THE LITTLE BROWN JUG AT KILDARE
By MEREDITH NICHOLSON
THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES
Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy
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THE PORT OF MISSING MEN
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ROSALIND AT RED GATE
Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller
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ZELDA DAMERON
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THE MAIN CHANCE
Illustrated by Harrison Fisher
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THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
INDIANAPOLIS
[Illustration]
THE LITTLE BROWN JUG AT KILDARE
_By_
MEREDITH NICHOLSON
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG
Oh, for you that I never knew,
Only in dreams that bind you!--
By Spring's own grace I shall know your face
When under the may I find you!
--_H. C. Bunner_
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1908
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
SEPTEMBER
THE LITTLE BROWN JUG AT KILDARE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Two Gentlemen Say Good-By 1
II The Absence of Governor Osborne 34
III The Jug and Mr. Ardmore 50
IV Duty and the Jug 73
V Mr. Ardmore Officially Recognized 98
VI Mr. Griswold Forsakes the Academic Life 126
VII An Affair at the State House 143
VIII The Labors of Mr. Ardmore 166
IX The Land of the Little Brown Jug 187
X Professor Griswold Takes the Field 201
XI Two Ladies on a Balcony 218
XII The Embarrassments of the Duke of Ballywinkle 235
XIII Miss Dangerfield Takes a Prisoner 257
XIV A Meeting of Old Friends 281
XV The Prisoner in the Corn-Crib 308
XVI The Flight of Gillingwater 336
XVII On the Road to Turner's 349
XVIII The Battle of the Raccoon 362
XIX In the Red Bungalow 375
XX Rosae Mundi 396
XXI Good-By to Jerry Dangerfield 414
[Illustration]
THE LITTLE BROWN JUG AT KILDARE
CHAPTER I
TWO GENTLEMEN SAY GOOD-BY
"If anything really interesting should happen to me I think I should
drop dead," declared Ardmore as he stood talking to Griswold in the
railway station at Atlanta. "I entered upon this life under false
pretenses, thinking that money would make the game easy, but here I am,
twenty-seven years old, stalled at the end of a blind alley, with no
light ahead; and to be quite frank, old man, I don't believe you have
the advantage of me. What's the matter with us, anyhow?"
"The mistake we make," replied Griswold, "is in failing to seize
opportunities when they offer. You and I have talked ourselves hoarse a
thousand times planning schemes we never pull off. We are cursed with
indecision, that's the trouble with us. We never see the handwriting on
the wall, or if we do, it's just a streak of hieroglyphics, and we don't
know what it means until we read about it in the newspapers. But I
thought you were satisfied with the thrills you got running as a reform
candidate for alderman in New York last year. It was a large stage and
the lime-light struck you pretty often. Didn't you get enough? No doubt
they'd be glad to run you again."
Ardmore glanced hastily about and laid his hand heavily on his friend's
shoulder.
"Don't mention it--don't think of it! No more politics in mine. The
world may go hang if it waits for me to set it right. What I want is
something different, a real adventure--something with spice in it. I
have bought everything money can buy, and now I'm looking for something
that can't be tagged with a price."
"There's your yacht and the open sea," suggested Griswold.
"Sick of it! Sick to death of it!"
"You're difficult, old man, and mighty hard to please. Why don't you
turn explorer and go in for the North Pole?"
"Perfectly bully! I've thought of it a lot, but I want to be sure I've
cleaned up everything else first. It's always up there waiting--on ice,
so to speak--but when it's done once there will be nothing left. I want
to save that for the last call."
"You said about the same thing when we talked of Thibet that first
evening we met at the University Club, and now the Grand Lama sings in
all the phonographs, and for a penny you can see him in a kinetoscope,
eating his luncheon. I remember very well that night. We were facing
each other at a writing-table, and you looked up timidly from your
letter and asked me whether there were two _g's_ in aggravate, and I
answered that it depended on the meaning--one _g_ for a mild case, two
for a severe one--and you laughed, and we began talking. Then we found
out how lonesome we both were, and you asked me to dinner, and then took
me to that big house of yours up there in Fifth Avenue and showed me the
pictures in your art gallery, and we found out that we needed each
other."
"Yes, I had needed you all right!" And Ardmore sniffed dolefully, and
complained of the smoke that was drifting in upon them from the train
sheds. "I wish you wouldn't always be leaving me. You ought to give up
your job and amuse me. You're the only chap I know who doesn't talk
horse or automobile or yacht, or who doesn't want to spend whole
evenings discussing champagne vintages; but you're too good a man to be
wasted on a college professorship. Better let me endow an institution
that will make you president--there might be something in that."
"It would make me too prominent, so that when we really make up our
minds to go in for adventures I should be embarrassed by my high
position. As a mere lecturer on _The Libeling of Sunken Ships_ in a law
school, I'm the most obscure person in the world. And for another thing,
we couldn't risk the scandal of tainted money. It would be nasty to have
your great-grandfather's whisky deals with the Mohawk Indians chanted in
a college yell."
The crowd surged past them to the Washington express, and a waiting
porter picked up Griswold's bags.
"Wish you wouldn't go. I have three hours to wait," said Ardmore,
looking at his watch, "and the only Atlanta man I know is out of town."
"What did you say you were going to New Orleans for?" demanded
Griswold, taking out his ticket and moving toward the gate. "I thought
you exhausted the Creole restaurants long ago."
"The fact is," faltered Ardmore, coloring, "I'm looking for some one."
"Out with it--out with it!" commanded his friend.
"I'm looking for a girl I saw from a car window day before yesterday. I
had started north, and my train stopped to let a south-bound train pass
somewhere in North Carolina. The girl was on the south-bound sleeper,
and her window was opposite mine. She put aside the magazine she was
reading and looked me over rather coolly."
"And you glanced carelessly in the opposite direction and pulled down
your shade, of course, like the well-bred man you are--" interrupted
Griswold, holding fast to Ardmore's arm as they walked down the
platform.
"I did no such thing. I looked at her and she looked at me. And then my
train started--"
"Well, trains have a way of starting. Does the romance end here?"
"Then, just at the last moment, she winked at me!"
"It was a cinder, Ardy. The use of soft coal on railways is one of the
saddest facts of American transportation. I need hardly remind you, Mr.
Ardmore, that nice girls don't wink at strange young men. It isn't
done!"
"I would have you know, Professor, that this girl is a lady."
"Don't be so irritable, and let me summarize briefly on your own
hypothesis: You stared at a strange girl and she winked at you, safe in
the consciousness that she would never see you again. And now you are
going to New Orleans to look for her. She will probably meet you at the
station, with her bridesmaids and wedding cake all ready for you. And
you think this will lead to an adventure--you defer finding the North
Pole for this--for this? Poor Ardy! But did she toss her card from the
window? Why New Orleans? Why not Minneapolis, or Bangor, Maine?"
"I'm not an ass, Grissy. I caught the name of the sleeper--you know
they're all named, like yachts and tall buildings--the name of her car
was the _Alexandra_. I asked our conductor where it was bound for, and
he said it was the New Orleans car. So I took the first train back, ran
into you here, and that's the whole story to date."
"I admire your spirit. New Orleans is much pleasanter than the polar
ice, and a girl with a winking eye isn't to be overlooked in this vale
of tears. What did this alleviating balm for tired eyes look like, if
you remember anything besides the wicked wink?"
"She was bareheaded, and her hair was wonderfully light and fluffy, and
it was parted in the middle and tied behind with a black ribbon in a
great bow. She rested her cheek on her hand--her elbow on the
window-sill, you know--and she smiled a little as the car moved off, and
winked--do you understand? Her eyes were blue, Grissy, big and blue--and
she was perfectly stunning."
"There are winks and winks, Ardy," observed Griswold with a judicial
air. "There is the wink inadvertent, to which no meaning can be
attached. There is the wink deceptive, usually given behind the back of
a third person, and a vulgar thing which we will not associate with your
girl of the _Alexandra_. And then, to be brief, there is the wink of
mischief, which is observed occasionally in persons of exceptional
bringing up. There are moments in the lives of all of us when we lose
our grip on conventions--on morality, even. The psychology of this
matter is very subtle. Here you are, a gentleman of austerely correct
life; here is a delightful girl, on whom you flash in an out-of-the-way
corner of the world. And she, not wholly displeased by the frank
admiration in your eyes--for you may as well concede that you stared at
her--"
"Well, I suppose I did look at her," admitted Ardmore reluctantly.
"Pardonably, no doubt, just as you would look at a portrait in a picture
gallery, of course. This boarding-school miss, who had never before
lapsed from absolute propriety, felt the conventional world crumble
beneath her as the train started. She could no more have resisted the
temptation to wink than she could have refused a caramel or an
invitation to appear as best girl at a church wedding. Thus wireless
communication is established between soul and soul for an instant only,
and then you are cut off forever. Perhaps, in the next world, Ardy--"
Griswold and Ardmore had often idealized themselves as hopeless pursuers
of the elusive, the unattainable, the impossible; or at least Ardmore
had, and Griswold had entered into the spirit of this sort of thing for
the joy it gave Ardmore. They had discussed frequently the call of soul
to soul--the quick glance passing between perfect strangers in crowded
thoroughfares, and had fruitlessly speculated as to their proper course
in the event the call seemed imperative. A glance of the eye is one
thing, but it is quite another to address a stranger and offer eternal
friendship. The two had agreed that, while, soul-call or no soul-call, a
gentleman must keep clear of steamer flirtations, and avoid even the
most casual remarks to strange young women in any circumstances, a
gentleman of breeding and character may nevertheless follow the world's
long trails in search of a never-to-be-forgotten face.
The fact is that Ardmore was exceedingly shy, and a considerable
experience of fashionable society had not diminished this shortcoming.
Griswold, on the other hand, had the Virginian's natural social
instinct, but he suffered from a widely-diffused impression that much
learning had made him either indifferent or extremely critical where
women are concerned.
Ardmore shrugged his shoulders and fumbled in his coat pockets as though
searching for ideas. An austere composure marked his countenance at all
times, and emphasized the real distinction of his clean-cut features.
His way of tilting back his head and staring dreamily into vacancy had
established for him a reputation for stupidity that was wholly
undeserved.
"Please limit the discussion to the present world, Professor."
When Ardmore was displeased with Griswold he called him Professor, in a
withering tone that disposed of the academic life.
"We shall limit it to New Orleans or the universe, as you like."
"I'm disappointed in you, Grissy. You don't take this matter in the
proper spirit. I'm going to find that girl, I tell you."
"I want you to find her, Ardy, and throw yourself at her feet. Be it far
from me to deprive you of the joy of search. I thoroughly admire your
resolute spirit. It smacks of the old heroic times. Nor can I conceal
from you my consuming envy. If a girl should flatter me with a wink I
should follow her thrice round the world. She should not elude me
anywhere in the Copernican system. If it were not the nobler part for
you to pursue alone, I should forsake my professorship and buckle on my
armor and follow your standard--
With the winking eye
For my battle-cry."
And Griswold hummed the words, beating time with his stick, much to
Ardmore's annoyance.
"In my ignorance," Griswold continued, "I recall but one allusion to
the wink in immortal song. If my memory serves me, it is no less a soul
than Browning who sings:
'All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye
Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.'
You seem worried, Ardy. Does the wink press so heavily, or what's the
matter?"
"The fact is, I'm in trouble. My sister says I've got to marry."
"Which sister?"
"Mrs. Atchison. You know Nellie? She's a nice girl and she's a good
sister to me, but she's running me too hard on this marrying business.
She's going to bring a bunch of girls down to Ardsley in a few days, and
she says she'll stay until I make a choice."
Griswold whistled.
"Then, as we say in literary circles, you're up against it. No wonder
you're beginning to take notice of the frolicsome boarding-school girl
who winks at the world. I believe I'd rather take chances myself with
that amiable sort than marry into your Newport transatlantic set."
"Well, one thing's certain, Grissy. You've got to come to Ardsley and
help me out while those people are there. Nellie likes you; she thinks
you're terribly intellectual and all that, and if you'll throw in a word
now and then, why--"
"Why, I may be able to protect you from the crafts and assaults of your
sister. You seem to forget, Ardy, that I'm not one of your American
leisure class. I'm always delighted to meet Mrs. Atchison, but I'm a
person of occupations. I have a consultation in Richmond to-morrow, then
me for Charlottesville. We have examinations coming on, and, while I
like to play with you, I've positively got to work."
"Not if I endow all the chairs in the university! You've not only got to
come, but you're going to be there the day they arrive."
Thomas Ardmore, of New York and Ardsley, struck his heavy stick--he
always carried a heavy stick--smartly on the cement platform in the
stress of his feeling. He was much shorter than Griswold, to whom he was
deeply attached--for whom he had, indeed, the frank admiration of a
small boy for a big brother. He sometimes wondered how fully Griswold
entered into the projects of adventure which he, in his supreme
idleness, planned and proposed; but he himself had never been quite
ready to mount horse or shake out sail, and what Griswold had said about
indecision rankled in his heart. He was sorry now that he had told of
this new enterprise to which he had pledged himself, but he grew lenient
toward Griswold's lack of sympathy as he reflected that the quest of a
winking girl was rather beneath the dignity of a gentleman wedded not
merely to the law, but to the austere teaching profession as well. In
his heart he forgave Griswold, but he was all the more resolved to
address himself stubbornly to his pursuit of the deity of the car
_Alexandra_, for only by finding her could he establish himself in
Griswold's eyes as a man of action, capable of carrying through a scheme
requiring cleverness and tact.
Ardmore was almost painfully rich, but the usual diversions of the
wealthy did not appeal to him, and, having exhausted foreign travel, he
spent much time on his estate in the North Carolina hills, where he
could ride all day on his own land, and where he read prodigiously in a
huge library that he had assembled with special reference to works on
piracy, a subject that had attracted him from early youth.
It was this hobby that had sealed his friendship with Griswold, who had
relinquished the practice of law, after a brilliant start in his native
city of Richmond, to accept the associate professorship of admiralty in
the law department of the University of Virginia. Marine law had a
particular fascination for Griswold from its essentially romantic
character. As a law student he had read all the decisions in admiralty
that the libraries afforded, and, though faithfully serving the
university, he still occasionally accepted retainers in admiralty cases
of unusual importance. His lectures were constantly attended by students
in other departments of the university for sheer pleasure in Griswold's
racy and entertaining exposition of the laws touching the libeling of
schooners and the recovery of jettisoned cargoes. Henry Maine Griswold
was tall, slender and dark, and he hovered recklessly, as he might have
put it, on the brink of thirty. He stroked his thin brown mustache
habitually, as though to hide the smile that played about his humorous
mouth--a smile that lay even more obscurely in his fine brown eyes. He
did violence to the academic traditions by dressing with metropolitan
care, gray being his prevailing note, though his scarfs ventured upon
bold color schemes that interested his students almost as much as his
lectures. The darkest fact of his life--and one shared with none--was
his experiments in verse. From his undergraduate days he had written
occasionally a little song, quite for his own pleasure in versifying,
and to a little sheaf of these things in manuscript he still added a few
verses now and then.
"Don't worry, Ardy," he was saying to his friend as "all aboard" was
called, "and don't be reckless. When you get through looking for the
winking eye, come up to Charlottesville and we'll plan _The True Life of
Captain Kidd_ that is some day going to make us famous."
"I'll wire you later," replied Ardmore, clinging to his friend's hand a
moment after the train began to move. Griswold leaned out of the
vestibule to wave a last farewell to Ardmore, and something very kind
and gentle and good to see shone in the lawyer's eyes. He went into the
car smiling, for he called Ardmore his best friend, and he was amused by
his last words, which were always Ardmore's last in their partings, and
were followed usually by telegrams about the most preposterous things,
or suggestions for romantic adventures, or some new hypothesis touching
Captain Kidd and his buried treasure. Ardmore never wrote letters; he
always telegraphed, and he enjoyed filing long, mysterious and expensive
messages with telegraph operators in obscure places where a scrupulous
ten words was the frugal limit.
Griswold lighted a cigar and opened the afternoon Atlanta papers in the
smoking compartment. His eye was caught at once by imperative
head-lines. It is not too much to say that the eye of the continent was
arrested that evening by the amazing disclosure, now tardily reaching
the public, that something unusual had occurred at the annual meeting of
the Cotton Planters' Association at New Orleans on the previous day.
Every copy-reader and editor, every paragrapher on every newspaper in
the land had smiled and reached for a fresh pencil as a preliminary
bulletin announced the passing of harsh words between the Governor of
North Carolina and the Governor of South Carolina. It may as well be
acknowledged here that just what really happened at the Cotton Planters'
convention will never be known, for this particular meeting was held
behind closed doors, and as the two governors were honored guests of the
association, no member has ever breathed a word touching an incident
that all most sincerely deplored. Indeed, no hint of it would ever have
reached the public had it not been that both gentlemen hurriedly left
the convention hall, refused to keep their appointments to speak at the
banquet that followed the business meetings, and were reported to have
taken the first trains for their respective capitals. It was whispered
by a few persons that the Governor of South Carolina had taken a fling
at the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence; it
was rumored in other quarters that the Governor of North Carolina was
the aggressor, he having--it was said--declared that a people (meaning
the freemen of the commonwealth of South Carolina) who were not
intelligent enough to raise their own hay, and who, moreover, bought
that article in Ohio, were not worth the ground necessary for their
decent interment. It is not the purpose of this chronicle either to seek
the truth of what passed between the two governors at New Orleans, or to
discuss the points of history and agriculture raised in the statements
just indicated. As every one knows, the twentieth of May (or was it the
thirty-first!), 1775, is solemnly observed in North Carolina as the day
on which the patriots of Mecklenburg County severed the relations
theretofore existing between them and his Majesty, King George the
Third. Equally well known is the fact that in South Carolina it is an
article of religious faith that on that twentieth day of May, 1775, the
citizens of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, cheered the English
flag and adopted resolutions reaffirming their ancient allegiance to the
British crown. This controversy and the inadequacy of the South Carolina
hay crop must be passed on to the pamphleteers, with such other vexed
questions as Andrew Jackson's birthplace--more debated than Homer's and
not to be carelessly conceded to the strutting sons of Waxhaw.
Griswold read of the New Orleans incident with a smile, while several
fellow-passengers discussed it in a tone of banter. One of them, a
gentleman from Mississippi, presently produced a flask, which he offered
to the others, remarking, "As the Governor of North Carolina said to the
Governor of South Carolina," which was, to be sure, pertinent to the
hour and the discussion, and bristling with fresh significance.
"They were both in Atlanta this morning," said the man with the flask,
"and they would have been traveling together on this train if they
hadn't met in the ticket office and nearly exploded with rage."
The speaker was suddenly overcome with his own humor, and slapped his
knee and laughed; then they all laughed, including Griswold.
"One ought to have taken the lower berth and one the upper to make it
perfect," observed an Alabama man. "I wonder when they'll get home."
"They'll probably both walk to be sure they don't take the same train,"
suggested a commercial traveler from Cincinnati, who had just come from
New Orleans. "Their friends are doing their best to keep them apart.
They both have a reputation for being quick on the trigger."
"Bosh!" exclaimed Griswold. "I dare say it's all a newspaper story.
There's no knife-and-pistol nonsense in the South any more. They'll both
go home and attend to their business, and that will be the last of it.
The people of North Carolina ought to be proud of Dangerfield; he's one
of the best governors they ever had. And Osborne is a first-class man,
too, one of the old Palmetto families."
"I guess they're both all right," drawled the Mississippian, settling
his big black hat more firmly on his head. "Dangerfield spoke in our
town at the state fair last year, and he's one of the best talkers I
ever heard."
Therefore, as no one appeared to speak for the governor of South
Carolina, the drummer volunteered to vouch for his oratorical gifts, on
the strength of an address lately delivered by Governor Osborne in a
lecture course at Cincinnati. Being pressed by the Mississippian, he
admitted that he had not himself attended the lecture, but he had heard
it warmly praised by competent critics.
The Mississippian had resented Griswold's rejection of the possibility
of personal violence between the governors, and wished to return to the
subject.
"It's not only themselves," he declared, "but each man has got the honor
of his state to defend. Suppose, when they met in the railway office at
Atlanta this morning, Dangerfield had drawed his gun. Do you suppose,
gentlemen, that if North Carolina had drawed South Carolina wouldn't
have followed suit? I declare, young man, you don't know what you're
talking about. If Bill Dangerfield won't fight, I don't know fightin'
blood when I see it."
"Well, sir," began the Alabama man, "my brother-in-law in Charleston
went to college with Osborne, and many's the time I've heard him say
that he was sorry for the man who woke up Charlie Osborne. Charlie--I
mean the governor, you understand--is one of these fellows who never
says much, but when you get him going he's terrible to witness. Bill
Dangerfield may be Governor of North Car'line, and I reckon he is, but
he ain't Governor of South Car'line, not by a damned good deal."
The discussion had begun to bore Griswold, and he went back to his own
section, having it in mind to revise a lecture he was preparing on _The
Right of Search on the High Seas_. It had grown dark, and the car was
brilliantly lighted. There were not more than half a dozen other persons
in his sleeper, and these were widely scattered. Having taken an
inventory of his belongings to be sure they were all at hand, he became
conscious of the presence of a young lady in the opposite section. In
the seat behind her sat an old colored woman in snowy cap and apron, who
was evidently the young lady's servant. Griswold was aware that this
dusky duenna bristled and frowned and pursed her lips in the way of her
picturesque kind as he glanced at her, as though his presence were an
intrusion upon her mistress, who sat withdrawn to the extreme corner of
her section, seeking its fullest seclusion, with her head against a
pillow, and the tips of her suède shoes showing under her gray traveling
skirt on the further half of the section. She twirled idly in her
fingers a half-opened white rosebud--a fact unimportant in itself, but
destined to linger long in Griswold's memory. The pillow afforded the
happiest possible background for her brown head, her cheek bright with
color, and a profile clear-cut, and just now--an impression due,
perhaps, to the slight quiver of her nostrils and the compression of her
lips--seemingly disdainful of the world. Griswold hung up his hat and
opened his portfolio; but the presence of the girl suggested Ardmore and
his ridiculous quest of the alluring blue eye, and it was refreshing to
recall Ardmore and his ways. Here was one man, at least, in this
twentieth century, at whose door the Time Spirit might thump and thunder
in vain.
The black woman rose and ministered to her mistress, muttering in kind
monotone consolatory phrases from which "chile" and "honey" occasionally
reached Griswold's ears. The old mammy produced from a bag several
toilet bottles, a fresh handkerchief, a hand mirror and a brush, which
she arranged in the empty seat. The silver trinkets glowed brightly
against the blue upholstery.
"Thank you, Aunt Phoebe, I'm feeling much better. Just let me alone now,
please."
The girl put aside the white rose for a moment and breathed deeply of
the vinaigrette, whose keen, pungent odor stole across the aisle to
Griswold. She bent forward, took up the hand mirror, and brushed the
hair away from her forehead with half a dozen light strokes. She touched
her handkerchief to the cologne flask, passed it across her eyes, and
then took up the rose again and settled back with a little sigh of
relief. In her new upright position her gaze rested upon Griswold's
newspapers, which he had flung down on the empty half of his section.
One of them had fallen open and lay with its outer page staring with the
bold grin of display type.
TWO GOVERNORS AT WAR!
WHAT DID THE GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA SAY
TO THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA?
The color deepened in the girl's face; a slight frown gathered in her
smooth forehead; then she called the colored woman and a brief colloquy
followed between them. In a moment Griswold was addressed in a tone and
manner at once condescending and deferential.
"If yo' please, suh, would yo' all 'low my mistus t' look at yo'
newspapahs?"
"Certainly. Take them along."
And Griswold, recalled from a passage in his lecture that dealt with
contraband munitions of war, handed over the newspapers, and saw them
pass into the hands of his fellow-passenger. He had read the newspapers
pretty thoroughly, and knew the distribution of their contents, so that
he noted with surprise the girl's immediate absorption in the telegrams
from New Orleans relating to the difficulty between the two governors.
As she read she lost, he thought, something of her splendid color, and
at one point in her reading her face went white for a moment, and
Griswold saw the paper wrinkle under the tightening grasp of her hands.
The tidings from New Orleans had undoubtedly aroused her indignation,
which expressed itself further in the rigid lines of her figure as she
read, and in the gradual lifting of her head, as though with some new
resolution. She seemed to lose account of her surroundings, and several
times Griswold was quite sure that he heard her half exclaim,
"Preposterous! Infamous!"
When she had finished the New Orleans telegrams she cast the offending
newspapers from her, then, recalling herself, summoned the black woman,
and returned them to Griswold, the dusky agent expressing the elaborate
thanks of her race for his courtesy. The girl had utterly ignored
Griswold, and she now pulled down the curtain at her elbow with a snap
and turned her face away from him.
Professor Griswold's eyes wandered repeatedly from his manuscript to
the car ceiling, then furtively to the uncompromisingly averted shoulder
and head of the young lady, then back to his lecture notes, until he was
weary of the process. He wished Ardmore were at hand, for his friend
would find here a case that promised much better than the pursuit to
which he had addressed himself. The girl in this instance was at least a
self-respecting lady, not given to flirtations with chance travelers,
and the brown eyes, of which Griswold had caught one or two fleeting
glimpses, were clearly not of the winking sort. The attendance of the
black mammy distinguished the girl as a person of quality, whose travels
were stamped with an austere propriety.
Her silver toilet articles testified to an acquaintance with the
comforts if not the luxuries of life. The alligator-hide suit-case
thrust under the seat bore the familiar label of a Swiss hotel where
Griswold had once spent a week, and spoke of the girl's acquaintance
with an ampler world. When Phoebe had brought it forth the initials
"B. O." in small black letters suggested Baltimore and Ohio to
Griswold's lazy speculations, whereupon he reflected that while
Baltimore was plausible, the black servant eliminated Ohio; and as every
Virginian knows every other Virginian, he tried to identify her with
Old Dominion family names beginning with O, but without result. He
finally concluded that, while her name might be Beatrice or Barbara, it
could not be Bessie, and he decided that very likely the suit-case
belonged to her brother Benjamin, in whom he felt no interest whatever.
He went out to supper, secured the only remaining table for two, and was
giving his order when the young lady appeared. She had donned her hat,
and as she stood a moment in the entrance, surveying the line of tables,
her distinction was undeniable. There were but two vacant places in the
car, one facing Griswold, the other across the aisle at a larger table
where three men were engaged in animated discussion. The girl viewed the
prospect with evident disappointment as the waiter drew out the vacant
chair at Griswold's table. She carried herself bravely, but wore still a
_triste_ air that touched Griswold's sympathy. He rose, told the waiter
that he would sit at the other table, and the girl murmured her thanks
with a forlorn little smile as she took his seat.
The appearance of Griswold aroused the Mississippian to a renewal of the
discussion of the New Orleans incident. He was in excellent humor, and
had carried to the car a quart bottle, which he pushed toward Griswold:
"As the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South
Carolina--"
"No, thank you," and as he spoke Griswold's eyes fell upon the girl, and
he saw annoyance written fleetingly on her face.
"You needn't be afraid of that whisky. It's all right," the
Mississippian protested.
"I'm confident of that; but some other time, thank you."
"Well, sir," the Mississippian declared, "after you left us a while ago
we got to talking about Dangerfield and his trouble with Osborne.
There's something back of this rumpus. You see, if they lived in the
same state you might account for a fierce rivalry between them. Both of
'em, for example, might have the senatorial bee in their bonnets; but
either one of 'em could make the senate any time he pleased. I guess
they're the two biggest men in the South right now. They're too big to
be touchy about any small matter; that's why I reckon there's something
behind this little racket over there at New Orleans. No passing remark
would send men off that way, so wild that they wouldn't travel on the
same train together. Why, gentlemen--"
"Please pass the salt," interposed Griswold.
The Mississippian enjoyed the sound of his own voice, which boomed out
above the noise of the train with broad effects of dialect that these
types will not be asked to reproduce. Griswold's eyes had again met
those of the girl opposite, and there was, he felt, a look of appeal in
them. The discussion distressed her, just as the telegrams from New
Orleans in the afternoon papers had distressed her, and Griswold began
at once to entertain his table companions with his views on a number of
national political issues, that were as vital to Arizona or Wyoming as
to the Carolinas. He told stories to illustrate his points, and told
them so well that his three companions forgot the estrangement of the
belligerent governors.
Griswold ran on in the low, musical voice that distinguishes the
cultivated Virginian in any company anywhere in the world, and the noisy
loquacity of the Mississippian went down before him. He was so intent on
holding their attention that his dishes were taken from him almost
untouched. The others lingered until his coffee was brought. He was so
absorbed that he failed to see the smile that occasionally passed over
the girl's face as some fragment of one of his stories found its way to
her. He had undertaken to deflect the talk from a channel which had, it
seemed, some painful association for her, but he had done more in
unwittingly diverting her own thoughts by his droll humor. He did not
cease until she had left the car, whereupon he followed his trio of
auditors to the smoking compartment, and there suffered the
Mississippian to hold uninterrupted sway.
When he went back into the car at eleven o'clock he found the girl and
her maid still sitting in their sections, though most of the other
berths, including his own, had been made up. The train was slowing down,
and, wishing a breath of air before retiring, he went to the rear
platform of the sleeper, which was the last car of the train. The porter
had opened the door in the vestibule to allow the brakeman to run back
with his torpedoes. The baggage car had developed a hot box, and,
jumping out, Griswold saw lanterns flashing ahead where the trainmen
labored with the sick wheel. The porter vanished, leaving Griswold
alone. The train had stopped at the edge of a small town, whose
scattered houses lay darkly against the hills beyond. The platform
lamps of a station shone a quarter of a mile ahead. The feverish steel
yielded reluctantly to treatment, and Griswold went forward and watched
the men at work for a few minutes, then returned to the end of the
train. He swung himself into the vestibule and leaned upon the guard
rail, gazing down the track toward the brakeman's lantern. Then he grew
impatient at the continued delay and dropped down again, pacing back and
forth in the road-bed behind the becalmed train. The night was overcast,
with hints of rain in the air, and a little way from the rear lights it
was pitch dark. Griswold felt sure that the train would not leave
without the brakeman, and he was further reassured by the lanterns of
the trainmen beside the baggage car. Suddenly, as he reached the car and
turned to retrace his steps, a man sprang up, seemingly from nowhere,
and accosted him.
"I reckon y'u're the gov'nor, ain't y'u?"
"Yes, certainly, my man. What can I do for you?" replied Griswold
instantly.
"I reckoned it was y'u when y'u fust come out on the platform. I'm
app'inted to tell y'u, Gov'nor, that if y'u have Bill Appleweight
arrested in South Car'lina, y'u'll get something one of these days y'u
won't like. And if y'u try to find me y'u'll get it quicker. Good
night, Gov'nor."
"Good night!" stammered Griswold.
The least irony had crept into the word governor as the man uttered it
and slipped away into the darkness. The shadows swallowed him up; the
frogs in the ditch beside the track chanted dolorously; then the
locomotive whistled for the brakeman, whose lantern was already bobbing
toward the train.
As Griswold swung himself into the vestibule the girl who had borrowed
his newspapers turned away hurriedly and walked swiftly before him to
her section. The porter, who was gathering her things together, said, as
she paused in the aisle by her seat:
"Beginnin' to get ready, Miss Osbo'n. We're gwine intu Columbia thirty
minutes late all account dat hot box."
Griswold passed on to the smoking compartment and lighted a cigar. His
acquaintances of the supper table had retired, and he was glad to be
alone with his thoughts before the train reached Columbia. He dealt
harshly with himself for his stupidity in not having associated the
girl's perturbation over the breach between the governor of North
Carolina and the governor of South Carolina with the initials on her
traveling bag; he had been very dull, but it was clear to him now that
she was either the daughter or some other near relative of Governor
Osborne. In a few minutes she would leave the train at Columbia, where
the governor lived, and, being a gentleman, he would continue on his way
to Richmond, and thence to the university, and the incident would be
closed. But Griswold was a lawyer, and he had an old-fashioned Southern
lawyer's respect for the majesty of law. On the spur of curiosity or
impulse he had received a threatening message intended for the governor
of South Carolina, who, from the manner of the delivery of the message,
had been expected on this train. Griswold argued that the man who had
spoken to him had been waiting at the little station near which they had
stopped, in the hope of seeing the governor; that the waiting messenger
had taken advantage of the unexpected halt of the train, and, further,
that some suggestion of the governor in his own appearance had deceived
the stranger. He felt the least bit guilty at having deceived the man,
but it was now clearly his duty to see that the governor was advised of
the threat that had been communicated in so unusual a manner.
He was pondering whether he should do this in person or by letter or
telegram, when the rattle of the train over the switch frogs in the
Columbia yards brought him to the point of decision.
The porter thrust his head into the compartment.
"Columbia, sah. Yo' berth's all ready, sah. Yo' gwine t' Richmond--yes,
sah."
His hands were filled with the young lady's luggage. The lettering on
the suit-case seemed, in a way, to appeal to Griswold and to fix his
determination.
"Porter! Put my things off. I'll wait here for the morning train."