane!"
"It's got meat in it, sir--meat a-bilin'," answered the constable.
"Turn out the meat! Levy on the pot! Make the quotient accurate!Eliminate the pot from the equation!"
Out came the pot, as the material boiling in it put out the Octoberfire, and it was thrown in the miscellaneous heap at Jacob Cannon'sfeet.
"Now take the cradle, hard-hearted man," the woman cried, "and turn thebaby into the fire, too, since I can cook nothing to make its milk in mybreasts."
"Is the cradle worth anything, constable?" asked the magnificent-lookingman with the gray silvery l
ights around his horsy nose; "if it's worthtaking, I want it. People who can't pay their debts must live singlelike Jacob Cannon, and not be distrained."
A boy, with his face scratched, and dissipation settled in it, boundedsuddenly into the aghast group of spectators, and made a vicious dive torecover the effects around Jacob Cannon's feet, but that mighty worthytook him by the collar and, holding him up, dropped him over a fencelike a bug:
"Owen Daw, here be witnesses to an assault _insultus_, actionable as atrespass _vi_, the quotient whereof is damages or the equivalent inGeorgetown jail. Take heed, good citizens, and especially I note you,Captain Van Dorn."
"I'll kill him," shouted the young bully of Johnson's Cross-roads, andlate distrainer on the profile of Cyrus James, Esquire, seizing an uglystick.
"Justifiable as _son assault demesne_," remarked the creditor,carelessly, as he wrenched the bobbin from the spinning-wheel andknocked the boy down with it.
His commanding manner and the ready hand operated to abash the latter,and, deeply pained with the scene, Levin Dennis fervently andimpulsively cried to Van Dorn:
"Oh, Captain! can't you pay her debts! I'll give all Joe's going to giveme, to pay you back. See how she lays on the bare floor! Hear her childcrying for her! Oh! I think I hear my mother's voice a-callin' of mehome as I listen to it."
Van Dorn, feeling Levin's hands grasp his own with simple confidence,heard and did not turn his head, while blushes like roses bloomedsuccessively upon his fresh, effeminate cheeks. He did not repel theboy's hands, however, but looked at the scene with worldly and unpityingcuriosity.
"To pay the distraints of Isaac and Jacob Cannon," he murmured, softly,"would keep a poor slaver poor. You must grow accustomed to such cries:I had to do so. Learn to love money like that merchant and me, and youwill think them music."
"Oh, when we cry to God for mercy, captain, maybe our cries will soundlike that! I can't bear to hear it."
"You told mother, Jake Cannon, when she rented this ole house," the boy,Owen Daw, exclaimed, "that she needn't pay the rent, if she didn't wantto, till the day of judgment."
"I've got the judgment," Jacob Cannon answered, his whitish eyes seemingto chuckle to the bridge of his nose, "and this is the day it's due. Alllegal days are 'judgment days' to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."
"My son, my son," the woman's voice wailed out to Owen Daw, "I see theend of your going to Patty Cannon's: my baby to the grave, myself to thealmshouse, and you to the gallows."
"Captain, Captain," Levin cried, "oh, pay the debt for me! Mother'snever been poor as this. Pay it, and I will work fur you anywhair, dearcaptain."
"How much is the debt," asked Van Dorn, lispingly.
"Ten dollars," spoke the constable, also moved to shame.
"Cannon, will you take me for it?"
"I'll take your judgment-bond or the cash, Captain Van Dorn, nothingless."
"Put back her stuff," the captain said, slightly pressing Levin's hand,as if to say, "This is for you"--"put back her stuff and I'll settle itwith Isaac Cannon."
"God bless you!" cried the woman, taking her babe from the cradle andhushing its hunger at her breast; "they call you a wicked man, butblessings on you for all the good you do!"
"_Chito! chito!_" smiled Van Dorn. "I did it for this foolish boy; I pitynone."
Hulda had resorted to the strand, or river street of Cannon's Ferry,where there were two storehouses, and she had borrowed quill and ink,and written a letter addressed to "Mrs. Ellenora Dennis, Princess Anne,Somerset County, Maryland," saying:
"_Madam, Levin, your son, is near this place against his will, amongdangerous men and in great temptation, but he has found a friend. In oneweek this friend will try to write again, and, if not heard from, seekLevin Dennis at Johnson's Cross-roads_."
This letter, written with all her unproficient speed, had just beenfolded, wafered, and endorsed, and she had put down one of the shillingsof 1815 to pay the postage, when a shadow fell upon the store counter,and the letter was withdrawn from her hand; Van Dorn stood by her side.
"_Chis! chito! Es posible?_ A spy, perhaps. Now you will love Van Dorn,or Grandma Cannon shall hear your letter read!"
"Give it to me, Captain," Hulda pleaded; "she will kill me if she readsit."
"If it were sent, _pomarosa_, we all might die. No, you are toodangerous."
He looked, without his blush, at the shilling she was putting back inher bosom, and his eye was cold and fierce. Hulda's heart sank down.
"Brother Isaac," cried Jacob Cannon, to a man of fine, lean height, whowas at the desk--a man a little shorter than Jacob, and not so much of aking in appearance but with the same whitish eyes dancing around thebridge of his nose, and a more covert and thoughtful brow--"BrotherIsaac, Captain Van Dorn is chicken-hearted, and wants to settle the debtof the Widow O'Day, otherwise Daw."
"By cash or judgment-note, captain?"
"Cash," answered Van Dorn, modestly; "take it out of this double-eagle,with Madam Cannon's rent for your farm."
"There's a tree--a bee-tree, Brother Jacob, I think you said--cut downfrom Mrs. Cannon's field?"
"Yes, actionable under statute made and provided, wilfully to spoil ordestroy any timber or other trees, roots, shrubs, or plants; value ofsaid bee-tree three dollars; _levari facias!_ The quotient isunsatisfactory to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."
The eyes of the elder and smaller brother endeavored to have anintroduction to each other through the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, Brother Jacob," he chuckled, "what an executive help you air!Captain, isn't he a perfect Marius?"
"Madam Cannon," observed the captain, "throws up the farm with thispayment, gentlemen. She has already moved her effects across the line toson-in-law Johnson's. The bee-tree I know nothing about."
"Brother Jacob," spoke Isaac Cannon, "Moore takes the farm! Let him benotified that his rent commences without day."
"Execution made, Brother Isaac," answered the Marius of the family."This morning, perceiving Patty Cannon about to move her effects, mybailiff seized on her plough as security for the aforesaid bee-treespoiled, maimed, and destroyed, and Moore is ploughing to put in hiswheat with it already. Time is money to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."
"Ha, ha! what an executive comfort! Brother Jacob never adds an item toprofit and loss."
"Gentlemen," said Van Dorn, "I recommend you not to be chargingbee-trees to tenants in the vicinity of Johnson's Cross-roads. It's anunusual item, and we are raising young men there who may not understandit."
"Captain," said the elder Cannon, chuckling as if still in admiration ofMarius's subtlety, "I recollect now that our ferryman brought over a manfrom Laurel this morning with some news. A woman with a broken shacklereported there last night, and said she was the slave of Daniel Custisof Princess Anne: she came from Broad Creek."
"Where did she go?"
"A Methodist preacher put her in his buggy and started to her master'swith her."
"Then she'll beat the wind," said Van Dorn; "these preachers are allhorse-jockeys, and can outswap the devil. _Hola! ya, ya!_ I must see tothis."
He strode out, with a cold eye glanced at Hulda.
"Come, young people," spoke the grand head of Jacob Cannon to Levin andHulda; "I will show you my museum."
He led the way to a warehouse overhanging the river and unlocked a door,and told them to walk carefully till they could see in the dark of theinterior.
Levin kept Hulda's hand in his as they slowly saw emerge from theshadows a great variety of dissimilar things heaped together, till thehouse could hardly hold the vast aggregate of pots and kettles,spinning-wheels and cradles, bedsteads and beds, harrows and ploughs,chairs and gridirons, rakes and hoes, silhouettes and picture-frames,hand-made quilts of calico and pillows of home-plucked geese feathers,fishermen's nets and oars--whatever made the substance of living in anold country without minerals and manufactures, in the early part of thenineteenth century.
"Whare did you git' em, sir?" Levin asked.
"Executed of 'em," said the warrior head and stature of Jacob Cannon;"pounced on 'em; satisfied judgments upon 'em. _Fi. fa.!_ We callthis Peale's Museum Number Two, or the Variegated Quotient."
"All these things taken from the poor?" asked Hulda. "How many miseriesthey tell!"
"Mr. Cannon," said Levin, "what kin you do with 'em? People won't buy'em. They're just a-rottin' to pieces."
"We keep' em to show all them who trespass on Isaac and Jacob Cannon,"answered Marius, with easy grandeur, "that there is a judgment-day!"
Hulda's long-lashed gray eyes, with a look of more than childishcontempt, accompanied her words:
"I should think you would fear that day, Mr. Cannon, when you say theprayer, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassagainst us.'"
The wind from the river seemed to bend the old warehouse, and the noiseit made through the chinks and around the corners, slightly stirring theloosely disposed pile of cottage and hut comforts, seemed to arouse lowwails among these as when they were torn from the chimney side and thefamily.
"Where is my baby?" the cradle seemed to say, "that I received androcked warm from the womb of pain? Oh, I am hungry for his littlesmile!"
"Why do I rest my busy wheel?" the spinner seemed to creak, "when I knowmy children are without stockings? Who keeps me here idle while Motherasks for me?"
"Where is the old gray head," sighed the feathers, sifting in the breezefrom a broken pillow-case, "that every night and in the afternoons dozedon our bag of down, and picked us over once a year, and said her prayersin 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 boysare crying for food, and still there is no one to lift me on the craneand start the fire beneath me! What will they think of me, they gatheredaround so many years and watched me boil, and poked their little fingersin 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 forcedme 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 theyoung wife who sewed me together and showed me so proudly, for I fearshe is a-cold since her young husband died!"
These household sounds the thrilled young lovers, standing so poor andon the brink of what they knew not, seemed to hear in awe, and drewcloser to each other, like young Eve and Adam in the great wreck ofParadise and at the voice of God.
Hand in hand they stepped forth into the bright light of day, and walkedalong the sandy street beneath the tall locust, maple, and ailanthustrees that grew in line along the front yards of the Cannon brothers.Four large houses stood sidewise, end to end, here: first, Cannon'sbusiness house; next, Isaac Cannon's comfortable home, where he dwelt, amarried man; and, third, the elegant frame mansion, with tall, airychimneys, of Jacob Cannon the bachelor, whose house, built for a bride,had never yet been warmed by a fire; finally, the old, bow-roofed, lowdwelling of the mother of the Cannons, opposite which was the ferrywharf, and Van Dorn talking to the negro ferryman.
"Levin," said pretty Hulda, not sad, but very grave, "this noble houseis like that noble-looking Mr. Cannon, hollow and cold. He lives withhis 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 loveyou, Levin. I will try to save you, if I can, because I love you, thoughsuffering may come to me."
"No," cried Levin, "I cannot leave you, dear. If I could now cross inthe 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 hismustache, 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, youngpeople, come!"
As they passed Cannon's place, going out of town, the familiar voice ofJacob was heard to cry:
"Owen Daw's escaped, Brother Isaac; but we'll clap it to him on a _debonis 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 theferry, past an ancient double puncheon house there, with an arch in thecentre, young Hulda--who now wore shoes and stockings, and a presentabledress of English goods, and looked quite the woman out of her sincereand sometimes proud and eloquent eyes--said to him, as she pointed back:
"Captain, it was there my father killed the traveller, where we see theroad beyond the ferry enter the pines."
"Yes," said Van Dorn, giving her a cold look; "we might see the placebut for the woods. It is at a hill, a short mile from the Nanticoke."
"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 hearit, too, so that no deceit shall be between us."
Her smooth, moist hair, gray, humid eyes, complexion born between therose 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 andthree miles of level road separated her from the vengeance of PattyCannon, and that she must assert herself strongly over him.
"_Ya, ya!_ Are you not harsh? Remember, you may be whipped by yourgrandma."
"No, you will whip me, or kill me, if it is to be done. You dare notgive me to her to punish."
"Dare not, again? Why?"
"Because you are my guardian. Between us is an instinct different fromlove, but strong; I feel it. I lean towards you, but not on you. What isit?"
"_O Dios!_" lisped Van Dorn, his blush suspended and his warm blue eyesfascinated by her. "Is this a child or Echo?"
"Tell me of my father's crime. I want Levin to know the wretched thinghe has affection for."
"_Ayme! ah!_ Well, listen, young lovers; and see what grisly things walkin these pines! There was a man named Brereton; they call him Bruingtonhere, where their noses are twisted and their chins weak. He came fromold Lewes, off to the east by Cape Henlopen, and of a stout family, inwhich was a grain of evil ever smoking through the blood. Do yousometimes feel it, Hulda?"
"No, not evil like that."
"He was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and held the iron while the masterstruck. 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 moneyfrom his pocket, and one piece--a dollar--fell in the soft soot of theshop, 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, andlaid it dead.
"When the man departed, the boy raised his foot and uncovered thedollar; 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, whomight possess a dollar. He took the empty shop of Patty Cannon's firsthusband, years after that saint died, and worked on hobbles, clevises,and chains to hold the kidnapped articles of commerce. Naturally hekidnapped, too, and, while she was yet a child, Patty's daughter becameBrereton's wife, bestowed by the fond, appreciative mother. MasterLe
vin, if you fall into his path, Brereton's daughter may be bestowed onyou. _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 tomake me ashamed. I feel as if God's hand covered me like the silverdollar 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 itwith her hand in Van Dorn's sight. Van Dorn spoke on rapidly:
"There were two brothers named Griffin from about Cambridge, inMaryland; spoiled boys who had taken to the flesh trade, and they stolemen and gambled the proceeds away, and Brereton was their leader. Oneday a traveller came by from Carolina, hunting contraband slaves, and hewas of your boastful sort, and dropped the hint that he had fifteenthousand dollars on his body to be invested. No later had he spoken thanhe felt his folly, from the burning eyes around him and watering mouthstelling him to sleep there and slaves would be fetched; so he started ina fright for Laurel, by way of Cannon's Ferry, intending to deposit hismoney or make them deal with him there. The word was passed to Breretonby his wife or mother-in-law, and by Brereton to the Griffins, to mountand intercept the gold. Some say," lisped Van Dorn, "that MistressCannon, dressed in man's clothes, commanded the band."
A deep, chuckling interest, like the sound of a hidden brook, attendedVan Dorn's recital, and he was blushing like a girl.
"At Slabtown, a nondescript spot a mile above Cannon's, thelight-marching band crossed in a row-boat; they piled brush and bentdown saplings in the traveller's road, where he should almost reach thebrow of the hill in his buggy, and when the fleshmonger halted at theobstacle, _chis, hola!_ they let him have it on both sides, and senticicles to his heart. He drew a pistol, but in a dying hand. 'Away!'cried the assassins; 'he is not dead.' His horse, in fright at burstingfirearms in the evening shades, leaped the brushy barriers and gallopedto Laurel, and delivered there an ashy-visaged effigy, down whose beardthe red dye of his life dripped audibly, as he sat stiff in death in thebuggy. His name was only guessed; how happy he in that!"
"And what was the fate of the murderers?" Hulda asked, with less horrorthan Levin showed.
"Three of them were arrested; one of the Griffins exposed his brotherand Captain Brereton; these two died on the gallows at Georgetown, youngBrereton exerting himself under the noose to prevent his injudiciouscomrade saying too much on peerless Patty Cannon and her fair sisters,and thinking on their interests more than on this living child. Ha!Hulda _Brereton?_"
"The other Griffin also suffered death?" suggested Hulda, with a pale,unevasive countenance.
"Yes, your fond grandma, then in her blazing charms, drew him to herband again with the lure of Widow Brereton's hand; he killed a constableto recommend himself the better, and died on the gallows at his nativeCambridge. _Hala hala!_ she gave your mother, wild-flower Hulda, to JoeJohnson next to wife."
"It is an awful story," Levin said, "but Hulda never saw it."
"I can remember my father," said Hulda; "a large, strong man, with aslow, heavy face, but he never smiled on me."
"Well, here is the cross-roads," said Van Dorn. "What shall I do withthis letter, bad wild-flower?"
"Read it, if you will, or take this English shilling and post it."
Van Dorn shrank back, rejecting the money.
"Will you not buy it back, Hulda," he whispered, "with love?"
"Never."
"You may pay for this letter this night with your life or modesty!"
"You dare not kill me," Hulda said.
"You will see," said Van Dorn.