TWO PLANS
When Colonel May returned he was tired. He paused at the library door,
for a moment watching the bent head of the indomitable student, now
oblivious to everything except the page before him, hesitated, and then
passed on in search of Brent. He seemed to appreciate the uselessness of
calling the mountaineer who was in a realm too remote for human
interference. The Colonel was not the first that day to look in, pause,
and then pass on.
He found the young engineer out under the trees, deep in the
contemplation of the sky. Jerkily pulling off his gloves, he said:
"I want a drink!"
"You must have caught his eye," Brent smiled, as the tactful Zack was
seen following from the house with two frosted, green-tipped goblets of
silver hugged close to his stomach. It was obviously an effort to shield
them from the windows of Miss Liz's room and her inquisitorial
lorgnette. Colonel May noticed this shameless evidence of stealth, and
colored.
"I wish I could drink in my own house like a gentleman, sir," he raged,
"without hurting the sensibilities of super-sensitive ladies! This
schoolboy tomfoolery is sickening, and I'm going to put a stop to it
right now, sir!" So when the servant drew near, with a sly smile that
did anything but assuage the Colonel's humor, he raged anew: "Zack, you
rascal, hereafter when you bring me a julep I want you first to ask Miss
Liz if she thinks it looks well enough to be served!"
That black worthy put the juleps quickly down and exploded with
uncontrollable laughter. Such a suggestion, he thought, was about the
most irresistible bit of humor the Colonel had ever achieved; and now,
holding his sides, between guffaws he gasped:
"Marse John, you'se gittin' funnier an' funnier eve'y day you lives!"
But at this moment his eyes wandered to the Colonel's face. The laughter
stopped with a dry croak. He saw that his old master and friend was
serious, and reaching for one of the goblets he anxiously exclaimed:
"Great day in de mawnin', Marse John! You suttenly don' mean dat! Drink
dis heah, quick! Ridin' in de sun's done tetched yoh haid!"
"Touched the devil," the old gentleman thundered. "Take it back this
instant and ask Miss Liz if she thinks it's pretty enough to serve!"
Uncle Zack was indeed troubled. His hand shook with more than its usual
wont, as he looked down at the offending beverage and then pleadingly
up.
"She done tol' me twict dis week dat I'se gwine buhn in hell for dis
heah julep makin'. De fu'st thing you-alls'll know ole Zack'll bust out
in flames--an' _den_ whar'll you git yoh comfo't from?"
But the Colonel's glowering brows said very distinctly that the
alternative was an immediate little hell right there beneath the trees
and, choosing the more remote, Zack turned slowly to the house. The old
gentleman's eyes followed him, and now he turned irritably to Brent:
"I will not drink my juleps in gulps behind trees and shrubs, sir! I
like to have them sit before me, and contemplate their merits. I like to
Fletcherize them with my mind, and with those senses which my mind can
set astir. And so with my cigars, and with my food! Why, sir, much of
the pleasure of drinking and smoking and eating--as a gentleman
understands these pleasures--is in their peaceful contemplation before
the act! Otherwise, we are swine, and degrade our nutriment by coarse
handling! What respect can we have for self, sir, if we choke and
gurgle, and contemptuously treat those things we put into our bodies! I
shall have no more of it, sir!"
Brent waited until this wave of impatience had spent itself upon the
chairs, the grass, and everything within reach of the Colonel's wrathful
eye; then asked:
"What did you do with him?"
"Potter?" he nervously answered. "Wasn't there. Blood on the ground, but
he'd gone. Either wasn't killed, or someone found him. I don't know
which, of course, but probably the latter."
"What shall you do?"
"I don't know; I don't know. Telephone to Jess, doubtless."
For a moment they sat looking soberly into each other's faces.
"May I suggest," Brent said, "that you abandon the idea of telephoning
the sheriff? Jess isn't wanted quite yet awhile. If Potter is only
wounded--maybe just scratched--he's all right. If someone found his
body, there are others besides Dale who might have killed him."
"But, sir," sputtered the Colonel, "I can't harbor a murderer!"
"There's a difference between a murderer and one who righteously avenges
a wrong. That's worth considering. Besides, it's a serious matter for a
gentleman to give over his guest."
This, he knew, was a powerful argument and, feeling content to let it
plead its own cause, quietly added: "We don't want to see him go to
jail--"
"He wouldn't go to jail, sir," the Colonel quickly interrupted. "I would
ask Jess to leave him here until Court convenes. He would be glad to do
that for me."
"I know he would," Brent replied with all sincerity. "But we don't need
a sheriff yet. Let's wait, and see what turns up!"
An expression of infinite relief came into the old gentleman's face, but
his conscience was still aroused and emphatically he declared: "I'll
deliver him to the law, sir, the very minute I know to a certainty that
Potter is dead!" Then his eyes turned toward the house, from where by
this time he thought his julep should be emerging.
That faithful institution, Uncle Zack, had come perilously near
fulfilling his mission. He had walked bravely through the rooms, goblet
in hand, at each turn earnestly and fervently praying to his gods that
Miss Liz might not be found. Coming into the front hall, and passing "de
long room"--that long room which used to ring with the merry laughs of
dancers, but was now guarded as a sort of chapel for shrouded
portraits--he saw its forbidding doors slightly ajar, and peered in.
Uncle Zack always avoided this room. Its subdued light; its oppressive
atmosphere, invariably suggesting the image of "Ole Miss" lying there
amidst banks of flowers which matched in purity her calm face; the
uniform arrangement of high-backed chairs, suggesting in their white
coverings a line of tombstones; the two massive crystal chandeliers,
hanging like weights of an old clock which would never again be
wound;--were all too much for Zack's heart and imagination. Yet the door
was open, and he peered in.
His fading eyes followed the line of chairs, upon one of which stood
Miss Liz. She had drawn the musty covering from an overhanging
portrait--her dead sister--and to this she was murmuring. Her black silk
dress and lace kerchief seemed to make her a part of the gallery; and
her thin hand resting on the frame, with its forefinger unconsciously
pointing upward, was as frail and wax-like as that other hand into which
the old negro had, one twilit evening, long ago, laid a rose--when,
unobserved and shaken by convulsive sobs, he tiptoed in to pray at the
side of "Ole Miss'" bier.
Carefully now he stepped back, drawing the door softly to, and leaving
the room to its undisturbed communion of whispering spirits.
"What are you crying for?" the Colonel asked, as he finally came up with
the julep.
"I isn't cryin', Marse John. Dat bad eye of mine hu'ts me some, dat's
all."
"I'll have you see the doctor. Did you find Miss Liz?"
"Yas, sah, I foun' her."
"And what did she say?"
"She never say nuthin' to _me_," Zack answered in his low, musical
voice. "An' I never axed her nuthin', neither. She wuz standin' on a
cheer in de long room, whisperin' to Ole Miss' pictur, Marse John; an' I
couldn' poke no julep up at her den!"
The Colonel bowed his head. After a prolonged silence he drew a deep
breath, then drained the goblet thirstily to the very end, taking a
piece of ice into his mouth and moodily crunching it. But his eyes were
not raised; his thoughts had not been diverted.
Zack tiptoed away and disappeared behind the house. Brent respectfully
waited for the spell to pass; and when, at last, the old gentleman did
look up, his eyes, like Zack's, were moist.
"The tobacco ought to be good this year," he said.
"Yes," Brent smiled at his courageous nonchalance, "if we don't have the
riders."
"Riders, pooh," he ridiculed. "You mean, if we don't have any more play
of fancy imaginations, and thunderings of overwrought editors, sir!"
For Colonel May was one of those many, many thousands whose love of
State stands just above his love of Nation. Any word, or whisper, which
scandalized the sweet name of Kentucky spurred him instantly to action.
The same unwavering Southern Law whose right hand commands man to strike
in defense of a woman's honor, placed its left upon the Colonel's
shoulder whenever the old Commonwealth happened to be slandered by some
impetuous act of a misguided son. Nor would Brent have been any less
slow with his defense;--but, among themselves, pretenses were
unnecessary. So he laughed at the old gentleman's fervor, saying:
"That's all right for the outsiders, Colonel; but I was in the State
cavalry, and know. We chased 'em for weeks!"
"And how many were caught, sir?"
"Oh, I don't remember. My own troop rounded up three or four."
"Well, sir," the Colonel said, with a finality intended to close the
subject, "that's a mighty small number to have given us all so bad a
name! The injustice of Kentucky being exploited in the press of the
United States merely for the misdeeds of three or four rascals! All
kinds of deviltry may be perpetrated in other sections of the Union,
sir, and the press treats it with indifference; but let just one
gentleman in Kentucky shoot another gentleman, and the papers make it
into a dish for the gods, garnished with their blackest type and
seasoned with the spiciest titbits of their fertile imaginations! It's
disgusting, sir!"
"There may have been a few of those fellows we didn't catch," Brent
suggested, wanting very much to laugh.
"Impossible! I tell you it's impossible, sir! When a troop of cavalry,
made up of such material as yourself, sir, goes after offenders, I am
pretty well satisfied that you bring them every one in!"
"You put it most convincingly," the engineer bowed to him. "By the way,"
he added, rightly judging where the Colonel's thoughts were dwelling, "I
hope you will tell me the day before you decide on telephoning Jess--I
mean, of course, if the worst comes to the worst!"
"Certainly," he looked up. "But why do you want to know?"
"Perhaps you don't want to know why I want to know," Brent laughed.
"But I do, sir!"
"That isn't a sufficient reason, Colonel, for it may not be ethical for
me to tell you. However, I've two plans. One is to give Dale a
twenty-four-hour start, and in that event I'll go along to see him
settled."
"I shall forget what you say," the old gentleman, immeasurably pleased,
frowned sternly to ease his conscience. "But you can be of no service to
him! He knows his country like a book!"
"It isn't to his country I'd advise him to go. No one would think, for
instance, of looking for him in our house at home. He could keep on
studying, too; and after awhile this thing would blow over."
The light in Colonel May's face was eloquent of a greater affection than
he had at any time felt for Brent, but he simply said:
"Then I should lose you both! What is your other plan?"
"The other plan is something I am not at liberty to tell even you,"
Brent soberly answered.
After several minutes, during which the older man seemed to be thinking
deeply, he struck his fist on the arm of his chair, exclaiming:
"I don't see why it's so damned important to tell Jess, anyhow! Why,
sir, the fellow may not be dead, at all! And you mustn't lose sight of
the fact, sir, that Dale is my guest, entitled by a higher law to my
protection!"
"Now that you mention it, I believe you are right," Brent cried, as
though this were sparklingly original. "Let's act on the suggestion!"
Sometime later, after they had gone, Zack came out to gather up the
goblets. For several minutes he stood with one of these in his hand,
staring with a perplexed and troubled frown at a julep which had not
been tasted.
"Dar ain' no fly in it, dat's suah," he mumbled, "but I cyarn' see what
de trubble is! An' it ain' Marse John's, 'caze he drinked his'n whilst I
wuz heah! De onlies' answer is dat Marse Brent done lef it fer de ole
nigger!"
With a stealthy look toward Miss Liz's windows he backed into the
shrubbery and transferred the julep to a place where it might receive
more consideration; then, after doing a few steps of a double-shuffle,
he emerged and walked airily to the house.