CHAPTER XXVIII.
PACIFICATION.
Princess Anne had missed for several days some conspicuous citizens,such as Daniel Custis and wife, Captain Phoebus, Levin Dennis, and thefree negro Samson--large components of a small town; but it had alsogained what everybody admitted to be the most beautiful woman in theplace except Mrs. Vesta Milburn--the brown-eyed, tall, roguish niece ofMeshach Milburn, whom Vesta had made a lady of in externals, correctedsome of her faults, such as the sniffle, and was daily teaching her themysteries of grammar and address, aided by the rector of the parish,whose heart was roused to partial animation again by the young visitor.
Loyally William Tilghman had pressed his friendship on Vesta'ssemi-social husband, determined to like him, and finding smallresistance there, and, happily, no suspicion; and this was so gratefulto Vesta that she indulged the hope that her cousin and late lover wouldfind compensation for her loss in Rhoda Holland.
Love came easily on as a topic of talk where Rhoda, with herunconventional preference for that subject, introduced it.
"Mr. William"--she had got that far towards the inevitable"William"--said Rhoda, one evening at Teackle Hall, as they sat in thelibrary, "do preachers love jus' like other folks? Misc Somers say theyis drea'fle sly-boots. She say thar was a preacher down yer to GirdleTree Hill that preached the Meal-an-the-Yum was a-goin' to happen rightoff."
"Millennium," suggested Tilghman.
"Maybe so. Misc Somers call it 'the Meal-an-the-Yum,' I thought. Anyway,they was all goin' to rise, right off, an' he with 'em. Lord sakes! theyhad frills put on thar night-gowns to rise in. An' the night before theywas a-goin' up, that ar scamp run away with a widder an' her darter,jilted the widder an' married the darter; an' they couldn't rise atGirdle Tree Hill caze the preacher wa'n't thar, an' they didn't knowwhen."
"And I suppose Mrs. Somers tells it on him?" William Tilghman added.
"That she do. Now, was you ever in love, Mr. William?"
"I have been thinking, Rhoda, that when you are a good scholar, andgrandmother and you grow to like each other, as I believe you will, Imight fall in love with you."
"Lord sakes! Me loved by a preacher? Couldn't I never stay home from thepreachin'? But then, to hear your own ole man a-barkin' away at theother gals, I think it would be right good!"
The subject had now gone to that length that in a few days, toGrandmother Tilghman's slight indignation, Rhoda called the rector"William," and he answered her, "Dear Rhoda."
The triple widow, however, had one lane to her consideration, up whichthe artful Rhoda strayed as soon as she saw the gate ajar.
"Misc Tilghman," she said one day, "I been a-lookin' at you. I 'spectyou was a real beauty. If you wasn't a little quar, nobody would see youwas a ole woman now."
"I was a belle," spoke the blind old lady, emphatically. "General JohnEager Howard said he would rather talk with me than hear an oration fromFisher Ames. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, proposed to me when I wasold enough to be your grandmother, and after Susan Decatur, thecommodore's widow, had tried in vain to get an offer from him. Said I,'Carroll, is this another Declaration of Independence? No,' said I,'Carroll, I won't reduce the last signer, it may be, to obedience on awife going blind. That would be worse slavery than George the Third's!'He said I was a Spartan widow."
"Every widow I ever see was a sparkin' widow," Rhoda naively concluded,at which Mrs. Tilghman had to join in the laughter, and there was noevil feeling.
Jack Wonnell now held the temporary post of cook and woodchopper atTeackle Hall, and Roxy saw him every day, sewed his tattered clothingup, put the germs of self-respect in him, and caused Vesta to say to herhusband, as they were sitting in his storehouse parlor one afternoon, inthe intermission of his chill and sweat:
"Such rapid changes have taken place here, Mr. Milburn, that they havedisturbed my judgment, and now I hardly know whether my oldest prejudiceis assured, as I see that white man the happy domestic servant of mypure slave girl. She seems to have no greater affection than pity andinterest for him, while he is made more of a man by his undisguiseddevotion to her. No man could work better than he does now."
"Love is so great, so occult," the husband said, his brown eyessearching his wife's face over, "that its combinations have centuriesleft to run before they shall beat every prejudice down, and prove, inspite of sin and dispersion, that of one blood are all the nationsmade."[4]
The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times Page 30