SABBATH AND CANOE.
They now approached an island with low bluffs, on which appeared a
considerable village, shining whitely amid the straight brown trunks of
a grove of pine-trees; but no people seemed moving about it, and they
saw but a single vessel at anchor in the thoroughfare or strait they
steered into--a canoe, which revealed on her bow, as they rounded to
beside her, a word neither Levin nor Jack could read, except by hearsay:
_The Methodist_.
"Jack," said Levin, "that was a big pine-tree the parson hewed his canoe
outen. She fell like cannon, going off inter the swamp. She's a'most
five fathom long, an' a man can lie down acrost her. She's to carry the
Methodis' preachers out to the islands."
"Hadn't we better wake _him_ up now?" said Jack Wonnell; "I 'spect you
want a drink, Levin?"
"Yes; I got a thirst on me like fire," Levin exclaimed. "I could do
somethin' wicked now, I 'spect, for a drink of that brandy."
Mooring against the shore, Levin went to his passenger, who was still in
deep sleep stretched upon the bare floor of the hold or cabin--a brawny,
wiry man, with strong chin and long jaws, and his reddish, dark beard
matted with the blood that had spilled from his disfigured eye, and now
disguised nearly one half his face, and gave him a wild, bandit look.
"Cap'n! mister! boss! wake up! We have come to Deil's Island."
The long man, lying on his back, seemed unable to turn over upon his
side, though he muttered in his stirred sleep such words as Levin could
not understand:
"The darbies, Patty! Make haste with them darbies! Put the nippers on
her wrists an' twist 'em. Ha! the mort is dying. Well, to the garden
with her!"
At this he awoke, and turned his cold, light eyes on Levin, and leaped
to his feet.
"Did you hear me?" he cried. "It was only nums, kid, and jabber of a
nazy man. Some day this sleep-talk will grow my neck-weed. Don't mind
me, Levin! Come, lush and cock an organ with me, my bene cove!"
"If you mean brandy," Levin said, "I must have some or I'll jump out of
my skin. I feel like the man with the poker was a-comin'."
Joe Johnson gave him the jug and held it up, and the boy drank like one
desperate.
"How the young jagger lushes his jockey," the tall man muttered. "He's
in Job's dock to-day. I'll take no more. A bloody fool I was all
yesterday, an' oaring with my picture-frame. What place is this?"
"Deil's Island, sir."
"Ha! so it is. 'Twas Devil's Island once, till the Methodies changed it
fur politeness. This is the camp-meetin', then? Yer, Wonnell, take this
piece of money, an' go to some house an' fetch us a bite of dinner.
We'll wait fur you."
The tall man led the way to the heart of the grove of pines, where the
seeming town was found--a deserted religious encampment of durable
wooden shells, or huts, in concentric circles of horseshoe shape, and at
the open end of the circle was the preaching-stand, a shed elevated
above the empty benches and pegs of removed benches, and which had a
wide shelf running across the whole front for the preacher's Bible, and
to receive his thwacks as he walked up and down his platform.
It looked a little mysterious now, with the many evidences of a large
human occupation in the recent summer, to see this naked town and hollow
pulpit lying so suggestively under the long moan of the pine-trees,
conferring together like dread angels in council, and expressing at
every rising breeze their impatience with the sins of men.
At times the great branches paused awhile, scarcely murmuring, as if
they were brooding on some question propounded in their council, or
listening to human witnesses below; and then they would gravely
converse, as the regular zephyrs moved in and out among them, and pause
again, as if their decision was almost dreaded by themselves. At
intervals, a stern spirit in the pines would rise and thunder and shake
the shafts of the trees, and others would answer him, and patience would
have a season again. And so, with scarcely ever a silence that remained
more than a moment, this council went on all day, continued all night,
was resumed as the sun arose to comfort the world again, ceased not when
the rainbow hung out its perennial assurance upon the storm, and
typified to trembling worshippers the great synod of the Creator, in
everlasting session, ready to smite the world with fire, but suspending
sentence in the evergreen pity of God.
In one of the deserted shells, or "tents," of pine, with neatly shingled
roof, facing the preaching-booth, Joe Johnson and Levin Dennis found
benches, and, at the tall man's example, Levin also lighted a pipe, and
looked out between the escapes of smoke at Tangier Sound, deserted as
this camp-ground on the Sabbath, since the worshippers had reached home
from church in their canoes. He thought of his lonely mother in the town
of Princess Anne, wondering where he was, and of the Sundays fast
speeding by and bringing him to manhood, with no change in their
condition for the better, but penury and disappointment, a vague
expectation of the dead to return, and deeper intemperance of the dead
man's son and widow's only hope. He would have cried out with a sense of
misery contagious from the music of those pines above him, perhaps, if
the brandy had not begun to creep along his veins and shine bold in his
large, girlish eyes.
"Levin," said Joe Johnson, "don't you like me?"
"Yes, Mr. Johnson, I think I does, 'cept when you use them quare words I
can't understan'."
"I'm dead struck with you, Levin," Joe Johnson said. "I want to fix you
an' your mother comfortable. You're blood stock, an' ought to be stabled
on gold oats."
He drew the canvas bag of eagles and half-eagles out of his trousers,
and held its mouth open for Levin to feast his eyes.
"Thar," said he, "I told you, Levin, I was a-goin' to give you one of
them purties. I've changed my mind; I'm a-goin' to give you five of
'em!"
"My Lord!" exclaimed Levin; "that's twenty-five dollars, ain't it, sir?"
"Oll korrect, Levin. Five of them finniffs makes a quarter of a hundred
dollars--more posh, Levin, I 'spect, than ever you see."
"I never had but ten, sir, at a time, an' that I put in this boat, and
Jimmy Phoebus put ten to it, an' that paid for her."
"What a stingy pam he was to give you only ten!" Joe Johnson exclaimed,
with disgust. "Ain't I a better friend to ye? Yer, take the money
_now_!"
He pressed the gold pieces ostentatiously upon the boy, who looked at
them with fear, yet fascination.
"What am I to do to earn all this, Mr. Johnson?"
"You comes with me fur a week,--you an' yer boat. I charters you at that
figger!"
"But--mother?"
"Well, when we discharge pigwidgeon, your friend with the bell
shape--Jack Sheep yer--all you got to do, Levin, is to send the hard
cole to your mother by him, sayin', 'Bless you, marm; my wages will
excoos my face!'"
"Oh, yes, that will do. Mother will know by the money that I have got a
long job, and not be a 'spectin' of me. When do we sail, cap'n?"
"How fur is it to Prencess Anne? What time to-night kin you make it?"
Levin stepped out of the shanty and looked at the wind and water, his
pulses all a-flutter between the strong brandy and the wonderful gold in
his pocket; and as he watched the veering of the pine-boughs to see
which way they moved, their moaning seemed to be the voice of his
widowed mother by her kitchen fire that day, saying, "He is in trouble.
Where is my son? Why stays he, O my Levin?"
"The tide is on the stand, cap'n, an' will turn in half an hour. It will
take us up the Manokin with this wind by dark, ef we can get water
enough in the thoroughfare without going around by Little Deil's."
Johnson came out and made the same observations on wind and flood.
"I reckon it's eighteen miles to the head of deep water on Manokin,
Levin?"
"Not quite, sir, through the thoroughfare; it's nigh eighteen. We've got
four hours and a half of daylight yet."
"Then stand for the head of Manokin an' obey all my orders like a
'listed man, an' I'll git ye and yer mother a plantation, an' stock it
with niggers for you. Come, brace up again!"
He offered the brandy-jug, and encouraged the boy to drink heartily, and
affected to do the same himself, though it was but a feint.
While they stood in the shelter of the camp cottage going through this
pastime, a voice from near at hand resounded through the woods, and made
their blood stop to circulate for an instant on the arrested heart.
It was a voice making a prayer at a high pitch, as if intended to cover
all the camp-ground and be heard to the outermost bounds. The sincerity
of the sound made Levin Dennis feel that the camp might still be
inhabited by some spiritual congregation which the eyes of profane
visitors could not see--the remainder of the saints, the souls of the
converted, or an ethereal host from above the solemn organ of the pines.
The idea had scarcely seized upon him when a fluttering of wings was
heard, and on the old camp-ground alighted a flock of white wild-geese.
They balanced their large deacon and elder-like bodies upon the empty
seats, and there set up as grave a squawking as if they were singing a
hymn, with that indifferent knowledge of harmony possessed by
camp-meeting choristers.
The accident of their coming--no unusual thing on these exposed
islands--might have made untroubled people only laugh, but it produced
the contrary effect on both our visitors. Levin felt a superstitious
fear seize upon him, and, turning to Joe Johnson, he saw that person
with a face so pale that it showed his blood-gathered eye yet darker and
more hideous, like a brand upon his countenance, gazing upon the late
empty preaching-booth.
There Levin, turning his eyes, observed a solitary man kneeling, of a
plain appearance and dress, and with locks of womanly hair falling
carelessly upon a large and almost noble forehead, his arms raised to
heaven and his voice flowing out in a mellow stream of supplication, in
the intervals of which the geese could be heard quacking aloud and
paddling their wings as they balanced and hopped over the camp-meeting
arena.
"Who's he a prayin' to?" Levin asked of Joe Johnson.
"Quemar!" muttered Johnson, as if he were terrified at something; "his
potato-trap is swallerin' ghosts! Curse on the swaddler? The kid will
whindle directly. Come, boy, come!"
At this, seizing Levin's hand, partly in persuasion, partly as if he
wanted the lad's protection, Johnson, fairly trembling, ran for the
boat.
Levin was frightened too; the more that he saw the stronger man's fear.
As they dashed across the camp-ground the wild-geese took alarm, and,
some running, some flying, scudded towards the Sound. A voice from the
pulpit cried after the retreating men, but only to increase their fears,
and when they leaped on board the _Ellenora_, Joe Johnson was livid with
terror. He ran partly down the companion-way and stopped to look back:
the wild-geese were now spreading their wings like a fleet of fleecy
sails, and fluttering down the sound in gallant convoy.
"What did you run for?" Levin said; "the jug of brandy is left. It was
only Parson Thomas!"
"You run first," the man replied, gasping for breath, and a little
ashamed. "What did he preach at me fur?"
"That's the parson of the islands," Levin said; "he started Deil's
Island camp-meetin' last year, an' his favo-rite preacher dyin' jess as
he got it done, ole Pap Thomas, who lives yer, comes out to the
preachin'-stand sometimes alone, an' has a cry and a prayer. The geese
scared _me_, cap'n."
"Push off!" ordered Joe Johnson; "my teeth are most a-chatterin' with
the chill that mace cove give me."
He pulled up the anchor, hoisted the jib, and showed such nervous
apprehension that Levin subsided to managing the helm, and steered down
the thoroughfare, or strait, which, for some distance, wound around the
camp-meeting grove.
"Yer's Jack Wonnell comin' with the jug and the dinner. Sha'n't we wait
fur him?"
"He's got the kingdom-come cove with him! No; stop for nothing."
But the boat had to stop, as her keel scraped the mud in the almost dry
thoroughfare, and a plain island man of benevolent, nearly credulous,
face, hailed them, saying, stutteringly:
"Ne-ne-neighbors, do-don't be sc-scared that a-way. We ain't
he-eee-thens yer. Br-br-brother Wonnell's bringin' your taters and
pone."
"Come on, an' be damned to you?" Johnson cried to Wonnell. "What do we
want with this tolabon sauce?"
"Sw-w-wear not a-a-at all!" cried the parson of the islands. "'Twon't
l-l-lift ye over l-l-low tide, brother. Stay an' eat, an' t-t-talk a
little with us. Why, I have seen that f-f-face before!"
"Never in a gospel-ken before," the slave-dealer muttered, with an oath.
"B-but it can't be him," spoke the island parson, with solemnity. "Ole
Ebenezer Johnson died s-s-several year ago."
"Who was he?" cried the slave-dealer, with a little respectful interest.
"Ebenez-z-zer Johnson," Parson Thomas replied, with a mild and credulous
countenance, "was the wickedest man on the Eastern Sho' for twenty year.
P-pardon me, brother, fur a likin' ye to him, but somethin' in ye
y-y-yur," passing his hand upon his skull, "p-puts me in mind of him. It
was hyur he was shot"--still keeping his hand upon the skull--"through
an' through, an' died the death of the sinner. I have p-p-put my
f-finger through the two holes where the b-bullet come an' went, an' rid
this w-world of a d-d-demon!"
The story appeared to have a fascination for the slave-buyer, Levin
Dennis thought, and Johnson exclaimed:
"Well, hod, did he ever run afoul of _you_?"
"O y-y-yes," answered the genial island exhorter, with obliging
loquacity; "it was tw-w-enty-s-seven year ago that I see ole Eben-nezer
Johnson come on the camp-ground of P-p-pungoteague with a mob of
p-p-pirates to break up the f-f-fust Methodies camp-meetin' ever held
about these sounds. He was en-c-couraged by ole King Custis, f-f-father
of our Daniel Custis, of Prencess Anne, who was a b-b-big man fur the
Establish Church an' d-dispised the Methodies. It was a cowardly thing
to do, but while King C-C-Custis laughed and talked a' durin' of the
p-p-preachin', Eb-b-b-benezer Johnson started a fight. The preacher
c-c-cut his eye and saw who was a w-w-winkin' at the interference. He
was a l-l-lion of the L-l-lord, and bore the c-c-commission of Immanuel.
He knowed he was outen the s-s-state of Maryland and over in the
V-v-vergeenia county of Ac-c-comack, an' that if the l-l-aws was a
little more t-t-tolerant sence the Revolutionary war the ar-r-ristocracy
there was b-bitter as ever towards the people of the Lord. He t-t-urned
from his preachin' at last, right on King Custis, an' he pinted his
f-finger at him straight. The p-preacher was L-l-lorenzo Dow."
"Wheoo!" Jack Wonnell exclaimed, with a coinciding grin; "I've hearn of
him: a Yankee-faced feller, like a woman, with long braids an' curls of
hair fallin' around of his breast an' back, and a ole straw hat, rain or
shine."
"That was L-l-lorenzo Dow," the parson of the islands said. "He turned
on K-k-king Custis and screamed, 'W-who art thou? The L-lord shall smite
thee, w-whited sepulchre, and m-mock thee in thy ch-h-hildren's
children, thou A-a-a-hab and thy J-j-jezebel!' It was King Custis's wife
he pinted at, too, the greatest lady and heiress in V-v-virgeenia.
Sh-h-e f-f-ainted in f-fear or r-rage to hear the prophecy and insult of
her. Then, turning on Eb-b-benezer Johnson, Lorenzo Dow cried out, 'The
dogs shall lie buried safer than his bones. Lay hold of him, brethren!'
And s-something in Lorenzo Dow's t-trumpet-blast made every M-methodis'
a giant. They s-swept on Ebenezer Johnson, the bully of thr-ree states,
an' beat him to the ground, an' raced his band to their boats, an' then
they th-hrew him into a little j-j-jail they had on the camp-ground,
f-for safe keeping."
"What did King Custis do then, Pappy Thomas?" asked Levin.
"Why, brethren, what did he do but use his f-f-family influence to g-git
out a warrant for the preacher and his m-managers, on the ground of
f-false imprisonment and s-slander! Lorenzo Dow got over into Maryland
s-safe from the warrant, but our p-presiding elder was p-put in jail
till he could p-pay two thousand dollars fine. It almost beggared the
poor Methodies of that day to raise so much money, but g-glory be to
G-god! we can raise it now any day in the year, and in the next
g-generation we can buy our p-persecutors."
"So Ebenezer Johnson, accordin' to the autum bawler's patter, got
popped in the mazzard, my brother of the surplice? But he didn't climb
no ladder, did he?"
The stuttering host seemed not to comprehend this sneering exclamation,
and Levin Dennis said:
"King Custis wasn't killed, was he, Pappy Thomas?"
"It was his children's children his p-p-punishment was promised to," the
island parson said, "and to the Lord a thousand y-years are but as
d-days."
"The tide is fuller, Levin," Joe Johnson cried, "your keel is clear. Now
pint her for Manokin. So bingavast, my benen cove, and may you chant all
by yourself when I am gone!"
"God bless the boys!" the islander cried, "an' k-keep them from the
f-fire everlasting that is burning in your jug. And s-s-stranger,
remember the end of Eb-b-benezer Johnson, an' repent!"
The old man, barefooted, stoop-shouldered, stuttering, yet with a chord
of natural rhetoric in his high fiddle-string of a windpipe, stood
looking after them till they passed down the thoroughfare under the
jib-sail, and Joe Johnson did not say a word till some marsh brush
intervened between them, he being apparently under a remnant of that
panic which had seized him on the camp-ground.
"That's a good man," Levin Dennis said, giving the tiller to Jack
Wonnell and raising the sail; "he preached to the Britishers when they
sailed from Tangiers Islands to take Baltimore, and told 'em they would
be beat an' their gineral killed. He's made the oystermen all round yer
jine the island churches an' keep Sunday. That stutterin' leaves him
when he preaches, and when he leads the shout in meetin' it's piercin'
as a horn."
"He's a bloody Romany rogue," Joe Johnson muttered, "to tell me such a
tale! But, kirjalis! he cursed not me!"
"What language is that, Mr. Johnson? Is it Dutch or Porteygee?"
"It's what we call the gypsy; some calls it the Quaker. It's convenient,
Levin, when you go to Philadelfey, or Washinton, or New York, or some o'
them big cities, an' wants to talk to men of enterprise without the
quails a-pipin' of you. Some day I'll larn it to you if you're a good
boy."
They now sailed out of the thoroughfare into the broad mouth of the
Manokin, where a calm fell upon air and water for a little while, and
they could hear smothered music, as of drum-fish beneath the water,
beating, "thum! thum!" and crabs and alewives rose to the surface around
them, chased by the tailor-fish. The cat-boat drifted into the mouth of
a creek where rock and perch were running on the top of the water, and
with the tongs Jack Wonnell raised half a bushel of oysters in a few
dips, and opened them for the party. Along the shores wild haws and wild
plums still adhered to the bushes, and the stiff-branched
persimmon-trees bore thousands of their tomato-like fruit. The
partridges were chirping in the corn, the crow blackbirds held a funeral
feast around the fodder, some old-time bayside mansions stretched their
long sides and speckled negro quarters along the inlets, half hidden by
the nut-trees, and in the air soared the turkey-buzzard, like a
voluptuary politician, taking beauty from nothing but his lofty station.
"The ole Eastern Sho'," Jack Wonnell said, with his animated vacancy,
"is jess stuffed with good things, Cap'n Johnsin. You kin fall ovaboard
most anywhair an' git a full meal. You kin catch a bucket of crabs with
a piece of a candle befo' breakfast, an' shoot a wild-duck mos' with
your eyes shet."
"This country's good for nothin'," Joe Johnson said. "Floredey is the
land! Wot kin a nigger earn for yer? Corn, taters, melons: faugh!
Tobacco is a givin' out, cotton won't live yer. But Floredey is the
hell-dorader of the yearth."
"What's the hell-dorader?" asked Levin.
"That's Spanish or Porteygee for cheap niggers an' cotton," cried the
trader. "Cotton's the bird!"
"I thought cotton was a wool," Levin said.
"No, boy, cotton is a plant, growin' like a raspberry on a bush, havin'
pushed the blossoms off an' burst the pods below 'em, an' thar it is fur
niggers to pick it. Thar's a Yankee in Georgey made a cotton-gin to gin
it clean, an' now all the world wants some of it."
"Some of the gin?" asked the irrelevant Wonnell.
"No, some of the cotton, Doctor Green! They can't git enough of it.
Eurip is crazy about it, but there ain't niggers enough to pick it all.
So I'm in the nigger trade an' tryin' to be useful to my country, an'
wot does I git fur it? I git looked down on, an' a nigger's pertected
fur a-topperin' of me! But never mind, I'll be a big skull yet, an' keep
my kerrige--in Floredey."
"What's Floredey good fur?" Levin asked.
"It's full of nigger Injins, Simminoles, every one of 'em goin' to be
caught an' branded, an' put at cotton an' tobakker plantin', an' hog an'
cow herdin'. More niggers will be run in from Cubey, an' all the free
niggers in Delaware and up North will be sold, an' you an' me, Levin, is
gwyn to own a drove of 'em an' have a orchard of oranges an' a thousand
acres of cotton in bloom. We'll hold our heads up. Your mother shall be
switched to a nabob. My wife will be a shakester in diamonds. We'll
dispise Cambridge an' Princess Anne, an' there sha'n't be a free nigger
left on the face of the earth. We'll swig to it!"
The sick-headed yet fancy-ridden Levin drank again, and listened to the
dealer's marvellous tales of golden fruit on coasts of indigo, and palms
that sheltered parrots calling to the wild deer. Jack Wonnell took the
helm when Levin lay down to sleep in the little cabin, still lulled by
tales of wealth and lawless daring, and there he slept the deep sleep
of the castaway, when the vessel grounded at dusk, in the sound of
evening church-bells, at Princess Anne.
"Let him sleep," Joe Johnson spoke; "yer, Wonnell, I give you tray of
his strangers to take to his mommy," handing out three gold pieces.
"Don't you forgit it! Yer's a syebuck fur you," giving Jack a sixpence.
"You an' me will part company at Prencess Anne."