VIII.

As the sun rose after his night of tramping and troubled reminiscence,

Edgar Braine resolutely put the past out of his mind, and turned to the

future.

"The old Edgar is dead," he said; "let us see what we can do for the new

Edgar."

But before attacking that problem, he cleared his head by going out to

the little shed that served him for a bath house, filling his home-made

shower-bath with fresh water and drenching himself in the chill air of

the June morning. When dressed, all the weariness of watching was gone,

his pulse was full and his mind clear.

He called across the street and bade the negro caterer bring him a cup

of coffee, and not until it came did he permit himself to think of

anything more important than the beauty of the morning, and a pet scheme

he had of persuading the aldermen of Thebes to offer citizens some sort

of inducement to plant more permanent trees among the quick growing and

quick decaying cotton-woods of the streets.

When the coffee came, he dismissed all these things, and set himself to

work out some problems.

"Hildreth thinks he has made himself my master," he thought, "and Duncan

and the Boston crowd are sure of it. They intend to make me serviceable

to them, and kindly mean to toss a financial bone or two to me now and

then. Thank you very much, gentlemen, but the relation you propose

doesn't suit me. I prefer to occupy the place of master myself. It suits

my peculiar temperament better."

Saying this in imagination, he began to think earnestly of means.

His first task was to discover as accurately as possible what the plans

of the speculative combination were,--to spy out the camp which he meant

to conquer.

The levee, which the Common Council was about to cede to the Central

Railroad, covered the whole water-front of Thebes available for

steamboat-landings, wharfs, grain-elevators, warehouses, and the like.

To Thebes, the loss of the ground-rents and wharf-charges would be a

great sacrifice, but the value of the privilege in that way was clearly

not enough to account for the eagerness of the railroad people to secure

it. They had other things in mind-indeed, there had been a reference to

other things in Duncan's letter. It was Edgar Braine's first care to

find out what those other things were.

He reflected that another railroad--the Northern--was in process of

extension to Thebes. Upon consideration, he saw that the grant of the

levee to the Central would effectually cut off the Northern from a

terminus on the river. "That," he said to himself, "will enormously

depress Northern stock, as soon as the effects of the cession are

understood. Then, this crowd will buy it up for a song, consolidate with

the Central and make a Union Depot at the Point. Yes--I see. That's the

first part of the game. Then there's the Southern connection. They mean

to build the twenty-five miles of road between here and Columbia on the

other side of the river, and probably lease the whole system from that

point, south. That will give them complete control of a vast system all

centring here in Thebes. They'll establish a railroad ferry across the

river, of course. Oh, by Jove!" he cried, starting up in excitement,

"_There are two sides to this river!_"

With that he hastily finished his toilet by putting on a paper collar,

thinking, as he did so: "I must take to linen, I suppose, now that I am

to be a great financier."

After he was dressed, he hastily wrote a note to Helen, which began with

the greeting he sent her every morning, and continued with a few loving

words as to their approaching marriage.

"I have leased the little cottage, with the bed of sweet-williams

in front, dear--by the way, I expect you to call them sweet Edgars

in your splendid loyalty--with an option of buying it at the end of

two years. It will be good property to own, but you shall not live

there long, dear. I have grown ambitious since you consented to be

my partner. I shall make money and reputation, and surround you

with every luxury--for which you do not in the least care. I shall

place you where your superior intellectual and social gifts will

have play. You don't care for that either? Ah! but you will, when

you find how greatly your social supremacy will aid me in my more

masculine ambitions. When you are my wife, I shall be not twice,

but ten times the man I am now. But first, I must teach you to

appreciate yourself, dear, and convince you that I am not the

infatuated lover you think me, when I tell you how superior you are

to other women. Abner Hildreth told me yesterday that I have a

remarkable head for business; well, the best justification my

vanity has for accepting his opinion, is that I have had the

shrewdness to recognize your worth, and to secure you for my

partner. That's a joke not to my taste, Helen dear, but I haven't

time to write this sheet over. You _know_ I marry you simply

because I love you, and that I would not profane my thought of you

by associating you, even in my mind, with the things of this world.

But I do want to see you shine. I want everybody to know your

superiority as well as I do. I am ambitious _for you_, because I

love you and wish to exalt you."

A little later, Edgar Braine, with a gun and game-bag, crossed the river

in a skiff. It was his custom to shoot a little in the woods beyond the

great stream twice or thrice a week, for exercise and for love of the

woodland odors that brought back memories of his boyhood. But he was not

thinking of exercise or odors this morning, or of the squirrels with

which his sport usually filled his bag. When he landed, he walked

immediately to the cabin occupied by Waverley Cooke. There he was

greeted by Waverley, a tall and once very fine-looking man, whose broad

brow was now marked with blotches which had run over as it were, from

his brandy-pimpled nose.

Waverley Cooke was a Virginian, whose dignified courtesy of manner had

been inherited from ancestors of the old stately school. In his youth he

had been promising far beyond the common; in his young manhood he had

quickly won distinction as an advocate whose eloquence was singularly

persuasive. All doors to success had seemed open to him once; now, all

were forever closed. Drink had mastered him before he reached his

thirtieth year, and now at fifty, he was old, broken, and hopeless. His

patrimony had been wasted, and he had come some years before to live

upon the wild waste lands he owned opposite Thebes.

It had been his hope to develop this property, to build up a city there,

which should share with Thebes the prosperity that had always been

predicted for that town, and was now at last approaching.

But fortune had tarried too long for Waverly Cooke. Hope deferred had

made his heart sick, and sorrow and solitude and drink had made wreck of

his once buoyant nature. He had no longer any capacity to hope, and all

the plans he had cherished lay dead now in his enfeebled hands.

Among these plans had been one to make the river his toll-gate whenever

commerce should begin to cross it. In anticipation of that time he had

secured in perpetuity the ferry franchise from his own miles of desolate

river front to the shore where Thebes had then stood, a half-drowned

hamlet waiting to become a city.

In the conviction that some day railroads from the north would meet

railroads from the south at this place, he had seized upon this

strategic point; this ferry franchise should make him rich, while the

building of a town upon his land--it must be there, because there alone

was a landing possible for many miles--should make his wealth princely.

But Waverley Cooke had not been able to wait, and all that remained of

his project was the plying of his skiff--sometimes rowed by his own

hands, and sometimes by a negro man, once his slave, who had remained

his faithful attendant in his decay,--to carry infrequent passengers

across the stream for hire.

It was to purchase this ferry franchise that Edgar Braine had crossed

the river that morning. When the matter was mentioned to Cooke, a sad,

dreamy look came into the poor fellow's face, and for a time he said

nothing. He poured and drank some undiluted spirit--courteously

motioning an invitation to his guest, for he could not speak--and then

passed into the rear room of his house.

After a few moments he returned, erect, and with a touch of his old

stateliness in his manner, and said:--

"Pardon me, Braine, but it is not a pleasant thing for a man to

contemplate a wrecked life, when that life is his own. I quite

understand the value this franchise will have some day, and until this

hour I have hoped myself to reap the advantage of its possession. It

was weak and foolish to cherish such a delusion, but until now I have

never frankly admitted to myself the completeness of the ruin I have

wrought. I know now that if there were a dozen railroads seeking ferry

accommodations here, I could not arrange to provide them. I should have

to go to Thebes to negotiate for the means, and I should get helplessly

drunk there and part with everything to the first man that found out I

had anything. I would rather sell to you, an honest man, and better

still, a brave one. I have loved you with a knightly admiration, boy,

ever since that affair with Summers. We Virginians cherish our inherited

respect for personal courage, Braine. We hold it the chief virtue of

manhood. This money-grubbing age laughs at our chivalric folly and mocks

it; but our chivalric folly scorns this money-grubbing age, and so we

are quits with it."

After a little further conversation, the wrecked Virginian took another

drink, and said:

"Why not face the facts? That is my master"--pointing to the bottle. "I

drink whiskey before breakfast; I get up in the night to drink it. I

cannot go on in that way much longer, and I should go off at once if I

quitted it. It's a sorry thing to joke about, isn't it? No matter. What

I have in mind is this: I'm a wreck. I shall never do any good to myself

or anybody else. My wife is buried out there in the swamp that poisoned

her with its miasms. My children lie by her side. There remains for me

only a brief period of wretchedness, and then death and oblivion. Why

should I stay here in this pestilential wilderness? Why not sell out the

whole thing to you,--land--there's seven thousand acres of it--all

worthless at present--ferry franchise, railroad charter, and all? You

are young and vigorous. You will make something of it. You will realize

my dreams, and I have a sentimental pleasure in thinking of that.

Sentiment is out of fashion, I know, but never mind. I'm out of fashion

too."

"But I haven't money enough for so large a transaction, Mr. Cooke," said

Braine.

"Money? It won't take much. If you were to pay me a thousand dollars

now, or five thousand, do you know what I would do? I would go over to

Thebes, get drunk and die probably. What would be the use of giving me

money in large sums? I can't be helped in that way. But I'll tell you

how you can buy me out, and at the same time do the best thing there is

to be done for me. The home of my fathers in Virginia is

vacant--abandoned as worthless since the war. The man who owns it will

let me have the use of it, he says, for a song, and the offer has

brought a great longing over me. _I want to go home again._"

Here the poor fellow broke down completely, tears streaming from his

eyes and his utterance choking. Braine turned and walked apart in

respectful sympathy. After a time he returned, and Cooke, having

recovered himself, resumed:

"I want to take my wife and children out of the swamp and bury them in

the little graveyard back of the garden at home, where the sweet-briar

roses grow. I want to sit there by them every day till I die, trying to

tell them how I repent me of my sin that ruined their lives. Who knows?

Perhaps the wife's spirit might smile upon me then, as she smiled when

she believed in me. Perhaps the little ones might remember in their

graves the stories I used to tell them, and learn to love me again. I

want to live in the old home till I die, and I want nothing else in the

world. Edgar Braine, you can make that possible. Do it, and all these

accursed possessions of mine, which will be golden possibilities to you,

are yours!"

Braine was too deeply moved to speak for a time. Broken down drunkard

that this man was, he had a certain nobility of character yet--it was

all that remained to him of his inheritance from his fathers. It was a

reviving glow of the old inherited courage and love of truth that

prompted him thus to face his own condition, and assume the

responsibility of his folly without an attempt to excuse or palliate the

wrong he had done.

"What do you want, Mr. Cooke?" at last Braine asked.

"I want to go back to the old home to die. I want you to pay my passage

and _theirs_"--motioning toward the graves--"and to pay me enough every

month after I get there to provide me with food and clothes--and this,"

seizing the bottle and hurling it into the corner angrily. "You are not

to send the money to _me_, mind. That would end all at once. You are to

send it to some one I will name. A hundred dollars every month will be

ample, and it won't be for long, as your debt is to cease with my death.

Will you do this? Oh! _will_ you do this, Braine? Will you have pity on

me, and give me one breath of the old air, one look at the old hills,

one little rest under the old trees, before I die?"

In the great longing that had taken possession of his imagination, the

broken man was in panic lest his proposal should be refused.

"The land will be valuable some day, Braine, and so will the ferry

franchise. It is absolute and exclusive, and the railroad commerce of

this region _must_ cross the river here. Then there is the railroad

franchise."

"What is that?" asked Braine. "You mentioned it before, but I do not

understand."

"Why, I have a special charter, granted years ago, for a railroad from

here to Columbia--and on to the State line, for that matter, but as

there is already a line from Columbia south, it is this twenty-five

miles that are important. The charter will be very valuable whenever

anybody is ready to build the connecting link, as they will be some day,

because it grants valuable, exclusive privileges which can't be had

under the present constitution. I drew the charter myself with an eye to

the future, and legislatures in those days were ready to grant anything,

in their eagerness to encourage railroad-building. I can't recall all

the legal points now--my head isn't clear--but I'll show you the

charter. You'll see for yourself that whoever builds any railroad to

connect the lines centring at Thebes with the Southern system, is

absolutely obliged to have this charter."

He took the document from his desk, and Braine read it through

carefully. Then he said:

"Mr. Cooke, this is a very valuable piece of paper."

"Then you will grant what I have asked?" eagerly interjected the other,

almost in accents of prayer.

"I will if you insist. But as an honest man, or one who tries to be

tolerably honest"--he remembered his suicide--"I cannot accept your

offer without telling you that you are giving greatly more than you

imagine. This twenty-five miles of road must be built, and men of

enormous means will build it."

"Will they buy the charter _on my terms, and now_? A month hence it may

be too late."

"They would buy it now, and on better terms than I am able to offer, if

they knew of its existence," said Braine.

"I tell you there are no better terms possible. I won't have money paid

me for it. I should get drunk and die, and never get home with _them_,"

again pointing to the graves. "Now listen to me, Edgar Braine. I must

start home in three days, with _them_, or I must drown myself. I cannot

live if this thing is not carried out. It is impossible to make better

terms for _me_. All other terms would be worse, infinitely worse."

"Could I not execute a mortgage to you for a sum fairly representing the

worth of this?" holding up the paper.

"No! I should trade it off for liquor and die the sooner. I tell you I

want one thing and no other. There is nobody to come after me to inherit

anything I might leave."

"Very well. Take to-day to think over the matter. You're excited now. If

you adhere to your proposal to-morrow, I will accept it."

"No, no, no! It must be _now_, I tell you. I will execute the papers

now, and begin to get ready for home!"

And so it was arranged. Excitement seemed to clear the head of the

inebriate, and though his hand trembled, he wrote without a pause until

every detail of the transaction was covered in legal form. Then he

directed the negro boy, Sam, to harness the horse to the rickety buggy,

and drove his visitor to the county seat, ten miles away, where the

necessary legal forms of acknowledgment, record, etc., were completed.

* * * * *

When Edgar Braine walked into Hildreth's bank parlor late that

afternoon, he said quite carelessly:

"I have come into a little property, and have some payments to make in

the settlement. I may have to borrow a few hundred dollars to-morrow on

a thirty days' acceptance."

"You can have a few thousands if you want it," said the banker, "any

time you like. Now that you're one of us, I'll take care that your

credit is good."

"Now that I'm one of you," replied Braine, "perhaps I shall be able to

look after that a little myself. You say I have a good head for

business."

With that he strolled out and bought a copy of the _Enterprise_ to see

if Mose Harbell had read his proofs carefully in his absence. As he

passed a shop he paused and said to himself:

"As there really are two sides to the river, I may as well take to linen

collars at once." And he went in and bought a supply.