CHAPTER III.
THE FORESTERS.
One Saturday afternoon in October Meshach Milburn drew out his razor,cup, and hone, and prepared to shave, albeit his beard was never morethan harmless down. By a sort of capillary attraction Samson Hat divinedhis purpose, and, opening the big green chest, brought out themysterious hat.
"Put it down!" commanded the money-lender. "Go out and hire me acarriage with two horses--_two_ horses, do you mind!"
Samson dropped the hat in wonderment.
"Make yourself decent," added Meshach; "I want you to drive. Go with me,and keep with me: do you understand?"
"Yes, marster."
When the negro departed, Meshach himself took up the tall, green,buckled hat, with the stiff, broad, piratical brim. He looked it overlong and hard.
"Vanity, vanity!" he murmured, "vanity and habit! I dare not disown theenow, because they give thee ridicule, and without thee they would giveme nothing but hate!"
The people around the tavern and court-house saw, with surprise toogreat for jeering, the note-shaver go past in a carriage, driven by hisnegro, and with two horses! Jack Wonnell took off his shining beaver tocheer. As the phenomenal team receded, the old cry ran, however, downthe stilly street: "Steeple-top! He's got it on! Meshach's loose!"
The carriage proceeded out the forest road, and soon entered upon thesandy, pine-slashed region called Hard-scrabble, or Hardship.
Here the roads were sandy as the hummocks and hills in the rear of a seabeach, and the low, lean pines covered the swells and ridges, while inoccasional level basins, where the stiff clay was exposed, someforester's unpainted hut sat black and smoking on the slope, without awindow-pane, an ornament, or anything to relieve life from its monotonyand isolation.
But where the rills ran off to the continuous swamps the leafage startedup in splendrous versatility. The maple stood revealed in all its fair,light harmonies. The magnolia drooped its ivory tassels, and scented theforest with perfume. The kalmia and the alder gave undergrowth andbrilliancy to the foliage. Hoary and green with precipitate old age, thecypress-trees stood in moisture, and drooped their venerable beards fromangular branches, the bald cypress overhanging its evergreen kinsman,and looking down upon the swamp-woods in autumn, like some hermit artiston the rich pigments on his palette.
But nothing looked so noble as the sweet gum, which rose like a giantplume of yellow and orange, a chief in joyous finery, where the cypresswas only a faded philosopher.
Beside such a tall gum-tree Samson Hat reined in, where a well-springshone at the bottom of a hollow cypress. He borrowed a bucket from thehut across the road, and watered the horses.
"Marster," ventured the negro, "dey say your gran'daddy sot dis spring."
"Yes," said Milburn, "and built the cabin. Yonder he lies, on the knollby that stump, up in the field: he and more of our wasted race."
"And yon woman is a Milburn," added the negro, socially. "I know her byde hands."
The barefoot woman living in the cabin--one room and a loft, and thefloor but a few inches above the ground--cried out, impudently:
"If I could have two horses I'd buy a better hat!"
Milburn did not answer, but marked the poor, small corn ears ungatheredon the fodderless stalks, the shrubs of peach-trees, of which thelargest grew on his ancestors' graves, the little cart for one horse orox, which was at once family carriage and farm wagon, and the few pigsand chickens of stunted breeds around the woman's feet.
"Drive on, boy," he exclaimed; "the worst of all is that these peopleare happy!"
"Dat's a fack, marster," laughed Samson Hat. "Dey wouldn't speak to youin Princess Anne. Dey think everybody's proud and rich dar."
"Here the sea once dashed its billows on a bar," said Meshach Milburn,reflectively. "That geology book relates it! From the North the hummocksrecede in waves, where successive beaches were formed as the sea slowlyretreated. Hardly deeper than a human grave they strike water, below thesand and gravel. Below the water they drink is nothing but black mud,made of coarse, decayed grass. No lime is in the soil. Not a mineralexists in all this low, wave-made peninsula, where my people wereshipwrecked--except the wonderful bog ores."
The negro's genial, wondering nature broke out with comfortableassurance.
"Dat must be in de Bible," he said. "Marster, de Milburns been heah solong, dey must hab got shipwrecked wid ole Noah!"
"All families are shipwrecked," absently replied Meshach, "who casttheir lot upon an unrewarding land, and growing poorer, darker, down,from generation to generation, can never leave it, and, at last, cannever desire to go."
"Marster, dar is one got to go some ob dese days. It's me--pore oleSamson!"
"Ha! has some one set you on to demand your wages?"
"No, marster, I am old. It's you dat I'm troubled about! Dar's none tomend for you, cook for you, cure yo' sickness, or lay you in de grave."
No more was said until they passed the settled part of the forest andentered one of the many straight aisles of sky and sand among the pines,which had been opened on the great furnace tract of Judge Custis. He hadhere several thousand acres, and for miles the roadways were clefttowards the horizon. The moon rose behind them as they entered thefurnace village, and they saw the lights twinkle through the open doorsof many cottages and the furnace flames dart over the forbiddingmill-pond, where in the depths grew the iron ore, like a vegetablecreation, and above the surface, on splayed and conical mud-washedroots, the hundreds of strong cypresses towered from the water. Betweenthe steep banks of dark-colored pines, taller than the forest growth,this furnace lake lay black and white and burning red as the shadows, ormoonrise, or flames struck upon it, and the stained water foamed throughthe breast or dam where the ancient road crossed between pines,cypresses and gum-trees of commanding stature.
Tawny, slimy, chilly, and solemn, the pond repeated the forms of thegroves it submerged; the shaggy shadows added depth and dread to theeffect; some strange birds hooted as they dipped their wings in thesurface, and, flying upward, seemed also sinking down. As Meshach feltthe chill of that pond he drew down his hat and buttoned up his coat.
"The earliest fools who turned up the bog ores for wealth," he said,"released the miasmas which slew all the people roundabout. They killedall my family, but set me free."