Presently they passed through a second gate and left the outpost of
trees behind. To the right stretched a broad expanse of turf, bare of
trees or shrubs; Phillip called it the lawn. It led upward to a sloping
terrace upon which, fair and white against a dense background of winter
woods, guarded by a few sentinel trees which threw their leafless
shadows upon the sunlit walls, stood the house, crowning the splendour
of the landscape with its own gleaming beauty and quiet dignity. John
drew a breath of intense pleasure as he looked, while Cardinal, moved
to new impatience by the sight of the stables, rushed around the curve
that, bordering the lawn, led to the house.
Elaine had been built by Phillip’s great-grandfather in the early part
of the century, when three or four years was thought none too long for
the rearing of a home. The great terrace had been pulled down from
the ridge at the back and thrown up from the sloping meadow below by
scores of toiling slaves; the stone that formed the thick walls had
been carted from quarries forty miles away as the crow flies; the
timber had been felled upon the estate, sawn and cut and planed with
infinite toil; the huge stone columns before the door had been erected
by workmen brought from Italy for the purpose. That long-gone Phillip
Ryerson had builded well, and to-day the house was as strong and
undisturbed as when he had first led his young bride into it. Save that
here and there the plaster covering the stones had cracked or chipped,
the building showed no signs of any depredations of time or weather;
nor had the civil strife which had waged hotly about it marred its
beauty; though once, indeed, the great hall had been piled high with
bundles of fodder and only a miracle had averted the applying of the
torch by Northern soldiers.
The house was long――“Four feet longer than the White House at
Washington,” Phillip assured――and two stories and a half in height.
In the centre of the front an immense portico stood forth, its roofs
supported by four great Greek Doric columns whose bases two men could
scarce encircle with their arms. The masonry of the columns was
hidden by plaster, white and gleaming like the pediment above; and
the same snowy hue was everywhere visible save upon the doors and
windows and upon the ornamental lintels above them. These were of
two shades of chocolate brown, and, with the hanging balcony above
the front entrance, lent a pleasant suggestion of the Italian to the
architecture. The white chimneys rising above the gables were topped
with mellow ochre-tinted pots. Just now the shadows were gathering
beneath the portico roof, but upon the rest of the house front the
westerning sun shone warmly, delicately shadowing the walls with the
tracery of spreading branches and throwing upon the great base of
a column a grotesque silhouette of one of the two big lions which,
standing at either side upon their stone acroteria, guarded the broad
entrance.
As the carriage reached the corner of the house three dogs, a
red-and-white setter, a dark brindle bull terrier and a toddling
beagle, raced toward them, baying and yelping their welcome, while a
flock of handsome bronze turkeys and two disdainful peacocks hurried
across the drive toward the shelter of the trees. On the porch stood a
white-haired darky, and below, on the gravel, a younger one ready to
take the horse.
“Hello, Uncle!” called Phillip. The elder darky grinned delightedly and
bobbed his grizzled head.
“Howdy, Will!” The younger smiled from ear to ear and performed a
subdued double-shuffle in the roadway. Phillip leaped to the porch,
shook hands with the butler and turned to John.
“All out for Elaine!” he cried merrily. “Here’s where we stop, John.
Look after those guns and umbrellas, Uncle. Out you come, sis!”
In the hall, broad, deep and high of ceiling, a room in itself,
Margaret, drawing her gloves from palms that ached with holding the
headstrong Cardinal, nodded smilingly toward a deep chair. John shook
his head, however, and turning to one of the windows gazed out over
the sloping, sun-bathed lawn to the timbered creek, to the fields
beyond, to the purple rises and hills beyond those, and so to an almost
cloudless horizon which already hinted of sunset. He received an
impression of openness and space that was almost thrilling. Phillip,
followed by the butler, came in with the luggage, and to the darky
Margaret spoke:
“Has mother come down?”
“No’m, not yet. She said she’d wait till you-all come.”
“Very well. You’d better take Mr. North’s things to his room, Uncle;
and perhaps you’d like to go up?” turning to John.
“Thank you, I will.”
“I’m going up to see mamma; I’ll be back in a minute or so, John. I’ve
told them at the stable to bring the horses around; we’ll take a ride
before supper.” Phillip tossed aside his cap and turned toward a door.
“But maybe Mr. North is tired, Phil, and would rather not ride this
evening,” said Margaret.
“Tired! Shucks, Margey; why, you just can’t tire him! You want to ride,
don’t you, John?”
“I should like to very much. It seems a mistake to stay indoors in
this kind of weather――it’s grand. I’ll get washed up a bit and change
my things. Don’t let your mother put herself to any inconvenience on
my account, Phil, unless she would have come downstairs anyway――if I
wasn’t here, I mean――――”
“This is her usual time,” answered Margaret. “I suspect the reason
she’s not already here to welcome you is that she’s doing an unusual
amount of primping on your account, Mr. North. Mamma is not beyond
feminine coquetries, is she, Phil?”
“She’s the biggest flirt in four counties!” laughed Phillip. “I don’t
doubt but that she’s been dressing for your conquest, John, ever since
morning.”
“The extra exertion is quite unnecessary,” John replied gravely. “I
came here quite prepared to fall victim to her charms.”
Uncle Casper, with John in tow, led the way through an old-style
drawing-room at the right to a narrow entry from which stairs led
upward to a similar hall on the second floor. John’s room was to the
left, an immense apartment occupying the corner of the house toward the
stables. On the front two large windows afforded the same broad view
of the lawn and the country villageward that he had admired from the
hall. On the side two other windows overlooked a space of turf that
narrowed itself between two driveways until its apex lay just outside
the gate of the stable-yard. To the right of it was the terrace and
the lawn, to the left the thickly wooded ridge, rising abruptly from
the back of the house and inviting to explorations with gun and dog.
The stables were painted white, with brown roofs, and from the centre
of what was evidently the original structure arose against the clear
sky an airy clock tower surmounted by a great iron vane. Beyond the
stables the ground dipped to a hollow through which a small stream
slipped down from the hill beyond; and across the hollow, disputing
the edge of the rise with the primeval forest, lay a group of barns,
folds, pens and sheds. On that side a door opened upon a balcony from
which a flight of steps gave access to the ground. “Must have been
designed for a bachelor apartment,” John thought. The room was well, if
plainly furnished, and an antique testerbed, draped about with faded
pink curtains, promised good repose. Near the bed a big fireplace was
ablaze with pine logs that hurled their sparks against the brass fender
with reports like miniature pistols. The warmth felt agreeable, since
the four windows were wide open; and after Uncle Casper had taken his
slow departure, John lighted a cigarette and, turning his broad back to
the glow, clasped his hands behind him and gazed contentedly across the
width of the room and out into the afternoon world. He had been several
times abroad, although his travels there had followed well-worn roads,
and he had looked about not a little in his own country, and now he
was telling himself that never had he found a place as beautiful as
Elaine nor one better worth calling home.
Presently he threw aside his cigarette and struggled into a pair of
riding breeches――discovering to his dismay that he had put on flesh
since the summer――and worked his feet into a pair of boots. When he
was dressed he glanced at his watch and found the time to be a quarter
to four. From the stable the negro, Will, was bringing the horses, a
big black stallion and a smaller but rangy-looking bay mare which John
guessed to be a sister to Cardinal. He watched them pass toward the
portico and made his way downstairs. Phillip was in the hall looking
very handsome in whipcords, boots and brown tweed coat.
“Mamma asks me to apologize to you, old man, for not coming down. I
think the excitement of seeing me again has rather upset her. I was to
convey her compliments and say that she bids you welcome to Elaine and
hopes to have the pleasure of seeing you at supper. There! Those are
her own words, and I think I said them nicely. Are you all ready? We
won’t have much time, but we can jog around a bit.”
“I hope Mrs. Ryerson is not ill?” asked John with concern.
“No; only a little headachey, I reckon. Margey made her lie down until
supper.” A look of anxiety shaded his face for a moment. “I suppose
it’s my being away so long, but she looks heaps thinner and poorer than
I thought. Poor little mamma! She’s been getting more and more like a
dear little ghost ever since father died. I’m beginning to think that
maybe I’d ought to stay at home with her, John, instead of going away
off there to college. But she won’t hear of it; it was father’s wish,
she says. I reckon if he had wanted me to go to South Africa and dig
gold she’d have insisted on my going. Well, come on. How’s Ruby, Will?
All right? She looks fine. That’s my mare, John. Isn’t she a sweet one?
You can have either of them. The stallion’s rather mean going through
the gates, but except for that he’s a pretty steady horse. And the
mare’s as nice as you’ll want.”
“I guess I’ll take the mare, if you don’t mind,” answered John. “I
haven’t ridden since summer, and not a great deal then, and I guess
she’ll break me in easier.”
“All right, then I’ll ride Winchester. Will, look at Mr. North’s
stirrups; you’ll have to let them out a good deal, I reckon. When Bob
gets here tell him the trunk with the red stripes goes to Mr. North’s
room. All right, John? We’ll ride over to the East Farm and call on
Markham. He’s the overseer, you know, and a mighty nice fellow.”
But they didn’t have to go to the East Farm to see Markham, for they
met him half a mile from the house; a tall, angular man of about
forty years, with a long and drooping yellow mustache and a soft and
deliberate Southern drawl that John liked to listen to. He rode a
horse that was as near a counterpart of himself as a horse could be――a
yellowish sorrel with many angles and a deliberate gait. The meeting
between Phillip and Markham was more in the nature of that between
brothers than between employer and employed. Phillip introduced the
others and they shook hands cordially above their stirrups.
“This is Tom Markham, John,” said Phillip; “a good fellow, and the
finest overseer in the State of Virginia.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Markham greeted. “Allow me to add my
welcome to the others. It’s always a pleasure to me to meet a
No’therner; I fought against ’em, sir, and the more I fought ’em the
more I liked ’em, sir. Yes, Mr. No’th, by doggie, sir!” He drew forth
a plug of tobacco and offered it with a courteous inclination of the
cone-crowned sombrero that covered his weather-stained face. John
declined with equal politeness, and Markham set two rows of strong
white teeth into the plug. “A pow’ful mean habit, sir. I respect yo’
decision, sir; by doggie, sir!” He spat politely and drew a lean brown
hand over his mustache. “Where yo’ goin’, Phil?”
“We started out to call on you. Where are you going?”
“I was on my way to see you and pay my respects to yo’ friend.”
“Well, can’t you come back to supper with us?”
“Thank you, not to-night. I shall be pleased to come over to-morrow
night.”
“That’s fine,” answered Phillip. “I want to have a good talk with you.”
“If yo’-all have no special place in mind,” said Markham, “why not ride
over to Cupples’s with me? I want to see about some hay they’ve got
for sale. We’re not goin’ to have enough to last, I reckon, and I want
to buy before the price goes up. They’re askin’ nine and a half in
Melville now.”
“All right,” Phillip replied; “one place is as good as another to us. I
reckon we can get back by supper time if we cut through the woods.”
John let the others ride ahead, since the narrow road would not allow
of three abreast, and trotted along behind on Ruby, filling his lungs
with the moist, frosty air of evening and watching the darkening
panorama of hill and field and woodland. The leather felt good between
his thighs, the road was firm and springy, and Ruby was a horse in a
hundred, having a long, easy trot that carried her along with seemingly
no effort. They went through innumerable gates which Markham either
opened from the saddle or dismounted and let down, and Winchester
fidgeted and reared at each succeeding one as though he had never
seen its like. When they reached the little hill farm that was their
destination the lights were aglow in the house and the haystack was
scarcely more than a blur of black in the purple-gray twilight. But
Markham pulled out tufts here and there and nibbled it knowingly, and
Phillip followed suit, while John kept his seat and held the restive
Winchester. Maid and the beagle, whose name was Tubby, had accompanied
them, and were now growlingly renewing acquaintances with the resident
dogs. Markham threw the reins back over his horse’s head and climbed
into the saddle.
“Good hay, Phil, that,” he said. “A bit dusty, maybe, but all right if
the price suits. How much do you reckon there is there?”
“It’s hard to see,” answered Phillip, “but I should say about eight
tons.”
“Gingeration! I’ll buy it for eight,” chuckled Markham, “yes, sir! I
reckon there’s nearer ten. It’s mighty well settled. I’ll ride down to
the house and see ’em; it won’t take but a minute.”
Presently he returned, loping up the little rise toward them.
“That’s fixed, Phil. Got it for nine tons. They wanted eight and a half
for it, but I got it for eight and a quarter. Good hay, too, by doggie,
sir, yes!”
“Tom, can’t you get us up a fox hunt some day soon?” asked Phillip on
the way back. “This is good weather, you know.”
“Certainly I can. Old Colonel Brownell and a lot of the boys rode
over here last Saturday and borrowed the dogs and found just back of
Clearspring. They had a good run and caught a young vixen right down
over yonder”――pointing into the darkness toward the west――“and the
Colonel carried off the head. The Colonel’s sixty-eight,” he continued,
turning toward John, “and he’s never missed a hunt yet. Well, now, how
would next Monday morning do?”
“All right, I reckon,” answered Phillip. “And we’ll pray for as good
weather as this.”
“You’re right; this is certainly mighty fine weather. Well, I’ll leave
yo’-all here and jog home, I reckon. Good-night, Phil. Good-night, Mr.
No’th; mighty pleased to have made yo’ acquaintance, sir, an’ hope to
see yo’ over at my place before yo’ leave, sir.”
Half-way home, while riding through a clearing that was bordered on
one side by a dark wood, there was a sudden noise in the underbrush,
followed by the sweet, clear, bell-like note of the beagle and the
sharp, excited yelping of Tudor Maid. John’s mount threw up her head,
laid her ears back and tugged at the bit.
“Tubby’s found a fox,” cried Phillip. “Whoa, boy!” He stood up in his
stirrups and placed a hand at his mouth.
“Ha-arkaway!” he called shrilly. “Harkaway! After him, Tubby, old boy!”
The rustling of the underbrush died away and Tubby’s voice from a
distance took on a worried, whining tone.
“He’s lost him,” laughed Phillip. “Come on, Winchester.” They rode on
in a silence disturbed only by the tread of the horses on the soft
wagon path, the musical creaking of leather and the occasional rustling
or chirp of birds preparing for the night. When they reached the top
of the hill Elaine lay before and below them, a misty white blur
picked out with tiny lights, while in the east, over a dark rampart of
forests, the moon was sailing, its lower edge caught in the topmost
branches of a distant tree.
“By Jove,” said John softly, “but that’s beautiful!”
“Yes,” answered Phillip, as their horses, scenting the stables, tugged
at the reins and began the descent; and after a moment he added
thoughtfully, “I wonder if Margey told Aunt Cicely to have cakes for
supper.”
It is probable that she did, for when, an hour later, they sat at
table, Uncle Casper began a series of excursions to the kitchen which
John thought would never end, returning each time laden with steaming,
golden-brown griddle-cakes and offering them to the guest with a
murmured and persuasive “Hot cakes, sir?” that John found difficult to
resist. Between Uncle Casper and Phillip――continually challenging John,
to renewed excesses――and Mrs. Ryerson, who apparently believed that
he was about to die of starvation under her eyes, he was in danger of
doing mortal injury to his digestion. The only thing that saved him was
the fact that as soon as he had prepared his cakes and had taken his
first mouthful or two, Uncle Casper would appear at his elbow with a
fresh plate.
“Mr. North, do take some more and butter them while they’re hot,” Mrs.
Ryerson would beg; and in that moment of hesitation which is fatal
Uncle Casper would whisk away his plate and present a new one, and John
would begin all over again. But his ride――to Crupples’s and back was
reckoned six miles――had given him a keen appetite, and he thoroughly
enjoyed his supper and would have been enabled to rival Phillip in the
consumption of cakes had that dish not been preceded by a bountiful
repast of country sausage, baked potatoes, salad and divers kinds of
hot bread.
The dining-room was large and high-ceilinged, but furnished in such a
way that the effect was one of coziness rather than spaciousness. The
table was small and oval and was lighted only by the two old-fashioned
candelabra. Phillip sat at the head and his mother at the foot,
Margaret and John facing each other on the sides――an arrangement that
the latter heartily approved of.
Mrs. Ryerson was a sweet-faced, delicate-looking little woman of about
forty, who took her troubles seriously but without undue complaining.
Her hair was heavily streaked with white and suffering had left its
imprint about the rather deep eyes and delicate mouth. But for all
that John could readily understand how, not so many years ago, she was
called the handsomest woman in the county. Both Phillip and Margaret
had something of her looks, but were cast in larger mould. She had a
rather ceremonious manner of speech that suggested hoop-skirts and
patches, and caused John to raise his eyes involuntarily to the old
portraits on the walls. But her welcome had been unmistakably sincere
and hearty, despite its formality, and had made John wonder whether he
was not something of an impostor, since he was looked upon at Elaine as
one whose example and guidance had saved Phillip from awful and unknown
pitfalls. John believed that as a guardian he had been somewhat of a
failure, and he had striven to convey the fact to Mrs. Ryerson. But he
might as well have saved his breath, for that admiring lady had already
set him up in her mind as a hero and received his attempts to disclaim
credit with polite incredulity.
After supper Phillip lead John to the library for a smoke. It was a
small room, shabby in appearance, lined from floor to ceiling with
shelves containing a collection of literature typical of fifty years
ago: the _Spectator_ in small calf-bound and discoloured volumes, Pepys
and Evelyn, several mythologies, Richardson and Sterne, countless
cloth-backed volumes of the British poets, the Waverley Novels in
ponderous forms, and hundreds of other books of whose existence
the world has long since forgotten. Later the two returned to the
drawing-room, where before a big oak fire Mrs. Ryerson and Margaret
were awaiting them. It was a quiet evening and a pleasant one. The two
women were full of questions regarding Phillip’s college life which
his letters had failed to answer, and so he explained a great deal,
constantly turning to John for corroboration.
The latter listened, answered when appealed to, threw in a word of his
own now and then, watched the flames and sometimes Margaret, and was
delightfully restful and contented. He was a trifle saddle-sore and
somewhat sleepy. At nine Mrs. Ryerson retired, and after a few minutes
more of almost silent contemplation of the fire the others followed
suit.
“I’m jolly sleepy,” said Phillip. “Besides, we’re to shoot in the
morning. Aunt Cicely is to give us breakfast at seven.”
John lay in the big four-poster watching the firelight dance on the
white walls and thinking over the incidents of the day for quite ten
minutes. Then with the distant baying of a foxhound in his ears he
turned over and began to snore.