THE MEETING OF GORDON ORME
I had enough to do when it came to mounting my horse Satan. Few cared to
ride Satan, since it meant a battle each time he was mounted. He was a
splendid brute, black and clean, with abundant bone in the head and a
brilliant eye--blood all over, that was easy to see. Yet he was a
murderer at heart. I have known him to bite the backbone out of a
yearling pig that came under his manger, and no other horse on our farm
would stand before him a moment when he came on, mouth open and ears
laid back. He would fight man, dog, or devil, and fear was not in him,
nor any real submission. He was no harder to sit than many horses I have
ridden. I have seen Arabians and Barbary horses and English hunters that
would buck-jump now and then. Satan contented himself with rearing high
and whirling sharply, and lunging with a low head; so that to ride him
was a matter of strength as well as skill. The greatest danger was in
coming near his mouth or heels. My father always told me that this horse
was not fit to ride; but since my father rode him--as he would any horse
that offered--nothing would serve me but I must ride Satan also, and so
I made him my private saddler on occasion.
I ought to speak of my father, that very brave and kindly gentleman from
whom I got what daring I ever had, I suppose. He was a clean-cut man,
five-eleven in his stockings, and few men in all that country had a
handsomer body. His shoulders sloped--an excellent configuration for
strength--as a study of no less a man than George Washington will
prove--his arms were round, his skin white as milk, his hair, like my
own, a sandy red, and his eyes blue and very quiet. There was a balance
in his nature that I have ever lacked. I rejoice even now in his love of
justice. Fair play meant with him something more than fair play for the
sake of sport--it meant as well fair play for the sake of justice.
Temperate to the point of caring always for his body's welfare, as
regular in his habits as he was in his promises and their fulfillments,
kindling readily enough at any risk, though never boasting--I always
admired him, and trust I may be pardoned for saying so. I fear that at
the time I mention now I admired him most for his strength and courage.
Thus as I swung leg over Satan that morning I resolved to handle him as
I had seen my father do, and I felt strong enough for that. I
remembered, in the proud way a boy will have, the time when my father
and I, riding through the muddy streets of Leesburg town together, saw a
farmer's wagon stuck midway of a crossing. "Come, Jack," my father
called me, "we must send Bill Yarnley home to his family." Then we two
dismounted, and stooping in the mud got our two shoulders under the axle
of the wagon, before we were done with it, our blood getting up at the
laughter of the townsfolk. When we heaved together, out came Bill
Yarnley's wagon from the mud, and the laughter ended. It was like
him--he would not stop when once he started. Why, it was so he married
my mother, that very sweet Quakeress from the foot of old Catoctin. He
told me she said him no many times, not liking his wild ways, so
contrary to the manner of the Society of Friends; and she only
consented after binding him to go with her once each week to the little
stone church at Wallingford village, near our farm, provided he should
be at home and able to attend. My mother I think during her life had not
missed a half dozen meetings at the little stone church. Twice a week,
and once each Sunday, and once each month, and four times each year, and
also annually, the Society of Friends met there at Wallingford, and have
done so for over one hundred and thirty-five years. Thither went my
mother, quiet, brown-haired, gentle, as good a soul as ever lived, and
with her my father, tall, strong as a tree, keeping his promise until at
length by sheer force of this kept promise, he himself became half
Quaker and all gentle, since he saw what it meant to her.
As I have paused in my horsemanship to speak thus of my father, I ought
also to speak of my mother. It was she who in those troublous times just
before the Civil War was the first to raise the voice in the Quaker
Meeting which said that the Friends ought to free their slaves, law or
no law; and so started what was called later the Unionist sentiment in
that part of old Virginia. It was my mother did that. Then she asked my
father to manumit all his slaves; and he thought for an hour, and then
raised his head and said it should be done; after which the servants
lived on as before, and gave less in return, at which my father made wry
faces, but said nothing in regret. After us others also set free their
people, and presently this part of Virginia was a sort of Mecca for
escaped blacks. It was my mother did that; and I believe that it was her
influence which had much to do with the position of East Virginia on the
question of the war. And this also in time had much to do with this
strange story of mine, and much to do with the presence thereabout of
the man whom I was to meet that very morning; although when I started to
mount my horse Satan I did not know that such a man as Gordon Orme
existed in the world.
When I approached Satan he lunged at me, but I caught him by the cheek
strap of the bridle and swung his head close up, feeling for the saddle
front as he reached for me with open mouth. Then as he reared I swung up
with him into place, and so felt safe, for once I clamped a horse fair
there was an end of his throwing me. I laughed when Miss Grace Sheraton
called out in alarm, and so wheeled Satan around a few times and rode on
down the road, past the fields where the blacks were busy as blacks ever
are, and so on to our own red pillared-gates.
Then, since the morning was still young, and since the air seemed to me
like wine, and since I wanted something to subdue and Satan offered, I
spurred him back from the gate and rode him hard down toward
Wallingford. Of course he picked up a stone en route. Two of us held his
head while Billings the blacksmith fished out the stone and tapped the
shoe nails tight. After that I had time to look around.
As I did so I saw approaching a gentleman who was looking with interest
at my mount. He was one of the most striking men I have ever seen, a
stranger as I could see, for I knew each family on both sides the Blue
Ridge as far up the valley as White Sulphur.
"A grand animal you have there, sir," said he, accosting Me. "I did not
know his like existed in this country."
"As well in this as in any country," said I tartly. He smiled at this.
"You know his breeding?"
"Klingwalla out of Bonnie Waters."
"No wonder he's vicious," said the stranger, calmly.
"Ah, you know something of the English strains," said I. He shrugged his
shoulders. "As much as that," he commented indifferently.
There was something about him I did not fancy, a sort of condescension,
as though he were better than those about him. They say that we
Virginians have a way of reserving that right to ourselves; and I
suppose that a family of clean strain may perhaps become proud after
generations of independence and comfort and freedom from care. None the
less I was forced to admit this newcomer to the class of gentlemen. He
stood as a gentleman, with no resting or bracing with an arm, or
crossing of legs or hitching about, but balanced on his legs
easily--like a fencer or boxer or fighting man, or gentleman, in short.
His face, as I now perceived, was long and thin, his chin square,
although somewhat narrow. His mouth, too, was narrow, and his teeth were
narrow, one of the upper teeth at each side like the tooth of a
carnivore, longer than its fellows. His hair was thick and close cut to
his head, dark, and if the least bit gray about the edges, requiring
close scrutiny to prove it so. In color his skin was dark, sunburned
beyond tan, almost to parchment dryness. His eyes were gray, the most
remarkable eyes that I have ever seen--calm, emotionless, direct, the
most fearless eyes I have ever seen in mortal head, and I have looked
into many men's eyes in my time. He was taller than most men, I think
above the six feet line. His figure was thin, his limbs thin, his hands
and feet slender. He did not look one-tenth his strength. He was simply
dressed, dressed indeed as a gentleman. He stood as one, spoke as one,
and assumed that all the world accepted him as one. His voice was warmer
in accent than even our Virginia speech. I saw him to be an Englishman.
"He is a bit nasty, that one"; he nodded his head toward Satan.
I grinned. "I know of only two men in Fairfax County I'd back to ride
him."
"Yourself and--"
"My father."
"By Jove! How old is your father, my good fellow?"
"Sixty, my good fellow," I replied. He laughed.
"Well," said he, "there's a third in Fairfax can ride him."
"Meaning yourself?"
He nodded carelessly. I did not share his confidence. "He's not a
saddler in any sense," said I. "We keep him for the farms."
"Oh, I say, my friend," he rejoined--"my name's Orme, Gordon Orme--I'm
just stopping here at the inn for a time, and I'm deucedly bored. I've
not had leg over a decent mount since I've been here, and if I might
ride this beggar, I'd be awfully obliged."
My jaw may have dropped at his words; I am not sure. It was not that he
called our little tavern an "inn." It was the name he gave me which
caused me to start.
"Orme," said I, "Mr. Gordon Orme? That was the name of the speaker the
other evening here at the church of the Methodists."
He nodded, smiling. "Don't let that trouble you," said he.
None the less it did trouble me; for the truth was that word had gone
about to the effect that a new minister from some place not stated had
spoken from the pulpit on that evening upon no less a topic than the
ever present one of Southern slavery. Now, I could not clear it to my
mind how a minister of the gospel might take so keen and swift an
interest in a stranger in the street, and that stranger's horse. I
expressed to him something of my surprise.
"It's of no importance," said he again. "What seems to me of most
importance just at present is that here's a son of old Klingwalla, and
that I want to ride him."
"Just for the sake of saying you have done so?" I inquired.
His face changed swiftly as he answered: "We owned Klingwalla ourselves
back home. He broke a leg for my father, and was near killing him."
"Sir," I said to him, catching his thought quickly, "we could not afford
to have the horse injured, but if you wish to ride him fair or be beaten
by him fair, you are welcome to the chance."
His eye kindled at this. "You're a sportsman, sir," he exclaimed, and he
advanced at once toward Satan.
I saw in him something which awakened a responsive chord in my nature.
He was a man to take a risk and welcome it for the risk's sake.
Moreover, he was a horseman; as I saw by his quick glance over Satan's
furniture. He caught the cheek strap of the bridle, and motioned us away
as we would have helped him at the horse's head. Then ensued as pretty a
fight between man and horse as one could ask to see. The black brute
reared and fairly took him from the ground, fairly chased him about the
street, as a great dog would a rat. But never did the iron hold on the
bridle loosen, and the man was light on his feet as a boy. Finally he
had his chance, and with the lightest spring I ever saw at a saddle
skirt, up he went and nailed old Satan fair, with a grip which ridged
his legs out. I saw then that he was a rider. His head was bare, his hat
having fallen off; his hair was tumbled, but his color scarcely
heightened. As the horse lunged and bolted about the street, Orme sat
him in perfect confidence. He kept his hands low, his knees a little
more up and forward than we use in our style of riding, and his weight a
trifle further back; but I saw from the lines of his limbs that he had
the horse in a steel grip. He gazed down contemplatively, with a half
serious look, master of himself and of the horse as well. Then presently
he turned him up the road and went off at a gallop, with the brute under
perfect control. I do not know what art he used; all I can say is that
in a half hour he brought Satan back in a canter.
This was my first acquaintance with Gordon Orme, that strange
personality with whom I was later to have much to do. This was my first
witnessing of that half uncanny power by which he seemed to win all
things to his purposes. I admired him, yet did not like him, when he
swung carelessly down and handed me the reins.
"He's a grand one," he said easily, "but not so difficult to ride as old
Klingwalla. Not that I would discount your own skill in riding him, sir,
for I doubt not you have taken a lot out of him before now."
At least this was generous, and as I later learned, it was like him to
give full credit to the performance of any able adversary.