CHAPTER XXXV.
COWGILL HOUSE.
Long after midnight, Dover was in bed, except at one large house on theCapitol green, where light shone through the chinks and cracks ofcurtains and shutters, and some watch-dog, perhaps, ran along curiouslyto see why.
The stars and clouds in the somewhat troubled sky looked down throughthe leafless trees upon the pretty town and St. Jones's Creek circlingpast it, and hardly noticed a long band of creeping men and animalssteal up from the Meeting House branch, past the tannery and theacademy, and plunge into the back streets of the place, avoiding thepublic square.
One file turned down to the creek and crossed it, to return fartherabove, cutting off all escape by the northern road, while a second fileslipped silently through and around the compact little hamlet and waitedfor the other to arrive, when both encompassed an old brick dwellingstanding back from the roadside in a green and venerable yard, nearlyhalf a mile from the settled parts of Dover.
This house was brilliantly lighted, and the rose-bushes and shade treeswere all defined as they stood above the swells of green verdure and theornamental paths and flower-beds.
One majestic tulip-tree extended its long branches nearly to the portalof the quaint dwelling, and a luxuriant growth of ivy, starting betweenthe cellar windows, clambered to the corniced carpentry of the eaves,and made almost solid panels of vine of the spaces between the fourlarge, keystoned windows in two stories, which stood to the right of thebroad, dumpy door.
This door, at the top of a flight of steps, was placed so near the gableangle of the house that it gave the impression of but one wing of amansion originally designed to be twice its length and size.
Between this gable--which faced the road, and had four lines of windowsin it, besides a basement row--and the back or town door, as described,was one squarish, roomy window, out of relation to all the rest, andperhaps twelve feet above the ground. This, as might be guessed, was onthe landing of the stairs within; for the great door and front of theresidence being at the opposite side, the whole of the space at thetownward gable, to the width of seventeen feet, was a noble hall aboutforty feet long, lofty, and with pilasters in architectural style, andlighted by two great windows in the gable and the square window on thestairway.
The stairway itself was a beautiful piece of work and proportion, risingfrom the floor in ten railed steps to the landing at the square window,where a space several feet square commanded both the great front doorand the windows in the gable, and also the yard behind; thence, at rightangles, the flight of steps rose along the back wall to a second landingover the dumpy back-door, and, by a third leap, returned at rightangles, to the floor above, making what is called the well of thestairway to be exceedingly spacious, and it opened to the garret floor.
No doubt this cool, great hall was designed to be the centre of a largemansion, yet it had lost nothing in agreeableness by becoming, instead,the largest room in the house, receiving abundant daylight, and it waslarge enough for either a feast or public worship, and such was itsfrequent use.
Built by a tyrannical, eccentric man at the beginning of the century,it had passed through several families until a Quaker named Cowgill, whoafterwards became a Methodist, and who held no slaves and was kind toblack people, made it his property, and superintended a tannery and millwithin sight of it.
He was frequently absent for weeks, especially in the bilious autumnseason, and allowed his domestics to assemble their friends and thegeneral race, at odd times, in the great hallway, for such rationalenjoyments as they might select.
In truth, the owner of the house desired it to get a more cheerfulreputation; for the negroes, in particular, considered it haunted.
The first owner, it was said, had amused himself in the great hall-roomby making his own children stand on their toes, switching their feetwith a whip when they dropped upon their soles from pain or fatigue; andhis own son finally shot at him through the great northern door with arifle or pistol, leaving the mark to this day, to be seen by a smallpanel set in the original pine. The third owner, a lawyer, oftenentertained travelling clergymen here; and, on one occasion, theeccentric Reverend Lorenzo Dow met on the stairs a stranger and bowed tohim, and afterwards frightened the host's family by telling it, sincethey were not aware of any stranger in the house. The room over thegreat door had always been considered the haunt of peculiar people, whomolested nobody living, but appeared there in some quiet avocation, andvanished when pressed upon.
This main door itself had a church-like character, and was battened orbuilt in half, so that the upper part could be thrown open like awindow, and yet the lock on this upper part was a foot and a half long,and the key weighed a pound.
This ponderous door, in elaborate carpentry, opened upon a flight ofsteps and on a flower-yard surrounded by elms, firs, and Paulowniatrees, the latter of a beany odor and nature. A lower servants' part ofthe dwelling, in two stories, stretched to the fields, and had averanda-covered rear.
Van Dorn called to a negro:
"Buck Ransom!"
"Politely, Captain," the negro's insinuating voice answered.
"Go to the front door and knock. As you enter, see that it is clear tofly open. Then, as you pass along the hall, throw the windows up."
"Politely, Captain;" the negro bowed and departed.
"Owen Daw!"
"Yer honor!"
"Climb into the big tulip-tree softly and take this musket I shall reachyou. Train it on the staircase window, and fire only if you seeresistance there."
The boy went up the tree with all his vicious instincts full of fight.
"Melson!"
"Ay yi!"
"Milman!"
"Ah! boy."
"Get yourselves beneath the two large windows on the hall and serve asmounting-blocks to Sorden's party. I shall storm the main door. As weenter there, Sorden, order your men right over Melson and Milman intothe windows Ransom has lifted."
"I love him," muttered Sorden, admiringly, "as I never loved A male,"and collected his party.
"Whitecar, you and your brother hold the back door with your staves. Ifit is forced, Miles Tindel--"
"Tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!"
"Will throw his red-pepper dust into the eyes of any that come out."
"Oh, tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!"
"Derrick Molleston!"
"See me, O see me!" the powerful negro muttered.
"Take Herron and Vincent, and two more, and guard the kitchen and thefront of the main dwelling. Knock any creature stiff, except--_ayme!ay!_--the young damsels, whose fears will soon trip them to the ground."
"See me, see me!" the negro hoarsely said.
"As we enter the door, I shall cry, 'Patty Cannon has come!' Then springin the windows and beat opposition down. _Relampaguea!_ Ransom is slow."
The knocker on the great door sounded, and it sprang open and quicklyslammed again, and a stifled, strange sound followed, as of a scuffle.
Van Dorn, agile as a panther, sprang on Milman's back and looked into awindow in the gable, drawing his face away, so as to be unseen in thenight.
The bright interior was full of people, sitting back against thewainscoting, as if listening to a sermon, while down the middle of thestately hall stretched a table lighted by whale-oil lamps and manylittle candles, and filled with the remnants of a feast. The stairway inthe corner Van Dorn could not see, and there the dusky audience was allfacing, as if towards the preacher. There seemed a something out of thecommon in the kind of attention the inmates were paying, but Van Dorn'seyes were absorbed in the sight of several drooping and yet almoststartled dove-eyed quadroon maids, and he only noticed that the spy,Ransom, could not be seen.
"Sorden," Van Dorn said, slipping down, "can Ransom have betrayed us?_Chis!_ they all look as if a death-warrant was being read."
"My skin! No, Captain. Air they all there?"
"All," said Van Dorn; "I see thirty thousand dollars of flesh in sight."
"And niggers won't sc
rimmage nohow," spoke Whitecar. "Let's beat 'emmos' to death."
"Come on then," said Van Dorn, softly; "if the windows are not lifted,break them in."
He twisted, by main strength, a panel out of the palings near the house,and led the way to the great front door. A dozen desperate hands seizedthe heavy panel and ran with it. The door flew open, but at that momentevery light in Cowgill House went out.
"Dar's ghosts in dar," the hoarse voice of Derrick Molleston was heardto say, and the negro element stopped and shrank.
"Tindel, your torch!" Van Dorn exclaimed, and, after a moment'sdelay--the old house and shady yard meantime illumined by lightning, andsounds of thunder rolling in the sky--a blazing pine-knot, all prepared,was procured, and Van Dorn, holding it in his left hand, and withnothing but his rude whip in his right, bounded in the door, shouting:
"Patty Cannon has come!"
At that dreaded name there were a few suppressed shrieks, and the greatwindows at the gable side fell inwards with a crash as the kidnapperscame pouring over.
Van Dorn's quick eye took in the situation as he waved his torch, and itlighted ceiling and pilaster, the close-fastened doors on the left andthe great stairway-well beyond, filled with black forms in the attitudeof defence.
"Patty Cannon has come!" he shouted again; "follow me!"
An instant only brought him to the base of the staircase, and thelightning flashing in the gaping windows and fallen door revealed him tohis followers, with his yellow hair waving, and his long, silkenmustache like golden flame.
A mighty yell rose from the emboldened gang as they formed behind him,with bludgeons and iron knuckles, billies and slings, and whatever woulddisable but fail to kill.
Van Dorn, far ahead, made three murderous slashes of his whip across thehuman objects above, and, with a toss of that formidable weapon, clubbedit and darted on.
At the moment loud explosions and smoke and cries filled the echoingplace, as a volley of firearms burst from the landing, sweeping the lineof the windows and raking the hall. The band on the floor below stopped,and some were down, groaning and cursing.
"They're armed; it's treachery," a voice, in panic, cried, and thecowardly assailants ran to places of refuge, some crawling out at theportal, some dropping from the windows, and others getting behind thestairway, out of fire, and seeking desperately to draw the bolts of thesmaller door there.
"Patty Cannon has come!" Van Dorn repeated, throwing himself into thebody of the defenders, who, terrified at his bravery, began to retreatupward around the angles of the stairs.
One man, however, did not retreat, neither did he strike, but wrappedVan Dorn around the body in a pair of long and powerful arms, and liftedhim from the landing by main strength, saying:
"High doings, friend! I'm concerned for thee."
Van Dorn felt at the grip that he was overcome. He tried to reach forhis knife, but his arms were enclosed in the unknown stranger's, who,having seized him from behind, sought to push him through the squarewindow on the landing into the grass yard below, where the rain wasfalling and the lightning making brilliant play among the herbs andferns.
As the kidnapper prepared himself to fall, with all his joints andmuscles relaxed, the boy, Owen Daw, lying bloodthirstily along the limbof the old tulip-tree, aimed his musket, according to Van Dorn'sinstructions, at the forms contending there, and greedily pulled thetrigger.
The Quaker's arms, as they enclosed Van Dorn, presented, upon the cuffof his coat, a large steel or metal button, and the ball from the tree,striking this, glanced, and entered Van Dorn's throat.
"_Ayme Guay!_" Van Dorn muttered, and was thrown out of the window tothe earth, all limp and huddled together, till John Sorden bore him off,muttering,
"I loved him as I never loved A male."
The desperate party beneath the stairs at last broke open the back doorthere and rushed forth, only to receive handfuls of red pepper dustthrown by Miles Tindel, as he cried,
"Tackle 'em, Cap'n Van!"
They screamed with anguish, and rolled in the wet grass, and yet, withfears stronger than pain, sought the road in blindness, and some way toleave the town.
Young Owen O'Day, or Daw, crept down the tree, and, seeing Van Dorn inSorden's arms at the wagon, contemptuously said, as he mounted his muleand vanished:
"I reckon he'll never discipline me no mo'."
Derrick Molleston, regretting the loss of his loping horse, bore out tothe wagon an object he had found striving to escape from the veranda atthe kitchen side, though with a gag in his mouth, and a skewer betweenhis elbows and his back.
"See me, see me!" the negro kidnapper spoke, hoarsely. "He's mine an'Devil Jim Clark's. I tuk him."
"Why, it's Buck Ransom," Sorden said.
"An' I'm gwyn to sell him, too," the negro muttered, seizing the reins."You see me now! Maybe he cheated us. Any way, he's tuk."
The old wagon started at a run through the driving rain, the blackvictim lying helpless on his back, and Van Dorn bleeding in Sorden'sarms, who continued to moan,
"I loved him as I never loved A male!"
Van Dorn made several efforts to talk, and often coughed painfully, andfinally, as they reached a lane gate, he articulated:'
"The Chancellor's?"
"Yes, dis is it," Derrick Molleston said. "See me, Cap'n Van. I's allheah."
As they advanced up a shady lane, fire from somewhere began to make acertain illumination in spite of the loud storm.
"It's Bill Greenley. He's set de jail afire," the negro exclaimed. "Seeme, O see me!"
The conflagration gave a vapory red light to a secluded dwelling theynow approached, upon a bowery lawn, and Sorden saw a woman of a severeaspect looking out of a window at the fire.
"What is the meaning of this trespass so late at night?" she called."Are you robbers? My aged husband is asleep."
"Madam," answered Sorden, "here is the husband of Mrs. Patty Cannon. Shewas your brother's mother-in-law. I love this man as I never loved Amale. He is wounded, and we want him taken in till he can have adoctor."
"Take him to the jail, then, if that is not it burning yonder," thewoman exclaimed, scornfully. "Shall I make the home of the Chancellor ofDelaware a hospital for Patty Cannon's men as a reward for her sendingmy brother to the gallows?"
She closed the window and the blind, and left them alone in the storm.
"Drive, Derrick, to your den at Cooper's Corners, quick, then," Sordensaid.
As they left the lane a flash of lightning, so near, so white, that theyseemed to be within the volume and crater of it, enveloped the wagon.One horse sank down on his haunches, and the other reared back and torefrom his harness, while the wagon was overset.
The negro picked up his helpless fellow-African and lifted him on hisback, starting off in mingled avarice and terror, and saying,
"Derrick's gwyn home, sho'. See me, see me!"
Van Dorn put his finger at his throat, where blood was all the whiletrickling, and, with a gentle cough, extorted the sounds:
"Leave me--under a bush--to--die."
"No," cried Sorden, raising Van Dorn also upon his back; "I love him asI never loved A male."
The fire of the burning jail lighted their return into the outskirts ofDover and to the gallows' hill, where stood the scaffold, split with thelightning from cross-beam to the death-trap. As they halted opposite itto rest, a horse and rider came stumbling past, and Molleston, droppinghis burden, shouted:
"Bill Greenley, dat's our hoss. We want it."
"His is the hoss that's on him," cried the escaped horse-thief, lookingscornfully up at his own gallows as he lashed his blinded animal alongin the rain.
"Cheer up, Captain Van," John Sorden said, soaked through with the rain;"'t'ain't fur now to Cooper's Corners."