my life. Mr. Milburn was taken to his bed
Saturday evening, and on Sunday father went to Delaware on legal
business for my husband."

"That is Meshach Milburn, I hear," the bay sailor remarked, with a
penetrating look. "Shall I go and see him on this nigger business?"

"No," Vesta replied; "he is too sick, and it is a delicate subject to
name to him. My girls, Virgie and Roxy, think old Hominy ran away from a
superstitious fear she had of Mr. Milburn, who had become the master of
Teackle Hall by marriage."

"Yes, by smoke! every nigger in town, big and little, is afraid of
Milburn's hat."

"He has no ownership in those servants, nor has my father now. I will
tell you, James--relying on your prudence--that Hominy belonged to me,
and so did those three children, having passed from my father to my
husband and thence to me and back to my father, and from him to me again
in the very hour of my marriage. I fear they have been persuaded away,
to be abused and sold out of Maryland."

Jimmy Phoebus looked up at the sighing trees and over the wide facade
of Teackle Hall, and exclaimed "by smoke!" several times before he made
his conclusions.

"Miss Vesty," he said, finally, "send for your father to come home
immediately. People will not understand how Joe Johnson, outlaw as he
is, dared to rob a Maryland judge of his house servants, Johnson himself
bein' a Marylander, unless they had some understanding. Your sudden
marriage, an' your pappy's embarrassments, will be put together, by
smoke! an' thar is some blunt enough to say that when Jedge Custis is
hard up, he'll git money anyhow!"

The charge, made with an honest man's want of skill, battered down all
explanations.

"I confess it," said Vesta. "Papa's going away on a Sunday, and these
people disappearing on Sunday night, might excite idle comment. It might
be said that he endeavored to sell some of his property before his
creditor could seize it."

"I have seen you about yer since you was a baby, Vesty, an' Ellenora
says you're better game an' heart than these 'ristocrats, fur who I
never keered! That's why I take the liberty of calling you Vesty. Now,
let me tell you about your niggers. If they was a-gwyn to freedom in a
white man's keer, I wouldn't stop 'em to be cap'n of a man-of-war. But
Joe Johnson, supposin' that he's got of 'em, is a demon. Do you see the
stab on that dog? well, it's done with one of the bagnet pistols them
kidnappers carries--hoss pistols,