voices sink into tender cadence, declaring her sympathy necessary to
all their aims and enterprises in life, nor had the deeper experience
of that special pleading, to which this is the preliminary, been
wanting. The practical sense her mother had spoken of gave her
intimation of the thing that yet lay, half unsuspected, in the depths
of Armstrong's mind, like the sweet arbutus under the smothering cedar.
The cedar here was the young man's egotism, claiming attention as its
right, and some storm wind would have to sweep the prickly covering
away before the delicate blossoms of real love revealed themselves.
And the storm wind was even at that moment brewing. It is usually while
we are most free from forebodings, most satisfied with ourselves, that
the ugly head of misfortune thrusts from around the corner and brings
us with a shock to a recognition that the past is perpetually linking
itself with the present, and that a forgotten sin is capable of coming
to life after we have left it in the desert to starve.
Nellie had begun to murmur that she was happy if anything she could do
was a help to him, when her soft speech was interrupted by a flying
scout from the house, a small negro boy, whose bare heels scarcely
rested upon the ground while he delivered in emphatic voice a message
from Mistress Amanda:
"Miss Nell, yo's ter go straight ter th' house, _ef_ yo' please, ter
say good-by ter Mr. Beeswax afore he leaves. Lemme tote de grapes."
The basket was seized, and the scout began the march, looking back
every instant to be assured that the young pair followed.
They followed with vexation in the heart of one, at least. To the
other it was more of a habit to submit her will to others, so her face
remained calm and her tones gentle as she replied to the slight remarks
Armstrong forced himself to make. At the door the scout left them to
deposit his burden in the kitchen and go back after Stella, whom he was
burning to mount, not dreaming of the experience that was in store for
him.
The young pair entered the parlor and found Mistress Amanda and old
lady Powell entertaining a short, keen-eyed, sallow man whose age was
not to be easily guessed. His occupation might have been set down as
mercantile, and he was, in fact, a commercial drummer.
"Mr. Beesly, let me present you to Mr. Armstrong, our minister," said
Mistress Amanda, formally.
The stranger bowed with ironical exaggeration. "I have met Mr.
Armstrong before," he said, in what struck her as a disagreeably
significant tone. She gave a swift, searching look at the young
preacher.
Armstrong was standing with a rigid air of dignity that sat not ill on
his handsome person. But he had suddenly grown very pale.
V.
IT spoke well for Armstrong that, at the very instant of running into
a most unexpected and disagreeable dilemma, he did not wish he had
been warned so that he might have avoided it. A Gorgon would have
been a winning object to him in comparison with the wiry little man
now smiling a curiously double-faced smile at him, but beyond the
involuntary pallor that had come he gave no sign of discomfiture; and
after a sharp glance to see how his salutation had been met, Beesly
turned away with a mutter that lost itself in his bushy whiskers, "true
grit!" and began to make himself fascinating to Nellie.
She had been sent for to bid this forty-second cousin good-by, but now
she was here he seemed in no haste to depart. Leaving Armstrong to the
tender mercies of Mistress Amanda, he followed the young girl over to
her grandmother's sofa, where she had shyly taken refuge, and drawing
up a chair in front of the two, bent himself to entertain.
No men have more facility in this line than "drummers." They learn
to observe human nature and become adept at humorous description of
adventures, taking pains to tone their note up or down to suit their
company. It can be a "bray" among other men, and a "coo" with women.
For the chaste ears of old lady Powell, and her innocent granddaughter,
Beesly's talk was a light sparkle of harmless fun that drew the
laughter of both. Nellie had a sense of fun--not humor--under her
demureness, and she was pleased and amused as he meant her to be.
To the investigating glances Armstrong threw toward her corner from
time to time, there was presented the singular spectacle of the girl
who had, but a few minutes before, been blushing under his words of
admiration, seeming wholly content with the exchange of another man's
company for his own; even although she must have realized that an
interview had been interrupted which promised to be an important one.
Important to the lady, Sir Egoist? Mark her now, leaning back against
the red silk cushions, as Beesly bends eagerly forward in the full
swing of some fine narrative; the dimpling smile showing a glimpse of
even, milk-white teeth behind a bud of a mouth, dewily innocent as a
baby's. The light in the wily fellow's eyes is reflected in her hazel
ones as she catches the point of his sketch, and now she hides her
lovely face against her grandmother's ample bosom, in an outburst of
mirth so rare with her as to seem almost indecorous. Has it ever been
your good fortune, Miles Armstrong, to arouse so hearty an interest and
sway so readily that timid nature? She has certainly forgotten you, and
the serious business of life you are so fond of discoursing with her,
in the glow of feelings natural to youth and feminine love of enjoyment.
Armstrong's face grew gloomy, and his conversation absent-minded,
while Mistress Amanda, taking note of everything, was led to speculate
on a set of possibilities that had never before suggested themselves
to her astute intellect. Was it possible that the law of contrasts,
leading the fancies of men and maidens to attach themselves to the
persons most dissimilar, could apply to her daughter Nellie, for whom
she had been anticipating a very different inclination! Girls were
capable of such freaks. After all, if it were not for Peter Weaver,
the idea of Beesly as a permanent member of the family would not be so
unwelcome. His shrewd sense and light views formed a very good balance
to the over-seriousness of the young girl. Mingled with a pang for her
silent and devoted hero, Mistress Amanda felt a certain satisfaction in
this introduction of a new player into her little domestic drama. She
became more affable with the young preacher.
These two had never yet been able to strike upon a single topic of
mutual interest where the clash of disagreement did not instantly lead
to silence.
"Let us harmonize upon the weather," Mistress Amanda had once observed
when argument had threatened to become personal. But one cannot always
talk about the weather. She tried apples.
"Is your father shipping his usual quantity of golden pippins to
England this fall? I hear that he has had the honor of furnishing some
to the queen's own table; that her preference is for pippins."
"Three thousand barrels, I believe," said Armstrong, in a lukewarm
response.
"Indeed! That means quite a nice return in money;" her tone had a
tinge of regret for her own exclusion from so excellent a business
arrangement. The orchard at Benvenew was a fairly fine one, but its
full resources were undeveloped for lack of capital. If she had the
money Mistress Amanda felt sure she might rival the success of the
master of Roselawn, who was rolling up a fortune before the admiring
eyes of his neighbors. Envy of a neighbor's superior success is not
a Virginian trait. All your true Virginian asks for is the tithe due
to friendship and he will put hands in pockets and look on while the
enterprising compatriot piles up his dollars. But, being a woman,
Benvenew's mistress could not and did not try to suppress the emulative
instinct that made her long for an opportunity to prove her business
capacity.
Beesly's ears, sharp as a hunter's, had caught the word "money," and
with his quick way of whirling about, he threw a sentence toward the
other guest.
"By the way, talking of money, Armstrong, it's kind of curious, isn't
it?--But, never mind, we'll have a chance to discuss that going home.
What I was going to tell you was about the wedding of the turkey-girl
in the Tennessee mountains," he continued, turning back with equal
suddenness to his old and young auditors, who had scarcely had time
to follow his flight with their eyes before he was with them again,
fluent as a blackbird rehearsing a well-practised theme.
Was it a malicious impulse suddenly checked by compunction for the man
he was "cutting out," and toward whom decency demanded at least the
avoidance of insult upon the top of injury? Or was it a mere random
arrow from his whimsical quiver that had made the young preacher start
and redden, while his deep eyes began to burn with an intense fire that
promised some strong kind of entertainment for the person proposing to
accompany him "home."
Whichever it was, Armstrong now made up his mind that as his object
in coming to Benvenew had been defeated, he would, at least, take the
initiative in breaking up that little _séance_ yonder, toward which he
felt unsanctified resentment.
He arose. At the movement old lady Powell, whose pleasure in the
vivacity of her entertainer had been more than once disturbed by the
feeling that she was not paying proper attention to her minister,
gently released herself from her granddaughter's encircling arm, and
came towards him.
"You shorely ain't thinkin' o' goin', _yit_, Mr. Armstrong? Why, we
hain't seen nothin' o' you yit, and it's seldom enough you come. Stay
to tea, now! Mandy, do press Mr. Armstrong to stay to tea!"
"Will sally-lunn tempt you?" smiled Mistress Amanda, choosing always
to suppose that the proper appeal to men was through appetite. But
she overlooked the counterpoise of sentiment when a man is under
twenty-five. Armstrong remained standing. A word from Nellie might
have changed his mind, but although she looked at him she did not
speak; and, unfortunately, Beesly did. His high-pitched voice made
his interference doubly offensive to the young preacher's refined
sensibilities.
"Oh, I say, Armstrong, I'm not ready to go. Tea-time at Benvenew
has peculiar seductions," and he pointed the remark by a smile at
Nellie that some observers might have called frank and kind; others,
devilish. So much depends upon the point of view. Armstrong's was
that of the harsher criticism; not to be wondered at, considering the
difference in his feelings on entering and departing from Benvenew that
day.
"I am not aware sir, that my going places any constraint upon you,"
said Armstrong with the most distant air a man could assume.
Beesly laughed. What defense is dignity against a laugh, with which the
company, ignorant of any occult meaning, show an inclination to join,
moved both by sympathy with the joker and the polite wish to smooth
over a little difficulty between two guests! Armstrong realized keenly
that he was at extreme disadvantage, since the animosity that he felt
toward Beesly could not be explained and must bear the semblance of
ill-temper. That it might be interpreted as jealousy did not occur to
him. It was, however, natural that the women should take this view of
it.
Now, Nellie, with all her good and sensible qualities, had one little
foible. She was not aware of it, and, indeed, her position as the
recognized beauty of the county was so certain to develop the trait
in any young woman not altogether an angel, that she is excusable
for having grown just a little bit vain. Hers was not the vanity of
dwelling in thought upon her own attractions, for, in moments of
deliberate reflection, she was given to a humble estimate of herself;
but it was the innocent, childlike love of notice, and of the subtle
flattery conveyed in being sought out and distinguished by attention.
Maiden-like, she fled to corners, and woman-like there was pleasure in
being followed. The boldest admirer was likely then to gain the ear of
modesty that had this susceptible spot in it.
Beesly was wise in making of his small, active person a very bulwark
against the outer world; his play of wit so filling the space that the
girl only saw dimly what was going on outside her corner. She looked up
to find the preacher's fine form drawn up before her. He persisted in
going. His somber eyes meant to convey to her that this was something
more than an ordinary good-by.
The ubiquitous Beesly gave her no opportunity to realize the situation.
A cool clasp of her little fingers, a bow, and Armstrong was gone from
the room.
Then Beesly sprang up, with a good-humored show of despair. "Plague the
fellow!--if he _will_ go, I must tear myself away. I have something
particular to say to him, and to-morrow I start for Chicago. I'll be
back in a week or so, though, Cousin Amanda, and you can order the
sally-lunn then."
He shook hands all around, his jolly, hearty manner contrasting
forcibly with the seriousness of the other, and departed, leaving a
track of glittering light behind him, as some persons do. What matter
if the glitter is a tinsel clap-trap? Nonsense helps to make life
cheerful, and a jolly good fellow is especially a boon in country
society.
Mistress Amanda went to the window and began dropping the muslin
curtains. She liked to put this veil between the outer dusk and the
fire-lit room.
"Heigho!" she yawned; "'what fools these men be.'"
"_Mortals_, mamma, I think," was the gentle correction of Nellie.
Her astonished mother stared. "What do you know of Shakespeare?" she
ejaculated.
The young girl blushed. "Papa used to read to us in the evenings
sometimes. Have you forgotten, mamma? I recollect Midsummer Night's
Dream very well."
Her mother spent several minutes in silent reflection, studying her
daughter. "I don't know that I understand you as well as I thought I
did," she then observed, with unusual softness.
Nellie came around to the back of her chair, putting a soft hand on her
shoulder. "But you love me, mamma?"
"Love you?" Mistress Amanda's splendid eyes grew moist. "Yes, dear, I
love you dearly. All the good that can come to me in this world is to
see you happy."
"That's right, Mandy," said old lady Powell cheerily. "But you's young
enough, child, to see a heap o' satisfaction on yo' own account, yit."
A little negro boy, sprawling on the floor of his mammy's cabin, and
rubbing his back as he could reach it, might have told Mr. Beesly
something about the paces of the mare, Stella, which that gentleman
was trying to catch up with. A start of five minutes was too much in
Stella's favor, if her master had intended flight from his persistent
acquaintance. When the little man swung himself into his saddle, and
looked here and there and everywhere in the fast-gathering dusk for the
sight of a horseman in the road ahead, there was nothing whatever to be
seen.
Beesly was a poor rider, on a strange, borrowed horse, and the country
was unfamiliar to him. Twenty paces from Benvenew the road forked,
and the commercial traveler had not the slightest idea which path to
take. Invoking good luck, he took the one to the left. It went past
a farm-house or two, where the hungry fellow saw lights twinkling in
kitchens, and smelled--in imagination--the odor of squirrel-stew and
corn-pone. After this he passed the old mill, and the outlook grew less
promising.
"A plague upon him!" cried the baffled pursuer. "I didn't think
Armstrong was the man to run away. What did he take me for, anyway?"
Darkness comes rapidly in these mountains. Beesly found himself
skirmishing around in a curiously eccentric style, and the certainty
that he was entirely astray gained his slow credence. He was not
fortified by a good meal, either, to enjoy the cool night breeze that
began to play through his light summer suit.
"Get along! Go somewhere, I don't care where, so it leads to supper!"
he apostrophized the horse, and that animal, left to his own judgment,
bethought himself of a certain hospitable stable where more than
once he had had a good meal when business led him in the direction
of its owner. So, taking a start, he cantered along the road at a
very creditable pace, and paused of his own accord in front of Peter
Weaver's gate.
The front windows of Peter's cottage were wide open, and Beesly had a
view of a big man in his shirt-sleeves going around a well-lit room,
holding a book in his hand, and singing at the top of an exceedingly
powerful voice.
"Hallo! Hallo in there!" shouted Beesly's thin falsetto, and presently
it dawned upon Peter's comprehension that somebody outside was trying
to make himself heard. He came to the door, holding a lamp high above
his head, the light casting into relief his ruddy face and Titan-like
frame.
"A handsome fellow, by heaven!" thought the drummer, who never lost a
picturesque feature.
"Can a gentleman who has lost his way beg the favor of an hour's rest
and a bit of supper?" he sang out toward the Titan, who responded with
a hearty:
"Sartain, sir! And most welcome. 'Light and come right in. I'll send a
nigger after your horse."
"I'm a distant cousin of Mistress Amanda, up to Benvenew," said Beesly,
as he entered the cottage and proceeded to make himself at home in his
usual easy fashion. "I insisted on leaving there before supper, and
have been properly punished by losing my way."
"Cousin to Mistress Amanda? That gives you a claim on me, sir, to any
extent," said Peter, throwing a log on the fire, and calling out the
back door to his cook to hurry up supper.
"You see, sir," he continued, "living all by myself here I've fallen
into the way of kind o' having meals at any hour I like, and supper's
ruther put back to-night. I'm glad it's so, as I've the good fortune to
have yo' company."
"Why, I had an idea that I might take supper along with your preacher
here, Mr. Miles Armstrong, but if you'll believe me, he went off and
left me in the lurch, although I had something very particular to say
to him."
"Possible!" ejaculated Peter, his face becoming thoughtful.
Loquaciousness was Beesly's prime vice. He felt himself aggrieved in
this instance, and, convinced by the appearance of a bountiful supper
that his host was a good fellow, and entitled to confidence, he poured
out a tale that had the unintended effect of impairing Peter's appetite.
"You see--it's this way. Three years back now--Armstrong was a minor,
anyway, and not responsible for the money if he chose to put it that
way. But he put a bet on Belle Noir--a pretty big bet--we fellows sort
o' goaded him to it,--and he lost. Plumb five hundred dollars he lost,
sir! And if you'll believe me, he wrote a letter to Keats--Keats backed
Charlie Boy--saying he had no mind to ask his governor for the money,
that betting was against his conscience, anyway, but that, as his
honor demanded that he pay up, he earnestly requested for time to do it
in. Well, Keats said he'd give him time. He was going abroad and he'd
give him till he came back. Now, sir, that was three years ago, and
Armstrong's never given a sign. I met Keats in New York last week, and
he said he meant to come down here and see Armstrong. He says he hates
a sneak. That's what I meant to tell Armstrong to-night; that Keats is
coming here. You see, nobody knows a word about it but us three. By the
bye, I guess you'd better not mention it. I don't want to make trouble."
"You certainly have astounded me, sir," affirmed Peter Weaver. "Mr.
Armstrong's the very last person I'd have suspected of ever getting
into such a box as this. And five hundred dollars, too. That's a mighty
big lot of money to throw away."
"If he's saving up his salary to pay it it'll take him rather awhile to
get it together," grinned Beesly. "What does he get for preaching?"
"We pay our preacher two hundred and fifty dollars a year, sir. And
perquisites," he added, as the drummer gave a significant whistle.
"There are perquisites--there'd be more if he got married"--
"Perhaps he will before long. There are pretty gals down here. Cousin
Amanda's girl is a thundering beauty. I shouldn't wonder if Armstrong
had got his eyes set that way. Little mite strait-laced, though, is
Nellie. By George, what'd she say if she knew the preacher used to bet
on horses? Reformed, didn't he?"
"Mr. Armstrong's said to have experienced sanctification," said Peter,
slowly.
"Oh, come, now, that's too good," shouted the commercial traveler.
"There may be such a thing; I'm called skeptical myself. But whether
there is or not, there's goodness. And for my part, I believe Mr.
Armstrong's an upright, moral, well-meaning man, and it's the duty of
his friends to stand by him," said Peter Weaver. But deep down in
his heart was a cry. The preacher was, then, in love with Nellie: did
Nellie love the preacher?
VI.
THE hardest thing in the world to bear is self-contempt. The man or
woman who has once slipped from his own standard of rectitude--whatever
it is--has henceforth in his soul a little Inferno where desperate
desire is continually carrying a huge stone up a hill and memory is as
continually rolling it down again.
Armstrong's thoughts shaped themselves into some such words as these as
he galloped out from Benvenew. He was not running from Beesly through
any cowardly impulse; but because he wanted to think the matter all
out, alone. The moment he had laid eyes on the fellow he knew that the
thing he had been fighting down so long, overlaying by a structure of
self-denial and good deeds, had come uppermost in the foreground of his
life, and must be faced as a sin freshly committed, because to the
present hour concealed. The young man had a strong nature, proud and
tender; a little one-sided in its development, and the more likely to
cut out intense suffering for itself through the aid of imagination.
When conscience lashed he had no instinct to shrink away and make
excuse; instead, he cried "Peccavi!" feeling that he deserved the more
because no one but himself knew that he deserved it. Herein, although
circumstances may have made it appear that he was nearly, if not quite,
a hypocrite, Miles Armstrong proved himself none, for he felt that the
worst of a sin was in its commission, not in the fact of its being made
public. It would have been a relief to him all along if that gambling
experience in his past, when, for a brief space he had sowed wild oats,
could have been known to all the world; then he might have shouldered
blame, lived the matter down, and started afresh, with a clear page for
the future. But expediency had been his counselor. She had whispered
that his usefulness would be impaired if he let himself appear as a
common youth; a preacher should be in a certain sense, immaculate; his
faults and follies were between himself and his conscience. What he
_had_ been was not the world's business; only what he was _now_.
And so Armstrong had concealed his fault and gone on trying to forget
it, but never able to do so, until, between looking on the picture of
what he was believed to be, and what he was in his own knowledge of
himself, the great contrast took the form of an accusation that made
him out--liar: of all things the meanest and most despicable when the
lie is one which assumes the appearance of a virtue that a man has not.
To the sky the young preacher turned his face, worn in a few hours to
the sharp outlines of pain, and in the dusk and loneliness of that
mountain path, over which Stella was swiftly bearing him home, he made
a vow in his heart that from this hour he would cease to be the slave
of the Lie. He would descend, before the eyes of men and women, into
the valley of humiliation, that he might emerge a free soul, even if he
must in consequence go on with his life stripped of all that made it
pleasant and useful.
And then Miles, lifting his hat as if bidding farewell to something
beloved, rode calmly on to Roselawn.
Again, the little church beside Sneaking Creek was crowded as upon the
Sunday the young preacher had given his first sermon. Some indefinite
rumor had got abroad of a surprise in store for the congregation; how
started it would be difficult to say, and nobody had the slightest idea
of what he expected; only there was an atmosphere of expectancy.