7.
THE United States marshals from New Orleans had kept rather
quiet throughout the journey; but as we approached the city of Bagdad
their spirits rose. The momentary interest caused by Mr. Raoul’s and
Cousin Kirk’s shots had subsided when they learned there was nothing
national or professional in the affair. Amateur shooting was always
poor. But May Bruce was considered with more attention; and when their
“special” of a “shirt-tail” engine and a caboose backed up to the
Bagdad platform, they all requested to be presented to her. General
McBride performed the ceremony with much formality; including Mrs.
Judge Pennoyer, upon whom, I could see, they looked with a reverence
that only her years divided from admiration. Even Raoul came in for
some passive applause; but I played, as I saw, a very second fiddle,
which is why, perhaps, Miss Jeanie and I went off and took a walk, by
moonlight, down through the ravine where I first met her.
We returned to find Mrs. Pennoyer slumbering peacefully on a settee;
but Raoul was walking up and down nervously. The straight track
stretched glistening away in the moonlight, but not a train nor engine
was in sight.
“How long do you think it’ll take Mr. Bruce to get down back here?”
says Raoul to me, nervously.
“Train Number Two doesn’t come back till to-morrow, they said.”
“I know; but the station man here tells me the engineer on Number Two
married a cousin of Kirk Bruce’s brother-in-law. Our train doesn’t come
along from Memphis until four in the morning. And there’s not an engine
to be had in Bagdad.”
“There’s one,” said I; and I pointed to a distant shower of sparks
above the forest. At the same moment the peculiar light rattle of a
“wild” engine was audible.
“My God, sir, so it is!” answered Raoul. “And it’s on the line of the
Tennessee River and Gulf.”
“Number Two?” I answered, grimly, for I was getting to understand the
ways of the place. “What shall we do?”
“Do?” said Raoul; “why, get ready, of course. He may shoot before he
stops the engine; lucky I’ve got a rifle. You go in and prepare the
ladies.... This is my quar’l,” he added, impatiently, at my demur.
“Besides you ain’t got only that girl’s pop-gun. Reckon you’ll have a
chance later, likely.”
So I went in, and told the girls; and we woke up Mrs. Judge Pennoyer,
who, I am bound to say, took it more calmly than might have been
expected from a lady of her years. May was tearful; but Jeanie’s eyes
were very bright. All this time the rattle of the engine was growing
louder down the grade.
“Haven’t you kept that revolver I gave you?” said Jeanie to me.
I looked at her; and went out upon the platform just in time to see the
engine dash up, and a strange figure jump out of the cab.
“It’s all right,” he cried; “drop your iron. I’ve got a message from
King Kelly.” I observed the man had a blackened face and uncouth
costume; he did not look like an engineer, though a negro fireman was
on the smoking engine. The saturnine Raoul tore open the envelope, read
the letter twice, and handed it to me with the nearest approach to a
chuckle I had heard him give. I also read it, while the negro fireman
opened half his head and laughed aloud.
“What will you take, sir?” I heard Raoul say; then, as the ladies,
overcome by the curiosity this unexpected-silence caused, came out upon
the platform, I heard him introducing the man of the charcoal face to
each in turn.
The letter was as follows:
“---- RAOUL, ESQ.
“DEAR SIR: A gentleman have arrived here on Number Two,
inkwiring for you, and I take him for to be a member of Mrs. Raoul’s
family, so I got him and his ingineer here in Camp and reckon I kin
hold him about till termorrer sundown.
“Yours trooly,
“LUCIUS R. KELLY.”
8.
BEATI POSSIDENTES. I now saw that under the methods of Southern
courtship the man who had got the lady had a great advantage. The
Memphis express pulled up at four in the morning in front of a
burning tar-barrel on the track, which Raoul had placed there as a
hint to it to stop at Bagdad. How our story always got out so quickly,
I don’t know; but two members of Congress from Mississippi turned out
of the two end sections and were accommodated with shakedowns in the
smoking compartment of the crowded Pullman, with Raoul and myself.
I did not sleep very well, and at seven in the morning got out at
Chattanooga. What was my surprise at seeing Mrs. Judge Pennoyer also
emerge, fully dressed, from the sleeping-car.
“You young people don’t want me,” said she, benevolently. “I should
only be in the way. An’ I’m getting out here to take the day train on
to Knoxville. If I got out thar, they might stop ye before the train
pulled out again; now ye’ll all get by unbeknownst.”
What could I oppose to such strategy? Moreover, the young ladies were
still in their berths. I could not leave Miss Jeanie to come back
alone. I bowed; the train started; I got in it.
The sunlight broadened, but it was high noon and we had passed
Knoxville before the two girls appeared, fresher than the June morning,
and rosier, I am sure, than Raoul or I. With some trepidation I told
them of Mrs. Pennoyer’s evasion.
“Dear Aunt Emily,” said May, “she has always been like a mother to me.”
But Jeanie, I fancied, blushed; and that day talked to Raoul, while May
was left to me.
The impending catastrophe made May very gentle and silent, but we now
heard Jeanie and Mr. Raoul in speech of much light laughter at the
other end of the car.
“I suppose,” said I, “they are laughing at the way Mr. Kirk Bruce’s
pursuit has stopped in moonshine.”
Miss. May looked at me inquiringly. “Cousin Kirk was never attentive to
me,” said she.
“He is attentive enough now,” I laughed; and she looked at me as if
about to say something--but bit her red lips.
Jeanie certainly avoided me. When Raoul came back to talk to his
fiancée, her sister made pretext of a headache and lay down. The train
was not a quick one, and stopped long periods at several stations,
during which Raoul was obviously nervous. His brow only cleared when
we got to Bristol, Va., about sunset. Here we stopped an hour for
supper, half of which we four devoted to a walk. The town consisted
principally of a long straight street, lined by low two-story brick
shops; the one-story shops had false fronts and presented an appearance
of uniformity. Boots, saddles, guns, groceries, and drygoods were the
articles they sold.
I had noticed that Raoul kept persistently on one side of the street,
and when I started to cross over, to look at a particularly gorgeous
embroidered Mexican saddle on the other side, he held me back.
“This street,” said he, “is the State line between Virginia and
Tennessee. I think we had better keep on the Virginia side.”
“How odd,” said Jeanie, “to have a town divided against itself!”
“It is a great convenience,” answered Mr. Raoul. “When my father and
Colonel Carington had their dispute about the last constitutional
convention, both were candidates for the governorship, my father in
Tennessee and the colonel in Virginia. The constitution of Tennessee
disqualified a man who fought a duel from holding office. So my father
stood on the Virginia side of the street and the colonel in Tennessee.
The distance between the sidewalks is just about right, as you see.
There was a warrant out against my father in Tennessee and the colonel
in Virginia.”
“And did they fight?” I asked.
“Oh, yes--and the sheriffs looked on, but they couldn’t cross the
street. And the colonel, he allowed he was shot accidentally by a
bullet from another State. The case went up to the Supreme Court, but
they allowed they couldn’t say any duel was fought in Tennessee, and
the Constitution does not disqualify a man for shooting, but only just
for duelling.”
At this point a prolonged whistling recalled us to the station. Here we
found an elegant Pullman car added to the train for our accommodation,
“with the superintendent’s compliments to Mr. Raoul.” The darky porters
in it were smiling broadly, and on the table was a huge bouquet of
orange-blossoms.
In the morning we woke up--or Raoul woke me up--at the station for
White Sulphur. He had a telegram signed “Emily Pennoyer,” which warned
him to lose no time, that Kirk Bruce was on the night express.
“May and I have decided to go to the county Judge and get married
directly,” said he. Our Pullman car had been shunted on a side track at
the little station; the rest of the train had gone on, and the little
village was quiet and fragrant as a bank of wild flowers. “Fortunately,
he is a friend of my father’s.”
We found the Judge, I think, before his breakfast, smoking on his
piazza, which was covered with jasmine and magnolia. He led us directly
across the road to a little brick court-house, where he found another
couple waiting already, more sheepish than ourselves, who had driven
all night in a buggy, with an old white horse. The groom was awkward
and embarrassed, with his trousers tucked in his boots; the bride was
buxom and blushing, but seemed hardly more than a child.
“First come, first served,” said the Judge, and we all went into the
court-house, where the clerk unlocked his register, and the blushing
pair stood up before us, the groom having first hitched the old white
horse to the fence outside. We four were accommodated with seats upon
the bench.
“Do you think she’s twenty-one?” whispered the Judge to Raoul, while
the rustic bride shuffled uneasily upon her new shoes.
“Twenty-one? She’s not eighteen,” said Raoul.
“Dear me,” whispered the Judge. “Guess she’ll have to be--reckon I’ll
forget to ask her.”
The pair were married with us as witnesses; Jeanie gave the bride
her parasol for a wedding present, and the old white horse and buggy
scrambled away. “And now,” said the Judge, turning to Jeanie, “how old
are you?”
There was a pause of embarrassment; then Raoul spoke up bravely: “It’s
not Miss Jeanie--it’s Miss May Bruce, and she’s quite eighteen.”
“Eighteen?” said the Judge. “She must be twenty-one--or have you the
parents’ consent?”
“No,” said Raoul. “Eighteen is old enough in Alabama.”
“Twenty-one in Virginia,” said the Judge. “Give me the Code.”
The clerk handed him a musty leather volume from beneath a musty
leather Bible. Twenty-one it was, sure enough.
“Why did you say she was only eighteen?” said the Judge, peevishly.
“But you married the others,” answered I.
“True,” said the Judge, “but I’ve had a telegram for you--from a Mr.
Kirk Bruce, who, I take it, is a relative of the bride.”
Raoul’s face maintained its customary look of quiet determination.
“Where is the nearest State where a lady is free to get married at
eighteen?”
“South Carolina,” said the Judge.
“All right,” said Raoul. “I’ve got a car, and I reckon Colonel
Carington will give us transportation.”
“I’ll see that he does,” said the Judge, his face brightening. “I guess
you’d better go to Charleston.”
“Spartanburg is the nearest point,” said Raoul. “He’ll never think of
Spartanburg.”
“True,” said the Judge, “he’ll never think of Spartanburg. Lucky,
Colonel Carington is at the Springs.”
In two hours we had borrowed an old freight engine and were off on our
way to Spartanburg.
9.
THE freight engine had been loaned us by telegram from Colonel
Carington, and we had found our Pullman car pulled up on an old rusty
side-track that ran into a bed of wild flowers; on the front platform,
half smothered by them, our two darkies were asleep. They wakened,
however, to greet us with smiles of such expansive intimacy that I felt
bound, when we were safely on the way, to put them _au courant_ of
the situation. The solemnity and sympathy their faces at once assumed
guaranteed their discretion; though I afterward heard the “conductor”
adjuring the engineer from the front platform to “git up that thar
burro-engine wif’m bacon-ham.” Whereupon the engineer sanded the track
and blew “off brakes.”
The long journey was rather distressing, however. The brave girls did
not lose their spirits, but they kept to themselves, resting in the
state-room, while Raoul and I sat on the rear platform and watched the
dust eddy up from the long single track behind us. We had innumerable
waits and sidings; where often the girls and I wandered into the woods
after wild flowers, while Raoul stayed behind to pepper Mrs. Judge
Pennoyer with telegrams. We were now by the highest mountains of the
East; Roan Mountain still, though it was June, was rosy-robed about its
shoulders with the laurel.
The day wore on, and I could get no speech with Jeanie. I looked for my
_dédommagement_ to the journey home. This I no longer dreaded; it
was a rosy hope. But Jeanie was so timid, now--or I was bolder. In the
evening we had a long wait for the night express, which rattled by our
siding at a wood-and-water station.
“Perhaps Mr. Bruce is on that train,” I laughed.
“No,” said Raoul, gravely (he never had a sense of humor); “I am
confident he is not.”
“How do you know?”
“I have had a telegram from Mrs. Judge Pennoyer.”
“Is she his confidante?”
“She says that he has suddenly decided to await your return in
Knoxville.”
“Await my return?”
“Certainly--yours and Miss Jeanie’s. I conclude the Judge this morning
wired him an answer that it was not Jeanie who was getting married.”