Tales of the Chesapeake | Page 2

Beneath the bending willow-trees And speckled trunks of sycamore, All moist with airs of rival seas? Are these old men who gravely bow, As if a stranger all awoke, The same who heard my parents vow, --Ah well! in simpler days than now-- To love and serve by Pocomoke?
Does Chincoteague as then produce These rugged ponies, lean and spruce? Are these the steers of Accomac That do the negro's drone obey? The things of childhood all come back: The wonder tales of mother day! The jail, the inn, the ivy vines That yon old English churchside cloak, Wherein we read the stately lines Of Addison, writ in his signs, Above the dead of Pocomoke.
The world in this old nook may peep, And think it listless and asleep; But I have seen the world enough To think its grandeur something dull. And here were men of sterling stuff, In their own era wonderful: Young Luther Martin's wayward race, And William Winder's core of oak, The lion heart of Samuel Chase, And great Decatur's royal face, And Henry Wise of Pocomoke.
When we have raged our little part, And weary out of strife and art, Oh! could we bring to these still shores The peace they have who harbor here, And rest upon our echoing oars, And float adown this tranquil sphere, Then might yon stars shine down on me, With all the hope those lovers spoke, Who walked these tranquil streets I see And thought God's love nowhere so free Nor life so good as Pocomoke.

TALES AND IDYLS.
KING OF CHINCOTEAGUE
HAUNTED PUNGY
TICKING STONE
THE IMP IN NANJEMOY
FALL OF UTIE
LEGEND OF FUNKSTOWN
JUDGE WHALEY'S DEMON
A CONVENT LEGEND
CRUTCH, THE PAGE
HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR
KIDNAPPED
THE JUDGE'S LAST TUNE
DOMINION OVER THE FISH
THE CIRCUIT PREACHER
THE BIG IDIOT
A BAYSIDE IDYL
SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON'S NIGHT
PHANTOM ARCHITECT
THE LOBBY BROTHER
POTOMAC RIVER
TELL-TALE FEET
UPPER MARLB'RO'
PREACHERS' SONS IN 1849
CHESTER RIVER
OLD WASHINGTON ALMSHOUSE
OLD ST. MARY'S

KING OF CHINCOTEAGUE.
The night before Christmas, frosty moonlight, the outcast preacher came down to the island shore and raised his hands to the stars.
"O God! whose word I so long preached in meekness and sincerity," he cried, "have mercy on my child and its mother, who are poor as were Thine own this morning, eighteen hundred and forty years ago!"
The moonlight scarcely fretted the soft expanse of Chincoteague Bay. There seemed a slender hand of silver reaching down from the sky to tremble on the long chords of the water, lying there in light and shade, like a harp. The drowsy dash of the low surf on the bar beyond the inlet was harsh to this still and shallow haven for wreckers and oystermen. It was very far from any busy city or hive of men, between the ocean and the sandy peninsula of Maryland.
But no land is so remote that it may not have its banished men. The outcast preacher had committed the one deadly sin acknowledged amongst those wild wreckers and watermen. It was not that he had knocked a drowning man in the head, nor shown a false signal along the shore to decoy a vessel into the breakers, nor darkened the lighthouse lamp. These things had been done, but not by him.
He had married out of his race. His wife was crossed with despised blood.
"What do you seek, preacher?" exclaimed a gruff, hard voice. "Has the Canaanite woman driven you out from your hut this sharp weather, in the night?"
"No," answered the outcast preacher. "My heart has sent me forth to beg the service of your oyster-tongs, that I may dip a peck of oysters from the cove. We are almost starved."
"And rightly starved, O psalm-singer! You were doing well. Preaching, ha! ha! Preaching the miracle of the God in the manger, the baby of the maid. You prayed and travelled for the good of Christians. The time came when you practised that gospel. You married the daughter of a slave. Then they cast you off. They outlawed you. You were made meaner, Levin Purnell, than the Jew of Chincoteague!"
The speaker was a bearded, swarthy, low-set man, who looked out from the cabin of a pungy boat. His words rang in the cold air like dropping icicles articulate.
"I know you, Issachar," exclaimed the outcast preacher. "They say that you are hard and avaricious. Your people were bond slaves once to every nation. This is the birth night of my faith. In the name of Joseph, who fed your brethren when they were starving, with their father, for corn, give me a few oysters, that we may live, and not die!"
The Jew felt the supplication. He was reminded of Christmas eve. The poorest family on Chincoteague had bought his liquor that night for a carouse, or brought from the distant court-house town something for the children's stockings. Before him was one whose service had been that powerful religion, shivering in the light of