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THE ENTAILED HAT
OR
_PATTY CANNON'S TIMES_
A Romance
BY GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND
"GATH"
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1884
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
_All rights reserved._
TO
JUDGE GEORGE P. FISHER
OF DELAWARE
AND
HON. JOHN A. J. CRESWELL
OF MARYLAND
LOVERS OF OLD TIMES
WELCOMERS OF THE NEW ERA
"Friends! trust not the heart of that man for whom Old Clothes are not
venerable."--CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_
INTRODUCTION.
Once the author awoke to a painful reflection that he knew no place
well, though his occupation had taken him to many, and that, after
twenty-five years of describing localities and society, he would be
identified with none.
"Where shall I begin to rove within confines?" he asked, feeling the
vacant spaces in his nature: the want of all those birds, forest trees,
household habits, weeds, instincts of the brooks, and tints and tones of
the local species which lie in some neighborhood's compass, and complete
the pastoral mind.
Numerous districts rose up and contended together, each attractive from
some striking scene, or bold contrast, or lovely face; and wiser policy
might have led his inclinations to one of these, redundant, perhaps, in
wealth or literary appreciation; yet the heart began to turn, as in
first love, or vagrancy almost as sweet, to the little, lowly region
where his short childhood was lived, and where the unknown generations
of his people darkened the sand--the peninsula between the Chesapeake
and the Delaware.
Far down this peninsula lies the old town of Snow Hill, on the border of
Virginia; there the pilgrim entered the court-house, and asked to see an
early book of wills, and in it he turned to the name of a maternal
ancestor, of whom grand tales had been told him by an aged relative. His
breath was almost taken by finding the following provisions, dated
February 12, 1800:
"I give and bequeath to my son, Ralph Milbourn, MY BEST HAT, TO HIM AND
HIS ASSIGNEES FOREVER, and no more of my estate.
"I give to Thomas Milbourn my small iron kettle, my brandy still, all my
hand-irons, my pot-rack, and fifteen pounds bond that he gave to my
daughter, Grace Milbourn."
The next day a doctor took the author on his rounds through "the
Forest," as a neighboring tract was almost too invidiously called, and
through a deserted iron-furnace; village almost of the date of these
wills.
Everywhere he went the Entailed Hat seemed, to the stranger in the land
of his forefathers, to appear in the vistas, as if some odd, reverend,
avoided being was wearing it down the defiles of time. Now like Hester
Prynne wearing her Scarlet Letter, and now like Gaston in his Iron Mask,
this being took both sexes and different characters, as the author
weighed the probabilities of its existence. At last he began to know it,
and started to portray it in a little tale.
The story broke from its confines as his own family generation had
broken from that forest, and sought a larger hemisphere; yet, wherever
the mystic Hat proceeded, his truant fancy had also been led by his
mother's hand.
Often had she told him of old Patty Cannon and her kidnapper's den, and
her death in the jail of his native town. He found the legend of that
dreaded woman had strengthened instead of having faded with time, and
her haunts preserved, and eye-witnesses of her deeds to be still living.
Hence, this romance has much local truth in it, and is not only the
narration of an episode, but the story of a large region comprehending
three state jurisdictions, and also of that period when modern life
arose upon the ruins of old colonial caste.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. TWO HAT WEARERS 1
II. JUDGE AND DAUGHTER 6
III. THE FORESTERS 15
IV. DISCOVERY OF THE HEIRLOOM 19
V. THE BOG-ORE TRACT 25
VI. THE CUSTISES RUINED 32
VII. JACK-O'-LANTERN IRON 40
VIII. THE HAT FINDS A RACK 45
IX. HA! HA! THE WOOING ON'T 69
X. MASTER IN THE KITCHEN 83
XI. DYING PRIDE 89
XII. PRINCESS ANNE FOLKS 100
XIII. SHADOW OF THE TILE 121
XIV. MESHACH'S HOME 129
XV. THE KIDNAPPER 154
XVI. BELL-CROWN MAN 164
XVII. SABBATH AND CANOE 179
XVIII. UNDER AN OLD BONNET 192
XIX. THE DUSKY LEVELS 210
XX. CASTE WITHOUT TONE 218
XXI. LONG SEPARATIONS 239
XXII. NANTICOKE PEOPLE 261
XXIII. TWIFORD'S ISLAND 269
XXIV. OLD CHIMNEYS 285
XXV. PATTY CANNON'S 298
XXVI. VAN DORN 318
XXVII. CANNON'S FERRY 335
XXVIII. PACIFICATION 357
XXIX. BEGINNING OF THE RAID 360
XXX. AFRICA 365
XXXI. PEACH BLUSH 373
XXXII. GARTER-SNAKES 391
XXXIII. HONEYMOON 405
XXXIV. THE ORDEAL 411
XXXV. COWGILL HOUSE 424
XXXVI. TWO WHIGS 433
XXXVII. SPIRIT OF THE PAST 441
XXXVIII. VIRGIE'S FLIGHT 456
XXXIX. VIRGIE'S FLIGHT--CONTINUED 468
XL. HULDA BELEAGUERED 486
XLI. AUNT PATTY'S LAST TRICK 496
XLII. BEAKS 510
XLIII. PLEASURE DRAINED 515
XLIV. THE DEATH OF PATTY CANNON 524
XLV. THE JUDGE REMARRIED 542
XLVI. THE CURSE OF THE HAT 554
XLVII. FAILURE AND RESTITUTION 558
* * * * *
A picture of Joe Johnson's Kidnapper's Tavern, as it stood in the
year 1883, is given on the title-page.
THE ENTAILED HAT.
CHAPTER I.
TWO HAT WEARERS.
Princess Anne, as its royal name implies, is an old seat of justice, and
gentle-minded town on the Eastern Shore. The ancient county of Somerset
having been divided many years before the revolutionary war, and its
courts separated, the original court-house faded from the world, and the
forest pines have concealed its site. Two new towns arose, and flourish
yet, around the original records gathered into their plain brick
offices, and he would be a forgetful visitor in Princess Anne who would
not say it had the better society. He would get assurances of this from
"the best people" living there; and yet more solemn assurances from the
two venerable churches, Presbyterian and Episcopalian, whose
grave-stones, upright or recumbent, or in family rows, say, in epitaphs
Latinized, poetical, or pious, "_We_ belonged to the society of Princess
Anne." That, at least, is the impression left on the visitor as he
wanders amid their myrtle and creeper, or receives, on the wide, loamy
streets, the bows of the lawyers and their clients.
There were but two eccentric men living in Princess Anne in the early
half of our century, and both of them were identified by their hats.
The first was Jack Wonnell, a poor fellow of some remote origin who had
once attended an auction, and bought a quarter gross of beaver hats.
Although that happened years before our story opens, and the fashions
had changed, Jack produced a new hat from the stock no oftener than when
he had well worn its predecessor, and, at the rate of two hats a year,
was very slowly extinguishing the store. Like most people who frequent
auctions, he was not provident, except in hats, and presented a
startling appearance in his patched and shrunken raiment when he mounted
a bright, new tile, and took to the sidewalk. His name had become, in
all grades of society, "Bell-crown."
The other eccentric citizen was the subject of a real mystery, and even
more burlesque. He wore a hat, apparently more than a century old, of a
tall, steeple crown, and stiff, wavy brim, and nearly twice as high as
the cylinders or high hats of these days. It had been rubbed and
recovered and cleaned and straightened, until its grotesque appearance
was infinitely increased. If the wearer had walked out of the court of
King James I. directly into our times and presence, he could not have
produced a more singular effect. He did not wear this hat on every
occasion, nor every day, but always on Sabbaths and holidays, on funeral
or corporate celebrations, on certain English church days, and whenever
he wore the remainder of his extra suit, which was likewise of the
genteel-shabby kind, and terminated by greenish gaiters, nearly the
counterpart, in color, of the hat. To daily business he wore a cheap,
common broadbrim, but sometimes, for several days, on freak or unknown
method, he wore this steeple hat, and strangers in the place generally
got an opportunity to see it.
Meshach Milburn, or "Steeple-top," was a penurious, grasping, hardly
social man of neighborhood origin, but of a family generally
unsuccessful and undistinguished, which had been said to be dying out
for so many years that it seemed to be always a remnant, yet never
quite gone. He alone of the Milburns had lifted himself out of the
forest region of Somerset, and settled in the town, and, by silence,
frugality, hard bargaining, and, finally, by money-lending, had become a
person of unknown means--himself almost unknown. He was, ostensibly, a
merchant or storekeeper, and did deal in various kinds of things,
keeping no clerk or attendant but a negro named Samson, who knew as
little about his mind and affections as the rest of the town. Samson's
business was to clean and produce the mysterious hat, which he knew to
be required every time he saw his master shave.
As soon as the lather-cup and hone were agitated, Samson, without
inquiry, went into a big green chest in the bedroom over the old wooden
store, and drew out of a leather hat-box the steeple-crown, where
Meshach Milburn himself always sacredly replaced it. Then "Samson Hat,"
as the boys called him, exercised his brush vigorously, and put the
queer old head-gear in as formal shape as possible, and he silently
attended to its rehabilitation through the medium of the village hatter,
never leaving the shop until the tile had been repaired, and suffering
none whatever to handle it except the mechanic. In addition to this,
Samson cooked his master's food, and performed rough work around the
store, but had no other known qualification for a confidential servant
except his bodily power.
He was now old, probably sixty, but still a most formidable pugilist;
and he had caught, running afoot, the last wild deer in the county.
Though not a drinking man Samson Hat never let a year pass without
having a personal battle with some young, willing, and powerful negro.
His physical and mental system seemed to require some such periodical
indulgence, and he measured every negro who came to town solely in the
light of his prowess. At the appearance of some Herculean or
clean-chested athlete, Samson's eye would kindle, his smile start up,
and his friendly salutation would be: "You're a _good_ man! 'Most as
good as me!" He was never whipped, rumor said, but by an inoffensive
black class-leader whom he challenged and compelled to fight.
"Befo' God, man, I never see you befo'! I'se jined de church! I kint
fight! I never didn't do it!"
"Can't help it, brother!" answered Samson. "You're too _good_ a man to
go froo Somerset County. Square off or you'll ketch it!"
"Den if I must I must! de Lord forgive me!" and after a tremendous
battle the class-leader came off nearly conqueror.
Whenever Samson indulged his gladiatorial propensities he disappeared
into the forest whence he came, and being a free man of mental
independence equal to his nerve, he merely waited in his lonely cabin
until Meshach Milburn sent him word to return. Then silently the old
negro resumed his place, looked contrition, took the few bitter,
overbearing words of his master silently, and brushed the ancient hat.
Meshach kept him respectably dressed, but paid him no wages; the negro
had what he wanted, but wanted little; on more than one occasion the
court had imposed penalties on Samson's breaches of the peace, and he
lay in jail, unsolicitous and proud, until Meshach Milburn paid the
fine, which he did grudgingly; for money was Meshach's sole pursuit, and
he spent nothing upon himself.
Without a vice, it appeared that Meshach Milburn had not an emotion,
hardly a virtue. He had neither pity nor curiosity, visitors nor
friends, professions nor apologies. Two or three times he had been
summoned on a jury, when he put on his best suit and his steeple-crown,
and formally went through his task. He attended the Episcopal worship
every Sunday and great holiday, wearing inevitably the ancient tile,
which often of itself drew audience more than the sermon. He gave a very
small sum of money and took a cheap pew, and read from his prayer-book
many admonitions he did not follow.
He was not litigious, but there was no evading the perfectness of his
contracts. His searching and large hazel eyes, almost proud and quite
unkindly, and his Indian-like hair, were the leading elements of a face
not large, but appearing so, as if the buried will of some long
frivolous family had been restored and concentrated in this man and had
given a bilious power to his brows and jaws and glances.
His eccentricity had no apparent harmony with anything else nor any
especial sensibility about it. The boys hooted his hat, and the little
girls often joined in, crying "Steeple-top! He's got it on! Meshach's
loose!" But he paid no attention to anybody, until once, at court time,
some carousing fellows hired Jack Wonnell to walk up to Meshach Milburn
and ask to swap a new bell-crown for the old decrepit steeple-top.
Looking at Wonnell sternly in the face, Meshach hissed, "You miserable
vagrant! Nature meant you to go bareheaded. Beware when you speak to me
again!"
"I was afraid of him," said Jack Wonnell, afterwards. "He seemed to have
a loaded pistol in each eye."
No other incident, beyond indiscriminate ridicule, was recorded of this
hat, except once, when a group of little children in front of Judge
Custis's house began to whisper and titter, and one, bolder than the
rest, the Judge's daughter, gravely walked up to the unsocial man; it
was the first of May, and he was in his best suit:
"Sir," she said, "may I put a rose in your old hat?"
The harsh man looked down at the little queenly child, standing straight
and slender, with an expression on her face of composure and courtesy.
Then he looked up and over the Judge's residence to see if any
mischievous or presuming person had prompted this act. No one was in
sight, and the other children had run away.
"Why do you offer me a flower?" he said, but with no tenderness.
"Because I thought such a very old hat might improve with a rose."
He hesitated a minute. The little girl, as if well-born, received his
strong stare steadily. He took off the venerable old head-gear, and put
it in the pretty maid's hand. She fixed a white rose to it, and then he
placed the hat and rose again on his head and took a small piece of gold
from his pocket.
"Will you take this?"
"My father will not let me, sir!"
Meshach Milburn replaced the coin and said nothing else, but walked down
the streets, amid more than the usual simpering, and the weather-beaten
door of the little rickety storehouse closed behind him.