At the period of this narrative the settlement of New Hope had grown
into a very considerable seaport town, doing an extremely handsome
trade with the West Indies in cornmeal and dried codfish for sugar,
molasses, and rum.
Among the more important citizens of this now wealthy and elegant
community, the most notable was Colonel William Belford--a magnate at
once distinguished and honored in the civil and military affairs of the
colony. This gentleman was an illegitimate son of the Earl of
Clandennie by the daughter of a surgeon of the Sixty-seventh Regiment
of Scots, and he had inherited a very considerable fortune upon the
death of his father, from which he now enjoyed a comfortable
competency.
Our Colonel made no little virtue of the circumstances of his exalted
birth. He was wont to address his father's memory with a sobriety that
lent to the fact of his illegitimacy a portentous air of seriousness,
and he made no secret of the fact that he was the friend and the
confidential correspondent of the present Earl of Clandennie. In his
intercourse with the several Colonial governors he assumed an attitude
of authority that only his lineage could have supported him in
maintaining, and, possessing a large and commanding presence, he bore
himself with a continent reserve that never failed to inspire with awe
those whom he saw fit to favor with his conversation.
This noble and distinguished gentleman possessed in a brother an exact
and perfect opposite to himself. Captain Obadiah Belford was a West
Indian, an inhabitant of Kingston in the island of Jamaica. He was a
cursing, swearing, hard-drinking renegado from virtue; an acknowledged
dealer in negro slaves, and reputed to have been a buccaneer, if not an
out-and-out pirate, such as then infested those tropical latitudes in
prodigious numbers. He was not unknown in New Hope, which he had
visited upon several occasions for a week or so at a time. During each
period he lodged with his brother, whose household he scandalized by
such freaks as smoking his pipe of tobacco in the parlor, offering
questionable pleasantries to the female servants, and cursing and
swearing in the hallways with a fecundity and an ingenuity that would
have put the most godless sailor about the docks to the blush.
Accordingly, it may then be supposed into what a dismay it threw
Colonel Belford when one fine day he received a letter from Captain
Obadiah, in which our West Indian desperado informed his brother that
he proposed quitting those torrid latitudes in which he had lived for
so long a time, and that he intended thenceforth to make his home in
New Hope.
Addressing Colonel Belford as "My dear Billy," he called upon that
gentleman to rejoice at this determination, and informed him that he
proposed in future to live "as decent a limb of grace as ever broke
loose from hell," and added that he was going to fetch as a present for
his niece Belinda a "dam pirty little black girl" to carry her
prayer-book to church for her.
Accordingly, one fine morning, in pursuance of this promise, our West
Indian suddenly appeared at New Hope with a prodigious quantity of
chests and travelling-cases, and with so vociferous an acclamation that
all the town knew of his arrival within a half-hour of that event.
When, however, he presented himself before Colonel Belford, it was to
meet with a welcome so frigid and an address so reserved that a douche
of cold water could not have quenched his verbosity more entirely. For
our great man had no notion to submit to the continued infliction of
the West Indian's presence. Accordingly, after the first words of
greeting had passed, he addressed Captain Obadiah in a strain somewhat
after this fashion:
"Indeed, I protest, my dear brother Obadiah, it is with the heartiest
regrets in the world that I find myself obliged to confess that I
cannot offer you a home with myself and my family. It is not alone that
your manners displease me--though, as an elder to a younger, I may say
to you that we of these more northern latitudes do not entertain the
same tastes in such particulars as doubtless obtain in the West Indies--but
the habits of my household are of such a nature that I could not
hope to form them to your liking. I can, however, offer as my advice
that you may find lodgings at the Blue Lion Tavern, which doubtless
will be of a sort exactly to fit your inclinations. I have made
inquiries, and I am sure you will find the very best apartments to be
obtained at that excellent hostelry placed at your disposal."
To this astounding address our West Indian could, for a moment, make no
other immediate reply than to open his eyes and to glare upon Colonel
Belford, so that, what with his tall, lean person, his long neck, his
stooping shoulders, and his yellow face stained upon one side an indigo
blue by some premature explosion of gunpowder--what with all this and a
prodigious hooked beak of a nose, he exactly resembled some hungry
predatory bird of prey meditating a pounce upon an unsuspecting victim.
At last, finding his voice, and rapping the ferrule of his ivory-headed
cane upon the floor to emphasize his declamation, he cried out: "What!
What! What! Is this the way to offer a welcome to a brother new
returned to your house? Why, ---- ----! who are you? Am not I your
brother, who could buy you out twice over and have enough left to live
in velvet? Why! Why!--Very well, then, have it your own way; but if I
don't grind your face into the mud and roll you into the dirt my name
is not Obadiah Belford!" Thereupon, striving to say more but finding no
fit words for the occasion, he swung upon his heel and incontinently
departed, banging the door behind him like a clap of thunder, and
cursing and swearing so prodigiously as he strode away down the street
that an infernal from the pit could scarcely have exceeded the fury of
his maledictions.
However, he so far followed Colonel Belford's advice that he took up
his lodgings at the Blue Lion Tavern, where, in a little while, he had
gathered about him a court of all such as chose to take advantage of
his extravagant bounty.
Indeed, he poured out his money with incredible profusion, declaring,
with many ingenious and self-consuming oaths, that he could match
fortunes with the best two men in New Hope, and then have enough left
to buy up his brother from his hair to his boot-leathers. He made no
secret of the rebuff he had sustained from Colonel Belford, for his
grievance clung to him like hot pitch--itching the more he meddled with
it. Sometimes his fury was such that he could scarcely contain himself.
Upon such occasions, cursing and swearing like an infernal, he would
call Heaven to witness that he would live in New Hope if for no other
reason than to bring shame to his brother, and he would declare again
and again, with incredible variety of expletives, that he would grind
his brother's face into the dirt for him.
[Illustration: "HE WOULD SHOUT OPPROBRIOUS WORDS AFTER THE OTHER IN THE
STREETS"]
Accordingly he set himself assiduously at work to tease and torment the
good man with every petty and malicious trick his malevolence could
invent. He would shout opprobrious words after the other in the
streets, to the entertainment of all who heard him; he would parade up
and down before Colonel Belford's house singing obstreperous and
unseemly songs at the top of his voice; he would even rattle the
ferrule of his cane against the palings of the fence, or throw a stone
at Madam Belford's cat in the wantonness of his malice.
Meantime he had purchased a considerable tract of land, embracing Pig
and Sow Point, and including the Old Free Grace Meeting-House. Here, he
declared, it was his intention to erect a house for himself that should
put his brother's wooden shed to shame. Accordingly he presently began
the erection of that edifice, so considerable in size and occupying so
commanding a situation that it was the admiration of all those parts,
and was known to fame as Belford's Palace. This magnificent residence
was built entirely of brick, and Captain Obadiah made it a boast that
the material therefor was brought all the way around from New York in
flats. In the erection of this elegant structure all the carpenters and
masons in the vicinage were employed, so that it grew up with an
amazing rapidity. Meantime, upon the site of the building, rum and
Hollands were kept upon draught for all comers, so that the place was
made the common resort and the scene for the orgies of all such of the
common people as possessed a taste for strong waters, many coming from
so far away as Newport to enjoy our Captain's prodigality.
Meantime he himself strutted about the streets in his red coat trimmed
with gilt braid, his hat cocked upon one side of his bony head,
pleasing himself with the belief that he was the object of universal
admiration, and swelling with a vast and consummate self-satisfaction
as he boasted, with strident voice and extravagant enunciation, of the
magnificence of the palace he was building.
At the same time, having, as he said, shingles to spare, he patched and
repaired the Old Free Grace Meeting-House, so that its gray and hoary
exterior, while rejuvenated as to the roof and walls, presented in a
little while an appearance as of a sudden eruption of bright yellow
shingles upon its aged hide. Nor would our Captain offer any other
explanation for so odd a freak of fancy than to say that it pleased him
to do as he chose with his own.
At last, the great house having been completed, and he himself having
entered into it and furnished it to his satisfaction, our Captain
presently began entertaining his friends therein with a profuseness of
expenditure and an excess of extravagance that were the continued
admiration of the whole colony. In more part the guests whom Captain
Obadiah thus received with so lavish an indulgence were officers or
government officials from the garrisons of Newport or of Boston, with
whom, by some means or other, he had scraped an acquaintance. At times
these gay gentlemen would fairly take possession of the town, parading
up and down the street under conduct of their host, staring ladies out
of countenance with the utmost coolness and effrontery, and offering
loud and critical remarks concerning all that they beheld about them,
expressing their opinions with the greatest freedom and jocularity.
Nor were the orgies at Belford's Palace limited to such extravagances
as gaming and dicing and drinking, for sometimes the community would be
scandalized by the presence of gayly dressed and high-colored ladies,
who came, no one knew whence, to enjoy the convivialities at the great
house on the hill, and concerning whom it pleased the respectable folk
of New Hope to entertain the gravest suspicion.
At first these things raised such a smoke that nothing else was to be
seen, but by-and-by other strange and singular circumstances began to
be spoken of--at first among the common people, and then by others. It
began to be whispered and then to be said that the Old Free Grace
Meeting-House out on the Point was haunted by the Devil.
The first information concerning this dreadful obsession arose from a
fisherman, who, coming into the harbor of a nightfall after a stormy
day, had, as he affirmed, beheld the old meeting-house all of a blaze
of light. Some time after, a tinker, making a short-cut from Stapleton
by way of the old Indian road, had a view of a similar but a much more
remarkable manifestation. This time, as the itinerant most solemnly
declared, the meeting-house was not only seen all alight, but a bell
was ringing as a signal somewhere off across the darkness of the water,
where, as he protested, there suddenly appeared a red star, that,
blazing like a meteor with a surpassing brightness for a few seconds,
was presently swallowed up into inky darkness again. Upon another
occasion a fiddler, returning home after midnight from Sprowle's Neck,
seeing the church alight, had, with a temerity inflamed by rum,
approached to a nearer distance, whence, lying in the grass, he had, he
said, at the stroke of midnight, beheld a multitude of figures emerge
from the building, crying most dolorously, and then had heard a voice,
as of a lost spirit, calling aloud, "Six-and-twenty, all told!" whereat
the light in the church was instantly extinguished into an impenetrable
darkness.
It was said that when Captain Obadiah himself was first apprised of the
suspicions entertained of the demoniacal possession of the old
meeting-house, he had fixed upon his venturesome informant so threatening
and ominous a gaze that the other could move neither hand nor foot under
the malignant fury of his observation. Then, at last, clearing his
countenance of its terrors, he had burst into a great, loud laugh,
crying out: "Well, what then? Why not? You must know that the Devil and
I have been very good friends in times past. I saw a deal of him in the
West Indies, and I must tell you that I built up the old meeting-house
again so that he and I could talk together now and then about old times
without having a lot of ----, dried, codfish-eating, rum-drinking
Yankee bacon-chewers to listen to every word we had to say to each
other. If you must know, it was only last night that the ghost of
Jezebel and I danced a fandango together in the graveyard up yonder,
while the Devil himself sat cross-legged on old Daniel Root's tombstone
and blew on a dry, dusty shank-bone by way of a flute. And now" (here
he swore a terrific oath) "you know the worst that is to be known, with
only this to say: if ever a man sets foot upon Pig and Sow Point again
after nightfall to interfere with the Devil's sport and mine, hell
suffer for it as sure as fire can burn or brimstone can scorch. So put
that in your pipe and smoke it."
These terrible words, however extravagant, were, to be sure, in the
nature of a direct confirmation of the very worst suspicion that could
have been entertained concerning this dolorous affair. But if any
further doubt lingered as to the significance of such malevolent
rumors, Captain Obadiah himself soon put an end to the same.
The Reverend Josiah Pettibones was used of a Saturday to take supper at
Colonel Belford's elegant residence. It was upon such an occasion and
the reverend gentleman and his honored host were smoking a pipe of
tobacco together in the library, when there fell a loud and importunate
knocking at the house door, and presently the servant came ushering no
less a personage than Captain Obadiah himself. After directing a most
cunning, mischievous look at his brother, Captain Obadiah addressed
himself directly to the Reverend Mr. Pettibones, folding his hands with
a most indescribable air of mock humility. "Sir," says he--"Reverend
sir, you see before you a humble and penitent sinner, who has fallen so
desperately deep into iniquities that he knows not whether even so
profound piety as yours can elevate him out of the pit in which he
finds himself. Sir, it has got about the town that the Devil has taken
possession of my old meeting-house, and, alas! I have to confess--_that
it is the truth_." Here our Captain hung his head down upon his breast
as though overwhelmed with the terrible communication he had made.
"What is this that I hear?" cried the reverend gentleman. "Can I
believe my ears?"
"Believe your ears!" exclaimed Colonel Belford. "To be sure you cannot
believe your ears. Do you not see that this is a preposterous lie, and
that he is telling it to you to tease and to mortify me?"
At this Captain Obadiah favored his brother with a look of exaggerated
and sanctimonious humility. "Alas, brother," he cried out, "for
accusing me so unjustly! Fie upon you! Would you check a penitent in
his confession? But you must know that it is to this gentleman that I
address myself, and not to you." Then directing his discourse once more
to the Reverend Mr. Pettibones, he resumed his address thus: "Sir, you
must know that while I was in the West Indies I embarked, among other
things, in one of those ventures against the Spanish Main of which you
may have heard."
"Do you mean piracy?" asked the Reverend Pettibones; and Captain
Obadiah nodded his head.
"'Tis a lie!" cried Colonel Belford, smacking his hand upon the table.
"He never possessed spirit enough for anything so dangerous as piracy
or more mischievous than slave-trading."
"Sir," quoth Captain Obadiah to the reverend gentleman, "again I say
'tis to you I address my confession. Well, sir, one day we sighted a
Spanish caravel very rich ladened with a prodigious quantity of plate,
but were without so much as a capful of wind to fetch us up with her.
'I would,' says I, 'offer the Devil my soul for a bit of a breeze to
bring us alongside.' 'Done,' says a voice beside me, and--alas that I
must confess it!--there I saw a man with a very dark countenance, whom
I had never before beheld aboard of our ship. 'Sign this,' says he,
'and the breeze is yours!' 'What is it upon the pen?' says I. "'Tis
blood,' says he. Alas, sir! what was a poor wretch so tempted as I to
do?"
"And did you sign?" asked Mr. Pettibones, all agog to hear the
conclusion of so strange a narration.
"Woe is me, sir, that I should have done so!" quoth Captain Obadiah,
rolling his eyes until little but the whites of them were to be seen.
"And did you catch the Spanish ship?"
"That we did, sir, and stripped her as clean as a whistle."
"'Tis all a prodigious lie!" cried Colonel Belford, in a fury. "Sir,
can you sit so complacently and be made a fool of by so extravagant a
fable?"
"Indeed it is unbelievable," said Mr. Pettibones.
At this faint reply, Captain Obadiah burst out laughing; then renewing
his narrative--"Indeed, sir," he declared, "you may believe me or not,
as you please. Nevertheless, I may tell you that, having so obtained my
prize, and having time to think coolly over the bargain I had made, I
says to myself, says I: 'Obediah Belford! Obadiah Belford, here is a
pretty pickle you are in. 'Tis time you quit these parts and lived
decent, or else you are damned to all eternity.' And so I came hither
to New Hope, reverend sir, hoping to end my days in quiet. Alas, sir!
would you believe it? scarce had I finished my fine new house up at the
Point when hither comes that evil being to whom I had sold my sorrowful
soul. 'Obadiah,' says he, 'Obadiah Belford, I have a mind to live in
New Hope also,' 'Where?' says I. 'Well,' says he, 'you may patch up the
old meetinghouse; 'twill serve my turn for a while.' 'Well,' thinks I
to myself, 'there can be no harm in that,' And so I did as he bade me--
and would not you do as much for one who had served you as well? Alas,
your reverence! there he is now, and I cannot get rid of him, and 'tis
over the whole town that he has the meeting-house in possession."
"Tis an incredible story!" cried the Reverend Pettibones.
"'Tis a lie from beginning to end!" cried the Colonel.
"And now how shall I get myself out of my pickle?" asked Captain
Obadiah.
"Sir," said Mr. Pettibones, "if what you tell me is true, 'tis beyond
my poor powers to aid you."
"Alas!" cried Captain Obadiah. "Alas! alas! Then, indeed, I'm damned!"
And therewith flinging his arms into the air as though in the extremity
of despair, he turned and incontinently departed, rushing forth out of
the house as though stung by ten thousand furies.
It was the most prodigious piece of gossip that ever fell in the way of
the Reverend Josiah, and for a fortnight he carried it with him
wherever he went. "'Twas the most unbelievable tale I ever heard," he
would cry. "And yet where there is so much smoke there must be some
fire. As for the poor wretch, if ever I saw a lost soul I beheld him
standing before me there in Colonel Belford's library." And then he
would conclude: "Yes, yes, 'tis incredible and past all belief. But if
it be true in ever so little a part, why, then there is justice in
this--that the Devil should take possession of the sanctuary of that
very heresy that would not only have denied him the power that every
other Christian belief assigns to him, but would have destroyed that
infernal habitation that hath been his dwelling-place for all
eternity."
As for Captain Belford, if he desired privacy for himself upon Pig and
Sow Point, he had taken the very best means to prevent the curious from
spying upon him there after nightfall.