y ears, as was done for you in
state patriotism."

"Beware of that imp of Tolobon!" Joe Johnson muttered. "How I wish you
could kill him, Van Dorn. He's got to be a senator; some day he'll be
chief-justice of Delaware: then, what'll niggers be wuth thar?"

"I fancy, Joseph, you might be a legislator in Delaware if your
inclinations ran that way?"

"Easy enough, but I makes legislators. My wife, Margaretta--her first
husband's sister is the wife of the chancellor."

"Hola! oh! How came that great alliance?"

"She was housekeeper; he was a close old bachelor and must break a leg.
'Well,' she says, 'you're a daddy; justice is your trade, and I must
have it.' So, from bein' his peculiar, she becomes the madam; but she
inwented the kid."

"I have never been in Dover; how shall I tell where Lawyer Clayton
dwells?"

"It's on the green a-middle of the town, a-standin' by the
state-house--a long, roughcast house in the corner, three stories high,
with two doors; the door next the state-house is his office. Go past the
state-house, which has a cupelo onto it, an' you see the jug an'
whippin'-post. He's got 'em handy fur you."

Levin listened with all his ears. The liquor was now well out of his
system, and he thanked God he had refused Patty Cannon's burning dram,
else he might be this night--he thought it with remorse--the reckless
mate for Owen Daw, whose own mother had predicted the gallows for him.

"And now, Van Dorn, I turn back," Joe Johnson said; "I have a job to do
down the Peninsuly. McLane has become the owner of a gal thar, an' wants
her sneaked. I takes black Dave with me, an' when I'm back, my boat will
be ready an' my cargo packed. Then hey fur Floridey!"

He unhaltered his horse at the tail of the wagon, mounted him, and rode
back across the stream. Van Dorn touched his horses and entered the
dense woods in a byway to the north.

"Get up here, Master Levin, and ride by me," the Captain said, very
soon, and he lifted Levin's old hat from his head and looked at his
bright hair parted in the middle, his fine, large eyes, needing the
light of knowledge, and his soft complexion and marks of good
extraction.

"Where is thy father, Levin, to let thee go so ragged, with such
graceful limbs and feet as these?"

"Shipwrecked," said Levin; "gone down, I 'spect, on the privateer."

"A sailor, was he? Well, he should be home to clothe thee and see that
thou dost not cheat. I marked how Madam Cannon's punch wa