_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_
THE PRIMROSE PATH. _Mrs. Oliphant._
THOMPSON’S PROGRESS. _C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne._
LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM. _H. G. Wells._
THE FOOD OF THE GODS. _H. G. Wells._
KIPPS. _H. G. Wells._
CYNTHIA’S WAY. _Mrs. A. Sidgwick._
CLARISSA FURIOSA. _W. E. Norris._
RAFFLES. _E. W. Hornung._
FRENCH NAN. _Agnes & Egerton Castle._
SPRINGTIME. _H. C. Bailey._
MOONFLEET. _J. Meade Falkner._
WHITE FANG. _Jack London._
MAJOR VIGOUREUX. “_Q._”
EIGHT DAYS. _R. E. Forrest._
THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE. _Sir G. Parker._
A LAME DOG’S DIARY. _S. Macnaughtan._
FORTUNE OF CHRISTINA M’NAB. _S. Macnaughtan._
THE RECIPE FOR DIAMONDS. _C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne._
OLD GORGON GRAHAM. _George Horace Lorimer._
MRS. GALER’S BUSINESS. _W. Pett Ridge._
THE DUENNA OF A GENIUS. _M. E. Francis._
THE OCTOPUS. _Frank Norris._
THE PIT. _Frank Norris._
MATTHEW AUSTIN. _W. E. Norris._
HIS GRACE. _W. E. Norris._
MARCELLA. _Mrs. Humphry Ward._
THE INTRUSIONS OF PEGGY. _Anthony Hope._
THE PRINCESS PASSES. _C. N. & A. M. Williamson._
_And Many Other Equally Popular Copyright Novels._
_NELSON’S LIBRARY._
[Illustration]
[Illustration: She loosed his horse’s rein, and led it rapidly towards
her own horse.]
[Illustration:
The War
of the
Carolinas
By
MEREDITH
NICHOLSON
THOMAS NELSON
AND SONS]
[Illustration]
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._
TO YOU AT THE GATE.
There was a daisy-meadow, that flowed brimming to the stone wall at
the roadside, and on the wooded crest beyond a lamp twinkled in a
house round which stole softly the unhurried, eddyless dusk. You stood
at the gate, your arms folded on the top bar, your face uplifted,
watching the stars and the young moon of June. I was not so old but
that I marked your gown of white, your dark head, your eyes like the
blue of mid-ocean sea-water in the shadow of marching billows. As
my step sounded you looked up startled, a little disdainful, maybe;
then you smiled gravely; but a certain dejection of attitude, a sweet
wistfulness of lips and eyes, arrested and touched me; and I stole
on guiltily, for who was I to intrude upon a picture so perfect, to
which moon and stars were glad contributors? As I reached the crown of
the road, where it dipped down to a brook that whispered your name, I
paused and looked back, and you waved your hand as though dismissing me
to the noisy world of men.
In other Junes I have kept tryst with moon and stars beside your gate,
where daisies flow still across the meadow, and insect voices blur the
twilight peace; but I have never seen again your house of shadows among
the trees, or found you dreaming there at the gate with uplifted face
and wistful eyes. But from the ridge, where the road steals down into
the hollow with its fireflies and murmuring water, I for ever look back
to the star- and moon-hung gate in the wall, and see your slim, girlish
figure, and can swear that you wave your hand.
KATONAH, _June 30, 1908_. M. N.
CONTENTS.
I. TWO GENTLEMEN SAY GOOD-BYE 7
II. THE ABSENCE OF GOVERNOR OSBORNE 29
III. THE JUG AND MR. ARDMORE 40
IV. DUTY AND THE JUG 55
V. MR. ARDMORE OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED 71
VI. MR. GRISWOLD FORSAKES THE ACADEMIC LIFE 89
VII. AN AFFAIR AT THE STATE HOUSE 100
VIII. THE LABOURS OF MR. ARDMORE 115
IX. THE LAND OF THE LITTLE BROWN JUG 129
X. PROFESSOR GRISWOLD TAKES THE FIELD 138
XI. TWO LADIES ON A BALCONY 149
XII. THE EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE DUKE OF BALLYWINKLE 160
XIII. MISS DANGERFIELD TAKES A PRISONER 175
XIV. A MEETING OF OLD FRIENDS 191
XV. THE PRISONER IN THE CORN-CRIB 209
XVI. THE FLIGHT OF GILLINGWATER 228
XVII. ON THE ROAD TO TURNER’S 237
XVIII. THE BATTLE OF THE RACCOON 246
XIX. IN THE RED BUNGALOW 255
XX. ROSÆ MUNDI 269
XXI. GOOD-BYE TO JERRY DANGERFIELD 281
THE WAR OF THE CAROLINAS.
CHAPTER I.
TWO GENTLEMEN SAY GOOD-BYE.
“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 Libelling 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 towards the gate. “I thought
you exhausted the Creole restaurants long ago.”
“The fact is,” faltered Ardmore, colouring, “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 for ever. 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 armour 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 soil, 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 towards 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
libelling 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 moustache 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 colour 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
headlines. 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 honoured
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 rumoured 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 travelling 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 humour, 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 traveller 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
honour 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 coloured 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 travelling skirt on the farther 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 colour, 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 Phœbe, 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 odour 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 colour deepened in the girl’s face; a slight frown gathered in
her smooth forehead; then she called the coloured 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 colour,
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 travellers, 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 Phœbe 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 humour,
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
humour. 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 laboured 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
travelling 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.”