The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times
without rest for many nights, and sleep soon bound him in its own clevis
and manacles.
When he awoke, so deep had been his slumber that he could not recall for
a moment where he was. The tiller was unmanned, the stars shone in the
cabin hatchway, a cold bilge-water draft blew through the old hulk, and,
as he dragged himself up the steps, he saw tall woods near by, and heard
the voice of solemn pines.
The vessel was aground; wild geese were making jubilant shrieks as they
cut the water with their fleecy wings, like cameo engraving; the outlaw
gazed and gazed, and finally muttered:
"Deil's Island, or I'm a billy noodle! I run from it the last time I was
yer, an' my blood runs cold to be yer agin; my daddy got his curse from
this camp-meetin'."
Taking speed from his apprehensions, Johnson slid back the hatchway and
leaped into the hold, starlight and moonlight following him, and nothing
did they reveal there except one man, peacefully sleeping upon his face,
as Phoebus had last been seen.
The kidnapper shook his captive, but he did not awaken. He turned the
man over, and there met his eyes the cold blue stare and Roman nose and
bleeding lips of Allan McLane, apparently returned from the bottom of
the river.
With a shriek, the outlaw bounded upon the deck and ran to the bow of
the pungy.
"Help me!" came a faint cry from the forecastle, and, peeping in, Joe
Johnson recognized one of his own familiars he had shipped at Cannon's
Ferry, gagged, like his companion, and tied fast. The man had just been
able to articulate.
"Now, spiflicate me!" spoke the skipper, relieving the man, "the ruffian
cly you! who did this?"
"The white nigger did it all, Joe. He crawled through the stays to the
cabin, and got your pistols, first; leastways, we found him an' the
yaller feller at the helm on top of us, coming up the fo'castle, and
next t'other two men jined 'em. They said ole Samson had give 'em the
wink. We two was tied and throwed in yer, an' ef you had awaked, thar
was a man to stab you to the heart, sot over you."
"The portmanteau?" cried Johnson.
"That's gone, I reckon. They sowed you up a feather an' oyster-shell man
on a plank to heave overboard; that's what they said. They steered for
Deil's Island, an' sot the Island Parson yer to watch that you don't git
the pungy off, an' I reckon they're half-way to Princess Anne."
Joe Johnson heard no more. He released his creatures from their bonds,
took the dead body in the pungy's canoe, and gave the command:
"Row fur the open bay! We'll strike St. Mary's County or Virginny.
Bingavast! Hike! Never agin will I put foot on this Eastern Shore."
* * * * *
At Georgetown Jimmy Phoebus, Samson, and Levin Dennis met again, and
Levin told the mystery of his father's disappearance.
"Never tell your mother, Levin, that Captain Dennis died in that
Pangymonum; it would break her heart, and she never would trust man
agin."
"Jimmy," spoke up Samson, "let her understand that he got wrecked on the
_Ida_. It looks a little bad, but the slave-trade sounds better than
kidnappin'."
"They say that Allan McLane owned that slave vessel," Phoebus put in;
"but he didn't live to know his loss. He'll meet his heathens at the
Judgment Seat."
"Who has fed mother?" Levin asked. "Hulda can't explain that."
"I kin, Levin," Samson Hat said, bashfully. "It was me. Good ole Meshach
Milburn, that everybody's down on, pitied that pore woman, an' made me
set things she needed in her window. He said if I ever told it he'd
discharge me."
"Dog my skin!" Jimmy Phoebus observed, "the next man that calls
'steeple top' after ole Meshach I'll mash flat! But, come, my son, I've
buried at Broad Creek your wife's family relics. We'll hire a wagon, and
drive to ole Broad Creek 'piscopal church on the way, and there I'll
have you married to Huldy."
The sword-hilt and coins were disinterred, and in that ancient edifice
of hard pine, where the worship of her English race had long been
celebrated, the naval officer's daughter became the wife of the son of
his voluptuous and perverted friend. As Jimmy Phoebus kissed them he
said:
"Levin, when your mother says 'Yes,' all four of us will settle in the
West. Illinois has become a free state, after a hard fight, and I reckon
that'll suit us."
* * * * *
For a while Patty Cannon, by her affability and sorrow, had easy times
in jail, and was allowed to eat with the jailer's family; but, as the
examination proceeded before the grand jury, and her menials hastened to
throw their responsibility in so many crimes upon her alone, an outer
opinion demanded that she be treated more harshly, and some of the irons
she had manacled upon her captives were riveted upon her own ankles.
Very soon dropsy began to appear in her legs and feet, and, after it
became evident to her that neither money nor friends were forthcoming in
her defence, she fell into a passive despair.
The frequent conferences between Jimmy Phoebus and Cy James led to the
belief that not only had Hulda recovered portions of her father's money
and valuables, hidden in the beehives and flower-pots old Patty had so
assiduously attended, but that Phoebus had seized upon property
indicated by the informer, and was to have whatever remained of it after
procuring the latter's release.
This result was hastened by Patty Cannon's death, which happened, to the
great relief of many respectably considered people in that region, who
had feared from the first that she would make a minute confession,
implicating everybody who had dealt with her band.
Among these was Judge Custis, who opened his skeleton-in-the-closet to
John M. Clayton one spring-like day. Clayton had quietly prodded on the
conviction of Patty Cannon, but the jealousy of the slaveholding
interest made him wary of any open appearance against her.
They were sitting in the little parlor of the Methodist parsonage, a
small frame house with a conical-roofed portico and big end-chimney, a
little off from the public square, whither they had gone to send the
pastor to wait on the aged Chancellor, who had been taken ill in the
court-room, and lay in the hotel.
"Clayton," said Judge Custis, in a low tone of voice, "what this woman
may do or tell, you would not think concerned me, but I will show you
how deep her influence has reached, as well as explain to you why I
would not pursue my own servants to her den. In this I humiliate myself
before you, as I must do, if I am to become your client."
"You had been trading with Patty Cannon; I guessed that much."
"Such was the case. When I was a collegian at Yale, returning home one
holiday, I fell in love with a beautiful quadroon, the property of my
uncle, in Northampton County. She was an elegant woman, with a good
education, and had been my playmate. I was ardent and good-looking, and
easily found lodgment in her heart; but the conquest of her charms was
long, and agonizing with sincere esteem. You must believe me when I
declare that I fell dangerously ill because I was refused by her, and,
making a confidant of my doctor, he told the girl that she must choose
between my death and her surrender. Pity, then, prevailed, even over
religion. I was happy in every point but one--the injury concealment
worked upon her self-respect; for, Clayton, my mistress was my own
cousin."
"Goy!"
"I never desired to marry, although no children had been born in my
patriarchal relation; but, in the course of years, my uncle became
pressed for debts, and he appealed to me to save my beautiful handmaiden
from sale, he being in full sympathy with my relation to her, because
she was his daughter."
"I goy!"
"The case was urgent. I possessed some negroes, the legacy of my mother.
To sell them publicly would be a stigma both upon my humanity and my
credit. I adopted the cowardly device of letting a kidnapper slip them
away, and take a large commission for his trouble. I saved my lady, but
at the expense of a secret."
"And that secret Joe Johnson depended on, Custis, when he was suddenly
driven into your house, and found your old servant already demoralized
by the announcement of your son-in-law?"
"The scoundrel pressed his advantage; and he saw, besides, my
daughter--not Vesta, but her half-sister, Virgie--and, between his
persecution of her and my brother-in-law's vindictiveness, poor Virgie
was literally run to the ground and into it; she is in her grave."
Judge Custis broke into a long fit of sobbing, and Clayton, who had
noticed his dejected mien since their separation, passed an arm around
him, saying:
"Never mind, now! Never mind, old friend! Johnson is fled; McLane, they
whisper, has never been seen since he entered Johnson's tavern. His will
was found there, and your daughter gets her mother's property and
servants back."
"I must finish my story," Judge Custis said, stanching his tears. "By
the decline of every family with natural feelings and refinement, under
what Mr. Pinkney termed 'the contaminating curse of reluctant bondsmen,'
we, also, became poor. To save others, it was necessary that I must
marry, and get money by my own prostitution. My God, how we are repaid!
A bride was found for me in Baltimore, the sister of Allan McLane, and a
beauty.
"I began my married life with the best intentions; my poor mistress
herself advised me to turn to my wife, and become a true man. She told
me so with her heart breaking. In heaven, where she dwells with my poor
child, she hears me now, and knows I speak the truth!"
Judge Custis broke down again, and leaned his convulsed head on
Clayton's tender breast, whose own widower's grief gushed forth
responsively.
"Children were born in Teackle Hall; my servitude was becoming adjusted
to me, when Allan McLane, in his love of vindictiveness and of low,
formal respectability, conceived that my poor quadroon required some
chastisement for having been his sister's rival, and he set a trap to
buy her. I was forced to have her bought, to protect her, and to bring
her to my care again, and thus our passion was revived, and, giving
birth to Virgie, she died. Reared together, and unconscious of their
kindred, those daughters loved each other as dearly as when, in heaven,
they shall hide in the radiance of each other, and cover my sins with
their angelic wings."
"Rise up, old friend!" cried Clayton; "your transgressions are, at
least, washed out in sincere tears. Hear the birds all around us loving
and condoning, and filling the air with praise. Come out!"
As they stepped upon Georgetown Square they saw John Randel, Jr.,
leading a party of surveyors to locate the opposition railroad to
Meshach Milburn's. These and many others were pressing towards the
whipping-post and pillory, in the rear of the court-house, where stood,
exposed by the sheriff, the cleanly mulatto woman who had entertained
Virgie in Snow Hill the first night of her flight.
"This free woman, Priscilla Hudson," cried the sheriff, "is to stand one
hour in the pillory for the crime of lending her pass to a slave. Thirty
lashes she was sentenced to, the Governor has graciously taken off. She
is to be sold, out of the state, at the end of one hour, for the term of
her natural life, to the highest bidder."
The poor woman stood there, bare armed and bare almost to the bosom,
delicate and lovely to see, and the mother of free children, her
clothing having been partly removed before the pardon of the stripes was
announced to her.
Her head and arms were thrust through the holes in one leaf of the
pillory, and thus, thrown forward, her modesty was exposed to the wanton
gaze of the crowd, while, on the other side of the same elevated
platform, pilloried in like manner, was a female chicken-thief,