It was not strange that a number of gentlemen in and about Raleigh
yielded to an overmastering impulse to visit newer lands, nor was it
strange that the initial steps looking toward the indulgence of their
desires should have been taken in secrecy. Mr. Pegloe was one of the
first to leave; Mr. Saul had informed him of the judge's declared
purpose of shooting him on sight. Even without this useful hint the
tavern-keeper had known that he should experience intense embarrassment
in meeting the judge; this was now a dreary certainty.
“You reckon he means near all he says?” he had asked, his fat sides
shaking.
“I'd take his word a heap quicker than I would most folks,” answered Mr.
Saul with conviction.
Pegloe promptly had a sinking spell. He recalled the snuffing of
the candles by the judge, an extremely depressing memory under the
circumstances, also the reckless and headlong disregard of consequences
which had characterized so many of that gentleman's acts, and his plans
shaped themselves accordingly, with this result: that when the judge
took occasion to call at the tavern, and the hostile nature of his visit
was emphasized by the cautious manner of his approach, he was greatly
shocked to discover that his intended victim had sold his business
overnight for a small lump sum to Mr. Saul's brother-in-law, who had
appeared most opportunely with an offer.
Pegloe's flight created something of a sensation, but it was dwarfed by
the sensation that developed a day or so later when it became known
that Tom Ware and Colonel Fentress had likewise fled the country. Still
later, Fentress' body, showing marks of violence, was washed ashore at a
wood-yard below Girard. It was conjectured that he and Ware had set
out from The Oaks to cross the river; there was reason to believe that
Fentress had in his possession at the time a considerable sum of money,
and it was supposed that his companion had murdered and robbed him. Of
Ware's subsequent career nothing was ever known.
These were, after all, only episodes in the collapse of the Clan,
sporific manifestations of the great work of disintegration that was
going forward and which the judge, more than any other, perhaps, had
brought about. This was something no one questioned, and he quickly
passed to the first phase of that unique and peculiar esteem in which he
was ever after held. His fame widened with the succeeding suns; he had
offers of help which impressed him as so entirely creditable to human
nature that he quite lacked the heart to refuse them, especially as he
felt that in the improvement of his own condition the world had bettered
itself and was moving nearer those sound and righteous ideals of
morality and patriotism which had never lacked his indorsement, no
matter how inexpedient it had seemed for him to put them into practice.
But he was not diverted from his ultimate purpose by the glamour of
a present popularity; he was able to keep his bleared eyes resolutely
fixed on the main chance, namely the Fentress estate and the Quintard
lands. It was highly important that he should go east to South Carolina
to secure documentary evidence that would establish his own and
Fentress' identity, to Kentucky, where Fentress had lived prior to his
coming to Tennessee.
Early in November the judge set out by stage on his journey east; he was
accompanied by Yancy and Hannibal, from neither of whom could he bring
himself to be separated; and as the woods, flaming now with the touch of
frost, engulfed the little town, he turned in his seat and looked back.
He had entered it by that very road, a beggar on foot and in rags;
he was leaving it in broadcloth and fine linen, visible tokens of his
altered fortunes. More than this, he could thrust his hands deep down
into his once empty pockets and hear the clink of gold and silver. The
judge slowly withdrew his eyes from the last gray roof that showed among
the trees, and faced the east and the future with a serenely confident
expression.
Betty Malroy and Carrington had ridden into Raleigh to take leave of
their friends. They had watched the stage from sight, had answered the
last majestic salute the judge had given them across the swaying top of
the coach before the first turn of the road hid it from sight, and then
they had turned their horses' heads in the direction of Belle Plain.
“Bruce, do you think judge Price will ever be able to accomplish all he
hopes to?” Betty asked when they had left the town behind. She drew
in her horse as she spoke, and they went forward at a walk under the
splendid arch of the forest and over a carpet of vivid leaves.
“I reckon he will, Betty,” responded Carrington. Unfavorable as had
been his original estimate of the judge's character, events had greatly
modified it.
“He really seems quite sure, doesn't he?” said Betty.
“There's not a doubt in his mind,” agreed Carrington.
He was still at Belle Plain, living in what had been Ware's office,
while the Cavendishes were domiciled at the big house. He had arranged
with the judge to crop a part of that hopeful gentleman's land the very
next season; the fact that a lawsuit intervened between the judge and
possession seemed a trifling matter, for Carrington had become infected
with the judge's point of view, which did not admit of the possibility
of failure; but he had not yet told Betty of his plans. Time enough for
that when he left Belle Plain.
His silence concerning the future had caused Betty much thought. She
wondered if he still intended going south into the Purchase; she was not
sure but it was the dignified thing for him to do. She was thinking of
this now as they went forward over the rustling leaves, and at length
she turned in the saddle and faced him.
“I am going to miss Hannibal dreadfully--yes, and the judge, and Mr.
Yancy!” she began.
“And when I leave--how about me, Betty?” Carrington asked unexpectedly,
but he only had in mind leaving Belle Plain.
A little sigh escaped Betty's red lips, for she was thinking of the
Purchase, which lay far down the river, many, many miles distant. The
sigh was ever so little, but Carrington had heard it.
“I am to be missed, too, am I, Betty?” he inquired, leaning toward her.
“You, Bruce?--Oh, I shall miss you, too--dreadfully--but then, perhaps
in five years, when you come back--”
“Five years!” cried Carrington, but he understood, something of what
was passing in her mind, and laughed shortly. “Five years, Betty?” he
repeated, dwelling on the numeral.
Betty hesitated and looked thoughtful. Presently she stole a
surreptitious glance at Carrington from under her long lashes, and went
on slowly, as though she were making careful choice of her words.
“When you come back in three years, Bruce--”
Carrington still regarded her fixedly. There was a light in his black
eyes that seemed to penetrate to the most secret recesses of her heart
and soul.
“Three years, Betty?” he repeated again.
Betty, her eyes cast down, twisted her rein nervously between her slim,
white fingers, but Carrington's steady glance never left her sweet face,
framed by its halo of bright hair. She stole another look at him from
beneath her dark lashes.
“Three years, Betty?” he prompted.
“Bruce, don't stare at me that way, it makes me forget what I was going
to say! When you come, back--next year--” and then she lifted her eyes
to his and he saw that they were full of sudden tears. “Bruce, don't go
away--don't go away at all--”
Carrington slipped from the saddle and stood at her side.
“Do you mean that, Betty?” he asked. He took her hands loosely in his
and relentlessly considered her crimsoned face. “I reckon it will always
be right hard to refuse you anything--here is one settler the Purchase
will never get!” and he laughed softly.
“It was the Purchase--you were going there!” she cried.
“No, I wasn't, Betty; that notion died its natural death long ago. When
we are sure you will be safe at Belle Plain with just the Cavendishes,
I am going into Raleigh to wait as best I can until spring.” He spoke so
gravely, that she asked in quick alarm.
“And then, Bruce--what?”
“And then--Oh, Betty, I'm starving--” All in a moment he lifted her
slender figure in his arms, gathering her close to him. “And then,
this--and this--and this, sweetheart--and more--and--oh, Betty! Betty!”
When Murrell was brought to trial his lawyers were able to produce a
host of witnesses whose sworn testimony showed that so simple a thing as
perjury had no terrors for them. His fight for liberty was waged in and
out of court with incredible bitterness, and, as judge and jury were
only human, the outlaw escaped with the relatively light sentence of
twelve years' imprisonment; he died, however, before the expiration of
his term.
The judge, where he returned to Raleigh, resumed his own name of
Turberville, and he allowed it to be known that he would not be offended
by the prefix of General. During his absence he had accumulated a wealth
of evidence of undoubted authenticity, with the result that his claim
against the Fentress estate was sustained by the courts, and when
The Oaks with its stock and slaves was offered for sale, he, as the
principal creditor, was able to buy it in.
One of his first acts after taking possession of the property was to
have Mahaffy reinterred in the grove of oaks below his bedroom windows,
and he marked the spot with a great square of granite. The judge,
visibly shaken by his emotions, saw the massive boulder go into place.
“Harsh and rugged like the nature of him who lies beneath it--but
enduring, too, as he was,” he murmured. He turned to Yancy and Hannibal,
and added,
“You will lay me beside him when I die.”
Then when the bitter struggle came and he was wrenched and tortured by
longings, his strength was in remembering his promise to the dead man,
and it was his custom to go out under the oaks and pace to and fro
beside Mahaffy's grave until he had gained the mastery of himself. Only
Yancy and Hannibal knew how fierce the conflict was he waged, yet in the
end he won that best earned of all victories, the victory over himself.
“My salvation has been a costly thing; it was bought with the blood of
my friend,” he told Yancy.
It was Hannibal's privilege to give Cavendish out of the vast Quintard
tract such a farm as the earl had never dreamed of owning even in his
most fervid moments of imagining; and he abandoned all idea of going to
England to claim his title. At the judge's suggestion he named the
place Earl's Court. He and Polly were entirely satisfied with their
surroundings, and never ceased to congratulate themselves that they had
left Lincoln County. They felt that their friends the Carringtons at
Belle Plain, though untitled people, were still of an equal rank with
themselves; while as for the judge, they doubted if royalty itself laid
it any over him.
Mr. Yancy accepted his changed fortunes with philosophic composure.
Technically he filled the position of overseer at The Oaks, but the
judge's activity was so great that this position was largely a sinecure.
The most arduous work he performed was spending his wages.
Certain trifling peculiarities survived with the judge even after he
had entered what he had once been prone to call the Portal of Hope; for
while his charity was very great and he lived with the splendid air of
plenty that belonged to an older order, it required tact, patience, and
persistence to transact business with him; and his creditors, of whom
there were always a respectable number, discovered that he esteemed them
as they were aggressive and determined. He explained to Yancy that too
great certainty detracted from the charm of living, for, after all, life
was a game--a gamble--he desired to be reminded of this. Yet he was
held in great respect for his wisdom and learning, which was no more
questioned that his courage.
Thus surrounded by his friends, who were devoted to him, he began
Hannibal's education and the preparation of his memoirs, intended
primarily for the instruction of his grandson, and which he modestly
decided to call The History of My Own Times, which clearly showed the
magnificence of his mind and its outlook.