TO ALTHEA
Adam Gaudylock came, when his leisure served him, to Fontenoy as he went
everywhere, by virtue of his quality of free lance and golden-tongued
narrator of western news. The stress of thought at the moment was to the
West and the empire that had been purchased there; and a man from beyond
Kentucky, with tales to tell of the Mississippi Territory, brought his
own welcome to town, tavern, and plantation. If this were true of all,
it was trebly true of Adam, who had been born open-eyed. As the magnet
draws the filings, so he drew all manner of tidings. News came to him as
by a thousand carrier pigeons. He took toll of the solitary in the brown
and pathless woods, of the boatmen upon fifty rivers, of the Indian
braves about the council-fire, of hunters, trappers, traders, and long
lines of Conestoga wagons, of soldiers on frontier posts, Jesuit
missionaries upon the Ohio, camp-meeting orators by the Kentucky and the
upper James, martial emissaries of three governments, village lawyers,
gamblers, dealers in lotteries, and militia colonels, Spanish
intendants, French agents, American settlers, wild Irish, thrifty
Germans, Creoles, Indians, Mestizos, Quadroons, Congo blacks,--from the
hunter in the forest to the slave in the fields, and from the Governor
of the vast new territory to the boatman upon a Mississippi ark, not a
type of the restless time but imparted to Adam something of its view of
life and of the winds that vexed its sea. He was a skilful compounder,
and when, forever wandering, he wandered back by wood and stream to the
sunny, settled lands east of the Blue Ridge, he gave to the thirsty in
plantation and town bright globules of hard fact in a heady elixir of
fancy. While he talked all men were adventurers, and all women admired
him. Adam liked this life and this world; asked nothing better than to
journey through a hundred such.
Now, sitting at his ease in the blue room, a fortnight after Rand's
accident, he delivered a score of messages from the Republicans of the
county, gentle and simple, whom he had chanced to encounter since the
accident to their representative.
"Colonel Randolph says the President has bad luck with the horses he
gives--young Mr. Carr was thrown by a bay mare from Shadwell. Old Jowett
swears that a trooper of Tarleton's broke his neck at that identical
place--says you can hear him any dark night swearing like the Hessian he
was. They drank your health at the Eagle, the night they heard of the
accident, with bumpers--drank it just after Mr. Jefferson's and before
the memory of Washington. 'Congress next!' they said. 'Hurrah! He'll
scatter the Black Cockades--he'll make the Well-born cry King's Cruse!
Hip, hip, hurrah! What's he doing at Fontenoy? They'll put poison in his
cup! Hurrah!'"
"Fontenoy will not put poison in my cup," said Rand. "I hope some one
was there to say as much."
"I said it," answered Adam. "They are a noisy lot. Tom Mocket made a
speech and compared you to Moses. He wept when he made it, and they had
to hold him steady on his feet. When they broke up, I took him home to
the Partridge. I'll tell you one speech that he never made by himself,
and that's the speech that's going to hang Fitch."
"No," said Rand. "I wrote it. You were at the trial?"
"Ay. It would have hung Abel, so poor Cain had no chance. Mr. Eppes says
Mr. Jefferson counts upon your becoming a power in the state. I don't
know--but it seems to me there's power enough in these regions! It's
getting crowded. First thing you know, you'll be jealous of Mr.
Jefferson, or he'll be jealous of you. If I were you, I'd look to the
West."
"The old song!" exclaimed Rand. "What should I do in the West?"
"Rule it," said Adam.
Rand shot a glance at the hunter where he lounged against the window, a
figure straight and lithe as an Indian, not tall, but gifted with a
pantherish grace, and breathing a certain tawny brightness as of
sunshine through pine needles. "You're daft!" he said; then after a
moment, "Are you serious?"
"Why should I not be serious?" asked Adam. "My faith! it's a restless
land, the West, and it's a far cry from the Mississippi to the Potomac.
The West doesn't like the East anyhow. But it wants a picked man from
the East. It will get one too! The wind's blowing hard from the full to
the empty, from the parcelled-out to the virgin land!"
"Yes," said Rand.
"Why shouldn't you be the man?" demanded Gaudylock. "Just as well you as
Claiborne--Wilkinson's naught, I don't count him--or any one still East,
like--like--Aaron Burr."
"Aaron Burr?"
"Well, I just instance him. He's ambitious enough, and there doesn't
seem much room for him back here. If Adam Gaudylock was ambitious and
was anything but just an uneducated hunter with a taste for danger--I
tell you, Lewis, I can see the blazed trees, I can see them with my eyes
shut, stretching clean from anywhere--stretching from this room,
say--beyond the Ohio, and beyond the Mississippi, and beyond Mexico to
where the sun strikes the water! It's a trail for fine treading and a
strong man, but it leads--it leads--"
"It might lead," said Rand, "to the Tarpeian Rock."
"Where's that?"
"It's where they put to death a sort of folk called traitors--Benedict
Arnolds and such."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Adam. "Traitors! Benedict Arnold _was_ a traitor.
This is not like that. America's large enough for a mort of countries.
All the states are countries--federated countries. Say some man is big
enough to _make_ a country west of the Mississippi--Well, one day we may
federate too. Eh, Lewis, 'twould be a powerful country--great as Rome, I
reckon! And we'd smoke the calumet with old Virginia--and she'd rule
East and we'd rule West. D'you think it's a dream?--Well, men make
dreams come true."
"Yes: Corsicans," answered Rand. "Aaron Burr is not a Corsican." He
looked at his left hand, lying upon the arm of his chair, raised it,
shut and opened it, gazing curiously at its vein and sinew. "You are
talking midsummer madness," he said at last. "Let's leave the blazed
trees for a while--though we'll talk of them again some time. Have you
been along the Three-Notched Road?"
"Yes," replied Adam, turning easily. "Your tobacco's prime, the wheat,
too, and the fencing is all mended and white-washed. It's not the
tumble-down place it was in Gideon's time--you've done wonders with it.
The morning-glories were blooming over the porch, and your white cat
washing itself in the sun."
"It's but a poor home," said Rand, and he said it wistfully. He wished
for a splendid house, a home so splendid that any woman must love it.
"It's not so fine as Fontenoy," quoth Adam, "nor Monticello, nor Mr.
Blennerhassett's island in the Ohio, but a man might be happy in a
poorer spot. Home's home, as I can testify who haven't any. I've known a
Cherokee to die of homesickness for a skin stretched between two
saplings. How long before you are back upon the Three-Notched Road?"
Rand moved restlessly. "The doctor says I may go downstairs to-day. I
shall leave Fontenoy almost immediately. They cannot want me here."
"Have you seen Mr. Ludwell Cary?"
"He and his brother left Fontenoy some time ago. But he rides over
nearly every day. Usually I see him."
"He is making a fine place of Greenwood. And he has taken a law office
in Charlottesville--the brick house by the Swan.
"Yes. He told me he would not be idle."
Adam rose, and took up the gun which it was his whim to carry. "I'll go
talk ginseng and maple sugar to Colonel Churchill for a bit, and then
I'll go back to the Eagle. As soon as you are on the Three-Notched Road
again I'll come to see you there."
"Adam," said Rand, "in the woods, when chance makes an Indian your host,
an Indian of a hostile tribe, an Indian whom you know the next week may
see upon the war-path against you--and there is in his lodge a thing, no
matter what, that you desire with all your mind and all your heart and
all your soul, and he will not barter with you, and the thing is not
entirely his own nor highly valued by him, while it is more than life to
you, and moreover you believe it to be sought by one who is your
foe--would you, Adam, having eaten that Indian's bread, go back into the
forest, and leave behind, untouched, unspoken of, that precious thing
your soul longed for? The trail you take may never lead again to that
lodge. Would you leave it?"
"Yes," answered Adam. "But my trail _should_ lead that way again. It is
a hostile tribe. I would come back, not in peace paint, but in war
paint. I would fairly warn the Indian, and then I would take the
bauble."
"Here is Mammy Chloe," said the other. "What have you there, mammy--a
dish of red pottage?"
"No, sah," said Mammy. "Hit's a baked apple an' whipped cream an'
nutmeg. Ole Miss she say Gineral Lafayette sho' did favour baked apples
wunst when he wuz laid up wid a cold at her father's house in
Williamsburgh. An' de little posy, Miss Deb she done gather hit outer
her square in de gyarden. De Cun'l he say de fambly gwine expect de
honour of yo' company dis evenin' in de drawin'-room."
Adam said good-bye and went away. An hour later, going down the Fontenoy
road, he came upon a small brown figure, seated, hands over knees, among
the blackberry bushes.
"Why, you partridge!" he exclaimed. "You little brown prairie-hen, what
are you doing so far from home? Blackberries aren't ripe."
"No," said Vinie. "I was just a-walking down the road, and I just walked
on. I wasn't tired. I always think the country's prettier down this way.
Did you come from Fontenoy, Mr. Adam?"
"Yes," replied Adam, sitting down beside her. "I went to see Lewis
Rand--not that I don't like all the people there anyway. They're always
mighty nice to me."
Vinie dug the point of her dusty shoe into the dusty road.
"How ith Mr. Rand, Mr. Adam?"
"He 'ith' almost well," answered Adam. "He's going down into the
parlour to-night, and pretty soon he's going home, and then he'll be
riding into town to his office."
He looked kindly into the small, freckled, pretty face. The heat of the
day stood in moisture on Vinie's brow, she had pushed back her
sunbonnet, and the breeze stirred the damp tendrils of her hair. "Tom
must miss him," said the hunter.
"Yeth, Tom does." Vinie drew toward her a blackberry branch, and studied
the white bloom. "Which do you think is the prettiest, Mr. Adam,--Miss
Unity or Miss Jacqueline?"
"Why, I don't know," answered Adam. "They are both mighty pretty."
"I think Miss Unity's the prettiest," said Vinie. "It's time I was
walking back to Charlottesville." She rose and stood for a moment in the
dusty road below the blackberry bushes, looking toward Fontenoy. "I
don't suppose he asked after Tom and me, Mr. Adam?"
"Why, surely!" protested Adam, with cheerful mendacity. "He asked after
you both particularly. He said he certainly would like a cup of water
from your well."
"Did he?" asked Vinie, and grew pink. "That water's mighty cold."
"I'd like a cup of it myself," said Adam. "Since we are both walking to
town, we might as well walk together. Don't you want me to break some
cherry blossoms for your parlour?"
"Yeth, if you please," replied Vinie, and the two went up the sunny road
to Charlottesville.
Back at Fontenoy, in the blue room, Rand, resting in the easy chair
beside the window, left the consideration of Adam and Adam's talk, and
gave his mind to the approaching hour in the Fontenoy drawing-room. He
both desired and dreaded that encounter. Would Miss Churchill be there?
Aided by the homely friendliness of her cousin's house on the
Three-Notched Road, he had met her and conversed with her without being
greatly conscious of any circumstance other than that she was altogether
beautiful, and that he loved her. But this was not Mrs. Selden's, this
was Fontenoy. He had stood here hat in hand, within Miss Churchill's
memory--certainly within the memory of the men of her family. Well! He
was, thank God! an American citizen. The hat was now out of his hand and
upon his head. The conditions of his boyhood might, he thought, be
forgotten in the conditions of his manhood. But--they would all be
gathered in the drawing-room. Should he speak first to Colonel Churchill
as his host, or first to the ladies of the house, to Miss Churchill and
Miss Dandridge? If Miss Churchill or Miss Dandridge were at the
harpsichord, should he wait at the door until the piece was ended? He
had a vision of a great space of polished floor reflecting candlelight,
and of himself crossing that trackless desert beneath the eyes of
goddesses and men. The colour came into his face. There were twenty
things he might have asked Mr. Pincornet that night at Monticello. He
turned with hot impatience from the consideration of the usages of
society, and fell to building with large and strong timbers the edifice
of his future. He built on while the dusk gathered, and he built while
Joab helped him to dress, and he was yet busy with beam and rafter when
at eight o'clock, with some help from the negro, he descended the stairs
and crossed the hall to the parlour door. How was he dressed? He was
dressed in a high-collared coat of blue cloth with eagle buttons, in
cloth breeches and silk stockings, in shoes with silver buckles, and a
lawn neckcloth of many folds. His hair was innocent of powder, and cut
short in what the period supposed to be the high Roman fashion. It was
his chief touch of the Republican. In the matter of dress he had not his
leader's courage. Abhorring slovenliness and the Jacobin motley, he
would not affect them. He was dressed in his best for this evening; and
if his attire was not chosen as Ludwell Cary would have chosen, it was
yet the dress of a gentleman, and it was worn with dignity.
Music was playing, as he paused at the half-open door,--he could see
Miss Dandridge at the harpsichord. The room seemed very light. For a
moment he ceased to be the master-builder and sank to the estate of the
apprentice, awkward and eaten with self-distrust; the next, with a
characteristic abrupt motion of head and hand, he recovered himself,
waved Joab aside, and boldly crossed the threshold.
Unity, at the harpsichord, was playing over, very rapidly, one after
another, reels, hornpipes, jigs, and Congos, and looking, meanwhile,
slyly out of velvet eyes at Fairfax Cary, who had asked for a
particularly tender serenade. He stood beside her, and strove for
injured dignity. It was a day of open courtship, and polite Albemarle
watched with admiration the younger Cary's suit to Miss Dandridge. He
had ridden alone to Fontenoy; his brother, who had business in
Charlottesville, promising to join him later in the evening. Mr. Ned
Hunter, too, was at Fontenoy, and he also would have been leaning over
the harpsichord but for the fact that Colonel Dick had fastened upon him
and was demonstrating with an impressive forefinger the feasibility of
widening into a highway fit for a mail-coach a certain forest track
running over the mountains and through the adjoining county. They stood
upon the hearth, and Mr. Hunter could see Miss Dandridge only by much
craning of the neck. "Yes, yes," he said vaguely, "it can easily be
widened, sir."
Major Churchill, playing Patience at the small table, raised his head
like a war-horse. "Nonsense! widen on one side and you will fall into
the river; on the other, and a pretty cliff you'll have to climb! You
could as well widen the way between Scylla and Charybdis--or Mahomet's
Bridge to Paradise--or Thomas Jefferson's Natural Bridge! Pshaw!" He
began to build from the five of clubs.
"A detour can be made," said Colonel Dick.
"Around the Blue Ridge?" asked the Major scornfully. "Pshaw! And it
passes my comprehension what a stage-coach would do in that country.
There are not ten houses on that cart track."
"Nonsense! there are fifty."
"Fifty-three, I assure you, sir."
The Major laid down his cards and turned in his chair. "I counted every
structure the last time I was on that road. Taking in Fagg's Mill and
Brown's Ferry and the Mountain Schoolhouse, there are just ten houses.
It is my habit, sir, to reckon accurately."
Mr. Hunter grew red. "But, sir, the count was taken before the last
election, and fifty-three--"
"Ten, sir!" said the Major, and placed the queen of diamonds.
"When did you ride that way, Edward?" queried his brother. "I don't
believe you've been across the mountain since the war."
"I was on that road in '87," said the Major. "I rode that way on the
sixth of April with Clark. And there are ten houses; I counted them."
"But good Lord, sir, this is 1804!"
The Major's hawk eyes, dark and bright beneath shaggy brows, regarded
Mr. Ned Hunter with disfavour. "I am aware, sir, that this is 1804," he
said, and placed the king of diamonds.
Jacqueline arose from her chair beside the open window, softly crossed
the floor, and touched Colonel Churchill upon the arm. "Uncle Dick," she
murmured, and with the slightest of gestures indicated Rand standing in
the door.
Colonel Churchill started, precipitantly left Mr. Hunter, and crossed
the floor to his guest of two weeks. "My dear sir, you came in so
quietly! I welcome you downstairs. Gilmer says you're a strong fighter.
When I was thrown at that same turn coming home from a wedding, I
believe I was in bed for a month!--Allow me to present you to my
nieces--Miss Churchill, Miss Dandridge. My poor wife, you know, never
leaves her chamber. Mr. Ned Hunter, Mr. Rand. Mr. Fairfax Cary I think
you know, and my brother Edward."
The young men's greeting, if somewhat constrained, was courteous. Major
Churchill played the card which he held in his hand, then slowly rose,
came stiffly from behind the small table, and made an elaborate bow.
There was in his acknowledgment of the honour of Mr. Rand's acquaintance
so much accent, cruelty, and hauteur that the younger man flushed. "This
is an enemy," said a voice within him. He bowed in return, and he no
longer felt any distrust of himself. When Miss Dandridge, leaving the
harpsichord, established herself upon the sofa before him and opened a
lively fire of questions and comment, he answered with readiness. He
thought her pretty figure in amber lutestring, and the turn of her
ringleted head, and the play of her scarlet lips all very good to look
at, and he looked without hesitation. The account which she demanded of
the accident which had placed him there he gave with a free, bold, and
pleasing touch, and the thanks that were her due as the immediate
Samaritan he chivalrously paid. Unity made friends with all parties, and
she now found, with some amusement, that she was going to like Lewis
Rand.
Rand looked too, freely and quietly, at the young men, his fellow
guests. Each, he knew, was arrogantly impatient of his presence there.
Well, they had nothing to do with it! His sense of humour awoke, and
Federalist hauteur ceased to fret him. Colonel Churchill, the most
genial of men, pushed his chair into the Republican's neighbourhood, and
plunged into talk. Conversation in Virginia, where men were concerned,
opened with politics, crops, or horseflesh. Colonel Dick chose the
second, and Rand, who had a first-hand knowledge of the subject, met him
in the fields. The trinity of corn, wheat, and tobacco occupied them for
a while, as did the fruit and an experiment in vine-growing. The horse
then entered the conversation, and Rand asked after Goldenrod, that had
won the cup at Fredericksburg. "I broke him for you, you know, sir,
seven years ago."
Colonel Churchill, who in his own drawing-room would not for the world
have mentioned this little fact to his guest, suddenly thought within
his honest heart, "This is a man, even if he is a damned Republican!" He
gave a circumstantial account of Goldenrod, and of Goldenrod's brother,
Firefly, and he said to himself, "I'll keep off politics." Presently
Rand began to speak of Adam Gaudylock's account of New Orleans.
"Ay, ay," said the Colonel, "there's a city! But it's not English--it is
Spanish and French. And all that new land now! 'twill never be
held--begging your pardon, Mr. Rand--by Thomas Jefferson and a lot of
new-fangled notions! No Spaniard ever did believe that all men are born
equal, and no Frenchman ever wanted liberty long--not unadorned liberty,
anyway. As for our own people who are pouring over the mountains--well,
English blood naturally likes pride and power and what was good enough
for its grandparents! Louisiana is too big and too far away. It takes a
month to go from Washington to New Orleans. Rome couldn't keep her
countries that were far away, and Rome believed in armies and navies and
proper taxation, and had no pernicious notions--begging your pardon
again, Mr. Rand--about free trade and the abolishment of slavery! I tell
you, this new country of ours will breed or import a leader--and then
she'll revolt and make him dictator--and then we'll have an empire for
neighbour, an empire without any queasy ideas as to majorities and
natural rights! And Thomas Jefferson--begging your pardon, Mr. Rand--is
acute enough to see the danger. He's not bothering about majorities and
natural rights either--for the country west of the Ohio! He's preparing
to govern the Mississippi Territory like a conquered province. Mark my
words, Mr. Rand, she'll find a Buonaparte--some young demagogue, some
ambitious upstart without scruple or a hostage to fortune some common
soldier like Buonaparte or favourite like--like--"
"Like--" queried Rand. But the Colonel, who had suddenly grown very red,
would not or could not continue his comparison. He floundered, drew out
his snuff-box and restored it to his pocket, and finally was taken pity
on by Unity, who with dancing eyes reëntered the conversation, and asked
if Mr. Rand had read The Romance of the Forest. Fairfax Cary left the
harpsichord, where he had been impatiently turning over the music, and,
strolling to one of the long windows, stood now looking out into the
gloomy night, and now staring with a frowning face at the lit room and
at Miss Dandridge, in her amber gown, smiling upon Lewis Rand! Near him,
Major Churchill, preternaturally grey and absorbed, played Patience. The
cards fell from his hand with the sound of dead leaves. Beside a second
window sat Jacqueline, looking, too, into the night. She sat in a low
chair covered with dull green silk, and the straight window curtains,
of the same colour and texture, half enshadowed her. Her dress was
white, with coral about her throat and in her hair. She leaned her elbow
on her knee, and with her chin in her hand looked upon the dark mass of
the trees, and the stars between the hurrying clouds.
The younger Cary, at his window, leaned out into the night, listened a
moment, then turned and left the room. "It is my brother, sir," he
announced, as he passed Colonel Churchill. "I hear him at the gate."
Ten minutes later Ludwell Cary entered. He was in riding-dress, his
handsome face a little worn and pale, but smiling, his bearing as usual,
quiet, manly, and agreeable. "It is a sultry night, sir," he said to
Colonel Churchill. "There is a storm brewing.--Miss Dandridge, your very
humble servant!--Mr. Rand--" He held out his hand. "I am rejoiced to see
you recovered!"
Rand stood up, and touched the extended hand. "Thank you," he said, with
a smile. "I were a Turk if I did not recover here amidst all this
goodness."
"Yes, yes, there's goodness," answered Cary, and moved on to the window
where Jacqueline sat in the shadow of the curtains. Rand, looking after
him, saw him speak to her, and saw her answer with a smile.
A pang ran through him, acrid and fiery. It was not like the vapour of
distaste and dislike, of which he had been conscious on the day of the
election. That had been cold and clinging; this was a burning and a
poisoned arrow. It killed the softening, the consciousness of charm, the
spell of Cary's kindness while he lay there helpless in the blue room.
Not since the old days when his heart was hot against his father, had he
felt such venom, such rancour. That had been a boy's wild revolt against
injustice; this passion was the fury of the adolescent who sees his
rival. He looked at Cary through a red mist. This cleared, but a seed
that was in Rand's nature, buried far, far down in the ancestral earth,
swelled a little where it lay in its dim chasm. The rift closed, the
glow as of heated iron faded, and Rand bitterly told himself, "He will
win; more than that, he deserves to win! As for you, you are here to
behave like a gentleman." He turned more fully to Unity, and talked of
books and of such matters as he thought might be pleasing to a lady.
Fairfax Cary entered, brushing the drops from his coat-sleeve. "The rain
is coming down," he said, and with deliberation seated himself beside
Miss Dandridge.
"That's good!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Now things will
grow!--Jacqueline, child, aren't you going to sing to us?"
Jacqueline rose, left the window, and went to her harp, Cary following
her. She drew the harp toward her, then raised her clear face. "What
shall I sing?" she asked.
Cary, struck by a note in her voice, glanced at her quickly where she
now sat, full in the light of the candles. She had no colour ordinarily,
but to-night the fine pale brown of her face was tinged with rose. Her
eyes were lustrous. As she spoke she drew her hands across the strings,
and there followed a sound, faint, far, and sweet. Cary wondered. He was
not a vain man, nor over-sanguine, but he wondered, "Is the brightness
for me?" The colour came into his own cheek, and a vigour touched him
from head to heel. "I don't care what you sing!" he said. "Your songs
are all the sweetest ever written. Sing To Althea!"
She sang. Rand watched her from the distance--the hands and the white
arm seen behind the gold strings, the slender figure in a gown of filmy
white, the warm, bare throat pouring melody, the face that showed the
soul within. All the room watched her as she sang,--
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage."
Through the window came the sound of rain, the smell of wet box and of
damask roses. Now and then the lightning flashed, showing the garden and
the white bloom of locust trees.
"Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage."
Rand's heart ached with passionate longing, passionate admiration. He
thought that the voice to which he listened, the voice that brooded and
dreamed, for all that it was so angel-sweet, would reach him past all
the iron bars of time or of eternity. He thought that when he came to
die he would wish to die listening to it. The voice sang to him like an
angel voice singing to Ishmael in the wilderness.
The song came to an end, but after a moment Jacqueline sang again,
sonorous and passionate words of a lover to his mistress. It was not now
the Cavalier hymning of constancy; it was the Elizabethan breathing
passion, and his cry was the more potent.
"The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine"--
Blinding lightning, followed by a tremendous crash, startled the singer
from her harp and brought all in the room to their feet. "That struck!"
exclaimed the Colonel. "Look out, Fairfax, and see if 't was the
stables! I hear the dogs howling.
"'Twas the big pine by the gate, I think, sir," answered Fairfax Cary,
half in and half out of the window. "Gad! it is black!"
"You two cannot go home to-night," cried Colonel Churchill, with
satisfaction. "And here's Cato with the decanters! We might have a hand
at Loo--eh, Unity? you and Fairfax, Ned Hunter and I.--The card-table,
Cato!"
The four sat down, the card-table being so placed as to quite divide
Jacqueline and Ludwell Cary, at the harp, from Major Edward's small
table and Rand beside the sofa. "Edward!" said the Colonel. His brother
nodded, gathered up his cards, and turned squarely to the entertainment
of the Republican. "So, Mr. Rand, Mr. Monroe goes to Spain! What the
Devil is he going to do there? I wish that your party, sir, would send
Mr. Madison to Turkey and Colonel Burr to the Barbary States! And what,
may I ask, are you going to do with the Mississippi now that you've got
it? It's a damned expensive business buying from Buonaparte. Sixty
millions for a _casus belli_! That's what you have paid, and that's what
you have acquired, sir!"
"I don't think you can be certain that it's a _casus belli_, sir--"
"Sir," retorted the Major, "I may not know much, but what I know, I know
damned well! You cry peace, but there'll be no peace. There'll be war,
sir, war, war, war!"
Unity glanced from the card-table. "Sing again, Jacqueline, do! Sing
something peaceful," and Jacqueline, still with a colour and with
shining eyes, laughed, struck a sounding chord, and in her noble
contralto sang Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.