THE GOAD
It was at last borne in upon me that I must leave without any word from
Ellen. She was hedged about by all the stern and cold machinery of an
Army Post, out of whose calculations I was left as much as though I
belonged to a different world. I cannot express what this meant for me.
For weeks now, for months, indeed, we two had been together each hour of
the day. I had come to expect her greeting in the morning, to turn to
her a thousand times in the day with some query or answer. I had made no
plan from which she was absent. I had come to accept myself, with her,
as fit part of an appointed and happy scheme. Now, in a twinkling, all
that had been subverted. I was robbed of her exquisite dependence upon
me, of those tender defects of nature that rendered her most dear. I was
to miss now her fineness, her weakness and trustfulness, which had been
a continual delight. I could no longer see her eyes nor touch her hands,
nor sit silent at her feet, dreaming of days to come. Her voice was gone
from my listening ears. Always I waited to hear her footstep, but it
came no longer, rustling in the grasses. It seemed to me that by some
hard decree I had been deprived of all my senses; for not one was left
which did not crave and cry aloud for her.
It was thus that I, dulled, bereft; I, having lived, now dead; I, late
free, now bound again, turned away sullenly, and began my journey back
to the life I had known before I met her.
As I passed East by the Denver stage, I met hurrying throngs always
coming westward, a wavelike migration of population now even denser than
it had been the preceding spring. It was as Colonel Meriwether said, the
wagons almost touched from the Platte to the Rockies. They came on, a
vast, continuous stream of hope, confidence and youth. I, who stemmed
that current, alone was unlike it in all ways.
One thing only quickened my laggard heart, and that was the all
prevalent talk of war. The debates of Lincoln and Douglas, the
consequences of Lincoln's possible election, the growing dissensions in
the Army over Buchanan's practically overt acts of war--these made the
sole topics of conversation. I heard my own section, my own State,
criticised bitterly, and all Southerners called traitors to that flag I
had seen flying over the frontiers of the West. At times, I say, these
things caused my blood to stir once more, though perhaps it was not all
through patriotism.
At last, after weeks of travel across a disturbed country, I finally
reached the angry hive of political dissension at Washington. Here I was
near home, but did not tarry, and passed thence by stage to Leesburg, in
Virginia; and so finally came back into our little valley and the quiet
town of Wallingford. I had gone away the victim of misfortune; I
returned home with a broken word and an unfinished promise and a shaken
heart. That was my return.
I got me a horse at Wallingford barns, and rode out to Cowles' Farms. At
the gate I halted and looked in over the wide lawns. It seemed to me I
noted a change in them as in myself. The grass was unkempt, the flower
beds showed little attention. The very seats upon the distant gallery
seemed unfamiliar, as though arranged by some careless hand. I opened
the gate for myself, rode up to the old stoop and dismounted, for the
first time in my life there without a boy to take my horse. I walked
slowly up the steps to the great front door of the old house. No servant
came to meet me, grinning. I, grandson of the man who built that house,
my father's home and mine, lifted the brazen knocker of the door and
heard no footstep anticipate my knock. The place sounded empty.
Finally there came a shuffling footfall and the door was opened, but
there stood before me no one that I recognized. It was a smallish,
oldish, grayish man who opened the door and smiled in query at me.
"I am John Cowles, sir," I said, hesitating. "Yourself I do not seem to
know--"
"My name is Halliday, Mr. Cowles," he replied. A flush of humiliation
came to my face.
"I should know you. You were my father's creditor."
"Yes, sir, my firm was the holder of certain obligations at the time of
your father's death. You have been gone very long without word to us.
Meantime, pending any action--"
"You have moved in!"
"I have ventured to take possession, Mr. Cowles. That was as your mother
wished. She waived all her rights and surrendered everything, said all
the debts must be paid--"
"Of course--"
"And all we could prevail upon her to do was to take up her quarters
there in one of the little houses."
He pointed with this euphemism toward our old servants' quarters. So
there was my mother, a woman gently reared, tenderly cared for all her
life, living in a cabin where once slaves had lived. And I had come back
to her, to tell a story such as mine!
"I hope," said he, hesitating, "that all these matters may presently be
adjusted. But first I ask you to influence your mother to come back into
the place and take up her residence."
I smiled slowly. "You hardly understand her," I said. "I doubt if my
influence will suffice for that. But I shall meet you again." I was
turning away.
"Your mother, I believe, is not here--she went over to Wallingford. I
think it is the day when she goes to the little church--"
"Yes, I know. If you will excuse me I shall ride over to see if I can
find her." He bowed. Presently I was hurrying down the road again. It
seemed to me that I could never tolerate the sight of a stranger as
master at Cowles' Farms.