The Barony had been offered for sale and bought in by Crenshaw
for eleven thousand dollars, this being the amount of his claim.
Some six months later he sold the plantation for fifteen thousand
dollars to Nathaniel Ferris, of Currituck County.
"There's money in the old place, Bob, at that figure," Crenshaw
told Yancy.
"There are so," agreed Yancy, who was thinking Crenshaw had lost
no time in getting it out.
They were seated on the counter in Crenshaw's store at Balaam's
Cross Roads, where the heavy odor of black molasses battled with
the sprightly smell of salt fish. The merchant held the Scratch
Hiller in no small esteem. Their intimacy was of long standing,
for the Yancys going down and the Crenshaws coming up had for a
brief space flourished on the same social level. Mr. Crenshaw's
rise in life, however, had been uninterrupted, while Mr. Yancy,
wrapped in a philosophic calm and deeply averse to industry, had
permitted the momentum imparted by a remote ancestor to carry him
where it would, which was steadily away from that tempered
prosperity his family had once boasted as members of the
land-owning and slaveholding class.
"I mean there's money in the place fo' Ferris," Crenshaw
explained.
"I reckon yo're right, Mr. John; the old general used to spend a
heap on the Barony and we all know he never got a cent back, so I
reckon the money's there yet.
"Bladen's got an answer from them South Carolina Quintards, and
they don't know nothing about the boy," said Crenshaw, changing
the subject.
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