THE PRICE OF HONOR.
When Hesden came to his mother's room that night, his countenance
wore an unusually sad and thoughtful expression. His mother had
not yet recovered from the shock of the morning's interview. The
more she thought of it, the less she could understand either his
language or his manner. That he would once think of allying himself
in political thought with those who were trying to degrade and
humiliate their people by putting them upon a level with the negro,
she did not for a moment believe, despite what he had said. Neither
did she imagine, even then, that he had any feeling for Mollie
Ainslie other than mere gratitude for the service she had rendered,
but supposed that his outburst was owing merely to anger at the
slighting language used toward her by Cousin Hetty. Yet she felt
a dim premonition of something dreadful about to happen, and was
ill at ease during the evening meal. When it was over, the table
cleared, and the servant had retired, Hesden sat quiet for a long
time, and then said, slowly and tenderly:
"Mother, I am very sorry that all these sad things should come up
at this time--so soon after our loss. I know your heart, as well
as mine, is sore, and I wish you to be sure that I have not, and
cannot have, one unkind thought of you. Do not cry," he added,
as he saw the tears pouring down her face, which was turned to him
with a look of helpless woe upon it--"do not cry, little mother,
for we shall both of us have need of all our strength."
"Oh, Hesden," she moaned, "if you only would not--"
"Please do not interrupt me," he said, checking her with a motion
of his hand; "I have a long story to tell, and after that we will
speak of what now troubles you. But first, I wish to ask you some
questions. Did you ever hear of such a person as Edna Richards?"
"Edna Richards--Edna Richards?" said Mrs. Le Moyne, wiping away
her tears and speaking between her sobs. "It seems as if I had,
but--I--I can't remember, my son. I am so weak and nervous."
"Calm yourself, little mother; perhaps it will come to your mind
if I ask you some other questions. Our grandfather, James Richards,
came here from Pennsylvania, did he not?"
"Certainly, from about Lancaster. He always promised to take me
to see our relatives there, but he never did. You know, son, I was
his youngest child, and he was well past fifty when I was born. So
he was an old man when I was grown up, and could not travel very
much. He took me to the North twice, but each time, before we got
around to our Pennsylvania friends, he was so tired out that he
had to come straight home."
"Did you ever know anything about his family there?"
"Not much--nothing except what he told me in his last days. He used
to talk about them a great deal then, but there was something that
seemed to grieve and trouble him so much that I always did all I
could to draw his mind away from the subject. Especially was this
the case after the boys, your uncles, died. They led rough lives,
and it hurt him terribly."
"Do you know whether he ever corresponded with any of our relatives
at the North?"
"I think not. I am sure he did not after I was grown. He often
spoke of it, but I am afraid there was some family trouble or
disagreement which kept him from doing so. I remember in his last
years he used frequently to speak of a cousin to whom he seemed to
have been very much attached. He had the same name as father, who
used to call him 'Red Jim.'"
"Was he then alive?"
"I suppose so--at least when father last heard from him. I think
he lived in Massachusetts. Let me see, what was the name of the
town. I don't remember," after a pause.
"Was it Marblehead?" asked the son, with some eagerness.
"That's it, dear--Marblehead. How funny that you should strike upon
the very name?"
"You think he never wrote?"
"Oh, I am sure not. He mourned about it, every now and then, to
the very last."
"Was my grandfather a bachelor when he came here?"
"Of course, and quite an old bachelor, too. I think he was about
thirty when he married your grandmother in 1794."
"She was a Lomax--Margaret Lomax, I believe?'
"Yes; that's how we come to be akin to all the Lomax connection."
"Just so. You are sure he had never married before?"
"Sure? Why, yes, certainly. How could he? Why, Hesden, what _do_
you mean? Why do you ask all these questions? You do not--you
cannot--Oh, Hesden!" she exclaimed, leaning forward and trembling
with apprehension.
"Be calm, mother. I am not asking these questions without good
cause," he answered, very gravely.
After a moment, when she had recovered herself a little, he continued,
holding toward her a slip of paper, as he asked:
"Did you ever see that signature before?"
His mother took the paper, and, having wiped her glasses, adjusted
them carefully and glanced at the paper. As she did so a cry burst
from her lips, and she said,
"Oh, Hesden, Hesden, where did you get it? Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
"Why, mother, what is it?" cried Hesden in alarm, springing up and
going quickly to her side.
"That--that horrid thing, Hesden! Where _did_ you get it? Do
you know it was that which made that terrible quarrel between your
grandfather and Uncle John, when he struck him that--that last
night, before John's body was found in the river. He was drowned
crossing the ford, you know. I don't know what it was all about;
but there was a terrible quarrel, and John wrote that on a sheet of
paper and held it before your grandfather's face and said something
to him--I don't know what. I was only a little girl then, but, ah
me! I remember it as if it was but yesterday. And then father struck
him with his cane. John fell as if he were dead. I was looking in
at the window, not thinking any harm, and saw it all. I thought
he had killed John, and ran away, determined not to tell. I never
breathed a lisp of it before, son, and nobody ever knew of that
quarrel, only your grandfather and me. I know it troubled him
greatly after John died. Oh, I can see that awful paper, as John
held it up to the light, as plain as this one in my hand now."
The slip of paper which she held contained only the following
apparently unintelligible scrawl:
"And you never saw it but once?" asked Hesden, thoughtfully.
"Never but once before to-night, dear."
"It was not Uncle John's usual signature, then?"
"No, indeed. Is it a signature? She glanced curiously at the paper
while Hesden pointed out the letters,
"That is what I take it to be, at least," he said. "Sure enough,"
said Mrs. Le Moyne, "and that might stand for John Richards or
James Richards. It might be Uncle John or your grandfather, either,
child." "True, but grandfather always wrote his name plainly,
J. RICHARDS. I have seen a thousand of his signatures, I reckon.
Besides, Uncle John was not alive in 1790."
"Of course not. But what has that to do with the matter? What does
it all mean anyhow? There must be some horrid secret about it, I
am sure."
"I do not know what it means, mother, but I am determined to find
out. That is what I have been at all day, and I will not stop until
I know all about it."
"But how did you come to find it? What makes you think there is
anything to be known about it?"
"This is the way it occurred, mother. The other day it became necessary
to cut a door from the chamber over my room into the attic of the
old kitchen, where I have been storing the tobacco. You know the
part containing the dining-room was the original house, and was
at first built of hewed logs. It was, in fact, two houses, with a
double chimney in the middle. Afterward, the two parts were made
into one, the rude stairs torn away, and the whole thing ceiled
within and covered with thick pine siding without. In cutting
through this, Charles found between two of the old logs and next
to the chinking put in on each side to keep the wall flush and
smooth, a pocketbook, carefully tied up in a piece of coarse linen,
and containing a yellow, dingy paper, which, although creased and
soiled, was still clearly legible. The writing was of that heavy
round character which marked the legal hand of the old time, and
the ink, though its color had somewhat changed by time, seemed to
show by contrast with the dull hue of the page even more clearly
than it could have done when first written. The paper proved to be a
will, drawn up in legal form and signed with the peculiar scrawl
of which you hold a tracing. It purported to have been made
and published in December, 1789, at Lancaster, in the State of
Pennsylvania, and to have been witnessed by James Adiger and Johan
Welliker of that town."
"How very strange!" exclaimed Mrs. Le Moyne. "I suppose it must
have been the will of your grandfather's father."
"That was what first occurred to me," answered Hesden, "but on
closer inspection it proved to be the will of James Richards, as
stated in the caption, of Marblehead, in the State of Massachusetts,
giving and bequeathing all of his estate, both real and personal,
after some slight bequests, to his beloved wife Edna, except--"
"Stop, my son," said Mrs. Le Moyne, quickly, "I remember now. Edna
was the name of the wife of father's cousin James--"Red Jim," he
called him. It was about writing to _her_ he was always talking
toward the last. So I suppose he must have been dead."
"I had come to much the same conclusion," said Hesden, "though I
never heard that grandfather had a cousin James until to-night. I
should never have thought any more of the document, however, except
as an old relic, if it had not gone on to bequeath particularly
'my estate in Carolina to my beloved daughter, Alice E., when she
shall arrive at the age of eighteen years,' and to provide for the
succession in case of her death prior to that time."
"That is strange," said Mrs. Le Moyne. "I never knew that we had
any relatives in the State upon that side."
"That is what I thought," said the son. "I wondered where the estate
was which had belonged to this James Richards, who was not our
ancestor, and, looking further, I found it described with considerable
particlarity. It was called Stillwater, and was said to be located
on the waters of the Hyco, in Williams County."
"But the Hyco is not in Williams County," said his listener.
"No, mother, but it was then," he replied. "You know that county
has been many times subdivided."
"Yes, I had forgotten that," she said. "But what then?"
"It went on," contined Hesden, "to say that he held this land by
virtue of a grant from the State which was recorded in Registry of
Deeds in Williams County, in Book A, page 391."
"It is an easy matter to find where it was, then, I suppose," said
the mother.
"I have already done that," he replied, "and that is the strange
and unpleasant part of what I had to tell you."
"I do hope," she said, smiling, "that you have not made us out
cousins of any low-down family."
"As to that I cannot tell, mother; but I am afraid I have found
something discreditable in our own family history."
"Oh, I hope not, Hesden," she said, plaintively. "It is
so unpleasant to look back upon one's ancestors and not feel that
they were strictly honorable. Don't tell me, please. I had rather
not hear it."
"I wish you might not," said he; "but the fact which you referred
to to-day--that you are, under the will of my grandfather, the
owner of Mulberry Hill, makes it necessary that you should."
"Please, Hesden, don't mention that. I was angry then. Please forget
it. What can that have to do with this horrid matter?"
"It has this to do with it, mother," he replied. "The boundaries of
that grant, as shown by the record, are identical with the record
of the grant under which our grandfather claimed the estate of
which this is a part, and which is one of the first entered upon
the records of Horsford County."
"What do you say, Hesden? I don't understand you," said his mother,
anxiously.
"Simply that the land bequeathed in this will of J. Richards,
is the same as that afterward claimed and held by my grandfather,
James Richards, and in part now belonging to you."
"It cannot be, Hesden, it cannot be! There must be some mistake!"
she exclaimed, impatiently.
"I wish there were," he answered, "but I fear there is not. The
will names as executor, 'my beloved cousin James Richards, of the
borough of Lancaster, in the State of Pennsylvania.' I presume
this to have been my grandfather. I have had the records of both
counties searched and find no record of any administration upon
this will."
"You do not think a Richards could have been so dishonorable as to
rob his cousin's orphans?"
"Alas! mother, I only know that we have always claimed title under
that very grant. The grant itself is among your papers in my desk,
and is dated in 1789. I have always understood that grandfather
married soon after coming here."
"Oh, yes, dear," was the reply, "I have heard mother tell of it a
hundred times."
"And that was in 1794?"
"Yes, yes; but he might have been here before, child."
"That is true, and I hope it may all turn out to have been only a
strange mistake."
"But if it does not, Hesden?" said his mother, after a moment's
thought. "What do you mean to do?"
"I mean first to go to the bottom of this matter and discover the
truth."
"And then--if--if there was--anything wrong?"
"Then the wrong must be righted."
"But that--why, Hesden, it might turn us out of doors! It might
make us beggars!"
"We should at least be honest ones."
"But Hesden, think of me--think--" she began.
"So I will, little mother, of you and for you till the last hour of
your life or of mine. But mother, I would rather you should leave
all and suffer all, and that we should both die of starvation, than
that we should live bounteously on the fruit of another's wrong."
He bent over her and kissed her tenderly again and again. "Never
fear, mother," he said, "we may lose all else by the acts of others,
but we can only lose honor by our own. I would give my life for
you or to save your honor."
She looked proudly upon him, and reached up her thin white hand to
caress his face, as she said with overflowing eyes:
"You are right, my son! If others of our name have done wrong, there
is all the more need that we should do right and atone for it."