"Look out for fevernager this month, Mr. Milburn!"

Meshach bowed his head, gliding along as if bashfully anxious to pa.s.s.

"Nice weather for drivin'!" added Jack Wonnell, having also taken off his own tile of frivolity, to feel the effect; but this remark was regarded by the group as too forward, and a low chorus ran round of "Jack Wonnell can't help bein' a fool to save his life!"

Milburn said to himself, pa.s.sing on: "Are those voices kinder than usually, or am I more timid? What is it in the air that makes everything so acute, and my cheeks to tingle? Am I sick, or is it Love?"

The word frightened him, and the sand under his feet seemed to crack; a woodp.e.c.k.e.r in an old tree tapped as if it was the tree's old heart quickened by something; the houses all around looked like live objects, with their windows fixed upon his walk, like married folks' eyes. As he came in sight of Judge Custis's residence, so expressive of old respect and long intentions, the money-lender almost stopped, so mild and peacefully it looked at him--so undisturbed, while he was palpitating.

"Why this pain?" thought Milburn. "Am I afraid? That house is mine. Do I fear to enter my own? And yet it does not fear me. It has been there so long that it has no fears, and every window in it faces benignant to my coming. The three gables survey yonder forest landscape like three old magistrates on the bench, administering justice to a county where never till now was there a ravisher!"

The thought produced a moment's intellectual pride in him, like lawless power's uneasy paroxysm. "It is the Forest these gentles have to fear to-day!" he thought, resentfully, then stopped, with another image his word aroused:

"What has that forest ever felt of injury or hate, with every cabin-door unlatched, no robber feared by any there, the blossoms on the negro's peachtree, the ripe persimmons on the roadside, plenteous to every forester's child, and humility and affection making all richer, without a dollar in the world, than I, the richest upstart of the forest, compelled to buy affection, like an indifferent slave!"

A large dog at Custis's home, seeing him walk so slowly, came down the path to the gate, also walking slow, and showed neither animosity nor interest, except mechanically to walk behind him towards the door.

"The dog knows me," thought the quickened heart of Meshach, "from life-long seeing of me, but never wagged his tail at me in all that time. Could I acquire the heart even of this dog, though I might buy him? My debtor's step would still be most welcome to him, and he would eat my food in strangeness and fear."

Milburn walked up the steps, and sounded the substantial bra.s.s knocker.

It struck four times, loud and deep, and the stillness that followed was louder yet, like the unknown thing, after sentence has been pa.s.sed. He seemed to be there a very long time with his heart quite vacant, as if the debtor's knocker had scared every chatterer out of it, and yet his temples and ears were ringing. He was thinking of sounding the knocker again, when a lady's servant, partly white, rolled back the bolt, and bowed to his question whether the Judge was in.

He entered the broad hall of that distinguished residence, and taking the Entailed Hat from his head, hung it up at last, where better head-coverings had been wont to keep equal society, on a carved mahogany rack of colonial times. The venerable object, once there, gave a common look to everything, as Meshach thought, and deepened his personal sense of unworthiness. He tried to feel angry, but apprehension was too strong for pa.s.sion even to be simulated.

"O, discriminating G.o.d!" he felt, within, "is it not enough to create us so unequal that we must also cringe in spirit, and acknowledge it! I expected to feel triumphant when I lodged my despised hat in this man's house, but I feel meaner than before."

The room, whose door was opened by the lady's maid, was the library, containing three c.u.mbrous cases of books, and several portraits in oil, with deep, gilded frames, a map of Virginia and its northeastern environs, including all the peninsula south of the Choptank river and Cape Henlopen; and near the door was a tall clock, that a giant might stand in, solemnly cogging and waving time, and giving the monotony of everlasting evening to the place, which was increased by the flickering fire of wood on the tall bra.s.s fire-irons, before which some high-backed, wide, comfortable leather chairs were drawn, all worn to luxurious att.i.tudes, as if each had been the skin of Judge Custis and his companions, recently evacuated.

A woman's rocking-chair was disposed among them, as though every other chair deferred to it. This was the first article to arrest Milburn's attention, so different, so suggestive, almost a thing of superst.i.tion, poised, like a woman's instinct and will, upon nothing firm, yet, like the sphere it moved upon, traversing a greater arc than a giant's seat would fill. Purity and conquest, power and welcome, seemed to abide within it, like the empty throne in Parliament.

Milburn, being left alone, touched the fairy rocker with his foot. It started so easily and so gracefully, that, when it died away, he pressed his lips to the top of it, nearest where her neck would be, and whispered aloud, with feeling, "G.o.d knows that kiss, at least, was pure!"

He looked at the portraits, and, though they were not inscribed, he guessed at them all, right or wrong, from the insight of local lore or envious interpretation.

"Yon saucy, greedy, superserviceable rogue," thought Meshach, "with wine and beef in his cheeks, and silver and harlotry in his eye, was the Irish tavern-keeper of Rotterdam, who kept a heavy score against the banished princes whom Cromwell's name ever made to swear and shiver, and they paid him in a distant office in Accomac, where they might never see him and his bills again, and there they let him steal most of the revenue, and, of course, his loyalty was in proportion to his booty.

Many a time, no doubt, he was procurer for both royal brothers, Charles and James, making his tavern their stew, with Betty Killigrew, or Lucy Walters, or Katy Peg, or even Anne Hyde, the mother of a queen--of her who was the Princess Anne, G.o.dmother of our worshipful town here. I have not read in vain," concluded Meshach, "because my n.o.ble townsmen drove me to my cell!"

The next portrait was clothed in military uniform, with a higher type of manhood, shrewd and vigilant, but magisterial. "That should be Major-general John Custis," thought Milburn, looking at it, "son of John the tapster, and a marrying, shifty fellow, who first began greatness as a salt-boiler on these ocean islands, till his father's friend, Charles II., in a merry mood, made Henry Bennet, the king's b.a.s.t.a.r.d son's father-in-law, Earl of Arlington and lessee of Virginia. All the province for forty shillings a year rent! Those were pure, economical times, indeed, around the court. So salt-boiler John flunkeyed to Arlington's overseers, named his farm 'Arlington,' hunted and informed upon the followers of the Puritan rebel Bacon, then turned and fawned upon King William, too. His grandchildren, all well provided for, spread around this bay. So much for politics in a merchant's hands!"

The tone of Meshach's comment had somewhat raised his courage, and a sense of pleasurable interest in the warm room and genial surroundings led him to pa.s.s the time, which was of considerable length, quite contentedly, till Judge Custis was ready.

Meanwhile, the steeple-top hat was giving some silent astonishment to the house-servants, a.s.sembled to gaze upon it from the foot of the hall.

The neat chamber-servant, Virgie, had carried the wondrous information to the colonnade that the dreadful creditor had come, and Roxy, the table waiter, had carried it from the colonnade to the kitchen, where the common calamity immediately produced a revolution against good manners.

"Hab he got dat debbil hat on he head, chile?" inquired Aunt Hominy, laying down the club with which she was beating biscuit-dough on the block.

"Yes, aunty, he's left it on the hat-rack. I'm afraid to go past it to the do'."

Aunt Hominy threw the club on the blistered bulk of dough, and retreated towards the big black fireplace, with a face expressive of so much fright and cunning humor together that it seemed about to turn white, but only got as far as a pucker and twitches.

"De Lord a ma.s.sy!" exclaimed Aunt Hominy, "chillen, le's burn dat hat in de fire! Maybe it'll liff de trouble off o' dis yer house. We got de hat jess wha' we want it, chillen. Roxy, gal, you go fotch it to Aunt Hominy!"

The girl started as if she had been asked to take up a snake: "'Deed, Aunt Hominy, I wouldn't touch it to save my life. n.o.body but ole Samson ever did that!"

"Go' long, gal!" cried Aunt Hominy, "didn't Miss Vessy hole dat ar' hat one time, an' pin a white rose in it? Didn't he, dat drefful Meshach Milbun, offer Miss Vessy a gole dollar, an' she wouldn' have none of his gole? Dat she did! Virgie, you go git dat hat, chile! Poke it off de rack wid my pot-hook heah. 'Twon't hurt you, gal! I'll sprinkle ye fust wid camomile an' witch-hazel dat I keep up on de chimney-jamb."

Aunt Hominy turned towards the broadly notched chimney sides, where fifty articles of negro pharmacy were kept--bunches of herbs, dried peppers, bladders of seeds, and bottles of every mystic potency.

"Aunty," answered Virgie, "if I wasn't afraid of that Bad Man, I would be afraid to move that hat, because Miss Vessy would be mortified.

Think of her seeing me treating a visitor's things like that. Why, I'd rather be sold!"

"Dat hat," persisted Aunt Hominy, "is de ruin ob dis family. Dat hat, gals, de debbil giv' ole Meshach, an' made him wear it fo' de gift ob gittin' all de gole in Somerset County. Don't I know when he wore it fust? Dat was when he begun to git all de gole. Fo' dat he had been po'

as a lizzer, sellin' to n.i.g.g.e.rs, cookin' fo' heseff, an' no' count, nohow. He sot up in de loft of his ole sto' readin' de Bible upside down to git de debbil's frenship. De debbil come in one night, and says to ole Meshach: 'Yer's my hat! Go, take it, honey, and measure land wid it, and all de land you measure is yo's, honey!' An' Meshach's measured mos'

all dis county in. Jedge Custis's land is de last."

The relation affected both girls considerably, and the group of little colored boys and girls still more, who came up almost chilled with terror, to listen; but it produced the greatest effect on Aunt Hominy herself, whose imagination, widened in the effort, excited all her own fears, and gave irresistible vividness to her legend.

"How can his hat measure people's lands in, Aunty?" asked Virgie, drawing Roxy to her by the waist for their mutual protection.

"Why, chile, he measures land in by de great long shadows dat debbil's hat throws. Meshach, he sots his eyes on a good farm. Says he, 'I'll measure dat in!' So he gits out dar some sun-up or sundown, when de sun jest sots a'mos' on de groun, an' ebery tree an' fence-pos' and standin'

thing goes away over de land, frowin' long crooked shadows. Dat's de time Meshach stans up, wid dat hat de debbil gib him to make him longer, jest a layin' on de fields like de shadow of a big church-steeple. He walks along de road befo' de farm, and wherever dat hat makes a mark on de ground all between it an' where he walks is ole Meshach's land.

Dat's what he calls his mortgage!"

The children had their mouths wide open; the maids heard with faith only less than fear.

"But, Aunt Hominy," spoke Roxy, "he never measured in Judge Custis's house, and all of us in it, that is to be sold."

"Didn't I see him a doin' of it?" whispered Aunt Hominy, stooping as if to creep, in the contraction of her own fears, and looking up into their faces with her fists clinched. "He's a ben comin' along de fence on de darkest, cloudiest nights dis long a time, like a man dat was goin' to rob something, and peepin' up at Miss Vessy's window. He took de dark nights, when de streets of Prencess Anne was clar ob folks, an' de dogs was in deir cribs, an' nuffin' goin' aroun' but him an' wind an' cold an' rain. One night, while he was watchin' Miss Vessy's window like a black crow, from de shadow of de tree, I was a-watchin' of him from de kitchen window. De moon, dat had been all hid, come right from behin' de rain-clouds all at once, gals, an' scared him like. De moon was low on de woods, chillen, an' as ole Meshach turned an' walked away, his debbil's shadow swept dis house in. He measured it in dat night. It's ben his ever since."

"Well," exclaimed Roxy, after a pause, "I know I wouldn't take hold of that hat now."

"I am almost afraid to look at it," said Virgie, "but if Miss Vessy told me to go bring it to her, I would do it."

"Le's us all go together," ventured Aunt Hominy, "and take a peep at it.

Maybe it won't hurt us, if we all go."

Aware that Judge Custis and his wife were not near, the little circle of servants--Aunt Hominy, Virgie, Roxy, and the four children, from five to fourteen years of age--filed softly from the kitchen through the covered colonnade, and thence along the back pa.s.sage to the end of the hall, where they made a group, gazing with believing wonder at the King James tile.

* * * Vesta Custis, having changed her morning robe for a walking-suit, and slightly rearranged her toilet, and knelt speechless awhile to receive the unknown will of Heaven, came down the stairs at last, in time to catch a glimpse of half-a-dozen servants staring at a strange old hat on the hall rack. They hastily fled at her appearance, but the idea of the hat was also conveyed to her own fancy by their unwonted behavior. She looked up an instant at the queer, faded article hanging among its betters, and with a reminiscence of childhood, and of having held it in her hand, there descended along the intervening years upon the a.s.sociation, the odor of a rose and the impression of a pair of bold, startled eyes gazing into hers. She opened the library door, and the same eyes were looking up from her father's easy-chair.

"Mr. Milburn, I believe?" said Vesta, walking to the visitor, and extending her hand with native sweetness.

He arose and bowed, and hardly saw the hand in the earnest look he gave her, as if she had surprised him, and he did not know how to express his bashfulness. She did not withdraw the hand till he took it, and then he did not let it go. His strong, rather than bold, look, continuing, she dropped her eyes to the hand that mildly held her own, and then she observed, all calm as she was, that his hand was a gentleman's, its fingers long and almost delicate, the texture white, the palm warm, and, as it seemed to her, of something like a brotherly pressure, respectful and gentle too.

As he did not speak immediately, Vesta returned to his face, far less inviting, but peculiar--the black hair straight, the cheek-bones high, no real beard upon him anywhere, the shape of the face broad and powerful, and the chops long, while the yellowish-brown eyes, wide open and intense, answered to the open, almost observant nostrils at the end of his straight, fine nose. His complexion was dark and forester-like, seeming to show a poor, unnutritious diet. He was hardly taller than Vesta. His teeth were good, and the mouth rather small. She thought he was uncertain what to say, or confused in his mind, though no sign of fear was visible. Vesta came to his rescue, withdrawing her hand naturally.