I anticipated this scene as little as I did the fact that Jane Ryder
would come with me. I was prepared to carry her off if she refused, but
I was ill prepared for the rumpus that this quiet-looking woman kicked
up. She followed us to the door and stood wailing while I tried to
persuade Jane Ryder to mount my horse. She hesitated, but I fairly
lifted her into the saddle. The stirrup-straps were too short, but that
made no difference. I sprang on the horse behind her, and, reaching
forward, seized the reins and turned the horse's head in a direction
that would bring us into the town by a detour, so that we should miss
the Independents, who would follow the road that I had followed in
coming.
"Where are you taking me?" inquired Jane Ryder.
"To safety," I replied. "The house is to be raided to-night, and I
decided to bring you away. You saved me from a prison, and now I
propose to save you."
"I saved you? You are mistaken; it was that foolish woman, Miss Ryder."
"Well, she said that you are her dearest friend, and I'm saving you to
please her."
"You needn't hold me so tight. I'm in no danger of falling off. Where
are you taking me?"
"To General Forrest." She caught her breath, and then did her utmost to
fling herself from the horse. When she found that her strength was not
equal to the task of removing my arms or lifting them so she could slip
from the saddle, she began to use her tongue, which has ever been
woman's safest weapon.
"You traitor!" she cried; "oh, you traitor! I wish I had died before I
ever saw you."
"But this is the safest course," I insisted. "You will see, and then
you will thank me for bringing you away."
"And I thought you were a gentleman; I took you for an honest man. Oh,
if hate could kill you you would fall dead from this horse. What have I
done that I should come in contact with such a villain?"
[Illustration: "If hate could kill you, you would fall dead from this
horse."]
"You have a pistol," I said--I had felt it against my arm--"and it is
easy for you to use it. If you think so meanly of me why not rid the
earth of such a villain?"
"Do you know who I am?" she asked with a gasp of apprehension.
"Why, certainly," I answered. "Do you think I'd be taking the trouble
to save you else?"
"Trouble to save me? Save me? Why, I hope your savage General will hang
me as high as Haman."
"He would if he were a savage," I said, "and he would if you were a
man. And he may put you in prison as it is; you would certainly go
there if captured by the Forty Thieves. I am taking one chance in a
thousand. But better for you to be in prison, where you will be safe,
than for you to be going around here masquerading as a man and
subjecting yourself to the insults of all sorts of men."
"You are the only man that has ever insulted me. Do you hear?
You--gentleman!" she hissed. "Can't you see that I despise you? Won't
you believe it? Does it make no difference?"
"Not the least in the world," I replied. "Now, you must compose
yourself; you can be brave enough when you will--I think you are the
bravest woman I ever saw----"
"I wish I could say you are a brave man; but you are an arrant coward:
you, the soldier that plans to capture women."
"You must compose yourself," I repeated.
"In a few minutes we shall be in the presence of General Forrest, and I
should like to see you as calm as possible. I don't know, but I think
you will be safe. It was our only chance." The nearer we drew to
headquarters the more my anxiety rose; yes, and my sympathy. "By the
living Lord," I cried, "you _shall_ be safe!"
"Noble gentleman! to entrap a woman and then declare she shall not be
entrapped! To gain whatever honor there may be in a woman's capture by
running ahead of his ruffians and capturing her himself! This is
Southern manliness--this is Southern chivalry! I am glad I know it for
what it really is. Do you know," she went on, "that I really
thought--that--I--I---- You are the first man I was ever deceived
in--I----"
"Come now," said I, not unmoved, for my feelings ran far ahead of hers
and I knew what she would say and how hurt she was; "come now, you must
be calm. Everything depends on that--everything."
Near General Forrest's headquarters I dismounted and walked by the side
of my horse. Then when Whistling Jim came up, and I would have helped
her from the saddle, "Don't touch me!" she exclaimed. She jumped from
the saddle to the ground and stood before me, and for the first time I
was ashamed and afraid. "This way," I said. Then to the guard at the
door, "Private Shannon, of Captain Forrest's company, to see the
General."
"He's right in there," said the guard with good-natured informality. I
rapped at the inner door, and heard the well-known voice of General
Forrest bidding me to enter.
I saluted, and he made some motion with his hand, but his eye wandered
over me and rested on my companion. Then, after a moment, they returned
to me. "What's the matter, Shannon?"
"I have brought to you here one who came to my rescue last night when I
had been captured by a scouting party. We had gone to see the young
fellow who, you will remember, was wounded in our last affair at the
river--you saw him in the cabin. He was carried away the next day by
his friends, but grew so ill that he could be taken no farther than the
house on the turnpike two miles from town."
"You didn't let 'em git you just dry so, did you?" he asked. And then I
gave him the details of the affair from beginning to end. "I thought
Herndon was mighty keen to go," he remarked with a laugh. "You say this
young fellow fixed it so you could git away? And then you went back and
captured him? That don't look fair, does it?" He regarded me with
serious countenance.
"It is a lady, General, and I did not want her to fall in rough hands."
He uttered an exclamation of impatience and surprise, and made an
indignant gesture. "Now, look here, Shannon, that is a matter that I
won't tolerate. I've a great mind to----" He paused, hearing the voice
of his wife, who was visiting him. "Go back in there and tell Mrs.
Forrest to come in here a minute, and do you stay out till I call you.
I'm going to look into this business, and if it ain't perfectly square
all the way through you'll pay for it."
I hunted for Mrs. Forrest, hat in hand, and soon found her. I must have
had a queer expression on my face, for she observed it. "You must be
frightened," she said.
"I am, madam, for another as well as myself," and then I told her, as
we walked along very slowly, just how the matter lay. She regarded me
very seriously for a moment, and then smiled. She was a handsome lady,
and this smile of hers, full of promise as it was, made her face the
most beautiful I have ever seen before or since. It is a large saying,
but it is true.
I remember that I remained in the corridor cooling my heels a weary
time, but finally Mrs. Forrest came out. "You may go in now," she said.
"It is all right; I'm glad I was called; I think I have made the
General understand everything as I do. There are some things that men
do not understand as well as women, and it is just as well that they do
not. I am sure you will be very kind to that little woman in there."
I tried to thank her, but there is a gratitude that cannot be expressed
in words, and I could but stand before her mumbling with my head bent.
"I know what you would say," she remarked, graciously. "The General and
I have perfect confidence in you."
I went into the room where General Forrest and Jane Ryder were.
"Shannon, what are you and Herndon up to? What do you mean by going on
in this way?" He spoke with some severity, but there was a humorous
twinkle in his blue-gray eyes. "More than that, you took occasion to
prejudice the jury. What did you say to Mrs. Forrest?"
"I simply asked her to be kind to the lady in here."
"Well, she was all of that," said the General, "and she threatened me
with her displeasure if I wasn't kind to you, and as she's the only
human being that I'm really afeared of, I reckon I'll have to let you
off this time. Oh, you needn't look so smiling; you are to be punished,
and that heavily. You are to be responsible for this young woman. You
are to take charge of her and restore her to her own people--mind you,
to her own people. You are responsible to me, and I reckon you know
what that means; if you don't you can just ask somebody that knows me."
I knew what it meant well enough, and I knew what his words meant. "The
lady is as safe with me, General, as if she were in her mother's arms."
"Now, that's the way to talk, and I believe you," said General Forrest.
All this time Jane Ryder had said not a word. She sat very quietly, but
there was not a sign of gloom or dejection in her face. But uneasiness
looked from her eyes. She spoke presently, while General Forrest was
looking through a large morocco memorandum-book that was a little the
worse for wear. "If you please," she said, "I should like to go back to
my friends to-night, if they are not all killed. They can do you no
harm even if they are alive. They are only a couple of women."
"Well, they are not killed," replied General Forrest without looking
up. "Wimmen make war on me and do a lot of damage, but I don't make war
on them. I'm letting you off on a technicality, Miss Ryder. You are not
a spy; you have never been inside my lines until to-night; and yet you
were in a fair way to find out a good many things that the other side
would like to know."
"I never found out as much as I'd like to know," she replied; "and
since he came bothering me I haven't found out anything."
Apparently General Forrest ignored the remark. He turned to me with a
slip of paper in his hand. "You'll have to change your name, Shannon.
This passport is made out to someone else. Read it."
He handed it to me, and I read aloud: "The bearer of this, Captain
Francis Leroy, is authorized to pass in and out the Federal lines,
night or day, without let or hindrance." It was signed by a great man
at Washington and counter-signed by one almost as great.
"Why, that belongs to me," said Jane Ryder; "where did you find it?"
"I reckon it's just a duplicate," said the General, smiling. "I've had
it some time."
A little frown of perplexity appeared above Jane Ryder's eyes, and if
it had never gone away until she solved the mystery of this passport it
would have been there yet, for neither one of us ever knew where
General Forrest obtained the precious document.
"You will want to go out of my lines, Shannon, and you'll want to come
back, so I'll fix it up for you." He went into the next room and
dictated to an orderly, and presently brought me a paper signed with
his own name, and I have it yet.
Everything was ready for us to take our leave, and we did so. "You are
a different man from what I thought you," said Jane Ryder to General
Forrest, "and I have to thank you for your kindness and consideration."
"It ain't what people think of you--it's what you are that counts,"
replied General Forrest. I have thought of this homely saying hundreds
of times, and it rings truer every time I repeat it to myself. It
covers the whole ground of conscience and morals.
As I was going out, Jane Ryder being in advance, the General said to me
again, "Don't make no mistake about what I mean. You are responsible to
me for the safety of that young lady. I believe in you, but I may be
wrong. If I am wrong you'd just as well go out and hang yourself and
save me the trouble."
"You needn't worry about me, General. I can take care of myself,"
declared Jane Ryder. We went out of the house and came to where
Whistling Jim was holding the horses. I dismissed him then and there,
and told him to put his horse in the stable and have plenty of feed for
mine. But Jane Ryder, for reasons of her own, preferred to walk, so
that Whistling Jim went away with the two horses and we were left to
ourselves.
I remember that I said very little during that long walk, and all the
burden of the conversation fell on the young woman. She was not at all
elated over the narrow escape she had had, and preferred to make light
of it, but I knew that, under different circumstances, she would have
been put in prison in Richmond, and I think that her nature would have
succumbed to close confinement.
"You have had your way, after all, but I am not sure that I like it,"
she said. She waited for me to make some reply, but none was
forthcoming. "I hope you don't think you have won a great victory. If I
had been a man, perhaps the victory would have been the other way."
"I didn't compel you to come with me," I remarked.
"You mean I came of my own accord. If I did, it was to avoid a scene
before my mother--the lady you saw at the house. I didn't want her to
hear you bluster and threaten; and, besides, I wanted to tell you what
I think of you. We have both had our way. My mother thinks you are a
gentleman in a way, and I know what I know."
I trudged along by her side silently; I had no relish for an argument
in which I was sure to get the worst of it. In some matters a man is no
match for a woman: he cannot cope with her in a war of words. Nor will
silence discomfit them. At least, it had no such effect in this
instance, for the more I was silent, the louder and faster she talked,
and, apparently, the angrier she became.
"You will boast, no doubt," said she, "and tell your comrades how you
lorded it over a young fellow who turned out to be a woman--how you
compelled her to go with you to General Forrest's headquarters. But how
did you know me? How did you know who I was?"
I laughed aloud. "Why, I'd know you through a thousand disguises, as I
knew you here that first night."
"I don't believe it; you didn't know me that first night; you had never
seen me but once before, and you couldn't have known me. How did you
know me to-night? You won't answer, or if you do you'll say you knew me
by my swagger. Anything to insult a woman. I'd like to be a man for a
few hours just to see how they feel toward women--just how much more
contempt they feel than they show. I tell you, you didn't know me that
first night."
"Then why did I insist on going home with you?"
This rather stumped her. "Because--because you thought I was a slip of
a lad, and you knew you could impose on me. If you had known I was a
woman, you wouldn't have called me a little devil--Yes, you would!" she
quickly added. "You would have abused me worse than that if you had
known I was a woman. How did you know--if you knew?"
"By your eyes; the moment I looked into them fairly I said to myself,
'Here's Jane Ryder again; no one has eyes like hers!'"
She was silent for a little space, and then, "Did it never occur to you
that it would be politer to refer to me as _Miss_ Jane Ryder?" Now, I
had never thought of her as Miss Jane Ryder, and I told her so. "Are my
eyes so peculiar that you would know them anywhere? Are they positively
hideous, as the young women say?" I hesitated, and she went on, "But
why do I ask? No matter what you think, it can never, never make any
difference to me, after the way you have treated me to-night, and I
hope that when you bid me good-by, as you will have to do directly,
that I shall never see you again."
"That is the talk of a child, and you are supposed to be a grown
woman," I replied. "You know very well that I am obliged to carry out
the orders of my General, no matter how much they go against the
grain."
She stopped in the road and tried to read my face even in the dark. "Do
you really mean that?" and then, without waiting for an answer, she
turned and ran, and I followed the best I could.
X
It soon dawned on me that this surprising young woman was as nimble
with her feet as a schoolboy. She scampered away from me in a way to
put me on my mettle, and she must have run nearly half a mile before I
could come up with her. I touched her on the shoulder lightly, crying
"Caught!"
"There is no getting rid of you," she answered.
"Oh, but there is, as you will discover," I said. "Once with your
kin-people, you will see no more of me." I was vexed, but my ill-humor
seemed to add to her high spirits, and she talked away quite blithely.
When we came to the door it was open, and the mother, who had been kind
to me, stood there waiting. She was crying and wringing her hands, and,
for a moment, I thought she had been maltreated by those whose duty it
was to raid the house. But her trouble was of quite another kind.
"What have you done with her?" she asked.
"She is here with me," I replied. But when I turned to confirm my
words, Jane Ryder had disappeared. I could only stare at the woman
blankly and protest that she had been at my side a moment ago before.
"I knew it!" wailed the woman. "First comes you to wheedle her away,
and then come your companions to search the house for her. I knew how
it would be. I never knew but one man you could trust with a woman, and
he was so palsied that a child could push him over. And the little fool
was fond of you, too." And with that she wailed louder than ever.
"But, my good woman----" I began.
"Don't good woman me!" she cried. "You don't look like that kind of a
man, but I knew it; I knew how it would be!"
"Fiddlesticks and frog's eggs!" I cried. "Stop your crying. She is here
somewhere. You know well enough that I wouldn't have returned without
her. She came to the door with me. I'd have you to know, madam, that
I'm not the man you take me for. Do you think I'd injure a hair of her
head? It is you that have injured her by allowing her to masquerade as
a man--a little thing like that, with nobody to advise her. You are her
mother and pretend to be fond of her; why didn't you advise her against
all this? Why didn't you take a hickory to her and compel her to
remember her sex? You are the cause of it all--yes, you!"
I spoke in a very loud tone, for I was very angry, and I knew that the
only way to contend with a woman was to make more noise than she could.
Just as I was about to continue my railing protest, Jane Ryder came
through an inner door, dressed, as she should be, in the garb of her
sex. Her toilette would have been complete but for the fact that in her
haste her hair had fallen loose from its fastenings and now flowed over
her shoulders and down to her waist, black as night and as shiny as
silk.
"I thank you both for your good opinions," she said, making a mock
courtesy, "especially the chivalrous Mr. Carroll Shannon, with his
straps, and his hickories, and his riding-whips, and I hope he will
soon get a woman on whom he can use them all."
"Oh, Jane! Jane!" cried the other, "why will you worry those who love
you? Why will you try them so?"
The young woman's face fell at that, and she seemed to be very
contrite. She went quickly across the room and never paused until she
found herself in the woman's arms, and showed her love by so many
quaint and delicate little caresses, and had such a dainty and
bewitching way about her, that no human could have held out against
her. The woman's face had cleared on the instant and was no more
clouded with grief and anxiety. "You see how she is," said the woman to
me; "hurting you to the heart one minute and making you forget it the
next."
"I see," I replied; "but you should control her. You should make her
remember who and what she is, and not permit her to go about as a man
or boy. Don't you know how dangerous it is?"
"Oh, but she's her own mistress," the woman explained. "She can
wheedle, and no one can say her nay. But I'm glad she went away
to-night, though I was terribly afraid for her. She had no more than
got out of hearing before there came a pack of troopers, and nothing
must do but they must search the whole house from top to bottom. They
were hunting for Leroy, too, and if she had been here there would have
been trouble."
"What did I tell you?" I exclaimed. "I captured her ahead of them,
carried her to General Forrest, and now she is my prisoner. I am
responsible for her."
"I believe I had rather the others had captured me," Jane Ryder
declared. The woman looked at me and shook her head, as much as to say,
"Never believe her."
"Why did you trouble yourself?" Jane Ryder inquired. "I am sure I never
gave you any cause to worry yourself about me. If you think you have
done me a service you were never more mistaken in your life. You have
simply destroyed my usefulness for the time being; but you have given
me an opportunity to show you what I think of your intermeddling."
"Jane! you know that he has meddled with you only for your own good,"
said the older woman. "You ought to thank him on your knees."
"On my knees!" she exclaimed angrily. "On my knees! I dare say he would
like to see me on my knees before him, but he'll see me dead first." I
was surprised at the heat she showed over the matter.
"Your mother," I said, "has simply used an unfortunate expression. You
owe me nothing--and if you owed me everything a kind word would more
than repay me."
She bit her lip, but made no reply. "It's her way," explained the
mother, "and I'm free to say it's a very poor way. It has always been
her way. Love her and she'll hurt you; do her a favor and she'll
pretend to despise you. Her kind words are as scarce as pearls among
the poor. Scarce, but when they are spoken they make up for all the
rest. Don't be angry with her; a big man like you shouldn't care what a
child like her says."
"Child! I am older than he is," said Jane Ryder.
"But age is not age unless it has experience and judgment," remarked
the older woman, serenely. "Without them, age is another form of
childishness."
"What are you going to do with me?" asked Jane Ryder, turning to me.
She was evidently weary of a discussion of which she was the subject.
She had placed her finger squarely on my perplexity, for this was
indeed the great problem that I had to solve--what should I do with
her? Not to-morrow, nor the day after, but now--to-night. The question
had occurred to me a dozen times, but I had put it aside, trusting its
solution to the moment when it could be no longer postponed. I
hesitated so long that both of the women sat staring at me. "You have
not answered my question," said Jane Ryder, "and it is important that I
should know."
"I might give you your parole for the night," I answered.
"You persist in regarding me as your prisoner?"
"I have my orders," I replied. "You know that as well as I do."
"Thank you for your information. Good-night!" and she was gone before I
could say a word, even if I had known what to say. All I could do was
to stare blankly at the door through which she had disappeared. I had
known all along that if she once took the matter in her own hands I
should be powerless, for she was a woman--and such a woman! I could no
more hold her prisoner against her will than I could fly. My whole
nature revolted at the thought of it. She was a woman--a dangerous
woman, no doubt, but still a woman--and that settled it for me.
And then, after I had looked at the door long enough to stare it out of
countenance, if it had had one, I turned to the mother and stared at
her. There was just the shadow of a smile hovering around her lips, and
it nettled me. "She is parading as a man," I said, "and I think I shall
treat her as one. A man can be rapped on the head, tied up, and bundled
about, without regard for his comfort."
"And yet," said the mother, with her knowing smile, "you wouldn't hurt
a hair of her head, nor give her a moment's discomfort." She made the
statement with so much complacency that I was more than irritated; I
was vexed.
"If you knew me," I declared, "you wouldn't say that. I have no
patience with women who try to play the man."
"I know you well enough to say what I have said," she replied. "You
have a face that tells no lies--and more's the pity."
"Where has she gone?" I inquired.
"That I can't tell you," the mother replied; "but it would be the
wonder of the world if she had gone to bed. We who love her have no
power to control her. She needs a stronger hand than ours."
"I could tell you something if I would," she remarked presently; "but
it would be like feeling my way in the dark, and I dare not. Yet there
is another thing I will tell you that can do no harm, though I promised
to keep it to myself. If you stay here you will get in trouble. The man
you shot night before last has a brother, and this brother is
determined to capture you. I'm telling you this because I think you are
a good young man. I had a son once who, if he had lived, should be
about your age, and I would have thanked any woman in the world to have
given him the warning I have given you. You can gain nothing by
remaining here. You can return in the morning. Jane will be here; she
is not going to run away from you."
"Nevertheless, I must do my duty," I said. "With your permission, I
shall remain here. Does Jane Ryder know of the purpose of this fellow?"
"Oh, no; I wouldn't tell her. She has trouble enough." She paused and
hesitated. "Why not go? There is the door; it is unlocked and you will
still have time to join your friends. This is all I can say to you--all
I can do for you."
"No; you can pray for me. And another thing: if you hear any noise
cover up your head and make Jane Ryder cover hers."
"I'm sure I don't know what to make of you," she said, puckering her
forehead as she stood in the door.
"But I think I know what to make of you and your daughter," I replied,
with a laugh.
"Above all things, don't misjudge us," and with that she was gone,
closing the door behind her.
How long I sat there I know not; it may have been one hour or it may
have been many; but some time during the night there came a rap at the
door and the pictures of Jane Ryder were blotted out of the fire and
went flitting up the chimney. The knocking was on the outer door, which
was unlocked, as the woman had said, and I cried out, "Come in!"
Responsive to the invitation, Whistling Jim made his appearance, and I
was more than glad to see him. I discovered for the first time that I
had been oppressed by my loneliness, for my spirits rose to a great
height.
He seemed very glad to see me, for he laughed aloud. "I bet a dollar
you ain't had no supper," he said, "an' I tuck an' brung you some.
'Tain't much, but it's better'n none." But I had no appetite. "I'm
mighty glad I brung yo' pistols, too, kaze dey's sump'n wrong gwine on
'roun' here. I seed two er th'ee men prowlin' roun' in de bushes ez I
come 'long. Marse Cally, how come you ter leave yo' pistols in yo'
saddle? You ain't been a-doin' dataway. I speck dat ar little man you
had up in front er you had sump'n ter do wid it." He laughed, but I
found nothing humorous in the allusion. "Did I say 'oman, Marse Cally?"
I shook my head. "Kaze ef I did, it slipped out des dry so. I wuz
comin' atter you anyhow, but Marse Harry holla'd at me an' tol' me fer
ter fin' you an' say dat de troops gwineter move in de mornin' an' our
comp'ny starts fust."
I nibbled the food he had brought me, with some particularly heavy
thoughts in regard to the course we were to take. Yesterday I was a
boy, and a very foolish one, but to-day I felt myself to be a man. The
feeling was the growth of a night, but it gave me new confidence in
myself, and, coupled with it, an assurance that I had never had before,
and that has remained with me all through the long years that have
intervened. I think it must have caught the eye of Whistling Jim--the
change, I mean--for he regarded me curiously and closely.
"Marse Cally," he said after a while, "I b'lieve you done got mo'
settled, sence--dog ef I don't b'lieve dat it's been sence yistiddy! I
dunner wharbouts de change is, but it sho' is dar. It mought be de way
you look at me, an' it mought be de way you don't look at me--an' ef
you ain't done grow'd bigger I ain't no nigger."
"I have only ceased to be giddy for the time being," I said. "I am
afraid I have some serious work cut out for me to-night. If you want to
go you are welcome to do so, and if you stay I'll be glad to have you.
I don't know anyone I had rather have near me when a row springs up."
"Me, Marse Cally? You sholy don't mean me." It was plain that he was
delighted. "You know how skeery I is, Marse Cally, when dey's a row
gwine on. I can't he'p gittin' skeer'd ter save my life. But it's de
same way 'bout leavin' you; I'm skeer'd ter leave you. I couldn't go
out dat door fer ter save my life." Whistling Jim held out his long,
slim hands where he could look at them. Then he ran the scale of an
imaginary piano, once, twice, and shivered again. "I tell you, Marse
Cally, I'm a-gittin' skeerder an' skeerder. I wish dey'd come on ef dey
comin'."
"Well," said I, "I'll place the key of the door on the mantel here, and
you can go out whenever you want to."
But he protested almost violently. "Don't you dast ter do dat, Marse
Cally! You put dat key in yo' pocket, an' let it stay dar."
Nevertheless, I laid it on the mantel. The negro looked at it more than
once, and finally, as if taking leave of the temptation it represented,
blew it a kiss from his long fingers.
As he sat down, four men filed into the room through the inner door,
which had opened almost noiselessly.