THE EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE DUKE OF BALLYWINKLE.
Mr. Frank Collins, of the Atlanta _Palladium_, trod the ties beyond
Kildare with a light heart, gaily swinging a suit-case. He had walked
far, but a narrow-brim straw hat, perched on the back of his head, and
the cheery lilt of the waltz he whistled, spoke for a jaunty spirit. As
his eye ranged the landscape he marked a faint cloud of smoke rising
beyond a lonely strip of wood; and coming to a dilapidated piece of
track that led vaguely away into the heart of the forest, he again
noted the tiny smoke-cloud. On such a day the half-gods go and the
gods arrive; and the world that afternoon knew no cheerfuller spirit
than the _Palladium’s_ agile young commissioner. Mr. Collins was not
only in capital health and spirits, but he rejoiced in that delicious
titillation of expectancy which is the chief compensation of the
journalist’s life. His mission was secret, and this in itself gave
flavour to his errand; and, moreover, it promised adventures of a kind
that were greatly to his liking.
As the woodland closed in about him and the curving spur carried him
farther from the main right of way, he ceased whistling, and his steps
became more guarded. Suddenly a man rose from the bushes and levelled a
long arm at him detainingly.
“Stop, young man, stop where you are!”
“Hello!” called Collins, pausing. “Well, I’m jiggered if it ain’t old
Cookie. I say, old man, is the untaxed juice flowing in the forest
primeval or what brings you here?”
Cooke grinned as he recalled the reporter, whom he remembered as a
particularly irrepressible specimen of his genus whom he had met while
pursuing moonshiners in Georgia. The two shook hands amiably midway of
the two streaks of rust.
“Young man, I think I told you once before that your legs were
altogether too active. I want you to light right out of here--skip!”
“Not for a million dollars. Our meeting is highly opportune, Cookie.
It’s not for me to fly in the face of Providence. I’m going to see
what’s doing down here.”
“All right,” replied Cooke. “Take it all in and enjoy yourself; but
you’re my prisoner.”
“Oh, that will be all right! So long as I’m with you I can’t lose out.”
“March!” called Cooke, dropping behind; and thus the two came in a few
minutes to the engine, the cars, and the caboose. From the locomotive a
slight smoke still trailed hazily upward.
Thomas Ardmore, coatless and hatless, sat on the caboose steps writing
messages on a broad pad, while a telegraph instrument clicked busily
within. One of his men had qualified as operator, and a pile of
messages at his elbow testified to Ardmore’s industry. Ardmore clutched
in his left hand a message recently caught from the wire, which he
re-read from time to time with increasing satisfaction. It had been
sent from Ardsley and ran:
I shall ride to-night on the road that leads south beyond the red
bungalow, and on the bridle-path that climbs the ridge on the west,
called Sunset Trail. A certain English gentleman will accompany me.
It will be perfectly agreeable to me to come back alone.
G. D.
Ardmore was still writing when Cooke stood beneath him under the
caboose platform.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Ardmore, but this is our first prisoner.”
Ardmore signed a despatch, and then looked up and took the pipe from
his mouth. Collins lifted his hat politely.
“Ah, Mr. Ardmore, you see I have taken advantage of your exceedingly
kind invitation to look you up in North Carolina.”
“He was looking for you very hard when I found him, Mr. Ardmore,”
interposed Cooke.
“Your appearance delights me,” said Ardmore, extending his hand to the
reporter. “It was nice of you to walk out here to find me. Wouldn’t
they put you up at the house?”
“Well, the fact is I didn’t stop there. My paper sent me in this
general direction on business, but I had every honourable intention of
making you that visit after I finished my assignment. But Cookie here
says I’m arrested.”
“He’s a dangerous character and can’t be allowed to run loose in these
parts. I’m going to tie him up,” said Cooke.
“May I ask you, Mr. Collins, just what you are doing here?” inquired
Ardmore.
“You may, and I’ll bet a boiled goose that Cooke and I are on the same
job.”
“What are you looking for?” demanded Ardmore’s chief of staff.
“It’s a big story if I get it, and I have every intention of getting
it,” said Collins guardedly.
“Out with it!” commanded Ardmore.
“The fact is, then, that I’m looking for a person of importance.”
“Go right on, please.”
“And that person is the governor of North Carolina, who is mysteriously
absent from Raleigh. He attended the Cotton Planters’ Convention in
New Orleans. He got as far as Atlanta on his way home, and then
disappeared. I need not say to gentlemen of your intelligence that
a lost governor is ripe fruit in my business, and I have reason to
believe that for some purpose of his own the governor of North Carolina
is hiding in this very neighbourhood.”
Cooke glanced at Ardmore for instructions, but the master of Ardsley
preferred to keep the matter in his own hands.
“So you want to find the governor of North Carolina, do you? Well, you
shall not be disappointed. You are too able and zealous to be wasted on
journalism. I have a feeling that you are destined to higher things.
Something told me when we met in Atlanta that fate had set us apart for
each other. That was why I asked you to visit me when I really didn’t
know but that, after learning where the spoons are kept, you would skip
without leaving your subsequent address. But now there is important
business on hand, and the state of North Carolina will take the liberty
of borrowing you from Georgia until the peace of the Old North State
is restored. And now, Collins, I will make a disclosure that will
undoubtedly startle you a good deal, but you are no longer employed
by the Atlanta _Palladium_, and your obligations to that journal must
be transferred to the state in which you now stand. You came here,
Collins, to look for the governor of North Carolina, and your wits
and your argus-nose for news have served you well. You have found the
governor of North Carolina: _I_ am he!”
Collins had stood during this recital in the middle of the track,
with his legs wide apart, calmly fanning himself with his hat; but as
Ardmore proceeded the reporter’s hand dropped to his side, and a grin
that had overspread his face slowly yielded to a blank stare.
“Would you mind repeating those last words?”
“_I_ am the governor of North Carolina, Mr. Collins. The manner in
which I attained that high office is not important. It must suffice
that I am in sole charge of the affairs of this great state, without
relief from valuation or appraisement laws and without benefit of
clergy. And we have much to do here; mere social conversation must
await an ampler time. I now appoint you publicity agent to the
governor. Your business is to keep the people fooled--all the people
all the time. In other words, you are chief liar to the administration,
a position of vast responsibility, for which you have, if I am a judge
of character, the greatest talents. You will begin by sending out
word that Governor Dangerfield has given up all other work at present
but the destruction of the Appleweight gang. These stories that the
governor has hidden himself to dodge certain duties are all punk--do
you understand?--he is serving the people as he has always served them,
faithfully and with the noblest self-sacrifice. That’s the sort of
stuff I want you to jam into the newspapers all over the world. And
remember--my name does not appear in the business at all--neither now
nor hereafter.”
“But by the ghost of John C. Calhoun, don’t you see that I’m losing the
chance of my life in my own profession? There’s a story in this that
would put me to the top and carry me right into New York,” and Collins
glanced about for his suit-case, as though meditating flight.
“Your appointment has gone into effect,” said Ardmore with finality,
“and if you bolt you will be caught and made to walk the plank. And so
far as your future is concerned, you shall have a newspaper of your own
anywhere you please as soon as this war is over.”
The three men adjourned to the caboose where Ardmore told Collins all
that it seemed necessary for the newspaper man to know; and within
half an hour the new recruit had entered thoroughly into the spirit
of the adventure, though his mirth occasionally got the better of
him, and he bowed his head in his hands and surrendered himself to
laughter. Thereafter, until the six o’clock supper was ready, he
kept the operator occupied. He sent to the _Palladium_ a thoroughly
plausible story, giving prominence to the Appleweight case and laying
stress on Governor Dangerfield’s vigorous personality and high sense
of official responsibility. He sent queries to leading journals
everywhere, offering exclusive news of the rumoured disappearance of
North Carolina’s governor. His campaign of publicity for the state
administration was broadly planned, though he was losing a great
opportunity to beat the world with a stunning story of the amazing
nerve with which Ardmore, the young millionaire, had assumed the duties
of governor of North Carolina in the unaccountable absence of Governor
Dangerfield from his capital. The whole thing was almost too good to be
true, and Collins put away the idea of flight only upon realizing the
joyous possibilities of sharing, no matter how humbly, in the fate of
an administration which was fashioning the drollest of card-houses. He
did not know, and was not to know until long afterwards, just how the
young master of Ardsley had leaped into the breach; but Ardmore was an
extraordinary person, whose whims set him quite apart from other men,
and while, even if he escaped being shot, the present enterprise would
undoubtedly lead to a long term in jail, Collins had committed himself
to Ardmore’s cause and would be faithful to it, no matter what happened.
Ardmore took Collins more fully into his confidence during the
lingering twilight, and the reporter made many suggestions that were of
real value. Meanwhile Cooke’s men brought three horses from the depths
of the forest, and saddled them. Cooke entered the caboose for a final
conference with Ardmore and a last look at the maps.
“Too bad,” remarked the acting governor, “that we must wait until
to-morrow night to pick up the Appleweights, but our present business
is more important. It’s time to move, Cooke.”
They rode off in single file on the faintest of trails through the
woods, Cooke leading and Ardmore and Collins following immediately
behind him. The great host of summer stars thronged the sky, and the
moon sent its soft effulgence across the night. They presently forded
a noisy stream, and while they were seeking the trail again on the
farther side an owl hooted a thousand yards up the creek, and while
the line re-formed Cooke paused and listened. Then the owl’s call was
repeated farther off, and so faintly that Cooke alone heard it. He laid
his hand on Ardmore’s rein:
“There’s a foot-trail that leads along that creek, and it’s very
rough and difficult to follow. Half a mile from here there used to be
a still, run by one of the Appleweights. We smashed it once, but no
doubt they are operating again by this time. That hoot of the owl is
a warning common among the pickets put out by these people. Wireless
telegraphy isn’t in it with them. Every Appleweight within twenty
miles will know in half an hour how many there are of us and just what
direction we are taking. We must not come back here to-night. We must
put up on your place somewhere and let them think, if they will, we are
guests of yours out for an evening ride.”
“That’s all right. Unless we complete this job in about two days my
administration is a fizzle,” said Ardmore, as they resumed their march
through the forest. There was a wilder fling to the roll of the land
now, but the underbrush was better cleared, and the trail had become a
bridle-path that had known man’s care.
“This is some of Paul’s work,” said Ardmore; “and if I am not very
much mistaken we are on my land now and headed straight enough for the
wagon-road that leads south beyond the red bungalow. These roads in
here were planned to give variety, but I never before appreciated how
complicated they are.”
The path stretched away through the heavy forest, and they climbed to a
ridge that commanded a wide region that lay bathed in silver moonlight,
so softly luminous that it seemed of the stuff of shadows made light.
Westward, a mile distant, lay Ardsley, only a little below the level of
the ridge and touched with a faint purple as of spring twilight.
Ardmore sat his saddle, quietly contemplating the great house that
struck him almost for the first time as imposing. He felt, too, a
little heartache that he did not quite understand. He was not sure
whether it was the effect of the moon, or whether he was tired, or what
it was, though he thought perhaps the moon had something to do with
it. His own house, of which he was sincerely fond, seemed mistily hung
between heaven and earth in the moonlight, a thing not wholly of this
world; and in his depression of spirit he reflected for a moment on his
own aimless, friendless life; he knew then that he was lonely, and that
there was a great void in his mind and heart and soul, and he knew also
that Jerry Dangerfield and not the moon was the cause of his melancholy.
“We’d better be moving,” suggested Cooke.
“It’s too bad to leave that picture,” remarked Collins, sighing. “Had
I the lyre of Gray I should compose an ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of
Ardsley Castle,’ which would ultimately reach the school readers and
bring me fame more enduring than brass.”
“Did you say brass?” ironically scoffed Cooke.
Whereupon the _Palladium’s_ late representative laughed softly and
muttered to himself,
“Proud pile, by mighty Ardmore’s hand upreared!”
“Cut it out,” commanded Cooke, “or I’ll drop you into the ravine. Look
below there!”
Looking off from the ridge they saw a man and a woman riding along
a strip of road from which the timber had been cut. The night was
so still, the gray light so subdued, that the two figures moved as
steadily and softly as shadow pictures on a screen.
The slow, even movement of the riders was interrupted suddenly. The
man, who was nearer the remote observers, had stopped and bent towards
the woman as though to snatch her rein, when her horse threw up its
head and fell back on its haunches. Then the woman struck the man a
blow with her riding-crop, and galloped swiftly away along the white,
ribbon-like road. In the perfect night-silence it was like a scene of
pantomime.
“That’s all right!” cried Cooke. “Come along! We’ll cut into that road
at the bungalow.”
They swung their horses away from the ridge and back into the
bridle-path, which once more dipped sharply down into heavy timber,
Cooke leading the way, and three of the best hunters known to the
Ardsley stables flew down the clear but winding path. The incident
which the trio had witnessed required no interpretation: the girl’s
blow and flight had translated it into language explicit enough.
Ardmore thanked his German forester a thousand times for the admirable
bridle-path over which they galloped, with its certain footing beneath
and clean sweep from the boughs above. The blood surged hotly through
his heart, and he was angry for the first time in his life; but his
head was cool, and the damp air of the forest flowing by tranquillized
him into a new elation of spirit. Jerry Dangerfield was the dearest and
noblest and bravest girl in the world--he knew that: and she was clever
and resourceful enough to devise means for preserving her father’s
official and private honour; and not less quick to defend herself from
insult from a titled scoundrel. She was the most inexplicable of girls;
but at the same time she was beyond any question the wisest. The
thought that he should now see her soon, after all the years that had
passed since he had introduced her to his sister at Raleigh, filled him
with wild delight, and he prayed that in her mad flight from the Duke
of Ballywinkle no harm might come to her.
The three men rode out into the broad highway at the red bungalow and
paused to listen.
“He hasn’t got here yet. Only one person has passed, and these must be
the tracks of the girl’s horse,” said Cooke, who had dismounted and
struck matches, the better to observe the faint hoof-prints in the hard
shell road.
“He’ll be along in a minute. Let us get into the shadow of the
bungalow, and when he comes we’ll ride out and nail him. The bungalow’s
a sort of way house. I often stop here when I’m out on the estate and
want to rest. I have the key in my pocket.”
As Ardmore’s keys jingled in the lock Cooke cried out softly. Their
quarry was riding swiftly towards them, and he drew rein before the
bungalow as Cooke and Collins rode out to meet him.
“I say,” panted the duke.
“You are our prisoner. Dismount and come into this house.”
“Prisoner, you fool! I’m a guest at Ardsley, and I’m looking for a
lady.”
“That’s a very unlikely story.--Collins, help the gentleman down;”
and the reporter obeyed instructions with so much zeal that the noble
gentleman fell prone, and was assisted to his feet with a fine mockery
of helpfulness.
“I tell you I’m looking for a lady whose horse ran away with her! I’m
the Duke of Ballywinkle, and brother-in-law to Mr. Ardmore. I’ll have
you sent to jail if you stop me here.”
“Come along, Duke, and we’ll see what you look like,” said Cooke,
leading the way to the bungalow veranda. Within Ardmore was lighting
lamps. There was a long room finished in black oak, with a fireplace
at one end, and a table in the centre. The floors were covered with
handsome rugs, and the walls were hung with photographs and etchings.
Ardmore sat on the back of a leather settee in a pose assumed at the
moment of the duke’s entrance. It was a pose of entire nonchalance,
and Ardmore’s cap, perched on the back of his head, and his brown hair
rumpled boyishly, added to the general effect of comfort and ease.
The duke blinked for a moment in the lamplight, then he roared out
joyously:
“Ardy, old man!” and advanced towards his brother-in-law with
outstretched hand.
“Keep him off; he’s undoubtedly quite mad,” said Ardmore, staring
coldly, and bending his riding-crop across his knees. “Collins, please
ride on after the lady and bring her back this way.”
Cooke had seated the prisoner rather rudely in a chair, and the noble
duke, having lost the power of speech in amazement and fright, rubbed
his eyes and then fastened them incredulously on Ardmore; but there
was no question about it, he had been seized with violence; he had
been repudiated by his own brother-in-law--the useless, stupid Tommy
Ardmore, who at best had only a child’s mind for pirate stories, and
who was indubitably the most negligible of negligible figures in the
drama of life as the duke knew it.
“Cooke,” began Ardmore, addressing his lieutenant gravely from his
perch on the settee, “what is the charge against this person?”
“He says he’s a duke,” grinned Cooke, taking his cue from Ardmore’s
manner. “And he says he’s visiting at Ardsley.”
“That,” said Ardmore with decision, “is creditable only to the
gentleman’s romantic imagination. His face is anything but dukely, and
there’s a red streak across it which points clearly to the recent
sharp blow of a weapon; and no one would ever strike a duke. It’s
utterly incredible,” and Ardmore lifted his brows and leaned back
with his arms at length and his hands clasping the riding-crop, as he
contemplated with supreme satisfaction the tell-tale red line across
the duke’s cheek.
The Duke of Ballywinkle leaped to his feet, the colour that suffused
his pale face hiding for the moment the mark of the riding-stick.
“What the devil is this joke, Ardy?” screamed the duke. “You know I’m a
guest at your house; you know I’m your sister’s husband. I was riding
with Miss Dangerfield, and her horse ran away with her, and she may
come to harm unless I go after her. This cut on the face I got from a
low limb of one of your infernal trees. You are putting me in a devil
of an embarrassing position by holding me here.”
He spoke with dignity, and Ardmore heard him through in silence; but
when he had finished, the master of Ardsley pointed to the chair.
“As I understand you, you are pleading not guilty; and you pretend to
some acquaintance with me; but I am unable to recall you. We may have
met somewhere, sometime, but I really don’t know you. The title to
which you pretend is unfamiliar to me; but I will frankly disclose to
you that I, sir, am the governor of North Carolina.”
“The what?” bleated the duke, his eyes bulging.
“I repeat, that I am the governor of North Carolina, and as a state
of war now exists in my unhappy kingdom, I, sir, have assumed all the
powers conferred upon the three co-ordinate branches of government
under the American system--namely, or if you prefer it, I will say, to
wit: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. It is thus not
only my privilege but my painful duty to pass upon your case in all its
sad aspects. As I have already suspended the writ of habeas corpus and
set aside the right to trial by jury, we will consider that I sit here
as the supreme court.”
“For God’s sake, Ardy----” howled the duke.
“That remark I will not now construe as profanity, but don’t let it
occur again. The first charge against you is that of insulting a woman
on the Sunset Trail in the estate called Ardsley, owned by a person
known in law as Thomas Ardmore. There are three witnesses to the fact
that you tried to stop a woman in the road, and that streak on your
face is even more conclusive. Are you guilty or not guilty?”
“You are mad! You are crazy!” shouted the duke; but his face was very
white now, and the mark of the crop flamed scarlet.
“You are guilty, beyond any question. But the further charge against
you that you pretend to be--what did he say his name was, Cooke?--that
you pretend to be the Duke of Ballywinkle must now be considered. That
is quite right, is it; you say you are the duke?”
“Yes, you fool!” howled the duke. “I’ll have the law on you for this!
I’ll appeal to the British ambassador.”
“I advise you not to appeal to anybody,” said Ardmore, “and the British
ambassador is without jurisdiction in North Carolina. You have yourself
asserted that you are the Duke of Ballywinkle. Why Ballywinkle? Why not
Argyll? why not Westminster? Why not, if duke you must be, the noble
Duke of York?”
The Duke of Ballywinkle sat staring, stupefied. The whole thing was one
of his silly brother-in-law’s stupid jokes; there was no question of
that; and Tommy Ardmore was always a bore; but in spite of the comfort
he derived from these reflections the duke was not a little uneasy;
for he had never seen his brother-in-law in just this mood, and he did
not like it. Ardmore was carrying the joke too far; and there was an
assurance in Ardmore’s tone, and a light in Ardmore’s eyes, that were
ominous. Cooke had meanwhile lighted his pipe and was calmly smoking
until his chief should have his fling.
Ardmore now drew from his pocket Johnston’s _American Politics_ with an
air of greatest seriousness.
“Cooke,” he said, half to himself, as he turned the pages, “do you
remember just what the constitution says about dukes? Oh yes, here
we are! Now, Mr. Duke of Ballywinkle, listen to what it says here in
Section IX. of the Constitution of the United States, which reads
exactly as follows in this book: ‘No title of nobility shall be granted
by the United States: And no person holding any office of profit or
trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of
any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from
any king, prince, or foreign state.’ And it says in Section X. that ‘No
state shall grant any title of nobility.’ Now, Mr. Ballywinkle, it is
perfectly clear that this government can’t recognize anything that it
can’t create, for that would be foolish. As I, the governor of North
Carolina, can’t make a duke, I can’t see one. You are therefore wholly
illegal; it’s against the most sacred law of the land for you to be
here at all; and painful though it is to me, it is nevertheless my duty
to order you to leave the United States at once, never to return. In
fact, if you ever appear in the United States again, I hereby order
that you be hanged by the neck until you be dead. One of Mr. Cooke’s
men will accompany you to New York to-morrow and see to it that you
take passage on a steamer bound for a British port. The crime of having
insulted a woman will still hang over you until you are well east of
Sandy Hook, and I advise you not to risk being tried on that charge
in North Carolina, as my people are very impulsive and emotional, and
lynchings are not infrequent in our midst. You shall spend to-night in
my official caboose some distance from here, and your personal effects
will be brought from Ardsley, where, you have said, you are a guest of
Mr. Thomas Ardmore, who is officially unknown to me. The supreme court
will now adjourn.”
Cooke pulled the limp, bewildered duke to his feet, and dragged him
from the bungalow.
As they stepped out on the veranda Collins rode up in alarm.
“I followed this road to a cross-road where it becomes a bridle-path
and runs off into the forest. There I lost all trace of the lady, but
here is her riding-crop.”
“Cooke, take your prisoner to the caboose; and, Collins, come with me,”
commanded Ardmore; and a moment later he and the reporter rode off
furiously in search of Jerry Dangerfield.
CHAPTER XIII.
MISS DANGERFIELD TAKES A PRISONER.
A dozen men carrying rifles across their saddle-bows rode away from
Habersham’s farm on the outskirts of Turner Court House and struck
a rough trail that led a devious course over the hills. At their
head rode the guide of the expedition--a long, silent man on a mule.
Griswold and Habersham followed immediately behind him on horseback.
Their plans had been carefully arranged before they left their
rendezvous, and save for an occasional brief interchange between the
prosecuting attorney and the governor’s special representative, the
party jogged on in silence. Habersham’s recruits were, it may be
said, farmers of the border, who had awaited for years just such an
opportunity as now offered to avenge themselves upon the insolent
Appleweights. Nearly every man of the party had some private score to
settle, but they had all been sworn as special constables, and were
sobered by the knowledge that the power of the state of South Carolina
was back of them.
Thus, at the very hour that Mr. Ardmore and his lieutenants rode
away from the lonely anchorage of the caboose, Professor Griswold
and his cavalcade set out for Mount Nebo Church. While the master
of Ardsley was revenging himself upon the Duke of Ballywinkle, his
dearest friend, against whom he had closed the doors of his house, was
losing no time in setting forth upon a mission which, if successful,
would seriously interfere with all Mr. Ardmore’s hopes and plans.
Ardmore’s scarlet fever telegram no longer rankled in the breast of the
associate professor of admiralty of the University of Virginia, for
Griswold knew that no matter what might be the outcome of his effort
to uphold the dignity of the sovereign state of South Carolina, his
participation in any such adventure would so cover his friend with envy
that he would have him for ever at his mercy. Thomas Ardmore deserved
punishment--there was no doubt of that, and as Professor Griswold was
not more or less than a human being, he took comfort of the reflection.
The guide of the expedition pushed his mule forward at a fast walk,
making no excuses to Griswold and Habersham for the roughness of the
trails he chose, nor troubling to give warning of sharp turns where a
horse, being less wise than a mule, tobogganed madly before finding
a foothold. Occasionally a low-hanging limb switched the associate
professor sharply across the face, but his temper continued serene
where the trail was darkest and steepest, and he found himself ignoring
Habersham’s occasional polite questions about the university in his
effort to summon up in memory certain ways of Barbara Osborne which
baffled him. He deplored the time he had given to the study of a stupid
profession like the law, when, if he had applied himself with equal
diligence to poetry, he might have made for himself a place at least as
high in belles-lettres. In his college days he had sometimes thrummed
a guitar, and there was a little song in his heart, half formed, and
with only a line or two as yet tangible, which he felt sure he could
write down on paper if it were not that the bugles summoned him to war;
it was a song of a white rose which a lover wore in his heart, through
winter and summer, and it never changed, and the flight of the seasons
had no manner of effect on it.
“Check up, cain’t you?” snarled the man on the mule, laying hold of
Griswold’s rein; and thus halted, Griswold found that they had been
circling round a curiously symmetrical, thickly wooded hill, and had
finally come to a clearing whence they were able to gaze far off toward
the north.
“We are almost out of bounds,” said Habersham, pointing. “Over there
somewhere, across the hills, lies North Carolina. I am as thoroughly
lost as you can possibly be; but these men know where they are.--How
far is it, Billy”--he addressed the silent guide--“to Mount Nebo?”
“About four mile, and I reckon we’d better let out a leetle now, or
they’ll sing the doxology before we git thar.”
“What’s that light away off there?” asked Habersham.
The guide paused to examine it, and the faint glow far down the vale
seemed to perplex him. He spoke to one or two other natives, and they
viewed the light ruminatively, as is their way.
“Thet must be on Ardmore’s land,” said the leader finally. “It shoots
out all sorts o’ ways round hyeh, and I reckon thet’s about wheh
Raccoon Creek cuts through.”
“That’s very likely,” said Habersham. “I’ve seen the plat of what
Ardmore owns on this side the border at the court house, and I remember
that there’s a long strip in Mingo County that is Ardsley land. Ardmore
has houses of one kind and another scattered all over the estate, and
those lights may be from one of them. You know the place, don’t you?”
“Yes; I’ve visited there,” admitted Griswold. “But we’d better give it
a wide berth. The whole estate is simply infested with scarlet fever.
They’re quarantined.”
“I guess that’s a joke,” said Habersham. “There’s a big party on there
now, and I have seen some of the guests in Turner’s within a day or
two.”
“Within how many days?” demanded Griswold, his heart sinking at
the thought that Ardmore had lied to him to keep him away from
Ardsley--from Ardmore’s house! The thought of it really hurt him now.
Could it be possible that Ardmore had guests so distinguished that he,
Griswold, was not worthy to make their acquaintance! He experienced a
real pang as he thought that here he was, within a short ride of the
home of his dearest friend, the man whom most he loved of all men, and
that he had been denied the door of that friend’s house.
“Come on!” called Habersham.
Half the company rode ahead to gain the farther side of the church; the
remainder, including Griswold and Habersham, soon dismounted and tied
their horses out of sight of the country road which they had latterly
been following.
“We are in plenty of time,” said Habersham, looking at his watch.
“The rest of the boys are closing in from the other side, and they
will be ready for Appleweight when he finishes his devotions. We’ve
been studying the old man’s habits, and he has a particular place
where he ties his horse back of the church. It’s a little apart from
the fence where most of the congregation hitch, and he chose it, no
doubt, because in case of a surprise he would have plenty of room for
manoeuvring. Two men are going to lay for him, seize and gag him, and
carry him into the wood back of the church; and then we’re off across
the state line to lock him up in jail at Kildare and give Governor
Dangerfield the shock of his life.”
“It sounds simple enough; but it won’t be long before Appleweight’s
friends miss him. You must remember that they are a shrewd lot.”
“We’ve got to take our chances. Let’s hope we are as shrewd as they
are,” replied Habersham.
They moved softly through the wood, and presently the faint sound of
singing reached them.
“Old Rabdick has finished his sermon, and we’ll know the worst in a few
minutes.”
One of the party had already detached himself and crept forward toward
the church, to meet his appointed comrade in the enterprise, who was to
come in from the other side.
The clapboard church presented in the moonlight the austerest outlines,
and as the men waited, a rude though unseen hand was slamming the
wooden shutters that protected the windows from impious violence.
“We could do with less moon,” muttered Habersham, as he and Griswold
peered through the trees into the churchyard.
“There goes Bill Appleweight now,” whispered one of the natives at his
elbow, and Griswold felt his heart-beats quicken as he watched a tall
figure silhouetted against the church and moving swiftly toward the
rear of the building. At the front of the church voices sounded, as the
departing worshippers rode or drove slowly away.
Habersham laid his hand suddenly on Griswold’s arm.
“They’ve got him! They’ve nailed him! See! There! They’re yanking him
back into the timber. They’ve taken him and his horse!”
Griswold saw nothing but a momentary confusion of shadows, then perfect
silence hung over the woods behind the little church. The congregation
was slowly dispersing, riding away in little groups. Suddenly a voice
called out in the road a hundred yards beyond the church:
“Hey there! Where’s Bill?”
“Oh, he’s gone long ago!” yelled another.
In a moment more the church door slammed and a last figure rode rapidly
away.
“Now we’ll see what’s happened,” said Habersham. “It looks almost too
easy.”
The members of Griswold’s party who had been thrown round to the
farther side of the church began to appear, one at a time. There was
no nervousness among any of the band--a fact that impressed Griswold.
They were all risking much in this enterprise, but they were outwardly
unperturbed, and chewing their tobacco silently while they awaited
the return of the two active agents in the conspiracy who had dealt
directly with Appleweight. Habersham counted heads, and announced all
present or accounted for.
The tall leader who had ridden the mule was the first to rise out of
the underbrush, through which he had crawled circuitously from the rear
of the church. His companion followed a few seconds later.
“We’ve got Bill, all tied and gagged and a-settin’ of his hoss,”
drawled the leader, “and the hoss is tied to the back fence. Rest o’
his boys thought he’d gone ahead, but they may miss him and come back.
He’s safe enough, and ef we keep away from him we’ll be ready to light
out ef the gang scents trouble and comes back to look fer Bill.”
“You’re sure he’s tied up so he can’t break away or yell?”
“He’s as good as dead, a-settin’ of his hoss in the thicket back theh.”
“And now,” said Habersham, “what we’ve got to do is to make a run for
it and land him across the border, and stick him into a North Carolina
jail, where he rightfully belongs. The question is, can we do it all in
one night, or had we better lock him up somewhere on this side the line
and take another night for it? The sheriff over there in Kildare is
Appleweight’s cousin, but we’ll lock him up with Bill, to make a family
party of it.”
“We’d better not try too much to-night,” counselled Griswold. “It’s
a big thing to have the man himself. If it were not for the matter
of putting Governor Dangerfield in a hole, I’d favour hurrying with
Appleweight to Columbia, just for the moral effect of it on the people
of South Carolina. We’d make a big killing for the administration that
way, Habersham.”
“Yes, you’d make a killing all right, but you’d have Bill Appleweight
on your hands, which Governor Osborne has not until lately been anxious
for,” replied Habersham, in a low tone that was heard by no one but his
old preceptor.
“You’d better get over the idea that we’re afraid of this outlaw,”
rejoined Griswold. “The governor of North Carolina dare not call his
soul his own where these hill people are concerned; but the governor of
South Carolina is a different sort.”
“The governor of North Carolina is filling the newspapers with his own
virtuous intentions in the matter,” remarked Habersham, “but his sudden
zeal puts one upon inquiry.”
“I hope you don’t imply that the motives of the governor of South
Carolina are not the worthiest?” demanded Griswold hotly.
“Most certainly not!” returned the prosecuting attorney; but a smile
flitted across his face--a smile which, in the darkness, Griswold did
not see. “The two governors are very different men--wholly antipodal
characters, in fact,” and again Habersham smiled to himself.
While they thus stood on South Carolina soil, waiting for the safe and
complete dispersion of the Mount Nebo congregation before seizing the
captive they had gagged and tied at the rear of the little church,
the fates were ordering a very different termination of the night’s
business.
Miss Jerry Dangerfield, galloping away from the Duke of Ballywinkle,
with no thought but to widen the distance between them, turned off at
the first cross-road, which began well enough, but degenerated rapidly
into a miserable trail, through which she was obliged to walk her
horse. Before she was aware of it she was in the midst of a clearing
where labourers had lately been cutting timber, and she found, on
turning to make her way out, that she was quite lost, for three trails,
all seemingly alike, struck off into the forest. She spoke aloud to the
horse to reassure herself, and smiled as she viewed the grim phalanx
of stumps. She must, however, find her way back to Ardsley, for there
were times when Jerry Dangerfield could be very serious with herself,
though it rarely pleased her to be serious with other people; and she
knew that the time had long passed for her return to the house. If
her conspiracy with Thomas Ardmore had proved successful, the duke
would not return to the great house; but her own prolonged absence was
something that had not been in her programme.
She did not know then that three men had witnessed her flight from
the duke, or that they had taken swift vengeance upon him for his
unpardonable conduct in the moon-blanched road. It was not Jerry’s way
to accept misfortune tamely, and after circling the wall of timber
that shut her in, in the hope of determining where she had entered,
she chose a trail at random and plunged into the woods. She assumed
that probably all the roads and paths on the estate led more or less
directly, to the great house or to some lodge or bungalow. She had lost
her riding-crop in her mad flight, and she broke off a switch, tossing
its leaves into the moonlight and laughing softly as they rained about
her.
Jerry began whistling gently to herself, for she had never been lost
before, and it is not so bad when you have a good horse, a fair path,
sweet, odorous woods, and the moon to keep you company. She forded a
brook that was silver to eye and ear, and let her horse stand midway of
it for joy in the sight and sound. She had kept no account of time, but
rather imagined that it had not been more than half an hour since the
Duke of Ballywinkle left her so unceremoniously.
Suddenly ahead of her through the woods floated the sound of
singing--one of those strange, wavering _pieux cantiques_ peculiar
to the South. She rode on, thinking to find help and a guide back to
Ardsley; then the music ceased, and lights now flashed faintly before
her, but she went forward guardedly.
“I’m much more lost than I thought I was, for I must be away off
the estate,” she reflected. She turned and rode back a few rods and
dismounted, and tied her horse to a sapling. She was disappointed
at not finding a camp of Ardmore’s woodcutters, to whom she could
unhesitatingly have confided herself; but it seemed wise now to
exercise caution in drawing to herself the attention of strangers.
She did not know that she had crossed the state line and was in South
Carolina, or that the singing she had heard floated from the windows of
Mount Nebo Church.
She became now the astonished witness of a series of incidents that
occurred so swiftly as fairly to take her breath away. A tall, loosely
articulated man came from the direction of the church and walked
toward her. She knelt at the tree and watched, the moonlight giving
her a clear view of a rustic somewhat past middle age, whose chief
characteristic seemed to be a grizzled beard and long arms that swung
oddly at his side. The brim of his wool hat was turned up sharply
from his forehead, and she had a glimpse of the small, keen gray eyes
with which he swept the forest before him. He freed a horse which she
had not before noticed, and she concluded that he would not approach
nearer, for she expected him to mount and ride away to join others
of the congregation whom she heard making off in a road beyond the
church. Then, with a quickness and deftness that baffled her eyes, two
men rose beside him just as he was about to mount; there was no outcry
and no sound of scuffling, so quick was the descent and so perfect the
understanding between the captors. In a moment the man was gathered
up, bound, and flung on his saddle. She had a better view of him, now
that he was hatless, though a gag had been forced into his mouth and
a handkerchief tied over his eyes, so that he presented a grotesque
appearance. Jerry was so absorbed that she forgot to be afraid; never
in her life had she witnessed anything so amazing as this; and now, to
her more complete bewilderment, the captors, after carefully inspecting
their work and finding it satisfactory, seemed to disappear utterly
from the face of the earth.
In the woods to her left she thought she heard a horse neigh; then she
saw shadows moving in that direction; and again, from the road, she
heard the brief debate of the two men as to the whereabouts of “Bill;”
and it struck Jerry humorously that he would not soon see his friends
unless they came and helped him out of his predicament.
It may help to an understanding of Miss Jerry Dangerfield’s character
if it is recorded here that never in her short life had she failed to
respond to the call of impulse. She was lost in the woods, and strange
men lurked about; a man had been attacked, seized, and left sitting in
a state of absurd helplessness on a horse presumably his own, and there
was no guessing what dire penalty his captors had in store for him.
He certainly looked deliciously funny as he sat there in the shadows,
vigorously twisting his arms and head in an effort to free himself.
Quiet reigned in the neighbourhood of the church; the lights had
blinked out; the bang of the closing shutters reassured Jerry, and she
crept on her knees toward the unconscious captive, loosed his horse’s
rein, and led it rapidly toward her own horse, a little farther back in
the woods. Her blindfolded prisoner, thinking his original captors were
carrying him off, renewed his efforts to free himself. He tested the
ropes and straps with which he was fastened by throwing himself first
to one side, then to the other, as far as his gyves would permit, at
the same time frothily chewing his gag.
Jerry gained her own saddle in the least bit of a panic, and when
she had mounted and made sure of the leading-strap with which her
prisoner’s horse was provided, she rode on at a rapid walk until she
reached the clearing, where the stumps again grimly mocked her. She
stopped to listen, and heard through the still night first one cry
and then many voices in various keys of alarm and rage. Then she bent
toward the prisoner, tore the bandage from his eyes, and with more
difficulty freed him of the gag. He blinked and spluttered at this
unexpected deliverance, then blinked and spluttered afresh at seeing
that his captor was a young woman, who was plainly not of his world.
Jerry watched him wonderingly, then addressed him in her most agreeable
tone.
“You were caught and tied by two men over there by a church. I saw
them, and when they went off and left you, I came along and brought you
with me, thinking to save your life. I want to get home as quickly as
possible, and though I do not know you, and am quite sure we never met
before, I hope you will kindly guide me to Ardsley, and thereby render
me a service I shall always deeply appreciate.”
Mr. Bill Appleweight, _alias_ Poteet, was well hardened to the shocks
of time, but this pleasant-voiced girl, coolly sitting her horse, and
holding his own lank steed by a strap, was the most amazing human
being that had yet dawned on his horizon. He was not stupid, but
Jerry’s manner of speech had baffled more sophisticated minds than
Appleweight’s, and the sweet sincerity of her tone, and her frank
countenance, hallowed as it was by the moonlight, wrought in the
outlaw’s mind a befuddlement not wholly unlike that which had possessed
the wits of many young gallants south of the Potomac who had laid siege
to Jerry Dangerfield’s heart. But the cries behind them were more
pronounced, and Appleweight was nothing if not a man of action.
“Take these things off’n me,” he commanded fiercely, “and I’ll see y’
safe to Ardsley.”
“Not in the least,” replied Jerry, who was herself not unmindful of the
voices behind. “You will kindly tell me the way, and I will accommodate
my pace to that of your own somewhat ill-nourished beast. And as
there’s a mob looking for you back there, all ready to hang you to one
of these noble forest trees, I advise you to use more haste and less
caution in pointing the way.”
Appleweight lifted his head and took his bearings. Then he nodded
toward one of the three trails which had so baffled Jerry when first
she broke into the clearing.
“Thet’s the nighest,” said Appleweight, “and we’d better git.”
She set the pace at a trot, and was relieved in a few minutes to pass
one or two landmarks which she remembered from her flight through the
woods. As they splashed through the brook she had forded, she was
quite confident that the captive was playing her no trick, but that
in due course she should strike the highroad to Ardsley which she had
abandoned to throw off the Duke of Ballywinkle.
It was now ten o’clock, and the moon was sinking behind the forest
trees. Jerry took advantage of an occasional straight strip of road to
go forward at a gallop, but these stretches did not offer frequently,
and the two riders kept pretty steadily to a smart trot. They presented
a droll picture as they moved through the forest--the girl, riding
cross-saddle, with the stolen captive trailing after. Occasionally Mr.
Appleweight seemed to be talking to himself, but whether he was praying
or swearing Jerry did not trouble herself to decide. It was enough for
her that she had found a guide out of the wilderness by stealing a
prisoner from his enemies, and this was amusing, and sent bubbling in
her heart those quiet springs of mirth that accounted for so much in
Jerry Dangerfield.
As they walked their horses through a bit of sand the prisoner spoke:
“Who air y’u, little gal?”
Jerry turned in the saddle, so that Appleweight enjoyed a full view of
her face.
“I am perfectly willing to tell you my name, but first it would be more
courteous for you to tell me yours, particularly as I am delivering you
from a band of outlaws who undoubtedly intended to do you harm.”
“I reckon they air skeered to foller us, gal. They air afeard to tackle
th’ ole man, onless they jump in two t’ one; and they cain’t tell who
helped me git away.”
He laughed--a curious, chuckling laugh. He had ceased to struggle
at his bonds, but seemed resigned to his strange fate. He had not
answered Jerry’s question, and had no intention of doing so. The
sudden attack at the church had aroused all his cunning. Appleweight,
_alias_ Poteet, was an old wolf, and knew well the ways of the trapper;
but the bold attempt to kidnap him was a new feature of the game as
heretofore played along the border. He did not make it out; nor was
he wholly satisfied with the girl’s explanation of her own presence
in that out-of-the-way place. She might be a guest at Ardsley, as she
pretended, but women-folk were rarely seen on the estate, and never
in such remote corners of it as Mount Nebo Church. As he pondered the
matter, it seemed incredible that this remarkable young person, whose
innocence was so beguiling, should be in any way leagued with his foes.
He had several times called out directions as they crossed other paths
in the forest, and they now reached the main trunk road of the estate.
The red bungalow, Jerry knew, was not far away. Her prisoner spoke
again.
“Little gal, I’m an ole man, and I hain’t never done y’u no harm.
Your haouse is only a leetle way up thar, and I cain’t be no more
use to y’u. I want t’ go home, and if y’u’ll holp me ontie this yere
harness----” and he grinned as he viewed his bonds in the fuller light
of the open road.
Then hoof-beats thumped the soft earth of another of the trails that
converged at this point, and Ardmore and Collins flashed out upon Jerry
and her captive, amid a wild panic of horses.
Appleweight twisted and turned in his saddle, but Jerry instantly held
up her hand and arrested the inquiries of her deliverers.
“Mr. Ardmore, this gentleman was most rudely set upon by two strangers
as he was leaving a church over there somewhere in the woods. I was
lost, and as his appearance at the time and place seemed almost
providential, I begged him to guide me toward home, which he has
most courteously done;” and Jerry, to give the proper touch to her
explanation, twitched the strap by which she held her prisoner’s horse,
so that it danced, adding a fresh absurdity to the wobbling figure of
its bound rider.
“You are safe!” cried Ardmore in a low tone, to which Jerry nodded
carelessly, in a way that directed attention to the more immediate
business at hand. He was not at once sure of his cue, but there seemed
to be something familiar in the outlines of the man on horseback, and
full identification broke upon him now with astounding vividness.
“Jugs,” he began, addressing the prisoner smilingly, “dear old Jugs,
to think we should meet again! Since you handed me that jug on the
rear end of the train, a few nights ago, life has had new meanings for
me, and I’m just as sorry as can be that I gave you the buttermilk. I
wouldn’t have done such a thing for billions in real money. And now
that you have fallen into the excellent hands of Miss Dangerfield----”
“Dangerfield!” screamed the prisoner, lifting himself as high in the
saddle as his bonds would permit.
“Certainly,” replied Ardmore. “Your rescuer is none other than Miss
Geraldine Dangerfield.”
“Why, gal,” began the outlaw, “ef your pa’s the guv’nor of No’th
Caroline, him an’ me’s old frien’s.”
“Then will you kindly tell me your name?” asked Jerry.
“Allow me to complete the introductions,” interrupted Collins, who
had hung back in silence. “Unless my eyes deceive me, which is wholly
improbable, this is a gentleman whom I once interviewed in the county
jail at Raleigh, and he was known at that time as William Appleweight,
_alias_ Poteet.”
“You air right,” admitted the prisoner without hesitation; and then,
addressing Jerry: “Yer pa would be glad to know his dorter had helped
an ole frien’ like me, gal. Ye may hev heard him speak o’ me.”
“But how about that message in the cork of the jug you put on the train
at Kildare?” demanded Ardmore. “And why did you send your brother to
try to scare me to death at Raleigh?”
“That is not the slightest importance,” interrupted Jerry, gently
playing with the tether which held Mr. Appleweight; “nor does it matter
that papa and this gentleman are friends. If this is, indeed, the
famous outlaw, Mr. William Appleweight, then, papa or no papa, friend
or no friend, he is a prisoner of the state of North Carolina.”
“Pris’ner!” bawled Appleweight--“an’ you the guv’nor’s gal----”
“You have hit the situation exactly, Mr. Appleweight; and as far as
the office of governor is concerned, it is capably filled by the young
gentleman on your left, Mr. Thomas Ardmore. Let us now adjourn to his
house, where, if I am not mistaken, a bit of cold fowl is usually to be
found on the sideboard at this hour. But hold”--and Jerry checked her
horse--“where can we lodge this gentleman, Mr. Ardmore, until we decide
upon his further fate?”
“We might put him in the wine cellar,” suggested Ardmore.
“No,” interposed Collins. “I fancy that much of your fluid stock
has paid revenue tax, and most of it has passed none too lightly
through the custom-house. It would be unwarrantably cruel to lock Mr.
Appleweight in such quarters, with the visible marks of taxation all
around him. Still, the sight of the stamps would probably destroy his
thirst, though his rugged independence might so far assert itself that
he would smash a few of your most expensive importations out of sheer
deviltry.”
“He shall be treated with the greatest consideration,” said Jerry; and
thereafter, no further adventure befalling them, they reached Ardsley,
where their arrival occasioned the greatest excitement.
CHAPTER XIV.
A MEETING OF OLD FRIENDS.
Habersham’s men had proved exceedingly timid when it came to the
business of threshing the woods for Appleweight, whom they regarded
with a new awe, now that he had vanished so mysteriously. They had
searched the woods guardedly, but the narrow paths that led away into
the dim fastnesses of Ardsley were forbidding, and these men were not
without their superstitions. They had awaited for years an opportunity
to strike at the Appleweight faction; they had at last taken their
shot, and had seemingly brought down their bird; but their lack of
spirit in retrieving the game had been their undoing. They had only
aroused their most formidable enemy, who would undoubtedly lose no
time in seeking revenge. They were a dolorous band who, after warily
beating the woods, dispersed in the small hours of the morning, having
found nothing but Appleweight’s wool hat, which only added to their
mystification.
“We ought to have taken him away on the run,” said Habersham
bitterly, as he and Griswold discussed the matter on the veranda of
the prosecutor’s house and watched the coming of the dawn. “I didn’t
realize that those fellows lived in such mortal terror of the old man;
but they refused to make off with him until the last of his friends had
got well out of the way. I ought to have had more sense myself than to
have expected the old fox to sit tied up like a calf ready for market.
We had all his friends accounted for--those that weren’t at prayer
meeting were marked down somewhere else, and we had a line flung pretty
well round the church. Appleweight’s deliverance must have come from
somewhere inside the Ardmore property. Perhaps the game warden picked
him up.”
“Perhaps the Indians captured him,” suggested Griswold, yawning, “or
maybe some Martian came down on a parachute and hauled him up. Or, as
scarlet fever is raging at Mr. Ardmore’s castle”--and his tone was
icy--“Appleweight was probably seized all of a sudden, and broke away
in his delirium. Let’s go to bed.”
At eight o’clock he and Habersham rode into Turner Court House, and
Griswold went at once to the inn to change his clothes. No further
steps could be taken until some definite report was received as to
Appleweight’s whereabouts. The men who had attempted the outlaw’s
capture had returned to their farms, and were most demurely cultivating
the soil. Griswold was thoroughly disgusted at the ridiculous failure
of Habersham’s plans, and not less severe upon himself for failing
to push matters to a conclusion the moment the outlaw was caught,
instead of hanging back to await the safe dispersion of the Mount Nebo
congregation.
It had been the most puerile transaction possible, and he was aware
that a report of it, which he must wire at once to Miss Barbara
Osborne, would not impress that young woman with his capacity or
trustworthiness in difficult occasions. The iron that had already
entered into his soul drove deeper. He had ordered a fresh horse, and
was resolved to return to Mount Nebo Church for a personal study of the
ground in broad daylight.
As he crossed the musty parlour of the little hotel, to his great
astonishment Miss Osborne’s black Phœbe, stationed where her eyes
ranged the whole lower floor of the inn, drew attention to herself in
an elaborate courtesy.
“Miss Barb’ra wish me t’ say she done come heah on business, and she
like fo’ to see yo’ all right away. She done bring huh seddle, and war
a-gwine ridin’ twell you come back. She’s a-gittin’ ready, and I’ll go
tell huh you done come. She got a heap o’ trubble, thet young missis,
so she hev,” and the black woman’s pursed lips seemed to imply that
Professor Griswold was in some measure responsible for Miss Osborne’s
difficulties.
As he stared out into the street a negro brought a horse bearing a
better saddle than Mingo County had ever boasted, and hitched it near
the horse he had secured for himself. An instant later he heard a quick
step above, and Miss Osborne, sedately followed by the black woman,
came downstairs. She smiled and greeted him cordially, but there was
trouble in her brown eyes.
“I didn’t warn you of my coming. I didn’t want to be a nuisance to
you; but there’s a new--a most unaccountable perplexity. It doesn’t
seem right to burden you with it--you have already been so kind about
helping me; but I dare not turn to our oldest friends--I have been
afraid to trust father’s friends at all since Mr. Bosworth acted so
traitorously.”
“My time is entirely at your service, Miss Osborne; but I have a
shameful report to make of myself. I must tell you how miserably I
have failed, before you trust me any further. We--that is to say, the
prosecuting attorney of this county and a party he got together of
Appleweight’s enemies--caught the outlaw last night--took him with the
greatest ease--but he got away from us! It was all my fault, and I’m
deeply disgusted with myself!”
He described the capture and the subsequent mysterious disappearance of
Appleweight, and confessed the obvious necessity for great caution in
further attempts to take the outlaw, now that he was on guard. Barbara
laughed reassuringly at the end of the story.
“Those men must have felt funny when they went back to get the prisoner
and found that he had gone up into the air. But there’s a new feature
of the case that’s more serious than the loss of this man----” and the
trouble again possessed her eyes.
“Well, it’s better not to have our problems too simple. Any lawyer can
win an easy case--though I seem to have lost my first one for you,” he
added penitently.
She made no reply, but drew from her purse a cutting from a newspaper
and handed it to him.
“That’s from last night’s Columbia _Vidette_, which is very hostile to
my father.”
He was already running over the heavily leaded column that set forth
without equivocation the fact that Governor Osborne had not been in
Columbia since he went to New Orleans. It scouted the story that
he was abroad in the state on official business connected with the
Appleweight case--the yam which Griswold had forced upon the friendly
reporter at the telegraph office in Columbia. The governor of a state,
the _Vidette_ went on to elaborate, could not vanish without leaving
some trace of himself, and a _Vidette_ representative had traced the
steps of Governor Osborne from New Orleans until--the italics are
the _Vidette’s_--he had again entered South Carolina _under cover of
night and for purposes which, for the honour of the state, the Vidette
hesitated to disclose_.
The writer of the article had exhausted the possibilities of gentle
suggestion and vague innuendo in an effort to create an impression of
mystery and to pique curiosity as to further developments, which were
promised at any hour. Griswold’s wrath was aroused, not so much against
the newspaper, which he assumed had some fire for its smothered trifle
of smoke, but against the governor of South Carolina himself, who was
causing the finest and noblest girl in the world infinite anxiety and
pain.
“The thing is preposterous,” he said lightly. “The idea that your
father would attempt to enter his own state surreptitiously is
inconceivable in these days when public men are denied all privacy, and
when it’s any man’s right to deceive the press if he finds it essential
to his own comfort and peace; but the intimation that your father is
in South Carolina for any dishonourable purpose is preposterous. One
thing, however, is certain, Miss Osborne, and that is that we must
produce your father at the earliest possible moment.”
“But”--and Barbara hesitated, and her eyes, near tears as they were,
wrought great havoc in Griswold’s soul--“but father must not be found
until this Appleweight matter is settled. You understand without making
me speak the words--that he might not exactly view the matter as we do.”
It was a painful subject; and the fact that she was driven by sheer
force of circumstances to appeal to him, a stranger, to aid her to
perform a public service in her father’s name rallied all his good
impulses to her standard. It was too delicate a matter for discussion;
it was a thing to be ignored; and he assumed at once a lighter tone.
“Come! We must solve the riddle of the lost prisoner at once, and your
father will undoubtedly give an excellent account of himself when he
gets ready. Meanwhile the fiction that he is personally carrying the
war into the Appleweight country must be maintained, and I shall step
to the railway station and wire the Columbia newspaper in his name that
he is in Mingo County on the trail of the outlaws.”
The messages were composed by their joint efforts at the station,
with not so much haste but that an associate professor of admiralty,
twenty-nine years old, could defer in the most trifling matters to the
superior literary taste of a girl of twenty whose brown eyes were very
pleasant to meet in moments of uncertainty and appeal.
He signed the messages Charles Osborne, Governor, with a flourish
indicative of the increased confidence and daring which Miss Osborne’s
arrival had brought to the situation.
“And now,” said Griswold, as they rode through the meagre streets of
Turner’s, “we will go to Mount Nebo Church and see what we can learn of
Appleweight’s disappearance.”
“The North Carolina papers are making a great deal of Governor
Dangerfield’s activity in trying to put down outlawry on the border,”
said Barbara. “Marked copies of the newspapers are pouring into papa’s
office. I can but hold Mr. Bosworth responsible for that. We may count
upon it that he will do all in his power to annoy us”--and then, as
Griswold looked at her quickly, he was aware that she had coloured and
averted her eyes; and while, as a lawyer, he was aware that words of
two letters might be provocative of endless litigation of the bitterest
sort, he had never known before that us, in itself the homeliest of
words, could cause so sweet a distress. It seemed that an interval of
several years passed before either spoke again.
“We are quite near the estate of your friend, Mr. Ardmore, aren’t we?”
asked Barbara presently.
“I fancy we are,” replied Griswold, but with a tone so coldly at
variance with his previous cordial references to the master of Ardsley
that Barbara looked at him inquiringly.
“I’m sorry that I should have given you the impression, Miss Osborne,
that Mr. Ardmore and I are friends, as I undoubtedly did at Columbia.
He has, for some unaccountable reason, cut my acquaintance in a manner
so unlike him that I do not pretend to explain it; nor, I may add, is
it of the least importance.”
“I was a little surprised,” returned Barbara, with truly feminine
instinct for mingling in the balm of consolation the bitterest and
most poisonous herbs, “that you should have had for a friend a man who
frankly follows girls whose appearance he fancies. Even Mr. Ardmore’s
democratic enthusiasm for the downtrodden laundry girl does not wholly
mitigate the winking episode.”
“He had, only a few days ago, invited me to visit him, though I had
been to his house so often that the obscurest servant knew that I was
privileged even beyond the members of Mr. Ardmore’s own family in my
freedom of the place. When I saw that his house would be a convenient
point from which to study the Appleweight situation, I wired him that I
was on the way, and to my utter amazement he replied that he could not
entertain me--that scarlet fever was epidemic on the estate--on those
almost uncounted acres!”
And with a gulp and a mist in his eyes, Griswold drew rein and pointed,
from a hill that had now borne them to a considerable height, toward
Ardsley itself, dreamily basking in the bright morning sunlight within
its cinture of hills, meadows, and forest.
“I never saw the place before! It’s perfectly splendid!” cried Barbara,
forgetting that Griswold must be gazing upon it with the eyes of an
exile viewing grim, forbidding battlements that once hailed him in
welcome.
“It’s one of the most interesting houses in America,” observed
Griswold, who strove at all times to be just.
“There’s a flag flying--I can’t make out what it is,” said Barbara.
“It’s probably to give warning of the scarlet fever; it would be like
Ardy to do that. But we must hurry on to Mount Nebo.”
He knew the ways of Ardsley thoroughly; better, in fact, than its owner
ever had in old times; but in his anger at Ardmore he would not set
foot on the estate if he could possibly avoid doing so in reaching the
scene of the night’s contretemps. He found without difficulty the
trail taken by Habersham’s men, and in due course of time they left
their horses a short distance from the church and proceeded on foot.
“It seems all the stupider in broad daylight,” said Griswold, after he
had explained just what had occurred, and how the captors, in their
superstitious awe of Appleweight, had been afraid to carry him off the
moment they were sure of him, but had slipped back among their fellows
to wait until the coast was perfectly clear. To ease his deep chagrin
Barbara laughed a good deal at the occurrence as they tramped over the
scene discussing it. They went into the woods back of the church, where
Griswold began to exercise his reasoning powers.
“Some one must have come in from this direction and freed the man and
taken him away,” he declared.
He knelt and marked the hoof-prints where Appleweight had been left
tied; but the grass here was much trampled, and Griswold was misled by
the fact, not knowing that news of Appleweight’s strange disappearance
had passed among the outlaw’s friends by the swift telegraphy of the
border, and that the whole neighbourhood had been threshed over hours
before. It might have been some small consolation to Griswold had he
known that Appleweight’s friends and accomplices were as much at a
loss to know what had become of the chieftain as the men who had tried
so ineffectually to kidnap him. From the appearance of the trampled
grass many men had taken a hand in releasing the prisoner, and this
impression did not clarify matters for Griswold.
“Where does this path lead?” asked Barbara.
“This is Ardsley land here, this side of the church, and that
trail leads on, if I remember, to the main Ardsley highway, with
which various other roads are connected--many miles in all. It’s
inconceivable that the deliverers of this outlaw should have taken him
into the estate, where a sort of police system is maintained by the
forestry corps. I don’t at all make it out.”
He went off to explore the heavy woods on each side of the trail that
led into Ardsley, but without result. When he came gloomily back he
found that in his absence Barbara had followed the bridle-path for a
considerable distance, and she held out to him a diminutive pocket
handkerchief, which had evidently been snatched away from its owner--so
Barbara explained--by a low-hanging branch of an oak, and flung into
a blackberry bush, where she had found it. It was a trifle, indeed,
the slightest bit of linen, which they held between them by its four
corners and gravely inspected.
“Feminine, beyond a doubt,” pronounced Griswold sagely.
“It’s a good handkerchief, and here are two initials worked in the
corner that may tell us something--‘G. D.’ It probably belongs to some
guest at Ardsley. And there’s a very faint suggestion of orris--it’s a
city handkerchief,” said Barbara with finality, “but it has suffered
a trifle in the laundry, as this edge is the least bit out of drawing
from careless ironing.”
“And I should say, from a certain crispness it still retains, that it
hasn’t been in the forest long. It hasn’t been rained on, at any rate,”
added Griswold.
“But even the handkerchief doesn’t tell us anything,” said Barbara,
spreading it out, “except that some woman visitor has ridden here
within a few days and played drop the handkerchief with herself or
somebody else to us unknown.”
“She may have been a scarlet fever patient from Ardsley; you’d better
have a care!” And Griswold’s tone was bitter.
“I’m not afraid; and as I have never been so near Ardsley before, I
should like to ride in and steal a glimpse. There’s little danger of
meeting the lord of the manor, I suppose, or any of his guests at this
hour, and we need not go near the house.”
He saw that she was really curious, and it was not in his heart to
refuse her, so they followed the bridle-path through the cool forest,
and came in due course to the clearing where Jerry had first confessed
herself lost, and thereafter had suffered the captured outlaw to point
her the way home.
“The timber has been cut here since my last visit, but I remember the
bridle-paths very well. They all reach the highroad of the estate
ultimately. We may safely take this one, which has been the most used,
and which climbs a hill that gives a fine outlook.”
The path he chose had really been beaten into better condition than
either of the others, and they rode side by side now. A deer feeding on
a grassy slope raised its head and stared at them, and a fox scampered
wildly before them. It seemed that they were shut in from all the
world, these two, who but a few days before had never seen each other,
and it was a relief to him to find that she threw off her troubles
and became more animated and cheerful than he had yet seen her. His
comments on her mount, which was sorry enough, were amusing; and she
paused now and then to peer into the tops of the tallest trees, under
the pretence that Appleweight had probably reverted to the primordial
and might be found at any minute in one of the branches above them. Her
dark-green habit, and the soft hat to match, with its little feather
thrust into the side, spoke for real usage; and the gauntleted hand
that swung lightly at her side inadvertently brushed his own once--and
he knew that this must not happen again! When their eyes met it was
with frank confidence on her part, and it seemed to him that they were
very old friends, and that they had been riding through this forest,
or one identical with it, since the world began. It is thus that a man
with any imagination feels first about a woman who begins to interest
him--that there was never any beginning to their acquaintance that
can be reckoned as time and experience are measured, but that he has
known her for countless years; and if there be a poetic vein in him, he
will indulge in such fancies as that he has seen her as a priestess of
Aphrodite in the long ago, dreaming upon the temple steps; or that he
has watched her skipping pebbles upon the violet storied sea against
a hazy background of cities long crumbled into dust. Such fancies as
these are a part of love’s gentle madness, and luckier than she knows
is the girl who awakens in a lover this eager idealization. If he
can turn a verse for her in which she is added to the sacred Nine,
personifying all sweet, gentle, and gracious things, so much the better.
Just what he, on the other hand, may mean to her; just what form of
deification he evokes in her, he can never know; for the women who
write of such matters have never been those who are sincere or worth
heeding, and they never will be, so long as woman’s heart remains
what it has been from the beginning--far-hidden, and filled with
incommunicable secret beliefs and longings, and tremulous with fears
that are beyond man’s power to understand.
Griswold had missed the white rose that he had begun to associate with
Barbara, and he grew suddenly daring and spoke of it.
“You haven’t your rose to-day.”
“Oh, I’m beyond the source of supply! I have a young friend, a girl,
who makes her living as a florist--not a purely commercial enterprise,
for she experiments and develops new varieties, and is quite wonderful;
and that white rose is her own creation--it is becoming well known. She
named it for me, and she sends me at least one every day--she says it’s
my royalty--if that’s what you lawyers call that sort of thing.”
“We lawyers rarely have anything so interesting as that to apply the
word to! So that rose is the Barbara?” and it gave him a feeling of
recklessness to find himself speaking her name aloud. “There are large
conservatories on the estate, over there somewhere; I might risk the
scarlet fever by attacking the gardener and demanding a Barbara for
you.”
“I’m afraid my little flower hasn’t attained to the grandeur of
Ardsley,” she laughed. “But pray, where are we?”
They had reached the highroad much sooner than Griswold had expected,
and he checked his horse abruptly, remembering that he was _persona non
grata_ on this soil.
“We must go back; I mustn’t be seen here. The workmen are scattered all
about the place, and they all know me.”
“Oh, just a little farther! I want to see the towers of the castle!”
If she had asked him to jump into the sea he would not have hesitated;
and he was so happy at being with her that his heart sang defiance to
Ardmore and the splendours of Ardsley.
They were riding now toward the red bungalow, where he had often
sprawled on the broad benches and chaffed with Ardmore for hours at
a time. Tea was served here sometimes when there were guests at the
house; and Griswold wondered just who were included in the party
that his quondam friend was entertaining, and how Mrs. Atchison was
progressing in her efforts to effect a match between Daisy Waters and
her brother.
The drives were nearly all open to the public, so that by the letter
of the law he was no intruder; but beyond the bungalow he must not go.
Sobered by the thought of his breach with Ardmore, he resolved not to
pass the bungalow whose red roof was now in sight.
“It’s like a fairy place, and I feel that there can be no end to it,”
Barbara was saying. “But it isn’t kind to urge you in. We certainly are
doing nothing to find Appleweight, and it must be nearly noon.”
It was just then--he vividly recalls the moment--as Griswold felt in
his waistcoat for his watch, that Miss Jerry Dangerfield, with Thomas
Ardmore at her side, galloped into view. They were racing madly,
like irresponsible children, and bore boisterously down upon the two
pilgrims.
Jerry and Ardmore, hatless and warm, were pardonably indignant at thus
being arrested in their flight, and the master of Ardsley, feeling for
once the dignity of his proprietorship, broke out stormily.
“I would have you know--I would have you know----” he roared, and then
his voice failed him. He stared; he spluttered; he busied himself
with his horse, which was dancing in eagerness to resume the race.
He quieted the beast, which nevertheless arched and pawed like a
war-horse, and then the master of Ardsley bawled:
“Grissy! I say, Grissy!”
Miss Osborne and Professor Griswold, on their drooping Mingo County
nondescripts, made a tame picture before Ardmore and his fair companion
on their Ardsley hunters. The daughter of the governor of South
Carolina looked upon the daughter of the governor of North Carolina
with high disdain, and it need hardly be said that this feeling, as
expressed by glacial glances, was evenly reciprocal, and that in the
contemptuous upward tilt of two charming chins the nicest judgment
would have been necessary to any fair opinion as to which state had the
better argument.
The associate professor of admiralty was known as a ready debater, and
he quickly returned his former friend’s salutation, and in much the
contumelious tone he would have used in withering an adversary before a
jury.
“Pardon me, but are you one of the employees here?”
“Why, Grissy, old man, don’t look at me like that! How did you----”
“I owe your master an apology for riding upon his property at a time
when pestilence is giving you cause for so much concern. The death-rate
from scarlet fever is deplorably high----”
“Oh, Grissy!” cried Ardmore.
“You have addressed me familiarly, by a nickname sometimes used by
intimate friends, though I can’t for the life of me recall you. I want
you to know that I am here in an official capacity, on an errand for
the state of South Carolina.”
Miss Dangerfield’s chin, which had dropped a trifle, pointed again into
the blue ether.
“You will pardon me,” she said, “but an agent of the state of South
Carolina is far exceeding his powers when he intrudes upon North
Carolina soil.”
“The state of South Carolina does what it pleases and goes where it
likes,” declared Miss Barbara Osborne warmly, whereupon Mr. Ardmore, at
a glance from his coadjutor, waxed righteously indignant.
“It’s one thing, sir, for you to ride in here as a sightseer, but quite
another for you to come representing an unfriendly state. You will
please choose which view of the matter I shall take, and I shall act
accordingly.”
Griswold’s companion spoke to him earnestly in a low tone for a moment,
and then Griswold addressed Ardmore incisively.
“I don’t know what you pretend to be, sir; but it may interest you to
know that _I_ am the governor of South Carolina!”
“And this gentleman,” cried Jerry, pointing to Ardmore with her
riding-crop, “though his hair is mussed and his scarf visibly untied,
is none other than the governor of North Carolina, and he is not only
on his own property, but in the sovereign state of which he is the
chief executive.”
Professor Griswold lifted his hat with the least flourish.
“I congratulate the state of North Carolina on having reposed authority
in hands so capable. If this young lady is correct, sir, I will serve
official notice on you that I have reason to believe that a person
named Appleweight, a fugitive from justice, is hiding on your property
and in your state, and I now formally demand that you surrender him
forthwith.”
“If I may introduce myself,” interposed Jerry, “I will say to you that
my name is Geraldine Dangerfield, and that this Appleweight person is
now at Mr. Ardmore’s house.”
“I suppose,” replied Miss Osborne with gentle irony, “that he has the
pink parlour and leads the conversation at table.”
“You are quite mistaken,” replied Ardmore; “but if it would afford
you any satisfaction to see the outlaw you may look upon him in my
wine cellar, where, only an hour ago, I left him sitting on a case of
Chateau Bizet ’82. My further intentions touching this scoundrelly
South Carolinian I need not now disclose; but I give you warning that
the Appleweight issue will soon and for ever be terminated, and in a
manner that will greatly redound to the credit and the glory of the Old
North State.”
Professor Griswold’s hand went to his moustache with a gesture that
smote Ardmore, for he knew that it hid that inscrutable smile that had
always baffled him.
“I trust,” said Griswold, “that the prisoner, whom we cannot for
a moment concede to be the real Appleweight, will not be exposed
to scarlet fever, pending a settlement of this matter. It is my
understanding that the Bizet ’82 is a fraudulent vintage that has never
been nearer France than Paris, Illinois, and if the prisoner in your
cellar drinks of it I shall hold you officially responsible for the
consequences. And now, I have the honour to bid you both good-morning.”
He and Barbara swung their horses round and retraced their way, leaving
Ardmore and Jerry gazing after them.
When the shabby beasts from the stable at Turner Court House had borne
Miss Osborne and Griswold out of sight beyond the bungalow, Ardmore
turned blankly to Jerry.
“Have I gone blind or anything? Unless I’m crazy that was dear old
Grissy, but who is that girl?”
“That is Miss Barbara Osborne, and I hope she has learned such a
lesson that she will not be snippy to me any more, if she _is_ the
president-general of the Daughters of the Seminole War.”
“But where do you suppose she found Grissy?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure; nor, Mr. Ardmore, do I care.”
“He said he represented the state of South Carolina--do you suppose the
governor has really employed him?”
“I do not,” said Jerry emphatically; “for he appears intelligent, and
intelligence is something that would never appeal to Governor Osborne.
It is quite possible,” mused Jerry aloud, “that Miss Osborne’s father
had disappeared like mine, and that she is running his office with Mr.
Griswold’s aid. If so, we shall probably have some fun before we get
through with this.”
“If that’s true we shall have more than fun!” exclaimed Ardmore,
thoroughly aroused. “You don’t know Grissy. He’s the smartest man
alive, and if he’s running this Appleweight case for Governor Osborne,
he’ll keep us guessing. Why did I ever send him that scarlet fever
telegram, anyhow? He’ll fight harder than ever for that, and all I
wanted was to keep him away until we had got all through with this
business here, so I could show him what a great man I had been, and how
I had been equal to an opportunity when it offered.”
“I wish you to remember, Mr. Ardmore, that you still have _your_
opportunity, and that I expect you to carry this matter through to a
safe conclusion and to the honour of the Old North State.”
“I have no intention of failing, Miss Dangerfield;” and with this they
turned and rode slowly back toward the house.
Professor Griswold and Miss Osborne were silent until the forest again
shut them in.
Then, in a sequestered spot, Griswold suddenly threw up his head and
laughed long and loud.
“It doesn’t strike me as being so amusing,” remarked Miss Osborne.
“They have Appleweight in their wine cellar, and I don’t see for the
life of me how we are going to get him out.”
“What’s funny, Miss Osborne, is Ardy--that he and I should be pitted
against each other in a thing of this kind is too utterly ridiculous.
Ardy acting as governor of North Carolina beats anything that ever
happened on this continent. But how do you suppose he ever met Miss
Dangerfield, who certainly is a self-contained young woman?”
“The answer to that riddle is so simple,” replied Miss Osborne, “that
I am amazed that you fail to see it for yourself. Miss Dangerfield is
undoubtedly the girl with the winking eye.”
“Oh no!” protested Griswold.
“I don’t hesitate to announce that as a fact. Miss Geraldine
Dangerfield, beyond any question, is the young lady whom Mr. Ardmore,
your knight-errant friend, went forth for to seek. Just how they met we
shall perhaps learn later on. But just now it seems rather necessary
for us to adopt some plan of action, unless you feel that you do not
wish to oppose your friend.”
“Oppose him! I have got to whip him to the dust if I shake down the
very towers of his stronghold! It’s well we have the militia on the
road. With the state army at our back we can show Tommy Ardmore a
few things in state administration that are not dreamed of in his
philosophy.”
“Do you suppose they really have Appleweight?” asked Barbara.
“Not for a minute! They told us that story merely to annoy us when they
found what we were looking for. That touch about the wine cellar is
characteristically Ardmoresque. If they had Appleweight you may be sure
they wouldn’t keep him on the premises.”
Whereupon they rode back to Turner Court House much faster than they
had come.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRISONER IN THE CORN-CRIB.
Jerry and Ardmore sat at a long table in the commodious Ardsley
library, which was a modification of a Gothic chapel. It was on the
upper floor, with broad windows that had the effect of bringing the
landscape indoors, and the North Carolina sky is, we must concede, a
pleasant thing to have at one’s elbow. A large accumulation of mail
from the governor’s office at Raleigh had been forwarded, and Jerry
insisted that it must be opened and disposed of in some way. Governor
Dangerfield was, it appeared, a subscriber to a clipping bureau, and
they had been examining critically a batch of cuttings relating to the
New Orleans incident. Most of them were in a frivolous key, playfully
reviving the ancient query as to what the governor of North Carolina
really said to the governor of South Carolina. Others sought causes for
the widely-reported disappearance of the two governors; and still other
reports boldly maintained that Governors Dangerfield and Osborne were
at their capitals engaged in the duties of their respective offices.
“It’s a good thing we got hold of Collins,” observed Ardmore, putting
down a clipping from a New York paper in which the reports of Governor
Dangerfield’s disappearance were analyzed and tersely dismissed; “for
he knows how to write, and he’s done a splendid picture of your father
on his throne attending to business; and his little stingers for
Osborne are the work of genius.”
“There’s a certain finish about Mr. Collins’s lying that is
refreshing,” replied Jerry, “and I cannot help thinking that he has a
brilliant future before him if he enters politics. Nothing pains me
more than a careless, ill-considered, silly lie, which is the best that
most people can do. But it would be very interesting to know whether
Governor Osborne has really disappeared, or just how your friend the
Virginia professor has seized the reins of state. Do you suppose he got
a jug from somewhere, and met Miss Osborne and----”
“Do you think--do you think--she may have--er--possibly--closed one eye
in his direction?” asked Ardmore dubiously.
“Mr. Ardmore”--and Jerry pointed at him with a bronze paper-cutter to
make sure of his attention--“Mr. Ardmore, if you ever imply again by
act, word, or deed that I winked at you I shall never, never speak
to you again. I should think that a man with a nice sister like Mrs.
Atchison would have a better opinion of women than you seem to have. I
never saw you until you came to my father’s house to tell me about the
jug--and you know I didn’t. And as for that Barbara Osborne, while I
don’t doubt that even in South Carolina a Daughter of the Seminole War
might wink at a gentleman in a moment of extreme provocation, I doubt
if she did, for she lacks animation, and has no more soul than a gum
overshoe.”
The obvious inconsistency of this pronouncement caused Ardmore to frown
in the stress of his thought; and he stared helplessly along the line
of the accusing paper-cutter into Jerry’s eyes.
“Oh, cheer up!” she cried in her despair of him; “and forget it, forget
it, forget it! I’ll say this to you, Mr. Ardmore, that if I ever winked
at you--and I never, never did--I’m sorry I did it! Some time when
you haven’t so much work on your hands as you have this morning just
think that over and let me know where you land. And now, look at these
things, please.”
“What is all this stuff?” he demanded, as she tossed him a pile of
papers.
“They refer to the application for pardon of a poor man who’s going to
be hanged for murder to-morrow unless we do something for him; and he
has a wife and three little children, and he has never committed any
other crime but to break into a smoke-house and steal a side of bacon.”
“Did he shoot in self-defence, or how was it?” asked Ardmore judicially.
“He killed a painless dentist who pulled the wrong tooth,” answered
Jerry, referring to the papers.
“If that’s all I don’t think we can stand for hanging him. I read a
piece against capital punishment in a magazine once, and the arguments
were very strong. The killing of a dentist should not be a crime
anyhow, and if you know how to pardon a man, why let’s do it; but we’d
better wait until the last minute, and then send a telegram to the
sheriff to stop the proceedings just before he pulls the string, which
makes it most impressive, and gives a better effect.”
“I believe you are right about it,” said Jerry. “There’s an old pardon
right here in this bundle which we can use. It was made out for another
man who stole a horse that afterwards died, which papa said was a
mitigating circumstance; but the week before his execution the man
escaped from jail before papa could pardon him.”
“Suppose we don’t let them hang anybody while we’re running the state,”
suggested Ardmore; “it’s almost as though you murdered a man yourself,
and I couldn’t tie my neckties afterwards without a guilty feeling. I
can’t imagine anything more disagreeable than to be hanged. I heard all
of _Tristan und Isolde_ once, and I have seen half an Ibsen play, and
those were hard things to bear, but I suppose hanging would be just as
painful, and there would be no supper afterwards to cheer you up.”
“You shouldn’t speak in that tone of _Afterwards_, Mr. Ardmore,” said
Jerry severely. “It isn’t religious. And while we’re on the subject of
religion, may I ask the really, truly wherefore of Miss Daisy Waters’s
sudden return to Newport?” and Jerry’s tone and manner were carelessly
demure.
“She went home,” replied Ardmore, grinning; “she left Ardsley for two
reasons, one of which she stated at the breakfast-table and the other
she handed me privately.”
“She said at the breakfast-table that she was called home by incipient
whooping-cough in the household of her brother-in-law’s cousin’s
family.”
“As she has no brother-in-law, that cannot be true. What she said to me
privately was that the house party had grown very much larger than Mrs.
Atchison had originally planned it, and that I am so busy that so many
guests must be a burden.”
Jerry stroked her cheek reflectively.
“I thought Miss Waters wouldn’t last long after I asked her if
rusty-nail water really would remove freckles. My own freckles are
exactly seven in number, and I am not ashamed of them; but Miss Waters
seemed very sensitive on the subject, though I thought her freckles
useful in diverting attention from her drug-store hair.”
“Did you say seven?” inquired Ardmore, gazing eagerly into Jerry’s
face. “I make it only six, and there’s one away over there under your
left eye that seems very lonesome, as though it suffered keenly from
being so far away from its brothers and sisters on the other side of
your nose.”
“Mr. Ardmore”--and Jerry again indicated the person addressed by
pointing with the paper-cutter--“Mr. Ardmore, it is downright impudent
of you to talk to me about my appearance in any terms, but when you
speak of my face as though it were a map in a geography and of my
freckles as though they were county seats, or lakes, or strange places
in China, then I must protest with all my strength. If you don’t change
the subject immediately I shall refuse to pardon this person who killed
the painless dentist, and he shall be hanged by the neck till he be
dead; and you, Mr. Thomas Ardmore, will be guilty of his murder.”
The discussion of Miss Jerry Dangerfield’s freckles ceased abruptly on
the appearance of Big Paul, the forester.
“A body of South Carolina militia is marching across country from the
south. One of my men heard of it down at Turner Court House last night,
and rode to where the troops were encamped. He learned that it was a
practice march for the militia. There’s several companies of infantry,
so he reports, and a piece of artillery.”
“Bully for old Grissy!” exclaimed Ardmore. “They’re coming this way,
are they, Paul?” And the three bent over the map.
“That is the place, sir. They seem to be planning to get around
Turner’s without stirring up the town. But it would take a good deal to
wake up Turner’s,” laughed the big German.
Jerry placed her finger on the state line.
“If they dare cross that--if they as much as dare!”
“If they dare we shall show them a few things.--Take all the men you
need, Paul, to watch their movements. That will do.”
The forester lingered.
“You remember that we spoke the other day of the log house on Raccoon
Creek, where the Appleweights had driven off our man?”
“Yes, Paul. It is where the state line crosses the heavy woods and
the farthest outpost, so to speak, on my property. When you cross
the little creek, you’re in South Carolina. You said some of these
Appleweight fellows had been cutting off the timber down there, if I
remember rightly.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the forester, twirling his cap awkwardly. “But some
of the people on the estate have said----”
He broke off in an embarrassment so unlike him that Jerry and Ardmore
looked at him curiously.
“Well, Paul, what’s the matter? If the cabin has been burned down it’s
no serious matter.”
“Why, sir; some of the men passing there at night say they see lights
and hear sounds in the cabin, though no one from the estate goes there.
A child died in the house last spring, and--well, you know how some of
these people are!”
“Ghosts!” cried Ardmore. “The property is growing more valuable all
the time! Tell them that whoever captures the ghost and brings it here
shall have a handsome present. So far it’s only a light in an abandoned
house--is that it?”
“Well, they say it’s very strange,” and it was clear that the German
was not wholly satisfied to have his employer laugh off the story.
“Cheer up, Paul. We have bigger business on hand than the chasing of
ghosts just now. When we get through with these other things I’ll go
over there myself and take a look at the spook.”
As Paul hurried away, Jerry seized a pen and wrote this message:
Rutherford Gillingwater,
Adjutant-General, Camp Dangerfield,
Azbell, N. C.:
Move all available troops by shortest route to Kildare at once and
report to me personally at Ardsley. Make no statements to newspapers.
Answer.
DANGERFIELD,
Governor.
“I guess that will bring him running,” said Ardmore, calling a servant
and ordering the message despatched immediately. “But when he comes,
expecting to report to the governor and finds that he isn’t here, what
do you suppose he will do?”
“Mr. Ardmore,” began Jerry, in the tone of sweet tolerance with which
one arraigns a hopeless child--“Mr. Ardmore, there are times when you
tax my patience severely. You don’t seem to grasp the idea that we are
not making explanations to inferiors in our administration. Colonel
Gillingwater will undoubtedly be a good deal surprised to get that
message, but when the first shock is over he will obey the orders of
his commander-in-chief. And the fact that he is ordered to report to
Ardsley will not be lost on him, for he will see in that a possible
social opportunity, and a chance to wear some of his uniforms that he
has never worn before. He will think that papa is really here to test
the efficiency of the troops, and that as papa is a guest at Ardsley,
which we know he isn’t, there will probably be some great social
functions in this house, with papa’s staff dressed up and all shiny in
gold braid. Since Rutherford Gillingwater had the typhoid fever during
the Spanish War I have not been sure that he is as much interested in
fighting as he is in the purely circus work of being a soldier. I just
now recall that when papa was about to order out the troops to stop a
railroad strike last spring, Rutherford Gillingwater went to all the
trouble of having tonsilitis, and was so ill that he could hardly leave
his room even after the strike had been settled by arbitration. If he
knew that there was likely to be a terrible battle over here instead of
nice long dinners and toasts to ‘The Old North State,’ ‘Our Governor,’
and ‘The Governor’s Daughter,’ his old wounds, that he never had, might
trouble him so that they’d have to wrap him up in cotton and carry him
home.”
Before luncheon a message was received from Gillingwater, to this
effect:
Governor William Dangerfield.
Ardsley, N. C.:
En route with our entire available force in the field. I am riding
ahead with all speed, and will report at Ardsley at nine o’clock. Is
full military dress _de rigueur_?
GILLINGWATER, Adjutant-General.
“Isn’t that just like Rutherford! He’s afraid he won’t be dressy
enough; but if he knew that the South Carolina troops might shoot holes
in his uniform he wouldn’t be due here for a couple of weeks, instead
of at nine o’clock to-night;” and Jerry laughed merrily.
They debated more seriously this telegram from Collins at Raleigh sent
the previous evening:
Can’t maintain this bluff much longer. Even the friendly newspapers
are growing suspicious. State credit jeopardized by disappearance of
Treasurer Foster. Billings, of Bronx Loan and Trust, here in a great
fury over bond matter. Do you know governor’s whereabouts?
“Things are certainly growing more exciting,” was Ardmore’s comment.
“I suppose even a gifted liar like Collins can’t muzzle the press for
ever.”
“You can’t go on fooling all North Carolina all the time, either,” said
Jerry, “and I suppose when papa gets tired of being scared he will turn
up in Raleigh and tell some plausible story about where he has been and
what has happened. When it comes to being plausible no one can touch
papa.”
“Maybe he’s dead,” suggested Ardmore gloomily.
“That’s a real inspiration on your part, Mr. Ardmore; and it’s very
sweet of you to mention it, but I have no idea that any harm has
come to papa. It’s too much trouble to get elected governor, without
dying in office, and besides, papa is none too friendly with the
lieutenant-governor, and would never think of allowing such a person to
succeed him. But those bonds seem rather serious, and I don’t like the
idea of your Mr. Billings making a fuss at Raleigh.”
“That will be all right,” remarked Ardmore, blotting the last of a
number of telegrams which he had been writing, and pressing a button.
“It’s much more important for us to get Appleweight into a South
Carolina jail; and it’s not going to be so easy to do, now that Grissy
is working on the other side, and angry at me about that scarlet fever
telegram.
“There may be trouble,” said Ardmore to his guests as they sat at
luncheon. “But I should hate to have it said that my guests could not
be taken care of here perfectly. I beg that you will all remain.”
“If there’s to be a row, why don’t you call the police and be done with
it?” asked a sad young member of the company. His motor number had so
often figured in reports of speed law violations that he was known as
Eighteen Eighty. “I thought you came down here for quiet and not to get
into trouble, Ardy.”
“If I miss my steamer nine days from to-day, and meanwhile have to eat
horse meat, just as they did in the siege of Paris, I shall be greatly
provoked, to say the least,” remarked Mrs. Atchison pleasantly; for
her brother’s amazing awakening delighted her, and it was a cheering
experience that he promised, of civil war, battle, murder, and sudden
death.
“I think I shall spend more time in America after this,” remarked
Eighteen Eighty. “I did not know that amusing things ever happened over
here. What did you say the name of this state is?”
“The name of this state,” replied Miss Dangerfield, “is North Carolina,
and I have my opinion of any native American who runs around Europe
all the time, and who can visit a place in this country without even
knowing the name of the state he is in.”
“But there’s really no difference between North and South Carolina, is
there?” persisted Eighteen Eighty.
Jerry put down her fork, and folded her hands beside her plate, while
she addressed the offender.
“Mr. Number Something, the difference between the Old North State and
South Carolina is not merely geographical--it is also intellectual,
ethical, and spiritual. But may I ask you whether you know of which
state you are a citizen?”
A laugh rose as the sad young man flushed and looked inquiringly about.
“I voted you in my precinct that time I ran for alderman in New York,”
said Ardmore, “but that’s no sign you had a right to vote there. I
shot Ballywinkle through the booth at the same time. I was a reform
candidate and needed votes, but I hoped Bally would get arrested and be
sent to jail. My impression is that you are really a citizen of Rhode
Island, which is where Newport is.”
The debate as to Eighteen Eighty’s legal residence was interrupted by
the arrival of a summons for Ardmore, who hurriedly left the table.
Big Paul awaited him below, mounted and holding a led-horse.
“There’s a line of the South Carolina militia crawling through the
woods toward Raccoon Creek. They insist that it’s a practice skirmish,
and that they’ve come over here because the landscape is naturally
adapted to their purposes.”
“It’s awfully nice of them to like my scenery. You’d better send
your best man out to meet Colonel Gillingwater of the North Carolina
militia, and tell him to march all his troops into the estate by
the north gates, and to be in a hurry. Tell him--tell him Governor
Dangerfield is anxious to have the staff present in full uniform at a
grand ball at Ardsley to-night.”
Ardmore rode off alone toward Raccoon Creek to catch a view of the
enemy. How far would Griswold go? This question he kept debating with
himself. His late friend was a lawyer and a serious one whom he had
not believed capable of seizing the militia of one state and using
it to make a military demonstration against another. Ardmore could
go as far as Griswold; yet he was puzzled to know why Griswold was
in the field at all. Miss Dangerfield’s suggestion that Griswold’s
interest in the daughter of the governor of South Carolina accounted
for his presence on the border seemed plausible at first; and yet
the more he thought about it the less credible it seemed, for he was
sure that Griswold had talked to him about women with the frankness
that had characterized all their intercourse, and Ardmore racked his
brains in his effort to recall the few affairs to which the associate
professor of admiralty had pleaded guilty. Memory brought these back
to him slowly. There was an Old Point Comfort affair, dating back to
Griswold’s student days, and to which he had referred with no little
feeling once or twice; and there was a York Harbour affair, that came
a little later; and there was the girl he had met on a steamer, about
whom Griswold had shown sensitiveness when Ardmore had made bold to
twit him. But Ardmore could not account for Miss Osborne, unless his
friend had been withholding his confidence while seemingly wholly
frank; and the thought that this must be true widened the breach
between them. And when he was saying to himself that the daughters of
governors are not in the habit of picking up cavaliers and entrusting
state affairs to them, and that it was almost inconceivable that the
conscientious Griswold, at the busiest season at the university, should
have taken employment from the governor of South Carolina, he found
that he had struck a stone wall, and he confessed to himself that the
situation was beyond him.
These reflections carried him far toward Raccoon Creek, and when he had
reached that tortuous stream he dismounted and tied his horse, the more
freely to examine the frontier. The Raccoon is never more than eighty
feet wide, but filled with boulders round which the water foams in many
curves and splashes, running away in the merriest ripples, so that it
is never wholly tranquil. By jumping from boulder to boulder he crossed
the turbulent tide and gained the other side with a sense of entering
the enemy’s country.
“Now,” he muttered, “I am in South Carolina.”
He drew out his map and held it against a tree the better to study it,
reassuring himself that his own property line embraced several sections
of the forest on the south side of the state boundary.
“If Grissy shoots me, it will be on my own land,” he said aloud.
He cautiously followed the stream until, several hundred yards farther
on, and overhanging the creek, he came upon the log cabin in which
big Paul had reported the presence of a ghost. Paul’s story had not
interested him particularly, but now that he was in the neighbourhood
he resolved to visit the cabin and learn if possible how ghosts amuse
themselves by day. He had thrust a revolver into his pocket before
leaving the house, and while he had no idea that ghosts may be shot,
he now made sure that the weapon was in good order. As he sat on a log
slipping the cylinder through his fingers he heard whistling farther
along the creek, followed quickly by the snapping of twigs under a
heavy tread, and a moment later a tall, slender man broke into view.
The stranger was dressed like a countryman, but he was unmistakably
not of the Ardsley force of workmen, for these wore a rough sort of
uniform. His hands were thrust carelessly into the side pockets of a
gray jeans coat. They were thrust in deep, so that the coat sagged at
the pockets. His trousers were turned up from a pair of rough shoes,
and he wore a gray flannel shirt, the collar of which was guiltless of
a tie. He was smooth shaven, and carried in his mouth a short pipe,
which he paused to relight when about a dozen yards from Ardmore. Then,
as he held the lighted match above the pipe bowl for an instant to make
sure his tobacco was burning, Ardmore jumped up and covered him with
the pistol.
“I beg your pardon,” said the master of Ardsley, “but you’re my
prisoner!”
The stranger shook the flame out of the match-stick carefully and threw
it away before turning toward his captor.
“Young man,” he said with perfect self-possession, “don’t fool with
that gun; it might go off.”
His drawl was characteristic of the region; his tone was one of amused
tolerance. Ardmore was short of stature, and his knickerbockers,
leggings, and Norfolk jacket were not wholly consonant with the
revolver, which, however, he levelled very steadily at the stranger’s
head.
“You are an intruder on my property,” said the master of Ardsley, “and
unless I’m much mistaken you have been playing ghost in that cabin.
I’ve heard about you. Your gang has been cutting off my timber about
long enough, and this game of playing ghost to scare my men won’t do.”
“Stealing your timber?” And the stranger was clearly surprised. He held
his pipe in his hand with his thumb over the bowl and seemed to take a
more serious interest in his captor.
“And now,” continued Ardmore, “I’m about tired of having this end of
the country run by the Appleweights, and their disreputable gang, so
I’m going to lock you up.”
The stranger turned toward the cabin, one corner of which was plainly
visible, and shrugged his shoulders.
“I have nothing to do with the Appleweights, and I assure you I am not
a timber thief.”
“Then you must be the one who has lifted a few steers out of my herd.
It makes no difference just what branch of the business you are engaged
in, for we’re picking up all the gang and you’ve got to come along with
me.”
The captive showed signs of anger for the first time. His face flushed,
and he took a step toward Ardmore, who immediately threw up the
revolver so that it pointed at the man’s head.
“Stop right there! We’ve got old man Appleweight, so you’ve lost your
leader, and I tell you the jig’s up. We’ll have you all in jail before
another twenty-four hours has passed.”
“I judge from the tone of your remarks that you are Ardmore, the owner
of Ardsley. Am I right?”
“You are quite right. And you are a member of a disreputable gang of
outlaws that has been bringing shame upon the state of North Carolina.
Now, I want you to march straight ahead of me. Step lively now!” And
Ardmore flourished the pistol menacingly. “March!”
The man hesitated, flung up his head defiantly, then moved slowly
forward. The flush in his face had deepened and his eyes flashed
angrily; but Ardmore, his cap on the back of his head, himself
presented a figure so severe, so eloquent of righteous indignation,
that the stranger tamely obeyed him.
“We will cross the creek right here,” he ordered; “it’s a pretty jump
there from that boulder--there, that was bully! Now right along there
over the log--see the trail! Good!”
It was warm and the captive was perspiring freely. He moved along
docilely, and finding that he manifested no inclination to bolt,
Ardmore dropped the revolver to his side, but with his finger on
the trigger. He was very proud of himself; for while to Miss Jerry
Dangerfield undoubtedly belonged the honour of capturing the thief
Appleweight, yet he had single-handed arrested a member of the famous
gang, and he had already resolved upon a convenient method of disposing
of his prisoner. They paused while Ardmore mounted his horse, silencing
the captive, who took the opportunity to break out protestingly against
what he termed an infamous outrage upon personal liberty.
“You’ve taken me from one state into another without due process of
law,” declared the stranger, thinking to impress Ardmore, as that young
gentleman settled himself in his saddle.
“Go right on now; that’s a good fellow,” replied the master of Ardsley,
lifting the revolver warningly. “Whether it’s North Carolina or South
Dakota--it doesn’t make a particle of difference to me. As I remarked
before, it’s my property, I tell you, and I do what I please here.”
“I’ll show you whether you do or not,” snorted the prisoner, who was
trudging along doggedly with the nose of Ardmore’s horse occasionally
poking his back.
They soon reached a field where some labourers were at work, and
Ardmore called them to him for instructions.
“Boys, this is one of the timber thieves; put him in that corn-crib
until I come back for him. The nights are warm; the sky is perfectly
clear; and you will kindly see that he does not lack for food.”
Two of the men jumped forward and seized Ardmore’s prisoner, who now
broke forth in a torrent of wrath, struggling vigorously in the hands
of the sturdy fellows who had laid violent hands on him.
“That’s right, boys; that’s right; easy there! Now in he goes.”
A series of corn-cribs fringed the field, and into one of these, from
which half the corn had been removed, the prisoner was thrust sprawling
upon the yellow ears, and when he rose and flung himself round, the
door of the corn-crib slammed in his face. He bellowed with rage now,
seeing that his imprisonment was a serious matter, and that it seemed
likely to be prolonged indefinitely.
“They always told me you were a fool,” he howled, “but I didn’t know
that anything as crazy as you are was loose in the world.”
“Thank you. The head of your gang is much more polite. He’s sitting on
his case of Chateau Bizet in my wine cellar, playing solitaire.”
“Appleweight in your wine cellar!” bawled the captive in astonishment.
“Certainly. I was afraid to lock him in a room with bath for fear it
might give him hydrophobia; but he’s perfectly content in the wine
cellar.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“I haven’t decided yet just what to do with him, but the scoundrel
undoubtedly belongs in South Carolina, and I have every intention of
making his own state punish him.”
The prisoner leaned heavily against his prison door, and glared out
upon his jailer with a new, fierce interest.
“I tell you I’ve nothing to do with the Appleweights! I don’t want to
reveal my identity to you, you young beggar; but I demand my legal
rights.”
“My dear sir,” retorted Ardmore, “you have no legal rights, for the
writ of habeas corpus doesn’t go here. You seem rather intelligent for
a barn burner and timber thief. Come now, what is your name?”
The prisoner gazed down upon the imperturbable figure of his captor
through the slats of the corn-crib. Ardmore returned his gaze with his
most bland and child-like air. Many people had been driven to the point
of madness by Ardmore’s apparent dullness. The prisoner realized that
he must launch a thunderbolt if he would disturb a self-possession so
complete--a tranquillity as sweet as the fading afternoon.
“Mr. Ardmore, I dislike to do it, but your amazing conduct makes it
necessary for me to disclose my identity,” and the man’s manner showed
real embarrassment.
“I knew it; I knew it,” nodded Ardmore, folding his arms across his
chest. “You’re either the King of Siam or the Prince of Petosky. As
either, I salute you!”
“No!” roared the captive, beating impotently against the door of the
cage with his hands. “No! I’m the governor of South Carolina!”