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Judge Custis made his way up the dark stairs in a little while, and, as soon as he looked at Milburn, exclaimed, "Curses come home to roost! It was only night before last that I said, in the presence of Meshach's negro, 'May the ague strike him and the bilious sweat from Nassawongo mill-pond! He slept by it that night, while I was tossing in misery. The next night it was his turn.
Then, addressing his whole attention to the host, he appeared never to wink while he remained. "Judge Custis," he said, straightforwardly, "the first time you came to borrow money from me, you said that Nassawongo furnace would enrich this county and raise the value of my land." "Yes, Milburn. It was a slow enterprise, but it's coming all right. I shipped a thousand tons last year."
"My illness is unfortunate," he gasped; "not only to me, but to the new ties I have formed; to the mutual interest my wife and I have in making up your losses on Nassawongo furnace, which we are all the poorer by to that amount; and to a suitor whose cause I have taken up. I have bought an interest in a great lawsuit." "Then the day of reckoning of your enemies has come, Milburn."
Said Jack: "I bought my bell-crowns the year ole Milburn's daddy and mammy died. They died of the bilious out yer in Nassawongo, within a few days of each other. Now, I wear two bell-crowns a year. I come out every Fourth of July and Christmas. 'Tother day I counted what was left, and I reckoned that Meshach couldn't be forty-five at the wust."
"Very well," remarked Meshach Milburn, "and if I ever enter your door, I will then take off my hat." The next morning Meshach Milburn surprised Samson Hat by saying: "Boy, when you have another fight and make yourself a barbarian again, remember to bring back, from Nassawongo furnace, about a peck of the bog ores!" The years moved on without much change in Princess Anne.
You are back in the hut you have consumed, among the fires thereof, and the avenging blast of Nassawongo furnace burns in your veins and cools you in the mill-pond alternately. Lie there and repent for the injury you have done a spotless one!"
You behold a desperate man, a merciless creditor, a tussock of ore from the bogs of Nassawongo, yet one whose only crimes have been to adore you, and to wear his forefathers' hat." "Is this pride, then, wholly insulted sensibility, Mr. Milburn?" "I cannot say, Miss Custis. You may smile, but I think it is aristocracy." "I think so, too," exclaimed Vesta reflectively; "you are a proud man.
"Present my love to your mother," he said, in a chill; "and return her the losses Judge Custis has named to me as her portion in Nassawongo furnace. The amount is in this check, which I give you, although it is Sunday, because it represents no business among any of us, but an act of peace." "You are an honorable man," Vesta said; "I have cost you dearly."
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