a day before and after it happened. They had cyarpet spread from the
gate to the front door, and they burned over a hundred wax candles
before the evenin' was over, and folks said it looked like they had
ransacked the heavens above and the earth beneath and the waters under
the earth for somethin' to put on that supper-table. Brother Wilson
said a mighty nice ceremony over 'em, and when they went out to supper
the preacher and his wife set on the right hand of the bride and
groom.
"Well, when Brother Wilson got ready to leave, he went up to Squire
Schuyler to shake hands and say good night, and the squire pulled a
long paper out o' the breast pocket of his coat, and he bowed, and
says he, 'Will you do me the honor, sir, to accept this?' Squire
Schuyler had a mighty grand way of talkin', honey, and you don't see
any such manners nowadays as the Schuylers and the Elrods used to
have. And says he, 'Don't open it till you get home.' And Brother
Wilson, he says, 'I'm not the man to look a gift horse in the mouth,
but,' says he, 'I must see the gift horse before I accept it.' With
that he opened the paper, and what do you reckon it was, honey? It was
a deed to that house I p'inted out to you the day we went to
town--Schuyler Hall, they call it--and I don't know how many acres of
land along with it.
"Brother Wilson he looked at it and looked at it, and it seemed as if
he couldn't take it in. And says he, 'There must be some mistake about
this. You surely do not mean to deed me a house and land?'
"And the squire he bows again, and says he, 'There's no mistake. The
house and the land are yours to have and to hold while you live and to
will as you please when you die.'
"And Brother Wilson held out the paper and says he, 'Sir, it's a
princely gift, but I can't take it. It's no suitable fee for a poor
preacher like myself.'
"And the squire he folded his arms and stepped back to keep Brother
Wilson from puttin' the deed into his hands, and says he, 'It takes a
princely gift to suit an occasion like this.' Says he, 'I want the
wedding fee to match the worth of my bride and the worth of my
minister, but, not being a prince, this is the best I can do.' And all
the time he was talkin', Brother Wilson was shakin' his head and
tryin' to make him take back the paper, and sayin', 'I can't take it,
I can't take it.'
"And the squire says: 'Sir, you'll have to take it. The deed has
passed from my hands to yours, and a Schuyler never takes back a
gift.' And Brother Wilson, he says, 'But the gift will be of no use to
me. I've handed in my resignation,' says he, 'and the presbytery will
shortly send me to another field of usefulness.'
"And the squire he ripped out a terrible oath, and says he, 'I beg
your pardon, sir, for swearing in your presence. I've heard,' says he,
'of the doings of that session; but,' says he, 'if I have influence
enough to keep myself in the church, I have influence enough to keep
you in, too; and if I can't do that,' says he, 'I'll build you a
church and pay you a salary for life.' Says he, 'There's nothing too
good for a man that refuses to bow down and worship the golden calf.'
"Honey," said Aunt Jane, lowering her voice, "considerin' it was his
weddin' night and him talkin' to a preacher, the language Squire
Schuyler used was far from fittin'. What he said was all right, but
the way he said it was all wrong.
"Well, they argued back and forth, and it ended by Brother Wilson
goin' home with the deed in his pocket. And the next Saturday Squire
Schuyler come before the session and acknowledged the error of his
ways. 'And,' says he, 'I promise in future to keep the Sabbath day
holy, but as to the profane language,' says he, 'it comes as natural
to me to swear and fight as it does to the Rev. Mr. Wilson to pray and
fight, and all I can promise about that,' says he, 'is that hereafter
I'll try to do the most of my swearing in private, so my example won't
hurt the church I'm a member of.'
"And Sunday mornin', child, here come Squire Schuyler and his bride,
as fine as a fiddle, walkin' down the church aisle arm in arm, and the
squire j'ined in the hymns, and when the contribution plate was passed
around he dropped a gold piece on it as unconcerned as if it was a
copper cent. And Brother Wilson, he moved out to the house the squire
had give him, and there never was anybody as happy as he appeared to
be. He'd walk around under the trees and look at his gyarden on one
side and his clover-fields on the other side, and he'd say: '"Delight
thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine
heart." I've always wanted a home in the country, and the Lord has
given me one of the desires of my heart.'
"But he didn't live to enjoy it very long, poor man. He died before
his prime, and his tombstone's standin' now in the old graveyard
yonder in town. They had a Bible text cyarved on it, 'For he was a
good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of God, and much people was
added unto the Lord.'
"And now, child, put on your hat. I see Johnny Amos comin' with the
buggy, and we'll go over and see the old house."
Suppose a child should read the story of Beauty and the Beast, and
straightway a fairy godmother should appear, saying, "Now, let us go
to the palace of the Beast." If you can fancy that child's feelings,
you will know how I felt when I stepped into the old buggy to go to
Schuyler Hall.
It was a gray September afternoon. The air was warm and still, and the
earth lay weary, thirsty, and patient under a three-weeks drouth. Dust
was thick over the grass, flowers, and trees along the roadside, and
on the weed-grown fields that had brought forth their harvest for the
sons of men and now, sun-scorched and desolate, seemed to say, "Is
this the end, the end of all?"
Over the horizon there was a soft haze like smoke from the smoldering
embers of summer's dying fires, and in the west gloomed a cloud from
which the thunder and the lightning would be loosed before the
midnight hour; and after the rain would come a season of gentle suns,
cool dews, and frosts scarce colder than the dew--not spring, but a
memory of spring--when the earth, looking back to her May, would send
a ripple of green over the autumn fields, and, like thoughts of youth
in the heart of age, the clover and the dandelion would spring into
untimely bloom.
"Things look sort o' down-hearted and discouraged, don't they?" said
Aunt Jane, echoing my thought. "But jest wait till the Lord sends us
the latter rain, and things'll freshen up mightily. There's plenty o'
pretty weather to come betwixt now and winter-time. Now, child, you
jump out and open the gate, like I used to do in the days when I was
young and spry."
Old Nelly crept lazily up the long avenue, and my eyes were fixed on
the house of legend that lay at its end.
"Houses and lands are jest like pieces o' money," observed Aunt Jane.
"They pass from one hand to another, and this old place has had many
an owner since Brother Wilson's day. The man that owns it now is a
great-nephew of old Peter Cyartwright, and him and his wife's mighty
proud of the place."
"Do they object to strangers coming to see it?" I asked as we neared
the giant cypress-tree in front of the porch.
"La, child," laughed Aunt Jane. "Ain't this Kentucky? Who ever heard
of a Kentuckian objectin' to folks goin' through his house! We'll jest
walk in at the front door and out at the back door and see all that's
to be seen, up-stairs and down."
As she spoke we heard the voice of the hostess bidding us welcome to
Schuyler Hall, and, fresh from the fairy-land of Aunt Jane's memories,
I walked into one of the scenes of the story, the house that was a
wedding fee.
There was a hint of baronial grandeur in the lofty ceilings, the heavy
walnut wainscoting and oaken floors, the huge fireplaces with their
tall mantels; and underneath the evident remodeling and repairing one
saw the home and the taste of a vanished generation, the same that had
witnessed the building of Monticello, for the hand that wrote the
Declaration of Independence had drawn the plans for the house that was
a wedding fee.
From room to room I went, pleasing myself with fancies of the man who
had never bowed the knee to Mammon. My feet were on the floors that he
had trod. By this worn hearthstone he had knelt, night and morn, to
the God who had given him the desire of his heart. From this doorway
he had looked upon the broad acres that were his by grace of a
generous adversary, the tribute of one noble nature to another. In the
long, low-ceiled bedchamber above the stately lower rooms he had slept
the sleep of one whose conscience is void of offense toward God and
his fellow man, and through the dormer-window that looked toward the
rising of the sun his soul had passed out in its flight to the stars.
Dusty and flowerless, the garden paths wandered to right and left,
but not one did I miss in my pilgrimage; for who could know what
shrines of remembrance might lie hidden in that drift of leaves,
withered and fallen before their time? Perhaps the minister's hand had
planted the clump of tansy and the bed of sage, and well I knew that
here in the night hours he had met his Maker, and his garden had been
to him as that paradise where Adam walked with God.
Near the house was a spring to whose waters came the Indian and the
deer before the foot of the pioneer had touched Kentucky soil. Rising
from sources too deep to be affected by the weather of earth, no
drouth ever checks its flow, no flood increases it, and here I knelt
and drank to the memory of a day that is not dead nor can ever die.
Again on the threshold of the old house I paused and looked back into
the shadowy hall. Ah, if the other world would for a moment give up
its own that I might see them "in their habit as they lived," the
Cavalier squire, the Puritan minister, the bride whose womanly worth
was but faintly shadowed forth in the princely gift of a house and
land! But no presence crossed the dim perspective within, and the only
whisper I heard was the wind in the cypress-tree. The past had buried
its dead, and soon their habitation, like themselves, would be but a
memory and a name.
In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared,
The stranger feasted at his board.
Fair and stately are the dwellings that shelter this latest
generation, and by their side such mansions as Schuyler Hall seem only
moldering, ghost-haunted reminders of the past. But those who dwelt in
them are immortal, and though walls of flesh and walls of stone alike
crumble to dust, there shall never lack a heart to treasure and a pen
to record the virtues of the men and women of those early times, who,
in reverence and in honor, founded and built the "old Kentucky home."
III
THE COURTSHIP OF MISS AMARYLLIS
[Illustration]
III
THE COURTSHIP OF MISS AMARYLLIS
"It's curious," said Aunt Jane meditatively, "how, when old people go
to lookin' back on the way things was when they was young, it appears
like everything was better then than it is now. Strawberries was
sweeter, times was easier, men was taller, and women prettier. I ain't
say in' a word against your looks, child; you're as good-lookin' as
the best of 'em nowadays, but I reckon there ain't any harm in me
sayin' that you don't quite come up to Miss Penelope and Miss
Amaryllis. I git to thinkin' about them two, and I wish I could see
'em by the side o' the women that folks call pretty nowadays so I
could tell whether they really was prettier or whether it's jest an
old woman's notion."
"Who was Miss Amaryllis?" I asked. "If she matched her name she must
have been a beauty."
Aunt Jane smiled delightedly and gave an assenting nod. "Miss
Amaryllis was Miss Penelope's sister," she said. "They was first
cousins to Dick Elrod, that married Annie Crawford, and their father
was Judge Elrod, Squire Elrod's brother. The old judge was a mighty
learned sort of a man. He spent most of his time readin' and writin',
and he had a room in his house with nothin' in it but books, clear
from the floor to the ceilin', and some of 'em he never allowed
anybody but himself to touch, he thought so much of 'em. And next to
his books it was his two daughters. Folks used to say that the judge's
wife was right jealous of his books and of Miss Penelope and Miss
Amaryllis.
"Maybe you know, child, where the old judge got the names for his
daughters. The only names I'm used to are the good old family names
that come out o' the Bible, and some people said Penelope and
Amaryllis couldn't be called Christian names, because they sounded so
heathenish, and the judge's wife she objected to 'em because, she
said, they was too long for folks to say. But the old judge wouldn't
hear to anybody's shortenin' the children's names. Says he, 'If you
give a child a plain name it'll be likely to turn out a plain man or a
plain woman. But,' says he, 'I've given my children fine names, and I
expect them to grow up into women that'll become their names.' And I
reckon they did, for two prettier women you never saw, and their names
seemed to suit 'em exactly. And as for their bein' too long, I always
liked to say 'em and hear people say 'em. Penelope and Amaryllis--why,
they're jest as easy to say as Mary and Marthy, and I always thought
they sounded like fallin' water or the singin' of a bird, Amaryllis
especially."
Aunt Jane paused here and laid down her work. She had reached a
difficult point in the story, and there must be time for thought.
"Now, how in the world am I goin' to tell you how Miss Amaryllis
looked?" she said, with an accent of gentle despair. "Why, it's as
hard as tryin' to tell about that yeller rose that grew in old lady
Elrod's gyarden. There never was such a rose as that, and there never
was such a gyirl as Miss Amaryllis, or Miss Penelope either, for that
matter. The judge was always havin' their pictures painted, and there
was one, no bigger around than that, set in gold. If I jest had it to
show you! But I reckon that picture o' Miss Amaryllis is lyin' in a
grave somewhere on the other side o' the ocean. Mighty near every
woman has somethin' pretty about her; one'll have pretty eyes and
another'll have a pretty color, but Miss Amaryllis was pretty every
way. I ricollect once I was passin' along Main Street, one County
Court day, and the old judge's carriage was standin' in front o' Tom
Barker's dry-goods store, and Miss Amaryllis was leanin' back against
the cushions, and her hand was layin' on the carriage door, and she
had a ring on one of her fingers with a yeller stone in it; the sun
was shinin' on it and, I declare to goodness, from that day to this I
never see a white lily with the yeller heart and the dust like grains
o' gold inside of it that I don't think o' Miss Amaryllis's hand and
Miss Amaryllis's ring.
[Illustration: MISS PENELOPE AND MISS AMARYLLIS.
_Page 80._]
"They both had golden hair, Miss Penelope and Miss Amaryllis, but Miss
Penelope had gray eyes like a dove's, and Miss Amaryllis had brown
ones with dark lashes. I reckon it was Miss Amaryllis's eyes and hair
that made her what she was. You can find plenty o' women with brown
eyes and brown hair, but when you find one with brown eyes and golden
hair, why, it's somethin' to ricollect. And then, there was her voice.
You've heard me tell many a time about Miss Penelope's voice, and Miss
Amaryllis had one that was jest as sweet, but hers was low and deep
where Miss Penelope's was clear and high. Miss Amaryllis played on the
guitar, and summer nights they'd sit out on the portico and sing
together, and the old judge used to say that when his gyirls sung the
very mockin'-birds stopped to listen.
"Many a woman has hard work to find one man to love her, and many a
woman can't find even one, but Miss Amaryllis had more beaus on her
string, and more strings to her bow, than any fiddler, in the state;
and she danced with 'em and sung to 'em and played with 'em like a cat
plays with mice, and then, when she got ready, she'd send 'em on their
way, and she'd go on hers. And as fast as one went another'd come. The
judge's wife used to shake her head and say, 'My daughter, there's
such a thing as a woman sayin' "No" once too often.' And Miss
Amaryllis she'd say, 'Yes, and there's such a thing as a woman sayin'
"Yes" a little too soon;' and the old judge he'd laugh and say, 'Let
her alone; one of these days she'll find her master.' And sure enough
she did. They said it was love at first sight on both sides when Miss
Amaryllis and Hamilton Schuyler met each other at a big party at
Squire Elrod's, and before long the weddin' day was set, and everybody
was sayin' that Miss Amaryllis had found her match at last.
"Hamilton Schuyler was as handsome as Miss Amaryllis was pretty, and
when it come to family he had as much to brag of as she had. He was a
first cousin to Squire Meredith Schuyler, and all the Schuylers had
fine houses and plenty o' land. Rich folks in that day had a way of
namin' their places jest as rich folks do now. The Elrod place was
called The Cedars, and Hamilton Schuyler had a big house on the same
'pike, and that was Schuyler Court. The Schuylers was mighty proud o'
their blood, and I used to hear folks talk about the coat of arms that
the squire had hangin' in his front hall. Abram was there once to see
about some land the squire was havin' cleared, and he said he took
particular notice of the coat of arms, but to save his life he
couldn't see why they called it that, for there wasn't any coat or any
arms on it that he could see, jest a curious colored thing, red and
blue and black, and on top of it some kind of a beast standin' on its
hind legs.
"The Elrods come of plain people at the start, but they could hold up
their heads with the best, for they had plenty o' money and plenty o'
learnin', too, and the judge's wife was as blue-blooded as any
Schuyler and twice as proud of her blood, in the bargain. She had
pictures, and silver things, and dishes that'd been in the family for
generations, and her great-great-grandfather was a Fairfax.
"There's some people, child, that'll tell you that one person's as
good as another, and all blood's alike, and all of it red. And maybe
they are right. And when it comes to kindness and right principles and
all that, why, Squire Schuyler and the judge's wife wasn't a bit
better'n Abram and me. But when it come to their manners and their
language, they had somethin' we didn't have. Abram was jest as polite
a man as Squire Schuyler, but he couldn't take off his hat to a lady
the way the squire could, and I couldn't bow and smile like the
judge's wife, and I reckon that's where the blue blood comes in.
"I ricollect talkin' to Parson Page once about this very thing, and he
says, 'The Lord hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth,
and in His sight there is neither high nor low according to blood.'
Says he, 'The Lord looks at the life and the conscience of a man to
tell whether he's high or low; and,' says he, 'in His sight there's
little difference between the good man who is born in the high places
of the earth and the good man who walks in lowly paths. Both are pure
gold, but one's been shaped and stamped by goin' through the mint, and
the other's rough in the nugget.'
"Now, what was I startin' out to tell you, child, before I got to
talkin' about blue blood? Oh, yes, I ricollect now.
"Well, everybody was lookin' for Miss Amaryllis's weddin' cyards,
when, all at once, her and Hamilton had a quarrel, and the match was
broke off then and there. It was a long time before anybody knew what
had happened betwixt the two, but at last it come out that they'd
quarreled about where they'd live after they married. Of course he
expected to take his bride to his own house, and of course any
right-minded woman would 'a' been willin' to go with her husband; but
when he happened to say somethin' about the time when she'd be livin'
at Schuyler Court, she give him to understand that she couldn't leave
The Cedars, and that whoever married her would have to live at her
father's house.
"Now it's my belief, honey, that Miss Amaryllis hadn't any idea of
makin' Hamilton Schuyler leave Schuyler Court and come and live at The
Cedars. She was jest foolin' when she said that. She'd been used to
twistin' the men round her little finger all her life, and she wanted
to see if Hamilton was like all the rest. But Hamilton took it all in
earnest, and he said whoever heard of a man givin' up his own home and
goin' to live with his father-in-law, and did she want him to be the
laughin'-stock of the whole country? And she said that if he cared
more for his house than he cared for her he could stay at Schuyler
Court and she'd stay at The Cedars. And he said it wasn't Schuyler
Court he cared for; he'd leave Schuyler Court and build her another
house anywhere she wanted to live, but if she wouldn't leave her
father's house, then he'd have to believe that she cared more for The
Cedars than she cared for him. And they had it up and down and back
and forth, and at last she give him back his ring and sent him away
jest like she'd sent the others.
"The judge and his wife was terribly upset about it. They both loved
Hamilton like he was their own son, and the old lady said that Miss
Amaryllis had thrown away her best chance, and maybe her last one, and
she grieved mightily, for in that day, honey, an old-maid daughter
wasn't considered a blessin' by any means. They tried their best to
git Hamilton and Miss Amaryllis to make up, but he said he was certain
she didn't love him as well as a woman ought to love the man she was
goin' to marry, and she said a man who wouldn't try to please a woman
before marriage wouldn't be likely to try to please her after they
married; and he said he'd be willin' to give up his way, if he was
only certain she loved him right, and she said how could a woman love
a man that put his pleasure before hers? And the longer the old people
argued with her, the more contrairy it made Miss Amaryllis, and
finally they had to give it up.
"Of course all her old beaus come flockin' back as soon as they heard
that Miss Amaryllis had give Hamilton his walkin'-papers, and things
was as gay as ever at The Cedars. But Hamilton, he settled down at
Schuyler Court, and it looked like all the pleasure he had in life was
gone. Some men, if they can't git the woman they want, they'll take
one they don't want and manage to put up with her tolerable well. But
Hamilton wasn't that sort. With him it was the woman he loved or
nobody.
"Well, the judge dropped off right sudden with paralysis, and in a
year or two the old lady followed him, and Miss Penelope married, and
there was Miss Amaryllis all alone in the big house with jest the
housekeeper, Miss Sempronia Davis, and the family servants; and there
was Hamilton off yonder in Schuyler Court, pale and thin and quiet,
and the years passin', and both of 'em lovin' each other more every
day, and losin' their happiness and wastin' their lives all on account
of a foolish little quarrel.
"They said the judge always felt hard towards Miss Amaryllis for
disapp'intin him so, but he divided the property even betwixt her and
Miss Penelope and give her The Cedars. 'I give and bequeath to my
daughter Amaryllis The Cedars, since she seems to care more for this
than for anything else in the world'--that was the way the will was.
"I reckon most women would 'a' lost their beauty livin' the way Miss
Amaryllis did, everything goin' wrong with her, and old age certain to
come, but it looked like all that time could do to her was to make her
prettier, and there wasn't a young gyirl in the country that could
hold a candle to her.
"I don't exactly ricollect how long things went on this way, but I
reckon death would 'a' found 'em holdin' out against each other if
Schuyler Court hadn't burned.