Tales of the Chesapeake | Page 2

friendly stroke, And guide us up the long defiles, Till after many fairy
miles We reach the head of Pocomoke.
Is it Snow Hill that greets me back To this old loamy cul-de-sac?
Spread on the level river shore, Beneath the bending willow-trees And
speckled trunks of sycamore, All moist with airs of rival seas? Are
these old men who gravely bow, As if a stranger all awoke, The same
who heard my parents vow, --Ah well! in simpler days than now-- To
love and serve by Pocomoke?
Does Chincoteague as then produce These rugged ponies, lean and
spruce? Are these the steers of Accomac That do the negro's drone
obey? The things of childhood all come back: The wonder tales of
mother day! The jail, the inn, the ivy vines That yon old English
churchside cloak, Wherein we read the stately lines Of Addison, writ in
his signs, Above the dead of Pocomoke.

The world in this old nook may peep, And think it listless and asleep;
But I have seen the world enough To think its grandeur something dull.
And here were men of sterling stuff, In their own era wonderful: Young
Luther Martin's wayward race, And William Winder's core of oak, The
lion heart of Samuel Chase, And great Decatur's royal face, And Henry
Wise of Pocomoke.
When we have raged our little part, And weary out of strife and art, Oh!
could we bring to these still shores The peace they have who harbor
here, And rest upon our echoing oars, And float adown this tranquil
sphere, Then might yon stars shine down on me, With all the hope
those lovers spoke, Who walked these tranquil streets I see And
thought God's love nowhere so free Nor life so good as Pocomoke.

TALES AND IDYLS.
KING OF CHINCOTEAGUE
HAUNTED PUNGY
TICKING STONE
THE IMP IN NANJEMOY
FALL OF UTIE
LEGEND OF FUNKSTOWN
JUDGE WHALEY'S DEMON
A CONVENT LEGEND
CRUTCH, THE PAGE
HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR
KIDNAPPED

THE JUDGE'S LAST TUNE
DOMINION OVER THE FISH
THE CIRCUIT PREACHER
THE BIG IDIOT
A BAYSIDE IDYL
SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON'S NIGHT
PHANTOM ARCHITECT
THE LOBBY BROTHER
POTOMAC RIVER
TELL-TALE FEET
UPPER MARLB'RO'
PREACHERS' SONS IN 1849
CHESTER RIVER
OLD WASHINGTON ALMSHOUSE
OLD ST. MARY'S

KING OF CHINCOTEAGUE.
The night before Christmas, frosty moonlight, the outcast preacher
came down to the island shore and raised his hands to the stars.
"O God! whose word I so long preached in meekness and sincerity," he
cried, "have mercy on my child and its mother, who are poor as were
Thine own this morning, eighteen hundred and forty years ago!"

The moonlight scarcely fretted the soft expanse of Chincoteague Bay.
There seemed a slender hand of silver reaching down from the sky to
tremble on the long chords of the water, lying there in light and shade,
like a harp. The drowsy dash of the low surf on the bar beyond the inlet
was harsh to this still and shallow haven for wreckers and oystermen. It
was very far from any busy city or hive of men, between the ocean and
the sandy peninsula of Maryland.
But no land is so remote that it may not have its banished men. The
outcast preacher had committed the one deadly sin acknowledged
amongst those wild wreckers and watermen. It was not that he had
knocked a drowning man in the head, nor shown a false signal along
the shore to decoy a vessel into the breakers, nor darkened the
lighthouse lamp. These things had been done, but not by him.
He had married out of his race. His wife was crossed with despised
blood.
"What do you seek, preacher?" exclaimed a gruff, hard voice. "Has the
Canaanite woman driven you out from your hut this sharp weather, in
the night?"
"No," answered the outcast preacher. "My heart has sent me forth to
beg the service of your oyster-tongs, that I may dip a peck of oysters
from the cove. We are almost starved."
"And rightly starved, O psalm-singer! You were doing well. Preaching,
ha! ha! Preaching the miracle of the God in the manger, the baby of the
maid. You prayed and travelled for the good of Christians. The time
came when you practised that gospel. You married the daughter of a
slave. Then they cast you off. They outlawed you. You were made
meaner, Levin Purnell, than the Jew of Chincoteague!"
The speaker was a bearded, swarthy, low-set man, who looked out from
the cabin of a pungy boat. His words rang in the cold air like dropping
icicles articulate.
"I know you, Issachar," exclaimed the outcast preacher. "They say that

you are hard and avaricious. Your people were bond slaves once to
every nation. This is the birth night of my faith. In the name of