"Ayme! ah! Well, listen, young lovers; and see what grisly things walk in these pines! There was a man named Brereton; they call him Bruington here, where their noses are twisted and their chins weak. He came from old Lewes, off to the east by Cape Henlopen, and of a stout family, in which was a grain of evil ever smoking through the blood. Do you sometimes feel it, Hulda?"

"No, not evil like that."

"He was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and held the iron while the master struck. One day a man came in the shop, whose horse had thrown a shoe, to have a shoeing, and, when he paid for it, he took a handful of money from his pocket, and one piece - a dollar - fell in the soft soot of the shop, unperceived but by the boy: chis! he covered it with his foot."

Van Dorn's whip-lash firmly covered a huge fly on the horse's ear, and laid it dead.

"When the man departed, the boy raised his foot and uncovered the dollar; his master said, 'Smart boy!' They divided the stolen dollar."

"Jimmy Phoebus says the fust step is half of a journey," Levin noted.

"The blacksmith's boy looked avariciously on travellers ever after, who might possess a dollar. He took the empty shop of Patty Cannon's first husband, years after that saint died, and worked on hobbles, clevises, and chains to hold the kidnapped articles of commerce. Naturally he kidnapped, too, and, while she was yet a child, Patty's daughter became Brereton's wife, bestowed by the fond, appreciative mother. Master Levin, if you fall into his path, Brereton's daughter may be bestowed on you. Hola! behold her in Hulda."

"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."