Page:The Conquest.djvu/410

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Indians!" What Governor before ever lost his head on such a charge?

At that moment, flying down the Ohio, came a swift messenger,—"Mrs. Clark is dead at Fotheringay."

With the shock upon him, General Clark sent a card to the papers, notifying his fellow citizens of his loss, and of his necessary absence until the election was over. And with mingled dignity and sorrow he went back to Fotheringay to bury the beloved dead.

Granny Molly, "Black Granny," who had laced "Miss Judy's" shoes and tied up her curls with a ribbon in the old Philadelphia days, never left her beloved mistress.

A few days before "Miss Judy" went away, little Meriwether Lewis, then eleven years of age, came to her bedside with his curly hair dishevelled and his broad shirt collar tumbled.

"Aunt Molly," said the mother, "watch my boy and keep him neat. He is so beautiful, Granny!"

After her body was placed on two of the parlour chairs, Granny Molly noticed a little dust on the waxed floor. "Miss Judy would be 'stressed if she could see it." Away she ran, brought a mop, and had it all right by the time the coffin came.

Down on her knees scrubbing, scrubbing for the last time the floor for "Miss Judy," tears trickled down the ebony cheeks.

"Po', po' Miss Judy. You's done gwine wid de angels."

They laid her in the family tomb, overlooking the green valley of the Roanoke. Two weeks after her death, Colonel Hancock himself also succumbed.

To a double funeral the Governor came back. High on the hillside they laid them, in a mausoleum excavated out of the solid rock.

"De Cunnel, he done watch us out ob dat iron window up dah," said the darkies. "He sits up dah in a stone chair so he can look down de valley and see his slaves at deir work."

To this day the superstitious darkies will not pass his