TRENCH walked slowly homeward. Colonel Royall’s place, the largest
of its kind in the neighborhood of Eshcol, was on a hill above the
town, and Trench’s nearest path lay not by the highroad but past the
Colonel’s gates along a lovely trail that led through a growth of
stunted cedars out into the open ground above the river, and thence
by a solitary and wooded path known sometimes as the Trail of the
Cedar-bird, because those little birds haunted it at certain seasons of
the year.
It was now broad moonlight, and Trench, who was peculiarly susceptible
to the sights and sounds of Nature, was aware of the beauty of every
tremulous shadow. The chill spring air was sweet with the aromatic
perfume of pines and cedars, and, as he turned the shoulder of
the hill, his eye swept the new-plowed fields. He could smell the
grapevines that were blooming in masses by the wayside, promising a
full harvest of those great purple grapes that had given the settlement
its name. Below him the river forked, and in its elbow nestled the
center of the village, the church at the Cross-Roads, and the little
red schoolhouse where Peter Mahan had fought Jacob Eaton and whipped
him at the age of twelve, long before Caleb Trench had even heard
of Eshcol. To the left was the Friends’ Meeting-House, Judge Hollis’
home, and the lane which led to Trench’s shop and office. Beyond, he
discerned the little old white house where Dr. William Cheyney lived,
but that was where Eshcol lapped over on to Little Paradise, for they
had bridged the creek ten years before. Across the river lay the city,
big and smoky and busy, its spires rising above its shining roofs.
A light mist, diaphanous and shimmering, floated over the lowlands by
the water, and above it the dark green of the young foliage and the
lovely slope of clovered fields seemed to assume a new and beautiful
significance, to suggest mysterious unfoldings, buds and blossoming
time, the gathered promise of a hundred springs, that mysterious
awakening of life which stirred the lonely man’s imagination with a
thrill of pleasure as poignant as it was unusual. To him these lonely
walks at sunrise and moonrise had been his greatest solace, and there
was a companionship in the slight hushed sounds of woodland life which
approached his inner consciousness more nearly than the alien existence
that circumstances had forced upon him. He was a stranger in almost a
strange land. He had been born and brought up in Philadelphia, and his
family belonged to the Society of Friends. Personally, Caleb Trench was
not orthodox, but the bias of his early training held, and the poverty
that had followed his father’s business failure had tended to increase
the simplicity of the boy’s narrowed life. When death had intervened
and taken first his father, whom business ruin had broken, and then
his mother and sister, Caleb had severed the last tie that bound him
to the East and started West to make his fortune, with the boundless
confidence of youth that he would succeed. The lodestar that has drawn
so many on that fantastic quest had drawn him, and failing in first one
venture and then another, because it is easier to buy experience than
to accumulate wealth, he had come at last to the little shop at Eshcol
and the study of law. Wherein lay the touchstone of his life, though he
knew it not.
Pausing now, a moment, to view his favorite scene, the lowlands by the
river under their silvery mantle of vapor, he turned and took the sharp
descent from the bluff to the old turnpike. A cherry tree in full bloom
stood like a ghost at the corner of Judge Hollis’ orchard, and the long
lane was white with the falling petals. A light shone warmly through
the crimson curtains of Judge Hollis’ library window, and Caleb took
the familiar path to the side door. The latch was usually down, but
to-night he had to knock, and the judge’s sister, Miss Sarah, opened
the door.
“Is that you, Caleb?” she said, in her high thin voice; “wipe your
feet. I wish men folks were all made like cherubs anyway, then there
wouldn’t be all this mud tracked over my carpets.”
“We might moult our wing feathers, Miss Sarah,” Caleb ventured
unsmilingly, while he obeyed his instructions to the letter.
“I’d as lief have feathers as pipe ashes,” she retorted; “in fact I’d
rather--I could make pillows of ’em.”
“You can’t complain of my pipe ashes, Miss Sarah,” Trench said, a slow
laugh dawning in the depths of his gray eyes. “Is the judge at home?”
“Can’t you smell tobacco smoke?” she replied, moving in front of him
across the entry, her tall figure, in its plain green poplin with
the turn-down collar of Irish lace, recalling to Trench, in the most
extreme of contrasts, the other tall figure in its beautiful evening
dress, that had stood so haughtily in Colonel Royall’s drawing-room,
seeming to him the most perfect expression of beauty and charming grace
that he had ever seen, though he still felt the sting of Diana’s glance
and the sarcasm of her receipt. He had carried the money back in good
faith, for his Quaker training made six cents as significant to him as
six hundred cents, but, under all his strong and apparently unmoved
exterior, there was a quick perception of the attitude of others
toward his views and toward himself. In the strength of his own virile
character he had not fully realized where he stood in her eyes, but
after that night he did not forget it. Meanwhile, Miss Sarah had opened
the study door.
“Judge,” she called to her brother, “Caleb’s here.”
There was no response, and she went away, leaving Caleb to find his own
welcome. He went in and closed the door. Judge Hollis was sitting at
his desk smoking a long black pipe and writing carefully in a hand as
fine and accurate as a steel engraving.
The room was low, papered with old-fashioned bandbox paper and filled
with bookcases with glass doors, every one of which hung open. In the
corner was a life-sized bust of Daniel Webster. As Caleb entered,
the judge swung around in his revolving chair and eyed him over his
spectacles. He was a big man with a large head covered with abundant
white hair, a clean-shaven face with a huge nose, shaped like a hawk’s
and placed high between the deep-set eyes.
“Trench,” he said abruptly, “if they elect Aylett they’ll have to stuff
the ballot-boxes. What’ll you do then?”
“Take the stuffing out of them, Judge,” Trench replied promptly and
decisively.
The judge looked at him, a grim smile curling the corners of his large
mouth. “They’ll tar and feather you,” he said.
Trench sat down and took up a calf-bound volume. “I’m enough of a
Quaker still to speak out in meeting,” he observed.
“The only thing I know about Quakers makes ’em seem like Unitarians,”
said the judge, “and a Unitarian is a kind of stylish Jew. What have
you been doing with the backwoodsmen, Caleb? Mahan tells me they’re
organized--” the judge smiled outright now--“I don’t believe it.”
Caleb Trench smiled too. “I don’t know much about organizing, Judge,”
he said simply. “When men come into my shop and ask questions I answer
them; that’s all there is about it.”
“We’ll have to shut up that shop, I reckon,” the judge said, “but
then you’ll open your darned law office and give ’em sedition by the
brief instead of by the yard. I deserve hanging for letting you read
law here. I’ve been a Democrat for seventy years, and you’re a black
Republican.”
Trench closed the law book on his finger. “Judge,” he said slowly, “I’m
a man of my own convictions. My father wouldn’t stand for anything I
do, yet he was the best man I ever knew, and I’d like to be true to
him. It isn’t in me to follow in the beaten track, that’s all.”
The judge twinkled. “You’re an iconoclast,” he said, “and so’s Sarah,
yet women, as a rule, are safe conservatives. They’ll hang on to an
old idea as close as a hen to a nest-egg. Perhaps I’m the same. Anyway
I can’t stand for your ways; I wash my hands of it all. I wish they’d
drop Yarnall; his nomination means blood on the face of the moon.
There’s the feud with the Eatons, and I wouldn’t trust Jacob Eaton to
forget it, not by a darned sight; he’s too pesky cold-blooded,--the
kind of man that holds venom as long as a rattler.”
“Then, if you don’t like Yarnall, why not vote for Mahan?” Trench was
beginning to enjoy himself. He leaned back in his chair with his head
against a shelf of the bookcase, the light from the judge’s lamp
falling full on his remarkable face, clean-shaven like his host’s, on
the strong line of the jaw, and on the mouth that had the faculty of
locking itself in granite lines.
“Because, damn it, I’m a Democrat!” said the old man angrily.
“By conviction or habit?”
The judge scowled. “By conviction first, sir, and by habit last, and
for good and all, anyway!”
Caleb Trench laughed softly. “Judge,” he said, “what of Jacob Eaton?”
The judge shot a quick look from under scowling brows. “Seen him
lately?”
The younger man thought a moment. “Yes, last night. I owed Miss Royall
some change and took it to the house. Eaton was there.”
“How much change?” asked Hollis abruptly.
“Six cents.”
“What!”
Trench reddened. “Six cents,” he repeated doggedly.
“And you took it up there and paid Diana Royall?”
“Certainly, Judge, in the drawing-room; she gave me a receipt.”
The judge exploded with laughter; he roared and slapped his knee.
Caleb Trench bore it well, but the color of his eyes, which was
blue-gray, became more gray than blue. “I owed it,” he said.
At which the judge laughed more. Then he dropped back into his old
attitude and wiped his eyes. “You walked up there--seven miles--to see
Diana?”
Trench stiffened. “No,” he said flatly, “I did not; I’ve got more
sense. I know perfectly how Miss Royall estimates a shopkeeper,” he
added, with a bitterness which he could not suppress.
The judge looked at him curiously. “How do you know?” he asked.
Trench returned his look without a word, and Judge Hollis colored; it
was not the first time that the young man had rebuked him and let him
know that he could not trespass on forbidden ground. The old lawyer
fingered his brief an instant in annoyed silence, then he spoke of
something else.
“I’ll tell you about the feud,” he said irrelevantly; “it began seventy
years ago over a piece of ground that lay between the two properties;
Christopher Yarnall claimed it and so did Jacob Eaton, this man’s
grandfather. There was a fence war for years, then Yarnall won.
Winfield Mahan, Peter’s grandfather, won by a fifteen-hour speech. They
said the jurymen all fell asleep in the box and voted in a nightmare.
Anyway he got it, and Mahan got more money for the case than the whole
place was worth. That was the beginning. Chris Yarnall’s son married a
pretty girl from Lexington, and she fell in love with Eaton, Jacob’s
father. There was a kind of fatality about the way those two families
got mixed up. Everybody saw how things were going except Jinny Eaton,
his wife. She was playing belle at Memphis, and Jacob was about a year
old. Eaton tried to run away with Mrs. Yarnall, that’s the size of it,
and Yarnall shot him. There was a big trial and the Eatons claimed that
Eaton was innocent. Young Mrs. Yarnall swore he was, and fainted on the
stand, but the Yarnalls knew he wasn’t innocent, and they got Yarnall
off. He wouldn’t live with his wife after that; there was a divorce and
he married a Miss Sarah Garnett. This Garnett Yarnall, they want to
run, is his son. Of course the whole Eaton clan hate the Yarnalls like
the devil, and Jacob hates Garnett worse than that, because he’s never
been able to run him. Jacob likes to run things in a groove; he’s a
smart fellow, is Jacob.”
Trench said nothing; he had filled his pipe and sat smoking, the law
book closed on his finger. The judge swung back in his chair and
clasped his hands behind his head.
“Of course he’ll marry Diana Royall. They’re fourth cousins; Jinny
is the colonel’s second cousin, on his mother’s side; there’s a good
deal of money in the family, and I reckon they want to keep it there.
Anyway, Jacob’s set his mind--I’m not saying his heart, for I don’t
know that he’s got one--on getting Diana; that’s as plain as the nose
on a man’s face, but Diana--well, there’s a proposition for you!” and
the judge chuckled.
Trench knocked the ashes from his pipe very carefully into a little
cracked china plate that Miss Sarah provided for the judge, and the
judge never used. “Eaton is interested in some speculating schemes,
isn’t he?” he asked, without referring to Diana.
The judge nodded. “He’s president of a company developing some lands in
Oklahoma, and he’s connected in Wall Street; Jacob’s a smart fellow.”
“Colonel Royall is interested, too, I suppose,” Trench suggested
tentatively.
“Yep, got pretty much all his spare cash in, I reckon; the colonel
loves to speculate. It’s in the blood, one way or another. His
grandfather kept the finest race-horses in the South, and his father
lost a small fortune on them. Of course David has to dip in, but he’s
never been much for horses. Besides, he had a blow; his wife--” The
judge stopped abruptly and looked up.
The door of the study had been opening softly and closing again for the
last few minutes. As he paused it opened wider, and a woolly head came
in cautiously.
“What is it, Juniper?” he asked impatiently. “Don’t keep a two-inch
draught on my back; come in or stay out.”
The old negro opened the door wide enough to squeeze his lean body
through and closed it behind him.
“Evenin’, Jedge,” he said; “evenin’, Marse Trench.”
“What do you want now?” demanded the judge, taking off his spectacles
to polish them. There was the ghost of a smile about his grim lips.
Juniper turned his hat around slowly and looked into the crown; it was
a battered old gray felt and he saw the pattern of the carpet through a
hole in it. “I’ve laid off ter ask yo’ how much it wud cost ter git er
divorce, suh?”
Judge Hollis put on his spectacles and looked at him thoughtfully.
“Depends on the circumstances, Juniper,” he replied. “I suppose Aunt
Charity is tired of you at last?”
“No, suh, _she_ ain’t, but I ez,” said Juniper indignantly; “she done
b’haved so onerary dat I’se sho gwine ter be divorced, I ez, ef it don’
cost too much,” he added dolefully.
The judge’s eyes twinkled. “You’ll have to pay her alimony,” he said.
“What’s dat?” Juniper demanded with anxiety.
“So much a week out of your wages,” explained Trench, catching the
judge’s eye.
“I ain’t gwine ter do it, noways,” said Juniper firmly.
“Don’t you have to support her now?” Trench asked mildly.
Juniper looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I’se allus been proud
ob de way she done washin’, suh,” he said; “she sho do mek money dat
away, an’ I ain’t gwine ter complain ob noffin but de way she behaved
’bout Miss Eaton’s silver teapot, dat Miss Jinny done gib me fo’ a
birthday present.”
“Silver teapot?” Caleb Trench looked questioningly at the judge.
“Juniper had a birthday,” Judge Hollis explained grimly, “and Aunt
Charity gave him a birthday party. I reckon we all sent Juniper
something, but Jinny Eaton gave him a silver-plated teapot, and there
have been squalls ever since. Who’s got that teapot now, Juniper?”
“She hab,” said Juniper indignantly. “I locked dat teapot in my trunk,
Judge, an’ I done tole her dat she couldn’t hab it when I died bekase
she’d gib it ter dat mean trash son ob hers, Lysander, an’ when I wus
out she done got a locksmith ter gib her a key ter fit dat trunk,
an’ she got dat teapot, an’ she’s gwine ter gib tea ter Deacon Plato
Eaton, an’ he hab er wife already, not sayin’ noffin ’bout concubines.
I ain’t gwine ter hab him drinkin’ no tea outen dat silver teapot dat
Miss Jinny done gib me. I’se gwine ter git divorcement an’ I wants dat
teapot.”
“Why don’t you settle it with Uncle Plato?” asked the judge. “Assault
and battery is cheaper than divorce.”
Juniper rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. “De fact ez, Jedge,”
he said, “I ain’t sho dat I’se gwine ter whip him.”
“Juniper,” said the judge, “you tell Uncle Plato from me that if he
drinks tea out of that teapot you’ll sue him for ten thousand dollars
damages for alienating your wife’s affections.”
Juniper looked at him admiringly. “I sho will, Jedge,” he said.
“Alyanatying her ’fections! I sho will! Dat sounds mos’ ez bad ez
settin’ fire ter de cou’t-house. I ’low Plato ain’t gwine ter cotch et
ef he kin help it. I sho ez grateful ter yo’ all, Jedge.”
The judge swung his revolving chair around to his desk. “Very good,” he
said grimly; “you can go now, Juniper.”
The old man turned and shuffled back to the door; as he opened it he
bowed again. “Alyanatying her ’fections! I ’low I ain’t gwine ter
fergit dat. Evenin’, gentermen,” and he closed the door.
The judge looked across at Caleb. “That’s one of the Eaton faction,”
he remarked grimly. “Yarnall has to contend with that kind of cattle.
Juniper’s sold, body and soul, to the Eatons, and that old fool, Jinny
Eaton, gave him a silver-plated teapot for his birthday. You might
as well give a nigger a diamond sunburst or a tame bear. He and his
wife have been at swords’ points ever since, but as sure as the first
Tuesday in November comes, that whole black horde will vote the Eaton
ticket.”
Caleb Trench regarded the judge thoughtfully. “You’d like to
disfranchise the negro,” he remarked.
Hollis grunted. “You’re a black Republican,” he said bitingly.
Trench shook his head. “No, sir, a conservative,” he replied, “but an
honest man, I hope. I haven’t much more use for the ignorant black vote
than you have, but that question isn’t the one that hits me, Judge.”
The judge looked keenly at the grim composure of the face opposite.
“What does?”
“Dishonesty, fraud, and intimidation,” Trench answered.
“And you propose to oppose and expose them?” The old man was keenly
interested, his heavy brows drawn down, his eyes sparkling.
“I do.”
Judge Hollis rose and went over to the younger man. He laid his hand on
his shoulder. “You’re a poor man, Trench; they’ll ruin you.”
“So be it.”
“You’re alone; they’ll kill you,” warned the judge.
Trench rose, and as his tall figure towered, the fine width of his brow
and the peculiar lucidity of his glance had never seemed more striking.
Judge Hollis watched him in grim admiration.
“I’ve got but one life,” he said, “and, as God sees me, I’ll live that
life in fear of no man.”
The judge walked slowly back to his seat, took off his spectacles and
laid them down beside his brief. “Reckon Jacob Eaton’s got his match at
last,” he said, “and, by the Lord Harry, I’m glad of it!”