"I'll give you a thousand dollars cash for him!" exclaimed the banker excitedly.
The entire party broke forth with hearty applause.
It came about as follows: The dog had been sent into some weeds by Moreton to retrieve a dead bird, which he promptly did. It was as he was returning, with the game in his mouth, and leaping clear above the weed-tops, as was his habit, that he suddenly, at the highest point of a bound, turned his head half about, and stiffened himself in mid-air, on the scent of another bird. He struck the ground standing staunchly, his eyes fixed, his feet slightly spread, his back and tail on a line. The sportsmen could hardly believe it a genuine point; but when the bird was flushed and killed, they stood for a moment looking at the sensitive thorough-bred, with that flawless admiration which men reserve for beautiful women and sure-nosed dogs; then they all applauded.
Beresford felt defeated at every point, and in his heart a premonition of failure began to ferment. A few days ago he had met Agnes Ransom at his father's house in Montgomery, and had fallen a prey to her gentle voice and grave, sweet face. Since then she had been constantly in his mind, her influence growing upon him by force of memory, some new grace adding itself to the impression, as each hour recalled a word, a smile or a glance unconsciously treasured by him. Now it all seemed slipping away. It is one of the most natural of mental operations, this swift reaching forward to grasp an evil before it is more than vaguely threatened. We call it foreboding: it may be the last refinement of logic. Beresford kept to himself the rest of the morning, rather gloomily borrowing of the future. Something told him that Agnes Ransom and Reynolds were going to be lovers. His enthusiasm flagged and he shot with less than his usual care. On the contrary, Reynolds seemed to be attended by the god of good luck; every chance seemed to favor him. His self-confidence never once deserted him. He too was borrowing of the future, and what he borrowed was very sweet. Deep in his heart nestled the precious belief that Mrs. Ransom had involuntarily—nay, unconsciously—responded to his interest in her. This gave him nerve and alertness and force. When he would flush a bird, the loud hum of its wings and the bullet-like rapidity of its flight did not disturb his thought or his vision. He threw up his gun with a promptness and self-possession that insured a perfect aim. When he fired the result was a thoroughly fine, clean shot, stopping the game dead in mid-air, so that it fell without a flutter. Yet all the time his dream went on.
At about half-past twelve the horn blew loud and long from the place where the ladies had been stationed with the luncheon. Most of the shooters were loth to leave off the exciting sport, even though the stirrings of hunger began to be importunate. The mellow notes of invitation fancifully executed by the negro "bugler" had nothing very insistent in them. It was a long while before the party began to straggle back. Reynolds was first to reach the little grove above the spring near where the ladies had been waiting and watching. He strode swiftly along with his gun across his shoulder, his dogs following at his heels. A small, fancifully twisted tuft of mistletoe that he bore in his left hand was heavy with milk-white berries and waxen green leaves. His broad-brimmed hat was far back on his head, leaving his swarthy face unshaded. He had almost touched Mrs. Ransom before he saw her where she sat under a little pine tree with her hands listlessly crossed in her lap, her head uncovered and her dark hair gleaming in strong contrast with the almost colorless fairness of her face. He started perceptibly on discovering her, but a smile came over his face, as he bowed and said:
"A charmingly airy place you have: may I join you? I am really quite tired."
"Certainly, there's ample room," she half-hesitatingly replied, a little color slowly warming her cheeks, "but I believe the luncheon is spread and you must be hungry."
"No, I'd rather rest. The party is scattered in every direction; it will be some time before all are in. What a wide view from here—could you see us shooting?"
"Yes, that is Miss Crabb and Miss Noble could—but really I did not look. It frightens me to see a gun fired. It is a silly weakness that I can't overcome."
He had thrown aside upon the ground his old-fashioned game-bag stuffed with the dead birds, and laid his gun across it. He sat down a little way from her, in a half-reclining position, resting the weight of his heavy shoulders on one elbow.
"I never before saw quails so numerous, I believe," he said, twirling the spray of mistletoe and looking at his favorite dog which had crouched panting before him. "We have had a fine morning's shoot."
"I am very glad. My uncle would have been so disappointed if you had failed to find birds," she responded, her voice, so sweet, so peculiarly artless and tender.
"He is a fervent sportsman," she continued, "and sets great store by his annual shooting party. Last year the rain interfered and he was terribly put out about it."
"He certainly knows how to manage an affair like this," Reynolds said. "I never saw any thing so perfectly planned and executed. We found the birds at once and have been shooting ever since. Nothing could have been better."
He carelessly took up her hat, which lay within easy reach of him, and thrust the stem of the mistletoe spray behind the broad band of ribbon that encircled the crown. It was a cold looking cluster.
"Not a bad bit of decoration, is it?" he smilingly inquired. "It is the most peculiar and beautiful sprig of mistletoe I ever saw. See how the smaller stems have grown around each other in fanciful twists."
She made a quick, suddenly-arrested movement, as if to snatch away the frigid-looking winter cluster, then glancing up into his face, simply said:
"The hat is not of a kind to bear much embellishment."
He appeared not to hear her. In fact he did not hear her, or if he did it was merely her voice, not her words. The relaxation from the physical exercise and mental excitement of the sport was so sweetly supplemented by the influence of Mrs. Ransom's gentle presence that he fell into a mood as dreamy and tender as the air and sunshine around him. Some vague stimulus was affecting his nerves and blood, suffusing his brain with a happiness as precious as it was undefinable. Like the effect of rare wine, this sudden mood seemed to be connected in some way with evil, as if it were too delicious not to have some after-taste of the hidden poison it contained. He knew and he did not know what it was that, like a skulking serpent, shadowy and hideously menacing on account of its uncertain proportions as well as on account of its venomous nature, darted now and again through his dream. Mrs. Ransom, as if in some way touched with the subtile essence of his mood, looked at him and felt a little premonition of some new experience in store for her. At this moment she and Reynolds were as detached from all the rest of the world as if they had been the only inhabitants of an undiscovered island. They were aware of this and for a few moments reveled in the fascination of the experience. Somewhere in the conscience of each an ill-defined protest against the future stirred uneasily.
Reynolds was first to recover himself. Clearing his mind, as if with a wave of the hand, he held the hat towards her with a careless movement.
"Put it on and let me see how it will look," he said. "I pride myself in my ability to trim hats."
If she had a mind to be offended she quickly changed. His smile was so frank and his eyes so bold and honest that it was impossible for her to suspect him or to refuse his light request. But she could not keep a pink flush from rising into her cheeks, and her lips glowed like cherries. He looked calmly at her for a moment, then in a perfectly earnest way said:
"I like it, it becomes you: please let it stay, will you? You are lovely when you look like that."
"You are lovely when you look like that." Page 107.]"You are lovely when you look like that."Page 107.]
His eyes were fixed upon hers with a deep and tender meaning. Despite herself her heart leaped violently and she grew pale. In her confusion she arose. He saw the change come over her face and sprang hastily to his feet.
"I hope I have not offended you, you are not——" he earnestly began.
She interrupted him with a little laugh.
"Nothing so serious as that," she lightly exclaimed, waving one fair hand. "It is time for us to be looking after the luncheon."
She stooped and patted the head of one of the dogs. The rest of the sportsmen came straggling up the incline from the fields, one of them singing a gay hunting carol.
Reynolds picked up his bag and gun. There was a glow in his eyes and a hot tingle in his veins. He looked at the lithe, graceful form, and sweet, earnest face of the young woman, as at an inestimable treasure. The flush had returned to her cheeks and lips, though she had struggled hard to overcome this incomprehensible emotion.
"Why can't we stay here a little longer?" he asked, almost with vehemence. "I was enjoying it so much. There's no dire necessity for going, just at this moment. is there?"
She fixed her eyes on his for a second, then lowered them and turned half away. It was a mere glance, a flash, but it was an involuntary confession that she understood his feelings and did not dare to give them opportunity. What further meaning it conveyed he could only wish he knew.
"Yonder is uncle," she murmured. "Poor old man, I know he's tired!" and she almost ran to meet General DeKay.
Reynolds watched her go tripping down the gentle slope, through the stunted wire grass and tufts of sedge, wearing on her hat his spray of mistletoe. She looked like a mere girl, slim andsvelt, whose movements were as light and free as the wind. She had won over his dog and it trotted away beside her, looking up into her face. He felt his heart throbbing heavily, and something like a tender mist gathered in his eyes. An almost uncontrollable desire to go swiftly after her and clasp her in his arms took possession of him. Would he ever get so near her again? Would she ever again give him a look like that which was now pictured so vividly in his memory? Ah, those serious, tender, earnest eyes, that low, gentle, haunting voice! Would those sweet, half-sad lips ever meet his with a kiss of unquenchable love? He stood there actually trembling with the stress of his suddenly-generated emotions, an underglow of passion showing in his bronzed face.
It is one of the distinctive features of life in our Southern States, this keen pursuit and enjoyment of field sports. The climate favors every thing of the sort, and the tastes of the people, as well as the leisure which has always been their inheritance, keep alive a zest for out-door accomplishments, amongst which shooting is accorded the chief place. It has sometimes been hinted that, so zealous are they in this direction, if small game chances to be scarce, they will on occasion shoot at each other, in order not to fail of diligent practice; but no man who has ever enjoyed the cordial hospitality and generous freedom of a low-country plantation in the quail season, will be likely to recall any but the charmingest recollections of the occasion. The open season for small game comes there in the most delightful part of the year, when to be out of doors is, of itself, as exhilarating as a surf-bath in summer. From the old, wide-winged, airy plantation house and its profuse cheer and comfort, one goes forth into fields, basking in more than Indian-summer dreaminess and warmth. The air is fresh and pungent, the ground is dry, the prospect is liberal and inviting. There is no sense of limitation to the rambler's operations; he feels that, like the poet's brook, he can go on forever.
By gentlemen of robust tastes, such entertainment as that afforded by General DeKay's shooting-party is of a kind greatly enjoyed and rarely obtainable. The game had been carefully preserved and the shooting area was practically unlimited, which, without the aid of perfect weather and a rare hospitality, would have made the mere liberty to shoot joy enough for the enthusiastic sportsmen. But General DeKay and his wife knew how to entertain in that off-hand, natural way which is peculiarly gratifying to men bent on such vigorous pleasures as field-sports give. Substantial viands, good wine, fine tobacco and freedom from conventional absurdities around the board were supplemented by such cordial watchfulness of their needs as made the guests feel "at home" indeed.
The luncheon spread on a smooth plat by the spring and presided over by Mrs. Ransom was discussed in no mincing mood by the quail-shooters, while they talked over the excellent sport of the morning with frequent eulogies of their host's superior manner of planning and directing it.
Reynolds' shooting was heartily praised, and Ruby, his dog, got such eloquent tributes as never before fell to an unsuspecting setter. Miss Crabb could not refrain from openly making notes, nor could she repress a desire to ask questions. She was embarrassed with the riches of material that fell about her. She had visions of a letter that should make both her and her paper famous.
Physically as well as mentally, Miss Crabb was in strong contrast with the rest of the company; her voice, too, her pronunciation, her method of intonation, and, indeed, all the salients of her personality, cut with an almost barbariceclatthrough this smooth social atmosphere. At every turn she made herself felt as a foreign quantity. She was obviously busy; she had a purpose, an ulterior object; she was plying a trade, and a trade, by the way, of which she was very proud. So nearly as words may express it, she was pleasingly disagreeable. Her companions were aware that she aroused in them a dual sentiment wherein pity was scarcely separated from a low grade of admiration. That she was a novice in newspaper work could be detected by the most unskillful observer, and like all novices, she was an enthusiast. Evidently she regarded gathering notes as the chief purpose of life for which she would make any sacrifice. She was nervous and fussy, quick, keen, ready, anxious to make every thing serve her a turn. Hearing the gentlemen discussing the interesting features of the morning's sport, she plied them with such a volley of questions as taxed their agility to answer. Meantime her pencil danced recklessly over the pages of the little red book. The prospect of doing something unique intoxicated her and made her enunciation still more rapid. Reynolds' shooting and the splendid achievement of his dog were to be the chief points of her report and she spared no pains to get the details in full. She looked upon men and men's doings as of much more importance and interest than women and women's acts; she was not quite sure that even dogs were not rated by the world as rather more noticeable than women. Secretly she harbored an ambition to show the world what a woman could do if once she had got clear of the meshes of feminine restraints. Why shouldn't she report a quail-shoot just as well as a man? At all events, she was bound to try, and so she went nimbly at the task.
"It's unusual, isn't it?" she inquired of Mr. Tom Boardman, a merry youth just graduated from a Tennessee college, and brim full of sport-lingo, "It's unusual, isn't it, for a dog to stiffen in the air on a point with a bird in its mouth?"
She said this all so glibly and earnestly, with a slight sideways turn of her head, that the youth came near choking over his effort to smother a wild laugh.
"Very unusual," he answered in a suffering tone, "very."
She made some rapid notes in the red book. Then looking up, with the end of the pencil against her teeth, said:
"And he struck the ground, stanch on his nose, at a half-turn; is that right?"
Mr. Tom Boardman's eyes suddenly widened and then his nerve failed him. He laughed uproariously in spite of himself; but to his great relief Miss Crabb did not take offense. She joined him quite heartily in his merriment at her own expense.
"It's very interesting," she added, "and I must get it right. Give it to me slowly in technical language, so that I can take it down. I guess I got some of the terms mixed—absurdly, too, didn't I?"
He caught a glimpse, so to speak, of the girl's charming kindness of heart and evident sincerity of purpose, which instantly won upon him. He changed without appearing to change and took great pains to give her the information she desired, volunteering besides to detail a number of the most striking incidents of the morning.
"Why shouldn't you try writing a novel and weave into it something of this sort?" he asked. "It seems to me that you might make a lively story of such materials as you are gathering."
"And if I should write one," she answered, her face growing serious, "I couldn't get it printed."
"Why?"
"Oh, the publishers don't want provincial stories, they are not in vogue now."
"Ah, well, but make it so fresh and true to life and so breezy and interesting generally, that the publishers couldn't refuse. I know you could."
"That's a kind compliment, but I'm too well posted to be carried away. A novel, now-a-days, must be what they call analytical, a fine-spun exemplification of an author's power to lay bare the motives of his characters in doing what they do. Plots are abolished, stories ignored."
"But I like stories, genuine love-stories, with a smack of adventure and lots of incidents," he earnestly exclaimed. "What's the interest in all this long-drawn, tedious nonsense about a common-place American young woman's reasons for refusing an English nobleman, or about why a European patrician of doubtful morals could not condescend to marry a good, free, sweet American girl?"
Miss Crabb smiled and shook her head.
"But the critics have decided against you, and what are you going to do about it? I, too, like stories, and so, I think, does almost every body, but they are out of fashion. All the thrifty writers go in for the analytical novel now. It don't make much difference what your characters do, so that you are able to dissect their motives for so doing."
She sighed regretfully as she ended, as if the subject had awakened sad memories.
"Well, if I were a critic," said he, with a light laugh, "I'd give your story a genuine indorsement of authority."
"No, you wouldn't," she responded. "You re a man and you'd do as the rest. You'd say: Poor girl, she'd better be washing dishes or teaching school."
Boardman laughed.
Beresford saw the mistletoe spray in Mrs. Ransom's hat, and, not dreaming of any one else than herself having put it there, asked where she had got it.
"Mr. Reynolds brought it from somewhere in his rambles this morning," she said. She took off her hat and plucked out the sprig, but after hesitating a moment, put it back again.
Beresford received the blow bravely, and, like the true gentleman that he was, accepted the situation without apparent embarrassment. Love at first sight is a fruit of warm climates, and passionate souls seize it rapturously; but love, even under a Southern sky, sometimes turns to ashes before the swiftest lips may reach it.
"Mr. Reynolds has won the victory to-day," he said, "and under the ancient rules has the right to choose where he will have the crown rest. You wear it like a queen."
There was something behind his light manner and lighter words that touched her. She did not rightly construe him, guessing that he was simply striving to hide the chagrin of his first defeat in the field.
"Victor to-day, vanquished to-morrow," was her quick rejoinder; "there is a good deal of mere chance in such things, I suppose. No doubt to-day was one of your unlucky days."
"Yes, but I must admit that I never have equaled Mr. Reynolds' score of this morning, so I can not get any comfort out of your gracious suggestion," he frankly exclaimed. "He is a better shot than I—the best I ever saw."
"My uncle says so too," she responded, "and he is enthusiastic about the dog, the one that did the fine act."
"Superb, superb!" he rejoined with emphasis. "I would put that dog against the whole world of dogs." He found a sort of comfort in praising his rival and his rival's dog. It was a species of self-torture that deadened for the time the pain of his defeat.
Miss Beresford, who was so situated that she could not avoid hearing this conversation, glanced at her brother with a repressed resentment in her eyes. She felt that he was not doing himself justice; that he was, in fact, failing to assert himself as a true Beresford, a name that had never before tamely accepted and acknowledged defeat.
"Give me your score, Mr. Beresford, please," said Miss Crabb, coming forward with her book and pencil.
"Thirty-three," he promptly answered. His sister's face flushed with anger. She turned to him and said under her breath:
"She shall not do that—she shall not publish it!"
"Pshaw!" he almost whispered, "don't allow yourself to show any feeling. Don't make a scene. Can't you feel the delicacy of my situation? Be quiet, there's a good girl."
Miss Crabb had hurried away to where Reynolds was seated. She was intent upon getting the precise status of things.
"Oh, you are way ahead," she exclaimed, in her clear high tones. Then she seized the wreath of bay leaves twined by Mrs. Ransom and forthwith laid it upon his head.
"To the victor belongs the crown!" she added, laughing merrily. "See, Mrs. Ransom, I've put your handiwork to noble use!"
She was so innocently playful in her manner, that no one could deem her act a rude one. It seemed almost fitting, at least permissible, in view of the freedom of this little out-door convocation. But Reynolds lightly doffed the circlet.
"I am too earnest a democrat to wear a crown of any sort with due dignity," he laughingly said; "besides," he added, "my dog is the hero, not I."
"Truth, every word of it!" cried Moreton, balancing a glass of wine on the tips of his fingers. "Your tastes are most commendably plebeian and proper. If Miss Crabb will but let me describe your mountain hermitage she can fully appreciate your sturdy democracy.
"Don't do that, Moreton, if you love me; my cabin is my castle and my sanctuary," Reynolds answered in mock earnestness.
It was an unlucky turn in the thoughtless conversation, for it sent a current of uneasiness through the mind of Reynolds that made it very hard for him to keep up his spirits to the level of the occasion. The mere mention of those six years of mountain seclusion was enough to awaken a whole world of distressing memories. Things known only to himself came up to darken his mind. Miss Crabb's restless energy and journalistic enterprise would not, however, allow him long to grope among his carefully hidden secrets.
"Now a thought strikes me," she exclaimed, as if addressing the entire company; "can any one here sketch the least bit in the world? What a fresh and charming illustrated paper the material I am collecting would make for one of the magazines, if I could get some truthful and spirited sketches from which an illustrator could take his cue!" She rolled the end of her pencil in her mouth and awaited an answer.
"Mr. Reynolds is an artist," said Moreton with a sidelong glance at his friend.
"Oh, I'm so glad! Won't you help me, Mr. Reynolds? Just a half dozen or so of striking local transcripts—a view of General DeKay's house, a scene or two from the quail shoot, some character studies and——"
"You overwhelm me," said Reynolds, his face actually showing the truth of his assertion. "I never could trust myself to undertake such a commission; and besides," he added with a tone of suddenly discovered relief, "I have no sketching materials with me."
Miss Crabb became thoughtful, tapping her forehead with the back of her note-book. Mrs. Ransom came to the rescue with a request for her to help pass coffee to the gentlemen. The negro attendant had brewed a pot of Java, the aromatic fragrance of which had been for some minutes on the air.
It would, indeed, have been worth while for an artist to have caught the impression of the scene just then. The men carelessly standing or sitting, with the young women ministering and the dogs lounging idly around the outskirts of the group; the soft atmosphere, the broad, airy landscape with the green-fringed silvery river winding through the middle distance, the slumberous quietude and the deep, dark forest rising yonder like a wall.
After coffee the gentlemen went aside to light pipes and cigars. The afternoon was well advanced before General DeKay proposed going to the field again. Now and then a quail had been heard whistling in the distance that far-reaching, energetic call of a straggler to his scattered companions. A momentarily freshening breeze was fast brushing from the sky the film of fleece clouds.
The ladies voted that they were satisfied with what they had seen, wished the sportsmen a merry afternoon and were driven back across the rustling sedge fields to the old mansion.
Reynolds turned, after he had walked some distance, and looked back. The wagon containing the ladies was slowly trundling over a little swell in the field. Mrs. Ransom's face was, he thought, turned toward him. Involuntarily he took off his hat and waved it in the air. Then he saw, or imagined he saw, something white flutter a response from the group in the wagon. This little incident cost him quite dear, for he failed to note, on turning about, that his dogs had come to a stand in the weeds near by. A quail sprang up from his very toes and whirred away quartering to his right, going like a bullet. He fired and missed. Moreton took the bird on a cross shot, stopping it beautifully.
Reynolds' dogs looked at him with a sneaking leer in their eyes, as if they felt the disgrace of their master.
"That's one debt paid!" Moreton cried. "Credit me, will you?"
Reynolds felt no interest in the sport. His vision was introverted, his ears were full of sweet sounds, his heart was beating time to the melody of his day-dream. He went down by the river and lay upon an old mossy drift log, against one end of which the light current rippled sweetly. There was a windy rustle in the reeds and a broad, washing murmur came from the water. He could see but a little distance along the river surface either way, owing to a short bend, and the tall brakes on the banks shut out all else save an occasional report from the guns of his more enthusiastic companions. His dogs came and lay down near him, licking their muscular legs and glossy sides, or nibbling at an occasional burr in their hair. So all the rest of the afternoon he did not fire a shot. It was nearly sundown when he again climbed up the river-bank and turned towards the house, with not a bird to show for the two or three hours spent with dogs and gun. But what to him were the poor trophies of a quail-shoot, now that his passionate nature was stirred to its depths with a love whose fullness and intensity left no room for another feeling or thought? To be near Agnes Ransom, to hear her voice, to gaze into her eyes, to bring the whole force of his will and the fullest power of his eloquence to bear upon her, to win her, to take her, to triumphantly hold her as his own, these were the desires, the purposes surging about in his breast. He walked slowly back towards the DeKay mansion, taking no heed of the beauties of earth or sky. It was nothing to him that the low-hanging sun flung a glory over the distant wood and touched the roof of the old house as if with a flame.
One day in the time of Reynolds' absence at General DeKay's, White came down to Birmingham in his cart and Milly insisted so strenuously on accompanying him, that she had her way. This led to an adventure of a sort likely to impress itself deeply in the mind of an unsophisticated girl of the mountains. She had given no especial reason for wishing to visit the city, but White shrewdly guessed that her desire to know something of the whereabouts of Reynolds was the motive impelling her to so unusual an undertaking, for heretofore she had always been very averse to going into Birmingham.
When they reached town White gave Milly a pittance of money and said:
"You go ter some store, Milly, an' buy ye some candy er a apple er somethin' er other. When ye git tired er foolin' eround ye kin go back ter the cyart an' stay ther' tell I come."
She took the small pieces of silver without a word and allowed her father to desert her. She suspected that he meant to deceive her and go off to some gambling den; but she did not care. Her desires all centered in finding Reynolds or hearing something about him.
She strolled about from place to place in the street, innocently staring into men's faces and quite as innocently receiving, without shrinking, such brutal leers and winks as certain of the bejeweled and over-dressed loafers bestowed in return. She went into a store now and then, but, instead of asking for any article of merchandise, she invariably propounded the question:
"I wanted ter ax ef ye hed seed any thing o' John Reynolds 'bout this yer town?"
She spoke with such confiding earnestness of manner and with such an appealing light in her eyes and such music in her voice, that she attracted immediate attention from whomever she addressed. She received respectful answers from the tradesmen. None of them knew any thing about Reynolds, but some of them, touched in a sweet, indefinite way by the inexpressible half-lisp of her childish voice, and feeling the influence of her strange, yearning face and graceful form, tried to draw her into conversation only to discover that she became dumb so soon as she learned that they could not give her what she sought. She turned solemnly away from each one and left him to struggle out of the bewilderment she had unconsciously cast over his mind.
With absolutely no knowledge of the difference between a reputable business street and a row of dives, she drifted here and there until finally she met a man whom she at once recognized as Moreton, although in fact he was a drummer for a wholesale liquor house of Atlanta. She placed herself resolutely in his way, as he was about to pass her, and said:
"Air ye the feller 'at come to our house thet day?"
The man, a tall fellow, not unlike Moreton physically, looked down at this pleasing apparition, and for want of better response, said:
"What day?"
"Thet air day 'at hit rained so, an' ye tuck dinner, an' staid all day. Don't ye 'member?"
"Can't recollect you, sis: seems like I ought to though, by George. What's your name?" He took hold of the brim of her coarse hat and lifting it a little peeped under at her face, now suddenly pink with blushing.
"Ye know—I'm Mr. White's girl, up ther' wher' ye fotch the turkeys thet air rainy day."
"Oh, yes, I do recollect mighty well now, certainly. I fetched the turkeys, yes. You are White's girl. I'm real glad to see you. How's the folks?" said he, glibly.
"We're all well," responded Milly. "I wushed to ax ye ef ye've seed John Reynolds lately."
"John Reynolds—John Reynolds, which John Reynolds do you mean?" he inquired, with a show of having a dozen men of that name in his mind.
"Hit air Colonel Reynolds, es pap calls 'im, an' he lives at our house, an' ye know ye said he wer' yer bes' frien' an' 'at he wer' a grand feller. Don't ye 'member? Well, I wush to see him."
"Any thing of a furious rush about seeing him right off—eh?" He stooped low enough to look into her strange beautiful eyes. "What do you want to see him about?"
She shrank uneasily and made no answer. Her pink lips quivered slightly, as a flower's petals do when one breathes upon them. The man's breath was foul with the fumes of whisky.
"Oh, if it's private—if it's a secret between you," he resumed, "why, of course, I don't intend to pry in; but as Reynolds and I are chums, I don't see why you won't tell me."
"I wushed to see 'im, that's all," she responded in a plaintive, hesitating voice, putting a finger in her mouth and scraping the toe of one coarse shoe back and forth on the ground.
"Oh, I guess that he's rather keeping sort o' shady from you, just now," said the man with a brutal smile. "He's got him another girl now, he's not caring about seeing you very soon. I know what he's up to."
She shot a quick, almost wild look into his face, stared at him a moment and then slowly inquired:
"What air yer name?"
He actually reddened with confusion, and was at a loss what to answer. He saw that she had discovered his deceit.
"I was just joking," he managed to say. "Never mind my jokes. If you'll come with me I'll take you to Reynolds. He's just down here a little ways. Come on, I'll show you."
"Ye'r' not thet man—ye'r'——"
"Oh, that's nothing: I was just fooling with you. Don't get mad. If you get mad you'll not have any luck. Come on if you want to see Reynolds."
Her eyes had assumed a vague, distressed look and her lips quivered again.
"I wush ye'd go tell 'im 'at I wush he'd come on home," she said, glancing uneasily around, as if afraid that some one would approach.
"Guess you'd better go see him and surprise him like. He won't be expecting you. He's just down here a little piece. Come on, if you are going, I can't fool around all day," the man urged, an ugly gleam getting into his eyes and his face showing its coarsest lines.
"John wouldn't like hit ef I'd go ther' wher' he is," she responded. "I hain't got no business a goin' down ther'. I'd be erbleeged ef ye'd tell 'im——"
"Tell him nothing," gruffly rejoined the man. "Come along, it's not far, he'll be all right; he's a good fellow and not going to make any fuss—come on. I'll stand between you and all danger—come on."
"I don't wanter go, an' I haint er goin', an' ye mought as well quit er talkin'," she almost doggedly replied, taking a step or two back from him. He followed her with a devilish leer in his eyes.
The street was a disreputable one and there was a narrow alley near where they stood.
"He's not caring any thing about you now; you needn't be so shy, I'm not going to do you any harm. I'm the best friend you've got."
Her strange, troubled face brightened a little.
"Then, ef ye'r' my friend," she quickly said, "go an' tell 'im at I wush he'd please kem home."
The man laughed, looked at her quizzically for a time, and then in a tone, half of vexation and half of amusement, said:
"Well, if you aren't the dangedest curiosity I ever saw! You ought to travel with Barnum."
He gazed at her intently from head to foot, his face softening.
"You've no business trotting around loose in these suburbs," he muttered, more to himself than to her, then quitesolushe added: "She's cracked: she's an idiot."
Her vague troubled look now appealed to the other side of the man's nature. "Do you know where you are? This is no place for you; where do you live?" He put his inquiries in a voice so different from that half-wheedling, half brutal one hitherto used, that she instantly looked up with a gleam of trust in her eyes.
"Where is your home?" he continued.
"Over to the tother side o' the mounting, at Mr. White's," she frankly answered.
"Well, what are you doing down here among these saloons and dives? Why don't you go home and stay with your mother? This is a bad place for you."
"I hain't er feared," she said; "I er a goin' down yer ter pap's cyart. Pap an' me we kem ter town tergether. I jist stopped ter ask yer ef ye'd seed John, that wer' all I keered about ye. Ye needn't er be a frettin' yerself 'bout me."
The man chuckled in a puzzled way and walked on, muttering to himself something about the "dangedest prettiest idiot" that he ever saw. He looked back a time or two to watch Milly as she carelessly strolled along, her petite form showing its lithe, wild grace, with every movement and her wisp of yellowish hair shining under her hat and straying down over the back of her loose cotton gown. His eyes had something of the wistful glare with which a cat gazes at an escaped bird.
Milly found her father's cart under a tree in the outskirts of the town, the one kind-eyed, long-horned little ox contentedly ruminating between the rude shafts.
"W'y, ole Ben, air ye tired er waitin'?" she exclaimed, patting the bony little fellow on the shoulder, "we'll be er goin' soon es pap comes, won't we, Ben?"
"W'y, ole Ben, air ye tired er waiten'?" she exclaimed. Page 129."W'y, ole Ben, air ye tired er waiten'?"she exclaimed.Page 129.
She climbed into the shallow box of the cart and sat down on its bottom with her head thrown back so that she could gaze up through the tree-tops at the bright blue sky. A breeze, cool and sweet, was stealing down from the mountains rustling the few dry leaves that still clung to the branches overhead. She sang, in a thin childish falsetto, snatches of the simple hymn-tunes she had caught from her parents; but she got the words together in a meaningless confusion. Her conception of a song of any sort rose no higher than a consciousness of the pleasing sounds of the voice singing it.
For a long while she waited patiently, now and then glancing down the unkempt street to see if her father had yet come in sight; then she stood up in the cart and looked. It was growing late. The sun was slipping down behind the mountains and a cooler breath crept through the valley.
"Well, Ben, hit air no use er stayin' yer any longer, I 'spec' at pap he air drunk. Git erp ther', Ben!"
She had gathered up the rope guiding line and the gad that lay in the box, and as she finished speaking she tapped the ox and drove away, heading for the road that led homeward. The thought that her father was drunk seemed not to affect her in any way. She soon resumed her singing, and her aimless, wistful gazing at the splendid Southern sky.
It was long after night-fall, but the moon was shining brightly, when Milly drove up to the little front gate at home, and freeing Ben from his yoke and shafts, turned him loose to browse on the mountain-side. Her mother met her at the door.
"Wher' air yer pap?" was the laconic inquiry.
"Drunk, I 'spec'," was the answer.
"An' er playin' of keerds," suggested Mrs. White.
"Yes, I 'spec'."
"Well, ef hit air seving up 'at he air a playin' ther' air sense to hit, fer he gin'rally wa'ms their low down gam'lin' hides fer 'em, w'en hit air seving up 'at he plays; but ef he goes in on ter any er them tother games, he'll come home 'ithout ary cent inter his pockets, mind what I tell ye."
"I wush John 'd come home, that's what I wush," murmured Milly, opening the door of Reynolds' room and going in to wander listlessly about among his things. She touched his books, his pencils, his brushes, his pen, and lingered about the easel upon which the dog sketch still rested unfinished.
It was nearly midnight when White came in good-humoredly drunk, boasting of another victory at "seving up with them air gam'lers." His wife had gone to bed, but Milly met him with her usual quiet welcome and the formula expressing her predominant "wush."
"Ye needn't er be 'spectin' the Colonel home for a week, Milly," he said, as he lighted his pipe for a sobering smoke before retiring; "fer he's gone away down on the Al'bam' River to Gen'l DeKay's to a huntin' frolic with banker Noble an' his darter."
Nothing save the very unusual amount of whisky he had been taking could have induced White to say that and in such a tone. Milly looked at him in a dazed, stupid way, her cherry underlip falling as if from the weight of the information she had received.
"Do he go wuth them air fine folks?" she presently inquired, in a dry, doleful voice.
"Ye'd think so ef ye'd see 'im," he answered. "He air high dinky davy along of the best of 'em, I tell ye. Him an' that feller Moreting what wer' here that rainy day do scoot aroun' with them air silks an' ribbons an' jew'lry alarmin' to the saints."
Milly put her hands together and rested them on her head with their fingers intertwined. She appeared to be considering some troublesome proposition.
"Do ye s'pose them folks'll make fun of we-uns to 'im?"
White chuckled.
"I don't keer airy dam ef they do," he said, contemptuously snapping his thumb and finger. "Let 'em sail in."
"Well I wush 'at they wouldn't. 'Tain't none er the'r business 'bout how we-uns looks, no how," she quickly replied. She looked over her faded cotton dress as she spoke, with a hurried, dissatisfied glance. She had seen some wonderful dresses in Birmingham.
"No, hit tain't the'r business, thet's a fac', Milly," he responded, ramming his pipe with his finger and wagging his head. "'Tain't store clo's, an' jew'ls an' sich 'at meks folks honest an' 'spectable, hits in yer, Milly, in yer," tapping his breast. "We'r' jest as good as any body, hain't we, Milly?"
"Spec' so; dunno," she said, looking dully at him. "I wush he had er staid yer an' kep' away f'om down ther'."
"Hit air p'int blank no use er wushin' thet, Milly," he slowly and firmly declared, "fur he air dead sot onto 'em an' he air a goin' wi' 'em. In fac', he air them sort er folks his own self, he air, Milly."
The girl's eyes slowly brimmed with big tears, and without further words she crept off to bed. White sat and smoked in a gloomy way for a long while, his face showing more than usually gaunt and wrinkled in the dim light of the flickering pine knots on the hearth. He shook his head from time to time, as if dissatisfied with such results as his thoughts produced. Once he spoke out rather fiercely.
"Hit air a dern shame!" he exclaimed, in a voice so fierce and bitter that it awoke his wife. And yet he was too simple-minded to dream of the worst. With the queer pride of the mountaineer, he was viewing the predicament simply from a social standpoint.
The quail-shoot, after the enthusiastic contest of the first day, abated to a sort of desultory skirmish, each sportsman going into the field as best suited his mood. The weather bred a languor, peculiarly Southern and dreamy, which was aided by the quietude and isolation of the place. The bustle and activity with which the sport had begun became irregularly intermittent. Day after day the sky was serene and cloudless, tinted with that cool, bird-egg blue, tender, delicate, transparent, against which the lines of wood came out with a peculiar semi-tropical effect. Nearly all the time there was a breeze, not the rollicking Northern wind that whisks things about, but a fitful breath that palpitated lazily in the tops of the dull old trees and stirred the vines and plants and dry, thin grass in a fashion wholly indefinite and aimless. It was a luxury to idle around in the shadowy nooks and corners of DeKay Place, where the spirit of old times hovered like a vague, fascinating perfume. Life lost its rough angles here, its outlines softening down to harmonize with the monotonous equipoise of its surroundings. The river had the charm of all low-country streams, a warm, slow, lagging motion, a look of lapsing away into some strange, silent, unexplored region; its murmur was a lingering, never quite ended good-by.
To Reynolds those were days of deep and sweet excitement into which now and then darted a pang like a stab in the heart. He was with Agnes Ransom a great deal. Shy and strangely limited in conversation as she was, he yet found her monosyllables and simplest phrases quite enough to hold him to her side. She had not read a great deal of art and literature, she had but fragmentary glimpses of knowledge, her round of life had been confined to a small compass: still she seemed to have gathered a great deal, and a depth rather than a width of experience was in some subtle way suggested by her words and looks.
Moreton was unreservedly happy. Born sportsman as he was, it must have been a genuine old-time love that made him prefer sitting on the veranda or on one of the rustic benches with Miss Noble to following the pointers and setters afield under the cloudless sky and over-warm beams of this waning, low-country winter. He also allowed himself to become interested to a certain extent in the plans of Miss Crabb. From his English point of view, this eager, outspoken, persistent young woman, with her mingled air of freshness, alertness and strangely hindered ambition, was a very novel and interesting study. He recognized and respected the worthiness and purity of her aims, whilst he could not keep from regarding her doings with a curiosity little short of that with which he would have observed the gambols of a rare species of monkey. He had not been long enough in America to become indifferent to the oddities and sharp salients of American character and our social contrasts and discords, nor had his tastes resigned themselves to such breezy, democratic familiarity as Miss Crabb insisted upon; but he was a good hater of shams, and her genuineness appealed to him in its spirit if not in its manner. He walked with her an hour back and forth on one of the long verandas, scarcely aware how much he was promising when he agreed to make some sketches for her. He had been, as the reader knows, an art-student once, but had lacked either talent or industry or both, getting on no further than to become a clever sketcher. Miss Crabb told him all she knew touching every subject she could think of, even going so far as to give the details of the distressing tragic circumstances under which Mrs. Ransom had been made a widow. It was a sad story of a mere girl marrying a handsome, dashing, rather reckless youth, who led her a romantic life for a time and finally deserted her, going away to Texas where he had been killed in a street fight with a desperado at San Antonio. Such stories were rather common in the South at one time. The first decade after the close of the war was, in the Gulf States, one of humiliation, nervousness, doubt—a decade that soured and vitiated many young lives, making almost outlaws of youths who, under a milder influence would have been good citizens, or at least, harmless ones. Sudden poverty, the stagnation of agriculture and trade, the ebbing of all commercial tides, the swift leveling of social eminences, and the desperation that followed dire defeat, were supplemented and aggravated by political annoyances of the most grievous nature. But the one demoralizing element most active and potent was the prejudice, deep-seated and woven into the very tissues of the Southern youth, against gaining a livelihood by manual labor in plebeian employments. Of course it is no wonder that this prejudice existed, indeed it would have been amazing if it had not existed; but the result was the destruction of many young men who really had in them the qualities that go, under ordinary circumstances, to make up valuable citizens.
Herbert Ransom came of an honorable and once wealthy family at Pensacola, Florida. He was one of what has been rather familiarly termed the "first crop of young men since the war," which means that during the war he was too young to be a soldier, and became a man soon after its close. He was bright, handsome, vain, unprincipled, and yet he passed current in society and married Agnes DeKay, a beautiful girl scarcely sixteen, whose father, a brother of General DeKay, was very poor, very proud and very old. For a time the young people lived a sweet, idyllic sort of life on an old plantation near Mariana, Florida; but Ransom's restless, rollicking nature would not be confined to mere domestic quietude. He tried speculation in cotton with just enough success to lead him swiftly to financial ruin. The plantation was sold at a great sacrifice and Agnes had to return to her father, while Ransom went to western Texas with the avowed purpose of looking after some wild lands belonging to his father's estate, but really with no hope of ever again seeing his wife. He had been gone nearly a year when the news of his tragic death in a street fight in San Antonio reached his relations in Pensacola. Soon after this Agnes' parents died and she was left with an income barely sufficient to support her. She had no children, and, with a widowed aunt, she lived in the old family homestead at Pensacola, until General DeKay came and persuaded her to become his adopted daughter. This meager outline of what seemed to Moreton a most pathetic story, fell glibly from the lips of Miss Crabb, along with sundry shrewd strictures upon social laws that render women so powerless to struggle with adversity and neglect.
"When a woman gets married," she observed, "she becomes helpless. She plunges into the gulf of matrimony with a mill-stone at her neck, so that she may be sure to disappear utterly. If she ever again comes to the surface it is but to air troubles for which there is no cure."
"If that is the case," said Moreton, "if I were a woman I should try and not marry."
Miss Crabb laughed.
"Oh, I presume there will always be a majority of fools among us," she replied. "Silly girls and restless spinsters, ready to be martyred for the mere romance of the thing; but you know, as well as I, that this is an awfully one-sided world."
"Yes, but you women make it so, don't you know, by decoying us over to your side, thus destroying the equilibrium. If we were the antipodes of each other, now, this would be a gloriously balanced world! All the sorrow-making material on one side and all the joy-bringers on the other!"
"You are like the rest—you won't condescend to sensibly argue a question with a woman. You must go off into badinage, as if a woman could not understand and enjoy cogent reasoning. I don't like insincerity, Mr. Moreton."
"I beg a thousand pardons," he exclaimed. "I did not mean to be insincere—indeed, Miss Crabb, I was under the impression that I was making myself quite entertaining, don't you know, I——"
She laughed again, a clear, honest, prairie laugh, throwing back her head and holding up one hand as if to ward off something.
"Oh, it's the same thing over and over. Wherever I go men look upon me as a sort of monstrosity at large by some accident, because I travel alone, just as a man may, and because I attend to my business, just as a man does. It's really funny sometimes; I overhear what they say. They comment on me. 'A cheeky old girl,' 'a newspaper crank,' 'a stiff-minded female,' and 'a meddling nuisance,' are the delicate and friendly epithets applied to me by men. One fellow at the Cincinnati convention called me 'a bag of gimlets' to my face."
"But then your absolute knowledge that the man was mistaken must have ruined the point of his remark," said Moreton. "Conscious innocence is an impenetrable shield."
She looked up at him with a flash of momentary anger in her eyes, then laughing again she said:
"Oh, go on, I'm used to it, and, besides, I can't afford to quarrel with you until I have your sketches in hand; youmustmake the sketches, Mr. Moreton: they will be invaluable to me. I want to get on in literature, and the only way in which I can do that is to get into the great illustrated magazines: they are the highways to fame." There was a hungry, almost greedy ring to her voice, as if her longing for literary recognition were rooted in her heart. Moreton fancied that her lips quivered as she spoke. Her manner touched his sympathy.
"You'll get on fast enough, Miss Crabb," he quickly said; "your energy and persistence and your capacity for work will take you through, never fear." It was the best he could think of, though he felt its utter inadequacy to her fancied needs. As he looked down upon her his rather heavy, thoroughly English face wore a very kindly expression.
"But you don't know, Mr. Moreton, you can't imagine what a hard time I have; how many ugly obstacles men put in my way, simply because I am a woman. I don't see why they do, but they do. It's awful sometimes."
"They are brutes, they ought to be punched, don't you know," he blurted; "they deserve no recognition by gentlemen."
"Yes, but theydoget recognition," she replied, half-mournfully. "They drink and smoke and swear themselves into prominence in every walk of life—into fame, fortune, and——"
"Oh, not so bad as that, I hope," he interposed. "Don't be discouraged. George Eliot and Georges Sand and——"
"They are not American women," she interrupted in turn, "and they have never tried editing a country newspaper or writing for a New York magazine. They were rich, or had influential friends, or made people believe they were men."
"Well, suppose you try adopting a masculine pseudonym, you might——"
"Never!" she exclaimed, with a little stamp of the foot. "Never! I shall win my way as a woman or not at all."
Moreton was beginning to comprehend, in a measure, the really pathetic hopelessness of Miss Crabb's intellectual predicament. To his mind she appeared a heroine with a self-imposed task quite as great as that of Joan of Arc. Like Joan, she must at last be man's victim. He could see the stake set and the fagots heaped for her already. It now seemed a mighty blessing of providence that she was not beautiful, that she was positively ugly and not at all likely to attract men. He had the English admiration for pluck and he felt a great desire to help her; but there was no way. Evidently she did not possess any genius and was only gifted with a shrewd, quick mind and a hungry imagination. She was mistaking notoriety for just fame and was deluding herself with the belief that her burning desire for success was proof positive of her power to succeed. Nevertheless her attitude was heroic and he wished her a better fate than was sure to befall her.
"But you must not commit the folly of setting yourself against men," he presently said, his voice taking on a persuasive tone; "you must recognize their power and the necessity of winning their confidence and help."
"I have tried that turn," she replied with a short laugh that had a ring of derision in it, "and it's no use. A woman must have beauty before she can influence men. All the wisdom of Minerva could not have compassed what Cleopatra's——"
"Hold," cried Moreton, with an affectation of lightness which he did not feel, "you are slandering my sex, or, at least, I am an exception. Not that I don't admit the power of beauty, but you put the rule too savagely, don't you know. Why, you really frighten me with your suggestion of masculine depravity!"
She laughed and changed the subject. They continued walking to and fro and chatting in a broken way with the sough of the wind and the swash of the river filling up the spaces.
"Some day," she said, recurring to the subject always uppermost in her mind, and turning to leave him, "some day my ship will come in."
Moreton breathed freer when she was gone. Her state of ferment, of restless effort, tired him.
Two or three hours later when he and Reynolds sat by a window of the latter's room, smoking cigars, he said:
"Miss Crabb told me something a while ago that surprised and touched me."
"Well, what was it?" inquired Reynolds, gazing dreamily out into the brilliant, moonlit night. He had just been for an hour talking with Mrs. Ransom and was now mentally going over again every word of the charming conversation. He was in love, he knew it, and was reveling in the luxury of it. Her sweet face and low, rich voice, her quiet grace of manner, her slender, supple form and that indescribable, mysterious half-sadness in her eyes and smile, had fired his imagination and filled his blood with a gentle tumult. Never before had the moon and stars and the grand expanse of heaven looked so lovely to him; never had the world seemed so good; never had life seemed so precious. Being in love is a trite thing, and may be going out of fashion, but it is worth experiencing once, at least, in every lifetime, as a test of the imagination, if for nothing else.
"She gave me an account of Mrs. Ransom's troubles," said Moreton. "It seems that hers has been a rather rough cruise."
Reynolds clamped his cigar between his teeth and looked up.
"I know, I know," he said, in a half-impatient voice. "Her husband deserted her."
"And was murdered out on the Texas border," added Moreton.
"Murdered," said Reynolds, as if weighing the word. "There has been a great deal of that sort of thing in Texas."
"In this instance," Moreton went on, "I fancy that the murder was all for the best. Poor little woman, how she must have suffered under such treatment as that young villain gave her. Pity that all such fellows don't go to Texas and get a hole bored through them!"
Reynolds smoked quite rapidly for a few seconds, with his eyelids nearly shut together, a barely perceptible grayish pallor spreading over his cheeks. Presently, in an even and steady, but very strange voice, he said:
"She is a lovely little woman, Moreton, a sweet, warm-hearted, true and noble little woman. I love her, Moreton. I'm going to marry her, if I can."
"Good!" exclaimed Moreton. "I'm glad to hear that. She will just suit you, make you a charming wife. I hope you'll find your way clear, old fellow."
For a time they both were silent, each thinking of his own love, and gazing out into the almost blue-black depths of the star-sprinkled sky. A gentle swashing sound came from the river along with the fragrance of pine-needles and the odor of turpentine. Somewhere, seemingly at a vast distance, an owl now and then laughed, as if from a sepulcher.
"My way seems clear enough," Reynolds at last said, "if I can understand her; but she is an elusive little woman, shy and incomprehensible at times."
Moreton laughed.
"They all are that way—it's a part of woman's nature to be inexplicable, don't you know, deuced inexplicable. Now there's that Miss Crabb: I never saw such an enigma. She's a man and a woman and a little school-girl, all in one."
Reynolds got up from his chair and began walking to and fro, his head thrown back, his hands clasped behind him. He frowned and pressed his lips over his cigar so that deep furrows came on each side of his mouth.
"Being in love appears to render you gloomy," Moreton lightly exclaimed, as he glanced into his friend's face. "Love is like wine, it makes some men surly whilst it makes others merry. Now I——"
Reynolds waved his hand impatiently and said almost abruptly:
"If she really loved her husband, in the first place, it must have been a dreadful ordeal she went through."
"Oh, she must have been very young, scarcely more than a child," said Moreton, as if hurrying to relieve Reynolds, if he could; "and I should think she has outgrown it in a great degree, by this time. She seems quite cheerful and in superb health."
Reynolds turned as he came near the middle of the room, and facing Moreton, appeared on the point of saying some momentous thing. A gloomy cloud of excitement had settled on his countenance. His lips faltered at the point of speech, and with a strange smile he resumed his pacing to and fro. Moreton's eyes followed him with a look of puzzled interest. Presently he laughed outright and exclaimed chaffingly:
"You make me think of that little girl of White's when you look like that, Reynolds. Your eyes are for all the world like hers, with those mysterious sad shadows in them. What the deuce is the matter?"
Reynolds' countenance changed abruptly; he essayed to laugh, but there was no sincerity in the effort. He shook his head and answered:
"My head is all in a whirl and I believe I am excited; but you must remember that I am hard hit and awfully in earnest." His attempt at making light of his show of feeling was not more successful than his laughter had been. He saw that Moreton felt its hollowness, and he made haste to add: "It has always been thus with me. I am a creature of extremes, a straw in the currents of passion."
From Moreton's rather phlegmatic point of view, this excitement was something inexplicable. He saw no reasonable cause for it in the situation, and his mind at once reverted to certain indications of a secret trouble observable in Reynolds ever since their first meeting in Birmingham. Naturally enough the rather strange home chosen by Reynolds amid the sterile mountains and among the rude, uninteresting mountaineers, came up to emphasize Moreton's suspicion that all was not well with his friend.
"What especial current of passion is tossing you just now, to render you so restless and moody?" Moreton demanded. "One would think you were meditating something as dark as suicide or assassination."
"Oh, I'm all right; I don't mean to do any thing diabolical, I'm too happy for that; give me another cigar, mine are locked up in my bag." He pulled himself together as he spoke, and laughed in a way so careless and natural that Moreton felt a sense of disappointment at having inwardly to acknowledge himself baffled, if not mistaken.
They smoked and talked until late, enjoying the lulling coolness of the night air coming in at the open windows. Reynolds was exceedingly cheerful, and when they separated for the night he said:
"If you have as sweet dreams as I expect to indulge in to-night, tell me in the morning, will you? Good night."
But Moreton, who slept lightly, awoke now and then, and heard him walking to and fro all the rest of the night.
The party at General DeKay's broke up gradually, some of the sportsmen going away on the morning of the day following the quail shoot, the rest taking their departure in groups or singly, as business necessitated or a sense of propriety dictated. At last the Nobles, the Beresfords, Miss Crabb, Reynolds and Moreton were the favored remnant, lingering at the old plantation to enjoy, as long as possible, the sweets of its almost arcadian life.
Notwithstanding the great change wrought by the war, the DeKays had been able to hold on to a picturesque residuum of their former wealth and to keep up a fair show of that hospitality which had once been almost unlimited. The guests of the mansion felt the perfect freedom given them, and so the days went by without a circumstance to hinder their enjoyment of every moment.
Uncle Mono was a source of great amusement to every body; his banjo, his songs, his stories, his peculiar philosophy and that individuality of thought and expression, so often exhibited by old negroes, making him especially interesting to Moreton and Miss Crabb. His life had been so saturated with slavery's influences that freedom, coming to him after he had passed the meridian of life, had not been able to change him much.
Along with his other gifts, Uncle Mono was a fortune-teller whose fame held the admiration and the awe of all the negroes at highest strain. He could tell when it was going to rain and when the wind was going to change as well as he could predict the kind of sweetheart the future would bring to the inquiring youth or maiden. In fact he was the seventh son of a seventh son, and not a drop of white-man's blood ran in his veins.
"I's pyo' blood dahky f'om away back," he was fond of saying. "None yo' yaller niggah 'bout me. Nuffin' I 'spises mo' 'n one o' dese yer no' 'count clay-faced merlatters. Steal! Dey des steal de sole of 'm yo' shoes! No sah, I's pyo' blood dahky."
Sometimes, when the evening air chanced to be warm enough, the guests and the household would assemble on one of the wide verandas and send for Uncle Mono to play for them while the gentlemen smoked their pipes and cigars and the ladies promenaded back and forth to the brisk tinkling of the banjo. They all enjoyed the touch of old-time custom when a number of the plantation negroes, young and old, crept up to within a respectful distance, looking on and listening.
The nights were superb, the splendor of stars or moon and sky adding an almost weird sheen to the gray fields and silvery river. The pronounced atmosphere of isolation which broods over all those large low-country plantations gave to the guests at DeKay Place a comforting sense of liberty, as if the restraints of conventional life had been dissolved and dissipated, or had never come here.
Some swings had been made of huge muscadine vines brought from the woods and suspended from the trees on the lawn. The young women, especially Miss Noble and Miss Crabb, found swinging most exhilarating sport. Moreton watched Cordelia as she oscillated, like a gay pendulum, in the soft night-light under the dusky boughs, until his heart timed its beating with her movements. He enjoyed every phase of this delightful subtropical episode in his life. It did him good to see Reynolds returning to something like his old-time youthful enthusiasm and cheerfulness.
Among them all it was silently noted how Mrs. Ransom and Reynolds were drawn towards each other.
"Dunno 'bout dat big, dahk young ge'man flyin' roun' de young missus no how," muttered Uncle Mono to his colored companions; "seem lak mebbe she better look sha'p 'bout 'im. He sort o' 'sterious lookin' young man anyhow."
Miss Crabb for some reason failed to win favor with the negroes. She was very much interested in them and tried hard to study them; but her inquiring manner and insistent tones of voice did not touch their warm African hearts. On the other hand, Miss Noble was a prime favorite with them all.
"Bress dat sweet chile," said Uncle Mono, "she jes' lak de ripe peach on de eend ob a limb, she sort o' glimmer an' look too good fo' to pull off an' too ripe fo' to let erlone."
"Dat same lak what de young boss f'om way off fink, I 'spec," ventured a colored listener. "He look at 'er 'mazin' sof an' hongry lak."
"Wha' yo' know 'bout it?" stormed Uncle Mono. "Wha' business yo' got fo' to be a watchin' dem whi' folks? Fust ting yo' know yo' git yo' backbone wa'med up wid a stick! Better not be peekin' 'roun',Itell yo'."
"Ef yo' lak what yo' call peekin'," replied the other, with a comical grin, "jes' cas' yo' eye on dat young leddy dat's got de leetle book an' pencil;shekin' peek fo' de Lor' sake!"
Miss Crabb was pretty well aware of the delicacy of her situation, or, to put it fairly, the indelicacy of it; but she had gone too far to retreat. She must brave it through to the end.
It chanced that Moreton discovered Miss Noble's pique at Reynolds because of his neglect to fulfill his promise to teach her the art of handling a gun. This gave him a most excellent excuse for offering himself as her instructor. He borrowed Reynolds' little gun and made the most of his opportunities. His patience was unbounded and Miss Noble's zeal unflagging, so that between them they squandered a great deal of time down on a little open plat between the house and the river, banging away at an improvised target. As for Reynolds, his promise to Miss Noble was entirely forgotten by him. His love for Agnes Ransom had crowded every lighter thing from his consciousness. General DeKay and Mr. Noble remained faithful to the object of the occasion, pursuing the birds with dogs and guns each day with unremitting ardor. Young Beresford and his sister, after a most commendable effort to stem, with a show of good natured indifference, the tide setting against the passion of one and the pride of the other, went away, taking with them, much against their will, the unflagging Miss Crabb, whose pencil had filled the little red book with pot-hook notes of what she had seen and heard.
Miss Crabb had failed, however, to get any sketches from Moreton. He had, at last, begged her to release him from the obligation of his hasty promise.
"I did not think," he said to her; "I did not once think of the—the—the propriety of the thing, don't you know, when we were talking about it; but it would offend every one here. These people are peculiarly exclusive—very proud people, Miss Crabb, and they would take it as a gross breach of hospitality. I am very sorry, and I hope you will not—not——"
"Oh, no, certainly, I see," she exclaimed, in confused haste. "It's all right, Mr. Beresford—Moreton I mean, it's all right, I assure you; but do you think they'll care for my writing them up? I don't see how I can afford to waste all this material. It'll work up so charmingly."
"I don't pretend to advise as to that," Moreton evasively answered. "You needn't send them any copy of your paper. It takes any thing new a century to get here, if it isn't especially sent. Use your own good editorial judgment, Miss Crabb."
"Yes, of course," she responded, thoughtfully adjusting her gloves, "it is a matter of business, a matter of bread and butter with me. I must make every edge cut." She was silent for a moment. Presently she looked up quickly and keenly, adding in a thin voice: "If one writes for the public one must write what is of interest. One can't afford to stand on small proprieties. I can't, at least: I'm poor."