Early in February of ’sixty-five, at the home of Mrs. Liddell, in
Columbia, Jack Corbin and his wife and Helen Brooks were sitting round
the open fire in the living room. The glow of the firelight on the hearth
threw fantastic shadows over the rich furnishings and lit up the forms
of the three who sat almost mournfully by his side. The darkness of the
evening was made more dreary by the falling rain, through which, in a few
minutes, the young captain must go to join his command. His suit of gray
was worn and faded, and his felt hat that hung outside was full of holes.
“I am glad,” he was saying, “that old Joe is here. It was good of the
colonel to send him. I saw him as I came, dressed up in a suit of Colonel
Masters’, and new shoes and hat—”
“Yes, Jack, and I am so glad that Major Goodwin has said he will get us a
guard for this house if Sherman comes.”
“He is coming, Bessie.”
“And you think there is no danger, Jack, dear?”
“I should certainly think not, with the examples the other generals
on both sides are setting. Grant would not harm women, nor Thomas,
nor Meade, nor Lee. Why, Bessie, my darling, Lee would hang a man who
insulted a woman or destroyed private property. You remember when General
Gordon captured the city of York just before the Battle of Gettysburg,
and the inhabitants were scared lest he should burn the town, he said: ‘I
beg you to rest assured that the troops behind me, though ill-clad and
travel-stained, are good men and brave—that beneath their rough exteriors
are hearts as loyal to women as ever beat in the breasts of honorable
men; that their own experience and the experience of their mothers,
wives and sisters at home have taught them how painful must be the sight
of a hostile army in their town; that under the order of General Lee,
non-combatants and private property are safe; that the spirit of lust
and rapine has no place in the spirits of those dust-covered men.’ He
pledged the head of any soldier under his command who destroyed private
property, disturbed the peace of a single home, or insulted a woman.
And not a person was harmed, nor a dollar’s worth of private property
destroyed. Surely, if a half-starved Confederate force could be so
knightly, the great army of Sherman, backed by unlimited supplies, will
be as honorable.”
“I hear General Sherman says the Emancipation Proclamation was only a war
act, and that he expects to own a hundred slaves after the war is over,”
said Bessie, reassured.
“I met him over at Camellia before the war,” Helen remembered; “he was
a polished gentleman, remarkably impressed, with Southern hospitality.
Surely he will not forget the many times he has broken bread with the
Carolinians. Barbarians do not forget that, and if he cannot be as
chivalrous as Gordon he can at least be as honorable as Morgan.”
They sat for a moment in silence.
“Jack, come up stairs with me before you go,” Bessie murmured at last.
They went out together, and Helen sat and looked into the firelight and
dreamed of fires that never fail.
The brave wife, leaning upon her strong husband’s shoulder, led him to a
little room and stood with him by a bed all covered with little garments.
She lit a candle, and its glow showed him more of his wife’s heart than
he had ever before seen.
There, each in its place on the white spread, were more than a full
score of little prophecies of a woman’s love and joy and hope—a dainty
cap intertwined with pink ribbons and another with blue; a tiny dress
all stitched and sewn with silk, and others just as beautiful by it;
some little coats of softest flannel and silken braidings, and a pair of
tiny socks all crocheted in pink and white, so small that Bessie looked
quaintly into her husband’s face and said:
“Jack, dear, do you think anything could be so tiny as to get into those?”
“Where did you get them, Bessie, in this poor land of fire and poverty?”
“From Helen, the sweet girl. I told her about it at the first, and she
had her brother smuggle them to her. Oh, she is so lovely! And see
the little basket all covered with dotted swiss and little ribbons
intertwined in it; and the soft little brush with ivory handle, as soft
as the silken hair it will touch; and the tiny comb. And do you see the
little gold pins and the silver powder box and the puff? And she put in a
dozen of the softest little undervests. Jack, I love Helen.”
“And I do too.” The strong man’s eyes looked suspiciously moist.
“Poor girl! When she gave them to me last night she looked at them so
long and wistfully, and I knew she was thinking about Ervin.”
“Sad, sad, Bessie; but his death was the death of a hero.”
“I know it, darling, but—a woman—a true woman—wants—a—a son of her
love—and life is a mockery without it.”
Then they were silent for a moment, and each deep in thought, until
Bessie said slowly, looking at the tiny garments before her:
“Jack, do you think that is what Jesus meant when He said He would go and
prepare a place for us?”
He kissed her then, and said a soldier’s farewell, leaving her standing
at the bedroom door. When he had descended the steps, Helen was still
looking into the fire.
“Helen,” he said, “we owe you much already, but I want to ask another
favor.”
“What is it, Jack?”
“Sherman is coming, and I am afraid he will burn Columbia. They say he
is going to throw the Fifteenth Corps into the city—the corps that fills
its tracks with blood and covers them with ashes. The prisoners we have
taken all say so. Bessie is here alone. Will you protect her? Here,” he
said, drawing from his pocket a small, ivory-handled pistol, “take this
and promise me to do all to protect her, if she needs it. You may need
it, too.” Then he walked out into the night and looked up to the window
of the little room; Bessie was still standing with the candle in her left
hand, looking lovingly down at the tiny garments spread out on the bed,
and Helen was sitting in the room below, recalling the face of the past,
letting the memories trip with light steps over her soul, and listening
to the vibrating of the chords that had lain sore and silent for so long.
It was a cozy little living room, and the wind and the rain outside only
made it the cozier. Belated travelers were still hurrying home on the
streets below, in the mud and rain. Every now and then one of them looked
in at the window whence came the cheery rays of light and thought as he
saw it of his own home and loved ones.
So Helen sat, and sitting, mused.
That fire, how brightly it glowed! What a world of poetry and beauty
there was in it, from the deep, velvety coals to the dark, gray ashes.
And that tiny, blue flame, how young it looked! That was youth. The coals
in the full glow were impetuous manhood, and the dark, somber ashes told
her of a life buried away, and reminded her that dust shall return to the
earth as it was, and the spirit—the bright, pure, flaming spirit, had it
not already vanished into the presence of the God who gave it?
Then, too, the long, dark shadows cast fitfully across the room by the
irregular bursts of flames, and the occasional crackling of the good
natured logs, and, yes, there surely was a cricket on the hearth. There
are many Helens, and readers will see the one who sat by the fire that
winter’s night in the fated city, but each looks upon his own Helen and
the fire glows upon his own hearthstone. One looks at her and she at the
fire, and the light falling over her is bathing her beautiful face till
every feature is radiant with its divine glow, and the most fascinating
tints seem to tinge each ringlet of her hair, and to sleep and dream in
those dark, brown eyes. She, too, was dreaming—though none gazed at her
there—of life and love, memories which only they could bring, filling her
soul and steadying her nerves for life’s actions.
Gazing, she dreamed of the glowing embers, and they told her of life’s
struggle, fierce, hot and fiery, and their crackling spoke of sharp
surprises, and every falling coal of losses and separations. She watched
the leaden ashes gather over the bright embers, and thought how she, too,
would some day return to the dust, after her forehead was wrinkled with
age, as the fires of youth slowly burned out, just as every seamed log
before her was seamed and scarred by the flames. But these thoughts were
only for a moment, for the fire had just been kindled in her heart, and
she would have to sit and watch it glow and flicker and flame for a long
time yet. Oh, that the kind Father of all spirits had granted that the
leaden ashes should have gathered at the same time on her life-hearth as
on his, and that their fires might have died out together! It was so
hard to outlive those she loved!
During the days that followed, wild rumors came of fires and murder and
pillage; and the women and children who would be left in Columbia after
Hampton’s cavalry had evacuated the city trembled as they saw the nightly
glow in the southeast growing brighter and the smoke growing daily
denser. Till at last on the memorable fifteenth of February the men in
blue appeared on the Lexington side of the Congaree and fiery shells fell
without warning into the city.
Helen, standing by the white pillars of the old colonial porch, saw Major
Goodwin riding rapidly down the street. He noticed her, too, and called,
“I will get you a guard—am going now to see General Sherman.”
Then the bluecoats appeared here and there in the outskirts of the city,
and Hampton’s cavalry hovered on the north to see that all was well
before the evacuation. Soon the mayor returned and brought with him four
Union soldiers.
“The general readily granted me the guard for you, Miss Brooks,” he said.
“In fact, a regiment is to be marched into the city to be used for guards
by those who want them. I surrendered the city unconditionally, and I do
not fear much danger, as he promised me that all would be as safe in his
hands as if I myself were in command.”
“And they will not fire it? Oh, how good of them!”
“He asked me about our waterworks and I told him they were in good
condition. He was pleased at that, and said that he would be obliged to
burn the public buildings, but not to-night, as it was too windy.”
“And there is no danger?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know. The soldiers all say—that is, some of them
have told me that they would burn Columbia; that it has been the common
talk around the camp fires for a long time. Somehow, one of them said,
they had taken the idea that Columbia accidentally fired would be a
particularly pleasant sight to General Sherman. The Fifteenth Corps is in
the city; but you are safe. Your guard will protect you, and I am glad,
for Bessie’s sake.
“And there is one other good thing about it, Miss Brooks,” he continued.
“General Hampton very sensibly ordered that no cotton be fired on the
streets and so far there is not a flame in the city except the railway
station a mile away from town.”
So Helen went quietly back to Bessie’s bedside and told her what the
Major had said, and the girl was glad that her first-born could be born
in peace. The afternoon wore slowly on, and the night began to cover the
city.
Helen was sitting in the doorway and the four guards were near. Knowing
the critical condition of her friend, she ventured again to remark as to
the safety of the city.
“I wish I was as sure of getting home safe as this house is to-night,”
said one of the soldiers, whose face Helen could not like.
Then, as they looked toward the northeastern part of the city, a blue
rocket shot high into the air. A moment, and then a white one, followed
by a red. Helen turned and looked at one of the guards, a gentlemanly
fellow, whom she had heard the others call “Old Secesh.”
“My God!” he exclaimed, “they are going to do it!”
The other three men rose and went up stairs, taking lighted candles.
“Madam,” said “Old Secesh,” “that signal you saw means that Columbia is
to be fired immediately. If you want to save anything you had best do it.
It is a hellish outrage, but the men want it, and they believe General
Sherman won’t mind it. I will help you all I can.”
Even as he spoke a bright light shot up in the northeast and down the
streets Helen could see men lighting camphene balls and throwing them at
houses. She arose quickly to go to Bessie’s bedside, and as she reached
the landing Mrs. Liddell suddenly appeared, crying:
“Fire, fire! The guards are setting fire to the lace curtains in their
rooms!”
“God save Sherman the record of this outrage!” said the guard, who had
followed her. “Madam, may I help you take the sick lady out? There is no
use in our trying to put the fire out—the city is doomed.”
“What’s that, ‘Old Secesh?’ Can’t you keep your mouth shet once?”
“Shame on you, men—you are not worthy of the blue!”
But the men only laughed and stood on the steps while the fire burned
above them.
“If Thomas or Grant only commanded us, madam!” old Secesh said, “this
black chapter would not be written this night.”
So he helped Helen and Mrs. Corbin and Mrs. Liddell lift the fainting
woman in a blanket from the burning house, and they bore her as gently as
they might down the street. As they reached the gate, the flames burst
from the windows of the house, and the street below was crowded with men
and women and children. Everywhere balls saturated with turpentine were
being hurled at the houses. As they went on they saw some firemen trying
to put out the flames, but the soldiers, with their bayonets, punched
holes in the hose and slashed it with sword and axe.
[_To be continued._]
HISTORY OF THE HALS
CHAPTER XVII
By John Trotwood Moore
THE FOUR HUNDRED AT THE HORSE SHOW
Now I’m forcibly reminded,
When I see them riding there,
One moment in the saddle
And the next one in the air,
That the saddest sham in nature
That I ever came across
Is a hundred-dollar saddle
On a twenty-dollar horse!
And again I’m just reminded,
When I see their tandem teams
And all the traps and trappings
Of their wildest English dreams,
That you’re always sure to notice
In their heavy, rumbling gigs,
The homeliest looking women
In the foreignest-looking rigs!
And yet again I notice,
With a mild, complacent smile,
That th’ eternal laws of fitness
Are at work there all the while.
And I grant them due forgiveness,
Let them rip it as they be—
For they dock their horses’ tails
To match the owner’s pedigree!
THE GRAVE ON THE BLUFF
The most beautiful of all beautiful rivers—bold-bluffed and crooked,
darkening in shadow or shimmering in sunlight, and never yet desecrated
by the touch of a wheel of commerce—is the Duck, rising among the
foothills to the east and flowing through the blue limestone of this
Niagara period, like the Hudson, to the Cumberland. It flows through
middle Tennessee and past the town I call my home.
Many are the picturesque spots on its banks. My favorite one is a huge
projecting rock, protected by large upright ones nearly as immense, and
shooting out over tier upon tier of rocks, down a hundred feet below, to
where the river runs like life—now in sunshine, now in shadow. On this
rock, sheltered by others which form a kind of background, I love to take
the lap-robe from the buggy, spread it out, stretch out and enjoy the
scenery beyond—the valley rolling away, the bend after bend of the river,
with the water flashing between the iron bridge that spans from rock to
rock, the everlasting hills and the eternal skies.
There is only one thing to mar the beauty of this place. In ten feet of
my rock is a neglected grave. The mound is sunken around it, clearly
defining the outlines. Even the bluegrass refuses to grow on it, it is so
uncanny. I had often wondered whose grave this was, neglected, unkept,
forgotten.
“Perhaps,” I said, often to myself, “it is the grave of some Federal
soldier, buried far away from home. No doubt he fell in Hood’s raid, when
that soldier turned his back on Atlanta and struck out for Tennessee,
sweeping everything before him to Nashville. Somewhere in the North there
is an unknown grave in a human heart. Or, it is just as apt to be,” I
would add, “one of those half-clad, half-fed Johnny Rebs, frozen in that
November’s sleet, and thawed out in the withering fire of Franklin.
Foot-sore, heart-sore, wounded and sick, he straggled forty miles from
Nashville, trying to follow Hood’s forlorn hope back to the Tennessee
River, and died here. Poor fellow, whoever he was!”
But not long ago an old darky whom I sometimes saw wandering around in
the neglected graveyard near, told me better. It is an old graveyard, now
full and neglected. Under a big tree I can see the square tombs of the
father and mother, sisters and brothers of James K. Polk.
I say graveyard purposely. Nowadays, it is true, they call it cemetery.
Cemetery is Frenchy, from Latin, and I suppose the name has been adopted
because it sounds better than the Saxon graveyard. That other Saxon word,
God’s Acre, sounds better. As if we could tone down the hideousness of
skeleton death with a French cutaway! And I hope you will pardon this
digression when I tell you I hate everything American that patterns
after French, and I love everything English that clings to Anglo-Saxon.
William the Norman was a free booter, a robber and a bully, and for my
part I am sorry that old Saxon Harold did not wipe the face of the earth
up with him and his parley-vouzing crowd of rakes at Hastings. England
has never had a king since that was half the man Alfred was. We should
have missed all the mean and villainous Johns and Richards, the devilish
Henrys, the profligate Charleses and the pigheaded, blood-pudding and
brainless Georges. And I would not allow a foreign grammar of any kind to
be taught in our public schools. For is it not ideas which count, and not
words? One flag and one language, and the man who tried to pull either of
them down I would—well, you have heard the rest. Lord help us! Starving
out the most glorious, the most beautiful, the strongest and the grandest
language in the world, the language of Chaucer, Milton, Burns and Byron,
of Emerson and Carlyle, to teach our children a mongrel mixture that
tends to mongrel morals!
But, as I was saying, the old darky told me about a year ago who the
lonely occupant of the neglected grave was. “Boss,” he said, as he sat
up against the slab that answered for a headboard, “I thou’t eberybody
knowed dis grabe was de grabe of de man dat was kicked to deff by a
stallion on de public square sixty years dis spring. Dat’s all I knowed
about him, an’ dey buried him heah.”
After that I would often find myself thinking of the unknown being who
slept there. Did he have a family, and what became of them? What strain
of horse could in those days have been so vicious? What stallion kicked
him? Stump-the-Dealer? No; Stump was too lazy to kick. Kittrell’s Hal? He
was a baby. Could it have been—ah, yes, happy thought! I have it. It was
one of those new trotting St. Lawrences, or Messengers, that Major Andrew
Polk introduced in the country about that time. The major was showing him
off the first Monday on the square; a crowd of rustics gathered around,
thinking he was gentle, like our Hals; one got too close to his heels—a
flash of a leg—a crash—a bursted skull—a forsaken grave—and the world
moves on.
No doubt of it. And the lonely occupant really holds a state record and
doesn’t know it: “First man in Tennessee to be kicked to death by a
trotter!”
“This thing is getting interesting,” I say to myself, “and I’ll romance
on that man a little—make him up a pretty history in my mind.” I draw my
lap robe a little further in the sun. How pleasant and delightful it is!
How sweet the spring breeze comes from the South, and how the water, from
a fisherman’s paddle, sparkles like diamonds far below.
On a sycamore tree that has grown from the river bottom up opposite my
bluff, a crow suns himself and eyes me foolishly. I never see a crow but
I think of Poe, the weird, wild genius, and his heavenly rhythm. I don’t
exactly fancy that bird, and if I were not too lazy I’d throw a pebble at
him.
But let me go on with the history of the man who was kicked to death.
“Shall I make him young or old?” I asked myself. “Young. Why? Because
an old horseman would have had better sense than to get too close to
a strange horse’s kicking end.” Again: “Ten to one an old horseman
would have had the best horse in the world himself and would have been
staying with him, telling everybody so, and proving it by his pedigree,
instead of running around examining the hind legs of some other fellow’s
worthless beast!
“Why, how nicely it all ravels out,” I laughed. “This reminds me of
Conan Doyle. It must be so easy to write a catchy little book, without a
line of literary merit in it, in which having the causes all in your own
mind, you can reason back so glibly to effect and make it sound so real
to thoughtless people. ‘Trilby,’ ‘Sherlock Holmes!’ Lord, where are we
at that this kind of stuff can live in the same age with the ‘Vicar of
Wakefield’ and ‘Lorna Doone’?
“A young horseman,” I continued; “ah, then, there is more of it. Perhaps:
“‘A nearer one still,
And a dearer one yet
Than all others.’”
The crow turned ’round and deliberately winked his left graveyard eye at
me. The villain! He knows the human heart. How fine the sunshine feels!
“What would I not give,” I said aloud, “to know all that poor fellow’s
history!”
The sycamore bowed its limbs; the crow gravely nodded his head. They
would like to hear it, too.
A shadow darkened my rock. I glanced up, half frowning at being
interrupted just as I was making up such a nice romance—with Poe’s
raven helping me, too! A man sat down beside me. I didn’t notice him
particularly, because I didn’t want to. I have a nasty habit of refusing
to talk when I want to think. I never could do both at the same time.
Indeed, I think the working of the lower jaw is fatal to the minds of
most men. Besides, this is my rock. This hour is a slice of my time-cake
(there are just so many slices in it before Waiter Death calls for the
plate), and I have the right to eat it without the help of every loafing
glutton who does not know the difference between the husks of idleness
and the cake of labor.
Talk about woman’s rights! Let the men get theirs first—the right to call
certain hours of their time their own, without bowing, nodding, shaking
hands, joking, laughing, lying and talking weather to every loafing
acquaintance whom idleness sends along. Oh, Horace of my school days!
Oh, great master of satire, how I wish I had remembered what you said to
the loafing bore who ran upon you when you sat sweetly dreaming out your
work in the garden of Maecenas! How I would feed that sarcasm to this old
loafer!
I glanced at this fellow as he sat down. He was gray and grizzled. He
wore an old suit of jeans dyed with copperas. On his head was an old wool
hat of many, many years ago. Such clothes! I knew none such had been
in Tennessee “since the war.” “He came,” I mentally said, “either from
Sleepy Hollow or—”
“Hello-o!” said the old chap, provokingly taking the word out of my
mouth. I feigned sleep.
“I heard you say,” he went on, “that you would like to know the history
of the man who sleeps in that grave yonder.”
“Yes,” I growled, “but I was only romancing. You see, I love to get off
here, away from everybody—especially weather wizards and people that know
it all” (and I looked sternly at him) “and think about life and the fool
things we are and do.”
“I can tell you that man’s history,” he said, without noticing my
remarks, “and he knew more about the horses of Tennessee than any man
living to-day. He raised Stump-the-Dealer and—”
I sat upright.
“Just reach around under that rock there in the shade, Colonel,” I said;
“yes, that’s it—Lincoln County, made in 1877—help yourself. Don’t mind
the rock candy, the dried bit of lemon and orange peel and the roasted
slice of East Tennessee peach in the bottom. It is all right in spite of
the flavor. You see,” I continued, “lying in the early spring on this
clammy rock, right over a muddy, half-frozen river, is liable to give one
a cold. I don’t touch it often myself—just keep it for my friends and—”
The crow laughed out loud and winked both eyes alternately.
“Never mind,” said the old fellow, drinking it all at a mouthful, to my
astonishment and consternation, and tossing the bottle over the bluff,
“that’s good. Count me as one of your friends hereafter, won’t you? You
see, I haven’t had a drink for sixty years. Been out of the state. Shut
up in a dungeon, as it were; been—”
“Oh, you are one of those Tennesseans that migrated to Texas,” I said,
laughing. “But go on with your history of the man.”
The old fellow did not laugh. He grimly stroked his long, grizzled
beard, and said: “I used to live here—right here in this county. That
was sixty years ago. I was a horseman—I knew a good one when I saw him.
By the way, I owned the best horse that ever stood on iron. I owned old
Stump-the-Dealer.”
“What?” I cried excitedly; “you owned old Stump? Heaven be praised! I’ve
been looking for you for years. Tell me all about him!”
“Gently, gently,” he said; “that’s what I want you to tell me. You see
I haven’t heard a man say ‘horse’ for sixty years. In fact, you are
the only horseman I’ve spoken to for that time. I seem to have lost my
head—been in a trance. Tell me what became of old Stump.”
I looked at him in astonishment. “How quickly that Lincoln County acts,”
I thought, and then aloud: “Oh, Stump died forty-odd years ago.”
“Dead forty years,” he exclaimed; “and what killed him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s been so long, but it seems I’ve heard he died
trying to pace over a row of salt barrels and not break his gait.”
“And did he do it? Old Stump? Did he break his gait?” he questioned,
excitedly.
“No—broke his neck,” I replied.
“Good,” was his verdict. “I knew he’d break his neck before he’d break
his gait. Gone at last! Poor Stump! And what became of Major Kittrell’s
colt? Hal they call him. I knew him, too.”
“Died years ago,” I said. “Got lost in the woods. Went out in the
wilderness to hunt for his pedigree and never came home any more.”
“Well, well, that’s sad,” he muttered. “I swapped a colt to Major
Kittrell for a black and measley jack—Simmons’ Jack by Leiper’s Creek.
Can you tell me what became of him?”
“Why, yes, I’ve heard of that chap all my life. He took many premiums and
died years ago, but he left a numberless progeny.”
“Where are they? I must have one,” he added, “when I start in again.”
“You’ll find them nearly all in the last Congress,” I said, “if it hasn’t
adjourned yet.”
The old fellow smiled for the first time. “Now tell me,” he said, “when I
left here in 1845 a chestnut gelding named James K. Polk held the world’s
pacing record. They rode him a mile in 2:27; was that ever beaten?”
The crow laughed so loud I thought he’d fall off his perch.
“Not till last summer,” I said, with a wink. “A Hal horse called Star
Pointer, a great grandson of the Kittrell colt, paced a mile in a little
better than two minutes—”
“Look here, young man,” he broke in, “I want the truth! You know no horse
ever did that. That’s flying. Who rode him?”
“Why, we don’t ride horses now in harness races. He was driven to a
bicycle sulky. A 2-year-old has paced in 2:07¾, and there are more Hals
that have paced better than 2:10 than you could count up in an hour.”
“What’s that?” he said, jumping up. “Don’t you know we never break a
horse till he’s three? I can’t sit here, young man, and have you tell
me them yarns any longer. Sixty years ago I was a horseman. I told
yarns, too, and swapped horses and lied, and bragged, and run down other
people’s stock, and well—I came to grief. And if you had been where I
have been for sixty years you would be more careful what you say. Tell me
the truth about some of them.”
“Why, I thought everybody knew them,” I said. “I can’t imagine where you
have been. There was the first great Hal racer, Little Brown Jug. His
three-heat record of 2:11¾, 2:11¼, 2:12½, was, for nearly ten years,
unbeaten.”
“What!” he cried, “done that three times? Who rode him?”
“Why, hang it,” I cried, impatiently, “nobody rode him! I told you they
quit that before I was born. And Mattie Hunter and Bonesetter—they were
great racers. Mattie Hunter was a little mare that was one of the Big
Four. Then there came later old Hal Pointer—the greatest race horse of
them all. Why, he had a record of 2:04½ in a race—”
“Nearly two minutes in a race! Phew!” he cried, blowing vigorously
through his long, thin, gray whiskers. “Phew! What a lie!” and something
flew out of his dry lips and rattled on the rocks.
I jumped back in astonishment.
“Excuse me,” he said, “them’s three of my front teeth—they’ve been dry
for sixty years and hanging loose in the jaw bone, like. I forgot myself
and blew too hard—”
He caught at his eye just in time and put that back: “But go on, I never
heard anything as interestin’ as them Hals.”
But I had forgotten the story, and was watching him. Never had such an
uncanny feeling come over me. I reached around under the rock for the
bottle.
“I got all of that at first,” he said. “Now, look here—you go right on
with that story and don’t you move or something might happen to you.”
I tried to laugh, but the cold sweat stood on my face. I shook,
trembling, and looked to see how far it was to the water.
“Go on.” He glared. “Go on, or I’ll throw one of my eyes at you. Tell me
the rest.”
“I—ah—ah—oh; well, there was a Brown Hal, the champion sire of his day,
and he’s still living. He has more 2:10 race records to the credit of
his get than any horse living or dead. Here is his 2:10 list.” I rattled
along, trying to brace up and talk fast enough to think of something
else except the uncanny thing before me. “Let me see: Star Pointer,
Hal Dillard, Star Hal, Hal Chaffin, Elastic Pointer, Hal Braden, New
Richmond, Storm, Brown Heels, Laurel and Silver Hal, and he sired the dam
of—”
“That’s a damn lie!” he snorted; “no hoss could ’a’ done that!”
“Pardon me, Colonel,” I said, “and if you’ll excuse me a minute I’ll step
up town and fetch a little more of that—.”
“Set down,” he said, “and go on with your lies.”
It was over eighty good feet to the water over that bluff, but for a
moment I thought I’d try it.
“Look! Look!” he cried, pointing down the Nashville pike, way below
us—“what’s that going along there without hosses?”
“That’s a hoss-scarer,” I said, “an automobile—a gas buggy—run without
horses. That crowd have run out from Nashville in perhaps about two
hours. That blue line of smoke,” I said, “away off yonder is the ten
o’clock express. It makes the run in an hour and—”
He jumped up. “I don’t believe any of your hoss lies, your gas-waggin
lies nor your express lies!” he cried. “Why, didn’t I see General Jackson
when he went to Washington to be inaugurated President of the United
States, moving in his own carriage through the country? And Jeems K.
Polk, why he lives right yonder,” he said, pointing up the street. “He is
my lawyer and was elicted President jes’ the other year, and I saw him
take the stage for Nashville. It’s all a lie you’ve made up.”
“I am telling you the truth. But where have you been?” I asked.
He looked at me sorrowfully. “Sixty years ago I was a horseman, telling
lies like the rest of you, swapping yarns, bragging, boasting, owning all
the fast ones, and having a mortgage on the future speed of the universe.
But one day something happened to me; one day, on the square, I got too
close to a horse’s heels, trying to show his owner an imaginary curb.
He kicked me. I’ve been dead for sixty years. I’m the young man whose
history you’ve been so anxious to learn,” he said, with a diabolical
grin. “Keep your seat,” he added, as he saw I was edging away. “I haven’t
told you that history yet. Don’t be in a hurry.”
The blood froze in my veins. He had blocked my path up and nothing
remained but for me to jump over the precipice. I rushed to the edge and
was just taking a farewell view of the earth when the report of a gun,
almost in my ear, awoke me.
“Sorry to disturb you,” said a small boy, as he lowered a single-barrel
gun from a rest he had on my rock, “but I couldn’t help shootin’ that
crow in the sycamore there. He was jabbering and acting like he had
hydrophobia. Did the old gun sound loud? It liked to kicked me over. I
forgot I loaded it yesterday, and loaded it again to-day. My!” and he
rubbed his shoulder and whistled through his fingers.
“It didn’t sound too loud for me, Sonny,” I said. “An earthquake would
have been welcome then. You just about saved me from jumping over that
rock. Take this dollar, get you all the ammunition you want, and kill all
the infernal crows you can. And if ever anybody calls here to inquire
for me, just tell them I have found another beautiful place out in a
hundred-acre field in a deep valley, and five miles from any unknown
graves on lonely bluffs,” and I went after a hot lemon punch to bring me
back from the weird land I had been in.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A Valentine Toast
By Ethel Morrison Lackey]
Here’s to the King of an Empire,
Who rules with an absolute sway!
With never a fear that Pretenders
Are scheming his kingdom away!
His sceptre is only an arrow,
His crown but a small, curvéd bow,
Yet his subjects do yield such devotion
As no other monarch can know.
For the empire he rules with such power
Is the world of Fond Lovers, and they
Are pledging their faith and allegiance
On this, their King’s own, sacred day.
And so, with this host of true subjects,
’Tis fitting his praises we sing,
And drink, in joy’s wine, the glad toast
“To Cupid—Long live the King!”
NAPOLEON
PART VI—LOUIS NAPOLEON
By Anna Erwin Woods
He wrote to the Minister of the Interior: “I come, M. Minister, to
declare to you that if the French Government will permit me to go to
Florence and perform a sacred duty, I promise, upon honor, to return and
become a prisoner again whenever the Government expresses its desire that
I shall do so.” He also addressed a letter to the king: “Sire, it is
not without keen emotion that I come to ask Your Majesty, as a benefit,
for permission to leave France, even momentarily; I, who have for the
last five years found an ample recompense for the torments of captivity
in the air of my fatherland. But, at present, my sick and infirm father
demands my care. In order to obtain my freedom he has addressed himself
to persons known for their devotion to Your Majesty; it is my duty, on
my part, to do all that depends upon me to reach him. The Ministerial
Council, not thinking it within its competence to grant the request I
have made to go to Florence, promising to return and to become once more
a prisoner when the Government shall manifest its desire for me to do so,
I come, Sire, with confidence, to make an appeal to Your Majesty’s humane
sentiments, and to renew my request by submitting it, Sire, to your high
and generous intervention. Your Majesty, I am convinced, will appreciate
as it deserves a step which pledges my gratitude in advance; and touched
by the isolated position in a foreign land of a man who, on the throne,
merited the esteem of Europe will hear the prayers of my father, and
my own. I beg Your Majesty to receive the expression of my profound
respect.”
The Council of Ministers thought this letter insufficient to permit the
exercise of clemency by the king. The leader of the Opposition went, in
a private capacity, to plead the situation of the aged, infirm, solitary
father, comparing it with that of the king, who was surrounded by a
numerous family. The government, however, would not allow the petition to
be considered.
When Prince Louis Napoleon became convinced that all his efforts were
unavailing, he took a resolution which he afterwards described in a
letter as follows: “The desire to see my father once more in this world
urged me to the most audacious enterprise I ever attempted; one that
demanded more courage and determination than Strasbourg or Boulogne,
since I was resolved not to endure the ridicule attaching to a man
arrested under a disguise, and a failure would have been insupportable.”
He confided his scheme to two persons only, Dr. Conneau and Charles
Thelin. The doctor had carried his devotion to such lengths that, even
during the previous year when it was proposed that he should leave the
prison, he had declared: “I have elected my domicile in the prison of
Ham and submit to all conditions which the authorities have seen fit to
impose upon me.” Charles Thelin was fully determined never to quit his
master and, as his captivity was entirely voluntary, he was treated in a
special manner, and allowed to leave the fortress at times and go about
the town. But for this fact, and one other, the escape of the Prince
would have been impossible. Charles Thelin bought in Ham the clothes in
which his master was disguised and arranged all the details of the flight.
General de Montholon was not told of the plan. The general had
disapproved of the Boulogne expedition, of which he had been kept in
ignorance until the very moment of landing. The prince well knew that he
would oppose the plan of escape, considering it a fatal absurdity and
folly. When the prince acquainted Dr. Conneau with his plans the latter
made every effort to dissuade him. Failure seemed inevitable; indeed, so
rash seemed the attempt that the most unheard-of audacity and coolness
alone could have rendered possible the miracle of success. But the
improbable is sometimes true, and history furnishes greater surprises
than romance.
To glance at a plan of the fortress of Ham it would be hard to realize
that any man had even been rash enough to make such an attempt, and
without the connivance of a single jailor or soldier. The prison of the
prince was on the side of the barracks near the dungeon, at the back of
the court. To go out of the only door of the fortress it was necessary,
in the first place, to pass in front of two jailors, cross the entire
length of the court, go under the windows of the commandant who lodged
near the drawbridge, then through the wicket where there was an orderly,
a sergeant, a gate-keeper, a sentry, and last, a post of thirty men.
That the Prince should conceive the idea of going out alone, in broad
daylight, in sight of everybody, was a contingency so strange, so
incredible, that not even the most suspicious jailor would have admitted
its possibility. That the prisoner himself should have thought of it was
due, altogether, to a peculiar condition of circumstances. The commandant
of the fortress had asked for and been granted a sum of money for the
purpose of making some indispensable repairs in the apartment of the
prince and the stairway leading to it. There was a continual coming and
going of workmen in the court and the prince remarked that they were
very carefully searched on coming in but much less so on going out.
This was an illumination to him and he determined that, disguised as a
workman, he would, in the presence of all, leave the fortress in open
daylight.
That a man who had for five years, on this very spot, been subjected to
the closest scrutiny; whose every look, movement, expression, had been
closely studied, should undertake to challenge the alert watchfulness
of this strict guard, certainly indicated a daring self-control which a
writer of romance would scarcely expect thoughtful readers to accept as
a characteristic of even a very daring knight of the middle ages, a hero
of marvelous and incredible adventures. That this should have occurred
within our own prosaic generation, that many of those still living should
have looked upon this man of gentle, quiet dignity, brings to mind how
immeasurably below the strong realities of truth fall the portrayals of
romance upon the mimic stage.
The dress of a workman was secured by Charles Thelin and successfully
brought into the fortress; a blue blouse soiled with plaster; a black wig
with long hair, a peaked cap rubbed threadbare with pumice stone, a pair
of wooden sabots to make the prince look taller.
Many years afterwards when the splendors of the second empire, no longer
a dream but a magnificent pageant, had dazzled mankind; after the fatal
day of Sedan and the revolution of September which drove the lovely
Eugenie from Paris, among the papers found at the Tuileries was a bill
for the articles used in this disguise. It amounted to twenty-five
francs. Upon so small a sum rested an empire. Through all those years
of imperial magnificence, this man, with a heart full of sentimental
longings, preserved in his palace this little paper memento of the hour
which tried his soul.
On May 26th, the workmen would have completed their task; it was settled
that on the 25th the attempt should be made. On the 24th, in bidding
General Montholon and his wife good night, the prince embraced them with
an emotion which came near betraying him; but neither of them suspected
what was going on.
The day dawned on the 25th of May. The curé of Ham was to say mass at the
fortress, in the chapel on the ground floor. Very early in the morning
the prince wrote this note to him: “M. Dean, I should be glad to have you
put off until to-morrow or the next day the mass you were to celebrate
to-day at the chateau; for, as I suffered great pains on rising, I am
obliged to take a bath to alleviate them.” This curé of Ham under the
reign of Napoleon III was made a bishop and almoner of the Tuileries. At
half-past six o’clock in the morning the workmen were already at work
renewing the paint on the staircase. The captive abandoned himself to
his destiny and assumed his disguise. The future emperor darkened his
complexion and shaved off his mustache. Superstitious, and a fatalist,
he concealed, under his apparel, a portfolio containing two letters,
one from his uncle, the great Emperor, and the other from the Empress
Josephine, his grandmother. These letters he regarded as talismans.
It was a grave imprudence to take them, for if the fugitive had been
arrested on his way they would have betrayed him.
His disguise accomplished, Prince Louis Napoleon put a pipe between his
teeth and a plank on his shoulder. This plank, inscribed with the letter
“N,” was one of his library shelves; he believed it would bring him good
luck—it was the plank of his salvation. “If the escape is a failure,”
he says, “I will not survive; if it succeeds I shall become master of
France.” Romantic and eager for emotion, this man of calm and gentle
manner delighted in thus braving fortune.
Charles Thelin asked the workmen to take a drink; they accepted and
followed him into a room on the ground floor. Two wardens, however, were
on duty; the prince passed down the stairs putting the plank before
his face as he met one of the wardens at the foot. He passed the whole
length of the court, keeping the plank constantly between himself and the
sentinels. In passing the first sentry he let his pipe fall, stooped to
pick up the pieces and then walked on. He met the officer of the guard
who happened to be reading a letter and did not notice him. He passed
under the commandant’s window to the only door of the fortress; the
soldiers at the guard-house looked carelessly at the workman as he came
near them; the drums rolled several times; the orderlies opened the door;
the fugitive was outside the fortress. Just then, two workmen looking at
him attentively, he shifted his plank to the shoulder next to them and
heard one of them say: “It is Bertrand.”
In the meantime, Thelin, unrestricted, to a certain degree, in his
comings and goings, had been talking to the soldiers and remarked, as he
passed out of the fortress, that he would not be back until quite late.
As soon as he was out of their sight he sped to Ham for a cab which he
had engaged the day before, and hurried to overtake the prince on the St.
Quentin road. A few days after, Louis Napoleon wrote to a friend: “When
about half a league from Ham, while awaiting Charles, I found myself
opposite the Cemetery Cross and fell on my knees before it and thanked
God—ah, do not laugh at it! There are instincts that are stronger than
all philosophic arguments.”
The prince hid his plank in a ditch, and sitting down on the side of the
road, counted the minutes while he waited for Thelin. At last he saw
him coming, and in about an hour they reached St. Quentin. Outside the
city the prince alighted, leaving Thelin to go on alone; he removed his
workman’s dress, hiding that also in a ditch, and then walked on to
where he was to meet Thelin on the Valenciennes road.
Thelin had taken another carriage at St. Quentin, and overtaking the
prince, they arrived at Valenciennes about 3 o’clock. Here they had to
wait two interminable hours for the train to Brussels. While they were
waiting, Thelin heard a loud voice calling him by name. Their hearts sank
in despair. It proved, however, to be a former _gendarme_ of Ham, who was
now employed on the railroad. He asked for news of the prince and had a
long conversation with Thelin but did not observe his companion.
The railway train at last drew up, they entered, and soon passed the
boundary. The government of King Louis Phillippe had lost its captive.
Eight hours after putting the plank on his shoulder, Louis Napoleon was
in Belgium; twelve hours later he was in England.
Just as he arrived in London he passed an English acquaintance (Lord
Malmesbury) who was on horseback and merely bowed in passing, without
having an opportunity to speak. That evening Lord Malmesbury met at
dinner an attaché of the French Embassy. “Have you seen him?” said he.
“Seen whom?” asked the attaché. “Louis Napoleon; he has just arrived in
London.” The diplomat left the table at once and went to communicate the
news to his chief.
All day long Dr. Conneau had experienced almost as much emotion as
the fugitive himself. He well knew how essential it was that several
hours should elapse before his flight should be suspected; the
slightest suspicion would cause telegrams to be sent to St. Quentin and
Valenciennes for his arrest. The great thing was to gain time and to
prevent any one from entering the empty apartments. He made a report
that, after a sleepless night, the captive had suffered so much pain that
he (the doctor) had administered a medicine which caused him to sleep;
and he requested that his patient should remain undisturbed.
The doctor had put a manikin in the bed, made of a cloak and a silk
handkerchief. At seven o’clock in the evening the commandant said to Dr.
Conneau: “If the prince is suffering make your report. He has not been
seen all day. This is the third time I have come here and asked to see
him. Now I wish to see him.” As he opened the door the drums commenced
to roll and he remarked: “That will awaken the prince; I think I saw him
turn in the bed.” He approached and leaned over. “It seems to me I do not
hear him breathe.” Looking more closely, in a moment he perceived the
manikin. He exclaimed angrily, “What does this mean? Are you playing a
trick on me? Where is the prince?”
“_Mon ami_,” said Dr. Conneau, “it is useless to conceal it from you any
longer. The prince is gone.”
“Gone!” cried the commandant, “How? When? Where?”
“Excuse me,” said Dr. Conneau, “but that is my secret. I have done my
duty; do yours and search.”
“But, at least, tell me at what hour,” insisted the commandant.
“At seven o’clock this morning,” replied Dr. Conneau.
“Very well, sir,” sternly said the commandant, “re-enter your prison.”
When Count de Montholon, who, with his wife, had been the companion
of the prince in his captivity for six years, found that he had left
the fortress without bidding him adieu, he was not only surprised, but
offended. The following letter from the prince, however, was placed in
his hands:
My Dear General: You will be much astonished by the decision
I have taken, and still more so that having taken it I did
not inform you of it sooner. But I thought it was better to
leave you in ignorance of my plans, which date only a few days
back; and besides I was convinced that my escape could not be
otherwise than advantageous to you and to other friends whom I
leave in prison. The government only detains you on my account;
and when it sees that I have no intention of using my liberty
against it it will, I hope, open the doors of all the prisons.
Believe, dear general, that I greatly regret having been unable
to see you and press your hand before departure; but that
would have been impossible; my emotion would have betrayed
the secret I wished to keep. I will write you as soon as I
have reached a place of safety. Adieu, my general; receive the
assurance of my friendship.
The commandant and two jailors were charged with complicity in the
escape of the prince. Judgment was rendered the next day and they were
acquitted. Dr. Conneau was condemned to six months’ imprisonment and no
one ever saw a more cheerful condemned man. Charles Thelin was condemned
in default to six months’ imprisonment.
The prince wrote at once:
London, May 27th, 1846.—My Dear Father: The desire to see you
again made me attempt what otherwise I should never have done.
I have eluded the vigilance of four hundred men and arrived
in London safe and sound. I have powerful friends here and I
am going to put them in use in trying to reach you. I entreat
you, my dear father, to do all in your power in order that I
may speedily rejoin you. My address is Count d’Arenenberg,
Brunswick Hotel, Jermyn Street, London.
Every effort was made by the prince to reach his dying father; but at
every embassy he met refusal. King Louis, counting the days and hours,
watched for the coming of his son. Alas! in vain. Without having been
granted his prayer to see and bless his only child, he died sad and alone
in Italy, July 25th, 1846. If to-day all men go freely everywhere it is
due to the suffering caused Louis Napoleon at this time. He resolved
that if ever he should come into power, he would at once suppress all
such impediments as had caused him such torture. He kept his resolution;
other governments were brought to act like his; and now travelers may go
without passports.
Few destinies have been so melancholy as that of Louis Bonaparte,
former King of Holland. Against his own inclinations he yielded to his
brother’s will and contracted a marriage with Hortense Beauharnais, the
stepdaughter of his brother; and yielding to the same powerful will he
became most reluctantly, King of Holland. Upon the downfall of the great
emperor, he began, at the age of thirty-one, a life of exile in foreign
countries. He was absolutely unlike his great brother. His expression was
kindly; his eyes were full of gentleness and in this his son resembled
him, as well as in a propensity to melancholy, a blending of coldness
and affability, and a taste for literature and humanitarian dreams. He
was, however, far more ardent, more ambitious, more daring than his
father. His personal charm was greater; he knew how to attract and win
attachment; and he had a confidence in his star which was entirely
wanting in King Louis. Indeed, in the year 1846, there seemed but one
person in the world who believed in the star of Louis Napoleon; and that
person was himself. Calmly and patiently he waited for the moment when
it should rise above the horizon, as yet absolutely hazy. Who could have
predicted that in less than two years he would be, by legal means, the
head of the French Government? And what imagination could have pictured
the triumphal entrance into London of the Emperor of the French, Napoleon
III, the great ally of England in whose honor all the pomp and pageantry
of the British Empire was displayed? Let writers of romance look always
to the truths of history for the wonderful.
His cousin, the daughter of the Grand Duchess of Baden, said to him one
evening in London: “Now that you are at liberty, will you resign yourself
to repose? Will you give up these illusions which have cost you so dear
and whose cruel deceptions have been so keenly felt by all who love you?”
“My cousin,” replied the prince, “I do not belong to myself but to my
name and my country. Although fortune has twice betrayed me, my destiny
will be accomplished all the more speedily.”
And, indeed, the hour expected by this man of destiny was about to strike.
[_To be continued._]
THE MEASURE OF A MAN
By John Trotwood Moore
CHAPTER VI
The Hermitage of 1814 did not look like the Hermitage of to-day. Not
until later did the hero of New Orleans erect the substantial home
which for many years was the Mecca of those who believed in Jacksonian
Democracy. At the time of this story it was a plain but comfortable log
structure, differing but little from similar ones built by the pioneers
of that age in their efforts to establish homes in the wilderness.
But even as it stood it was no ordinary home, sitting back from the pike
near the stone spring dairy, the castle of hundreds of acres of as good
lands as ever the wilderness gave to civilization.
To-night it was lighted up and ablaze with youth and gaiety. It was a
farewell party for Juliette Templeton, and the youth of the land were
there. Out in the yard bonfires burned, tended by negro slaves, whose
dusky forms, slipping like shadows here and there, were silhouetted
against the dark background, huge giants of the night. The fires lighted
the lawn and the ancient trees; above, a half moon was rising, and the
lighted lawn and moon-lighted woods made a typical scene of beauty and
romance. Within the house hundreds of candles were stuck about in every
conceivable nook and corner, on window sill, on shelf and on the huge
logs themselves. Upon the lawn were clusters of horses tied to the limbs
of trees, and carriages in groups around them.
Within, the long dining tables gleamed in linen and silver.
The dancing had already begun, opening with a Virginia reel, in which
General Jackson led his fair guest down the line with all that courtly
grace he could command when he wished. And, indeed, there was incentive
for this gallantry, for never had the old soldier led so stately a beauty
down the cotillion line, though in his younger and cock-fighting North
Carolina days he had danced with some beautiful women—and some who were
not!
He was smiling good-naturedly; evidently he was thinking of them
to-night. “I have danced with some famous ones in my youth, my dear,” he
said, bowing low over her hand, “but never any that could compare with
you.”
She laughed, twinkling: “Tell me, General, how old must a man be before
he quits giving the girls his sweet talk?”
“Ah! that depends on the girl. Now, in your case I would say about the
age of Methuselah.”
They were standing at the head of the line waiting for their turn again.
Some one began to talk to her partner, giving Juliette a chance to run
her eyes quickly down the room full of the Hermitage neighbors and
friends. Neither Bristow nor Trevellian was there. She was not surprised,
for she never expected to see Trevellian again, and Bristow had not come
back since that night at the supper table when he had dropped a careless
remark about Trevellian and met such a subdued but pointed rebuke that it
took all of Aunt Rachael’s good nature and Juliette’s tact to prevent an
open rupture. Yet, since then, in every other way had Bristow shown his
attention—flowers, notes and all the lover’s resources which his shrewd
nature could command.
But as for Trevellian—the shock of that day had never left her. She had
put him resolutely aside; and yet, often since then, in the night when
alone with her thoughts, she had begun to doubt and to wonder—and then to
weep.
To weep. Ah, then it was she knew she loved Trevellian! But that had only
been at night. In the day, never had any one carried herself with more
dignity and poise.
She was glad that he was not here.
There was a hubbub around her. It was their time again and the General
was tapping her on the arm. Again they went down the line beneath the
eyes of an admiring crowd, and then he gallantly led her to a seat.
“Now, Juliette,” he said, “I must leave you to a younger and handsomer
beau, but while I have this chance, there is something I must tell you,
because you will know of it soon enough.”
He took his favorite seat. They were alone in the corner of the room, and
the rough floor was shaking with the boisterous dancing of healthy and
hilarious yeomanry.
“You are going to New Orleans to-morrow and you will stop at Natchez a
day or two to catch the boat there. We are sending you under the escort
of an old friend and his wife—Captain Royston and wife—but the Captain
will report for duty there. I do not know how the situation is at the
front. It is possible that you may have to stop at Natchez for awhile,
which brings me to the point I wish to impress upon you.”
She looked up at him quickly.
“The British,” he continued, “will be on us very soon.”
“Not at New Orleans?” she paled. “Everybody says at Pensacola or Mobile,
if at all.”
“Everybody knows but little,” said the General, quietly. “My dear, I am
going to have to whip them at New Orleans, and that before anybody dreams
of.”
“Oh, General—my mother—”
“Now if I had my way,” he went on, “I would rather you stay here
awhile, for the British, whom I shall have to fight, are the same
that are beating Bonaparte allies in Spain, and the depredations they
have committed there have been notorious. But you must, of course, go
on to your mother—but for that Mrs. Jackson and I should not think of
permitting you to leave us, for it will be a fight to the finish at New
Orleans and—”
“I thank you so much for telling me this, General. I shall tell mother as
soon as I arrive, and we shall pack up everything so as to be prepared
for flight.”
The General rose quickly, his keen eyes flashing and his face purpling
with rage.
“Prepare for flight? Do you think I have told you my official business
to scare you? Do you think those damned ruffians will ever get to New
Orleans except over the dead bodies of me and my troops? I’ll drive them
into the river, what is left of them, and you shall be there to see it.
By the Eternal, I swear it, and you shall see the river red with their
bloating carcasses! I’ll pay off the score they have piled on us on the
lakes and at Washington and on the sea. Prepare for flight!” he said,
cooling down, “why, my dear, and you old Joe Templeton’s daughter!”
He sat down, blowing his nose vigorously. He looked around half shamedly.
She could almost see the purple anger retiring before the mastery of a
mind whose first great instinct was unmeasured calmness—a calmness which,
in spite of his nature, he could command when he wished at all times. A
man who could both bluff and fight.
“No,” he went on, after awhile, “prepare to stay. I hate to see you
go, but aside from the fact that there will be some very extraordinary
fighting, which you will have nothing to do with, and need not see, New
Orleans will be as safe as the Hermitage.”
“Oh, General,” she apologized, “please forgive me, I did not understand
you.”
His good nature returned, even his jollity. It was his way—a thunderbolt
one moment, the next Jupiter himself in all his calmness. He went on
talking to himself more than to her.
“A thousand of my Tennesseans have started to-day. Let me see—they should
be at Ditto Landing by—”
There was a volley in the yard and loud cheers.
The General sprang up and went quickly out. The dancers flocked to
windows, doors and out into the yard. When Juliette went out she saw the
General surrounded by a strange crowd. A glance told her it was troops on
their way to the front, and Mrs. Jackson, who stood at her side, said:
“Captain Trevellian’s company going South, dear.”
The crowd had surged out into the lawn where General Jackson had gone to
greet them, and Juliette found herself also in the crowd, while around
her flocked the dancers to see their friends and neighbors off once more
to the war.
Their commander had drawn them up in line of battle, a gaunt, sinewy,
tanned and splendid sight under the flaring lights of the bonfires. It
was not a very straight alignment as it surged forward on both flanks,
half surrounding General Jackson and their captain, both of whom they
idolized. They had given the General a volley and salute, and now surged
forward to hear what he and their captain had to say.
It was a picturesque sight and one never to be forgotten. They were
dressed in typical costume of their time, and yet there was a liveness
and manliness about it which stirred the deeper emotions. Long hair above
swarthy, sunburnt faces, heavy coon skin caps, hunting coats and buckskin
trousers, ending in the top of rawhide boots. Powder horns, some of
gourds, but nearly all of buffalo horns, hung over their shoulders by a
thong of deer hide. In their hands they held, with butts on the ground,
the tall Decherd rifle, often taller than the man behind it. In their
belts was a weapon no other army since the days of Rome and Britain had
ever carried into war. It was a heavy bear knife, often a foot or more
long, some of them two-edged, enclosed in a holster of buckskin or calf.
In the faces themselves there dwelt a strange mixture of fun and fight,
of strange horse talk and stranger horse plays. And so they stood up,
a grand and picturesque sight, under the glare of the lights, a more
formidable and savage foe than any they had ever driven from the land.
There was another yell and volley of huzzahs as General Jackson came
forward. The line was now broken and they thronged around him. It was
Bill, Tom and Jim to him as he clasped the hands that shook his. They
were friends of his, they loved him and that was enough. The regiment had
camped for the night not far off after their first day’s march.
“We hurd you was ginnin’ a treat, Gin’ral,” shouted a long-haired,
buckskin-clad fellow in the line, “and we ’lowed we’d gin you a s’prize
party.”
There was a roar at this hint and another yell from the crowd, and in the
midst of it a negro came up with two buckets full of whiskey, and tin
dippers, which General Jackson had ordered from the smokehouse near the
kitchen.
“Attention, there, men! Ground f’lock and get into line!” said their
captain.
The line surged back; the butts of the rifles rested on the ground.
“Pass that whiskey down the line, there,” said General Jackson to his
servants, and as the blacks started, one at each flank, there was a deep
silence. They drank from the tin dippers as indifferently as if it were
water. Jackson and Trevellian drank last, touching their dippers “to
health and a good fight,” as the General said, at which there was a cry
from the line from a swarthy sergeant:
“And a quick one—b’ar or British! Lead us ag’in’ everything!”
It was indeed the sentiment. Arms were now stacked and they broke into
groups, thronging around their commanders as they talked to them, man to
man and face to face.
There was nothing concealed. It was a big family of yeomanry, brave
and bent on ridding their country of any foe their leaders pitted
them against. And General Jackson was their father. Around him they
gathered, proud, trustful, with all the confidence of big children and
all the daring, strong love of big men. And their hearts were hot and
vengeful—for they were children in their tenderer natures and saw things
with the eyes of children.
And the things they had seen had stirred them to their fierce, quick
fighting depths. Cut off from the rest of the world, wedged in between
the mountains, which barred them from the east, and the savages on the
south and west, their government had neglected them, left them to fight
their own battles against savage foe and savage nature.
But they had fought, and now they had followed Jackson from the Tennessee
to the Horse Shoe Bend—they had swept a goodly land of a savage foe,
opened it for the white race, destroyed their hated enemy’s most
formidable ally, and had an open and unmolested road to the sea.
This they had done and asked nothing from their country. This they had
done on acorns and parched corn, in pestilence and swamp, in deadly
savage-brooding woods—fighting famine and foe alike.
And now a greater fight was on. Their country, she who had counted them
as naught until now, who had paid no heed to their wants and their
sufferings, was now in a death struggle with her ancient and bitterest
foe. And that foe had walked through the land above them with rifle,
torch and tomahawk until it seemed that nothing could stand up before
them. They had whipped the American army and scattered her few weak,
little ships and now scoffed and derided her army to the nations of the
earth.
And though their country had forgotten them, in the hearing of it
all their hearts burned but for vengeance, and they forgot all their
injustice when they remembered it was their country and that they, too,
were Americans.
And then had come Jackson, and his call to arms and his fierce fighting
spirit and the fiercer fighting love they bore him.
“B’ar or British, Indian or devil, lead us ag’in’ ’em, General!” they
kept shouting, again and again.
Juliette felt someone touch her arm. It was Mrs. Jackson:
“Come, Juliette, all you girls—we are going to hand them out the cakes. I
heard a hint of this—in fact, I was warned, and Aunt Hannah, I think, has
baked them cakes enough.”
There was another shout from the lines when great waiters of sliced cake
were brought out, and with the buckets not yet empty and the tin dippers
in demand, there was a roar of jollity and laughter and jokes.
As Juliette passed in among them with a hamper of cake, a respectful
silence fell. Never had they seen such a beautiful being as she. They
were backwoodsmen, and she from another land. At first they stood back.
Their roughness and coarseness was only skin deep—in their hearts was
chivalry. At last one reached out his hand to help himself under the
tactful smile and reassuring nod of invitation and the tie was broken by
a loud banter at his elbow:
“Stop right thar, Bill; you can’t reach out an’ take poun’ cake from an
angel an’ me not be in it!”
In the roar of this sally they all thronged round her to get some of that
cake from an angel. She was passing around among them when someone seized
her by the shoulder and brought her about face with:
“Come, fair waitress; forget not your humbler friends.”
And she stood facing Trevellian and General Jackson, who had thus called
her. Her heart pounded, the color, despite her efforts at calmness, left
her cheeks; her knees trembled and she almost dropped the waiter in his
hands. She saw his agitated but reserved bearing, his hand going up
nervously to his hat, and in her confusion she pushed forward her cake:
“Please have some.”
“I thank you, madam,” he replied as indifferently as if she were an
unknown person to him and he reached out to take it from the tray. But
two slices were uncut, and in her effort to help him her hand touched his
and she felt the hot blood surge in her cheeks. Looking up she met his
eyes, resigned, sad, but hotly determined in the old flash that dared
all, hoped all and was afraid of nothing.
She read a thousand things in that brief look, while her own heart all
but burst within her and her knees trembled in feminine weakness.
And that which she read above all else was that he had put her out of his
life.
Indignant—hurt—crushed by the look, her pride stirred to madness with
herself and the world, with fierce hatred of herself that she should care
at all, she pushed madly into the crowd and away. Then she heard the
General calling her impatiently:
“Juliette, Juliette, my dear, you have forgotten me.”
In shame and confusion she turned again, though she felt that she should
die if she looked again into Trevellian’s face.
And then she almost fell when she did see. She stiffened frigidly and
hot, cruel anger swept over her as her flashing eyes fell on William
Trevellian.
The boy had ridden up as she turned to go away. And now, on the small,
sinewy pony, which she remembered too well, he sat his horse just behind
General Jackson, looking at her with eyes that spoke as much admiration
as any old soldier in the group.
General Jackson himself had forgotten her as he turned in laughing
enthusiasm to the boy and his pony. Grasping him by the shoulder, he
cried:
“Why, little Ireland, you game little devil, how came you here? And Paddy
Whack—ha—ha!”
The boy sat proud and beaming. To his saddle was strapped a kettle drum.
He also was clad in buckskin and carried a smaller rifle, while the big
hunting knife in his belt brought another smile from the General.
“He ran off from school, General,” she heard Trevellian saying; “came
into our camp to-night just as we were leaving. He wants to go, and I
haven’t the heart to send him back.”
“General, don’t say I cannot,” pleaded the boy. “I can shoot better than
I can ride. Let me go.”
General Jackson glanced up into the little, excited face, the determined
eye. How handsome he was, and as he turned his thoughts flashed, how like
Trevellian!
“General, General,” came again, “we need a drummer, and I want to fight
them, too. I am a Trevellian; didn’t you know it?”
“There is no doubt of that, boy. Yes, go if you want to.” He turned to
Trevellian:
“By the Eternal, Trevellian, how can the British expect to whip a people
whose very children beg to go out and fight them?” He turned to the boy:
“Yes—go, boy; go fight the invaders of your country, and God bless and
preserve you!”
Pale, trembling and with a bursting heart which hated itself for her
weakness, Juliette slipped away and into the house. From her own room
she heard the huzzahs, the rattling volley of parting salute, and
Trevellian’s command of “fall in!” She heard the soft tread if moccasined
feet going into the wooded night. Then there was wafted faintly the
uncouth, broken notes of a tune that somehow held together till it
reached her:
“The girl I left behind me.”
She ran to the bed and buried her head in the pillow. Was she the girl he
had left behind him? Would she ever see him again? He hated her now; she
knew it, and yet she was so weak as to love him. Why did she not hate him
also? Hate him as he deserved to be for—
The rattle of a kettle-drum burst into the music. Then cheers faint and
far-off, but saying: “Hurrah for the drummer boy of the First Tennessee!”
She buried deeper her head and sobbed louder.
[_To be continued._]
MELLIE’S MAN
By William McLeod Raine
“Why don’t you-all git a man, Mellie?”
Mrs. Chunn waited impatiently for an answer, her potato knife poised in
air. She was a sallow lath of a woman, dry and hard, with piercing little
black eyes that bored like gimlets. Efficiency of management was the
dominant note of the widow. She ruled like an autocrat, a kindly one if
people submitted gracefully, but a firm one in any event. Three deceased
husbands had endured her sway not unhappily. Each of them had fortunately
possessed the requisite sense of humor.
Just now the gimlet eyes were turned on the slim, fair girl who sat
shelling peas on the porch steps at her feet. Mellie stirred uneasily,
as under compulsion, but offered no answer in words. From her childhood
she had been much given to silence, an unconscious refuge from the
commonplace world of Cache Bayou that misunderstood her of necessity.
A sweet, shy creature with a rare color easily moved to paint charming
pictures of maidenly embarrassment, one might well wonder how this
daughter of the swamps had come to be endowed with so alien a beauty.
She suggested a native refinement foreign alike to her training and her
environment.
Her stepmother repeated the question with exactly the same inflection as
before.
“Don’t yo’, please,” implored the girl, the color sweeping into her face.
Then, as if feeling the futility of protest, she added, “I cayn’t, Maw.
Yo’ know I ain’t that-a-way.”
“I reckon yo’ kin if yo’ try. You-all air turned nineteen now. Do
yo’ ’low nevah to marry? Trouble is, you-all air so meachin’ an’
touch-me-not. Hit don’t do to be dumb’s a wild hawg the whole enjurin’
time when men folks is ’round. Yo’ got to brisk up an’ be peart.”
The widow’s experience entitled her to speak with authority. “Gittin’
a man” had become almost a habit with her. It spoke volumes for her
efficiency that men naturally gravitated her way, despite her lack of
feminine graces. Temporarily, by reason of a dispensation of Providence,
she happened to be husbandless, but it was a condition she expected to
change as soon as she could decide on a suitable successor for the late
Shep Chunn. To this selection she was giving her judgment with cool
detachment, quite unhampered by the superfluous baggage of sentiment. As
a preliminary she purposed to do her duty by her stepdaughter and make
her happy whether she wanted to be or not.
“Co’se hit stands to reason that a gyurl’s gotten to git a man or be
plumb looked down on,” she continued, a note of finality in her voice.
“Yo’ hain’t aimin’ to be a’ ol’ maid, air yo’, Mellie? Well, yo’ shorely
air hailed that-a-way. Me’n Dave Wilson was ma’ied befo’ I was sixteen.
When he up’n died I mo’ned a fittin’ time and then tuk yo’ paw. I met
up with Shep ayfter yo’ po’ paw died. All told I haint be’n a widow
more’n fo’ years.” The pardonable complacency of success voiced itself in
Mirandy Wilson-Briscoe-Chunn’s recital. “This yere kentry’s full of men
an’ taint no trick to make ’em think this yearth won’t turn ’f they-all
don’t git you. But yo’ cayn’t do hit by folding yo’ hands in yo’ lap
and actin’ like men folks plumb skeer yo’ to death. Yo’ got to show ’em
yo’re right smart partial to ’em. An’ yit yo’ got to keep ’em jubious.
Naow the’ was Jim Dascom, jes’ possessed to git you-all. He plumb thought
the world an’ all of yo’. Him a-comin’ yere an’ a-comin’, slickin’ up
to go co’tin’ ever’ last night, an’ yo’ takin’ on like he was p’isen.
Consequence is, he up an’ tuk Seliny. ’N she c’udn’t hold a candle to
you-all fer looks.”
The averted eyes of the slim, young thing looked wistfully across the
slash to the bayou beyond. A poignant shame flooded her, the sense of
sacred things profaned. Oh, if only her mother had lived, the girl mother
who had died at her birth! Surely she would have understood! Or even the
quiet slow-speeched father who had petted and “muched” her in secret.
Since his death, ten years before, she had been terribly alone. She had
only Jed—Jed Wilson, her stepmother’s boy, the magnificent big brother of
her youth, who could do everything well and yet condescended to like her
and be her comrade. But Jed was in far-away Texas somewhere and had been
for four years.
“So I jes’ natchelly makes up my mind to help yo’. I ’low to do by
you-all like yo’ own maw would. Air yo’ near through with them peas? I
want ’em done right spank at twelve. Mose Hughey’s a-comin’ to dinner.”
Mellie turned a startled face on her stepmother. Her lips parted for
speech, but the protest died unvoiced. What she had feared had come at
last. A kind of terror surged through her. She was being prepared for the
inevitable. If Mrs. Chunn had set her iron will on her marrying Hughey
there would be no escape for her. Yet she knew she would rather die.
“I don’t want to—to marry,” she besought. “I druther stay with yo’, Maw.”
The girl’s sweet, slow voice seemed to caress the dialect and make it
lovable. “You-all have always be’n so good to me sence I was a little
trick. Don’t yo’ make me marry ary man, Maw Chunn.”
“Hit ce’tainly riles me to hear you-all talk that-a-way. Hit’s plumb
foolish. I reckon yo’ got to do like other folkses, Mellie Briscoe. But
yo’ ain’t time to talk about that naow. Yo’ run along an’ slick up. I’ll
’tend to the dinner.”
Hughey’s narrow little shifting eyes gloated on the girl’s dainty youth
and ravished the innocence of her pure outline, even while he ate
voraciously of the food before him. A wolf were as fit to be mated with
a lamb as the long-jawed, yellow-toothed usurer’s cunning with her fine
maiden reserve. Even to Mellie’s stepmother his outstanding merit was the
forty acres of rich cotton land he owned.
That he had an understanding with Mrs. Chunn was apparent, not less clear
than that he counted the girl already his and the wooing a mere formality.
“Seems like nobody nevah cooked sweet taters an’ co’n pone like you’uns
Miz Chunn. I ’low o’ co’se yo’ done learned Miss Mellie haow.” His
wolfish little eyes leered at the girl.
Mrs. Chunn tossed the ball back, to cover her stepdaughter’s silence.