IN WHICH TWO STRANGERS VISIT RED ROCK AND ARE INVITED TO COME AGAIN
Everyone knows what a seething ferment there was for some time before
the great explosion in the beginning of the Sixties—that strange
decade that changed the civilization of the country. Red Rock, like
the rest of the land, was turned from a haunt of peace into a forum.
Politics were rampant; every meeting was a lyceum; boys became orators;
young girls wore partisan badges; children used party-catchwords,
which they did not understand—except one thing: that they represented
“their side.” There existed an irreconcilable difference between the
two sections of the country. It could not be crushed. Hydra-headed, it
appeared after every extirpation.
One side held slavery right under the double title of the Bible and
of the Constitution. The leader of the other side said, “If it was
not wrong, then nothing was wrong”; but declared that he would not
interfere with it.
“Bosh!” said Major Legaie. “That is not a man to condone what he thinks
wrong. If he is elected, it means the end of slavery.” And so said many
others. Most of them, rather than yield, were for War. To them War was
only an episode: a pageant: a threshold to glory. Dr. Cary, who was
a Whig, was opposed to it; he had seen it, and he took the stump in
opposition to Major Legaie.
“We could whip them with pop-guns,” said the fire-eaters. Fordyce
Lambly and Hurlbut Bail were two of them.
“But will they fight with that weapon?” asked Dr. Cary, scornfully. He
never liked Lambly and Bail; he said they had no convictions. “A man
with convictions may be wrong; but you know where to meet him, sir. You
never know where to find these men.”
“Do you know what War is?” he said in a speech, in reply to a
secession-speech by Major Legaie. “War is the most terrible of all
disasters, except Dishonor. I do not speak of the dangers. For every
brave man must face danger as it comes, and should court glory; and
death for one’s Country is glorious. I speak merely of the change
that War inevitably brings. War is the destruction of everything
that exists. You may fail or you may win, but what exists passes,
and something different takes its place. The plough-share becomes a
spear, and the pruning-hook a sword; the poor may become richer, but
the rich must become poorer. You are the wealthiest people in the
world to-day—not in mere riches, but in wealth. You may become the
poorest. No people who enter a war wealthy and content ever come out
of war so. I do not say that this is an unanswerable reason for not
going to war. For war may be right at any cost. But it is not to be
entered on unadvisedly or lightly; but in the fear of God. It should
not be undertaken from mere enthusiasm; but deliberately, with a full
recognition of its cost, and resolution to support its possible and
direst consequences.”
When he had ended, Mr. Hurlbut Bail, a speaker from the city, who had
come to the county to stir up the people, said:
“Oh! Dr. Cary is nothing but a Cassandra.”
“Did Troy fall or not?” asked Dr. Cary, calmly.
This, of course, changed no one. In times of high feeling debate only
fuses opinions into convictions; only fans the flames and makes the
fire a conflagration.
When the war came the old Doctor flung in his lot with his friends, and
his gravity, that had grown on him of late, was lighted up by the old
fire; he took his place and performed his part with kindling eyes and
an erecter mien. Hurlbut Bail became an editor. This, however, was
later on.
The constantly increasing public ferment and the ever-enlarging and
deepening cloud did not prevent the ordinary course of life from
flowing in its accustomed channels: men planned and performed; sowed
and reaped; bought and sold, as in ordinary times. And as in the period
before that other flood, there was marrying and giving in marriage; so
now, with the cloud ever mounting up the sky, men loved and married,
and made their homes as the birds paired and built their nests.
Among those who builded in that period in the Red Rock district were
a young couple, both of them cousins in some degree of nearly every
gentle family in the county, including the Grays and Carys. And after
the blessing by old Mr. Langstaff, at St. Ann’s, amid the roses and
smiles of the whole neighborhood, they spent their honeymoon, as the
custom was then, in being entertained from house to house, through the
neighborhood. In this round of gayety they came in due order to Red
Rock, where the entertainment was perhaps to be the greatest of all.
The amount of preparation was almost unprecedented, and the gentry
of the whole county were invited and expected. As it was a notable
occasion and near the holidays, Jacquelin was permitted to come home
from Dr. Maule’s on the joint application of his mother, his Aunt
Thomasia, and Blair Cary; and Blair was allowed to come over with her
mother and father and spend the night, and was promised to be allowed
to sit up as late as she pleased—a privilege not to be lightly
esteemed.
Steve Allen, with a faint mustache curled above his smiling mouth, was
home from the University, and so were Morris Cary and the other young
fellows; and the office in the yard, blue with tobacco-smoke, was as
full of young men and pipes and dogs, as the upstairs chambers in the
mansion were of young girls and ribbons and muslin.
What a heaven that outer office was to Jacquelin, and what an angel
Steve was to call him “Kid” and let him adore him!
Among the company that night there were two guests who “happened
in” quite unexpectedly, but who were “all the more welcome on that
account,” the host said graciously in greeting them. They were two
gentlemen from quite another part of the country, or, perhaps, those
resident there would have said, of the world; as they came from the
North. They had come South on business connected with a sort of
traditionary claim to mineral lands lying somewhere in the range of
mountains which could be seen from the Red Rock plantation. At least,
Mr. Welch, the elder of the two, came on that errand. The younger,
Mr. Lawrence Middleton, came simply for pleasure, and because Mr.
Welch, his cousin, had invited him. He had just spoiled his career at
college by engaging, with his chum and crony, Aurelius Thurston, in
the awful crime of painting the President’s gray horse a brilliant
red, and being caught at it. He was suspended for this prank, and now
was spending his time, literally rusticating, seeing a little of the
world, while he made up his mind whether he should study Law and accept
his cousin’s offer to go into his office, or whether he should engage
in a manufacturing business which his family owned. His preference
was rather for the latter, which was now being managed by a man named
Bolter, who had made it very successful; but Reely Thurston intended to
be a lawyer, and wanted Lawrence to go in with him; so he was taking
time to consider. This visit South had inclined him to the law.
Mr. Welch and Middleton had concluded their business in the mountains:
finding the lands they were seeking to lie partly in the clouds and
partly in the possession of those whom they had always heard spoken of
as “squatters;” but now found to be a population who had been there
since before the Revolution, and had built villages and towns. They
were now returning home and were making their way back toward the
railroad, half a day’s journey farther on. They had expected to reach
Brutusville, the county seat, that night; but a rain the day before had
washed away the bridges, and compelled them to take a circuitous route
by a ford higher up the river. There, not knowing the ford, they had
almost been swept away, and would certainly have lost their vehicle but
for the timely appearance of a young countryman, who happened to come
along on his way home from a political gathering somewhere.
[Illustration: AMONG THE COMPANY THAT NIGHT THERE WERE TWO GUESTS WHO
“HAPPENED IN” QUITE UNEXPECTEDLY.]
Their deliverer: a certain Mr. Andy Stamper, was so small that at
a distance he looked like a boy, but on nearer view he might have
been anywhere from twenty or twenty-five to thirty, and he proved
extraordinarily active and efficient. He swam in and helped Middleton
get their buggy out of the river, and then amused Mr. Welch very much
and incensed Middleton by his comments. He had just been to a political
meeting at the Court House, he said, where he had heard “the finest
speech that ever was made,” from Major Legaie. “He gave the Yankees
sut,” and he “just wished he could get every Yankee in that river and
drown ’em—every dog-goned one!” This as he was working up to his neck
in water.
Mr. Welch could not help laughing at the look on Middleton’s ruddy face.
“Now, where’d you find a Yankee’d go in that river like me an’ you—or
could do it, for that matter?” the little fellow asked of Middleton,
confidentially.
“We are Yankees,” blurted out Middleton, hotly. “And a plenty of them
would.” His eye flashed as he turned to his rescuer.
The little countryman’s eyes opened wide, and his jaw fell.
“Well, I’m durned!” he said, slowly, staring in open astonishment, and
Middleton began to look gratified at the impression he had made.
“You know, you’re the first I ever seen as wan’t ashamed to own it.
Why, you looks most like we all!”
Middleton flushed; but little Stamper looked so sincerely ingenuous
that he suddenly burst out laughing.
After that they became very friendly, and the travellers learned much
of the glories of the Grays and Carys, and of the charms of a certain
Miss Delia Dove, who, Stamper declared, was as pretty as any young lady
that went to the Brick Church. Stamper offered to guide them, but as
he refused to take any money for what he had done, and as he said he
was going to see Miss Delia Dove and could take a nearer cut through
the woods to his home, Mr. Welch declined to accept his offer, and
contented himself with getting him to draw a map of the roads from that
point to the county seat.
“All you’ve got to do is to follow that map: keep the main plain
road and you can’t get out; but I advise you to turn in at the first
plantation you come to. If you go to Red Rock you’ll have a good time.
They’re givin’ a party thar to-night. Major Legaie, he left the meetin’
to go thar.”
He disappeared at a gallop down a bridle-path through the woods.
Notwithstanding the young countryman’s assurances and map, the two
strangers had gotten “out.” The plantations were large in that section
and the roads leading off to them from the highway, in the dark were
all alike, so that when night fell the two travellers were in a serious
dilemma. They at length came to a gate and were just considering
turning in at it when a carriage drove up in front of them. A horseman
who had been riding behind the vehicle came forward at a trot, calling
out that he would open the gate.
“I thought you fellows would have been there hours ago,” he said
familiarly to the two strangers as he passed, evidently mistaking them
in the dusk for some of his friends. “A laggard in love is a dastard in
war.”
The rest of his speech was lost in the click of the gate-latch and his
apostrophe to his horse. When he found that Mr. Welch was a stranger,
he changed instantly. His tone became graver and more gracious.
“I beg your pardon, sir. I thought from your vehicle that you were
some of these effeminate youngsters who have given up the saddle for
that new four-wheeled contrivance, and are ruining both our strains of
horses and of men.”
Mr. Welch asked if he knew where they could find a night’s lodging.
“Why, at every house in the State, sir, I hope,” said Dr. Cary; for it
was he. “Certainly, at the nearest one. Drive right in. We are going
to our cousins’, and they will be delighted to have you. You are just
in good time; for there is to be quite a company there to-night.” And
refusing to listen for a moment to Mr. Welch’s suggestion that it might
not be convenient to have strangers, Dr. Cary held the gate open for
them to pass through.
“Drive in, sir,” he said, in a tone of gracious command. “I never heard
of its being inconvenient to have a guest,” and in they drove.
“A gentleman by his voice,” the travellers heard him explaining a
little later into the window of the carriage behind them. And then he
added, “My only doubt was his vehicle.”
After a half-mile drive through the woods they entered the open fields,
and from a hill afar off, on top of which shone a house lit till it
gleamed like a cluster of brilliants, a chorus of dogs sent them an
inquiring greeting.
They passed through a wide gate, and ascended a steep hill through a
grove, and Middleton’s heart sank at the idea of facing an invited
company, with a wardrobe that had been under water within the last
two hours. Instantly they were in a group of welcomers, gentlemen,
servants, and dogs; negro boys running; dogs frisking and yelping
and young men laughing about the door of the newly arrived carriage.
While through it all sounded the placid voice of Dr. Cary reassuring
the visitors and inviting them in. He brought the host to them, and
presented them:
“My friends, Mr. Welch and young Mr. Middleton—my cousin and friend,
Mr. Gray.” It was his customary formula in introducing. All men were
his friends. And Mr. Welch shortly observed how his manner changed
whenever he addressed a lady or a stranger: to one he was always a
courtier, to the other always a host.
As they were ushered into the hall, Middleton’s blue eyes glistened and
opened wide at the scene before him. He found himself facing several
score of people clustered about in one of the handsomest halls he ever
saw, some of whom he took in at the first glance to be remarkably
pretty girls in white and pink, and all with their eyes, filled with
curiosity, bent on the new comers. If Middleton’s ruddiness increased
tenfold under these glances, it was only what any other young man’s
would have done under similar circumstances, and it was not until he
had been led off under convoy of a tall and very solemn old servant
in a blue coat with brass buttons, and shown into a large room with
mahogany furniture and a bed so high that it had a set of steps beside
it, that he was able to collect his ideas, and recall some of those to
whom he had been introduced. What a terrible fix it was for a fellow to
be in! He opened his portmanteau and turned to his cousin in despair.
“Isn’t this a mess?”
“What?”
“This! I can never go out there. All those girls! Just look at these
clothes! Everything dripping!—some of them awfully pretty, too. That
one with the dark eyes!” He was down on his knees, raking in his
portmanteau, and dragging the soaking garments out one by one. “Now,
look at that.”
“You need not go out. I’ll make your excuses.”
“What! Of course I’m go——”
Just then there was a knock at the door.
“Come in.” Middleton finished his sentence.
The door opened slowly and the old servant entered, bearing with a
solemnity that amounted almost to reverence, a waiter with decanters
and an array of glasses and bowls. He was followed by the young boy who
had been introduced as their host’s son.
“My father understood that you had a little accident at the river, and
he wishes to know if he cannot lend you something,” said Jacquelin.
Mr. Welch spoke first, his eyes twinkling as he glanced at his cousin,
who stood a picture of indecision and bewilderment.
“Why yes, my cousin, Mr. Middleton here, would be greatly obliged,
I think. He is a little particular about first impressions, and the
presence of so many charming——”
Middleton protested.
“Why, certainly, sir,” Jacquelin began, then turned to
Middleton—“Steve’s would fit you—Steve’s my cousin—he’s at the
University—he’s just six feet. Wait, sir——” And before they could
stop him, he was gone, and a few minutes later tapped on the door, with
his arms full of clothes.
“Uncle Daniel’s as slow as a steer, so I fetched ’em myself,” he
panted, with boyish impatience, as he dropped the clothes partly on a
sofa and partly on the floor. “Aunt Thomasia was afraid you’d catch
cold, so she made me bring these flannels. She always is afraid you’ll
catch cold. Steve told her if you’d take a good swig out of a bottle
’twould be worth all the flannel in the State—Steve’s always teasing
her.” With a boy’s friendliness he had established himself now as the
visitors’ ally.
“I’m glad you came to-night. We’re going to have lots of fun. Were you
at the speaking to-day? They say the Major made the finest speech ever
was heard. Some say he’s better than Calhoun ever was; just gave the
Yankees the mischief! I wish they’d come down here and try us once,
don’t you?”
Mr. Welch glanced amusedly at Middleton, whose face changed; but
fortunately the boy was too much interested in the suit Middleton had
just put on to notice the effect.
“I thought Steve’s would fit you,” he said, with that proud
satisfaction in his judgment being verified which characterizes the age
of thirteen, and some other ages as well.
“Steve’s nineteen, and he’s six feet!—You are six feet too? I thought
you were about that. I hope I’ll be six feet. I like that height, don’t
you? Steve’s at the University, but he don’t study much, I reckon. Are
you at college?—Where? Oh! I know. I had a cousin who went there. He
and two or three other Southern fellows laid outside of the hall for
one of those abolition chaps who was making a speech, to cut his ears
off when he came out, and they’d have done it if he had come out that
way. I reckon it’s a good college, but I’m going to the University
when I’m sixteen. I’m thirteen now—You thought I was older? I wanted
to go to West Point, but my father won’t let me. Maybe, Rupert will go
there. I go to school at the Academy—Doctor Maule’s—everybody knows
about him. I tell you, he knows a lot.—You have left college? Was it
too hot for you? Were you after somebody’s ears too? What! painted
the President’s horse red! Oh! wasn’t that a good one! I wish I’d
been there. I’ll tell Steve and Blair about that. Steve put a cow up
in the Rotunda once. The worst thing I ever did was making Blair jump
off the high barn. I don’t count flinging old Eliphalet Bush in the
creek, because I believe his teeth were false anyhow! But I’ll remember
painting that horse. I reckon he was an abolitionist too?”
So the boy rattled on, his guests drawing him out for the pleasure of
seeing him.
“What State are you from? Maybe, we are cousins?” he said presently,
giving the best evidence of his friendliness.
“What! Mass—a—! I beg your pardon.”
He looked so confused that both Mr. Welch and Middleton took some pains
to sooth him.
“Yes, of course I was not talking about you; but I wouldn’t have said
anything about Massachusetts if I had known you came from there. I
wouldn’t like anybody to say anything about _my_ State. You won’t mind
what I said, will you? I think Massachusetts the best of the Northern
States—anyhow——” And he left them, his cheeks still glowing from
embarrassment.
This apology, sincerely given, with a certain stress on the word
Northern, amused Mr. Welch, and even Middleton, to whom it presented,
however, an entirely new view.
“Aren’t they funny?” asked Middleton of his cousin, after their young
host had left them. “You know I believe they really think it.”
“Larry, you have understated it. They think they know it.”
Jacquelin employed the few moments, in which he preceded the visitors
to the hall, in telling all he had learned, and when Mr. Welch and
Middleton appeared they found themselves in the position of the most
distinguished guests. The fact that they came from the North, and
Jacquelin’s account of his mistake, had increased the desire to show
them honor. “The hospitality of the South knows no latitude,” said
Dr. Cary, in concluding a gracious half apology to Mr. Welch for
Jacquelin’s error; and he proceeded deftly to name over a list of
great men from Massachusetts, and to link their names with those of
the men of the South whom she most delighted to honor. His dearest
friend at college, he said, was from New England, and unless he was
mistaken, Anson Rockfield would one day be heard of. Nothing could
have been more gracious or more delicately done; and when supper was
announced, Mr. Welch was taken to the table by the hostess herself,
and his health was drunk before the groom’s. Middleton meanwhile
found himself no less honored. The artistic feat performed on the
President’s horse had made him a noted personage, and in consequence
of this and of the freemasonry which exists among young college-men,
he was soon surrounded by all the younger portion of the company, and
was exchanging views with Steve Allen and the other young fellows with
that exaggerated man-of-the-world air which characterizes the age and
occupation of collegians.
“Where is Blair?” he asked Jacquelin, presently, who was standing by
Steve, open-eyed, drinking in their wisdom as only a boy of thirteen
can drink in the sapience of men of nineteen or twenty.
“Over there.” Jacquelin nodded toward another part of the hall.
Middleton looked, but all he saw was a little girl sitting behind a
big chair, evidently trying to conceal herself, and shaking her head
violently at Jacquelin, who was beckoning to her. Jacquelin ran over to
her and caught her by the hand, whereupon there was a little scuffle
between them behind the chair, and as Middleton watched it he caught
her eye. The next second she rose, smoothed her little white frock with
quite an air, and came straight across with Jacquelin to where they
stood. “This is Blair, Mr. Middleton,” the boy said to the astonished
guest. And Miss Blair held out her hand to him with an odd mixture of
the child and the lady.
“How do you do, sir?” She evidently considered him one of the ancients.
“She jump off a high barn!” Middleton’s eyes opened wide.
“Blair is the champion jumper of the family,” said Steve, tall and
condescending, catching hold of her half-teasingly, and drawing her up
close to him.
“And she is a brick,” added Master Jacquelin, with mingled
condescension and admiration, which brought the blushes back to the
little girl’s cheeks and made her look very charming. The next moment
she was talking to Middleton about the episode of the painted horse;
exchanging adventures with him, and asking him questions about his
chum, Reely Thurston and his cousin, Ruth Welch, whom he had mentioned,
as if she had known him always.
It was a night that Middleton never forgot. So completely was he
adopted by his hosts that he could scarcely believe that he had not
been one of them all his life. As Mr. Welch said truly: they had the
gift of hospitality. Jacquelin and Blair constituted themselves young
Middleton’s especial hosts, and he made an engagement to visit with
them all the points which they wished to show him, provided his cousin
could accept their invitation to spend several days there.
In the midst of their talk an old mammy in a white apron, with a tall
bandanna turban around her head, suddenly appeared in a doorway, and
dropping a curtsey made her way over to Blair, like a ship bearing down
under full sail. There was a colloquy between the two, inaudible, but
none the less animated and interesting, the old woman urging something
and the little girl arguing against it. Then Blair went across and
appealed to her mother, who, after a little demurring, came over
and spoke to the mammy, and thereon began further argument. She was
evidently taking Blair’s side; but she was not commanding, she was
rather pleading. Middleton, new to the customs, was equally surprised
and amused to hear the tones of the old colored woman’s voice:
“Well, jist a little while.” Then as she turned on her way out, she
said, half audibly:
“You all gwine ruin my chile’ looks, meckin’ her set up so late. How
she gwine have any complexion, settin’ up all times o’ night?” As she
passed out, however, many of the ladies spoke to her, and they must
have said pleasant things; for before she reached the door she was
smiling and curtseying right and left, and carried her head as high
as a princess. As for Blair, her eyes were dancing with joy at her
victory, and when the plump figure of the mammy disappeared she gave a
little frisk of delight.
There were no more speeches that could wound the sensibilities of
the guests; but there was plenty of discussion. All the young men
were ardent politicians, and Middleton, who was nothing himself, was
partly amused and partly horrified at the violence of some of their
sentiments. Personally, he agreed with them in the main about Slavery
or, at least, about Abolitionism. He thought Slavery rather a fine
thing, and recalled that his grandfather or his great-grandfather,
he couldn’t be certain which, had owned a number of slaves. He was
conscious of some pride in this—though his cousin, Patience Welch, who
was an extreme abolitionist, was always bemoaning the fact.
But he was thunderstruck to hear a young orator of sixteen or seventeen
declaim about breaking up the Union, under certain circumstances, as if
it were a worthless old hulk, stuck in the mud. It had never occurred
to Middleton that it was possible, and he had always understood that
it was not. However, he was reassured by the warmth with which others
defended the Union, and the ardor with which toasts were drunk to it.
Jacquelin himself was a stanch Democrat, like his father. He confided
to Middleton that Blair was a Whig, because her father was one; but
that a girl did not know any better, and that she really did not know
the difference between them.
The entertainment consisted of dancing—quadrilles and “the Lancers,”
and after awhile, the old Virginia reel. In the first, all the young
people joined, and in the last, some of the old ones as well. Middleton
heard Steve urging their host’s sister, Miss Gray—“Cousin Thomasia”
as Steve called her—a sweet patrician-faced lady, to come and dance
with him, and when she smilingly refused, teasing her about Major
Legaie. She gave him a little tap with her fan and sent him off with
smiling eyes, which, after following the handsome boy across the hall,
saddened a second later as she lifted the fan close to her face to
arrange the feathers. Steve mischievously whisked Blair off from under
Jacquelin’s nose and took her to the far end of the line of laughing
girls ranged across the hall, responding to Jacquelin’s earnest protest
that he was just going to dance with her himself, with a push—that
unanswerable logic of a bigger boy.
“But you did not ask me!” said Miss Blair to Jacquelin, readily taking
the stronger side against her sworn friend.
“Never mind, I’m not going to dance with you any more,” pouted
Jacquelin as he turned off, his head higher than usual, to which Miss
Blair promptly replied: “I don’t care if you don’t.” And she held
her head higher than his, dancing through her reel apparently with
double enjoyment because of his discomfiture. Then when the reel
had been danced again and again, with double couples and fours, to
ever-quickening music and ever-increasing mirth, until it was a maze
of muslin and radiance and laughter, there was a pause for rest. And
someone near the piano struck up a song, and this drew the crowd. Many
of the girls, and some of the young men, had pleasant voices, which
made up by their natural sweetness and simplicity for want of training,
and the choruses drew all the young people, except a few who seemed to
find it necessary to seek something—fans or glasses of water, in the
most secluded and unlikely corners, and always in couples.
There was one song—a new one which had just been picked up somewhere
by someone and brought there, and they were all trying to recall
it—about “Dixie-land.” It seemed that Blair sang it, and there was a
universal request for her to sing it; but the little girl was shy and
wanted to run away. Finally, however, she was brought back and, under
coaxing from Steve and Jacquelin, was persuaded; and she stood up by
the piano and with her cheeks glowing and her child’s-voice quavering
at first at the prominence given her, sang it through. Middleton had
heard the song once at a minstrel-show not long before, and had thought
it rather a “catchy” thing; but now, when the child sang it, he found
its melody. But when the chorus came, he was astonished at the feeling
it evoked. It ran:
“Away down south in Dixie, away, away—
In Dixie land, I’ll take my stand,
To live and die for Dixie land—
Away, away, away down south in Dixie.”
It was a burst of genuine feeling, universal, enthusiastic, that made
the old walls resound. Even the young couples came from their secluded
coverts to join in. It was so tremendous that Dr. Cary, who was
standing near Mr. Welch, said to him, gravely:
“A gleam of the current that is dammed up?”
“If the bank ever breaks what will happen?” asked Mr. Welch.
“A flood.”
“Then the right will survive.”
“The strongest,” said Dr. Cary.
The guest saw that there was deep feeling whenever any political
subject was touched on, and he turned to a less dangerous theme. The
walls of the hall and drawing-room were covered with pictures; scenes
from the Mythology; battle-pieces; old portraits: all hung together
in a sort of friendly confusion. The portraits were nearly all in
rich-colored dresses: men in velvets or uniforms, ladies in satins and
crinolines, representing the fashions and faces of many generations of
Jacquelin-Grays. But one, the most striking figure of them all, stood
alone to itself in a space just over the great fireplace. He was a man
still young, clad in a hunter’s garb. A dark rock loomed behind him.
His rifle lay at his feet, apparently broken, and his face wore an
expression of such determination that one knew at once that, whatever
he had been, he had been a master. The other paintings were portraits;
this was the man. To add to its distinction, while the other pictures
were in frames richly gilded and carved, this was in straight black
boards apparently built into the wall, as if it had been meant to stand
him there and cut him off from all the rest of the world. Wherever one
turned in the hall those piercing eyes followed him. Mr. Welch had been
for some time observing the picture.
“An extraordinary picture. It has a singular fascination for me,”
he said, as his host turned to him. “One might almost fancy it
allegorical, and yet, it is intensely human. An indubitable portrait? I
never saw a stronger face.”
His host smiled.
“Yes. It has a somewhat curious history, though whether it is exactly
a portrait or not we do not know. It is, or is supposed to be, the
portrait of an ancestor of mine, the first of my name who came to
this country. He had been unfortunate on the other side—so the story
goes—was a scholar, and had been a soldier under Cromwell and lost
all his property. He fell in love with a young lady whose father was
on the King’s side, and married her against her parents’ wishes and
came over here. He built a house on this very spot when it was the
frontier, and his wife was afterward murdered by the Indians, leaving
him one child. It is said that he killed the Indian with his naked
hands just beside a great rock that stands in the grave-yard beyond the
garden, a short distance from the house. He afterward had that picture
painted and placed there. It is reported to be a Lely. It has always
been recognized as a fine picture, and in all the successive changes it
has been left there. This present house was built around the fireplace
of the old one. In this way a story has grown up about the picture,
that it is connected with the fortunes of the house. You know how
superstitious the negroes are?”
“I am not surprised,” said Mr. Welch, examining the picture more
closely. “I never saw a lonelier man. That black frame shutting it in
seems to have something to do with the effect.”
“The tradition has possibly had a good effect. There used to be a
recess behind it that was used as a cupboard, perhaps a secret cabinet,
because of this very superstition. The picture fell down once a few
years ago and I found a number of old papers in there, and put some
more in myself.
“Here, you can see the paint on the frame, where it fell. It was in
the early summer, and one of the servants was just painting the hearth
red, and a sudden gust of wind slammed a door and jarred the picture
down, and it fell, getting that paint on it. You never saw anyone so
frightened as that boy was. And I think my overseer was also,” he
laughed. “He happened to be present, settling up some matters with
which I had entrusted him in the South, and although he is a remarkably
sensible man—so sensible that I had given him my bonds for a very
considerable amount—one for a very large amount, indeed, in case he
should need them in the matter I refer to, and he had managed the
affair with the greatest shrewdness, bringing my bonds back—he was as
much frightened almost as the boy. You’d have thought that the fall
of the picture portended my immediate death. I took advantage of the
circumstance to put the papers in the cupboard, and, to ease his mind,
made Still nail the picture up, so that it will never come down again,
at least, in my lifetime.”
“I had no idea the whites were so superstitious,” said Major Welch.
“Well, I do not suppose he really believed it. But, do you know, after
that they began to say that stain on it was blood? And here again.”
He pointed to where three or four little foot-tracks, as of a child’s
bare foot, were dimly seen on the hard white floor near the hearth.
“My little boy, Rupert, was playing in the hall at the time I mention,
dabbling his feet in the paint, and the same wind that blew down the
picture scattered my papers, and he ran across the floor and finally
stepped on one. There, you can see just where he caught it: the little
heel is there, and the print of the toes is on the bond behind the
picture. His mother would never allow the prints to be scoured out, and
so they have remained. And now, I understand, they say the tracks are
blood.”
“On such slim evidence, perhaps other and weightier superstitions have
been built,” said Mr. Welch, smiling.
Next morning, as Mr. Welch wished to see a Southern plantation, he
deferred his departure until the afternoon, and rode over the place
with Mr. Gray. Middleton was taken by his young hosts to see all the
things of interest about the plantation: the high barn from which
Blair had jumped into the tree, the bloody rock beside which the
“Indian-Killer” had been buried, and the very spot where Steve had
slept that night; together with many other points, whilst Mr. Welch was
taken to see the servants’ quarters, the hands working and singing in
the fields, and such things as interested him. The plantation surpassed
any he had yet seen. It was a little world in itself—a sort of feudal
domain: the great house on its lofty hill, surrounded by gardens; the
broad fields stretching away in every direction, with waving grain
or green pastures dotted with sheep and cattle, and all shut in and
bounded by the distant woods.
During this tour Mr. Langstaff, the rector, made to Mr. Welch an
observation that he thought there were evidences that the Garden
of Eden was situated not far from that spot, and certainly within
the limits of the State. Major Welch smiled at the old clergyman’s
ingenuousness, but was graver when, as they strolled through the negro
quarters, he began to speak earnestly of the blessings of Slavery. He
pointed out the clean cabins, each surrounded by its little yard and
with its garden; the laughing children and smiling mothers curtseying
from their doors. The guest remained silent, and the old gentleman took
it for assent.
“Why, sir, I have just prepared a paper which my friends think
establishes incontrovertibly that Slavery is based on the Scriptures,
and is, as it were, a divine institution.” Mr. Welch looked up to see
how the other gentlemen took this. They were all grave, except Dr.
Cary, usually the gravest, around whose mouth a slight smile flickered,
and in whose eyes, as they met Major Welch’s, there was a little gleam
of amusement.
“It is written, ‘A servant of servants shall he be.’ You will not deny
that?” asked the old preacher, a little of the smouldering fire of the
controversialist sparkling for a moment in his face.
“Well, no, I don’t think I will.”
“Then that settles it.”
“Well, perhaps not altogether,” said Mr. Welch. “There may be an
economical sin. But I do not wish to engage in a polemical controversy.
I will only say that down here you do not seem to me to appreciate
fully how strong the feeling of the world at present is against
Slavery. It seems to me, that Slavery is doomed as much as the
Stage-coach, and the Sailing vessel.”
“My dear sir,” declared Mr. Gray, “I cannot agree with you. We
interfere with nobody; all we demand is that they shall not interfere
with us.”
“It is precisely that which you cannot enforce,” said Mr. Welch. “I
do not wish to engage in a discussion in which neither of us could
convince the other; but I think I have not defined my position
intelligibly. You interfere with everyone—with every nation—and you
are only tenants at will of your system—only tenants by sufferance of
the world.”
“Oh! my dear sir!” exclaimed his host, his face slightly flushed; and
then the subject was politely changed, and Mr. Welch was conscious
that it was not to be opened again.
The only additional observation made was by a gentleman who had been
introduced to Mr. Welch as the leading lawyer of the county, a portly
man with a round face and keen eyes. “Well, as George IV. remarked, it
will last my time,” he said.
Before the young people had seen half the interesting places of
which Jacquelin had told Middleton, they were recalled to the house.
Jacquelin’s face fell.
“School!” he said in disgust.
As they returned on a road leading up to a farm-house on a hill, they
passed a somewhat rickety buggy containing a plain-looking young girl,
a little older than Blair, driven by a thin-shouldered youngster of
eighteen or nineteen, who returned Jacquelin’s and Blair’s greeting,
with a surly air. Middleton thought he checked the girl for her
pleasant bow. At any rate, he heard his voice in a cross tone, scolding
her after they had passed.
“That’s Washy Still and Virgy, the overseer’s children,” explained
someone.
“And he’s just as mean to her as he can be. She’s afraid of him. I’ll
be bound I wouldn’t be afraid of him!” broke out Blair, her eyes
growing suddenly sparkling at the idea of wrong to one of her sex.
Middleton looked down at her glowing face and thought it unlikely.
On arrival at the house it proved that Jacquelin’s fears were
well-founded. It had been decided that he must go back to school.
Jacquelin appealed to his Aunt Thomasia to intercede for him, and she
did so, as she always interceded for everyone, but it was in vain. It
was an age of law, and the law had to be obeyed.
As Middleton was passing from the room he occupied, to the hall, he
came on Blair. She was seated in a window, almost behind the curtain
and he would have passed by without seeing her but for a movement she
made to screen herself entirely. Curiosity and mischief prompted
the young man to go up and peep at her. She had a book in her hand,
which she held down as if to keep out of sight, and as he looked at
her he thought she had been crying. A glance at the book showed it
was “Virgil,” and Middleton supposed, from some personal experience,
that the tears were connected with the book. So he offered to construe
her lesson for her. She let him do it, and he was just congratulating
himself that he was doing it tolerably well when she corrected him. At
the same moment Jacquelin came in. He too looked unusually downcast,
and Blair turned away her face, and then suddenly sprang up and ran
away.
“What’s the matter?” asked Middleton. “Can’t she read her lesson?”
“No: she can read that well enough. You just ought to hear her read
Latin. I wish I could do it as well as she does, that’s all! I’d make
old Eliphalet open his eyes. She’s crying because I’ve got to go back
to school—I wish I were grown up, I bet I wouldn’t go to school
any more! I hate school, and I hate old Eliphalet, and I hate old
Maule—no, I don’t quite hate him; but I hate school and I’m going to
paint his horse blue, if he licks the life out of me.” After which
explosion the youngster appeared relieved, and went off to prepare for
the inevitable.
When he rode away with Doan behind him, his last call back was to
Middleton, to be sure and remember his promise to come back again, and
to bring Reely Thurston with him.