CHAPTER XL.
HULDA BELEAGUERED.
Owen Daw brought the news of the repulse from Cowgill House and thewounding of Captain Van Dorn.
"Where is the little tacker, Levin?" asked Patty Cannon, furiously.
"Arrested, I 'spect," cried O'Day, boldly; "Van Dorn's hit in thethroat."
"He'll not talk much, then," muttered the woman; "his time had to come.Where will I find another lover at my age? Why, honey," she chuckled toherself, in a looking-glass, "that son of his'n may come back. He's tooka shine to Huldy: why not to me?"
At the idea another hideous thought came to her mind: to settle Hulda'sfate in her young lover's absence, and monopolize the corrupting powerover Levin Dennis, if he ever lived to see Johnson's Cross-roads again.
As individual fugitives returned, confirming the decisive repulse of theband, Patty Cannon's face grew dark, and her oaths low and deep; CyrusJames heard her say:
"If I could only hang some one for this! Joe Johnson's the white-liveredsneak that would not go. I've hanged a better son-in-law."
"Aunt Patty, I love your grandchild, Huldy," Cy James ventured to say."The Captain's wounded and Joe's going away to Floridy. Maybe I kin gityou up another band."
Without an instant's consideration of this ambitious proposition, Mrs.Cannon threw Cy James, by main strength, through the window of her bar,into her kitchen, and he bawled like a baby, yet came out of his griefmuttering, "Ploughin', ploughin'! I'll make her into batter and fry heryet."
With this reflection Mr. James hid himself for the remainder of theafternoon in some secluded part of the Hotel Johnson.
Mrs. Cannon, however, had instantly resumed her monologue on business.
"They all think to give the old woman the go-by: a sick man's no good,and there's that wife of Van Dorn's hopin' to git him yit. By God! shesha'n't have him in his shroud. No; I'll recruit from young material.Ruin 'em when they's boys, and, while you kin pet 'em, they'll do yourwork! I have one nigger in the garret Joe wants to burn: he's my nigger,and I'll let him loose to bring me more niggers. Money is what I need toput on a bold front: Huldy must fetch it!"
With this resolution Patty Cannon mounted the stairs to a room on thesecond floor, and, without knocking, pushed her way in.
A man of a voluptuous form and face, like one overfed, yet on the best,and with stiff, military shoulders, and of colors warm in tint, yet coldin expression, blue eyes, and rich, wine-lined cheeks and lips, thatstill seemed hard and self-indulged, spoke up at once:
"Always knock, Patty! it's more conservative. My way in life is to reachmy point, but respect all the forms. What do you want?"
"When do you leave for Baltimore, Cunnil McLane?"
"As soon as Joe returns with my dear sister's property: to-morrow, Ihope."
"You can take Huldy Bruington if you pay my price for her: two thousanddollars down. If you won't give it, she shall be married to some youngkidnapper, who will fetch twice that pile for her in niggers. They'llall fight their weight in black wildcats to git her."
"Very, very abrupt proposition, Patty; not conservative at all. What'sthe matter with you, dame, to-day. Van Dorn not lucky, heigh?"
He gave her a vitreous smile and watched her over his round paunch, onwhich a crystal watch-seal hung, like a more human eye than his own. Hercolor began to rise.
"I'm mad," said Patty Cannon; "don't worry me; don't Jew me! Do youmind? Yes, Van Dorn has been whipped--by niggers, too. Will you pay myprice or not?"
"Tut, tut, good woman! What can I want with a white girl. It wouldn'tlook conservative at all in Baltimore."
Patty Cannon stamped her foot.
"Don't rouse me with any of your hypocritical cant, Cunnil McLane! Whathave you been teachin' that child to read an' write fur--out of yourBible, too? What do you bring her presents fur, and hang around us whenwe know you despise us all, except fur the black folks we can sell youcheap? Haven't I been sold to men like you time and again before I was awoman, and don't I know the sneaking pains that old men take to lookbenevolent when youth an' beauty is fur sale; and how they pet it tokeep it pure fur their own selfish enjoyment? God knows I do!"
"Patty, you shock me!" the rubicund gentleman observed. "I have alwaysfound you conservative before. Now, go and send sweet Hulda here, and,for Heaven's sake, Patty, don't reveal this bargain to her."
"Is it a bargain, Cunnil?"
"It is, if she can be made willing to it."
"That she shall, or make her bed in the forest, where good looks are notsafe around yer."
Hulda was found at a window, looking out upon her former home, and at aploughman who had nearly completed the furrows in a large field, sparingonly some low places piled with brush, over one of which some buzzardscircled, lofty, yet intent as anglers watching their tackle. Hard asthat home had been to Hulda, she regretted leaving it for this men'stavern, where her grandmother's saucy temperament found so manyincentives to bravado, and her caution, that had to be exercised inDelaware, was quite unnecessary on the Maryland side of the line.
At the little hip-roofed white cottage Hulda had felt a sense of privacypleasing to her growing life, and her ability to read often charmedPatty Cannon to a stillness that was like the hyena's sleep, and evenmade her acquiescent and cordial.
But where she met men alone, unmodified by modest women's example, thebold tendency of Patty was to out-do men, and lead them on to audacitiesthey would have feared to follow in but for her courage and policy; forshe could coax either young or coarse natures, as well as she coulddrive.
These feats of strength and cunning, statecraft and desperation,reminded Hulda of a book she had read about the Norman knights inEngland kidnapping and robbing the poor Saxons; and one description ofKing William the Conqueror suggested to Hulda that he was perhaps aPatty Cannon in his times, as his body and legs were short and powerful,like hers, and he could bend a bow riding on horseback that no otherknight could bend on foot with the legs planted firmly. He could notread nor write, and was superstitious, yet cruel as the grave. All thiswas true of Patty Cannon, whose feat of standing in a bushel measure andputting three hundred pounds of grain on her shoulder has been related.
She often wrestled and bound, without assistance, strong black menfighting for their liberties. She could ride horseback, sitting likemen, in a way to make Joan of Arc seem a maid of mere tinsel.
Hulda was dressed in her best clothes, her hair was tied in wide braids,her fine features and large, tender, yet seeking, gray eyes, never hadbeen turned on Patty Cannon so directly.
Her grandmother abandoned in a moment an attempt to be complaisant, andsternly ordered her to attend to Colonel McLane's chamber.
"I can support you no longer, huzzy," said the dark-eyed woman, hercheeks full of blood. "Make haste to find some easy life or Joe shallget you a husband. We are ruined. You must make money, do you hear!"
"Here is money, grandma!" said Hulda, producing some of the shillings of1815.
At the first glance of these Patty Cannon turned pale, but, in aninstant, the hot blood rushed to her face again, and she swore adreadful oath and chased Hulda, with uplifted hands, into the chamber ofAllan McLane.
"Ah, Hulda, inflaming your poor grandmother again!" said that carefullyclad and game-fed gentleman. "Now, now, lovely girl, it's notconservative. Honor thy father and mother, and grandmother, of course;didn't I teach you that?"
"What is it to be conservative?" Hulda asked, sitting before the fire,while the Colonel ran over her straight feet and tall, willowy figure,and stopped, a little chilled by her clear, dewy eyes.
"Conservative? why, it's never to rush on anything; to oppose rushing;to--to be a bulwark against innovations. To prefer something you havetried, and know."
"Like you?" asked Hulda.
"Yes, your benefactor, instead of having some impulsive passion. Ofcourse, you never loved in this place?"
"It is the only place I know. To be conservative, as you call it, Imust take my life and opportunity
as I find them, like something I havetried and know."
"Ah, Hulda! I see you have a radical, perverse something in you, totwist my meaning so close. You do not belong to this vile spot, exceptby consanguinity. It would be perfectly conservative for you to look toa better settlement."
"You have hinted that before," Hulda said, serene in his presence as ayoung woman used to proposals. "I do want to change this life, but Icannot do it and be conservative. I must fasten upon a free impulse, anatural chance of some kind. God has kept my heart pure in this dreadfulplace, where I was born. Why are you here, if you are conservative? Itis not a gentleman's resort."
He grew a little angry at this thrust, but she continued to look at himquietly, unaware that she was impertinent.
"I often have business, Hulda, with Joe and Patty; negroes are veryhigh, and we must buy them where they are to be had. But a deepeningreligious interest in you often attracts me here."
"Why religious as well as conservative, sir?"
"I have been afraid that the sights you see here, after the goodinstructions I have given you, might make you an infidel."
"What is an infidel?"
"One who, being unable to explain certain evils in life, refuses tobelieve anything. That is the case with Van Dorn, a very bad man.Stepfather Joe is always conservative on that subject. Deviate as muchas he may, he never disbelieves. Aunt Patty, too, erratic as she is,holds a conservative position on a Great First Cause."
Here McLane drew out his gold spectacles, and turned the leaves of hisBible over, and pointed Hulda a place to read, beginning, "The fool hathsaid in his heart, There is no God." At his command she read it, withfaith, yet observation, her mind being fully alert to the warning VanDorn had left her, that in his absence her great trial was to be.
McLane was wearing a gray English suit, with full round paunch, sleekall over the body, his hair a little gray, his gold glasses dangling inhis hand, patent varnished slippers and silk stockings, and a silk scarfand cameo pin in it, and a cameo of his deceased sister upon hisfinger-ring, marking his attire; his eyes, of a pop kind, much too farforward, and blue as old china, and yet an animal, not a spiritualblue--the tint of washing-blue, not of distance; a hare-lip somewhere inhis talk, though the fulness of his very red lips hardly allowed placefor it; and his nose and brows stern and military, as if he had been apudding stamped with the die of a Roman emperor or General Jackson.
He watched her reading with censorship, yet desire, patronage, andoiliness together.
Glancing up when she had read far enough, Hulda thought he was lookingat her as if she was some rarer kind of negress.
"Beautifully read, Hulda! I never go to such places as theatres, but youmight be, I should say, an actress. Don't think of it, however! Veryunconservative profession! I take great pride in you, my lovely girl;suppose I take you home with me!"
He walked to her stool, and laid his warm hand on her neck, standingbehind her; she did not move nor change color.
"Something has happened to me, Colonel McLane," Hulda spoke, clear as abell out of a prison, "to make even Johnson's Cross Roads good andhappy. Can you guess what it is?"
She bent her head back, and looked up fearlessly at him, as if he werethe negro now.
"Not religious ecstasy?" he said. "Not camp-meeting or revivalconversion, I hope. That's vile."
"No, Colonel. It is knowing a pure young man, whose love for me isnatural and unselfish."
"Great God!" spoke McLane, removing his hand. "Not some kidnapper?"
"No," Hulda said, "no slave-dealer of any kind. They cannot make him so.He is perfectly conservative, Colonel, as to that vileness. I believe heis a gentleman, too."
"You must have great experience in that article," he sneered, lookingangry at her.
"I have seen you and my lover; you have the best clothes, and professmore. He has a nature that your opportunities would bring realrefinement from. He respects me, wretched as I am; I read it in hiseyes. You are looking for a way to degrade me in my own feelings, yet todeceive me. Can you be a gentleman?"
She was serene as if she had said nothing, though she rose up, and stoodat one side of the fireplace, opposite him; between them was a print ofGeneral Jackson riding over the British.
In that moment Allan McLane felt that the girl was cheap at hergrandmother's figure.
He had always conceived her a flexible, peculiar child; in a few minutesshe had grown years, and become a rare and nearly stately woman, not nowto be moulded, but to be tempted with large, worldly propositions.
"May I ask who this lover is that I am so much beneath, Hulda--I, whohave taught you the accomplishments you chastise me with? I found yousand; I made you crystal."
He drew out a large pongee handkerchief, and really dropped some tearsinto it. She continued, cool and unmoved:
"My love is Levin Dennis, from Princess Anne. I am not afraid to tellit."
"Why?"
"Because I want his danger and mine to be fully known to him, and makehim a man."
The Colonel folded his pongee, and came again to Hulda's side.
"That dissipated boy! Oh, Hulda, where is your real pride? He hasabandoned his mother. He is a poor gypsy. No, I must save you from sucha mistake. It is my duty to do it."
"I thank you for teaching me, whatever made you do it. If I could awakenin you some unselfishness towards me and my new love, sir, it would bethe greatest gratitude I could show you. You conceal so many hard, badthings under your word 'conservative,' that the gentle feelings, likeforgiveness, have forsaken you, I fear."
"No," the Colonel said, stiffly, his shoulders becoming more military,"insults to my honor I never forgive. People who do not resent, have noconservative principle."
"I forgive, as I hope to be forgiven, Joe, Aunt Patty, Van Dorn, andyou. I hope pity and mercy and sweet, unselfish love, such as I thinkmine is, may grow in all of you! Oh, Colonel,"--she turned to himearnestly, and, raising her hands to impress him, he merely noted theelegance of her wrists and brown arms--"the buying and selling of thesehuman beings makes everybody unfeeling. It is stealing their souls andbodies, whether they be bought at the court-house or kidnapped on theroads. My dream of joy is to have a husband who will work with his ownfree hands, and till his little farm, and sail his vessel, without aslave. Above that I expect and ask nothing from the dear God who has solong been my protector in this den of crime."
"Warm or cold, hectoring or tender, you are splendid, Hulda," McLanesaid, his face fairly refulgent. "Now let me show you a conservativepicture of your real deserts. I am a bachelor. I keep an elegant housein Baltimore. My table is supplied with the best in the market; myservants are my slaves, and never disobey me; my paintings arecelebrated; books I never run to--they are radical things--but I can buythem; my carriage is the best Rahway turn-out, and my horses areDiomeds. In Frederick County I have an estate, in sight of themountains. As a Christian act, I will take you away from this spot, towhich you seem but half kindred, and make you my wife."
"You ask me to marry you?"
"Conservatively; that is, continue to be my pupil, and obey me. I willbring your mind out of its ignorance, your body out of rags, yourassociations out of crime. I will provide for you, as you are obedient,while I live and after I am dead. You shall travel with me, and seebright cities--New Orleans, Charleston, Havana. If you remain here, youwill be another Patty Cannon or go to jail. There! Look at itconservatively: warmth, riches, pleasure, attention, change, dress tobecome you, a watch and jewels, against villainy and lowness of everykind."
"How are you to be repaid for this?"
"By your love."
"But it is not mine to give; Levin has it."
"Pooh! that's beneath you."
"But it is gone; I cannot get it back; it will not come."
"Give me yourself," McLane said, drawing her towards him; "therefinements I do not care about. Be mine!"
The girl allowed herself to be brought nearly to his side, and, as hebent to kiss her with his la
rge, complacent lips, she glided from hishands.
"I could never stoop," said Hulda, "to be even the wife of a negrodealer."
He colored to the eyes, yet with admiration of her almost aristocraticcomposure.
"You could not stoop to me?" he said "Not from your father's gallows?"
"No; he was a robber, but a bold one. You only receive the goods."
She was gone; and he stood, with evil lights in his face, but no shame.He drank some brandy from a flask, and murmured, "Now I have an insultto revenge, as well as a fancy to be gratified; her father must havebeen a cool rogue. Well, everything has to be done by force here; PattyCannon shall see my gold."