"I can't see any of that sin in Hulda, Captain; she ain't even ashamed."
"No," affirmed Hulda, looking sincerely at Van Dorn; "it is too true to make me ashamed. I feel as if God's hand covered me like the silver dollar under my father's foot, because he let me survive such parents."
As she spoke she took one of the silver shillings of 1815 and covered it with her hand in Van Dorn's sight. Van Dorn spoke on rapidly:
"There were two brothers named Griffin from about Cambridge, in Maryland; spoiled boys who had taken to the flesh trade, and they stole men and gambled the proceeds away, and Brereton was their leader. One day a traveller came by from Carolina, hunting contraband slaves, and he was of your boastful sort, and dropped the hint that he had fifteen thousand dollars on his body to be invested. No later had he spoken than he felt his folly, from the burning eyes around him and watering mouths telling him to sleep there and slaves would be fetched; so he started in a fright for Laurel, by way of Cannon's Ferry, intending to deposit his money or make them deal with him there. The word was passed to Brereton by his wife or mother-in-law, and by Brereton to the Griffins, to mount and intercept the gold. Some say," lisped Van Dorn, "that Mistress Cannon, dressed in man's clothes, commanded the band."
A deep, chuckling interest, like the sound of a hidden brook, attended Van Dorn's recital, and he was blushing like a girl.
"At Slabtown, a nondescript spot a mile above Cannon's, the light-marching band crossed in a row-boat; they piled brush and bent down saplings in the traveller's road, where he should almost reach the brow of the hill in his buggy, and when the fleshmonger halted at the obstacle, chis, hola! they let him have it on both sides, and sent icicles to his heart. He drew a pistol, but in a dying hand. 'Away!' cried the assassins; 'he is not dead.' His horse, in fright at bursting firearms in the evening shades, leaped the brushy barriers and galloped to Laurel, and delivered there an ashy-visaged effigy, down whose beard the red dye of his life dripped audibly, as he sat stiff in death in the buggy. His name was only guessed; how happy he in that!"
"And what was the fate of the murderers?" Hulda asked, with less horror than Levin showed.
"Three of them were arrested; one of the Griffins exposed his brother and Captain Brereton; these two died on the gallows at Georgetown, young Brereton exerting himself under the noose to prevent his injudicious comrade saying too much on peerless Patty Cannon and her fair sisters, and thinking on their interests more than on this living child. Ha! Hulda Brereton?"
"The other Griffin also suffered death?" suggested Hulda, with a pale, unevasive countenance.
"Yes, your fond grandma, then in her blazing charms, drew him to her band again with the lure of Widow Brereton's hand; he killed a constable to recommend himself the better, and died on the gallows at his native Cambridge. Hala hala! she gave your mother, wild-flower Hulda, to Joe Johnson next to wife."