man--that is, friend, not 'zackly a man,
but a hat."

"A hat?" The man walked up to Dennis this time, and stood over him like
a pine-tree over a sucker. "Yer's yer hat," pulling an old straw
article, over-worn, from Dennis's head. "No wind's a blowin' to blow
hats into graveyards. Or did you set yer hat under a hen in yere, by a
stiffy?"

Dennis looked up, laughing, though not all at ease, but his amiable want
of either intelligence or fear, which belong near together, made his
most natural reply to the pertinacious intruder a disarming grin.

"No, man," Dennis said, "it was a hat on a man's head--ole Meshach
Milburn's steeple-top. I was a follerin' of him."

"Stow your wid!" the man clapped the hat back on Levin's head. "You're a
poor hobb, anyhow. Is thair any niggers to sell hereby?"

"Oh, that's your trade, nigger buyin'? Well, there's mighty few niggers
to sell in Prencess Anne. Unless"--here a flash of intelligence shone in
Levin's eyes--"unless that's what's took ole Meshach Milburn to Jedge
Custis's. He goes nowhar unless there's trouble or money for _him_."

"And where is Judge Custis's, you rum chub?"

"Yander!" pointing to Teackle Hall.

"Ha! that is a Judge's? And niggers? Broke, too! Well, it's no hank for
a napper bloke. So bingavast! Git! Whar's the tavern?"

"I'm a-goin' right thair," answered Levin, much relieved. "You must be a
Yankee, or some other furriner, sir."

"No, hobb! I'm workin' my lay back to Delaware from Norfolk, by pungy to
Somers's cove. Show me to the tavern and I'll sluice your gob. I'll
treat you to swig."

At the prospect of a drink, of which he was too fond, Levin led the way
to the Washington Tavern, where there was a material addition to the
attendance since Jimmy Phoebus had called to every passer-by that
Meshach Milburn, on the testimony of Jack Wonnell, had actually been and
gone and disappeared in Judge Custis's doorway, and nearly a dozen
townsfolks were now discussing the why and wherefore, when, suddenly,
Levin Dennis came out of Church Street with a man over six feet high, of
a prodigious pair of legs, and arms nearly as long, with a cold,
challenging, yet restless pair of blue eyes, and with reddish-brown
beard and hair, coarse and stringy. The free negro, Samson Hat, being a
little way off, was observed to cast a beaming glance of admiration at
the athletic proportions of the stranger, who looked as if he might
shoulder an ox, or outrun a horse.

"Hallo!"