"I must go an' git de breakfast, Jimmy," the negro said, going in.
"Now, Miss Vesty"—Phœbus turned to the mistress of Teackle Hall—"Joe Johnson has got old Hominy and the little niggers, by smoke! That part of this hokey pokey is purty sure! Did he steal them an' decoy them, or wair they sold to him by Judge Custis or by Meshach Milburn?"
"By neither, I will risk my life. Mr. Milburn was taken to his bed Saturday evening, and on Sunday father went to Delaware on legal business for my husband."
"That is Meshach Milburn, I hear," the bay sailor remarked, with a penetrating look. "Shall I go and see him on this nigger business?"
"No," Vesta replied; "he is too sick, and it is a delicate subject to name to him. My girls, Virgie and Roxy, think old Hominy ran away from a superstitious fear she had of Mr. Milburn, who had become the master of Teackle Hall by marriage."
"Yes, by smoke! every nigger in town, big and little, is afraid of Milburn's hat."
"He has no ownership in those servants, nor has my father now. I will tell you, James—relying on your prudence—that Hominy belonged to me, and so did those three children, having passed from my father to my husband and thence to me and back to my father, and from him to me again in the very hour of my marriage. I fear they have been persuaded away, to be abused and sold out of Maryland."
Jimmy Phœbus looked up at the sighing trees and over the wide façade of Teackle Hall, and exclaimed "by smoke!" several times before he made his conclusions.
"Miss Vesty," he said, finally, "send for your father to come home immediately. People will not understand how Joe Johnson, outlaw as he is, dared to rob a Maryland judge of his house servants, Johnson himself bein' a Marylander, unless they had some understanding. Your sudden marriage, an' your pappy's embarrassments, will be put together, by smoke! an' thar is some blunt enough to say that when Jedge Custis is hard up, he'll git money anyhow!"
The charge, made with an honest man's want of skill, battered down all explanations.