fiddle and his lay, and he did not exactly sing the virtues of Billy
Bayhone. Evidently some partisan thought he ought, for he smote him on
the thigh with the toe of his boot and raised such a stir as a rude
stranger might had he smitten a troubadour in Arthur's Court. The crowd
thickened and surged, and four of the Guard emerged with the fiddler and
his assailant under arrest. It was as though the Valley were a sheet of
water straightway and the fiddler the dropping of a stone, for the
ripple of mischief started in every direction. It caught two
mountaineers on the edge of the crowd, who for no particular reason
thumped each other with their huge fists, and were swiftly led away by
that silent Guard. The operation of a mysterious force was in the air
and it puzzled the crowd. Somewhere a whistle would blow, and, from this
point and that, a quiet, well-dressed young man would start swiftly
toward it. The crowd got restless and uneasy, and, by and by,
experimental and defiant. For in that crowd was the spirit of Bunker
Hill and King's Mountain. It couldn't fiddle and sing; it couldn't
settle its little troubles after the good old fashion of fist and skull;
it couldn't charge up and down the streets on horseback if it pleased;
it couldn't ride over those puncheon sidewalks; it couldn't drink openly
and without shame; and, Shades of the American Eagle and the Stars and
Stripes, it couldn't even yell. No wonder, like the heathen, it raged.
What did these blanked "furriners" have against them anyhow? They
couldn't run _their_ country--not much.
Pretty soon there came a shrill whistle far down-town--then another and
another. It sounded ominous, indeed, and it was, being a signal of
distress from the Infant of the Guard, who stood before the door of Jack
Woods's saloon with his pistol levelled on Richards, the tough from the
Pocket, the Infant, standing there with blazing eyes, alone and in the
heart of a gathering storm.
Now the chain of lawlessness that had tightened was curious and
significant. There was the tough and his kind--lawless, irresponsible
and possible in any community. There was the farm-hand who had come to
town with the wild son of his employer--an honest, law-abiding farmer.
Came, too, a friend of the farmer who had not yet reaped the crop of
wild oats sown in his youth. Whiskey ran all into one mould. The
farm-hand drank with the tough, the wild son with the farm-hand, and the
three drank together, and got the farmer's unregenerate friend to drink
with them; and he and the law-abiding farmer himself, by and by, took a
drink for old time's sake. Now the cardinal command of rural and
municipal districts all through the South is, "Forsake not your friend":
and it does not take whiskey long to make friends. Jack Woods had given
the tough from the Pocket a whistle.
"You dassen't blow it," said he.
Richards asked why, and Jack told him. Straightway the tough blew the
whistle, and when the little colonel ran down to arrest him he laughed
and resisted, and the wild son and the farm-hand and Jack Woods showed
an inclination to take his part. So, holding his "drop" on the tough
with one hand, the Infant blew vigorously for help with the other.
Logan, the captain, arrived first--he usually arrived first--and Gordon,
the sergeant, was by his side--Gordon was always by his side. He would
have stormed a battery if the captain had led him, and the captain would
have led him--alone--if he thought it was his duty. Logan was as calm as
a stage hero at the crisis of a play. The crowd had pressed close.
"Take that man," he said sharply, pointing to the tough whom the colonel
held covered, and two men seized him from behind.
The farm-hand drew his gun.
"No, you don't!" he shouted.
"Take _him_," said the captain quietly; and he was seized by two more and
disarmed.
It was then that Sturgeon, the wild son, ran up.
"You can't take that man to jail," he shouted with an oath, pointing at
the farm-hand.
The captain waved his hand. "And _him_!"
As two of the Guard approached, Sturgeon started for his gun. Now,
Sturgeon was Gordon's blood cousin, but Gordon levelled his own pistol.
Sturgeon's weapon caught in his pocket, and he tried to pull it loose.
The moment he succeeded Gordon stood ready to fire. Twice the hammer of
the sergeant's pistol went back almost to the turning-point, and then,
as he pulled the trigger again, Macfarlan, first lieutenant, who once
played lacrosse at Yale, rushed, parting the crowd right and left, and
dropped his billy lightly three times--right, left and right--on
Sturgeon's head. The blood spurted, the head fell back between the
bully's shoulders, his grasp on his pistol loosened, and he sank to his
knees. For a moment the crowd was stunned by the lightning quickness of
it all. It was the first blow ever struck in that country with a piece
of wood in the name of the law.
"Take 'em on, boys," called the captain, whose face had paled a little,
though he seemed as cool as ever.
And the boys started, dragging the three struggling prisoners, and the
crowd, growing angrier and angrier, pressed close behind, a hundred of
them, led by the farmer himself, a giant in size, and beside himself
with rage and humiliation. Once he broke through the guard line and was
pushed back. Knives and pistols began to flash now everywhere, and loud
threats and curses rose on all sides--the men should not be taken to
jail. The sergeant, dragging Sturgeon, looked up into the blazing eyes
of a girl on the sidewalk, Sturgeon's sister--the maid from Lee. The
sergeant groaned. Logan gave some order just then to the Infant, who
ran ahead, and by the time the Guard with the prisoners had backed to a
corner there were two lines of Guards drawn across the street. The first
line let the prisoners and their captors through, closed up behind, and
backed slowly towards the corner, where it meant to stand.
It was very exciting there. Winchesters and shotguns protruded from the
line threateningly, but the mob came on as though it were going to press
through, and determined faces blenched with excitement, but not with
fear. A moment later, the little colonel and the Guards on either side
of him were jabbing at men with cocked Winchesters. At that moment it
would have needed but one shot to ring out to have started an awful
carnage; but not yet was there a man in the mob--and that is the trouble
with mobs--who seemed willing to make a sacrifice of himself that the
others might gain their end. For one moment they halted, cursing and
waving; their pistols, preparing for a charge; and in that crucial
moment the tutor from New England came like a thunderbolt to the rescue.
Shrieks of terror from children, shrieks of outraged modesty from women,
rent the air down the street where the huddled crowd was rushing right
and left in wild confusion, and, through the parting crowd, the tutor
flew into sight on horseback, bareheaded, barefooted, clad in a gaudily
striped bathing suit, with his saddle-pockets flapping behind him like
wings. Some mischievous mountaineers, seeing him in his bathing suit on
the point of a rock up the river, had joyously taken a pot-shot or two
at him, and the tutor had mounted his horse and fled. But he came as
welcome and as effective as an emissary straight from the God of
Battles, though he came against his will, for his old nag was frantic
and was running away. Men, women and children parted before him, and
gaping mouths widened as he passed. The impulse of the crowd ran faster
than his horse, and even the enraged mountaineers in amazed wonder
sprang out of his way, and, far in the rear, a few privileged ones saw
the frantic horse plunge towards his stable, stop suddenly, and pitch
his mottled rider through the door and mercifully out of sight. Human
purpose must give way when a pure miracle comes to earth to baffle it.
It gave way now long enough to let the oaken doors of the calaboose
close behind tough, farm-hand, and the farmer's wild son. The line of
Winchesters at the corner quietly gave way. The power of the Guard was
established, the backbone of the opposition broken; henceforth, the work
for law and order was to be easy compared with what it had been. Up at
the big spring under the beeches sat the disgusted orator of the day
and the disgusted Senator, who, seriously, was quite sure that the
Guard, being composed of Democrats, had taken this way to shatter his
campaign.
* * * * *
Next morning, in court, the members of the Guard acted as witnesses
against the culprits. Macfarlan stated that he had struck Sturgeon over
the head to save his life, and Sturgeon, after he had paid his fine,
said he would prefer being shot to being clubbed to death, and he bore
dangerous malice for a long time, until he learned what everybody else
knew, that Macfarlan always did what he thought he ought, and never
spoke anything but the literal truth, whether it hurt friend, foe or
himself.
After court, Richards, the tough, met Gordon, the sergeant, in the road.
"Gordon," he said, "you swore to a ---- lie about me a while ago."
"How do you want to fight?" asked Gordon.
"Fair!"
"Come on"; and Gordon started for the town limits across the river,
Richards following on horseback. At a store, Gordon unbuckled his belt
and tossed his pistol and his police badge inside. Jack Woods, seeing
this, followed, and the Infant, seeing Woods, followed too. The law was
law, but this affair was personal, and would be settled without the
limits of law and local obligation. Richards tried to talk to Gordon,
but the sergeant walked with his head down, as though he could not
hear--he was too enraged to talk.
While Richards was hitching his horse in the bushes the sergeant stood
on the bank of the river with his arms folded and his chin swinging from
side to side. When he saw Richards in the open he rushed for him like a
young bull that feels the first swelling of his horns. It was not a
fair, stand-up, knock-down English fight, but a Scotch tussle, in which
either could strike, kick, bite or gouge. After a few blows they
clinched and whirled and fell, Gordon on top--with which advantage he
began to pound the tough from the Pocket savagely. Woods made as if to
pull him off, but the Infant drew his pistol. "Keep off!"
"He's killing him!" shouted Woods, halting.
"Let him holler 'Enough,' then," said the Infant.
"He's killing him!" shouted Woods.
"Let Gordon's friends take him off, then," said the Infant. "Don't _you_
touch him."
And it was done. Richards was senseless and speechless--he really
couldn't shout "Enough." But he was content, and the day left a very
satisfactory impression on him and on his friends.
If they misbehaved in town they would be arrested: that was plain. But
it was also plain that if anybody had a personal grievance against one
of the Guard he could call him out of the town limits and get
satisfaction, after the way of his fathers. There was nothing personal
at all in the attitude of the Guard towards the outsiders; which
recognition was a great stride toward mutual understanding and final
high regard.
All that day I saw that something was troubling the tutor from New
England. It was the Moral Sense of the Puritan at work, I supposed, and,
that night, when I came in with a new supply of "billies" and gave one
to each of my brothers, the tutor looked up over his glasses and cleared
his throat.
"Now," said I to myself, "we shall catch it hot on the savagery of the
South and the barbarous Method of keeping it down"; but before he had
said three words the colonel looked as though he were going to get up
and slap the little dignitary on the back--which would have created a
sensation indeed.
"Have you an extra one of those--those--"
"Billies?" I said, wonderingly.
"Yes. I--I believe I shall join the Guard myself," said the tutor from
New England.
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN
No night was this in Hades with solemn-eyed Dante, for Satan was only a
woolly little black dog, and surely no dog was ever more absurdly
misnamed. When Uncle Carey first heard that name, he asked gravely:
"Why, Dinnie, where in h----," Uncle Carey gulped slightly, "did you get
him?" And Dinnie laughed merrily, for she saw the fun of the question,
and shook her black curls.
"He didn't come f'um _that place_."
Distinctly Satan had not come from that place. On the contrary, he might
by a miracle have dropped straight from some Happy Hunting-ground, for
all the signs he gave of having touched pitch in this or another sphere.
Nothing human was ever born that was gentler, merrier, more trusting or
more lovable than Satan. That was why Uncle Carey said again gravelyt
hat he could hardly tell Satan and his little mistress apart. He rarely
saw them apart, and as both had black tangled hair and bright black
eyes; as one awoke every morning with a happy smile and the other with a
jolly bark; as they played all day like wind-shaken shadows and each
won every heart at first sight--the likeness was really rather curious.
I have always believed that Satan made the spirit of Dinnie's house,
orthodox and severe though it was, almost kindly toward his great
namesake. I know I have never been able, since I knew little Satan, to
think old Satan as bad as I once painted him, though I am sure the
little dog had many pretty tricks that the "old boy" doubtless has never
used in order to amuse his friends.
"Shut the door, Saty, please." Dinnie would say, precisely as she would
say it to Uncle Billy, the butler, and straightway Satan would launch
himself at it--bang! He never would learn to close it softly, for Satan
liked that--bang!
If you kept tossing a coin or marble in the air, Satan would keep
catching it and putting it back in your hand for another throw, till you
got tired. Then he would drop it on a piece of rag carpet, snatch the
carpet with his teeth, throw the coin across the room and rush for it
like mad, until he got tired. If you put a penny on his nose, he would
wait until you counted, one--two--_three_! Then he would toss it up
himself and catch it. Thus, perhaps, Satan grew to love Mammon right
well, but for another and better reason than that he liked simply to
throw it around--as shall now be made plain.
A rubber ball with a hole in it was his favorite plaything, and he
would take it in his mouth and rush around the house like a child,
squeezing it to make it whistle. When he got a new ball, he would hide
his old one away until the new one was the worse worn of the two, and
then he would bring out the old one again. If Dinnie gave him a nickel
or a dime, when they went down-town, Satan would rush into a store, rear
up on the counter where the rubber balls were kept, drop the coin, and
get a ball for himself. Thus, Satan learned finance. He began to hoard,
his pennies, and one day Uncle Carey found a pile of seventeen under a
corner of the carpet. Usually he carried to Dinnie all coins that he
found in the street, but he showed one day that he was going into the
ball-business for himself. Uncle Carey had given Dinnie a nickel for
some candy, and, as usual, Satan trotted down the street behind her. As
usual, Satan stopped before the knick-knack shop.
"Tum on, Saty," said Dinnie. Satan reared against the door as he always
did, and Dinnie said again:
"Tum on, Saty." As usual, Satan dropped to his haunches, but what was
unusual, he failed to bark. Now Dinnie had got a new ball for Satan only
that morning, so Dinnie stamped her foot.
[Illustration: Satan would drop the coin and get a ball for himself.]
"I tell you to turn on, Saty." Satan never moved. He looked at Dinnie
as much as to say:
"I have never disobeyed you before, little mistress, but this time I
have an excellent reason for what must seem to you very bad manners--"
and being a gentleman withal, Satan rose on his haunches and begged.
"You're des a pig, Saty," said Dinnie, but with a sigh for the candy
that was not to be, Dinnie opened the door, and Satan, to her wonder,
rushed to the counter, put his forepaws on it, and dropped from his
mouth a dime. Satan had found that coin on the street. He didn't bark
for change, nor beg for two balls, but he had got it in his woolly
little head, somehow, that in that store a coin meant a ball, though
never before nor afterward did he try to get a ball for a penny.
Satan slept in Uncle Carey's room, for of all people, after Dinnie,
Satan loved Uncle Carey best. Every day at noon he would go to an
upstairs window and watch the cars come around the corner, until a very
tall, square-shouldered young man swung to the ground, and down Satan
would scamper--yelping--to meet him at the gate. If Uncle Carey, after
supper and when Dinnie was in bed, started out of the house, still in
his business clothes, Satan would leap out before him, knowing that he
too might be allowed to go; but if Uncle Carey had put on black clothes
that showed a big, dazzling shirt-front, and picked up his high hat,
Satan would sit perfectly still and look disconsolate; for as there were
no parties or theatres for Dinnie, so there were none for him. But no
matter how late it was when Uncle Carey came home, he always saw Satan's
little black nose against the window-pane and heard his bark of welcome.
After intelligence, Satan's chief trait was lovableness--nobody ever
knew him to fight, to snap at anything, or to get angry; after
lovableness, it was politeness. If he wanted something to eat, if he
wanted Dinnie to go to bed, if he wanted to get out of the door, he
would beg--beg prettily on his haunches, his little red tongue out and
his funny little paws hanging loosely. Indeed, it was just because Satan
was so little less than human, I suppose, that old Satan began to be
afraid he might have a soul. So the wicked old namesake with the Hoofs
and Horns laid a trap for little Satan, and, as he is apt to do, he
began laying it early--long, indeed, before Christmas.
When Dinnie started to kindergarten that autumn, Satan found that there
was one place where he could never go. Like the lamb, he could not go to
school; so while Dinnie was away, Satan began to make friends. He would
bark, "Howdy-do?" to every dog that passed his gate. Many stopped to rub
noses with him through the fence--even Hugo the mastiff, and nearly all,
indeed, except one strange-looking dog that appeared every morning at
precisely nine o'clock and took his stand on the corner. There he would
lie patiently until a funeral came along, and then Satan would see him
take his place at the head of the procession; and then he would march
out to the cemetery and back again. Nobody knew where he came from nor
where he went, and Uncle Carey called him the "funeral dog" and said he
was doubtless looking for his dead master. Satan even made friends with
a scrawny little yellow dog that followed an old drunkard around--a dog
that, when his master fell in the gutter, would go and catch a policeman
by the coat-tail, lead the officer to his helpless master, and spend the
night with him in jail.
By and by Satan began to slip out of the house at night, and Uncle Billy
said he reckoned Satan had "jined de club"; and late one night, when he
had not come in, Uncle Billy told Uncle Carey that it was "powerful
slippery and he reckoned they'd better send de kerridge after him"--an
innocent remark that made Uncle Carey send a boot after the old butler,
who fled chuckling down the stairs, and left Uncle Carey chuckling in
his room.
Satan had "jined de club"--the big club--and no dog was too lowly in
Satan's eyes for admission; for no priest ever preached the brotherhood
of man better than Satan lived it--both with man and dog. And thus he
lived it that Christmas night--to his sorrow.
Christmas Eve had been gloomy--the gloomiest of Satan's life. Uncle
Carey had gone to a neighboring town at noon. Satan had followed him
down to the station, and when the train departed, Uncle Carey had
ordered him to go home. Satan took his time about going home, not
knowing it was Christmas Eve. He found strange things happening to dogs
that day. The truth was, that policemen were shooting all dogs found
that were without a collar and a license, and every now and then a bang
and a howl somewhere would stop Satan in his tracks. At a little yellow
house on the edge of town he saw half a dozen strange dogs in a kennel,
and every now and then a negro would lead a new one up to the house and
deliver him to a big man at the door, who, in return, would drop
something into the negro's hand. While Satan waited, the old drunkard
came along with his little dog at his heels, paused before the door,
looked a moment at his faithful follower, and went slowly on. Satan
little knew the old drunkard's temptation, for in that yellow house
kind-hearted people had offered fifteen cents for each dog brought to
them, without a license, that they might mercifully put it to death, and
fifteen cents was the precise price for a drink of good whiskey. Just
then there was another bang and another howl somewhere, and Satan
trotted home to meet a calamity. Dinnie was gone. Her mother had taken
her out in the country to Grandmother Dean's to spend Christmas, as was
the family custom, and Mrs. Dean would not wait any longer for Satan; so
she told Uncle Billy to bring him out after supper.
"Ain't you 'shamed o' yo'self--suh--?" said the old butler, "keepin' me
from ketchin' Christmas gifts dis day?"
Uncle Billy was indignant, for the negroes begin at four o'clock in the
afternoon of Christmas Eve to slip around corners and jump from hiding
places to shout "Christmas Gif--Christmas Gif'"; and the one who shouts
first gets a gift. No wonder it was gloomy for Satan--Uncle Carey,
Dinnie, and all gone, and not a soul but Uncle Billy in the big house.
Every few minutes he would trot on his little black legs upstairs and
downstairs, looking for his mistress. As dusk came on, he would every
now and then howl plaintively. After begging his supper, and while
Uncle Billy was hitching up a horse in the stable, Satan went out in the
yard and lay with his nose between the close panels of the fence--quite
heart-broken. When he saw his old friend, Hugo, the mastiff, trotting
into the gaslight, he began to bark his delight frantically. The big
mastiff stopped and nosed his sympathy through the fence for a moment
and walked slowly on, Satan frisking and barking along inside. At the
gate Hugo stopped, and raising one huge paw, playfully struck it. The
gate flew open, and with a happy yelp Satan leaped into the street. The
noble mastiff hesitated as though this were not quite regular. He did
not belong to the club, and he didn't know that Satan had ever been away
from home after dark in his life. For a moment he seemed to wait for
Dinnie to call him back as she always did, but this time there was no
sound, and Hugo walked majestically on, with absurd little Satan running
in a circle about him. On the way they met the "funeral dog," who
glanced inquiringly at Satan, shied from the mastiff, and trotted on. On
the next block the old drunkard's yellow cur ran across the street, and
after interchanging the compliments of the season, ran back after his
staggering master. As they approached the railroad track a strange dog
joined them, to whom Hugo paid no attention. At the crossing another
new acquaintance bounded toward them. This one--a half-breed
shepherd--was quite friendly, and he received Satan's advances with
affable condescension. Then another came and another, and little Satan's
head got quite confused. They were a queer-looking lot of curs and
half-breeds from the negro settlement at the edge of the woods, and
though Satan had little experience, his instincts told him that all was
not as it should be, and had he been human he would have wondered very
much how they had escaped the carnage that day. Uneasy, he looked around
for Hugo; but Hugo had disappeared. Once or twice Hugo had looked around
for Satan, and Satan paying no attention, the mastiff trotted on home in
disgust. Just then a powerful yellow cur sprang out of the darkness over
the railroad track, and Satan sprang to meet him, and so nearly had the
life scared out of him by the snarl and flashing fangs of the new-comer
that he hardly had the strength to shrink back behind his new friend,
the half-breed shepherd.