LEECH SECURES AN ORDER AND LOSES IT
When Leech returned from the city, next day, he was in such good
spirits that Steve and Thurston both arrived at a similar conclusion,
and decided that there was some mischief brewing. Steve called Jerry
and had a talk with him.
About sunset Leech mounted his horse at his stable and rode out of
the village through a back lane. He was to meet Still that night at
Nicholas Ash’s. Still and his son met him according to appointment, and
the details of their plan were arranged.
Leech found that he had an ally stronger than he had dreamed of. Still
showed him that he was a much richer man than he had ever admitted. He
not only held the bonds of Dr. Cary, given for the money he had lent
the Doctor, and a bond of his late employer, Mr. Gray, of which Leech
already knew; but he held another bond of Mr. Gray for an amount large
enough to swallow up his entire estate. Leech could scarcely believe
his eyes. Mrs. Gray did not know of its existence; but the bond was
undoubtedly genuine. Mrs. Gray herself, Still said, would admit that.
He had a satisfactory explanation for her ignorance, as well as for the
fact that he had never before mentioned to Leech that he held so large
a claim against the Gray estate. He had made the money by negro-trading
quietly, before the war, and had lent it to Mr. Gray to stock a
plantation, which he, as Mr. Gray’s agent, had bought for him in the
far South. And he had not mentioned it to Mrs. Gray or anyone else for
a very simple reason. He had promised Mr. Gray that he would never
trouble Mrs. Gray about the bonds during her life.
Leech did not believe this; but there were the bonds—one a small one,
and one a very big one, and Still had of late hinted several times at
something that he was storing up for the proper moment.
“I told you I didn’t care if you killed that young Jacquelin that
night,” he laughed. “Why didn’t you do it? I must say I never allowed
that he’d git thar alive.”
“Neither did I,” suggested Leech. “And I believe it did him good.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Still, enigmatically; “but I wouldn’t
’a’ shed no tears over him. But if you do as I tell you, we’ll git even
and have a leetle somethin’ to spare. You just work Krafton and get
your friends to back you, and you and me’ll own this county. I’ll see
that Moses is there on time, if he don’t have an inch of skin left on
him.”
A rumor had meantime got abroad at the county seat that an order
had been secured by Leech forbidding the assembly, and that though
Middleton knew nothing of it as yet, Leech would spring it at the
proper time and try to prevent the assembly. There was much excitement
over it. A number of young men dropped in at Steve Allen’s office to
ascertain the truth of the report, and there was a rather general
expression of opinion that the ball would take place whether Leech had
such an order or not.
“Go and ask Middleton, directly,” advised Jacquelin, and Steve did so.
Middleton said he had no knowledge on the subject, and knew of no one
to whom such an order should be addressed except himself.
Jerry, who was lounging sleepily not far from Leech’s office, was
called in by Steve and interrogated again with sundry forcible
intimations of what would happen in case he should be deceiving him.
But Jerry was firm. He reiterated again and again his fervent wish for
a speedy dissolution and a perpetual condemnation of the most lurid
character, if every word he had spoken were not more than true. Leech,
he declared, had the paper in his pocket, and had read it to Sherwood
and Moses and Nicholas in his back office, and was going to deliver it
to Captain Middleton next day, the day set for the entertainment.
“I lies to urrers; but the Cun’l knows I wouldn’ lie to him,” protested
Jerry, in final asseveration.
“That’s so—he knows better,” said Steve; and Jerry, with a grin, went
back to his post in sight of Leech’s back door.
Steve, with a new light in his face, went up to Mrs. Dockett’s and had
a little talk with Miss Dockett and one or two of the young ladies
there, and in ten minutes, with locked doors, they were busy sewing for
life. It must have been something very amusing they were engaged in, to
judge from the laughter that floated down from their windows.
That night Hiram Still, with his son, was on his way back to Red
Rock from his meeting with Leech, while Leech was riding back to the
court-house.
It was about ten o’clock and the moon was covered by clouds; Leech was
riding along, thinking of the plans he had formed and the manner of
publishing his order, and of the effect it would have in establishing
his position in the county. He had got within a mile or two of the
village when, in a little “bottom” in a lonely piece of woods, just
before reaching a fork in the road, there was an owl-hoot behind
him, and another, as if in response, a little ahead of him. The next
moment his horse started violently, as a dark object which Leech had
noticed when still at a distance from it, but thought merely a bush,
moved out into the road immediately before him. His heart jumped into
his throat, for it was not like anything earthly. In the darkness, it
looked as much like a small elephant with a howdah on it, as anything
else; but he did not have time to think much about it, for the next
instant it was close on him right across the road, a huge muffled
figure on a high, shapeless beast. Leech’s horse snorted and wheeled.
Another figure was behind him, closing in on him. Leech pulled in his
frightened horse; for somewhere about the middle of the dark figure
lowering above him there was a momentary flash of steel. Leech thought
of his own pistol, but the great figure moved closer to him, very close
to him, and stopped. Not a word was said. The figure simply sat in
front of him, silent and motionless, while the other moved up on the
other side and did the same. Leech’s tongue was sticking to his mouth.
The stillness and silence were more awful than any words could have
been. He tried to speak, but his lips could scarcely frame the words.
Presently he managed to falter:
“What do you want?”
There was no answer, and again the silence became worse than ever. The
voices of the katydids sounded far and near.
“Who are you?”
There was not a word. Only the figures pressed closer to him.
“What—what do you want?”
Silence and the katydids in the woods.
“Let me go by. I have no money.”
There was no answer, and for a moment no motion, only the gleam of
steel again. Then the two figures, pressing close against the Provost,
silently turned his horse around and moved slowly off into the woods,
without a word, with him between them.
He tried to pull up his reins; they were held on either side, and an
arm was thrown around him.
“Where are you going?” faltered Leech.
They moved on without a word.
“Wait—I will—I will give——”
A bag or something was suddenly thrown over his head and pressed down
to his elbows, which at the same moment were pinioned to his side, and
his pistol was taken. He was afraid to cry out, and perhaps could not
have done so even had he tried.
The next instant a hand was put into his breast pocket and his
pocket-book and all his papers were taken out; he was conscious of a
match being struck and a light made, and that his papers were being
looked over. He thought he heard one of his captors say, “Ah!” and the
next moment the papers and pocket-book were put back in his pocket,
and the light was extinguished; the bag was drawn from over his head,
and his captors rode off through the woods. When he tried to move he
discovered that his horse was tied to a bush and he had to dismount to
untie him. His pistol was lying at the foot of the sapling. Long before
he had finished loosing his horse, the sound of his two waylayers had
died out.
As the Provost entered the village the sour expression on his face
deepened. The clouds had disappeared and the summer night was perfect;
the village lay before him, a picture of peace; the glint of white
beneath the court-house trees being just enough to suggest that the
tents there were hidden. The streets were filled with a careless
throng, and all the sounds were those of merriment: laughter and
shouting, and the twang of banjos. There was never an unlikelier field
for such a plan as the Provost had in mind.
He rode through like a shadow, silencing the negroes and scowling
at the whites, and as soon as he had put up his horse, he called on
Captain Middleton. It was not a long interview, but it was a stormy
one, and when the Provost came out of the Captain’s office he had
thrown down the gauntlet and there was an open breach between them. He
had complained to Middleton of being beset by highwaymen and robbed of
his order, and Middleton had told him plainly he did not believe a word
he said.
“How did you get such an order? If there was such an order, why was it
not addressed to me?” he asked.
Leech said that he declined to be interrogated, but he would soon show
him that he had authority.
“Then you will have to bring some better evidence than your own word,”
said Middleton, coldly.
Leech fired up and attempted a bolder tone than he had ever dared use
before with Middleton, and actually forbade the meeting the following
night. The young Captain, however, gave him to understand that he
himself was the commandant there and that for another word, order or no
order, he would place him under arrest, which step at that moment would
have so interfered with Leech’s plans that he had not ventured to push
the matter further.
Next night the long-talked-of entertainment came off duly, and Miss
Blair Cary and Miss Elizabeth Dockett and the other girls who had
waited so long, showed their little plain, sweet, white and pink
dresses which they had made themselves, and their prettier white
throats and pink faces, and lovely flashing eyes which God had made;
and danced with their gray-jacketed escorts, their little feet slipped
in their little slippers, many of which were high-heeled and faded
with age, having belonged to their mothers, and grandmothers—even
great-grandmothers—and enjoyed it all as much as ever the former
wearers of the slippers did in their full glory of satin and lace. For
of such is the Kingdom of Youth.
The Yankee officers attended, very dignified, and were treated
politely, but not warmly, of course, only just so civilly as to show
that Southerners knew what was due to guests even when they were
enemies; but not so warmly as to let them forget that they were foes.
This, however, made little difference to the young men, for the
civility which it was felt was “their due as guests” was sufficient to
make a marked contrast with a past in which not a soul in petticoats
had noticed them, and the girls were pretty enough to satisfy them at
first, even if there was no other privilege conferred than merely that
primal right of the cat in the proverb. Everyone, however, meant to be
civil, and for the time, at least, at peace.
But there was more than this; the night was perfect; the breath of
flowers and shrubbery came in through the open windows; the moon was
almost at her full, and her soft light was lying on the grass, mantling
the trees, and filling the night with that amber mellowness which
sometimes comes in summer, and seems to bring a special peacefulness.
The camp lay hidden in the distance, and the throng in the streets hung
on the fences, listening to the music, or laughed and danced in full
sympathy with the occasion.
Steve Allen constituted himself the especial host of the two officers.
It was by him that Middleton and Thurston were introduced to most of
the girls, and to the older ladies, who sat at the end of the room
farthest from the music, their eyes, filled with light, following
their daughters or others whose success was near to their hearts, or,
like Miss Thomasia, beaming a benediction on the whole throng of happy
dancers.
Still, an hour after the dancing began, the one person whom Middleton
particularly wished to meet had not appeared, and Middleton, who had
been planning for a week what he should say to Miss Cary, found himself
with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. Little Thurston was capering
around as if to the manner born; perspiring at every pore; paying
attention to half the girls in the room, and casting glances at Miss
Dockett languishing enough, as Middleton said, to lay the foundation
for a breach of promise suit. But Middleton could not get into the
spirit of the occasion. He asked a number of girls to dance, but they
were all “engaged,” and politely showed their cards. So Middleton
fell back. General Legaie, and the other older gentlemen courteously
drew him into their conversation, and the General rallied him, with
an old bachelor’s license, on not dancing, declaring that the sight
of such girls was the true fountain of youth; but the young Captain
was not in the mood for fun. A vague feeling of unrest was on him.
The order that Leech had mentioned; the Provost’s positive manner;
the warning that he had given; the covert threat he had dared to
employ, all began to recur to Middleton and worry him. He felt that
he would be responsible if any trouble should occur. He went out and
walked through the village. A light was shining under the door of
Leech’s office; but all was as it had been: good-humor everywhere. The
moonlight soothed him and the pleasant greetings as he passed served to
restore his good-humor, and he returned to the ball. As he did so an
old high-backed carriage, which he thought he recognized, made its way
slowly past him. The driver was explaining to someone who walked beside
him the cause of his delay.
“Dat fool hoss—you can’t git him in de water to save your life. He’ll
breck ev’ything to pieces fust. But my young Mistis, she’s dyah now,
an’ she’s de queen on ’em all, I tell you. You go dyah an’ look at her
th’oo de winder,” he wound up with a proud laugh.
As Middleton re-entered the ball-room there was quite a group near the
door surrounding someone who was the centre of attraction, and whom
Captain Allen was teasing.
“Oh! You’ll dance with him. He left because you had not come, but I
have sent for him. He’s saved a set expressly for you.”
“I won’t. He has done no such thing, and I won’t dance with you either,
unless you go away and let me alone.” The voice was a charming one.
“I’ll bet you do. I understand why you made old Gideon drive you up the
stream that evening; but you can’t expect him to be mooning on the bank
of every creek in the county, you know——”
“That settles it for you, Steve,” said the voice over behind the heads.
“Jack, I have the seventh dance with you as well as the first and
fourth,” she called to Jacquelin who was seated against the wall, his
crutches beside him.
“Jack never was any hand at arithmetic, and besides he can’t dance,”
declared Allen, as his friend professed his gratitude.
Just then Allen caught sight of Middleton, over the heads of the others.
“Ah! here—Captain Middleton, I want to present you to my cousin, Miss
Blair Cary, who wishes to know how you happened not to be—” He caught
his cousin’s eye, and changed his speech “—who has a question to ask
you. Captain Middleton—Miss Cary.” The others made way for Middleton,
and he stepped forward and bowed low.
She was all in white, and was blazing with brass buttons. They were
her only ornaments, except a single old jewel consisting of a ruby
surrounded by diamonds. She wore bracelets of the buttons on her arms,
and a necklace of larger ones on a band around her white throat. A
broad belt of them girdled her little waist.
As Middleton bowed, he caught her eye and the same look of mingled
defiance and amusement which he remembered so well at the ford. He
hardly knew whether to laugh or be grave, and was conscious that he
was growing red, as her look changed into one of triumph. He remained
grave, however, and rallied enough to ask her for a dance. She bowed.
They were all engaged.
“I have the seventh—to sit out, I believe?” said Jacquelin Gray
maliciously, from his seat, for Steve’s benefit. Miss Blair looked at
her card;—then to Jacquelin:
“You only _believe_? As you have forgotten so far as to have a doubt
about it, the seventh is _not_ engaged,” said the young coquette, with
a curtsey. She turned. “I will give it to you, Captain Middleton.” She
looked at Jacquelin and with a little—only the least little toss of
the head, took the arm of a young man who had just claimed his set, and
bowing to Middleton moved off, leaving both Steve and Jacquelin looking
a trifle blank.
“That girl’s the most unaccountable creature that ever was on earth,”
growled Jacquelin. “I’ll be hanged if I’ll be treated so!” He looked
across the room after her floating form.
“Go slow, old man, go slow,” said Steve. “You’ll be treated that way
and come again for more. And you know you will.”
Jacquelin growled. He knew in his heart it was true.
Middleton thought that the seventh set would never come, but, like
everything else in life, it came at last, and though there were three
claimants for it, the one who was the final judge decided for Middleton
and walked off with him, calmly leaving both the other aspirants fuming
and scowling.
“You can’t fight him Jack,” said Steve with a laugh to his cousin, who
was muttering to himself, “because I’d first have to fight you, you
know.”
Having thus punished both her admirers, Miss Cary declined to
dance—whether to keep her word; to avoid pleasing too much the young
Federal Captain, or to soothe the ruffled spirits of his unsuccessful
competitors, who may tell? For no one can thread the mazes of a girl’s
caprice.
But this made little difference to Middleton. They strolled outside
and found a seat. The moonlight appeared to Middleton more charming
than he ever remembered it, and he discovered something which he had
never known before. He wanted to please this girl as he never recalled
having wanted to please any other, and he was conscious that it was a
difficult, if not an impossible task. It was as though he lay in face
of a foe, one who appeared at the outset stronger than he. Yet she did
not appear to be attempting anything. She was simply in opposition
to him, that was all. She appeared so unaffected and simple that,
remembering what he had just seen of her coquetry, he wondered if she
could be as natural as she seemed to be. Her gaze was so direct, her
voice so placid, her manner so self-possessed, that he felt she had the
advantage of him. And all the time he wanted to please her.
In the course of their conversation she spoke of her brother.
Middleton had not remembered that she had a brother.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“He was killed.” She spoke very quietly.
“Oh!” he said, softly. “I beg your pardon.”
“He was killed at Jacquelin Gray’s side, and Jacquelin brought his
body out under fire—just as Steve afterward tried to bring Jack.” She
sighed deeply, and her eyes seemed to say, “You can understand now?”
Middleton had a strange sensation. He had never before looked in the
eyes of a woman whose brother had been killed, possibly by his command.
He hated Jacquelin, but in a way he was grateful to him too; for it was
the first time Miss Cary had softened at all.
“I believe that all your men went in the army,” he said, feeling about
for a new subject.
“Of course.”
“And some of your ladies?” he smiled.
“All of them.” Up went her head again.
“I wonder that you were ever conquered?”
“Conquered! We were not conquered.” She looked it, as she stood there
in the moonlight. Middleton had a sudden thrill that it would be worth
his life to win such a girl, and she had never given him even one
friendly glance. He could not help thinking,
“What would Thurston say?”
A partner came and claimed his set, and Middleton was left outside. He
sat for a moment thinking how lonely her departure had made the place.
He had never felt this way about any other girl. Just then a strange
sound, like distant shouting, came through the stillness. Middleton
rose and strolled down to the gate. There were fewer people in the
street. A man came hurrying along and spoke to another. His voice was
so excited that it arrested Middleton’s attention, and he caught the
last of his sentence.
“It ought to be broke up at once. Go in there and call Captain Allen
and McRaffle out.”
“What’s that?” asked Middleton, walking out of the gate, and up to him.
“A nigger-meetin’ down yonder,” answered the man, sullenly. “If it
ain’t broken up there’ll be trouble. Leech started it by reading a
paper he had, tellin’ ’em the Gov’ment wants the party broke up, and
then he put Sherrod up, and now that yaller nigger, Dr. Moses, is up.
Leech’s been givin’ ’em liquor, and unless it’s stopped there’ll be the
devil to pay.”
“I’ll see about it,” said Middleton. He walked rapidly down in the
direction the man had indicated. He was sensible, as he passed along,
of some change, and, presently, the distant sound of a man speaking
at the top of his voice came to him, followed shortly by a roar of
applause. He hurried on and passed a group of half a dozen white men,
some of whom were advocating sending for “reinforcements,” as they
said, while others were insisting that they should go right in on them
at once. All were united as to one thing: that the meeting ought to be
stopped.
“If we don’t,” said one, “there’ll be trouble, and we might’s well do
it at once. I can do it by myself.”
Some one said something about “the Yankee officers.”
“Yankees be blanked!” said the other. “Wasn’t it that scoundrel Leech
as started it all? He’s been workin’ it up all day. I got wind of it up
at home;—that’s the reason I come down. We’ve got to do it ourselves.”
It was Andy Stamper.
Just then they saw Middleton and followed him, offering their advice
and services. All they wanted was authority.
When Middleton arrived, he agreed with them that the speaking ought
to be stopped at once. He had never seen such a sight. The entire
negro population of the place appeared to be packed there, moaning
and singing, hugging each other and shouting, whilst Moses, the negro
he had ordered to leave town, was on the platform, tossing his arms
in a sort of frenzy and calling on them to rise and prove they were
the chosen people. “God had brought their enemies all together in one
place,” he cried, “and all that was needed was for Samson to arise and
prove his strength. Their deliverer was at hand.” Ain’t you heah dat de
wud done come from de New Jerusalem, an’ ain’t my name Moses—Moses?
Moses is my name!” he shouted, intoning the words in a sort of wild
frenzy. The shout that greeted him proved the danger of his course.
“D—n him, I’ll stop his mouth,” said one of the young men, pushing his
way through the throng, but Middleton was before him. He forced his
way, followed by the others, through the crowd which gave way before
him at his command, and, when still some yards away from the platform,
he ordered the speaker to cease. But Moses was either too drunk or too
excited to heed, and went on shouting his singsong.
“I’ll lead you to de burnin’ bush,” he cried. “I’ll give you de promise
lan’.” As it happened, a man standing in the crowd had a carriage-whip
in his hand. The Captain snatched it from him and sprang on the
platform, and the next instant was raining on the would-be prophet and
leader such a thrashing as he had never had in his life. The effect
was miraculous. The first lash of the heavy whip took the preacher by
surprise and dazed him; the second recalled him to himself and stripped
his prophetic character from him, leaving him nothing but a whining,
miserable creature, who was trying to deceive and mislead others as
miserable and more ignorant than himself.
As the Captain laid the blows on fast and thick, Moses cringed and
finally broke and fled from the platform, followed by the jeers and
shouts of the crowd who had just been ready to follow him in any
violence, if, indeed, he would have had the courage to lead them. And
when the irate officer appeared ready to turn his whip on them, and did
accompany his peremptory order that they should disperse at once, with
a few contemptuous lashes at those nearest him, they broke and ran with
as much good-humor as they had shown an hour previously, when they were
dancing and shuffling in the street, before Leech and his agents got
hold of them.