"Miss Vesty, I think I can see what made Hominy go. She was afraid of Meshach Milburn and his queer hat. She believed the devil give it to him. She thought he had bought her by marrying you, and was going to christen her to the Bad Man, or do something dreadful with her and the little children."

"That's it, Miss Vessy," plump little Roxy added. "Hominy loved the little children dearly; she thought they was to become Meshach's, and she must save them."

"Poor, superst.i.tious creature!" Vesta exclaimed.

"More misery brought about by that fool's hat!" cried Mrs. Custis. "If I ever lay hands on it, it shall end in the fire."

"No wonder," Vesta said, "that this poor, ignorant woman should do herself such an injury on account of an article of dress that disturbs liberal and enlightened minds! Now I recollect that Hominy said something about having 'got Quaker.' What did it mean?"

The two slave girls looked at each other significantly, and Virgie answered,

"Don't the Quakers help slaves to get off to a free state? Maybe she meant that."

"Do you suppose the abolitionists would tamper with a poor old woman like that, whose liberty would neither be a credit to them nor a comfort to her? I cannot think so meanly of them," Vesta reflected. "Besides, could she have killed my dog?"

"A gross, ignorant, fetich-worshipping negro would kill a dog, or a child, or anything, when she is possessed with a devil," Mrs. Custis insisted.

"I don't believe she killed Turk," Roxy remarked, as she left the room.

"There was a white man in the kitchen last Sat.u.r.day night: I think he slept there; master gave him leave."

"Yes, missy," Virgie continued, after Roxy had gone to obey her orders; "he was a dreadful man, and looked at me so coa.r.s.e and familiar that I have dreamed of him since. It was the man Mr. Milburn knocked down for mashing his hat; he was afraid Mr. Milburn would throw him into jail, so he asked master to hide in the kitchen. But Hominy was almost crazy with fear of Mr. Milburn before that."

Vesta held up her beautiful arms with a look of despair.

"What has not that poor old hat brought upon every body?" she cried.

"Oh, who dares contest the sunshine with the tailor and hatter? They are the despots that never will abdicate or die."

"The idea of your father letting a tramp like that sleep in the kitchen among the slaves!" cried Mrs. Custis. "What obligation had he incurred there, too, I should like to know? Teackle Hall is become a cave of owls and foxes; it is time for me to leave it. Here is my husband gone, riding fifty miles for his worst enemy, leaving us without a cook and without a man's a.s.sistance to discover where ours is gone. I know what I shall do: I will start this day for Cambridge, to meet my brother, and visit the Goldsboroughs there till some order is brought out of this attempt to plant wheat and tares together."

Vesta stopped a moment and kissed her mother: "That is just the thing, dear mother," she said. "Let me straighten out the difficulties here; go, and come back when all is done, and you can be yourself again."

"I shall do it, Vesta. Brother Allan gets to Cambridge to-morrow afternoon; I will go as far as Salisbury this day, and either meet him on the road to-morrow or find him at Cambridge. Oh, what a house is Teackle Hall--full of male and female foresters, abolitionists, runaways, and radicals! All made crazy by the bog ores and the fool's hat!"

Descending to the yard, Vesta found Turk lying in his blood, his mastiff jaws and s.h.a.ggy sides clotted red, and, as it seemed, the howl in which he died still lingering in the air. The Virginia spirit rose in Vesta's eyes:

"Whoever killed this dog only wanted the courage to kill men!" she exclaimed. "James Phoebus, look here!"

The pungy captain had been abroad for hours, and the masts of his vessel were just visible across the marshy neck in the rear of Teackle Hall. He touched his hat and came in.

"Early mornin', Miss Vesty! Hallo! Turk dead? By smoke, yer's pangymonum!"

"He's stabbed, Jimmy!" Samson Hat remarked, coming out of the kitchen; "see whar de dagger struck him right over de heart! Dat made him howl and fall dead. His froat was not cut dat sudden; it's gashed as if wid somethin' blunt."

"Right you are, n.i.g.g.e.r! The throat-cuttin' was a make believe; the stab will tell the tale. But who's this yer, lurkin' aroun' the kitchen do'; if it ain't Jack Wonnell, I hope I may die! Sic!"

With this, active as the dog had been but yesterday, Jimmy rushed on Jack Wonnell, chased him to the fence, and brought him back by the neck.

Wonnell wore a bell-crown, and his hand was full of fall blossoms. As Wonnell observed the dead dog, pretty little Roxy came out of the kitchen, and stood blushing, yet frightened, to see him.

"What yo' doin' with them rosy-posies?" Jimmy demanded. "Who're they fur? What air you sneakin' aroun' Teackle Hall fur so bright of a mornin', lazy as I know you is, Jack Wonnell?"

"They are flowers he brings every morning for me," Roxy spoke up, coming forward with a pretty simper.

"For you?" exclaimed Vesta. "You are not receiving the attentions of white men, Roxy?"

"He offered, himself, to get flowers for me, so I might give you as pretty ones as Virgie, missy. I let him bring them. He's a poor, kind man."

"I jess got 'em, Jimmy," interjected Jack Wonnell, with his peculiar wink and leer, "caze Roxy's the belle of Prencess Anne, and I'm the bell-crown. She's my little queen, and I ain't ashamed of her."

"Courtin' n.i.g.g.e.rs, air you!" Jimmy exclaimed, collaring Jack again. "Now whar did you go all day Sunday with Levin Dennis and the n.i.g.g.e.r buyer?

What hokey-pokey wair you up to?"

"Mr. Wonnell," Roxy had the presence of mind to say, "take care you tell the truth, for my sake! Aunt Hominy is gone, with all the kitchen children, and Mr. Phoebus suspects you!"

"Great lightnin' bugs!" Jimmy Phoebus cried. "The n.i.g.g.e.rs stole, an'

the dog dead, too?"

"I 'spect Jedge Custis sold 'em, Jimmy," Jack Wonnell pleaded, twisting out of the bay captain's hands. "He's gwyn to be sold out by Meshach Milburn. Maybe he jess sold 'em and skipped."

"Where is Judge Custis, Miss Vesty?" Phoebus asked.

"He has gone to Delaware, to be absent several days."

"Is what this bell-crowned fool says, true, Miss Vesty?"

"No. There was some fear among the kitchen servants of being sold; there was no such necessity when they ran away, as it had been settled."

"It is unfortunate that your father is gone. He has been seen with a negro trader. That trader and he disappear the same evening. The trader lives about Delaware, too, Miss Vesty."

Vesta's countenance fell, as she thought of the suspicion that might attach to her father. The great old trees around Teackle Hall seemed moaning together in the air, as if to say, "Ancestors, this is strange to hear!"

"Who told you, Jack Wonnell," spoke the bay sailor, "that Judge Custis was to be sold out?"

"I won't tell you, Jimmy."

"I told him," Roxy cried, after an instant's hesitation, while Jimmy Phoebus was grinding the stiff bell-crown hat down on Wonnell's suffocating muzzle. "I did think we was all going to be sold, and had n.o.body to pity me but that poor white man, and I told him as a friend."

"And I never told anybody in the world but Levin Dennis yisterday," Jack cried out, when he was able to get his breath.

"Whar did you go, Jack, wid the long man and Levin all day yisterday?"

Samson asked.

"Yes, whar was you?" Jimmy Phoebus shouted, with one of his Greek paroxysms of temper on, as his dark skin and black-cherry eyes flamed volcanic. "Whar did you leave Ellenora's boy and that infernal soul-buyer? Speak, or I'll throttle you like this dog!"

"You let him alone, sir!" little Roxy cried, hotly, "he won't deceive anybody; he's going to tell all he knows."

"Let go, Jimmy," Samson said; "don't you see Miss Vesty heah?"

"Don't scare the man, Mr. Phoebus," Vesta added; "but I command him to tell all that he knows, or papa shall commit him to jail."