Mary's County or Virginny.
Bingavast! Hike! Never agin will I put foot on this Eastern Shore."
* * * * *
At Georgetown Jimmy Phoebus, Samson, and Levin Dennis met again, and
Levin told the mystery of his father's disappearance.
"Never tell your mother, Levin, that Captain Dennis died in that
Pangymonum; it would break her heart, and she never would trust man
agin."
"Jimmy," spoke up Samson, "let her understand that he got wrecked on the
_Ida_. It looks a little bad, but the slave-trade sounds better than
kidnappin'."
"They say that Allan McLane owned that slave vessel," Phoebus put in;
"but he didn't live to know his loss. He'll meet his heathens at the
Judgment Seat."
"Who has fed mother?" Levin asked. "Hulda can't explain that."
"I kin, Levin," Samson Hat said, bashfully. "It was me. Good ole Meshach
Milburn, that everybody's down on, pitied that pore woman, an' made me
set things she needed in her window. He said if I ever told it he'd
discharge me."
"Dog my skin!" Jimmy Phoebus observed, "the next man that calls
'steeple top' after ole Meshach I'll mash flat! But, come, my son, I've
buried at Broad Creek your wife's family relics. We'll hire a wagon, and
drive to ole Broad Creek 'piscopal church on the way, and there I'll
have you married to Huldy."
The sword-hilt and coins were disinterred, and in that ancient edifice
of hard pine, where the worship of her English race had long been
celebrated, the naval officer's daughter became the wife of the son of
his voluptuous and perverted friend.
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