Now, face to face with the long-sought opportunity, Colonel Ashley was
grievously disappointed. A woman--young, singularly beautiful, dressed
like a middle-aged frump, with the manners of a matron of fifty, staid,
reserved, inattentive, uninterested!
The incongruity affected him like a discourtesy; its rarity had no
attractions for him, nor in the slightest degree roused his curiosity.
He had expected charm, glow, responsiveness, coquetry,--all the various
traits that attend on beauty and youth. Even a conscious hauteur would
have had its special grace and piqued an effort to win her to
cordiality, but here was the inexpressiveness, the indifference, of an
elderly woman, one tired, despondent, done with the world--civil,
indeed, as behooved her rearing, her station, but unnoting--really apart
from all the interests of the present and all thought for the future.
And, certainly, Mrs. Gwynn's life might be considered already lived out
in her past.
The rain fell in sheets, and Colonel Ashley wished himself back in camp,
despite the flavor of the flummery. As they sat at table, now and again
a vivid glare of lightning revealed through the windows the expanse of
falling water, closely wrought as a silver-gray fabric, and the flash of
white foam from its impact with the ground. The house seemed to rock
with the reverberations of the bursts of thunder.
When they were once more in the library, Colonel Ashley found himself
with a long evening on his hands; his chum, Baynell, had fallen into one
of his frequent fits of silent reflectiveness as he smoked, and Judge
Roscoe, an ascetic, quiet, uncongenial old man, of opposite political
convictions,--which placed an embargo on all the topics of the day,--did
not seem to promise much in the way of lively companionship.
Mrs. Gwynn still lingered in the dining room, and the little "ladies"
explained that her old nurse, who was now the cook, was afflicted with a
"misery," seeming to bear some relation to neuralgia, and needed help to
get through with her work, "Uncle Ephraim being a poor dependence" where
the handling of crockery was concerned.
The "ladies," with true feminine coquetry, affected a shy reserve, and
rather retreated from the expansive jovial bonhomie of Colonel Ashley's
hearty advances toward them, albeit they were wont to press their
attentions upon the inexpressive Captain Baynell. They met with
fluttering downcast glances the engaging twinkle of Ashley's bright dark
eyes. They replied with demure little clipped monosyllables to his gay
sallies, and indeed Colonel Ashley bade fair to discharge the task of
entertaining himself throughout the evening, till he luckily asked one
of them what she liked best to play--graces or battledore and
shuttlecock, Geraldine having brought in a grace-hoop and now holding it
in her hands before her as she stood in the flicker of the fire.
"I like cards best," Adelaide volunteered unexpectedly.
"Have you a pack of cards? Then let's have a game!" Ashley cried gayly;
"though I'm afraid you can beat me at anything I try."
There was a shrill jubilance of juvenile acclaim. The three, their
ringlets waving, their cheeks flushing, the short skirts of their gay
attire--blue, and crimson, and orange--fluttering joyfully, were
instantly placing the chairs about the little card-table and climbing
into them, while Colonel Ashley took the cards and dealt them with many
airy fancy touches, to the amazement and admiration of the "ladies."
With his versatile capacity for all sorts of enjoyment, the incident was
beginning to have a certain zest for him, involving no sacrifice either
of inclination or time. Baynell realized how Ashley also valued the
pose. He had an intuitive perception of Ashley's own relish of its
incongruity,--the gallant colonel of cavalry, who had successfully
measured blades with the fiercest swordsmen and masters of fence, to be
now lending himself gently to play with three little children, whose
soft eyes glowed upon him with radiant admiration and tenderest
confidence, while the firelight flared and flickered within and the
storm raged without! Baynell knew that it was with an appreciated
sacrifice of the perfect proportions of the situation that Ashley
finally dealt cards for his friend and Judge Roscoe; he would have
preferred to exclude them, if he might, and have the whole stage for the
effects of his own dramatic personality. But never, in all his weavings
of romance about himself, was Ashley guilty of even the slightest
injustice or discourtesy or forgetfulness of the claims of others; hence
his character was almost as fine and lovable as he feigned, or as it
would have seemed, had but his foible of self-appreciation,
self-gratulation, borne a juster proportion and been rendered less
obvious by his own cheerful, unconscious, transparent candor. There was
no guile in him, and the smile was quite genuine with which he took up
his cards and affected to look anxiously through them to discern if Fate
lurked therein in the presence of the Old Maid.
For it was this dread game that the "ladies" had chosen, and a serious
affair it is when regarded from their standpoint. Ashley had now no need
of his own sentiments or mental processes or artistic poses to minister
to his entertainment. It was quite sufficient to watch the faces of the
"ladies" as the "draw" went round, each player in turn taking at random
an unseen card from the hand of the next neighbor to the left, the
whole pack of course having been dealt. The heavy terror of doom was
attendant upon the unwelcome pasteboard. Once, as this harbinger of Fate
passed on, a gleeful squeal announced that a "lady" had escaped the
anguish of the prospect of single blessedness.
"That's not fair, Ger'ldine!" exclaimed Adelaide, reprovingly; "you have
told ever'body that Gran'pa has drawed the Old Maid!"
"I jus' couldn't help it--I was _so glad_ she was gone," apologized the
contrite Geraldine.
"It makes no difference, my precious, for I have two of the queens, and
they are a pair," said Judge Roscoe, and as he threw the mates on the
table the "ladies" placed their hands on their lips to stifle the aghast
"Ohs!" and "Ahs!" that trembled on utterance, and gazed on their
fellow-gamesters with great, excited, round eyes. For the crisis had
supervened. Of course one of the queens had been withdrawn from the pack
at the commencement of the game, in order to leave an odd queen as the
Old Maid. Since two had just been discarded there remained the prophetic
spinster, and each "lady's" delicate little fingers trembled on the
"draw." Ashley could scarcely preserve a becoming gravity and
inexpressiveness as the pleading beseeching eyes of his next neighbor
were cast up to his countenance, seeking to read there some intimation
of the character of the card she had selected. More than once the
choice was precipitately abandoned at the last moment and another card
snatched at hysteric haphazard. Then when an insignificant five of
diamonds or three of spades was revealed,--what joy of relief, what
deep-drawn sighs of relaxed tension, what activity of little slippered
feet under the table, unable to be still, fairly dancing with pleasure
that the Old Maid with her awful augury still held aloof and went the
rounds elsewhere! Then--the eagerness of expectation and the renewed
jeopardy of doubt.
"On my word, this is sport!" exclaimed Colonel Ashley. "This is better
than a 'small stake to give an interest to the game,'--eh, Judge?"
"It's a _big_ stake," said Geraldine, at his elbow, "the Old Maid is!"
The desperate suspense, the anguish of jeopardy, continued, and at
length Geraldine had but one card left, Colonel Ashley holding two; the
other players having matched and tabled the rest of the pack were now
out of the game. Seeing how seriously the doom of spinsterhood was
regarded, Colonel Ashley sought to prevent his little neighbor from
drawing the fateful pasteboard by craftily shifting the cards in his
hand as she was about to take hold of the grim-visaged queen. Geraldine
detected the motion instantly, with deep suspicion misinterpreted his
intention, and laid hold on the card he had manoeuvred to retain. Her
crestfallen dismay betrayed the disaster. With wide, fearfully
prescient eyes she nevertheless gathered all her faculties for the final
effort. Cautiously holding her two cards under the table, she shifted
them, interchanged them back and forth, then tremulously permitted him
to draw. This done, he placidly placed two fives on the table.
There was a moment of impressive silence while the "lady" held before
her eyes in her babyish fingers the single card, and gazed petrified on
the Medusa-like visage of the Old Maid. Then, as a murmur of awe arose
from the other "ladies," looking pityingly upon her, yet blissful in
their own escape, she burst into tears, and, bowing her golden head in
her arms on the table, wept copiously, though softly, silently, mindful
that Cousin Leonora allowed no "loud whooping in weeps," her little
shoulders shaken by her sobs.
Colonel Ashley could but laugh as he protested, "This is truly
flattering to masculine vanity." Then, his kindly impulses uppermost,
"Come, Miss Geraldine, let's have another round. There must be more Old
Maids still hiding out in this crowd. Let's see who they are."
Adelaide looked alarmed as the stricken one lifted her head to the
prospect of the company that misery loves.
"I wish I was like Cousin Leonora, born a widow-woman," she remarked,
regarding the doubtful future askance.
"Widow-womans can marry,--Aunt Chaney says they can," Geraldine
declared, as she took up the cards of the new deal.
"Well, you would speak more properer if you said 'widow-_womens_' than
'widow-_womans_,'" rejoined the critical Adelaide, rendered tart by her
renewed jeopardy and the sudden termination of the definite sense of
escape.
While each player's hand was full of cards, the three queens still
amongst them, the interest was not so tense as the first few draws went
round and Mrs. Gwynn's entrance from the dining room created some stir.
Baynell and Ashley rose to offer her a chair, and the latter proposed to
deal her a hand in the game.
"Not this round," she returned, "as the game has already commenced.
Besides, I am quite chilly. I shall sit by the fire and read the evening
paper until you play out the hand."
She seated herself near the fire, shivered once or twice, and held out
her dainty fingers to it with exactly the utilitarian manner of some
elderly woman, whose house-keeping errands have detained her in the
cold, and who extends gnarled, misshapen, chapped, wrinkled hands,
soliciting comfort from the warmth. Then she took up the paper and held
the sheet to catch the lamplight from the centre-table upon it.
"Why doesn't she put on her 'specs'? She knows she needs them," Colonel
Ashley said to himself in a sort of whimsical exasperation. Her figure
was slim and girlish, sylphlike as she reclined in the large fauteuil;
her hair glittered golden in the flicker of the fire and the sheen of
the lamp; her face, with its serious expression intent on the closely
printed columns, might almost seem a sculptor's study of perfect facial
symmetry. Her incongruous indifference, her elderly assumptions,--if,
indeed, she was conscious of the effect of her manner,--all betokened
that she considered it no part of her duty, and certainly no point of
interest, to entertain young men.
"We are mere boys to her, Baynell and I; she'll never see her sixtieth
birthday again. I have known younger grandmothers," was Colonel Ashley's
farcical thought.
Her nullity of attitude toward him was so complete that she limited the
possibilities of his imagination. He began to devote himself to the
gentle pursuit in hand with a freshened ardor.
Around and around the draw went, almost in absolute silence. Now and
again the tabling of matching cards sounded with the sharp impact of
triumph, but this was growing infrequent as the hands were thus
depleted. The firelight flickered on the incongruous group,--the bearded
faces of the military men, the gold-laced uniforms, with buttons
glimmering like points of light, the infantine softness of the "ladies,"
with their fluttering ringlets and gala attire, the gray head and
ascetic aspect of the judge. The heat had enhanced the odor of a bowl
of violets on the table in the centre of the room; as the flames rose
and fell, the lion on the rug seemed to stir about, to rouse from his
lair.
Outside the rain still fell in torrents; the tumult of the gush from the
gutter hard by gave intimations of great volume of overflow. At long
intervals a drop fell hissing down the chimney on the coals where the
fire had burned to a white heat. The wind sang like a trump, and from
far away the reverberations of a train of cars came with a sort of
muffled sonority that was almost indistinguishable from the vibrations
of the earth. One hardly knew whether the approach of the train was felt
or heard.
"I can't see how a locomotive can keep the rails in such a night as
this," Colonel Ashley remarked, lifting his head to listen. "I had
rather my command would be playing the duck down there in the puddles
than crossing that half-submerged bridge on that troop train."
"Are they transporting troops now?" asked Judge Roscoe, casually. He was
a lawyer and knew the general inappropriateness and inadmissibility of a
leading question. He had, however, no interest in the response, for the
transit of troops did not necessarily intimate reenforcements to the
garrison, and hence the expectation of attack, but perhaps merely the
intention of distant activity.
Captain Baynell lifted his eyes from his cards, and a glance of
warning, of upbraiding, flashed into the jovial dark eyes of Colonel
Ashley. Judge Roscoe perceived it with surprise and a sort of
uncomfortable monition that he and his guest, the son of his cherished
friend, were in reality in opposition in a most important crisis of the
life of each--in effect, national enemies. He had not thus regarded
their standpoint, and the idea that this was Baynell's conviction
wounded him. He hardly thought the warning glance in his own house
either necessary or in good form, and he was not ill pleased to subtly
perceive that Ashley secretly resented it.
"A troop train, I should judge, by the sound," Ashley said hardily, his
head still poised in a listening pose. "Evidently heavily laden; might
be horses, though," he continued speculatively. He would not submit to
be checked or disciplined into prudential considerations by Baynell,
especially as Judge Roscoe must have noted the warning sign, which
itself would tend to convert a simple casual remark into a significant
disclosure. He said to himself that he knew the proper limitations of
conversation, and was the last man in the world to let slip a hint that
might by any means inform or even prompt the enemy. Moreover, Judge
Roscoe was not deaf, and could distinguish the deep rumble of cars laden
with troops from the usual sound of the running-gear of a train of
ordinary freight and passengers. He went on casually and with an
expansive effect of frankness: "Horses, most probably; there is a
cavalry regiment in town that has been at the front as dismounted
troops, and I think an order is out for horses for their use as cavalry
again; they have been pressing horses all over the county yesterday and
the day before. Winstead's troopers, you know," he added, addressing
Baynell. "I saw him to-day. He says his men all seem pigeon-toed, or
web-footed, or something. They were of no use afoot, although they have
done very well in the saddle."
"An'--an' did they wear boots on birds' feet an' web-toes?" asked the
amazed Geraldine, innocently.
"Oh--oh, _Ger'ldine_!" screamed the superior Adelaide. "He means walkin'
this-a-way," and her hands went across the table in a "toeing-in" gait,
illustrative of the defect known as "pigeon toes."
"Aw--aw--_I_ know now!" said the instructed "lady," wofully out of
countenance. Then she turned to draw from her neighbor's hand with much
doubt and circumspection, for the matched pile in the centre was now
large and the remaining cards had become few.
At that moment Mrs. Gwynn glanced up from the paper; she had been
reading an account of a recent spirited skirmish at the front.
"What is the difference between shrapnel and grape-shot?" she asked of
the company at large.
Baynell, the artillery expert, rejoiced to enlighten her. He turned in
his chair and promptly took the word from the others. Few experts can
answer any simple question categorically. Not only did he explain the
missiles in question, but also how they had happened to be what they
were, and the earlier stages of their development. He gave his views on
their relative value and the possibility of their future utility,--all
while Ashley, who now sat next him, as they had chanced to shift their
chairs when Mrs. Gwynn had entered, waited with quiet and polite
patience for him to draw. Baynell did this at haphazard at last, and
whether it was accident or Fate that the significant card was
practically thrust into his heedless hand by the mischievous Ashley, his
countenance fell at beholding the prognosis of single blessedness, so
palpably, so preposterously, that the jovial Ashley could not restrain
his bantering laughter. Baynell instantly presented the cards to him to
draw in turn, but either favored by luck or having acquired some
surreptitious unfair knowledge of the outer aspect of the card, Ashley
avoided the ill-omened pasteboard, and Baynell was at last left with the
single card in his hand, while his triumphant friend made the room
riotous with laughter, and the three "ladies" bent compassionate, tender
eyes upon him, as if they anticipated the conventional gush of tears.
They had grown very fond of him, and deeply felt the disaster that had
befallen him.
"Oh, Captain Baynell, never mind! never mind!" cried the inspirational
Adelaide. "_We'll_ marry you! _We'll_ marry you! You needn't be _so_
anxious!"
Once more Ashley's ringing merriment amazed the sympathetic "ladies."
Lucille cast a burning glance of reproof upon him. Then she held up
three fingers to Captain Baynell to intimate that three brides awaited
him.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Ashley. "Here's a settler for Utah, Judge. That's
evidently the place for this fellow 'when this cruel war is over'!"
Judge Roscoe smilingly watched the benignant, commiserating little
countenances.
Adelaide had gone around the table and was hanging on the arm of Captain
Baynell's chair as she proffered consolation.
"Colonel Ashley wouldn't think it so mighty funny if _he_ had the Old
Maid! But _don't_ mind, Captain. Why, _I_ know _Cousin Leonora_ would
marry you, if nobody else would,--she always does anything when nobody
else wants to."
The silver tones were singularly clear, and for a moment the group sat
in appalled silence. Ashley did not laugh, though his face was still
distended with the risible muscles. It was like a laughing mask--the
form without the fact. He did not dare even to glance toward the chair
where Mrs. Gwynn imperturbably perused the war news, nor yet at the
stony terror which he felt was petrified on his friend's face. At that
moment a vivid white light quivered horribly through the room and the
repetitious crashing clamor of the thunder was like a cannonade at close
quarters. A great fibrous sound of the riving of timber told that a tree
hard by had been split by the bolt; the torrents descended with
redoubled force, and the massive old house seemed to rock.
And in the moment of comparative quiet a new, strange sound intruded
itself on recognition,--that most uncanny voice, the cry of a horse in
the extremity of terror. It came again and again; at each successive
peal of the thunder and recurrent furious flare of lightning it seemed
nearer. It had a subterranean effect; and then after the crash of
falling objects, as if some barrier had been overthrown, the iteration
of unmistakable hoof beats on stone flagging announced that there was a
horse in the cellar.
This phenomenon obviously indicated an effort to save the animal from
the impress of horses for army service, which had been in progress for
days and to which Colonel Ashley had alluded. Far away in the
wine-cellar, in the safe precincts under the back drawing-room, which
was rarely used nowadays, the horse had evidently been ensconced, and
but for the storm his presence might have continued indefinitely
undetected. The tremendous conflict of the powers of the air, the
unfamiliar place, the loneliness, had stricken the creature with panic
fright, and, doubtless hearing human voices in the library, he had
overthrown temporary obstacles, burst down inadequate doors, and
following the genial sound was now stamping and whinnying just beneath
the floor. Colonel Ashley, affecting to note nothing unusual, dealt the
cards anew, and commented on the fury of the tempest.
"I fancy you have lost one of your fine ancestral oaks, Judge. That bolt
struck timber with a vengeance."
"We have the consolation of a prospect of firewood," responded Judge
Roscoe. "But I doubt if it struck only one of the trees."
"I think I never before saw such a flash as that," remarked Ashley.
The horse in the cellar protested that _he_ never had. Then he fairly
yelped at a comparatively mild suffusion followed by a dull roar of
thunder, evidently anticipating a renewal of the pyrotechnic horrors
that had so terrified him.
Judge Roscoe maintained an imperturbable aspect, despite a certain
mortification and a sense of derogation of dignity. He recognized this
as a scheme of old Ephraim's. More than once he had so contrived the
disappearance of the last milch cow that his master possessed as to save
her from the foraging parties bent on beef. Chickens had experiences of
invisibility that were not fatal, and though the carriage pair and the
judge's saddle-horse had been the victims of surprise,--impressed long
ago,--the old servant had again and again rescued a beautiful animal
that Mrs. Gwynn owned and which had been a second gift from Judge
Roscoe. Hearing betimes of the press orders from the soldiers, the
"double-faced Janus" had besought Judge Roscoe to leave the concealment
of Acrobat to him; and, although only a passive factor in the
enterprise, Judge Roscoe, as much surprised at the denouement as any one
else, was forced to bear the brunt of the lamentable fiasco in which the
secret had become public.
Baynell, though silent, looked extremely annoyed.
"This rainfall will raise the river considerably," Ashley commented.
"Shouldn't be surprised if the lower portions of the town are flooded
already," said Judge Roscoe, throwing out a pair of matched cards.
"Those precincts are very ill situated," said Ashley.
The Houyhnhnm in the cellar protested that he was, too.
"High water must occasion considerable suffering among the poorer
class," rejoined the judge.
"But the locality could have been easily avoided in laying out Roanoke
City. Draw, Captain--" Ashley broke off suddenly, being forced to remind
the preoccupied Baynell of his turn to supply his hand.
"The commercial convenience of wharfage at low stages of water was
doubtless the inducement," explained Judge Roscoe.
"To be sure,--minimizes the distance for loading freights," assented
Ashley.
"Yes, the drays come to the very decks of the boats."
"_That_ was a pretty sharp flash," said Ashley.
"Oh, it was--it was!" whooped the Houyhnhnm from out the cellar. He
evidently executed a sort of intricate passado, to judge from the sound
of his hysteric hoofs on the stone flagging.
"I hope your fine grove will sustain no more casualties," said Ashley.
"I hope, myself, the house won't be struck," whimpered the speculative
Adelaide.
"Me, too! Me, too!" cried the horse.
"Draw, Captain,"--once more Ashley had occasion to rouse the absorbed
Baynell.
At every inapposite, disaffected remark that the horse in the cellar saw
fit to interject into the conversation, the twins, evidently well aware
of the betrayal of the domestic secret by his loud-voiced intrusion into
the apartment beneath the library, fully apprehending the disaster, at
first looked aghast at each other, then referred it to the adjustment of
superior wisdom by a long, earnest gaze at their grandfather.
Judge Roscoe could ill sustain the expectation of their childish
comment. But he felt that his dignity was involved in ignoring that
aught was amiss. His composure emulated Ashley's resolute placidity and
well-bred, conventional determination to admittedly hear and see naught
that was not intentionally addressed by his host to his observation.
Baynell gave no outward and obvious sign of notice, but the subcurrent
of brooding thought that occupied his mind was token of his evident
comprehension and a nettled annoyance. Perhaps they all felt the relief
from the tension when Ashley, suddenly glancing toward the window, saw
between the long red curtains the section of a clearing sky and the
glitter of a star.
"The storm is over," he said. "I think, Judge, we might venture out now
to view the damage. I trust there is not much timber down."
The three men trooped heavily out into the hall, and suddenly the
challenge of the sentry rang forth, simultaneously with the sound of the
approach of horses' hoofs and the jingle of military accoutrements.
Colonel Ashley's groom had bethought himself to bring up his master's
charger in case he should care, since the weather had cleared, to return
to camp. This Ashley preferred, despite Judge Roscoe's cordial
insistence that he could put him up for the night without the slightest
inconvenience.
As Ashley took leave of the family and galloped down the avenue in the
chill damp air, and over the spongy turf, now and then constrained to
turn aside to avoid fallen boughs, he had not even a vague prevision
how short an interval was to elapse before chance should bring him back.
His expectation of meeting a charming young lady, with perhaps the
sequel of an interesting flirtation, in which all his best qualities as
squire of dames should be elicited for the admiration of the fair,--his
preeminence in singing, in quoting poetry, in saying pretty things, in
horsemanship, above all the killing glances of his arch dark eyes, to
say naught of the relish he always experienced in his own excellent pose
as a lover, one of his favorite roles,--all had been nullified by Mrs.
Gwynn's unresponsiveness. His vanity was touched, upon reflecting on the
events of the evening. He did not feel entreated according to his merits
by her attitude of a faded and elderly widow-woman, and his relegation
to the puerilities of the little Old Maids, or little "ladies," or
whatever they called themselves (certainly not the first), with Baynell
playing the stick, and the old judge merely a galvanized Opinion. He
resolved that he would stick to camp hereafter. He knew a game of "Draw"
with no Old Maid in the pack, and he would solace his spare time with
such diversion as it might afford, and look to the drill of his
squadrons.
Nevertheless the moisture of the storm was scarcely sun-dried the next
afternoon before he was again galloping up the long avenue of the grove
and inquiring of old Janus, appropriately playing janitor, if Captain
Baynell were within, as he had some special business with him.
As on other occasions there was no glimpse or sound of feminine presence
in the halls or on the stairs as he followed the old servant up the
softly padded ascent. He fancied the old negro was much disaffected; he
had a plaintive, remonstrant submissiveness, and a sort of curious,
shadowy, aged look that seemed a concomitant of a sullen reproach. Had
they been beyond earshot of the household, Ashley would have bidden the
old man out with his grievance, but naught was said, and presently the
door of Captain Baynell's bedroom closed upon him.
"Did you know that Tompkins had sent up here and impressed Mrs. Gwynn's
horse?"
Baynell had not risen from a seat at an escritoire, where he seemed to
have been writing, and Ashley was half across the room and had flung
himself into a chair before the fire ere his friend could lay down the
pen.
"Yes, I knew it."
"Why--why--how did he know they had the animal in the cellar? He was up
here the day before yesterday, and that old darkey told him that the
horse had already been pressed into service."
"He must have been put into the cellar earlier. You know we heard the
animal there last night."
"Why--why--" Colonel Ashley stammered in his haste--"how did _Tompkins_
know?"
"How?--why, of course I notified him--this morning."
Vertnor Ashley was altogether inarticulate. Baynell replied to the
surprise in his face.
"Why--whatever did you think I should do?"
"Hold your tongue, of course!--as I held mine! Why, I thought you were a
friend of these people."
Baynell looked at him, surprised in turn. "And so I am."
"And they have been kindness itself to you!"
"But do they expect me to return their kindness by helping them deceive
the government, or to hold back supplies the army needs? They are
mistaken if they do! It is a matter of conscience!"
"Oh, a _little_ thing like that--" Ashley snapped his fingers--"a lady's
horse!"
"It is a matter of conscience!" Baynell reiterated.
"I tell you, my friend, I wouldn't have such a conscience as that in the
house! It's a selfish beast--a raging monster! exceedingly deadly to the
interests of other folks," Ashley retorted with his bright eyes aglow.
Baynell glanced out of the great window, with its white, embroidered
muslin curtains, between which he could see the ranges in the distance,
Roanoke in the mid-spaces, the white tents of the girdle of encampments
on all the hillsides about the little city; at intervals, held in
cup-like hollows, were great glittering ponds of water, the
accumulations of the storm, glassing the clouds like mirrors, and
realizing to the eye the geologist's description of the prehistoric days
when lakes were here.
A sudden suspicion was in Ashley's mind. His resolution was taken on the
instant. "I hope you will advance no objection; but I intend to see Mrs.
Gwynn and Judge Roscoe, and assure them that _I_ had no part in giving
this information to the quartermaster's department."
Baynell looked at him with an indignant retort rising to his lips, then
laughed satirically.
"Do you imagine I left _you_ under that imputation?"
"You consider it no imputation, but a duty. Now I don't see my duty in
that light. And I prefer to make my position clear to them."
Baynell already had his hand on the bell-cord, and it was with pointed
alacrity that he gave the order when old Ephraim appeared--"Please say
to Mrs. Gwynn and Judge Roscoe that Colonel Ashley and Captain Baynell
wish to speak to them a few minutes on a matter of business if they are
at leisure."
Uncle Ephraim, in whose soul the misadventure about the horse was
rankling deep, surlily assented, closed the door, and took his way
downstairs.
"I recken _you_ kin speak ter dem," he soliloquized,--"mos' ennything
kin speak hyar. Who'd 'a' thought dat ar horse, dat Ac'obat, would set
out ter talk ter de folks in de lawberry, like no four-footed one hev'
done since de days ob Balaam's ass. But I ain't never hearn dat de ass
was fool enough ter got hisse'f pressed inter de Fed'ral army. 'Fore de
Lawd, dat horse wish now he had held his tongue an' stayed in de
wine-cellar, wid dat good feed, whar I put him."
Once in the library, the traits which so endeared Vertnor Ashley to
himself, and eke to others, were amply in evidence. He was gentle,
deferential, thoroughly straightforward and frank, albeit he saw the
subject was a mortification to Judge Roscoe and abated his sense of his
own dignity; still Ashley gave no offence.
"I understand. It was a matter of conscience with Captain Baynell," said
Judge Roscoe, seeking to dispose of the question in few words. "I can
have no displeasure against a man for obeying the dictates of his own
conscience, as every man must."
"Well, I am happy to say I had no conscience in the matter," said
Colonel Ashley.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, with her curt, low, icy tone. "We have
indeed fallen on evil times. Captain Baynell has conscience enough to
destroy us all, if only he sees fit. And Colonel Ashley, by his own
admission, has no conscience at all. Between the two we _must_ come to
grief."
"It seems to me a trifle," Ashley persisted smilingly, "brought to my
attention accidentally on a hospitable occasion. For aught _I_ knew, you
might have a permit, or the horse might have been a condemned animal,
unsound, thus escaping the requisition. I had no orders to investigate
your domestic affairs, nor to search for animals evading the impress.
The men detailed to that duty are presumed to be capable of discharging
it."
"I assure you we have no feeling on that account--no antagonism--" began
Judge Roscoe.
"I desire you to realize that _nothing_ would have induced me to report
the presence of the horse here," Ashley interrupted; "though," he added,
checking himself, "I do not wish to reflect on Captain Baynell's
procedure!"
"He thought himself justified, indeed obligated," interposed Judge
Roscoe.
"Of course I greatly regretted the necessity, which seemed forced on me,
as I saw the matter," said Baynell.
"I fully appreciate that you take a different view," began Ashley.
"'O give ye good even. Here's a million of manners,'" quoted Mrs. Gwynn,
satirically, smiling from one to the other as each sought to press
forward his own view, yet to cast no reflections on the probity of the
standpoint of the other.
Judge Roscoe laughed. He was an admirer of what he called
"understanding in women," and the mere flavor of a Shakespearian
collocation of words refreshed his spirit like an oasis in a desert.
Ashley looked at her doubtfully. He wondered that they could forgive
Baynell for this gratuitous bit of official tyranny, as it seemed to
him, and also the serious loss of the value of the horse. He said to
himself that almost any rule is constrained to exceptions. He thought
Baynell's course was small-minded, unjustifiable, and an ungrateful
requital of hospitality, such as only important interests might warrant.
He did not reckon on the strength of the attachment which Judge Roscoe,
despite politics, had formed for his dear friend's son, or for his
respect for the coercive force of a man's convictions of the
requirements of duty. It was a sort of Brutus-like urgency which
appealed to a high sense of probity and which commended itself to the
ex-judge, accustomed to deal with subtle differentiations of moral
intent as well as intricate principles of sheer law.
As for Mrs. Gwynn--it was sufficient that she had lost the horse. She
cared too little for either man as an individual to consider the
delicate adjustment of the problem of official integrity involved.
"I surely should have lost every claim to your good opinion if I had
glozed it over and passed it by for personal reasons," Baynell argued
after Ashley had gone.
She looked at him speculatively for an instant, wondering what possible
claim he could fancy he possessed to her good opinion.
"If you think impressing a horse is a recommendation, a great many
citizens of this town have cause to hold the quartermaster-general in
high esteem. A perfect drove of horses passed here this afternoon. I
looked for Acrobat, but I did not see him."
He was taken aback at this turn. "But you know, of course, it was
against my own will--my own preference--the horse--it was a sacrifice on
my part!"
"So glad to know it; I thought the sacrifice was mine!"
He shifted the subject.
"Judge Roscoe has kindly given me permission to stable here my own
horses,--not belonging to the service,--and to use the pasture, and I
hope you will ride one that I think is particularly suitable for a lady.
Judge Roscoe, to show that he bears no malice, is riding another one to
Roanoke City this afternoon."
She said that she had lost her equestrian tastes. But she listened quite
civilly while he argued the ethics anew, and, as her interest in the
subject had waned with the dissolving view of her horse and she did not
care for the question in the abstract, she did not controvert his theory
or relish placing obstacles to the justification of his course.