describe its beauty, which is of a character that refuses to submit to
description. You go down to the old town from the city, and you say to
yourself and your friends that you are enjoying the delights of the
country. You visit it from the plantations, and you feel that you are
breathing the kind of atmosphere that should be found in the social life
of a large, refined and perfectly homogeneous community. But whether you
go there from the city, or from the plantations, you are inevitably
impressed with a sense of the attractiveness of the place; you fall
under the spell of the old town--it was old even in the old times of the
sixties. And yet if you were called upon to define the nature of the
spell, what could you say? What name could you give to the tremulous
beauty that hovers about and around the place, when the fresh green
leaves of the great trees are fluttering in the cool wind, and
everything is touched and illumined by the tender colours of spring?
Under what heading in the catalogue of things would you place the vivid
richness which animates the town and the landscape all around when the
summer is at its height? And how could you describe the harmony that
time has brought about between the fine old houses and the setting in
which they are grouped?
All these things are elusive; they make themselves keenly felt, but they
do not lend themselves to analysis.
It is a pity that those who are interested in traditions that are truer
than history could not have all the facts in regard to Shady Dale from
the lips of Mr. Obadiah Tutwiler, who had constituted himself the oral
historian of the community. Mr. Tutwiler was alive as late as 1869, and
had at his fingers'-ends all the essential facts relating to the origin
and growth of the town, and he related the story with a fluency, an
accuracy, and a relish quite surprising in so old a man.
As was fitting, the old court-house, the temple of justice, had been
reared in the centre of the town, and the square that surrounds it took
the shape of a park of considerable dimensions. On two sides were some
of the more pretentious dwellings; the tavern, with a few of the more
modest houses took up a third side; while the fourth side was taken up
by the shops and stores; and so careful had the early settlers been with
the trees, that it was possible to stand in a certain upper window of
the court-house, and look out upon the town with not a house in sight.
Naturally, the most interesting feature of Shady Dale was the Clopton
Place. It had been the home of the First Settler, and in 1860, when Nan
and Gabriel were enjoying their happiest days, it was owned and occupied
by the son, Meriwether Clopton.
From the time of the First Settler, the Clopton Place had been dedicated
and set apart to the uses of hospitality. The deed in which General
McGillivray, in the name of the Creek Nation, conveyed the domain to
Raleigh Clopton, distinctly sets forth the condition that the Clopton
Place was to be an asylum and a place of refuge for the unfortunate and
for those who needed succour. During the long and bloody contests
between the white settlers and the Creeks, it was the pleasure of the
Creek chief to pay out of his own private fortune, which was a large one
for those days, the ransoms which, under the rules of the tribal
organisations, each Indian town demanded for the prisoners captured by
its warriors. Such was the poverty of the whites in general that only
occasionally was General McGillivray reimbursed for his expenditures in
this direction.
But no matter by whom the ransoms were paid, the prisoners were one and
all forwarded to the Clopton Place, where they were cared for until such
time as they could be transferred to the white settlements. In this way
hospitality became a habit at the Place, and in the years that followed,
no wayfarer was ever turned away from those wide doors.
In the pleasant weather, it was a familiar spectacle to see Meriwether
Clopton sitting on the wide lawn, reading Virgil and Horace, two volumes
of which he never tired. His favourite seat was in the shade of a
silver maple, through the branches of which a grapevine had been
trained. This silver maple, with the vine running through it, and the
seat in the shade, were a realisation, he once told Gabriel and Cephas,
of one of the most beautiful poems in one of the volumes, but whether
Virgil or Horace, the aforesaid Cephas is unable to remember.
There were days long to be remembered when the Master of Clopton Place
read aloud to the children, translating as he went along, and smacking
his lips over the choice of words as though he were tasting a fine
quality of wine. And the children felt the charm of these ancient
verses; and they soon came to understand why words written down
centuries ago, had power to take possession of the mind. They were
charged with the qualities that brought them home to the modern hour;
and for all that was foreign in them, they might have been composed at
Shady Dale. It is no wonder that the common people in the Middle Ages
clothed Virgil with the gift and power of a prophet or a magician.
Something of the charm that dwelt all about the place had its origin and
centre in Meriwether Clopton himself. His years sat lightly upon him. He
had led an active and a temperate life, and a hale and hearty old age
was the fruit thereof. He had had his flings, and something more,
perhaps, for there were traditions of some very serious troubles in
which he had been engaged shortly after reaching his majority. But
Gabriel's grandmother, who knew--none better--declared that these
troubles were not of Meriwether Clopton's seeking. They were the results
of a legacy of feuds which Raleigh Clopton, through no desire of his
own, had left to his son. It was said of Raleigh Clopton that his sense
of justice was as strong as his temper, which was a stormy one. He
espoused the cause of young Eli Whitney, who had been despoiled of his
rights in the cotton-gin in Georgia, and this led him into a series of
difficulties without parallel in the history of the State. Raleigh
Clopton's attitude in this contest brought him in conflict with some of
the most powerful men and interests in the commonwealth. It was a
contest in which knavery, fraud and corruption, the courts, and
considerable private capital, were all combined against Whitney, who
appeared to be without a strong friend until Raleigh Clopton became his
champion.
The collusion of the courts with this high-handed robbery was so
ill-concealed that Raleigh Clopton soon discovered the fact, and his
indignation rose to such a white heat that it drove him to excesses. He
dragged one judge from a buggy, and plied him with a rawhide, he slapped
the face of another in a public house, and posted a dozen prominent men
as thieves and corruptionists, with the result that the State fairly
swarmed with his enemies, men who were able to keep him busy in the way
of troubles and difficulties. It was the day of private feuds, and it
was not surprising that some of these enemies should attack the father
through the son. Thus it fell out that Meriwether Clopton's experience
for half a score of years after he came of age was anything but
peaceful. But he came out of all these difficulties with head erect,
clean hands and a clear conscience. He was neither hardened nor
embittered by the violence with which he had to deal. On the contrary,
his character was strengthened and his temper sweetened; so that when
the lads who listened to his mellifluous translations from the Latin
poets, were old enough to appreciate the qualities that go to make up a
good man and an influential citizen, the fact dawned upon their minds
that Meriwether Clopton was the finest gentleman they had ever seen.
CHAPTER THREE
_The Return of Two Warriors_
When the great contest began, Nan was close to thirteen, and Gabriel was
fourteen. Cephas was younger; he had lived hardly as many months as he
had freckles on his face, otherwise he would have been an aged citizen.
They wandered about together, always accompanied by Tasma Tid, all of
them being children in every sense of the word. Occasionally they were
joined by some of the other boys and girls; but they were always happier
when they were left to themselves.
In the late afternoons they could always be found in the Bermuda fields,
but at other times, especially on a warm day, their favourite playground
was under the wide-spreading elms in front of the post-office. Amusing
themselves there in the fine weather, they could see the people come and
go, many of them looking for letters that never came. When the conflict
at the front became warm and serious, and when the very newspapers, as
Mrs. Absalom said, smelt of blood, there was always a large crowd of
men, old and young, gathered at the post-office when the mail-coach came
from Malvern. As few of the people subscribed for a daily newspaper,
Judge Odom (he was Judge of the Inferior Court, now called the Court of
Ordinary) took upon himself to mount a chair or a dry-goods box, and
read aloud the despatches printed in the Malvern _Recorder_. This
enterprising journal had a number of volunteer correspondents at the
front who made it a point to send with their letters the lists of the
killed and wounded in the various Georgia regiments; and these lists
grew ominously long as the days went by.
And then, in the course of time, came the collapse of the Confederacy,
an event that blew away with a breath, as it were, the hopes and dreams
of those who had undertaken to build a new government in the South; and
this march of time brought about a gradual change in the relations
between Nan and Gabriel. It was almost as imperceptible in its growth as
the movement of the shadow on the sun-dial. Somehow, and to her great
disgust, Nan awoke one morning and was told that she was a young woman,
or dreamt that she was told. Anyhow, she realised, all of a sudden, that
she was now too tall for short dresses, and too old to be playing with
the boys as if she were one of them; and the consciousness of this
change gave her many a bad quarter of an hour, and sometimes made her a
trifle irritable; for, sweet as she was, she had a temper.
She asked herself a thousand times why she should now begin to feel shy
of Gabriel, and why she should be so self-conscious, she who had never
thought of herself with any degree of seriousness until now. It was all
a puzzle to her. As it was with Nan, so it was with Gabriel. As Nan grew
shy and shyer, so the newly-awakened Gabriel grew more and more and
more timid, and the two soon found themselves very far apart without
knowing why. For a long time Cephas was the only connecting link between
them. He was a sly little rascal, this same Cephas, and he found in the
situation food for both curiosity and amusement. He had not the least
notion why the two friends and comrades were inclined to avoid each
other. He only knew that he was not having as pleasant a time as fell to
his portion when they were all going about together with no serious
notions of life or conduct.
Cephas got no satisfaction from either Nan or Gabriel when he asked them
what the trouble was. Nan tried to explain matters, but her explanation
was a very lame one. "I am getting old enough to be serious, Cephas; and
I must begin to make myself useful. That's what Miss Polly Gaither says,
and she's old enough to know. Oh, I hate it all!" said Nan.
"Is Miss Polly Gaither useful?" inquired Cephas.
"I'm sure I don't know," replied Nan; "but that's what she told me, and
then she held up her ear-trumpet for me to talk in it; but I just
couldn't, she looked so very much in earnest. It was all I could do to
keep from laughing. Did you ever notice, Cephas, how funny people are
when they are really in earnest?"
Alas! Cephas had often pinched himself in Sunday-school to keep from
laughing at old Mrs. Crafton, his teacher. She was so dreadfully in
earnest that she kept her face in a pucker the whole time. Outside of
the Sunday-school she was a very pleasant old lady.
Gabriel had no explanation to make whatever. He simply told Cephas that
Nan was becoming vain. This Cephas denied with great emphasis, but
Gabriel only shook his head and looked wise, as much as to say that he
knew what he knew, and would continue to know it for some time to come.
The truth is, however, that Gabriel was as ignorant of the feminine
nature as it is possible for a young fellow to be; whereas, Nan, by
means of the instinct or intuition which heaven has conferred on her sex
for their protection, knew Gabriel a great deal better than she knew
herself.
When the war came to a close, Gabriel was nearly eighteen, and Nan was
seventeen, though she appeared to be a year or two younger. She was
still childish in her ways and tastes, and carried with her an
atmosphere of simplicity and sweetness in which very few girls of her
age are fortunate enough to move. Simplicity was a part of her nature,
though some of her young lady friends used to whisper to one another
that it was all assumed. She was even referred to as Miss Prissy, a term
that was probably intended to be an abbreviation of Priscilla.
Regularly, she used to hunt Cephas up and carry him home with her for
the afternoon; and on the other hand, Gabriel manifested a great
fondness for the little fellow, who enjoyed his enviable popularity with
a clear conscience. It was years and years afterwards before the secret
of his popularity dawned on him. If he had suspected it at the time, his
pride, such as he had, would have had a terrible fall.
One day, it was the year of Appomattox, and the month was June, Cephas
heard his name called, and answered very promptly, for the voice was the
voice of Gabriel, and it was burdened with an invitation to visit the
woods and fields that surrounded the town. The weather itself was
burdened with the same invitation. The birds sang it, and it rustled in
the leaves of the trees. And Cephas leaped from the house, glad of any
excuse to escape from the domestic task at which he had been set. They
wandered forth, and became a part and parcel of the wild things. The
hermit thrush, with his silver bell, was their brother, and the
cat-bird, distressed for the safety of her young, was their sister. Yea,
and the gray squirrel was their playmate, a shy one, it is true, but
none the less a genuine one for all that. They roamed about the
green-wood, and over the hills and fields, and finally found themselves
in the public highway that leads to Malvern.
Cephas found a cornstalk, and with hardly an effort of his mind, changed
it into a fine saddle-horse. The contagion seized Gabriel, and though he
was close upon his eighteenth birthday, he secured a cornstalk, which at
once became a saddle-horse at his bidding. The magical powers of youth
are wonderful, and for a little while the cornstalk horses were as real
as any horses could be. The steed that Cephas bestrode was comparatively
gentle, but Gabriel's horse developed a desire to take fright at
everything he saw. A creature more skittish and nervous was never seen,
and his example was soon followed by the steed that Cephas rode. The
two boys were so busily engaged in trying to control their perverse
horses, that they failed to see a big covered waggon that came creeping
up the hill behind them. So, while they were cutting up their queer
capers, the big waggon, drawn by two large mules, was plumb upon them.
As for Cephas, he didn't care, being at an age when such capers are
permissible, but Gabriel blushed when he discovered that his childish
pranks had witnesses; and he turned a shade redder when he saw that the
occupants of the waggon were, of all the persons in the world, Mr. Billy
Sanders and Francis Bethune.
Both of the boys would have passed on but for the compelling voice of
Mr. Sanders. "Why, it's little Gabe, and he's little Gabe no longer. And
Cephas ain't growed a mite. Hello, Gabe! Hello, Cephas! Howdy, howdy?"
Francis Bethune's salutation was somewhat constrained, or if that be too
large a word, was lacking in cordiality. "What is the matter with
Gabriel?" he asked.
"It's a thousand pities, Frank," remarked Mr. Sanders, "that Sarah
Clopton wouldn't let you be a boy along with the other boys; but she
coddled you up jest like you was a gal. Be jigged ef I don't believe
you've got on pantalettes right now."
Bethune blushed hotly, while Gabriel and Cephas fairly yelled with
laughter--and there was a little resentment in Gabriel's mirth. "But I
don't see what could possess Tolliver," Bethune insisted.
"Shucks, Frank! you wouldn't know ef he was to write it down for you,
an' Nan Dorrin'ton would know wi'out any tellin'. You ain't a bit
brighter about sech matters than you was the day Nan give you a
thumpin'."
At this Gabriel laughed again, for he had been an eye-witness to the
episode to which Mr. Sanders referred. A boy has his prejudices, as
older persons have theirs. Bethune had always had the appearance of
being too fond of himself; when other boys of his age were playing and
pranking, he would be primping, and in the afternoon, before he went off
to the war, he would strut around town in the uniform of a cadet, and
seemed to think himself better than any one else. These things count
with boys as much as they do with older persons.
"Climb in the waggin, Gabe an' Cephas, an' tell us about ever'thing an'
ever'body. The Yanks didn't take the town off, did they?"
The boys accepted the invitation without further pressing, for they were
both fond of Mr. Sanders, and proceeded to give their old friend all the
information he desired. Francis Bethune asked no questions, and Gabriel
was very glad of it. At bottom, Bethune was a very clever fellow, but
the boys are apt to make up their judgments from what is merely
superficial. Francis had a very handsome face, and he could have made
himself attractive to a youngster on the lookout for friends, but he had
chosen a different line of conduct, and as a result, Gabriel had several
scores against the young man. And so had Cephas; for, on one occasion,
the latter had gone to the Clopton Place for some wine for his mother,
who was something of an invalid, and, coming suddenly on Sarah Clopton,
found her in tears. Cephas never had a greater shock than the sight gave
him, for he had never connected this self-contained, gray-haired woman
with any of the tenderer emotions. In the child's mind, she was simply a
sort of superintendent of affairs on the Clopton Place, who, in the
early mornings, stood on the back porch of the big house, and, in a
voice loud enough to be heard a considerable distance, gave orders to
the domestics, and allotted to the field hands their tasks for the day.
Sarah Clopton must have seen how shocked the child was, for she dried
her eyes and tried to laugh, saying, "You never expected to see me
crying, did you, little boy?" Cephas had no answer for this, but when
she asked if he could guess why she was crying, the child remembered
what he had heard Nan and Gabriel say, and he gave an answer that was
both prompt and blunt. "I reckon Frank Bethune has been making a fool of
himself again," said he.
"But how did you know, child?" she asked, placing her soft white fingers
under his chin, and lifting his face toward the light. "You are a wise
lad for your years," she said, when he made no reply, "and I am sure you
are sensible enough to do me a favour. Please say nothing about what you
have seen. An old woman's tears amount to very little. And don't be too
hard on Frank. He has simply been playing some college prank, and they
are sending him home."
The most interesting piece of news that Gabriel had in his budget
related to the hanging of Mr. Absalom Goodlett by some of Sherman's men,
when that commander came marching through Georgia. It seems that a negro
had told the men that Mr. Goodlett knew where the Clopton silver had
been concealed, and they took him in hand and tried to frighten him into
giving them information which he did not possess. Threats failing, they
secured a rope and strung him up to a tree. They strung him up three
times, and the third time, they went off and left him hanging; and but
for the promptness of the negro who was the cause of the trouble, and
who had been an interested spectator of the proceedings, Mr. Goodlett
would never have opened his eyes on the affairs of this world again. The
negro cut him down in the nick of time, and as soon as he recovered, he
sent the darkey with instructions to go after the men, and tell them
where they could find the plate, indicating an isolated spot. Whereupon
Mr. Goodlett took his gun, and went to the point indicated. The negro
carried out his instructions to the letter. He found the men, who had
not gone far, pointed out the spot from a safe distance, and then waited
to see what would happen. If he saw anything unusual, he never told of
it; but the men were never seen again. Some of their companions returned
to search for them, but the search was a futile one. The negro went
about with a frightened face for several days, and then he settled down
to work for Mr. Goodlett, in whom he seemed to have a strange interest.
He showed this in every way.
"You keep yo' eye on 'im," he used to say to his coloured acquaintances,
in speaking of Mr. Goodlett; "keep yo' eye on 'im, an' when you see his
under-jaw stickin' out, des turn you' back, an' put yo' fingers in yo'
ears."
"You never know," said Mr. Sanders, in commenting on the story, "what a
man will do ontell he gits rank pizen mad, or starvin' hongry, or in
love."
"What would you do, Mr. Sanders, if you were in love?" Gabriel asked
innocently enough.
"Maybe I'd do as Frank does," replied Mr. Sanders, smiling blandly;
"shed scaldin' tears one minnit, an' bite my finger-nails the next;
maybe I would, but I don't believe it."
"Now, I'll swear you ought not to tell these boys such stuff as that!"
exclaimed Francis Bethune angrily. "I don't know about Cephas, but
Tolliver doesn't like me any way."
"How do you know?" inquired Gabriel.
"Because you used to make faces at me," replied Bethune, half laughing.
"Why, so did Nan," Gabriel rejoined. "Mine must have been terrible ones
for you to remember them so well."
The reference to Nan struck Bethune, and he began to gnaw at the end of
his thumb, whereupon Mr. Sanders smiled broadly. The young man reflected
a moment and then remarked, his face a trifle redder than usual; "Isn't
the young lady old enough for you to call her Miss Dorrington?"
"She is," replied Gabriel; "but if she permits me to call her Nan, why
should any one else object?"
There was no answer to this, but presently Bethune turned to Gabriel and
said: "Why do you dislike me, Tolliver?"
For a little time the lad was silent; he was trying to formulate his
prejudices into something substantial and sufficient, but the effort was
a futile one. While he was silent, Bethune regarded him with a curious
stare. "Honestly," said Gabriel, "I can give no reason; and I'm not sure
I dislike you. But you always held your head so high that I kept away
from you. I had an idea that you felt yourself above me because my
grandmother is not as rich as the Cloptons."
The statement seemed to amaze Bethune. "You couldn't have been more than
ten or twelve when I left here for the war," he remarked.
"Yes, I was more than thirteen," Gabriel replied.
"Well, I never thought that a boy so young could have such thoughts,"
Bethune declared.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Mr. Sanders; "a fourteen-year-old boy can have some
mighty deep thoughts, specially ef he' been brung up in a house full of
books, as Gabriel was. I hope, Gabriel," he went on, "that you'll stick
to your cornstalk hoss as long as you want to. You'll live longer for
it, an' your friends will love you jest the same. Frank here has never
been a boy. Out of bib an' hippin, he jumped into long britches an' a
standin' collar, an' the only fun he ever had in his life he got kicked
out of college for, an' served him right, too. I'll bet you a thrip to a
pint of pot-licker that Nan'll ride a stick hoss tomorrer ef she takes a
notion--an' she's seventeen. Don't you forgit, Gabriel, that you'll
never be a boy but once, an' you better make the most on it whilst you
can."
The waggon came just then to the brow of the hill that overlooked Shady
Dale, and here Mr. Sanders brought his team to a standstill. It had been
many long months since his eyes or Bethune's had gazed on the familiar
scene. "I'll tell you what's the fact, boys," he said, drawing in a long
breath--"the purtiest place this side of Paradise lies right yander
before our eyes. Ef I had some un to give out the lines, I'd cut loose
and sing a hime. Yes, sirs! you'd see me break out an' howl jest like my
old coon dog, Louder, used to do when he struck a hot track. The Lord
has picked us out of the crowd, Frank, an' holp us along at every turn
an' crossin'. But before the week's out, we'll forgit to be thankful.
J'inin' the church wouldn't do us a grain of good. By next Sunday week,
Frank, you'll be struttin' around as proud as a turkey gobbler, an'
you'll git wuss an' wuss less'n Nan takes a notion for to frail you out
ag'in."