As Van Dorn and Levin pushed through the motley crowd on the little porch into the bar, where Mrs. Cannon administered, she set before them two fiery bowls, and cried:

"Come in yer, Colonel McLane, an' jine my nug an' my young cousin Levin."

"No, Patty," answered a voice from the next room within; "I've drunk my share. There's nothing like a conservative course."

As Patty put her head into this inner room, Levin Dennis, seeing a window open at his elbow, threw the whole of his liquor over his shoulder into the yard and smacked his lips heartily, saying,

"Good!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Van Dorn, evidently noticing Levin's deceit; "smart people are around us, Patty. Beware!"

He took from his pocket the fateful letter and glanced at its endors.e.m.e.nt, and, as he did so, Levin heard an exclamation in the yard from a man who had received the whole of the apple brandy and sugar in his face, and was furious; but as soon as he seemed to recognize the thrower he muttered, apologetically:

"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! and Pangymonum, too!"

When Levin looked at Van Dorn again, the blush was on his face, but the letter had disappeared.

"Beware of the conservative course, Colonel," lisped Van Dorn, "except when generous Patty makes the punch; for she holds such measure of it that she does not see our infirmities."

"Honey," cried Patty Cannon to Levin, giving him an affectionate hug, "have ye swallered yer liquor so smart as that? Why, I love to see a nice boy drink."

"But no more for him now, _cajela_," the Captain protested; "two such will make him fall off his horse. _Bebamos_, Patty! _Esta excelente!_"--drinking.

"How purty the Captain says them things," the madam cried to the gentleman within. "Maybe he's a mockin' his ole sweetheart. Oh, Van Dorn, if I thought you could forget me I would kill you!"

Levin noticed the rapid temper and demoniac face of this not unengaging lady as she spoke, her whole nature turning its course like a wheeling bat, and from plausibility to an instant's jealousy, and then to a dark tide of awful rage, took but a thought.

"_Que disparate! hala o he!_" Van Dorn lisped, sweetly, chucking the hostess under the chin; "but I do love to see thee so, thou charmer of my life. Never will I desert thee, Patty, whilst thou can suffer."

Her dark clouds slowly pa.s.sed away as Levin turned from the place, but her small head and abundant raven hair showed the blood troubled to the roots, and the eyes, once rich with midnight depths, now glazing in the course of time, like old window panes, by age, searched the bandit's face with a strange fear:

"Van Dorn, time and pleasure cannot kill you: how well you look to-day.

I think you are a boy, to be ruined again every time you love me, you blush so modestly. Where is that pot of color you paint your cheeks with even before _me_, whose blushes none can recollect? Why do you love me?"

"_O dios!_" said Van Dorn; "I love thee for these spells of splendor, dark night and noonday pa.s.sion, the alternations of earth and h.e.l.l that eclipse heaven altogether. I love to see thee fear, though fearing nothing here, because I see nothing that you fear beyond the grave. You hate this boy?"

"I hate him worse than wrinkles. Let him not come to me a child to-morrow; let him see ghosts long as he lives."

"How are the prisoners, Patty?"

"Why, the white n.i.g.g.e.r, dovey, is sick to-day; blood-loss and blisters have give him fever. My n.i.g.g.e.r, that I tied--ha! ha! a good job for Patty Cannon, at her age!--says t'other's a pore coaster named Jimmy Phoebus."

"Joe must be ready for a quick departure," the Captain exclaimed, "when we come back from Dover: it is a bold undertaking, and the whole of the little state will be aroused like a black snake uncoiling in one's pocket."

The woman pointed from her shoulder towards the inner room, and spoke even lower than before:

"Van Dorn, I have a customer."

"For negroes?"

"No, for Huldy. He shall have her."

As Levin Dennis stood at the cross-roads without, he saw a strange man ploughing in the farm so recently deserted by his hostess for the gayer cross-roads. The afternoon light fell on the sandy fields and struck a polish from the ploughshare, and, as the ploughman pa.s.sed the brambly spot again, the buzzards slowly circled up, as if to protest that he came too near their young.

The long, lean servant, who had waited on the breakfast-table, came out to Levin and watched his eyes.

"Ploughin', ploughin'," he said. "Levin, I kin show you how to plough: I can't do it, but you're the man."

"Cyrus, Huldy don't hate you. She says you're the nighest to a friend she's got."

"Oh, I love her like sugar-cane," the lean, cymlin-headed servant said.

"Tell her I'm goin' to be a great man. I'm goin' to spile the game. They lick me, but Cy Jeems has courage, Levin."

"Cyrus, tell Huldy all that's goin' on agin her. We don't know nothin'.

You kin go and come an' n.o.body watches you. Huldy will be grateful fur it."

Putting his long arms on his knees and bending down, the scullion stared close to Levin's eyes and whispered, looking towards the field:

"Ploughin'! ploughin'!"

Then, turning partly, and gazing over the old tavern with a look of wisdom, Cy James whispered again:

"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! an' Pangymonum, too!"

"I reckon he's crazy," Levin thought, as the queer fellow turned and fled.

It was about three o'clock when the cavalcade was reviewed by Captain Van Dorn from the porch of the hotel, and it consisted of about twenty persons, white and black; some riding mules, some horses, and there was one wagon in the line--the same that had been driven to Cannon's Ferry--intended for Levin, Joe Johnson, and the Captain. Van Dorn stood blushing, pulling his long mustache of flax, and resting on his cowhide whip.

"Dave," he called to a powerful negro, "get down from that mule; you're too drunk to go. Jump up in his place, Owen Daw!"

The widow's son gladly vaulted on the animal.

"Sorden," continued Van Dorn, "you know all the roads: lead the way!

Whitecar, go with him! We rendezvous at Punch Hall at eight o'clock. The order of march is in pairs, a quarter to half a mile apart. If any man acts in anything without orders, or halloos upon the road, he may get this lash or he may get my knife."

"Captain, where do we feed?" asked a small, wiry mulatto.

"Water at Federalsburg," answered Van Dorn; "feed at the Punch Hall."

They rode off in pairs at intervals of ten minutes; Van Dorn's vehicle went last. A moment before he departed, Cy James touched the Captain's sleeve and whispered, "Huldy." Turning to see if he was un.o.bserved, Van Dorn followed to the deep-arched chimney at the northern gable, and dismissed his guide with a look.

"Captain Van Dorn," Hulda said, her large gray eyes strained in tenderness and nervous courage, "do that boy Levin no harm: I love him!

G.o.d forgive all your sins, many as they are, if you disobey grandmother's wicked commands about my darling!"

"Ha! wild-flower, you have been listening?"