The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times
"Here is Barrett's chapel," said the Chancellor; "celebrated for the
plotting of the campaign between Wesley's native and English preachers
for the conquest of America as soon as the crown had lost it."
They looked up over the broad-gabled, Quakerly edifice, with its broad,
low door, high roof, double stories of windows, and a higher window in
the gable, trim rows of arch-bricks over door and windows, and belt
masonry; and heard the tall trees hush it to sleep like a baby left to
them. Nearly fifty feet square, and probably fifty years old, it looked
to be good for another hundred years.
"My family in Accomac was harsh with the Methodists through a mistaken
conservatism," Judge Custis said. "They are a good people; they seem to
suit this peninsula like the peachtree."
A small funeral procession was turning into Barrett's chapel, and the
Chancellor interrogated one of the more indifferent followers as to the
dead person. Having mentioned the name, the citizen said:
"His death was mysterious. He was a Methodist and a good man, but it
seems that avarice was gnawing his principles away. A slave boy, soon to
become free by law, disappeared from his possession, and he gave it out
that the boy had run away. But suddenly our neighbor began to drink and
to display money, and they say he had the boy kidnapped. He died like
one with an attack of despair."
As they turned again northward, in the genial afternoon, Judge Custis
said:
"What a stigma on both sides, Chancellor, is this kidnapping!"
The old man meekly looked down and did not reply. Judge Custis, feeling
that there was some sensitiveness on this and kindred subjects, yet why
he could not recollect, continued, under the impulse of his feelings:
"The night before I left Princess Anne, Joe Johnson, one of your worst
kidnappers, boldly came to my house for lodging. Why I let him stay
there is a subject of wonder and contempt to myself. But there he was,
perhaps when I came away."
"Not a prudent thing to permit," the old man groaned.
"I knew his wife was the widow of a gallows' bird, one Brereton--the
name is Yankee. He was hanged for highway robbery."
A muffled sound escaped the sober old gentleman of Delaware.
"_You_ should remember the murder, Chancellor. It happened in this
state. This Brereton killed a slave-buyer for what he brought here upon
his person to buy the kidnapped free people and apprentice-slaves.
Brereton was the son-in-law of Patty Cannon, that infamous pander
between Delaware and the South."
The old Chancellor looked up.
"I wish to anticipate you," he said, "in what you might further say with
truth, but perhaps do not fully know. The murderer, Brereton, was the
son-in-law of Patty Cannon, it is true; but he was also the
brother-in-law of myself."
"Impossible!" Judge Custis said.
"Yes, sir; I married his sister."
The old Chancellor again turned his eyes to the ground.
"Great heavens!" exclaimed the Judge; "how many curious things can be in
such a little state!"
It was in the middle of the afternoon that Judge Daniel Custis rode into
a small town on an undulating plain, around two sides of which, at
hardly half a mile distance, ran a creek through a pretty wooded valley,
and a third side was bounded by a branch of the same creek, all winding
through copse, splutter-dock, lotus-flower, and marsh to the Delaware
Bay.
At the centre of the town, on the swell or crest of alluvial soil, of a
light sandy loam foundation, an oblong public square, divided by a north
and south street, contained the principal dwellings of the place, one of
which was the Delaware State Capitol, a red-brick building, a little
older than the American Constitution, with a bell-crowned cupola above
its centre, and thence could be seen the Delaware Bay.
Near the state-house stood the whipping-post in the corner, humble as a
hitching-post, and the brick jail hid out of the way there also, like an
unpresentable servant ever cringing near his master's company. Various
buildings, generally antique, surrounded this prim, Quakerly square,
some brick, and with low portals, others smart, and remodelled to suit
the times; some were mere wooden offices or huts, with long dormers
falling from the roof-ridge nearly to the eaves, like a dingy feather
from a hat-crown, with a jewel in the end; and one was an old
steep-roofed hotel, painted yellow, with a long, lounging side.
At diagonal corners of this square, as far apart as its space would
permit, two venerable doctors' homes still stood, which had given more
repute to Delaware's little capital than its jurists or statesmen,--the
former residence of Sykes the surgeon and Miller the pathologist and
writer.
It was at the former of these houses, a many-windowed, tall,
side-fronting house of plastered brick, with side office and centre
door, that Judge Custis stopped and hitched his horse to a rack near the
state-house adjoining. The sound of twittering birds fell from the large
elms, willows, and maples on the square, and Custis could see the robins
running in the grass.
From the door of the two-storied side office the sound of a violin came
tenderly, and the Judge waited until the tune was done, when loud
exclamations of pleasure, the clapping of hands, and the stamping of
feet, showed that the fiddler was not alone.
Presenting himself at the door, Judge Custis was immediately confronted
by a large, tall man, fully six feet high, with a strong countenance and
sandy hair, who carried the fiddle and bow in his hand, and with the
other hand seized Judge Custis almost affectionately, and drew him in,
crying:
"Why, how is my old friend? Goy! how does he do? Who could have expected
you on this simple occasion? Sit down there and take my own chair! Not
that little one--no, the big easy-chair for my old friend! Goy!"
As Judge Custis cast his eye around, to note the company, the
demonstrative host, with a flash of his gray-blue eyes, whispered,
"Who is he? who is he?"
"A Custis," whispered a person hardly the better off for his drams; "I
reckon he is, by the lips and skin."
"Goy!" rapidly spoke the fiddler. "Friend Custis--I know my heart does
not deceive me!--let me introduce you to the very essence of grand old
little Delaware: here is Bob Frame, the ardent spirit of our bar; this
is James Bayard, our misguided Democratic favorite; here is Charley
Marim and Secretary Harrington, and my esteemed friend Senator Ridgely,
and my cousin, Chief-justice Clayton. We are all here, and all honored
by such a rare guest. Goy!"
As the Judge went through the hand-shaking process, the tall, well-fed
host stooped to the convivial person again, and, with his hand to the
side of his mouth, and an air of solemn cunning, whispered:
"Where from?"
"Accomac, or Somerset, I reckon," muttered the other.
"Now," exclaimed the host, taking both of Judge Custis's hands, "how do
our dear friends all get along in Somerset and Accomac? Where _do_ you
call home now, Friend Custis? How are our old friends Spence and
Upshur, and Polk and Franklin and Harry Wise? Goy! how I love our
neighbors below."
There was a strength of articulation and physical emphasis in the
speaker that the Judge noted at once, and it was attended with a beaming
of the eyes and a fine fortitude of the large jaws that made him nearly
magnetic.
"And this is John M. Clayton?" said the Judge. "We are not so far off
that we have not fully heard of you. And now, since I belong to a
numerous family, let me identify myself, Clayton, as Daniel Custis, late
Judge on the Eastern Shore."
"Judge Custis! Daniel Custis! Friends," looking around, "what an honor!
Think of it! The eminent American manufacturer! The creator of our
industries! The friend of Mr. Clay and the home policy! Bayard, you need
not shake your head! Ridgely, pardon my patriotic enthusiasm! Look at _a
man_, my friends, at last! Goy!"
As the Judge listened to various affirmations of welcome, Mr. Clayton,
with one eye winked and the other resting on Lawyer Frame, the ardent
spirit of the bar, made the motion with his lips:
"Cambridge?"
"No; Princess Anne."
"And dear old Princess Anne, how does she fare?"--he had again turned to
the Judge--"how is the little river Wicomico--no, I mean Manokin--how
does it flow? Does it flow benevolently? Does it abound in the best
oysters I ever tasted? in _tar_rapin, too? How is she now? Goy!"
"Are you on your way north, Brother Custis, or going home?" the keen,
black-eyed Chief-justice asked.
"No, my journey is ended. I came to Dover to be acquainted with Mr.
Clayton."
"_Aunt Braner. Hyo! Come yer, Aunt Braner_!" the host cried loudly, and
an old colored woman came in, closely followed by some of her
grandchildren, who stood, gazing, at the door. "Take this gentleman and
give him the best room in my house. The best ain't good enough for him!
Take him right up and give him water and make your son bresh him, and
we'll send him the best julep in Kent County. Goy!"
"De bes' room was Miss Sally's, Mr. Clayton," the old woman answered.
A sudden change came over the highly prompt and sanguine face of the
host; he hesitated, wandered in the eyes, and caught himself on the
words:
"No, give him the Speaker Chew room: that'll suit him best."
As the Judge followed the servant out, the young Senator emptied his
mouth of a large piece of tobacco into a monster spittoon that a blind
man could hardly miss, and, with a face still long and silent, and much
at variance with his previous spontaneity, he absently inquired:
"What can he want? what can he want?"
One of the small negro children had meantime toddled in at the door,
and, with large, liquid eyes in its solemn, desirous face, laid hands on
the fiddle and looked up at Mr. Clayton.
"Bless the little child!" he suddenly said. "Wants a tune? Well!"
Placing himself in a large chair, the young Senator tilted it back till
his hard, squarish head rested against the mantel, and he felt along the
strings almost purposelessly, till the plaintive air came forth:
"Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon!
How can ye bloom so fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I so full of care?
Thou'lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For so I sat, and so I sang,
And wist not of my fate."
He closed his eyes on the strains, and a thickening at his throat, and
movement of his broad, athletic chest, as he continued the air, showed
that he was inwardly laboring with some strong emotion.
His cousin, the Chief-justice, made a signal with his hat, and one by
one the sitters stole out into the square noiselessly, and went their
ways, leaving the young man playing on, with the negro child at his
knee, leaning there as if to spy out the living voice in his violin.
Other children came to the door--white children from the square, black
children from the garden--and some ventured a little way in to hear the
tender wooing of the sympathetic strings. He moved his bow mechanically,
but the music sprang forth as if it knew its sister, Grief, was waiting
on the chords. At last a bolder child than the rest came and pushed his
elbow and said,
"Papa!"
"My boy, my dear boy!" the fiddler cried, as tears streamed down his
cheeks, and he lifted the lad to his heart and kissed him.
Judge Custis, though no word passed upon the subject, saw the solitary
canker at the Senator's heart--his wife's dead form in the old
Presbyterian kirk-yard.
It was soon apparent to Judge Custis, from this and other silent things,
that a light-hearted, affectionate, strong, yet womanly, engine of
energy constituted the young Delaware lawyer-politician. Keen, cunning,
impulsive, hopeful, his feet provincial, his head among the birds, he