mention, but you're a friend of mine, Judy, and you're entitled to my
confidence. You see it's this way. The talk is that Boyd Westover and
Colonel Conway's daughter Margaret were engaged to be married, when
Westover committed--or was accused of committing the crime of which he
was convicted and for which he was sentenced to the penitentiary. Some
say she stood by him and he threw her over; some suggest that he
couldn't explain things to her satisfaction--that she asked him
questions he couldn't answer; some say he went back to Wanalah eager to
marry the girl, and she threw him over because she didn't believe in
his innocence. You see, Judy, he is, after all's said and done, only a
pardoned criminal, and his pardon was based only on the confession of a
poor demented fellow who has since been sent to Staunton as a lunatic.
Anyhow it's plain that Colonel Conway believes Boyd Westover to be
guilty, just as I do and as a good many other folks down our way do. If
he isn't guilty, why's he hiding himself? Why don't he come into the
district and face the music, instead of leaving that little monkey,
Carley Farnsworth, to do everything for him? You never saw Carley
Farnsworth, did you, Judy? Of course you didn't. Well, he's a little
jackanapes of a doctor that's equally ready to give his blue pills by
the mouth or at the point of a pistol. Boyd Westover has put him
forward to overawe and intimidate everybody; but the Democrats will
hold their vote this year and with your help, Judy, we'll make this
election memorable."
"I don't know jest what that last word means, Billy, but after what
you's been a tellin' me you kin bet your next winter's meat I'll have a
hand in this here 'lection."
Judy never made promises that she did not fulfil. But if a candidate
misinterpreted the phrases she used in making promises, she stoutly
held that the fault was his and not hers.
"My words is good for what they call fer," she was accustomed to say,
"but good money don't stand fer no counterfeits."
When she had got all she wanted out of Webb, she sent that worthy to
bed, satisfied in his soul with things as they were, and as confident
of the mountain vote in his behalf as of the excellence of Judy's
cookery and the exhilaration that resided in her apple jack.
XXI
FLAGS FLYING
Judy was right in her reckoning as to the effect of her blind message
upon the mood and movements of Boyd Westover. It was not far from
midnight when Theonidas reported what his mother had said, and although
the night was one of extreme darkness and a drizzling rain was falling,
Boyd Westover set out at once to stumble down the precipitous mountain
path to the scarcely less precipitous mountain road three miles away,
and thence down, down, down, to whatever level the road might
ultimately reach.
As he had never journeyed over that road before, and as its perils by
night were very real and very great, Theonidas besought him to postpone
the start until the dawn, but he refused to heed, and bidding the boy
transfer the camp equipments to Judy Peters's house, to await orders,
set off with the energy of a madman. Yet he had never been saner in all
his life or in better condition to meet difficulty.
The delphic character of Judy's message left him, of course, in doubt
as to the occasion of the talk about himself and to his detriment in
his own neighborhood, but from the first he had not a shadow of doubt
as to the substance and subject of that talk. He knew without telling
that his fellow men had found some occasion--he could not guess
what--for discussing his character and conduct and for recalling to his
disadvantage his conviction of crime, his pardon and all the rest of it.
But he faced this sort of thing now in very different mood from that
which had been his a few weeks before. Where before his impulse had
been to shrink away from the horror, his mood now was to seek it out,
to dare it, to defy it, to fight it with all the determination of a
vigorous manhood aroused to self defence and not averse to vengeance.
Where before he had instinctively sought solitude as a refuge, his
impulse now was to seek the haunts of his fellow men, to challenge the
criticism that had before so appalled him, to face the world with head
erect and dare Fate to meet him hand to hand, foot to foot, eye to eye
in combat.
The simple fact was that he had ceased to be morbid. In his life up
there among the mountain tops he had regained his health of mind and
body. In his contests with Nature's forces and his triumph over them in
a thousand petty ways, he had become normal again. He was no longer the
introspective, morbidly self-conscious victim of adverse circumstance
that Judy Peters had found him to be, but a strong man rejoicing in his
strength, a Westover of Wanalah who shrank from no danger and blanched
in no foe's presence. He tramped down the mountain through six or seven
hours of darkness in eager quest of those malignities from which he had
before sought escape in a refuge of solitude. He wanted now to hear and
combat the criticism from the very thought of which he had before been
moved to flee in something like terror.
It was in this mood that he encountered the first news of what had
happened. It presented itself in the shape of one of Carley
Farnsworth's nominating placards, tacked to the great hewn log posts of
a gate that spanned the road, and Westover, after nearly twenty miles
of tramping, came upon it about sunrise. He could not imagine what to
make of it, and after a minute's consideration he dismissed it as
somebody's practical joke--a part perhaps of that "devil to pay" in his
own neighborhood of which Judy Peters had sent him warning.
But as he continued his journey he found the thing repeated on every
gatepost, on every conspicuous tree by the roadside, and all over the
front of a blacksmith's shop which he had to pass.
There was nobody in the shop to answer questions at that early hour,
but at that point the road forked, one arm of it leading to Wanalah and
the other to Chinquapin Knob, the home of Carley Farnsworth. It was
only three miles from that point to Wanalah, and it was full five miles
to Chinquapin Knob, but, weary as his legs ought to have been and were
not, after his twenty odd miles of tramping over rough roads, he turned
his face not toward Wanalah but in the opposite direction, resolving to
take breakfast with Carley Farnsworth at Chinquapin Knob. He quickened
his pace too, after a glance at his watch.
"It's half-past six," he said to himself, "and Carley has the barbaric
habit of breakfasting at eight. I must do the five miles in an hour and
a half, if I don't want a breakfast of leftovers, and this morning I
don't."
As he trudged on up a glutinous red clay hill road, it began to rain
again in dismal fashion, but the fact did not depress him.
"It'll make the clay road soapy," he reflected, "so I must put a little
more vim into my leg motions if I'm to do the trick on time."
With that he added ten or a dozen steps per minute to his pace and
thought no more about the matter.
Boyd Westover was himself again. That was all.
Tree after tree, as he passed on, confronted him with a repetition of
the announcement that "We the undersigned, deeming it desirable that,"
etc., etc., "hereby nominate Boyd Westover, Esq., of Wanalah, for
election as the representative of this Senate district in the upper
house of the Legislature, and we appeal to the pride and patriotism of
our friends, fellow citizens and neighbors," and so on to the end of
the chapter of Carley Farnsworth's free flowing rhetoric. Westover did
not pause to look at any of them. There was no need. He had already
learned what the placards proclaimed, and he had already observed the
conspicuous absence of Colonel Conway's name from the list of those who
thus urged his election. He could no more guess the meaning of its
absence than others had been able to do, but he was not surprised by
the fact. In view of Colonel Conway's failure to call upon him during
the days of his late stay at Wanalah, he would have been astonished if
that gentleman's name had appeared on the paper. But his mood was not
now what it had been before. He was no longer disposed to be submissive
even to Fate, or to reconcile himself to its unjust decrees. As he
strode onward at the pace he had set himself he reflected:
"Of course Colonel Conway was under no obligation to call upon me,
except the obligation of old friendship, and that he was free to regard
as cancelled, if he chose. And of course he was under no obligation to
sign that nominating paper, if he did not wish. But he knew that his
failure to call upon me was a conspicuous neglect to which others would
attach importance, and he knew that his refusal to sign the paper would
be everywhere interpreted as an accusation that must put shame upon me.
I have a right to demand a greater explicitness of accusation, and I
will. His silence does me a greater hurt than any other man's utterance
could. I have a right to challenge it on the ground of its injustice. I
have a right to insist that he shall speak, and I will make that demand
and enforce it."
Obviously Boyd Westover had recovered his vigor and was again fit to
call himself by the name his forebears had borne for generations
past--Westover of Wanalah--a name which in that community had always
stood for virility, courage and uncompromising honor; a name that had
meant secure peace to those who deserved peace and quick war to those
who were hostilely disposed; a name that had always represented what is
best in manhood, both in its tenderly forbearing gentleness of impulse
and its relentless strength of purpose.
As he approached Chinquapin Knob the evidences of his candidacy rapidly
multiplied. The outer gate of Carley Farnsworth's plantation was
plastered all over with the nomination placards, and as the house came
into view Boyd saw a great flagstaff there carrying in the breeze three
long tailed streamers on which, as he presently made out, were
inscribed the legends:
"For Senator--Boyd Westover!"
"Vote for a Gentleman!"
"Westover of Wanalah!"
"I don't understand it," Westover reflected as he climbed the last hill
and saw by a glance at his watch that he was a quarter of an hour ahead
of his scheduled time, "I don't understand it, but obviously I'm a
candidate for Senator and with equal obviousness I'm in for a fight if
I am to win. So much the better. I don't care a fig about the
Senatorship, but I'll enjoy the fight. I'm in the mood for it. And
besides I like to win the game, whatever the stake may be. I'll fight
for this election as I never fought for anything before in my life. I
wonder who the other fellow is, anyhow--my opponent?"
Clearly his twenty-five mile walk, made between midnight and breakfast
time, had not robbed Boyd Westover of any of the vigor of mind and
temper that were his by inheritance and that the mountains had given
back to him.
"I'm almost famished," he said to himself. "It suddenly occurs to me
that I was out after a catamount last night and forgot all about my
supper. I wonder if Carley has a roe herring for my breakfast. Anyhow
he'll have a lot of other good things."
As he finished his wondering he entered the house grounds at Chinquapin
Knob, and Carley Farnsworth, who was smoking his before-breakfast pipe
in the porch, caught sight of him.
Their greetings and questions were like shots from a rapid fire gun, an
implement of slaughter which had not then been invented by the devilish
ingenuity of greed in the service of murder.
Out of the cross fire Carley Farnsworth managed to extract the
information that his friend had been tramping since midnight with a
stomach empty since noon of the preceding day.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Excellent! You're altogether fit. You're in
shape or you never could have done that. But I won't answer any
question you can conceivably ask"--for Boyd had already begun a
clamorous catechism as to what it all meant--"until we've had breakfast
and a pipe. Enos!" addressing a negro boy, "go to the kitchen and tell
Elsie there'll be a lot of trouble at Chinquapin Knob if breakfast
isn't on the table in five minutes,--do you hear?"
"Now tell me, Carley, what all this means," pleaded Westover.
"I'll do nothing of the kind until after breakfast," answered the
other. "I'm a doctor you know, and I have the honor to be the family
physician at Wanalah. By the way, Boyd, you've got three cases of
typhoid in your lower quarters, and as I suspected the well I've
ordered it filled up, and the negroes down there are carrying their
water half a mile or so. That isn't what I wanted to talk about. As
your family physician I have your health in charge. You're in superb
condition now, and it's my business to keep you so. You've made a long
tramp on an empty stomach--a very unwise thing to do, but as a doctor
I'm used to that sort of thing. There wouldn't be any serious work for
us doctors to do, if people generally were wise. But you've made a
tremendous draft upon your bank account of vigor, and it is time for
you to make a deposit to keep the account good. You need breakfast,
before you burden your mind even with anything I have to say. And by
the way, Johnny is bringing in the breakfast two whole minutes before
the time. There's the loaf of hot light bread, and the roe herrings and
the biscuits and the batter bread. There's a cold ham on the dresser
and the batter cakes or waffles or something of that kind will come in
later. Kizzy, my housekeeper, is making the coffee; she always does
that the last thing in order that it may be fresh. She frequently
utters the dictum, 'Coffee ain't no good ef you don't drink it while
the aromatics is in it.' I don't know where she got that word, but
there is always a supply of delicious 'aromatics' in Kizzy's coffee.
Come. Here's a cold jowl if you care for it, and there's sausage before
you, and liver and chidlings--you see I killed half my hogs the other
day. Eat your breakfast and make it a good one. If you don't I'll
refuse to tell you any of the interesting things you're so anxious to
hear about."
XXII
AN UNMISTAKABLE CURE
When the breakfast was over and, with long-stemmed pipes alight, the
two friends foregathered in front of a blazing fire--for the drizzling
autumn day was chill--Westover again demanded to know "what all this
thing means."
"You must have seen some of the placards?"
"_Some_ of them? It seems to me that all the woods have been papered
with them. But what does it mean?"
"Oh, that's obvious enough. It means that a goodly number of your
neighbors and friends have nominated you for Senator, moved thereto by
a conviction that the intelligence and character of the district
deserve a better representative than William Wilberforce Webb."
Farnsworth was careful not to suggest Judy Peters's initiative or
interest in the matter. That was a secret between him and her.
The mention of Webb's name as that of his opponent, started Westover
out of his chair, and as he stood upon the hearth he said, in tones
that were kept in subjection by sheer force of a resolute will:
"Oh, then it is Webb I'm running against. That puts a new face on the
affair. I like that. Against him I'll make a whirlwind campaign. But
how on earth did that fellow manage to secure a nomination by so
respectable a party as the Whigs?"
"Chiefly by general neglect. He worked for the nomination and all the
rest of us let it go to him by default. That's the substance of the
story."
"Well," answered Westover, "the news that he is my opponent gives me a
new and eager interest in the campaign. We'll get up squirrel stews and
barbecues, late as the season is, and militia musters and every other
kind of thing that draws men together, and I'll make my little, red hot
speech at all of them. Is there anything in sight?"
"Nothing available, so far as your presence is concerned. This is Court
day, of course, and I'm going to make a speech--"
"So am I," interjected Westover.
"But how can you? You've tramped all night and I've ordered a bath and
a bed for you."
"Thank you sincerely. I'll enjoy the bath and the bed some other time.
To-day I'm going to the Court House with you. I'll ride one of your
plugs, if you don't mind, and may be you'll send a boy over to Wanalah
with a note to my overseer. I want him to send a horse to the Court
House to meet me--a real horse that I'll have a fight with every time I
come to a gate."
Carley Farnsworth did not answer immediately. Instead he walked into
the dining room under pretence of refilling his pipe--really for the
sake of a good chuckle over his friend's condition.
"He's as fit as a fiddle," he said to himself. "He's full of vigor and
full of fight. He's Westover of Wanalah again, and that's what I've
been working for. That mountain air, and the hunting and fishing and
rough tramping have done more for him than all the calomel, quinine and
strychnine I've got in my saddle bags could do. It's great! And we'll
crown the cure--Judy and I--by making him Senator. Really Judy is a
great diagnostician in her way. It was she who found out what was the
matter with Boyd and prescribed the remedy. I used to think she had
only one medicine, that apple jack was her panacea. I know better now."
Then, with his pipe refilled, he returned to the parlor only to find it
empty. Going to the porch he saw Westover astride a three-year-old
filly that had been turned loose to graze in the house grounds. Without
saddle or bridle the young man was gaily cavorting on the spirited
mare's back and rapidly reconciling her to control of his will.
"Well, certainly he's fit," muttered the little doctor. "There aren't
many men in Virginia who would prefer that sort of thing to a
comfortable bed after an all night's tramp down a mountain side, over
the roughest roads that adverse natural conditions, supplemented by the
evil ingenuity of road supervisors, ever managed to create. Houp la!
I'll dismiss him as cured. But we'll go on and elect him."
Then, as the negro boy for whom he had sent appeared, Farnsworth called
out:
"I say, Boyd, I've a boy waiting for you here. Come and give him
instructions."
And when Westover reached the steps, his host added:
"Sam may as well bring your horse to the Court House himself. It is
hardly at all out of his way in coming back. So give him your
instructions."
"Very well. Go to my overseer, Sam, and tell him to send Rob Roy to me
by you. And mind you, you are to lead him. If you try to ride him he'll
pitch you head first into the deepest mud puddle he can find, and then
he'll go galloping home again. Tell the overseer to put the
double-bitted snaffle and curb bridle on him and the lightest flat
saddle in the stables. And mind, Sam, keep the stirrups crossed over
the saddle. If you don't, Rob Roy will mount himself and ride away
heaven knows where."
"Yes, sir," answered Sam. "I hear, an' I'll be keerful. I prides myself
on ridin' anything they is short'n a hurricane, but I's contumaciously
opposed to gittin' on the back o' that there Rob Roy o' yourn. He's
wuss'n a hurricane an' a' earthquake an' a 'clipse o' de moon all put
togedder. Dat's my jedgment o' his pussonal character generally. He's
wuss now, o' course."
"Why, Sam?"
"'Cause he's done been stabled up fer free or four months, now, 'thout
no exercise 'ceptin' bein' led to de branch fer water."
"Do you know that, Sam? Have they kept that horse--"
"Yes, sir, I knows it. Yo' see dey ain't nobody on Wanalah plantation
dat dares git on dat dar hoss's back, an' 'taint much fun to exercise a
hoss by leadin' of him. 'Sides dat--"
Sam faltered, and his master interposed:
"Go on--'sides what."
"Well, 'taint nothin', sir."
"All right. I like to hear about nothings. Who is she, Sam?"
"Who's who, Mastah?"
"Why, the girl you've been courting over at Wanalah? Of course I know
you've been stealing a mule out of the stables and riding over there
every night for a month without asking my permission. But I don't know
who the girl is or whether she's worthy of you, Sam."
"'Fore de Lawd, Mastah, I ain't--"
"Don't forswear yourself, Sam. I know all about it. I visit my stables
every night, and I've missed you and the mule. I don't mind, only, if
you had asked me, I'd have let you have a better mule and a saddle.
Never mind that now. Take the mare Medora, and get away from here.
Bring your Mas' Boyd's horse to the Court House, and mind you, don't
stop at Wanalah to sweetheart with Patty Jane--for you see after all I
know all about this thing."
"And Sam, tell my body servant to send me some clothes by you," added
Westover.
When the boy had gone, in some confusion over what seemed to him his
master's supernatural knowledge of things he had carefully guarded
against discovery, Farnsworth explained to his companion:
"I always take pains to know what goes on on the plantation, and I
never mention it except in sensational ways, calculated to impress the
African mind with the conviction that as a doctor I am possessed of
strange, occult powers of discovery against which it is useless to
practise the ordinary arts of concealment. It's a handy way to keep
things in order on a plantation, the master of which has to attend to a
medical practice. Now we must be off. Here are our horses. I've
assigned to your use the maddest piece of horseflesh I possess. It's a
mare that broke my overseer's arm a year ago, and when harnessed to a
vehicle for purposes of subjugation and discipline kicked the vehicle
into kindling wood and scrap iron and then kept on kicking till there
was nothing left on her but a collar. She'd have kicked that off too, I
reckon, if it had been behind her shoulders. She has been a good deal
tamed since then, but she still has spirit enough to satisfy any
reasonable rider. You, of course, are unreasonable. What's your fancy
anyhow, Boyd, for riding cataclysms and cyclones instead of
serious-minded animals that know their business and do it docilely?"
"Oh I don't know. I like struggle, contest, and all that. I like to
match my wits against brute strength. I like--well I suppose I like a
fight."
As he spoke the two mounted.
"There's no trace of neurasthenia in him, anyhow," thought Farnsworth.
Aloud he said:
"All that is very fortunate, for just now you've got all the fight
ahead of you that any reasonable person of fighting temperament could
desire."
"Tell me all about it, Carley. I've been trying to worm the facts out
of you ever since I got to Chinquapin Knob."
"Oh, the thing's simple enough. You see Webb hates you of course, and
he's afraid of you. When he secured the regular nomination he thought
he had his fox by the tail. There was only the Democratic candidate,
Sam Butler, opposing him, and of course in so strong a Whig district as
this is, that candidacy didn't count. But when we nominated you as an
independent Whig, things began to cloud up in Webb's sky. He got ugly,
but--well, he was made to understand that there were limits to what it
would be safe to say about you."
"I understand, Carley," said Boyd, grasping his hand warmly; "I
understand, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for a
friendship that has no bottom so far as plummet line can discover. But
all that's my job now. Go on, I want to hear."
"Well, he hasn't dared say a thing in any open fashion, but there are a
lot of his followers whom no gentleman can afford to honor by slapping
their jaws or kicking them off the steps of a barroom, and through them
Webb has managed to circulate insinuations."
"Of what sort?" asked Westover quickly.
"It isn't easy to pin them down to a definition. They have mainly taken
the form of questions. 'Where is Boyd Westover, anyhow? Why doesn't he
present himself to the people he asks to vote for him? What's he afraid
of? Why didn't his oldest and best friend Colonel Conway sign the paper
nominating him? Does Colonel Conway doubt his innocence after all?
Isn't he satisfied with the other fellow's confession? Or does he think
the confession of a lunatic insufficient?' These are some of the
questions set afloat, nobody knows how or by whom."
"What are the others?" demanded Westover with set teeth and a jaw that
seemed to have added to its massiveness by reason of the determination
of the mind behind it. "Go on. Tell me the whole story. I want to know
just what I have got to fight."
"That's right, and I'll be with you in the fight. We'll run these
questions down till we make it unsafe to ask them. I've already made a
good many people quit asking them by notifying them that I should treat
any repetition of the questions as an assertion for which the
questioner could be and should be and would be held responsible;
confound that grammar rule about can and will and could and should and
would, I never could remember it, but I've given notice to all and
singular that I recognize no distinction between insinuation and
assertion in such a case as this, and that--oh, well, you know what a
notice of that kind suggests."
"Oh, yes, I know, and I thank you. But you're evading my question,
Carley. What is the other insinuation? I quite understand that you
shrink from mentioning it, but you must. I have a right to demand that
much from a friendship so loyal as yours has proved itself to be. Go
on. Tell me the worst."
"I will. But the thing has been so subtilely put forth that I've found
it impossible even to find anybody who has asked the question. Indeed
everybody who has helped to circulate the slander has done so not by
asking if there was truth in it but by declaring his utter disbelief in
it. I never knew anything so cleverly managed in my life, or anything
so malignant."
"You haven't yet told me what the scandal was," said Boyd, with lips so
tightly compressed that the purple had all gone out of them.