Herbert turned upon his heel and listened.
“Your letter informs me that you are without funds. It shall not be said that a relative of Loftus Vaughan left his house penniless and unprovided. In this purse there are twenty pounds currency of the island. Take it; but on the condition that you say nothing of what has occurred here; and, furthermore, that you keep to yourself that you are the nephew of Loftus Vaughan.”
Without saying a word, Herbert took the proffered purse; but, in the next moment, the chink of the gold pieces was heard upon the gravel walk as he dashed the bag at the feet of his uncle.
Then, turning to the astonished planter, and measuring him with a look that scorned all patronage, he faced once more to the path, and walked proudly away.
The angry “Begone, sir!” vociferated after him, was only addressed to his back, and was altogether unheeded. Perhaps it was even unheard: for the expression in the eyes of the young man told that at that moment his attention was occupied elsewhere.
As he walked towards the house—with the design of going round it to get upon the front avenue—his glance was directed upwards to the window where that beautiful face had been just seen. The lattice was now closed; and he endeavoured to pierce the sombre shadows behind it. The face was no longer there. No eyes met his.
He glanced back towards the kiosk to see if he might linger a moment. His uncle was in a bent attitude, gathering the scattered pieces of gold. In this position the shrubbery concealed him.
Herbert was about to glide nearer to the window, and summon his cousin by name, when he heard his own pronounced, in a soft whisper, and with the endearing prefix “cousin.”
Distinctly he heard “Cousin Herbert!” and as if spoken around the angle of the building.
He hastened thither: for that was his proper path by which to arrive at the front of the house.
On turning the wall, he looked up. He saw that another window opened from the same chamber. Thence came the sweet summons, and there appeared the fair face for which he was searching.
“Oh, cousin Herbert! do not go in anger! Papa has done wrong—very wrong, I know; but he has been taking much wine—he is not—Good cousin, you will pardon him?”
Herbert was about to make reply, when the young Creole continued:—
“You said in your letter you had no money. You have refused father’s—you will not refuse mine? It is very little. It is all I have. Take it!”
A bright object glistened before his eyes, and fell with a metallic chink at his feet. He looked down. A small silk purse containing coin, with a blue ribbon attached, was seen lying upon the ground.
The young man raised it, and, holding it in one hand, hesitated for a moment—as if he had thoughts of accepting it. It was not that, however, but another thought that was passing in his mind.
His resolve was soon taken.
“Thanks!” said he. “Thanks, cousin Kate!” he added, with increasing warmth. “You have meant kindly, and though we may never meet again—”
“Oh, say not so!” interrupted the young girl, with an appealing look.
“Yes,” continued he, “it is probable we never shall. Here there is no home for me. I must go hence; but, wherever I may go, I shall not soon forget this kindness. I may never have an opportunity of repaying it—you are beyond the necessity of aught that a humble relative could do for you; but remember, Kate Vaughan! should you ever stand in need of a strong arm and a stout heart, there is one of your name who will not fail you!
“Thanks!” he repeated, detaching the ribbon from the bag, and flinging the latter, with its contents, back through the open window. Then, fastening the ribbon to the breast-button of his coat, he added: “I shall feel richer with the possession of this token than with all the wealth of your father’s estate. Farewell! and God bless you, my generous cousin!”
Before the young Creole could repeat her offer, or add another word of counsel or consolation, he had turned the angle of the building, and passed out of sight.
Volume One—Chapter Twenty.
The Jew’s Penn.
While these scenes were transpiring upon the plantation of Mount Welcome, others of a still more exciting nature were being enacted on that which adjoined it—the property of Jacob Jessuron, slave-merchant and penn-keeper.
Besides a “baracoon” in the Bay, where his slaves were usually exposed for sale, the Jew was owner of a large plantation in the country, on which he habitually resided. It lay contiguous to the estate of the Custos Vaughan—separated from the latter by one of the wooded ridges already mentioned as bounding the valley of Mount Welcome.
Like the latter, it had once been a sugar estate, and an extensive one; but that was before Jessuron became its owner. Now it was in the condition termed ruinate. The fields where the golden cane had waved in the tropic breeze were choked up by a tangled “second growth,” restoring them almost to their primitive wildness. With that quickness characteristic of equatorial vegetation, huge trees had already sprung up, and stood thickly over the ground—logwoods, bread-nuts, cotton, and calabash trees, which, with their pendent parasites, almost usurped dominion over the soil. Here and there, where the fields still remained open, instead of cultivation, there appeared only the wild nursery of nature—glades mottled with flowering weeds, as the Mexican horn-poppy, swallow-worts, West Indian vervains, and small passiflorae.
At intervals, where the underwood permitted them to peep out, might be seen stretches of “dry wall,” or stone fence, without mortar or cement, mostly tumbled down, the ruins thickly trellised with creeping plants—as convolvuli, cereus, and aristolochia; cleome, with the cheerful blossoming lantana; and, spreading over all, like the web of a gigantic spider, the yellow leafless stems of the American dodder.
In the midst of this domain, almost reconquered by nature, stood the “great house”—except in size, no longer deserving the appellation. It consisted rather of a pile than a single building—the old “sugar works” having been joined under the same roof with the dwelling—and negro cabins, stables, offices, all inclosed within an immense high wall, that gave to the place the air of a penitentiary or barrack, rather than that of a country mansion. The enclosure was a modern construction—an afterthought—designed for a purpose very different from that of sugar-making.
Garden there was none, though evidence that there had been was seen everywhere around the building, in the trees that still bloomed: some loaded with delicious fruits, others with clustering flowers, shedding their incense on the air. Half wild, grew citrons, and avocado pears, sop and custard apples, mangoes, guavas, and pawpaws; while the crown-like tops of cocoa-palms soared high above the humble denizens of this wild orchard, their recurvant fronds drooping as in sorrow at the desolation that surrounded them.
Close to the buildings stood several huge trees, whose tortuous limbs, now leafless, rendered it easy to identify them. They were the giants of the West Indian forest—the silk-cotton-tree (Eriodendron anfractuosum). The limbs of these vegetable monsters—each itself as large as an ordinary tree—were loaded with parasites of many species; among which might be distinguished ragged cactacae, with various species of wild pines, from the noble vriesia to the hoary, beard-like “Spanish moss,” whose long streaming festoons waved like winding-sheets in the breeze—an appropriate draping for the eyrie of the black vultures (John-Crows) that might at all times be seen seated in solemn silence upon the topmost branches.
In the olden time, this plantation had borne the name of “Happy Valley”; but during the