"Ha, ha!" laughed, in a great horse laugh, a nearly chinless villager; "say till ole Patty Cannon can git 'em!"
The purchaser gave a cunning, self-convicted smile at the passing chancellor, whose look of resignation only deepened and grew more humble. The Judge had some vague recollection which moved him to change the subject.
"We see each other but little, Chancellor, though we divide the same little heritage of land. I suppose your people are all proud of Delaware."
"Yes," said the old man; "being such a little adventurer, a mere foundling in the band of states, our people have the pride of their independence. The laws are administered, some more farms are opened in the forest every year, blossoms come, and old men die and are buried on their farms, and their bones respected a few years. Our history is so pastoral that we must show some temper when it is assailed, or we might let out our ignorance of it."
They rode in silence some hours through an older settled and more open country, with some large mill-ponds and a better class of farm improvements, and the sense of some large water near at hand was mystically felt.
The Judge followed the old man's eyes at one place, seeing that they were raised with an expression of tranquil satisfaction, like aged piety, and a beautiful landscape of soft green marsh lay under their gaze from a slight elevation they had reached, showing cattle and sheep roving in it, tall groves where cows and horses found midday shade, and winding creeks, carrying sails of hidden boats, as if in a magical cruise upon the velvet verdure. Haystacks and farm settlements stood out in the long levels, and sailing birds speckled the air. In the far distance lay something like more marsh, yet also like the clouds.
"It is the Delaware Bay," the Chancellor said.
They soon entered a well-built little town on a navigable creek, with a large mill-pond, sawmills, several vessels building on the stocks, and an air of superior vitality to anything Judge Custis had seen in Delaware. Here the Chancellor pointed out the late home of Senator Clayton's father, and, after the horses had been fed, they continued still northward, passing another small town on a creek near the marshes, and, a little beyond it, came to a venerable brick church, a little from the road, in a grove of oaks and forest trees.
"Here is Barrett's chapel," said the Chancellor; "celebrated for the plotting of the campaign between Wesley's native and English preachers for the conquest of America as soon as the crown had lost it."
They looked up over the broad-gabled, Quakerly edifice, with its broad, low door, high roof, double stories of windows, and a higher window in the gable, trim rows of arch-bricks over door and windows, and belt masonry; and heard the tall trees hush it to sleep like a baby left to them. Nearly fifty feet square, and probably fifty years old, it looked to be good for another hundred years.