The Entailed Hat | Page 9

wall of dense forest pines. Then footsteps ascended the stairs. His door opened and Meshach Milburn, with his holiday hat on his head, stood on the threshold; his eyes vigilant and bold as ever, and all his Indian nature to the front.
"My God, Milburn!" exclaimed the Judge, "odd as it is to see you here, I am relieved. Old Nick, I thought, was coming."
"Shall I come in?" asked Milburn.
"Yes; I'm sleeping off a little care and business. Let your man stay outside on the porch. Draw up a chair. It's money, I suppose, that brings you here?"
The money-lender carefully put his formidable hat upon a table, took a distant chair, pushed his gaitered feet out in front, and laid a large wallet or pocket-book on his lap. Then, addressing his whole attention to the host, he appeared never to wink while he remained.
"Judge Custis," he said, straightforwardly, "the first time you came to borrow money from me, you said that Nassawongo furnace would enrich this county and raise the value of my land."
"Yes, Milburn. It was a slow enterprise, but it's coming all right. I shipped a thousand tons last year."
"Judge Custis," continued the money-lender, "I told you, when you made the first loan, that I would investigate this ore. I did so years ago. Specimens were sent by me to Baltimore and tested there. Not content with that, I have studied the manufacture of iron for myself--the society of Princess Anne not grudging me plenty of solitude!--and I know that every ton of iron you make costs more than you get for it. The bog ore is easy to smelt; but it is corrupted by phosphate of iron and is barely marketable."
The Judge was sitting with eyes wide open, and paler than before.
"You have found that out?" he whispered. "I did not know it myself until within this year--so help me God!"
"I knew it before I made you the second loan."
"Why did you not tell me?"
"Because you forbade our relations to be anything but commercial. I was not bound to betray my knowledge."
"Why did you, then, from a commercial view, lend me large sums of money again and again?"
"Because," said the money-lender, coolly, "you had other security. You have a daughter!"
Judge Custis broke from the bed-covers and rushed upon Meshach Milburn.
"Heathen and devil!" he shouted, taking the money-lender by the throat, "do you dare to mention her as part of your mortgage?"
They struggled together until a powerful pair of hands pinioned the Judge, and bore him back to his bed. Samson Hat was the man.
"Judge!" he exclaimed, gentle, but firm, "you is a good man, but not as good as me. Cool off, Judge!"
"I expected this scene," said Meshach Milburn. "It could not have been avoided. I was bound in conscience and in common-sense to make you the only proposition which could save you from ruin. For, Judge Custis, you are a ruined man!"
Overcome with excitement and suspended stimulation, the old Judge fell back on his pillow and began to sob.
"Give him brandy," said Meshach Milburn, "here is the bottle! He needs it now."
The wretched gentleman eagerly drank the proffered draught from the negro's hands. His fury did not revive, and he covered his face with his palms and moaned piteously.
"Judge Custis," remarked Meshach Milburn, "if the apparent social distance between us could be lessened by any argument, I might make one. For the difference is in appearance only. The healthy flesh which gives you and yours stature and beauty is a matter of food alone. My stock has survived five generations of such diet as has bent the spines of the forest pigs and stunted the oxen. Money and family joy will give me children comely again. My life has been hard but pure."
The old Judge felt the last unconscious reflection.
"Yes," he uttered, solemnly, "no doubt Heaven marked me for some such degradation as this, when I yielded to low propensities, and sought my pleasure and companions in the huts of the forest!"
"You claim descent from the Stuart Restoration: I know the tale. A creditor of the two exiled royal brothers for sundry tavern loans and tipples drew for his obligation an office in far-off Virginia. Seizures, confiscations, the slave-trade, marriages--in short, the long game of advantage--built up the fortunes of the Custises, until they expired in a certain Judge, whose notes of hand a hard man, forest-born, held over the Judge's head on what seemed hard conditions, but conditions in which was every quality of mercy, except consideration for your pride."
The Judge made a laugh like a howl.
"Mercy?" he exclaimed, "you do not know what it is! To ensnare my innocent daughter in the damned meshes of your principal and interest! Call it malignity--the visitation of your unsocial wrath on man and an angel; but not mercy!"
"Then