CHAPTER XXV.
THE PACKAGE OF OLD LETTERS
"I think you once told me, Uncle Richard," Abner said, later in the conversation with his uncle, "that Andrew Hite visited Lawsonville while my mother was living with you."
"Yes, he did," Dudley replied, "a week or so before she and Page were married."
"Did he learn of the cruel deception of which she was the victim?"
"Yes, I told him that, and of her approaching marriage and intended removal to Kentucky. She was in poor health, and I feared a decline, but she and Page thought her best chance for recovery was to marry, and to find a new home far from anything that could remind her of her connection with your father."
"This," said Abner, "explains Andrew Hite's will. He thought that my mother, being his nearest relative, had the first claim upon him; but, in case she died before he did—which doubtless appeared probable, owing to her frail health—he preferred that his property should go to his half-sister's child, rather than to me, the bastard son of a dastard father. I have, therefore, morally no claim whatsoever to this inheritance, and I will never touch a farthing of it. Oh, why," he went on bitterly, "was I not told, years ago, my true history? Had I always known it, the burden of shame which is my only lawful inheritance would have gradually adjusted itself to my strength, and would not now have such crushing weight. It is the contrast between what I thought I was and what I am that is the bitterest ingredient in my cup of misery."
"I deserve your reproaches, my poor boy," said Richard Dudley, sorrowfully; "but Heaven is my witness that my only motive in keeping this from you was to spare you shame and sorrow."
"Ah, I know that," cried Abner, "and it is ungrateful and cowardly to reproach you, my more than father. It was the suddenness of the shock that made me utter that unmanly plaint. Forgive me. I know you have been actuated in all that you have done by your regard for me."
"As to this inheritance," said Dudley presently, "it is lawfully yours. It was left to your mother, and you inherit it, not directly from Andrew Hite, but from her."
"No, no! The whole tenor of the will was to cut me out of all share in the estate. It would be infamous in me, knowing what I do, to claim it. Besides, my mother died before coming into possession of this property. How, then, could I inherit through her, when it was never actually hers?"
"Who, then, is heir under the will?" argued Dudley. "Not Sarah Pepper; for it is clearly set forth in the document that she inherits only under the condition that your mother be dead, leaving no legitimate heirs, before the date of the will."
"Then, the will must be declared null and void," firmly asserted the young man. "It is a mad will, anyway."
"In that case," retorted the doctor, "you being the only child of your mother, the next of kin, are, as you once pointed out, the rightful heir—at least, you are co-heir with Sarah Pepper."
But Abner stoutly adhered to his determination to have nothing to do with the property. It, therefore, became imperative to ascertain the whereabouts of Sarah Jane Pepper, or her heirs, if any.
That night Abner looked through his mother's papers. He found several letters beginning, "My Darling Wife:—" or, "My Own Mary:—." The signature to each of these epistles was, "Your affectionate husband, John Logan." The tone of each letter was thoughtful tender, solicitous. "These do not read like the letters of a villain," Abner thought, a momentary gleam of hope penetrating the thick gloom; "but then, the evidence to the contrary is conclusive. I must not allow myself to hope. I do not wonder, though, that my poor mother was deceived; for such words as these would mislead any simple, trusting heart like hers. He did love her, I suppose, as well as his craven, selfish nature would admit of his loving any one."
The last letter in the package gave the young man, alone in the low attic room, a shock of amazement. It was dated "Chestnut Hall, February 1, 1782," and was signed, "Your affectionate cousin, Sarah." It stated that the writer had returned to Chestnut Hall, after the death of the faithful Myra, and that she was now living alone with the negro attendants, in the home of her childhood; that she was betrothed to a man who held the rank of major in the Continental army. This man, she wrote, had been badly wounded the spring before in a skirmish with Arnold's raiders, near her home. He had been carried to the Hall, and she had nursed him back to complete recovery; and he was now in Kentucky looking for a suitable location for their future home. He intended to return in the course of a year, marry her, and remove to the new home across the mountains. The name of this man was Hiram Gilcrest. The letter likewise said that Major Gilcrest knew her to be a widow Logan, whose husband had fallen in battle, but that she had told her future husband none of the miserable details of her connection with John Logan except that he had treated her with great cruelty. She had extracted a promise from Major Gilcrest that no one in their new home in Kentucky should know that she had been a widow, and in order that this fact of her widowhood might the more easily be concealed, she had induced him to agree that if ever the question arose as to her maiden name, it was to be given as Jane Temple. Another motive, Sarah wrote, for this change of name from Pepper to Temple, was in order to prevent anybody knowing of her relationship to Fletcher Pepper, who had rendered the name of Pepper odious to all who had ever heard it, by his desertion of the patriot army to join the traitor Arnold.
GENEALOGICAL TABLE
Until he read that letter, Abner had, half unconsciously, clung to the hope that even though his father had been a dastardly villain who had wrecked the happiness of two trusting women, it might still be possible to establish his own legitimacy. Now, even that shadowy hope must be abandoned. "What!" he thought despairingly, "prove my right to wear my father's name at the cost of the fair repute of Betty's mother! Never, never! Rather will I accept the bar sinister for my own escutcheon."
He could bear no more. Thrusting the papers roughly aside, he rushed down the stairs and out into the darkness. Here, throwing himself face downward upon the ground, his hands dug into the sod, he cursed the day upon which he was born. But at last the soft serenity of the starry June night soothed him into a better mood. He arose, and, with a prayer for strength and guidance, re-entered the house.
"My first duty must be to write to Major Gilcrest and Betty," was his first waking thought next morning. "My precious, loving Betty, I must give you up; for even should you, after knowing my history, be willing to marry me, I love you too well to allow one so sweet and pure, so high in worldly position, to link her fate with a base-born earthworm such as I am. O Father in heaven, give me strength to do the right! Uncle Richard must take the necessary steps toward establishing Mrs. Gilcrest in possession of the Hite estates," he concluded after more reflection. "Not that she has any claim under the will, but because she (barring myself) is Andrew Hite's next of kin. However, all this is Uncle Richard's affair, not mine; but I hope the business can be accomplished without revealing to any one that dark page in Jane Gilcrest's early life. Betsy, at any cost, must be spared the knowledge."
Abner wrote to Major Gilcrest, renouncing all claim to Betsy, and enclosing a note for her, which he requested her father to give to her.
After this duty was performed, the young man fell into a state of dull despair which benumbed every faculty. Holmes has said, "A great calamity is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. It stains backward through all the leaves we have turned over in the book of life, before its blot of tears and of blood is dry upon the page we are turning." For weeks after Abner had learned the secret of his birth, it seemed to him that this blighting, blackening misery which had laid low his pride, and killed every hope, permeated, not only all his past, but all his future. He seemed to have been born for nothing else but to experience this agony of loss and shame. He could make no plans. The future stretched out before him a desert waste; for, with the downfall of family pride and the loss of Betty, his ambition likewise had perished.
He was finally aroused by a communication from James Anson Drane. This communication stated that, owing to certain facts which had recently come into the writer's possession, he must decline to act any longer as "Mr. Logan's" agent. These facts, as Mr. Drane wrote, were as follows: The Mary Belle Hollis Page named in the will of the late Colonel Andrew Hite, of Crestlands, Sterling County, Virginia, had died and been buried at the village of Centerton, Virginia, March 9, 1782, nearly two months prior to the execution of the will; she had left no legitimate issue; and, therefore, Sarah Jane Pepper, daughter of Sarah Thornton, and now the wife of Hiram Gilcrest, of Cane Ridge, Bourbon County, Kentucky, was the sole lawful heir to the estates of the said Colonel Andrew Hite, deceased.
Mr. Drane then went on to give an account of the manner of Mary Page's death, and to explain that it was not until immediately after her burial at Centerton that her husband, Marshall Page, accompanied by his brother and sister-in-law and his little stepson, had gone on into Kentucky. Enclosed in Drane's letter was a loose slip of paper containing a copy of the half-effaced inscription upon the oak slab which marked the grave at Centerton. The slip was headed "Copied at Centerton by James Anson Drane, from the slab marking the grave of Mary Belle Hollis Page."
This communication served to awaken Abner from his apathy; for the statement conveyed in it respecting the time and place of Mary Page's death, if not proven false, would tend to very seriously reflect upon the integrity of Richard Dudley, executor of the Hite will, and would probably render him liable to arrest and trial on the charge of being party to a fraud.
Abner was thoroughly convinced that the statement in Drane's letter, concerning Mary's death, was false. He had full confidence in Richard Dudley's clear-sightedness and uprightness. Moreover, his own intuition and his faint recollection of episodes in his own early life made him sure that his mother had died that August night in the stockade fortress of Bryan Station. These dim, tantalizing recollections which had been first partially aroused that November night by Gilcrest's and Rogers' recital of the horrors of the famous Indian uprising of 1782, had been kindled into stronger life by what his uncle had recently told him of the attack upon the cabin of the Pages, the flight to Bryan's, the death there of Mary Page, and the return of her little orphaned boy to his Lawsonville people. But, although his faith in his uncle's honor and in his own intuitions and memories were to himself "confirmation strong as Holy Writ," they would not be accepted as evidence in a court of law. Hence it now behooved him and Dr. Dudley to learn something more of Marshall Page's brother.
Neither Richard nor Rachel Dudley knew anything of the man—not even his Christian name.
"This Page and his wife did not start for Kentucky from Lawsonville," Dr. Dudley said. "They came from Maryland, and joined Marshall and Mary at some appointed place—I do not now recall—on the road, many miles from Lawsonville."
"But when the man returned with me," asked Abner, "did you not then learn his full name, and something of his history?"
"I did not see him," was Dudley's reply. "I was away from home, and he stayed only an hour or so after committing you into your aunt's care. She was too shocked by the tidings he brought and by her pity and care for you, cold, sick, half starved, and bewildered as you were by the long, rough travel, to think of anything else."
"Could it be possible," thought Abner, "that the man deceived the Dudleys in regard to the woman who had died at Bryan's, and that it was his own wife instead of Marshall's? No, that could not be," he concluded; "he could have had no possible motive for the deception. Surely, there must be numbers of persons still living who were in the siege of Bryan Station, or the battle of Blue Licks, and who could not only remember this man's full name, but other circumstances that will be of service to us now. Mason Rogers can, I'm certain, find some person or persons who can give the evidence we need. I will communicate with him; and, in the meanwhile, I will go to Centerton."
Abner returned from Centerton without having gleaned any information that would throw additional light upon the mystery. He was further perplexed that no reply to his letter to Rogers had reached Williamsburg.
"I suppose I will have to go to Cane Ridge for information," he concluded when another month had passed bringing no word from Rogers, "although my soul revolts against revisiting the place of my lost happiness. But go I must, unless I soon hear from Mr. Rogers. I will tell everything to dear Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. They are noble-hearted, discreet and sympathetic, and they will still be my staunch friends. I will also while there make some disposition of my farm—I think I can easily find a buyer or a renter for it. Afterwards, I do not know what I shall do, nor does it matter much, either, what becomes of a nameless, baseborn—no, no!" he broke off, ashamed of his momentary weakness. "I will not let such unworthy sentiments master me. It is unmanly to give way like this, and is a wrong to my noble, unselfish foster mother and father. And even if they were not still left me, I must still be true to myself, and rise above the shameful circumstances which would pull me down. It would not do for me to return permanently to Cane Ridge. It would try my strength too far, to be daily in the neighborhood of my lost darling; nor would it be kind to her and her family for me to do so; and it would be a source of embarrassment and trouble to the Rogers family, and would perhaps estrange them still more from their old neighbors at Oaklands. But I will not hide my head in some far-away, obscure corner where my birth and antecedents are unknown. No! Here is my battleground. Here, where I received the blow which bereft me of my love and my position, will I fight the fight, and attain the victory. I will take up the study of the law, as Uncle Richard always wanted me to do; and I will strive to become useful and honored in my profession. I can nevermore be happy; but I can, and I will, make the name of Logan an honored one, in spite of all."
CHAPTER XXVI.
SPRINGFIELD PRESBYTERY
Against the jealousy and strife which arose after the religious excitement induced by the revival meetings of the previous year, Barton Stone and other ministers lifted up their voices in protest, urging that the bitter discussion of doctrinal points should cease. This only turned the tide of warfare against themselves, and they soon became the objects of bitter invective, because they had ceased to teach speculative theology, and labored instead to show the people a more liberal view of the redemptive plan.
Among the ministers who at this time taught a free salvation offered to all men on the same conditions, was Richard McNemar, a member of the Presbytery of Ohio, which had carried him through a trial for preaching what was deemed to be anti-Calvinistic doctrine. By this presbytery his case was referred to the Synod of Lexington. Stone and three other ministers of the same views, perceiving in this trial of McNemar a blow aimed against themselves, drew up a protest against such proceedings. Then, declaring their freedom from synodical authority, they withdrew from the jurisdiction, but not from the communion, of the organization; although several unsuccessful attempts were made, before the synod convened, to reclaim them in view of their record as able and influential ministers.
In due time the synod met in Lexington, and took up McNemar's case. Stone and the other three ministers presented the protest to the synod through its moderator. A committee was sent to confer and to reason with the protesting ministers. One immediate result of the conference was that Matthew Houston, a member of the committee, became convinced of the justice of the views of Barton Stone and his associates, and became an advocate of their cause.
After prolonged discussion, the synod suspended the five ministers, upon the ground that they had departed from the established creed of their church. The ministers insisted, however, that as they had already protested and withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the synod, that body had no power to suspend them—"no more," to quote Stone's words, "than had the Pope of Rome to suspend Luther after he had done the same thing; for if Luther's suspension was valid, then the entire Protestant succession was out of order, and in that case the synod had no power; so that the act of suspension in this case was utterly void."
The action of the synod created great excitement and much dissension throughout the country, and not only churches, but families, were divided. Many persons, convinced that the turmoil was produced, not by the Bible, but by human, authoritative creeds, were henceforth set against such creeds, as being disturbers of religious liberty and detrimental to Christian unity.
At the first regular appointment at Cane Ridge, after this action of the synod, Barton Stone tendered his resignation of the ministry of that church. It was not accepted, however, for he had, during his six years' ministry, labored to good purpose, and, with the exception of Hiram Gilcrest and Shadrac Landrum, the church-members were all in harmony with their minister.
As soon as the church refused to accept Stone's resignation, Hiram Gilcrest demanded that his name and that of his wife should be stricken from the church books. The church would have granted them letters of dismissal, but these he would not accept. Shadrac Landrum, though equally bitter in his opposition to Stone's teaching, did not, when it came to the test, withdraw from the church. Thus Gilcrest stood alone; and it was a bitter day for the stern and narrow, but conscientious, old man, when he found himself thus deserted by his only ally, and turned adrift from the church of which, until two years before, he had been the most influential member.
Soon after their separation from the Lexington Synod, the five ministers constituted themselves into a separate organization, which they styled "Springfield Presbytery." In a pamphlet entitled "The Apology of the Springfield Presbytery," they stated the cause which had led to the separation from the Lexington body; their objections to confessions of faith of human origin; their abandonment from henceforth of all human authoritative creeds; and their adherence to the Bible alone as the only rule of faith and practice. It has been asserted that this pamphlet was the first public declaration of religious freedom in the western hemisphere, and the first in the world since that of Martin Luther was set at naught by the act of nullification of Augsburg. The pamphlet produced much inquiry throughout the country. It was speedily republished in several other States, and it soon found many adherents among both preachers and laymen of all denominations.
Under the name of "Springfield Presbytery," the ministers who belonged to the organization continued to preach and to plant churches for about one year. Later, perceiving that the name and the organization itself "savored of a party spirit," they, in the words of Barton Stone, "with the man-made creeds threw overboard the man-made name, and took the name 'Christian' as the name given to the disciples by divine appointment first at Antioch."1"Thus divested of all party name and party creed," continues Barton Stone, "and trusting alone to God and the word of his grace, we became at first a laughing-stock and a byword to the sects around, all prophesying our speedy annihilation.... Yet through much tribulation and opposition we advanced, and churches and preachers were multiplied."
This was the beginning, in the dawn of the nineteenth century, of that great reformatory or restoratory movement, of which another writer says: "The first churches planted and organized since the grand apostacy, with the Bible as the only creed or church book, and the name 'Christian' as the only family name, were organized in Kentucky in the year 1804;"2and of these churches so planted and organized, Cane Ridge, Bourbon County, was the first.
1See Appendix, p. 269.
2John A. Gano.
CHAPTER XXVII.
BETSY DECLINES THE HONOR
For Betsy Gilcrest the year of 1803 dragged along in dreary monotony. All through the radiant freshness of June, the rich glow of July, the intense, white heat of August, and the mellow charm of early autumn the temperature in her veins had been steadily declining; for she had no message from her betrothed.
In June her father had received Abner's letter. Its manly resignation of Betty, and its undertone of hopeless sadness, touched Major Gilcrest; for now that his soul was no longer vexed with apprehension for his daughter's future, his better nature asserted itself, and he felt the most profound pity for the unfortunate youth in his undeserved disgrace. For the time, Major Gilcrest even forgot his suspicions that Abner had been in league with Wilkinson, Sebastian and Powers in any traitorous designs against the Government.
A note for Betsy had been enclosed in the letter to her father. He thought best to withhold this note, lest its tender sadness might have the opposite effect to that which he desired; and, instead of causing her to forget her lover, it might make her cling the more tenaciously to the memory of her lost happiness.
During all these months Major Gilcrest had taken no steps toward establishing his wife's claim to the Hite inheritance; nor had James Drane made any move toward this end, since his letter declining to act as Abner's agent. The reason for this stay of proceedings was due to Mrs. Gilcrest. Her husband, while refraining from entering into full particulars, had told her enough of his hopes and intentions to cause her the greatest apprehension. If this claim was pushed forward openly, she thought, not only must the world learn her real maiden name, and that she had been a widow Logan, but, what was far worse to the weak, timid woman, her husband would learn that she had deceived him all these years about her clandestine marriage, and regarding all the shameful details of her connection with John Logan. She begged and prayed Major Gilcrest to make no claim to the inheritance. They did not need it, and the publicity and comment and surmise that would follow, if he tried to enforce her claim, would kill her, she said. He did not consent at once, but finally, when she became so agitated as to fall really ill, he, fearing that further agitation in her weak condition might prove actually fatal to her, decided to make no public move in the matter, for the present, at least—until her nerves and strength had recovered their usual tone.
Thus time wore on, and each succeeding day as it passed, bringing no tidings to poor Betty, carried hope and love and happiness further from her grasp. Oaklands had never before seemed desolate and drear; and she could not have believed, had she been told, that she could ever look with ungracious eyes upon the stately home of her childhood. She missed the boisterous gayety of her brothers. John Calvin and Martin were students at Cambridge University, Silas and Philip were absent all day at the neighborhood school, and only little Matthew was left at home. None of the family were allowed to attend services at Cane Ridge meeting-house; Betsy was forbidden to hold intercourse with the Rogers family; and she had no heart for any of the little merrymakings of the neighborhood. Her parents urged another visit to Mary Winston, but to this Betsy would not consent; for at the Winstons James Drane would be an almost daily visitor, and Betsy now shared fully her lover's distrust of the young lawyer.
One morning in early October, Betsy, sitting languidly with her sewing in the long side porch, saw Mr. Drane ride up the avenue. She at once gathered up her work and slipped away to her room, where she sat expecting every moment a summons to come down. When an hour had passed, she supposed that the visitor had departed, and she was folding up her work, intending to go for a ramble through the woods—for her chief solace now was to revisit the spot where she, nearly a year before, had plighted her troth—when little Matthew came with a message from her father that she was to come down at once to the parlor. "An' I mussen tum back wid oo, pappy says," added the little fellow; "I'se to doe to Mammy Dilsey an' det my face washed, an' my hair turled, an' a c'ean apawn on."
"Who's there, baby, besides father? and where's mother?"
"Her's dere too, an' Mistah Drane, an' he tissed me, an' say I'se a fine 'ittle man, an' he will tek me a nice wide on his pitty b'ack hawse; so huwy up, sisser, an' tum an' see him, so's we tan doe a-widin'."
When the girl entered the parlor, she saw at once that this was to be a momentous interview. Her mother, dressed in her best silk gown, but looking pale and nervous, was talking to Mr. Drane, who was seated beside her on the sofa; while her father, looking more bland than she had seen him for a long time, was slowly pacing the floor.
Mrs. Gilcrest gave her daughter an appealing, deprecating look as the girl entered, and then sank back on the sofa with her hands twitching nervously. Drane rose at once, and, stepping briskly across the room to meet Betsy, bowed long before her, and then extended his hand. After a moment's hesitation, she gave him hers in return, which he with graceful gallantry carried to his lips. Then, still holding her hand, he led her across the room and placed an arm-chair for her facing her father. After a slight hesitation, Drane was about to leave the room, but Major Gilcrest quietly invited him to remain, whereupon the young man retired to a position in a window-seat.
"My daughter," said Gilcrest, in his most stately manner, "our esteemed young friend has done us the honor of seeking an alliance with this family by a marriage with yourself; and, like the honorable gentleman he is, he has, before addressing you, laid his proposal before your parents. I have desired him to remain in the room that he may hear me tell you that there is no one to whom I would more willingly intrust my daughter's future. You have known him long, and, I dare say, esteem him highly; for he has everything to recommend him to your favor. Your mother and I have given our cordial approval, and we will now leave him to plead his cause with you. Knowing him as I do, and knowing you, I feel sure he will not plead in vain. Come, my dear," he said to his wife, "we will now withdraw."
If Gilcrest by this confident manner thought to overawe his daughter and surprise her into acceptance, he was speedily undeceived.
"Stop, father! Stop, mother!" Betty cried, rising from her chair and facing her father, her lips firmly set, her face pale, determination in every line of her graceful figure. "What I have to say to Mr. Drane must be said in your hearing." Gilcrest, surprised at the firmness of her voice and the determination and dignity of her bearing, stood still, facing her; Mrs. Gilcrest sank limply into the nearest chair. Betsy continued: "I am sensible of the honor Mr. Drane does me in seeking my hand; but I am surprised at his persisting in a suit which he must know is displeasing to me. More than once has he so plainly intimated his intentions that I could not fail to understand, and just as plainly have I intimated that I could not favor his suit. I now, in your presence, say what I have so often hinted to him—that I can never be his wife."
"Tut! tut! girl, have done with these unseemly airs!" said her father, sharply. "You are not capable of judging. Your parents know best what is good for you."
"No, sir," said Betty, firmly, "in this matter which involves my whole future, not even my parents shall choose for me. And you know, too, that my love is given and my troth plighted to another."
"Stop such maudlin raving! Your 'troth plighted'! Tut! you do not know what you are saying; and as for your love, it is but the puling sentimentality of a silly girl, which you will soon outgrow."
"Sir," said Betsy, turning toward the crestfallen young lawyer, "I beg that you leave us. I have given you my answer; it is irrevocable. Though humbly thanking you for the honor you would confer upon me, I can not be your wife."
"No, no! don't go, James. The girl does not know her own mind; but, by heaven, she shall be made to hear reason!" exclaimed Gilcrest, furiously. "Wait, man, I beg of you; I wish to confer further with you. As for you, you undutiful, foolish girl, you may leave the room while I talk with Mr. Drane."
"No," said James, "it will be better for me to leave you now," and, bowing low, he took up his hat and departed.
"But, James, I—we——" stammered Hiram; but the discomfited suitor was out of hearing.
Gilcrest turned angrily to his daughter. "You self-willed, troublesome baggage!" he ejaculated.
"Father," said Betty, quietly, "it is of no use for you to storm in this way. I have always been a dutiful daughter; but in this matter I mean to decide for myself."
"Why don't you speak to her, Jane?" he asked, turning to his wife. "Why do you sit there listless and dumb? Have you no influence over the girl?" But Mrs. Gilcrest was dissolved in tears, and leaned back tremblingly in her chair, saying never a word.
"Is everything going against me?" groaned the old man, pacing the room excitedly. "I'm thwarted and set at naught on every hand—church, neighbors, friends. I'll sell out and go back to Massachusetts. To think that my only daughter!—Truly a man's worst foes are often those of his own household."
"I grieve to cross you, father," answered Betsy, "for you have until lately been fond and indulgent."
Trying to control himself to speak gently, he continued: "Betsy, my daughter, believe me, I know what is best for you. As James Drane's wife, you will be tenderly loved and indulged in every luxury, and have every whim gratified; and I do think that my heartfelt desire in this matter should incline you to at least consider well before you reject a man whom any other girl in the State would be proud to accept."
"Dear father," said Betty, going up to him and laying her hand beseechingly upon his arm, "I can never marry James Anson Drane."
The old man wavered as he saw the tears in his daughter's eyes, and felt the clinging touch of her fingers. "There, there!" he said soothingly, as he tenderly touched her wet cheek, "dry your eyes, dear, and be comforted. It is only your welfare and happiness I seek. We'll say nothing more just now; after awhile you'll see differently; and I predict that before many months have gone by, you will not only be reconciled to marrying James, but will be happy in the shelter of his love, and will thank me for having urged you to accept him."
"Never!" exclaimed Betsy, drawing back defiantly. "I shall never again listen to him, nor to you even, upon this subject. I dislike him exceedingly, and I love Abner Dudley with my whole heart. Marry James Drane! The very thought of such a thing fills me with loathing. I have no confidence in his truth and integrity. I would beg my bread rather than be his wife."
"I'll lock you up!" cried Gilcrest, exasperated beyond bounds, his momentary tenderness completely vanquished by the girl's words. "I'll starve you on bread and water, you insolent, outrageous fool!"
"O Hiram! Hiram! don't!" wailed Mrs. Gilcrest. "Don't be so hard. I can not bear it! Oh, what shall I do! what shall I do!" and she wept and trembled, and wrung her hands, until her husband and her daughter were alarmed.
"This is your work," he said to Betsy, as he bent over his hysterical wife. "You are breaking your mother's heart, you obstinate vixen. Ring the bell for Dilsey, at once. Remain where you are, until I return," he added to Betsy when Aunt Dilsey had obeyed the summons, and was assisting him to carry his wife upstairs.
His anger had cooled somewhat when he returned to the parlor half an hour later. "I can not, of course, force you to marry any one," he said to his daughter; "nor for the present will I urge upon your consideration the suit of Mr. Drane, against whom you have taken so unreasoning and unjust a prejudice; but there's another point upon which I must do my duty without shrinking. I command you to give up thinking of Abner Dudley, now and forever."
"I can give you no such obedience," Betsy replied. "I am his promised wife; but even though loving him as I do, I would give him back his troth, if you could show just and adequate reason why I should. Instead, you give no reason whatever."
"Is not my wish reason enough?" he asked, desiring to spare her the humiliating knowledge of Abner's low birth, and the fact that he had given her back her freedom.
"No, sir, it is not. I am no longer a child, to be made to obey you blindly and unquestioningly."
"Then, if you will insist upon knowing my reasons, you willful girl, you shall be enlightened. Your precious lover has renounced you; and, what is more, he will never show his face in this community again."
"No, no! It can't be true. He is loyal. I will believe in him above all the world. He will return. I know he will," cried Betsy, shrinking and paling, but still strong in her faith.
"But he has renounced you, Betsy, my daughter. He has written me that he must give you up."
"Let me see the letter," said Betsy, still unbelieving.
Gilcrest crossed the hall to his office, and in a few seconds returned with Abner's letter. "I would have spared you this, my child, if possible," her father said as she eagerly seized the letter.
"Oh, what lie is this they have told you, my persecuted, darling Abner?" she exclaimed. "You, my proud, high-minded, noble lover, a bastard! Never, never, never! It's all a vile plot to cheat you of your betrothed wife and your inheritance. Ah! I know whose work this is. It is that smiling, treacherous Judas, James Anson Drane. I feel it, I know it."
"You rave, my miserable, deluded child," Gilcrest said sadly, "but even though you are for the moment well-nigh bereft of reason by the shock of hearing that your lover has given you up, you must not in your bitterness utter so wicked, so utterly unfounded an accusation against an honorable man who loves you truly and would make you his wife."
Nothing her father could say could induce her to believe that Abner was not laboring under some delusion about his being base-born. She could give no reason for this belief, she said; but her own heart and her own instincts told her it was all a mistake, or else a scheme to separate her and her lover. "This will all be cleared up, I feel that it will," she said again and again, "and he will come back to me soon, and without a stain upon his name. I intend to write to him at once, and tell him that though all the world should forsake him, I will still be true to him, and will believe, too, in his right to wear an honorable name."
Her father reasoned and pleaded in vain. He finally lost all patience, and grew angrier than he had ever been with her. "Go to your room, you unreasonable fool," he finally said. "Go! No longer offend my sight by your presence—but listen, first, and remember I will be obeyed. I forbid your writing one line to that base-born vagabond. Further, I forbid your leaving these premises or holding any communication with any one except members of this household, until you pledge me your word of honor to have nothing more to do with Abner Dudley."
"Then, I'm a prisoner for life," answered Betty; "for so long as I live and breathe, I shall love him. I mean to write to him as soon as I can manage to escape your vigilance and tyranny long enough to post a letter to him, and when he comes back to claim me, I will marry him in spite of you and that villain, James Drane."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AT THE "BLUE HERON"
Upon the evening preceding Abner's contemplated return to Kentucky, to wind up his business there, and to hunt for evidence in regard to the Page brothers, he strolled down to the "Blue Heron," a tavern in an adjacent street. Entering the tavern, he found himself in the midst of rather an exciting scene, occasioned by a bet just made as to the relative height of two men who were standing leaning on the bar. Both men were of unusual height. At a casual glance the younger of the two, a frequenter of the tavern, would appear to be the taller, by reason of his extreme slenderness of build. The older man was a stranger. The two took their places in the center of the room, back to back; and it was then found that the older man was the taller by nearly an inch. Upon being measured, his exact height was ascertained to be six feet, two inches.
"Seems like I've shrunk some sence I wuz a young man," said the old fellow in a jocular tone, as he pocketed the stakes; "for then I measured six foot, two an' a ha'f, in my sock feet. Thar wuz only one feller in our reg'ment taller'n me, an' that wuz John Logan—'long John' we called him to 'stinguish him frum t'other John Logan, who wuz oncommon tall too, but nigh two inch shorter than 'long John.'"
For a moment Abner was unable to utter a word; then, under cover of the noise made by the hilarious group standing at the bar, drinking at the expense of the man who had lost the wager, he drew the old man to one side, and asked, "Were the two John Logans you speak of related?"
"Not thet I knows on, stranger—yes, sence I come to think on it, they wuz said to be cousins. I remember, too, thet they hailed frum the same place—somewhars in Pennsylvany."
"Can you tell me any more about them?" asked Abner, by a mighty effort managing to control his excitement, and to speak calmly.
"I don't know much uv Jack Logan, as the shorter uv the two wuz called," replied the stranger, who gave his name as Sam Butler, "'cept thet he wuz a fine feller, an' a brave soldier who wuz killed on the same day, in the same fight, as long John wuz. They both fell at Monmouth Court-house. But I knew long John well. He wuz my messmate an' marchin' comrid, an' we slept many a night side by side on the ground, under the same blanket, when we wuz fortunit 'nough to hev blankets to kiver us. Why, I wuz by his side when he fell, killed by a bullet through his heart. I drug him offen the field, an' thet night holped bury him in the trench whar we laid so many uv our men whut lost ther lives in thet hot, awful fight."
"Where was he from?"
"He wuz borned in Kenelworth, Pennsylvany; but his folks moved 'round consider'ble. They wuz sort o' sheftless, I should jedge, an' never stayed long in any place."
"Was he married?"
"He hed a wife in Philadelphy, though I hed never hearn him speak uv her. After he wuz dead, I found in one uv his pockets a worn letter, months old, frum her, dated Philadelphy; and I got her word uv his death, though frum her letter I gethered thet they hedn't been gittin' on well together, an' thet she 'peared to think he had misused her, an' keered nothin' fur her. He wuz a reckless, drinkin', high-tempered, rough feller; but, Lordee! how brave, when it come to fightin'! He wuzn't feared o' old Nick hisse'f or eny uv his imps."
"What was his wife's name?"
"Blest ef I kin re-collect, stranger. It's twenty-odd year ago, an' you see, I——"
"Was it Mary?"
"No, I don't think thet wuz it."
"Was it Sarah?"
"Yes, thet's it. Sarah—Sarah Jane, thet's it. I'm pos'tive it wuz Sarah Jane. Did you know eny uv her people?"
"Yes, I think so," Abner replied, "but I'm still more interested in the other John Logan."
"Well, sir, ez I said, I knew nothin' uv him, more'n whut I fust told you; but, stop, Peter Stump wuz his comrid, an' he——"
"Is this Peter Stump living, and, if so, where?" was the next anxious inquiry.
"Why, yes, he's alive an' a-kickin'; leastways, he wuz last Monday three weeks ago, when I seen him at Pockville. He lives two mile south uv thar, on the road to Richmond."
That night our much-tried hero went once more to the old box in the garret, and took from it the miniature of his father, and the letter to Mary, written the night before the battle. With these in his pocket, Abner the next morning went to Pockville. He had no difficulty in finding Peter Stump, and was soon in possession of information which filled him with renewed life and joy. Stump recognized the miniature as that of his messmate, John (or Jack) Logan. Stump remembered the other John Logan, and said that in features and sometimes in expression the two Logans were much alike, but that in complexion and disposition they were utterly dissimilar. Jack Logan was of dark and sallow complexion, had curly black hair, and was about six feet, one inch in height. He was reserved, quiet, sober in his habits, and peaceably inclined. The other John had a ruddy complexion, hair a shade lighter than his cousin's, and a temper so fiery and quarrelsome that he was forever in some broil with his comrades. He was a hard drinker, too, and a gambler. He was nearly two inches taller than Jack Logan, and was the tallest man in the regiment. Jack Logan, up to the beginning of the war, had always lived in Kenelworth, but the other John Logan, although born in Kenelworth, had lived a wandering life. Other facts which Stump revealed explained the message in Jack Logan's last letter to Mary. Stump and Logan had been close friends, and the former had learned from his friend the reason of the hasty marriage. Mary Hollis, at the time, was living with her cousins, two old maidens, who were ardent British sympathizers, and, therefore, did their utmost to prejudice the young girl against her lover, until he, fearing that if his sweetheart remained under the influence of her Tory relatives, she would finally be estranged from him, persuaded her to marry him at once. It was just after the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and Logan, elated by these two victories for the American cause, was inclined, like many other hopeful young patriots, to believe that the war would soon be over. So, although he knew that for the present he must be separated from his bride much of the time, and that he was but poorly able to provide for her, rashly persuaded her to marry him. As the months went by, and the Continental army, instead of achieving fresh victories, was suffering loss and increasing hardship, Logan grew more and more remorseful and unhappy about his young wife and infant son. The night before the battle of Monmouth, he seemed to have a premonition of his fate on the morrow, and was more than ever troubled over the future for his wife and babe. He wrote his wife, asking forgiveness for having persuaded her into the imprudent marriage, promising that if his life was spared, he would try to atone to her for all she had suffered, and begging her in any case to find shelter with her sister until the war would be over. After Logan was killed, Stump had himself managed to convey this letter to Mary at Morristown; but he could only stay a few minutes with her, as his regiment was hurrying eastward. During the Virginia campaign several years later, when Stump's regiment was with Lafayette around Yorktown—about twenty miles from Lawsonville—he had intended to ask for leave of absence, and go to see how it fared with his former comrade's widow; but, hearing that she had married again and removed to Kentucky, he did not go to Lawsonville.
When Abner Logan returned to Williamsburg the day after his conference with Peter Stump, he found a letter from Mason Rogers. Mr. Rogers wrote that he had questioned several men who had been in the fight at Blue Licks and who remembered the Page brothers well. The elder brother was Marshall, the name of the younger was Marcemus. Rogers further wrote that two women who had been in Bryan Station during the siege and who were now living in Fayette County, remembered that Marcemus Page, after his escape from the Indians, had come back to Bryan's for the little orphan boy whom he took to the mother's people in Virginia. These witnesses could swear that it was Marshall Page's wife who had died at the station in August, 1782, while the men were in pursuit of the Indians. Moreover, one of the women remembered that Marcemus Page had told her that he intended, after placing Marshall's little stepson in the care of the boy's Virginia relations, to go on to Maryland. The woman also said that Marcemus had told her that his own wife, who had died that spring on the way into Kentucky, was a native of Maryland, from Charles County.
After hearing what these women said, Rogers, knowing that Barton Stone was a native of Charles County, Maryland, had then gone to see him. Stone, though but a lad when his family had removed from Charles County, remembered the Page family. There were two brothers, Marshall and Marcemus, and Marcemus had married Mary Beale, a cousin of Stone's mother; and soon afterward had left Maryland with his wife to join his brother somewhere in Virginia, intending to go on with him to settle in the backwoods of Kentucky.
After receiving Rogers' letter, Abner Logan lost no time in returning to Kentucky. The day following his arrival at Cane Ridge, he sent Major Gilcrest a note asking for an interview. The messenger brought back the note unopened and the verbal message from Gilcrest declining to hold any intercourse with Abner or to receive any written communication from him.
Rogers then advised communicating with the Major through a lawyer, but Abner felt that he must see Betty before he could decide upon this course. He contrived, through Aunt Dilsey, to convey a note to the girl. She wrote back that she would meet him that afternoon at their former trysting-place. Here, accordingly, the two lovers met, after a separation of over half a year, and renewed their vows of love and fealty.
Abner gave Betsy a full account of everything, and consulted with her as to the best way to communicate with her father; for it was imperative that Major Gilcrest should immediately be made acquainted with Abner's true history and his right to the Hite inheritance. Betsy urged her lover not to place his affairs in the hands of a lawyer until she had first tried what she could do with her father. She also thought that her mother, first of all, should be told everything. To this Abner agreed.
That night Betsy had a long talk with her mother. Poor Mrs. Gilcrest, who for many years had been oppressed by the dark secret of her early life, felt now, when she had learned all that her daughter had to reveal, as if a great burden was lifted from her spirit. She rejoiced not only in the certainty that her own clandestine marriage was valid, and that her cousin had been a lawfully wedded wife, but also because of the knowledge that Abner Logan, whom she had always greatly liked, was the son of her well-beloved cousin and foster sister, Mary Hollis, and that he was in every respect a suitable mate for Betsy.
In her relief and joy she felt that she now had courage to confess all to her husband. The next evening she nerved herself for this ordeal.
Mrs. Gilcrest could not have chosen a less favorable occasion for her purpose; for Major Gilcrest had just learned, through one of the servants, that Betsy had met her lover the afternoon before. He was furiously exasperated that his daughter had thus set at naught his commands; and he raved in so frenzied a style of disobedience, deception, and of the infamy of any girl who would hold clandestine meetings with a man, that poor, cowardly Mrs. Gilcrest's newly acquired valor evaporated before the fire of her husband's wrath, and she dared not confess the secret she had withheld during all their married life. She did, however, intercede for Abner, venturing her conviction that in birth and character he was fit to wed with Betsy. But the poor creature was so cowed by her habitual awe of her lord and master, and by his present irascible temper, as well as by the burden of her own yet unconfessed secret, that the stammering, incoherent tale she told of the two John Logans, of the time and place of Mary Hollis' death, and of Abner's being Andrew Hite's legal heir, was anything but convincing. Her feeble attempt at explanation and intercession, instead of softening the obstinate Major, only wrought him up to a still higher pitch of exasperation.
Mrs. Gilcrest's effort to enlighten her husband having failed, young Logan engaged an attorney, through whom the lord of Oaklands was perforce convinced of Abner's legitimacy and right to the Hite possessions.
But there still remained in the secret drawer of the Major's escritoire those documentary proofs against "A. D.'s" political integrity, and in the Major's mind those convictions of the young man's connection with dangerous Spanish intrigues. More than that, there was the Major's ingrained obstinacy and his aversion to confessing himself in the wrong. So that, although he was not unduly covetous of the Hite inheritance, and although, had he not been so harassed and imbittered by his daughter's defiance, he would have rejoiced that Abner Logan was well born and prosperous, just now he was in a humor the reverse of rejoicing or yielding. Therefore his opposition to Betsy's suitor was as firm as ever; and the two lovers appeared as far as ever from the attainment of their hopes.