The latter end only of the nearest approach to profanity current in that land was again heard, fluttering around: "to save my life!"
Jimmy Phœbus had the name of being descended from a Greek pirate, or patriot, who had settled on the Eastern Shore, and Phœbus looked it yet, with his rich brown complexion, broad head, and Mediterranean eyes. "Good-afternoon, Mr. Milburn!" spoke Jimmy, loud and careless.
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Phœbus. Gentlemen, good-afternoon!"
As he responded, with a voice hardly genial but placating, Milburn lifted his ancient and formidable hat, and in an instant seemed to come a century nearer to his neighbors. His stature was reduced, his unsociableness seemed modified; he now looked to be a smallish, friendless person, as if some ownerless dog had darted through the street, and heard a kind chirp at the tavern door, where his reception had been stones. His voice, with a little tremor in it, emboldened Levin Dennis also to speak:
"Look out for fevernager this month, Mr. Milburn!"
Meshach bowed his head, gliding along as if bashfully anxious to pass.
"Nice weather for drivin'!" added Jack Wonnell, having also taken off his own tile of frivolity, to feel the effect; but this remark was regarded by the group as too forward, and a low chorus ran round of "Jack Wonnell can't help bein' a fool to save his life!"
Milburn said to himself, passing on: "Are those voices kinder than usually, or am I more timid? What is it in the air that makes everything so acute, and my cheeks to tingle? Am I sick, or is it Love?"
The word frightened him, and the sand under his feet seemed to crack; a woodpecker in an old tree tapped as if it was the tree's old heart quickened by something; the houses all around looked like live objects, with their windows fixed upon his walk, like married folks' eyes. As he came in sight of Judge Custis's residence, so expressive of old respect and long intentions, the money-lender almost stopped, so mild and peacefully it looked at him—so undisturbed, while he was palpitating.
"Why this pain?" thought Milburn. "Am I afraid? That house is mine. Do I fear to enter my own? And yet it does not fear me. It has been there so long that it has no fears, and every window in it faces benignant to my coming. The three gables survey yonder forest landscape like three old magistrates on the bench, administering justice to a county where never till now was there a ravisher!"