instinct may have given him an inkling of the remedy for his particular
form of the whimsies, for it was not many days before he came knocking
at the lady's door, where he was very graciously received, and most
delightfully entertained. Both mother and daughter did their utmost to
make the hours pass pleasantly, and they succeeded to some extent. For
awhile Silas was suspicious, then he would resign himself to the
temptations of good music and bright conversation. Presently he would
remember his suspicions, and straighten himself up in his chair, and
assume an attitude of defiance; and so the first evening passed. When
Silas found himself in the street on his way home, he stopped still and
reflected.
"Now, what in the ding-nation is that woman up to? What is she trying to
do, I wonder? Why, she's as different from what she was when I first
knew her as a butterfly is from a caterpillar. Why, there ain't a
pearter woman on the continent. No wonder Paul lost his head in that
house! She's up to something, and I'll find out what it is."
Silas was always suspicious, but on this occasion he bethought himself
of the fact that he had not been dragged into the house; he had been
under no compulsion to knock at the door; indeed, he had taken advantage
of the slightest hint on the part of the daughter--a hint that may have
been a mere form of politeness. He remembered, too, that he had
frequently gone by the house at night, and had heard the piano going,
accompanied by the singing of one or the other of the ladies. His
reflections would have made him ashamed of himself, but he had never
cultivated such feelings. He left that sort of thing to the women and
children.
In no long time he repeated his visit, and met with the same pleasurable
experience. On this occasion, Eugenia remained in the parlour only a
short time. For a diversion, the mother played a few of the old-time
tunes on the piano, and sang some of the songs that Silas had loved in
his youth. This done, she wheeled around on the stool, and began to talk
about Paul.
"If I had a son like that," she said, "I should be immensely proud of
him."
"You have a fine daughter," Silas suggested, by way of consolation.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Yes, but you know we always want that which
we have not. Yet they say that envy is among the mortal sins."
"Well, a sin's a sin, I reckon," remarked Silas.
"Oh, no! there are degrees in sin. I used to know a preacher who could
run the scale of evil-doing and thinking, just as I can trip along the
notes on the piano."
"They once tried to make a preacher out of me," remarked Silas, "but
when I slipped in the church one day and went up into the pulpit, I
found it was a great deal too big for me."
"They make them larger now," said the lady, "so that they will hold the
exhorter and the horrible example at the same time."
"Did Paul ever see my picture there?" asked Silas, changing the
conversation into a more congenial channel.
"Why, I think so," replied the lady placidly. "I think he asked about
it, and I told him that we had known each other long ago, which was not
at all the truth."
"What did Paul say to that?" asked Silas eagerly.
"He said that while some people might think you were queer, you had been
a good dad to him. I think he said dad, but I'll not be sure."
"Yes, yes, he said it," cried Silas, all in a glow. "That's Paul all
over; but what will the poor boy think when he finds out what you know?"
"Why, he'll enjoy the situation," said the lady, laughing. "As you
Georgians say, he'll be tickled to death."
Silas regarded her with astonishment, his hands clenched and his thin
lips pressed together. "Do you think, Madam, that it is a matter for a
joke? You women----"
"Can't I have my own views? You have yours, and I make no objection."
"But think of what a serious matter it is to me. Do you realise that
there is nothing but a whim betwixt me and disgrace--betwixt Paul and
disgrace?"
"A whim? Why, you are another Daniel O'Connell! Call me a hyperbole, a
rectangled triangle, a parenthesis, or a hyphen." She was laughing, and
yet it was plain to be seen that she had no relish for the term which
Silas had unintentionally applied to her.
"I meant to say that if the notion seized you, you would fetch us down
as a hunter bags a brace of doves."
"Doves!" exclaimed Mrs. Claiborne, with a comical lift of the eyebrows.
"Buzzards, then!" said Silas with some heat.
"Oh, you overdo everything," laughed the lady.
"Well, there's nobody hurt but me," was Silas's gruff reply.
"And Paul," suggested the lady, with a peculiar smile.
"Well, when I say Paul, I mean myself. I've been called worse names than
buzzard by people who were trying to walk off with my money. Oh, they
didn't call me that to my face," said Silas, noticing a queer expression
in the lady's eyes. "And people who should have known better have hated
me because I didn't fling my money away after I had saved it."
"Well, you needn't worry about that," Mrs. Claiborne remarked. "You will
have plenty of company in the money-grabbing business before long. I can
see signs of it now, and every time I think of it I feel sorry for our
young men, yes, and our young women, and the long generations that are
to come after them. In the course of a very few years you will find your
business to be more respectable than any of the professions. You
remember how, before the war, we used to sneer at the Yankees for their
money-making proclivities? Well, it won't be very long before we'll beat
them at their own game; and then our politicians will thrive, for each
and all of them will have their principles dictated by Shylock and his
partners."
"Why, you talk as if you were a politician yourself. But why are you
sorry for our young women?"
"That was a hasty remark. I am sorry for those who will grow weary and
fall by the wayside. The majority of them, and the best of them, will
make themselves useful in thousands of ways, and new industries will
spring up for their benefit. They will become workers, and, being
workers, they will be independent of the men, and finally begin to look
down on them as they should."
"Well!" exclaimed Silas, and then he sat and gazed at the lady for the
first time with admiration. "Where'd you learn all that?" he asked after
awhile.
"Oh, I read the newspapers, and such books as I can lay my hands on, and
I remember what I read. Didn't you notice that I recited my piece much
as a school-boy would?"
"No, I didn't," replied Silas. "I do a good deal of reading myself, but
all those ideas are new to me."
"Well, they'll be familiar to you just as soon as our people can look
around and get their bearings. As for me, I propose to become an
advanced woman, and go on the stage; there's nothing like being the
first in the field. I always told my husband that if he died and left
me without money, I proposed to earn my own living."
"You told your husband that? When did you tell him?" inquired Silas with
some eagerness.
"Oh, long before he died," replied the lady.
Silas sat like one stunned. "Do you mean to tell me that your husband is
dead?"
"Why, certainly," replied Mrs. Claiborne. "What possible reason could I
have for denying or concealing the fact?"
Silas straightened himself in his chair, and frowned. "Then why did you
come here and pretend--pretend--ain't you Ritta Rozelle, that used to
be?"
"There were two of them," the lady replied. "They were twins. One was
named Clarita, and the other Floretta, but both were called Ritta by
those who could not distinguish them apart. I had reason to believe that
you hadn't treated my sister as you should have done, and I came here to
see if you would take the bait. You snapped it up before the line
touched the water. It was not even necessary for me to try to deceive
you. You simply shut your eyes and declared that I was your wife and
that I had come."
"You are the sister who was going to school in--wasn't it Boston?"
"Yes; that is why I am broad-minded and free from guile," remarked the
lady with a laugh so merry that it irritated Silas.
"Then you have never been married to me," Silas suggested, still
frowning.
"I thank you kindly, sir, I never have been."
"Well, you never denied it," he said.
"You never gave me an opportunity," she retorted.
"You simply sat back, and watched me make a fool of myself."
"You express it very well."
Silas squirmed on his chair. "Why, you knew me the minute you saw me!"
he cried.
"Therefore you are still sure I am the woman you married in Louisiana.
Well, the man who was driving the hack the day of my arrival, saw you in
the fields, and he made a remark I have never forgotten. He said--she
mimicked Mr. Goodlett as well as she could--'Well, dang my hide! ef thar
ain't old Silas Tomlin out huntin'! Ef he shoots an' misses he'll pull
all his ha'r out.' 'Why?' I asked. 'Bekaze he can't afford to waste a
load of powder an' shot.'"
Silas tried to smile. He knew that the point of Mr. Goodlett's joke was
lost on the lady.
Silas tried to smile, but the effort was too much for him, and he
frowned instead. "You did all you could to humour my mistake," he
declared.
"I certainly did," said Mrs. Claiborne, very seriously. "I had good
reason to believe that your treatment of my sister was not what it
should have been."
"Good Lord! she wouldn't let me treat her well. Why, we hadn't been
married three months before she took a dislike to me, and she never got
over it. The truth is, she couldn't bear the sight of me. I did what any
other young man would have done. I packed up my things and came back
home. I told Dorrington about it when I came back, and he said the
trouble was a form of hysterics that finally develops into insanity."
"Yes, that was what happened to my poor sister," said Mrs. Claiborne,
"and I never knew the facts until a few months ago. Our aunt, you know,
always contended that you were the cause of it all. But Judge Vardeman,
quite by accident, met the physician who had charge of the case, and I
have a letter from him which clearly explains the whole matter."
Silas Tomlin sat silent for a long time, his gaze fixed on the floor.
"Well, well! here I have been going on for years under the impression
that I was partly responsible for that poor girl's troubles; and it has
been a nightmare riding me every minute that I had time to think." He
stood up, stretched his arms above his head, and drew a long breath. "I
thank you for laying my ghost, and I'll bid you good-night."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
_Mr. Sanders Receives a Message_
The demeanour of Mr. Sanders about this time was a seven days' wonder in
Shady Dale. As Mrs. Absalom declared, he had tucked his good-humour
under the bed, and was now going about in a state of gloom. This at
least was the general impression; but Mr. Sanders was not gloomy. He was
filled to the brim with impatience, and was to be seen constantly
walking the streets, or occupying his favourite seat on the court-house
steps, the seat that had always attracted him when he was communing with
John Barleycorn. But he and John Barleycorn were strangers now; they
were not on speaking terms. He avoided the companionship of those who
were in the habit of seeking him out to enjoy his drolleries; and
various rumours flew about as to the cause of his apparent troubles. He
was on the point of joining the church, having had enough of the world's
sinfulness; he had lost the money he made by selling cotton directly
after the war; he had been jilted by some buxom country girl. In short,
when a man is as prominent in a community as Mr. Sanders was in Shady
Dale, he must pay such penalty as gossip levies when his conduct becomes
puzzling or problematical.
The tittle-tattle of the town ran in a different direction when some one
discovered that the Racking Roan was tied every day to the rack behind
the court-house. Then the gossips were certain that the Yankees were
after Mr. Sanders, and his horse was placed close at hand in order to
give him an opportunity to escape. Mr. Sanders apparently confirmed this
rumour when he told Cephas to take the horse to Clopton's, should he
find the animal standing at the rack after sundown.
As Mr. Sanders walked about, or sat on the court-house steps, he
wondered if he had made all the arrangements necessary to the scheme he
had in view. Hundreds and hundreds of times he went over the ground in
his mind, and reviewed every step he had taken, trying to discover if
anything had been omitted, or if there were any flaw in the plan he
proposed to follow. He had made all his arrangements beforehand. He had
made a visit to Malvern, and remained there several days. He had met the
Mayor of the city, the Chief of Police, and the latter had casually
introduced him to the Chief of the Fire Department.
Mr. Sanders accounted himself very fortunate in making the acquaintance
of the Fire Chief, who was what might be termed one of the
unreconstructed. He was something more than that, he was an
irreconcilable, who would have been glad of an opportunity to take up
arms again. This official took an eager interest in the scheme which Mr.
Sanders had in view; in fact, as he said himself, it was a personal
interest. He invited Mr. Sanders to the head-quarters of the Fire
Department.
"I'll tell you why I want you to come," he said. "There's a man in my
office, or he will be there when we arrive, who is likely to take as
much interest in this thing as I do--he couldn't take more--and I want
him to hear your plan. Have you ever heard of Captain Buck Sanford?"
Mr. Sanders paused in the street, and stared at the Fire Chief. "Heard
of him? Well, I should say! He's the feller that fights a duel before
breakfast to git up an appetite. Well, well! How many men has Buck
Sanford winged?"
"Oh, quite a number, but not as many as he gets credit for. He comes in
my private office every morning, and he's a great help to me. He was
rather down at the heels right after the war, and then I happened to
find out that he had a great talent in getting the truth out of
criminals. We sometimes arrest a man against whom there is no direct
evidence of guilt, and if we didn't have some one skilful enough to make
him own up, we could do nothing. Buck always knows whether a fellow is
guilty or not, and we turn over the suspects to him, and whatever he
says goes. He sits in my office like a piece of furniture, and you'd
think he was a wooden man. Now you go down with me, and go over your
scheme so that Buck can hear you, and whatever he says do, will be the
thing to do."
When Mr. Sanders and the Chief arrived at the head-quarters of the
department, and entered the private office, they found a pale and
somewhat emaciated young man sitting in a chair, which was leaned
against the wall at a somewhat dangerous angle. He was apparently
asleep; his eyes were closed, and he held between his teeth a short but
handsome pipe. He made no movement whatever when the two entered the
room. His hat was on the floor at the side of his chair, and had
evidently fallen from his head. If Mr. Sanders had been called on to
describe the young man, he would have said that he was a weasly looking
creature, half gristle and half ghost. His hands were small and thin,
and the skin of his face had the appearance of parchment.
At the request of the Chief, Mr. Sanders went over the details of his
plan from beginning to end, and at the close the young man, who had
apparently been asleep, remarked in a thin, smooth voice, "Won't it be a
fine day for a parade!"
His eyes remained closed; he had not even taken the pipe out of his
mouth. There was a silence of many long seconds. But the weasly looking
man made no movement, nor did he add anything to his remark. Evidently,
he had no more to say.
"Buck is right," said the Chief.
"What does he mean?" Mr. Sanders inquired.
"Why, he means that it will be a fine day for a general turn-out of the
department," replied the Chief.
Mr. Sanders reflected a moment, and then made one of his characteristic
comments. "Be jigged ef he ain't saved my life!"
"Captain Sanford, this is Mr. Sanders, of Shady Dale," said the Chief,
by way of introducing the two men. Both rose, and Mr. Sanders found
himself looking into the eyes of one of the most interesting characters
that Georgia ever produced. Captain Buck Sanford was one of the last of
the knights-errant, the self-constituted champion of all women, old or
young, good or bad. He said of himself, with some drollery, that he was
one of the scavengers of society, and he declared that the job was
important enough to command a good salary.
No man in his hearing ever used the name of a woman too freely without
answering for it; and it made no difference whether the woman was rich
or poor, good or bad. Otherwise he was the friendliest and simplest of
men, as modest as a woman, and entirely unobtrusive. His duel with
Colonel Conrad Asbury, one of the most sensational events in the annals
of duelling, owing to the fact that the weapons were shot-guns at ten
paces, was the result of a remark the Colonel had made about a lady whom
Sanford had never seen. But so far as the general public knew, it grew
out of the fact that the Colonel had spilled some water on Sanford's
pantaloons.
"Well, sir," said Mr. Sanders, "I've heard tell of you many a time, an'
I'm right down glad to see you."
"You haven't heard much good of me, I reckon," Captain Sanford remarked.
"Yes; not so very long ago I heard a fine old lady say that if they was
more Buck Sanfords, the wimmen would be better off."
A faint colour came into the face of the duellist. "Is that so?" he
asked with some eagerness.
"It's jest like I tell you, an' the lady was Lucy Lumsden, the
grandmother of this chap that we're tryin' to git out'n trouble."
"I wonder if Tomlin Perdue wouldn't let me into the row?" inquired
Captain Sanford. "You see, it's this way: If the boy can't break away,
it would be well for a serious accident to happen, and in that case,
you'll need a man that's perfectly willing to bear the brunt of such an
accident."
"We'll see about that," said Mr. Sanders.
"Suppose it's a rainy day, Buck; what then?" asked the Chief.
"And you a grown man!" exclaimed Mr. Sanford, sarcastically. "Did you
ever hear of a false alarm? Or were you at a Sunday-school picnic when
it was rung in? Oh, I'm going to get a blacksmith and have your head
worked on," and with that, Captain Buck Sanford turned on his heel and
went out.
"I know Buck was pleased with your plan," the Chief declared. "He nodded
at me a time or two when you wasn't looking. If you can work him into
the row, it will tickle him mightily. He ain't flighty; he never gets
mad; and he always knows just what to do, and when to shoot."
Thus, long before he became impatient enough to walk the streets, or
seek consolation on the court-house steps, which he called his
liquor-post, Mr. Sanders had made all the arrangements necessary to the
success of his scheme. He had sent a suit of clothes to a friend in
Malvern, he had shipped three bales of cotton to the firm of Vardeman &
Stark, who had been informed of the use to which Mr. Sanders desired to
put it; he had hired an ox-cart, and made a covered waggon of it; and
the yoke of oxen he proposed to use had been driven through the country
and were now at Malvern.
In short, no matter how deeply Mr. Sanders might ponder over the matter,
there was nothing he could think of to add to the details of the
arrangement that he had already made.
One morning, while Nan, who was on her way to borrow a book from Eugenia
Claiborne, was leaning on the court-house fence talking to Mr. Sanders,
Tasma Tid cried out, "Yonner dee come! yonner dee come!" The African,
who had heard the rumour that the Yankees were after Mr. Sanders,
concluded that this was the advance guard, and she therefore sounded the
alarm. But only a solitary rider was in sight, and he was coming as fast
as a tired horse could fetch him. By the time this rider had reached the
public square, Mr. Sanders had mounted the Racking Roan, and was
awaiting him. The rider was no other than Colonel Blasengame, who had
insisted on bringing the message himself.
He was the bearer of a telegram addressed to Major Perdue. "Consignment
will be shipped to-morrow night. Reach Malvern next morning. Invoice by
mail." This was signed by the firm of factors with whom Meriwether
Clopton had had dealings for many years. It was the form of announcement
that had been agreed on, and to Mr. Sanders the message read, "The
prisoners will go to Atlanta to-morrow night, and they will reach
Malvern the next morning. This information can be relied on."
"It's a joy to see you, Colonel," cried Mr. Sanders. "One more day of
waitin' would 'a' pulled the rivets out. You know Miss Nan Dorrington,
don't you, Colonel Blasengame? I lay you used to dandle her on your knee
when she was a baby."
The Colonel bowed lower to Nan than if she had been a queen. "You are
not to go to the tavern," remarked Mr. Sanders. "Meriwether Clopton
wants the messenger to go straight to his house, an' he'll be all the
gladder bekaze it's you. Gus Tidwell will drive you home in his buggy in
the cool of the evenin', an' you can leave your hoss at Clopton's for a
day or two. Ef you see Tidwell, Nan, please tell him that the Colonel is
at Clopton's. I reckon you'll be willin' to buss me, honey, the next
time you see me."
"If you have earned it, Mr. Sanders," said Nan, trying to smile.
Thereupon, Mr. Sanders waved his hand miscellaneously, as he would have
described it, and moved away at a clipping gait, stirring up quite a
cloud of dust as he went. He reached Halcyondale, and at once sought out
Major Tomlin Perdue, and found that a telegram had already been sent to
Captain Buck Sanford, whose prompt reply over the wire had been. "All
skue vee," which was as satisfactory as any other form of reply would
have been--more so, perhaps, for it showed that the Captain was in high
good-humour.
Mr. Tidwell and Colonel Blasengame arrived in time to eat a late
supper, and the next morning found them all ready to take the train for
Malvern. Major Perdue and Mr. Sanders were in high feather. Somehow
their spirits always rose when a doubtful issue was to be faced. On the
other hand, Colonel Blasengame and Mr. Tidwell were somewhat
thoughtful--the Colonel because he had an idea that they were trying to
"crowd him into a back seat," as he expressed it, and Mr. Tidwell
because it had occurred to him that his presence might tend to
jeopardise the case of his son. They were not gloomy; on the contrary
they were cheerful; but their spirits failed to run as high as those of
Mr. Sanders and Major Perdue, who were engaged all the way to Malvern in
relating anecdotes and narrating humourous stories. It seemed that
everything either one of them said reminded the other of a story or a
humourous incident, and they kept the car in a roar until Malvern was
reached.
Mr. Sanders did not go at once to the hotel, but turned his attention to
the various details which he had arranged for. Mr. Tidwell went to the
hotel opposite the railway station, while Major Perdue and Colonel
Blasengame, for obvious reasons, went to the rival hotel. There they
found Captain Buck Sanford lounging about with a Winchester rifle slung
across his shoulder. A great many people were interested when this pale
and weary-looking little man appeared in public with a gun in his hands,
and he was compelled to answer many questions in regard to the event. To
all he made the same reply, namely, that he had been out practising at a
target.
"I'm getting so I can't miss," he said to Major Perdue. "I wasted
twenty-four cartridges trying to miss the bull's eye, but I couldn't do
it. I don't know what to make of it," he complained. "There must be
something wrong with me. That kind of shooting don't look reasonable.
I'm afraid something is going to happen to me. It may be a sign that I'm
going to fall over a cellar-door and break my neck, or tumble downstairs
and injure my spine."
Then he left his gun with a clerk in the hotel, and, taking Major Perdue
by the arm, went into a corner and discussed the scheme which Mr.
Sanders had mapped out. They were joined presently by Colonel
Blasengame; and as they sat there, whispering together, and making many
emphatic gestures, they were the centre of observation, and word went
around that some personal difficulty, in which these noted men were to
act together, was imminent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
_Malvern Has a Holiday_