CHAPTER XXIV.
OLD CHIMNEYS.
The day was far advanced when Jimmy Phoebus was strong enough to riseand walk, and leave the refuge in the woods. He advised the coloredwoman to crawl through the pine-trees along the margin, while he paddledin the old scow in the shadow of the forest, which now lay strong uponthe river's breast.
At the distance of about a mile, Broad Creek, like a tributary river,flowed into the Nanticoke from the east, fully a quarter of a mile wide,and half a mile up this stream an old, low, extended, weather-blackenedhouse faced the river, and seemed to grin out of its broken ribs andhollow window-sockets like a traitor's skull discolored upon a gibbet.It was falling to pieces, and along its roof-ridge a line of crowsbalanced and croaked, as if they had fine stories to tell and weirdopinions to pass upon the former inhabitants of the tenement.
"There, I have hearn tell," said Jimmy, as he drew in to the bank, andtook the woman into the scow and began to tow her along the beach,wading in the water, "_there_, I have hearn tell, lived the pirate ofBroad Creek, ole Ebenezer Johnson, who was shot soon after the war of'12 at Twiford's house down yonder."
"For kidnapping free people?" asked the woman, without interest, thequestion coming from her desolate heart.
"In them days they didn't kidnap much; it was jest a-beginnin'. The warof '12 busted everything on the bay, burned half a dozen towns, kept thewhite men layin' out an' watchin', and made loafers of half of 'em, an'brought bad volunteers an' militia yer to trifle with the porer gals,an' some of them strangers stuck yer after the war was done. I don'tknow whar ole Ebenezer come from; some says this, an' some that. All weknow is, that he an' the Hanlen gals, one of 'em Patty Cannon, was thehead devils in an' after the war."
"It's a bad-lookin' ole house, sir. See, yonder's a coon runnin' out ofthe door. Oh! I hear my child cryin' everywhere I look."
"The British begun to run the black people off in the war. The blackpeople wanted to go to 'em. The British filled the islands in Tangieryer with nigger camps; they was a goin' to take this whole peninsuly,an' collect an' drill a nigger army on it to put down Amerikey. When thewar was done, the British sailed away from Chesapeake Bay with thousandsof them colored folks, an' then the people yer begun to hate the freeniggers."
"For lovin' liberty?" the woman sighed, looking at the ball, which hadgalled her ankle bloody.
"They hated free niggers as if they was all Tories an' didn't loveAmerikey. So, seein' the free niggers hadn't no friends, these Johnsonsan' Patty Cannon begun to steal 'em, by smoke! There was only a millionniggers in the whole country; Louisiana was a-roarin' for 'em; everynigger was wuth twenty horses or thirty yokes of oxen, or two good farmsaround yer, an' these kidnappers made money like smoke, bought thelawyers, went into polytics, an' got sech a high hand that they tried amurderin' of the nigger traders from Georgey an' down thar, comin' yerfull of gold to buy free people. That give 'em a back-set, an' they hungsome 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," thewoman said, nodding, and wandering in her mind.
"At last the Delawareans marched on Johnson's Cross-roads an' cleanedhis Pangymonum thar out, an' guarded him, and sixteen pore niggers inchains he'd kidnapped, to Georgetown jail. Young John M. Clayton waspaid by the Phildelfy Quakers to git him convicted. Johnson was strongin the county--we're in it now, Sussex--an' if Clayton hadn't skeeredthe jury almost to death, it would have disagreed. He held 'em overbilin' hell, an' dipped 'em thar till the court-room was like aMethodis' revival meetin', with half that jury cryin' 'Save me, save me,Lord!' while some of 'em had Joe Johnson's money in their pockets. Joewas licked at the post, banished from the state, an' so skeered that helaid low awhile, goin' off somewhar--to Missoury, or Floridey, orAllybamy. But Patty Cannon never flinched; she trained the young boysaround yer to be her sleuth-hounds an' go stealin' for her; an', tillshe dies, it's safer to be a chicken than a free nigger. They stole you,pore creatur' from Phildelfy, an' they steal 'em in Jersey and away intoNorth Carliney; fur Joe Johnson's a smart feller fur enterprise, andPatty Cannon's deep as death an' the grave."
Phoebus looked at the woman sitting in the scow, and he saw that shewas fast asleep; his tale having no power to startle her senses, nowworn-out by every infliction.
"I must git that ball an' chain off," the sailor said; "but iron, inthese ole sandy parts, is scarce as gold."
He lifted her out of the scow and laid her in the shade, and began toexplore the old house. To his joy, he found the iron crane still hangingin the chimney, and signs of recent fire.
"These yer ole cranes was valleyble once," Jimmy said, "an' in the willsthey left 'em to their children like farms, an' lawsuits was had overthe bilin' pots an' the biggest kittles. It broke a woman's heart to gita little kittle left her, an' the big-kittled gal was jest pestered withbeaux. But, by smoke! we're a-makin' iron now in Amerikey! Kittles ischeap, and that's why this crane is left by robbers an' gypsies afterthey used it."
He twisted the crane out of the bricks on which it was hinged, and someof 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 spaceinside with his hand, and brought forth a steel purse of Englishmanufacture, filled with shillings at one end, and fifteen goldenguineas at the other; they rolled out through the decayed filigree,rusted, probably, by the rain percolating through the chimney, and thepurse crumbled to iron-mould in his hand.
"'The Lord is my shepherd,'" said the sailor, reverently; "'I shall notwant. He leadeth me by the still waters.' How beautiful Ellenory saysit. Look thar at the waters of the Nanticoke, 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! Ithought I knew you, Barney," he continued, as an owl fluttered out andhopped up a ruined stairway.
"Now, British money ain't coined by Uncle Sam; what is the date? I canmake figgers out easy: Eighteen hundred and fifteen!' I was about to doEbenezer Johnson the onjustice of saying that he'd sold his country outto ole Admiral Cockburn, but the war was done when this money wascoined. Whose was it?"
He removed more carefully some of the bricks, to put his hand in thehollow depository left there, and, feeling around and higher up, broughtout 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 somebodyyer. I reckon he was British. Ellenory kin read it, if I live to see heragin."
There was nothing more, and, as he left the rotting old house, a crashand a cloud of smoke rose up behind him, and the chimney fell into themiddle of the floor.
With the crane's sharp wrought-iron point and long leverage the pungycaptain succeeded, after tedious efforts, in breaking the links of thechain 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.
"God bless you!" exclaimed the woman. "It's a sin to say so, but I feelas 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' shebegged me to come yer. When you git to Prencess Anne, whar I want you togo, find Ellenory Dennis, an' tell her I've seen her boy, an' I'll bringhim back if I kin."
"Princess Anne? where is it?"
"It's maybe, forty mile from yer, Mary; half-way between sunrise andsunset."
"Right south, sir?"
"That's it. Now I'll tell you how to git thar. Take this old woods roadalong Broad Creek and walk to Laurel, five miles; it's a little town onthe creek.
Keep in under the woods, but don't lose the road, fur everyfoot of it's dangerous to niggers. You kin git thar, maybe, by dark. Idon't know nobody thar, Mary, an' I can't write, fur I never learnedhow. But you go right to the house of some preacher of the Gospel, andtell him a lie."
Mary opened her eyes.
"I wouldn't have you tell a lie to anybody but a good man," continuedPhoebus, "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'rethe runaway slave of Judge Custis of Prencess Anne, an' you're sorry yourun 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. Ifyou was to tell the preacher you had been kidnapped, he'd, maybe, beafraid to help you. They're a timid set down yer on any subjectconcernin' niggers; these preachers will help save black folks' souls,but never rescue their pore broken bodies. When you tell him you are theslave of a rich man like Judge Custis, he'll jump at the chance to dothe Judge a favor, an' tell you that you do right to go back to yourmaster. That's whair he's a liar, Mary--so he'll scratch _your_ lieoff."
"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'sdaughter--the one that's just been married. Tell her you want to speakto her privately. Then tell her the nigger-skinned man--I'm him--thatshe sent away with her mother, found you whar you was chained in thewoods. Take this link of the chain to show her. Tell her you want to beher 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 mytroubles. Tell her I'm a-startin' for Pangymonum, an', if I die, it'snothin' but a bachelor keepin' his own solitary company. Yer's a goldpiece 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 hertears.
"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 womandisappeared in the forest, "if I knowed how to do it; but, by smoke! thewind on the bay's dried up my tear ponds. I'll bury these curiositiesright yer, with this chain and ball, and put some old bricks around' emouten 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 sometrees to mark the place, he pushed in the scow again into Broad Creek,and descended the Nanticoke on the falling tide to Twiford's wharf.
Dragging the scow up the bed of a creek to conceal it, he discoveredanother boundary stone. A beach led under the cover of a sandy bluff tothe river gate of Twiford's comfortable house, and he boldly entered thelane and lawn, saying to himself:
"I reckon a feller can ask to buy one squar meal a day in a freecountry, fur I'm hungry."
Even in that day the house was probably seventy years old, roofed by anartistic shingler in lines like old lace-work, the short roofs over thethree pretty dormers like laced bib-aprons, the window-casements insmall checkers of dark glass, the roof capacious as an armadillo's backor 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-redalternately, were laid by conscientious workmen, and bade fair to standanother hundred years, as they smoked their tidy chimney pipes fromhearty stomachs of fireplaces below.
Standing beneath the honey-locust tree at the lawn-gate, the sailorbeheld an extensive prospect of the river Nanticoke, bending in abeautiful curve, like the rim of a silver salver, towards the south, theblue perspective of the surrounding woods fading into the azure bluffson the farther shore, where, as he now identified it, the hamlet ofSharptown assumed the mystery and similitude of a city by theenchantment of distance. A large brig was riding up the river under theafternoon breeze, carrying the English flag at her spanker. Thewild-fowl, flying in V-formed lines, like Hyads astray, flickered on thesalver of the river like house-flies. Some fishermen distantly appeared,human, yet nearly stationary, as if to enliven a dream, and the bees ina row of hives kept murmuring near by, increasing the restful sense inthe heart and the ears.
"Why cannot human natur be happy yer, pertickler with its gal--some onelike Ellenory?" Phoebus thought; "why must it git cruel an' desperatefor money, lookin' out on this dancin' water, an' want to turn thistrance into a Pangymonum?"
He crossed the lane to a squatty old structure of brick by thewater-side, and peeped in.
"A still, by smoke!" he said. "If it ain't apple brandy may I forgit mycompass! 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 bathedhis head in its strong alcohol. He then returned to the lawn and walkedaround the house, peeping into the lower rooms--of which there were twoin the main building, the kitchen being an appendage--but saw nobody.The porch in the rear extended the full width of the house, unlike thesmaller shed in front, which only covered two doors, standing curiouslyside by side.
Completely sheltered by the longer porch, Phoebus, looking into awindow, there saw a table already set with a clean cloth, and bread andcold chicken, and a pitcher of creamy milk, with a piece of ice floatingin it. On either side of a large fireplace at the table-side was a door,one open, and leading by a small winding stair to the floor above. A bedwas also in the room, which looked out by one window upon the lawn andthe river, and by the other at the farm, the corn-cribs, and the smallbarns and pound-yard.
With a sailor's quiet, sliding feet, Jimmy walked into the low hall, anda cat-bird, in a cage there, immediately started such a shrill series ofcries that his steps were unheard by himself.
"Nobody bein' yer," thought Jimmy, "an' the flies gittin 'at thevictuals, I reckon I'll do as I would be done by."
So he began to eat, and soon he heard a female voice, very close by,sound down the stairs, as if reciting to another person.
"Aunt Patty says Aunt Betty's first husband, Captain Twiford, was asea-captain and a widower, and she was one of the beautiful Hanleygirls, brought up by old Ebenezer Johnson at his house across on BroadCreek; and there Captain Twiford courted her, and brought her here tolive. He died early--all my aunties' husbands died early--and is buriedin the vault out here behind the pound, where you can go in and see himin his shroud, lying by Aunt Betty. Her next husband, John Gillis, lefther, and then she lived with William Russell, a negro-trader. Aunt Pattygoverned all her sisters and the Johnson boys, too. Oh, how I fear herwhen she looks at me sometimes with her bold, black eyes: I can't helpit."
Another voice, not a woman's, yet almost as gentle, now seemed to ask aquestion; but the cat-bird, behaving like a detective and a tale-bearer,made such a furious screaming at seeing a stranger drinking the milk,that Phoebus could not hear it well. The pleasant female voice spokeagain:
"Yes, he was killed in the room under this, before I was born, AuntPatty says; and sometimes she likes to tell such dark and bloody tales,and laughs with joy to see me frightened at them. Aunt Betty got indebt, and this house and farm were sold under executions and bought by aMaryland man, who stole an opportunity when the men were away, and sethis goods in the house and set Aunt Betty's goods outside upon the lawn.It's only a mile, or a little more, from here to Ebenezer Johnson's, andthe news of the seizure was sent there."
Jimmy tore off a piece of chicken with his teeth, listening voraciously.
"Did you hear anything?" continued the voice; "I thought I did. The dogsare chained up in the smoke-house, and bad people are
often coming here;I will go turn the dogs loose."
"Be dogged if you do!" Jimmy reflected. "That's the meanest cat-birdever I see, fur now it's shut up a-purpose."
There sounded something familiar to the uninvited guest in the voicewhich seemed to delay this intention; but the cat-bird, with hisunaccommodating mood, broke right in again. Then the female continued:
"While the men--who had come armed, expecting trouble--were removingAunt Betty's goods out of the room, throwing many of them out of thewindows, so as to be themselves in sole possession, a sound was heard inthe room below, where your meal is now ready, like a panther skippingand lashing his tail; and, before the men could breathe, old EbenezerJohnson was up the stairs and laying about him. His eyes were full ofmurder. One man jumped right through that window and rolled off theporch; another he pitched down the stairs; the third was a boy, JoeKing, barely grown--he lives not far from this house now--and EbenezerJohnson dashed him down the stairs, too, and started after him. All hislife the boy had been taught to dread that terrible man, and now he wasin his hands, or flying before him; and, as he reeled through the roombelow, out of the door that opens on the back porch, the boy's eyes, inthe agony of the fear of death, beheld a rifle leaning there."
"Mighty good thing if it was thar now!" Jimmy inwardly remarked,finishing the chicken, and still hungry.
"Oh, there _is_ a noise somewhere in this house," the voice exclaimed;"I never tell this story but it makes me startled at every sound. Theboy, as he whirled past, grasped the long rifle, drew it to hisshoulder, and, with a young volunteer's skill--for he had been drillingto fight the British--he put the two balls in that old man's brain. Bothballs entered over the left eyebrow, and one passed through the head andwas found in the wall; the other never was found.[3] The lawless giantgave a trembling motion through his frame, his eyes glazed, and he sankdead upon the floor without a sound--the wicked had ceased fromtroubling! Aunt Betty, Aunt Patty, and Aunt Jane, three sisters shapedby him in soul, fell on his body and wept and almost prayed, but it wastoo late. They buried him near Aunt Betty, in the field behind thepound."
Undertaking to rise from his chair, Jimmy Phoebus made a loud scrapingon the floor, and the table-knife fell with a ringing sound.
"Who's there?" cried a voice, and added, "I knew the dogs ought to beloose."
"Who's there?" also asked the other voice, with something very familiarto Phoebus in its sounds.
"E-b-e-n-e-z-e-r John-son!" answered Jimmy, in his deepest bass tones,mentally considering that a ghost might carry more terror than a robber,after that tale.
A little scream followed, and a whispered consultation, and then agirl's bare feet, beautifully moulded, slowly descended the steepstairway, and next a slender, graceful body came into view, and finallya face, delicious as a ripe peach, looked once at the intruder below,and all the pink and bright color faded from it to see, standing there,where Ebenezer Johnson had given up the ghost, a stalwart effigy,bandaged in white all round the head, and over the left eye and cheek,where the dead river-pirate had received his double bullet, the bloodwas hideously matted and not wholly stanched even yet. She sank slowlydown upon the steps and saw no more.
"Now, if I don't git out, the dogs will be set loose," muttered Jimmy,as he disappeared up the farm-house lane and put the barn and poundbetween him and the house; and scarcely had he done so when Levin Dennisappeared coming down the stairs, all unconscious of the apparition, and,finding the beautiful girl insensible, he raised her in his arms andstole a kiss.
Paying for his one act of deceit by losing the principal object of hisquest, Jimmy Phoebus stopped a minute by Ebenezer Johnson's grave.
In a level field of deep sand--the soil here being the poorest in theregion--and between the cattle-pound and the pines, which wereeverywhere jealous of their other indigenous brother, the Indian corn,an old family burial-lot lay under some low cedar-trees, with wild berrybushes growing all around. There were several little stones overTwifords that had died early, and a large heap of sand, planted withsome flowers, that might have covered a favorite horse, but whichPhoebus believed was the resting-place of the river buccaneer; andthere was also a vault of brick and plaster, with the little door ajar,where prurient visitors, themselves with Saul's own selfish curiosity toraise the dead, had poked and peeped about until the coffin lids hadbeen drawn back and the dead pair exposed to the dry peninsular air.
The bay captain looked in and beheld his predecessor, Captain Twiford,who also sailed the bay, lying in his shroud--not in full clothing, asmen are buried now, for clothing was too valuable in the scanty-peopledcountry to feed it to the worms. Twiford lay shrivelled up, shroud andflesh making but one skin, the face of a walnut color, the haircomplete, the teeth sound, and severe dignity unrelaxed by the exposurehe was condemned to for his evil alliance with Betty Hanley.
She also lay exposed, who had lived so shamelessly, respecting not themould of beauty God had given her, till now men leered to look upon hernearly kiln-dried bosom glued into its winding-sheet, and the glory ofher hair, that had been handled by bantering outlaws, and in a ripplingwave of unbleached coal covered the grinning coquetry of her skull.
"Them that mocks God shall be mocked of him," said Jimmy Phoebus,closing the door and putting some of the scattered bricks of the vaultagainst it. "Now, I reckon, I kin git to the cross-roads by a leetleafter dark."
The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times Page 26