company, and, when he broke me up as a slaver--having already been
broken as a privateer--had said: 'Dennis, that country you praise so
well has infatuated me; I'll resign my commission and buy a little
vessel, and settle in America with you for the sake of my dear little
daughter, Hulda Van Dorn.' _Ayme!_ that poor little wild-flower:
where did she spend the chill night yesterday, Patty, can you tell?"

He coughed again, very carefully, and his eye, the brighter for his
fretted lungs, never left his hostess, as though he feared she might
overlook some pleasing feature of his story. She trotted her foot and
muttered:

"You made me jealous of her: I got to hate an' fear her, lovey."

"Voluptuous as two young widowers were after a long cruise, we tarried
among you sirens, myself almost at the threshold of my home, where my
wife believed me dead, yet waited longingly and waits this morn, dear
Patty. _Dios da fe!_ My friend, entasselled with bright Betty, sooner
felt remorse at the spectacle of his little child so ill-caressed, and
beckoned me away; but he had shown his gold, and could better be spared
than reckless I. You know the cool, deep game, dear Pat. _Hala ha!_ I
was made to buy the poison you sisters gave Van Dorn, and seem the
accomplice in his death: never till this week has that murder given up a
testimony--the portion of the dead man's coin your mother stole and hid,
which Hulda inherited at last. _Verdad es verde!_ I became afraid to
leave you: I am here at the death with you, my old enchantress."

A crack ran through the empty wooden house, which made her rise; Van
Dorn, as he was called, enjoyed her uneasiness, like a pallid mask
painted with a smile.

"Captain," she said, "how many people I see out yonder in the fields!
Maybe thar's to be a fox-chase."

"Sit, Patty! Let me drink, in my last days of life, the wine lees of
your memory. You are so dear to me! Turn in the golden sun, that I may
linger on that face which autumn's ashes fall upon, though through the
dead leaves I see the russet colors smoulder yet! How daring was your
girlhood: the poor blacksmith farmer, whose name you will transmit
forever, fretted you with his sickness and his scruples, and, _he aqui!_
you stilled him with the same cup you mixed for Betty's husband. His
daughter you gave to wife to his apprentice, a strong, stolid man,
capable of heroism, Patty, for he died for you, his dear misleader, on
the shameful scaffold, though a